What is it about?
The question of what it means to 'grow' and not just get old is increasingly pressing as more people live into the so-called 'fourth age', the season of frail dependency. We offer a framework for understanding the realities and opportunities of this season, suggesting that ageing well is about accepting and undergoing two vital, concurrent and paradoxical movements.
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Why is it important?
Life expectancy is on the rise in many countries - people are living longer. There is a great deal of positivity connected with active retirement, but what about for those whose with failing bodies and minds, and what about for those who care for and work with the elderly? Anxiety, resentment, loneliness and depression are widespread among this cohort. Their situation is not helped by the fact that many have poorly developed resources for dealing with the affronting and dislocating experiences of this season. People need a framework for making sense of the challenges of this time of life as well as practices for ageing well.
Perspectives
This piece emerged as I reflected on my experiences as a chaplain working in institutional aged care settings. When you work in this field, unbridled positivity and glib notions of ageing well do not cut it, anything you say has to speak to the full range of experience. This is an honest and hopeful reflection, it never suggests it is easy to grow old but it does suggest it is possible.
Neil Millar
University of Canberra
We wrote this article reflecting on our experience working in institutional aged care, seeking both to be 'real' about the challenges and suffering of this season of life while discerning its vocational dimensions. If the spiritual journey is a journey which involves the whole of a life, how do we continue on that journey to the end?
Dr Sarah J Bachelard
Australian Catholic University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Growing Old: The Vocation and Practice of Ageing, Health and Social Care Chaplaincy, July 2016, Equinox Publishing,
DOI: 10.1558/hscc.v4i1.27088.
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