Director’s Corner - Celebrating Seniors
By Jacci Gruninger, Executive Director
On Wednesday, August 21 we will celebrate all of you on National Senior Citizens Day. Recently a staff member shared a wonderful piece with me about being an elder. I thought I would share it with you in honor of this day.
The Sine Qua Non Of the Spiritual Eldering Work
By Rabbi Zalman Schachter
What is the essence of Spiritual Eldering?
To take hold of the willingness to deal with life completion and overcome the desire to stay in denial of aging.
To come to terms with one’s mortality.
To acquire the skills for working on the inside by learning
To pay attention to body, feelings, mind, and spirit, to be guided by them, and to maintain them in the right tone, mood, and attitude.
To give a real hearing to the inner voices, allowing all the minorities within the whole person their witness.
To begin to do life repair in health and in practical matters with wills and with testaments, in relationships and between the generations, reaching into the past and offering release and healing, doing the forgiveness work with release from the vindictiveness and anger, finding the pearls in the anxious memories.
To do the philosophical homework raising questions about the purpose and the meaning of our lives, and answering the question, “Where do I fit in?”
To serve as an Elder to others as a guide, mentor, agent of healing and reconciliation on behalf of the planet, the nation, and the family. Being a Wisdom Keeper.
To prepare for a serene death and afterlife, furnishing solitude with one’s spirit and/or God.
To do this nobly in connection with the “Ancient of Days” with the inner, actualized self already realized, individuated, and completed.
You can learn more about Spiritual Eldering from Sage-ing International or the Elderhood Guide found here.