"Hey, it's my month!"

May is "Older American's Month." I guess now that I am 54 years old, that makes me an older American or maybe I have to wait to turn 65. I'm not actually sure. Maybe it's the people who are turning 70 this year, maybe May is their month. Of course, if you are only in the third grade this year, maybe it's the sixth graders, maybe they are the older Americans. Then there are the college students and to a third grader they are really old.

Wait! I know who the older people are. They are the graduate students in the gerontology department at college. They are really-really old.

Ok, enough. The number associated with our age is so misleading. After all it's just a number. Pick a number, any number. How about 40. What does that tell you? Well for sure, it means that this person has been on the earth long enough to have circumnavigated the sun 40 times. I think that is the only fact, that I can tell you about that person. The rest would probably be conjecture based on a stereotype of what I think a 40 year-old person might be.

How about 75? When I say I know someone who is 75, what do you think? What do you imagine? Is it someone with wrinkly skin, barely standing under their own weight? Is it someone running a marathon? It's just a number.

The face of aging is changing and will continue to change over the next three decades or so. Person's of the Baby Boom generation will change it. People at 60 will be starting new careers. 75 year olds will be climbing mountains, writing novels, and a whole host of other activities.

Finally, from God's perspective there isn't really that much difference between 9 and 90. Afterall, how old is God? The real age of a person isn't measured in years, so much as it is measured in attitude. I know 30 year-olds who act like their 106, and I know a 106 year old who is going on 30.

So, May is "Older American's Month." Who are these older American's? It looks like maybe it's not just for me, maybe it's for us - all of us, 9 or 90.

"Who Are You Waiting For?

The Christmas season includes a lot of anticipation. We anticipate of course gifts we need to buy, gifts we would love to receive, visits to and from family and friends, Christmas parties and even the arrival of the Messiah. But for many of our elderly living in nursing homes, anticipation is a lost word. For many of them, statiscally about one-half of them will not receive a visitor from anyone, nor will they receive a gift. For many of them, Christmas is just another day. At Christmas we should stop to remember who are elderly really are. They are our mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and even old friends. They are the people that conceived us, fed and clothed us, protected us, went to war for us, sacrificed for us, made sure we had plenty for Christmas, they played with us, taught us, mentored us, and loved us. They gave us hope.

Now, for many of them they lanquish, forgotten, and alone. What do you anticipate for this Christmas season? Who are you waiting for? The elderly living in nursing homes are waiting too, but sadly many of them have given up. They have lost hope. It's not hard to lift someone out of hopelessness. A simple gift bought, wrapped and taken to a nursing home can make someone's Christmas full of hope. A few caring minutes and you can change someone's life.

I have yet, in the 16 years of this ministry to leave a nursing home feeling nothing less than the euphoria that comes with knowing you did a good thing, knowing that you made someone's day, and experiencing a very deep satisfaction.

You take my advice, look in the yellow pages of your telephone book, under "nursing homes." Call one that is near you. Ask for the activities director, and then tell them that you have purchased some gifts for a man or a woman who might need a "Santa" this Christmas, and when would be a good time to stop by and visit with someone.

Then check out our gift basket ideas and put together a gift basket. It doesn't have to be expensive or elaborate, just something you make from your heart. The person you give that gift to will know what you are trying to do and they will love you for it.

So, what are you waiting for? Christmas is coming! Have a very Merry Christmas!

She was going to die anyway...

That is exactly how we think about elder abuse. Animal abuse, child abuse, and elder abuse, are three concepts that boggle my mind. We live in the most technologically advanced society in human history. We can travel to any part of the world. We have mapped every square inch of the Mother Earth. We are sending unmanned space vehicles to explore planets in our solar system and beyond. Through genetic engineering we can identify root sources of disabilities, i.e., diabetes, hearing loss, and so on. We can build machines so small that they can only be seen with sophisticated microscopes. We boast of our advances in any number of educational and scientific areas. But when it comes to commenting on an elder being force fed, who then dies as a result, someone thoughtfully replied, "Well she was going to die anyway."

My comment: In some areas we truly have made great advances, in other areas, well... we have a very long way to go.

"Where Have All the Nurses Gone?"

Over 100,000 nursing positions are vacant in America. Why? Nursing homes are at the bottom of the food chain and suffer the most from this severe shortage of nurses. Over the next 20 years that shortage will grow to over 800,000 positions. Why?

Grateful...

Every day I thank God for the people who use both their time and/or treasure to stand with me in the battle for our frail elderly. Never before in recorded history has there been such slaughter of the very young and the very old.

People of the "baby boom" generation would be prudent to anticipate a future in which they very well may face euthanasia as their end, not for someone else but for them personally.

Funding for elderly programs are being slashed. Attrition rates among professional caregivers, i.e, doctors and nurses specializing in the care of elders is unprecendented. Many nursing homes struggle just to meet the very basic needs of the people under their care, and the turnover rates among staff reach 300%. Imagine the profitablility of your business turning your staff over three times this year!

As people of faith, now is time to critcally evaluate church programming and ask if it reflects God's heart or the utilitarian thinking of our youth idolizing culture. Churches that market to youth do so with the sincere belief that they are ensuring their continued future. However; rather than ensuring their future they have cut themselves off from any future. Unwittingly this belief system leads to an endorsement of a secular consumerism that teaches all generations that our value and our capacity to make meaninful contributions to the group decreases with age. The ultimate conclusion is that we then have aligned ourselves with groups who endorse physician assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia.

The future lay not in our youth but in our elders. The older person carries is walking library of full of information, education, and experience culminating in what we call "wisdom." We of the younger generations need to have access to those libraries. Those libraries are built on strong foundations of traditions and values. Rather than being demoted and excused from our circles they must transfer that libragy before they pass away.

Numerous studies show that contributions and church involvement are waning. Why? Those values and traditions have not been successfully transferred. Generational segregation leads to the demise of future generations.

"Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee." Deuteronomy 32:7 KJV.

For the younger generations we must "...remember...consider...[and]...ask..." For our elders they must, "...remember...consider...shew...[and]...tell..."

The current dilemna we face is that those traditions and values not transferred are lost in a generation that was successfully taught, and is now convinced that they have no meaningful role in the day-to-day life of the congregation. Instead, they believe thier purpose is to "get out of the way." The role of the elder is to take "bus tours" and attend "luncheons."

So what can we do?


First, we need to de-emphasize age segregrated events and promote intergenerational contact. Forget, the youth group vs. the "old timers" group vs the "middle aged" group and so on. We would never ever consider segregating a congregation by race or ethnicity. Why do we think that segregrating the congregation by age, (ageism) is any less wrong or deadly for that matter? Develop programming that encourages people of all ages to mix and "bump" shoulders.


Second, design corporate worship services that embrace all generations. Of course, I am well aware of the "lightning rod" called worship. I have served on worship committees and nothing is more divisive than determining worship styles and music. Everyone knows the "right" way to worship, it's "my way." Regardless, we must be courageous. If we cowar and refuse to move away from ageist worship other intergenerational efforts will falter. When the "sacred cow" is laid to rest, the people will know ageism is a matter to take seriously.


That's it... well one more thing... Esteem your elders with the same energy you esteem youth. Teach people the value of and the role of the elderly in your congregation, and in our society. Avoid the negative stereotypes of "stuck in their ways," "senile," "unable to learn," "weak," and so on. The media present them this way all the time, but not you.


I hadn't planned on writing this long article but it was on my mind. I am deeply saddened, as I watch funding for elder programs being cut with increasing frequency, idealogies being presented that depict the elderly as being less than human, having little or no purpose, and certainly not worth the billions of dollars we are spending to care for them.
Thank you, for listening to me today, and thank you for helping me to get these kinds of messages out.

What about me?

Today, for a few moments I sat staring at a picture that hangs in my office. It is an elderly man, face full of wrinkles on a weathered face. At first, I was thinking how I might look at that age, and wondered how I would feel when I looked in a mirror. At that moment, a more chilling thought crossed my mind: "Who will care?"

There is a realization that there is something more devasting than the loss of appearance. It is the loss of relationship. It is the notion of living alone. The devastation of loneliness is underrated and certainly under-reported. We know from pediatric studies that babies must be held and made to feel the presence of their mother.

That need never ends, and is once again magnified in the later part of life. Sadly, the highest suicide rate in the United States falls into the category of men over 85 years of age. How sad that really is. To think that one would successfully live to the age of 85 only to find no one at the end for support. Loneliness kills.

Interviews with older people reveals three needs: Transportation to and from the doctor, To be loved and To have someone to love. These needs are ranked well above such needs as housing, security, food preparation, and so on.

We are not meant to be alone, and particularly at the later stages of life. Once a resident said to me: "To be human is to be loved and needed, and as far as I can tell, I am still human." They were at the time 92 years old.

My hope and prayer is that rather than turn our backs on our older citizens, we will instead embrace them, love them, and support them. I hope and I pray that we can overcome our fear of aging. Help me out? What would be the word for "fear of aging." _______________ phobia.

I took one more look at the old man in the photograph realizing that could be me one day. I hope when that day comes I will not be alone.

All in a name...

We've been kicking around the idea of changing our name. It seems that the word "ministries" evokes images of bible thumping or prostelytzing or religion or something along those lines. As a result, there may be people who hesitate to fund us as a result. It would be interesting to know what you think. I think that the bigger choking point with Desert Ministries is not the word "ministries" but instead the word "elderly." We can understand spending money on children, building houses, or feeding people, but as one CEO put "...this [elderly] would be at the bottom of our list."

Now be sure, this isn't me with a bunch of sour grapes in my mouth. For the past 15 years I've traveled the country advocating for the elderly to religious groups primarily, and then to anyone else who will listen to me, and I intend to do that for some time to come.

This is simply about getting you over the negative stereotype of aging. Agesim is the prejudice associated with the elderly, and it is just as damaging as any other prejudice. It ultimately results in our elders being marginalized.

Recently, someone remarked to me about an abuse case which resulted in a residents death. They said, "Well, afterall she was 106 years old." So does that mean hurting someone at the age of 106 is less wrong than if they were 20 or 30 years of age.

Then of course there is the world of denial that we all live in, believing that if I ignore the end of life issues some how I will escape them. As far as I know, no one, other than Jesus and maybe Enoch escaped but even then Jesus was dead for some period of time.

Denial is our biggest obstacle. Maybe instead of changing the word Ministries we should change the word Desert. How about Denial Ministries - reaching out to people who live in denial?