[Dialogue] Merry Christmas

[Brian Stanfield]

December 2005
Dear Colleagues, 
 
 In the last few years in Australia, Brian and I have been part of a
socio-spirit research team . One thing we have explored is the Role of
Elders .  A play we performed at a retreat two years ago focused on the
active phase of being old.  In the last year Brian¹s strokes and his need
for continuous care have occasioned many reflections on the next phase of
being old- a phase Brian has experienced as being thrust upon him by the
unknown itself.  I have been thrown into the carer role and have been on a
major learning curve- often experienced as overwhelming.  The love and help
from so many individuals and organizations has been gratefully received. My
niece Emily spent two months with us in May and June .  Her presence gave us
a way to bring Brian home from the hospital.  Now, we have moved into a two
story home.  We live on the ground floor.  Amanda Healey and her family live
upstairs.  Amanda is a  professional careworker who we have become very fond
of in the last few months.  We are delighted that she is so close at hand
with her expertise and care.
 
Katrin Ogilvy, a colleague who is part of our research team wrote these
paragraphs about
this ³next phase in being old².  It spoke to me of our experience this year
so I will share her reflection.


²Since then (after our active phase work) we have been reminded that more is
needed to be an elder. As our bodies change, we learn anew what is possible
and what is now the call to us.  Those whose minds and bodies have signaled
not so much that 'all is not well' but 'all is not young' and therefore 'all
doesn't work as it had'.  Here a different understanding and learning is
beginning to take place.  The lifelong search for who we are takes on new
dimensions. The lifelong 'exercise' of what we can do becomes a moment by
moment challenge.  The lifelong yearning to be an authentic being deepens.

Some of us are standing by to assist these undertakings in others. We learn
and teach each other to be healers, to bring open attitudes to the struggle
for a new independence.  We watch the health professionals and learn their
tricks of  trade.  We learn to lift without doing our own back in.  We are
walking at the edge of the abyss in a new way.  Our reflections are shaking
with uncertainties and tremor with hope.  We are stretched but not beyond
our limits as we are aware of each other, of our age, our bodies, our limits
and our unique possibilities.  This next phase - as yet unnamed - needs
consideration and further learning. ³
 
I recommend a fine movie that includes active elders as mentors of two women
in the 20¹s and 30²s: In Her Shoes.    May newness of life be yours in this
time of celebration.
 
Peace,
Jeanette and Brian Stanfield
227 The Esplanade, Seaford, SA 5169 Australia   Phone 08-8327-1309

--