A weekly collection of inspiration and resources for the journey, gathered from websites, books, and pass-alongs that have been shared with us. From The Wisdom Years – Spirituality for the Last Third of Our Lives.
New on The Wisdom Years website: Blogs and Sites we Like, many of which you will recognize from our Gathered Wisdom posts: and A Model for Parish Ministry, for those who want to take the ideas of The Wisdom Years into their congregations. Find it here.
The Coming of Wisdom with Time
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun,
Now may I wither into the truth.
– William Butler Yeats
Eldering in the Age of Consumption
A conversation with Sharon Blackie and Stephen Jenkinson
From Daily Good
“Perhaps more than anything, to become elder is to be comfortable with your place in the world, finally to have understood where all of your various journeys have been leading you, to understand your gifts as well as your limitations, and to tightly focus those gifts on service to the earth and to community . . . To step into your power means to trust yourself, your instincts, and your intuition. To let the fear go and the shame and tell the stories which need to be told.”
Wisdom beyond the Veil
by Fr. Richard Rohr
from Daily Meditations
“The ancestors are elders who pour their lives into the community as a libation of love and commitment. They live and die well, and when they transition, they do so in full connection with an engaged community. Thereafter, they dwell in the spaces carved out by our spiritual and cultural expectations. They may be in another life dimension, but they connect with us in dreams, in memories, and in stories. . . .”
Cleaning Out And Enlarging Life
by the Rev. Mike Marsh
“Business as usual can happen anywhere: in friendships, marriages, parenting, work, church. It’s all the habits and routines we fall into that cause us to sleep walk through this world. We look but we don’t see, we listen but we don’t hear, we speak but don’t say anything.”
Read the sermon preached on March 7, 2021
A Time to Weep
by Sister Joan Chittister
“On this planet, psychic numbing has been raised to high art. This people avoids pain and misery, in others as well as in themselves, at all costs. This is not a people who braves grief in the face and stares it down. No, this people dedicates itself to the elimination of pain—its own—and the aversion of pain—everyone else’s. But grief comes nevertheless.”
Pray for Hope and Healing
from Shalem Institute
March 11 and every Thursday
4:30-5:00pm ET
Knowing how powerful it is to bring our focus of love and goodness and truth as a community to these unprecedented times, Shalem Institute offers an intentional and designated time to join in silent prayer for hope and healing of the world. There will be an opening and closing vocal prayer, but the time will be primarily in silence together with this common intent.
Navigating Life’s Passages: Wisdom for Times of Crisis
A four-session workshop
facilitated by Ron Pevny
author of Conscious Living, conscious Aging
From Sage-ing International
Wednesdays
March 31, April 7, 14, 21
3:00 pm – 5:30 pm ET
Successfully moving and growing through change—as opposed to trying futilely to hold on to a past that no longer supports true aliveness—requires that certain dynamics be recognized, honored and supported. There will be special, but certainly not exclusive, focus on the transition from mid-life adulthood into elderhood.
If you have something to add to Gathered Wisdom, send it to Marjorie George at
marjoriegeorge62@gmail.com
Gathered Wisdom is from The Wisdom Years, a ministry that invites older adults to deepening spirituality in the last third of their lives. If someone forwarded this to you, learn more about The Wisdom Years and subscribe to the site at
ww.wisdomyears.org.
The Wisdom Years 