Joyce Gallagher Have you ever met someone who you immediately connected with that you had nothing in common with such as: race, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation or age? This happens to me frequently but it is just recently that I have begun to question why. It occurs to me that the Spirit transcends all of these … Read more
I picked this topic because it is very hard for me to be the first to engage another in conversation. I tend to be shy and not take up too much space so speaking feels like encroachment. Writing has been my solution and with email and texting, no one need be bothered with my words, … Read more
My newest resolution is to “be” in the moment. So much of my life has been focused on the past and the future and being still and aware in the moment has been a challenge. Now, as I am writing this, I am feeling less pressure to go beyond this moment. Writing has always been … Read more
The longer I am on the planet, the more I realize that age, as with anything subjective, is relative. We begin the aging process the second we are born but it doesn’t really impact us until we reach the age that we, ourselves, define as “old”. I have reached that age several times during my … Read more
AGEISM…MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING! I recently read Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search For Meaning”. This is my third reading of this thought provoking manuscript and since the first time I read it in my 30’s, each reading changes the way I view the life I am leading. Frankl completed this book in nine days following his release … Read more
There is nothing like a birthday to wake me up to the reality that time is marching on. Marking time’s passage is an occasion for celebration of life as family and friends gather to witness the blowing out of candles and the eating of cake. To have survived another year, to have experienced the ups and hopefully fewer … Read more
I believe that one of the hardest tasks we have as human beings is to see ourselves in others. I have heard it said that our natural tendency is to fear in others what we fear ourselves. I have also been taught that fear is the basis of all prejudice. If this is true, then we must realize … Read more
Henri Nouwen has postulated that, “care for the aging means, more often than not, means confronting all men and women with their (our) illusion of immortality out of which the rejection of old age comes forth…Care for the aging, after all, means care for all ages, since all human beings–whether they are ten, thirty, fifty, … Read more
Henri asks: “What does caring mean when we think of the many people for whom growing old has become a way to the darkness. What is there to say to men and women who feel forgotten and lonely, and who are approaching death as the only way to escape their misery?” He admits there are no … Read more
After dealing with “caring as the way to the self”, Henri ponders “caring as the way to the other”. According to Henri, “caring can lead to a new self-understanding, but this self-understanding can never be its own goal”. Instead, “we are called to put our aging self at the service of the aging other. The … Read more