The Outlook — January 2023

Advocating for older adults

Leaving an environmental legacy A profile in boundary-crossing

The Third Act:

Quality of life for older adults

Leading faithful conversations in the church and beyond

Passion without a path is pointless.

The Matthew 25 vision is our guidepost. Action is our charge. Together, we’re evolving to keep our feet to faith, and our focus on being actively engaged in the world around us.

Join us on our path at pcusa.org/matthew25

for older adults in long-term care Kathy Bradley’s experience with navigating the complexities of long-term care and the founding of Our Mother’s Voice. 16 A faithful Third Act

Environmental stewardship fuels Patricia Tull’s work with Baby Boomers to provide a brighter future for generations to come. 22 I’m just here: Tips for adult children and older adults to navigate faithful aging

Missy Buchanan offers advice for those caring for aging parents, noting it isn’t a reversal of roles, rather, an evolution of a relationship. 28 Paul Smith:

A light in the darkness

Leslie Scanlon profiles the noted Presbyterian pastor and theologian whose livelong work was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s concept of the beloved community.

Living Theology Re-enchanting doctrine: Listening to God’s Word by Cynthia L. Rigby

Discussion Guide by Mark D. Hinds

America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911; When Narcissism Comes to Church

Devotional Reading

The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days; A Year of Slowing Down: Daily Devotions for Unhurried Living; Reflections on the Sunday Gospel; Mission Possible: One-Year Devotional for Young Readers and Mission Possible One-Year Devotional; Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year A

Attending to Advent

Thank you for the magnificent Advent devotional. Both my congregations are basing everything – from worship to mid-week prayer exercises – on its collection of poetry and images. Also, thanks to the Outlook staff who provided original art files.

— Fritz Nelson, Columbiana, Ohio

Website redesign

Want to say how much I’m enjoying the revamped Presbyterian Outlook site. I used to glance over the headlines and not click on much, but for months now I’ve found several articles either deeply intriguing or immediately applicable. And seasonal/ worship helps have been much more timely.

I was very happy to see a Blue Christmas Service offered and immediately ordered it. Advent blessings.

— Kirk Baker, Honeoye Falls, New York

Re: What Kind of Christianity book review

Dr. Yoo’s work is brilliant and thought provoking. It explains to me, somewhat, the Christians in our lifetime who go through their lives contently even knowing )or ignoring) racism in education, housing, banking, employment and other areas. —Sandy Lane, Queens, New York

THE PRESBYTERIAN OUTLOOK

Published by the Presbyterian Outlook Foundation Inc. 1 N. 5th St., Suite 500 Richmond, VA 23219

EDITOR Teri McDowell Ott tott@pres-outlook.org

INTERIM PRINT CONTENT MANAGER Gregg Brekke gbrekke@pres-outlook.org

DIGITAL CONTENT EDITOR Rose Schrott Taylor rstaylor@pres-outlook.org

NATIONAL REPORTER Leslie Scanlon lkscanlon@pres-outlook.org

BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Amy Pagliarella apagliarella@pres-outlook.org

DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Shani McIlwain smcilwain@pres-outlook.org

OFFICE MANAGER Alfred Walker awalker@pres-outlook.org

ADVERTISING SALES Patrick Shanley patrick@kevinshanley.com 312-919-1306

SUBSCRIPTIONS pres-outlook@cambeywest.com 877-902-9759 PO Box 111 Congers, NY 10920-0111 $59 one year; $104 two years; $149 three years (See website for rates outside the U.S.A. and for group subscription rates). Individual copy: $5.00 CORRESPONDENCE 1 N. 5th St., Suite 500, Richmond, VA 23219 Telephone: 804-359-8442 Toll Free: 800-446-6008

WEBSITE pres-outlook.org

NEWS SERVICES

Religion News Service (RNS); Presbyterian News Service (PNS) ISSN: 0032-7565

VOL. 205-01| JANUARY 2023

ABOUT THIS ISSUE:

Advocating for our loved ones needing long term care, finding new meaning and purpose in the third act of life, and faithful aging as a family affair. Readers of this issue of the Outlook will faithfully consider ways to enhance the quality of their later lives and their older loved ones.

THE PRESBYTERIAN OUTLOOK (ISSN 0032-7565). Periodical postage paid in Richmond, Va., and additional mailing offices. Published on Mondays, twice a month except monthly in February, April, June, August, September and November for a total of 18 issues per year by the Presbyterian Outlook Foundation, Inc. The Presbyterian Outlook is an independent, nonprofit publication with no financial or editorial ties to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Presbyterian Outlook, 1 N. 5th St., Suite 500, Richmond, VA 23219-2231.

Copyright © Presbyterian Outlook 2023. All rights reserved. General inquiries, information on rights and permissions, and inquiries on submissions can directed to info@pres-outlook.org.

The Presbyterian Outlook is printed on 100% recycled/50% post-consumer paper using agricultural-based inks made from soybeans and canola. We are a member of Green America.

EDITOR’S OUTLOOK Infused with life

by Teri McDowell Ott

When my parents were looking for a continual care retirement community, one of the most helpful books I read was Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal

In the book, Gawande tells the story of Bill Thomas, an emergency room doctor turned medical director of a nursing home in upstate New York. Within this nursing home, Thomas saw despair in every room. Residents devoid of spirit and energy. He realized the missing ingredient in the nursing home was life itself.

Thomas designed an experimental program to attack the “Three Plagues” of the residents’ existence –boredom, loneliness and helplessness – by infusing the nursing home with life. In common areas, fake plants were replaced with live ones. Landscapers tore up the lawn and planted vegetable and flower gardens. A greyhound named Target and a lapdog named Ginger moved in, along with four cats and a parakeet for every resident’s room. A playground was installed, and the staff were encouraged to bring their children for visits. Later, an after-school program was added.

At first, Thomas described the result as “total pandemonium.” But in the midst of this chaos, life returned to the home. Gawande writes, “People who [Thomas] believed weren’t able to speak started speaking. People who had been completely withdrawn and nonambulatory started coming to the nurses’ station and saying, ‘I’ll take the dog for a walk.’ The lights turned back on in people’s eyes.”

From this experiment, Thomas developed a new model home for the elderly. His “Green Houses,” were built to feel like homes, not institutions. Each was small (no more than twelve residents) and communal.

Residents have their own rooms built around a large, comfy living room with a long table for family-style dinners. Everyone has the autonomy to set their own sleeping, eating, and social schedules — just like they would at home.

My parents and I toured a retirement community built under the Green House model. The model of care was unlike any nursing home I had ever visited in my pastoral ministry, and the benefits were evident in the smiling faces of the residents.

As I contemplated the content of this Outlook issue focused on older adults, I kept returning to the “Three Plagues.” Boredom, loneliness and helplessness can affect anyone isolated from community, but

particularly older adults struggling with loss of independence. Like a “Green House,” the church often serves as a life-infused home for older adults — a place where elders are actively engaged and very much needed. In fact, most churches’ ministries would come to an abrupt stop without the time and talents older adults offer.

This issue highlights some extraordinary contributions of older adults. Trish Tully describes Baby Boomers making faithful use of their “Third Act” through disciplined and diligent work confronting the climate crisis facing their grandchildren. In Leslie Scanlon’s profile of Dr. Paul Smith, we celebrate an 87-year-old Presbyterian who knew Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King Jr., and who continues his own work of interfaith, boundarycrossing, public theology.

Boredom, loneliness and helplessness threaten older adults who become isolated from their faith communities; when they can no longer get themselves to church and must rely on others for transportation and visits. Churches do well to view the care for their elderly as the whole community’s responsibility, not just the pastor’s. Residents of nursing homes get better care from staff when visitors frequently stop in for companionship and conversation. Also, as Kathy Bradley highlights in her article “Advocating for older adults in long-term care,” many seniors need supporters to advocate for their rights and help them maintain their agency.

Faith communities remain one of the few institutions where people of different generations gather to know and care for each other. Strong churches are infused with life — from the very young to the very old. This kind of care in community gives purpose to both those who can support and those who need support as we help each other fight the “Three Plagues.” I pray this issue of the Outlook reminds you of some of the many reasons Christ gathers us together. ◆

Peace,

Welcome to the redesigned Outlook!

or the past few months we’ve been diligently working towards the magazine redesign you now hold in your hands. This refresh of the Outlook was made possible through a generous grant from St. Philip Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas. We are so grateful for their support! In the publishing business, redesigning your magazine every ten years is considered a best practice. We were due for a makeover.

Discussing our hopes for this design with the agency we hired for the project (Melissa Allen and MAD Creative out of Washington, D.C.), we shared our desire for a clean, smart, modern look that highlights our content and our contributors. We are very happy with the result, and we hope you are, too.

The telescopic “O” on the cover will be our new graphic trademark on all our Outlook products, both digital and print. Inside the magazine you will notice many of the same features and articles you’ve always enjoyed, just redesigned. The fonts, artwork, and white space we

have chosen work together to feature our content and enhance its readability.

As for content, we decided to move the Uniform Lessons to our website. You can follow the QR code on this page straight to our Uniform Lessons’ new digital home. The three magazine pages freed by this move, will be filled with a one-page discussion guide based on the feature articles and the issue’s theme. We hope this discussion guide will help groups or classes who want to use the magazine as an educational resource. The other pages will be filled by two, new rotating columns: “Living Theology” written by Dr. Cynthia Rigby from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and a “Faithful Conversation” column written by a trio of scholars, pastors, or other leaders. We believe these new additions will enrich our readers’ experience and offer thoughtful fodder for your own faithful conversations.

We are grateful to all of you who sent us feedback on what you’d like to see in this Outlook redesign, and we hope you enjoy our new look. ◆

Summer 2023 Presbyterian Outlook paid internship

The Presbyterian Outlook is looking for remote-working interns for the summer of 2023 who are interested in writing, editing, digital marketing, design, website management fundraising, and/or project management. The 10-week paid internship begins May 22 and ends July 28 with an average 10 hour/week commitment. This internship is an opportunity to learn from various perspectives how an

independent magazine like Presbyterian Outlook is run. Interns will meet with each member of the Outlook staff to learn about their role and work. After these meetings, the intern will present a major project to their supervisor based on an area of their interest. Projects could include a social media campaign, writing a feature-length op-ed article, a series of news articles, a collection of posts to optimize SEO, or worship

resources, creating a new product for our store, recruiting and editing content, a fundraising campaign etc.

In addition to their major project, interns will be assigned other minor tasks based on their interests and the Outlook’s need. Tasks may include copyediting for the magazine, posting content to the website, posting content to social media, organizing the back end of the website, attending Outlook-

The Third Act:

Teri McDowell Ott

hosted webinars, editing video, building email campaigns, reporting on PC(USA) meetings, organizing digital archives, etc. Interns will also have a weekly meeting with their supervisor to discuss their assignments and to process their experience — how do they understand their gifts, what is God calling them to do in the world? They will also be expected to attend some staff and marketing meetings.

We are writing this internship description with college and seminary students in mind, but we welcome

all applicants. You do not need to be Presbyterian to apply, although knowledge of the structure and Reformed theology of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) would be helpful in the work. Interns are expected to be effective writers and communicators as well as self-motivators. Deadlines will be agreed upon by the student and their supervisor with the expectation that the intern will meet those deadlines.

Interns will be paid $15/hour, with their payment being capped at $1,500. We hope to have a cohort of three

interns. Applications are due by Feb. 15 with the goal of extending offers to interns by mid-March.

Applications must include a cover letter describing the applicant’s interest in the position, qualifications, and what they could contribute to the Outlook’s mission and ministry. Applications should also include a resume with three references. Depending on the interests of the applicant, writing samples may be requested. Please submit materials as PDFs to presoutlook@pres-outlook.org.

PC(USA) 2023-24 scholarship applications now open

(PNS) “Need-based aid is one of the many ways that the Presbyterian Mission Agency responds to its Matthew 25 priorities to end structural racism and poverty.” This statement appears at the end of the full-page announcement in Presbyterians Today about scholarships for full-time undergraduate and seminary students belonging to Presbyterian churches.

Applications for 2023-2024 scholarships through the Presbyterian Mission Agency are now open. The applications are available in English, Spanish, and Korean through the Kaleidoscope platform linked through the Financial Aid for Service page of the Presbyterian Mission Agency website. The Kaleidoscope platform allows students to complete the application at their own pace over the span of weeks or months until the final deadline of May 15, 2023. As a host for other grants and scholarships, it also allows students to apply simultaneously for several scholarships through multiple foundations — a further benefit for students seeking to finance their education.

The Presbyterian Scholarship for Undergraduates and the Presbyterian Study Grant are need-based aid programs. Students with the least resources and greatest need are

prioritized for an award. “We are called to end structural racism and poverty, and to strengthen worshiping communities,” says Laura Bryan, Coordinator of Financial Aid for Service. “These priorities are expressed through our commitment to need-based aid, and supplemental awards for people of color. The programmatic emphasis on leadership development and discernment of vocation challenges participants to not only gain valuable knowledge for the world, but also to engage with discovering who God created them to be.”

Presbyterian Scholarship for Undergraduates serves full-time students attending college in the United States who are seeking a first bachelor’s degree. The program offers up to $4,000 per student. In 2022, 147 students were awarded $665,000.

Presbyterian Study Grant serves fulltime seminary students seeking a Master of Divinity or Master of Arts in Christian Education at any Association of Theological Schools institution in the United States, including online programs. MDiv students must be under care of presbytery. The program provided $431,000 in aid for 67 students and can support up to 100 students with $6,000 awards.

Supplemental awards for People of Color and Native American Education Grants, which do not require a separate

applications, are made possible by basic mission support. Eighty students received $2,000 in supplemental aid last year. The percentage of people of color participating in aid programs has steadily increased from 40% in 2018 to 59% by 2022.

Applications in English, Korean and Spanish are now open and must be completed before May 15, 2023. For more information, contact finaid@pcusa. org or visit www.pcusa.org/scholarship. Donations to the scholarship funds may be made at presbyterianmission.org/ donate — use opportunity e052103 for gifts to support undergraduates, opportunity e052102 for gifts in support of seminarians.

Bookmark

Meeting Jesus at the Table: A Lenten Study

by Cynthia M. Campbell and Christine Coy Fohr

Westminster John Knox Press, 152 pages

Published January 3, 2023

While the liturgical calendar remains the same, churches are expected to offer fresh insights each year. Meeting Jesus at the Table offers an approach to Lent that is both traditional and new. There’s a chapter for each week, reflections for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Easter, and questions for small group discussion. The authors offer new perspectives alongside drawings by Kevin Burns that illustrate the Bible story or make modern connections.

Pastors Cynthia M. Campbell and Christine Coy Fohr share familiar gospel stories of Jesus feasting with multitudes, “sinners”, religious leaders and friends. They touch lightly on the ways that Covid has changed our practices of gathering, and dive deeply into the ways food insecurity, personal losses, isolation and social injustices can make our tables incomplete. There’s a subtle diversity in their approach that is inclusive and welcome. For example, the authors refer to their own experiences of singleness and later-in-life marriage, and they discuss the “chosen family” of Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus.

Meeting Jesus at the Table offers the complete package — it lends itself to a sermon series accompanied by weekly small groups. It invites congregations to experience the transformative power of shared meals and I imagine churches running with this theme, whether through weekly communion, potlucks, dinner church and hopefully with food outreach. And for those reading alone, there’s enough sustenance in the words and drawings to nourish the body and soul.

Podcast review

F.U.Q.

Hosted by Erin Sanzero, Yena Hwang and Tempest Strunge

I recently met at table with the hosts of the podcast F.U.Q. Yes, you said it correctly. F.U.Q. stands for Frequently Unasked Questions. If you can get past the phonetic sound of the acronym, co-host Erin Sanzero explains the same sound in the Vietnamese name Phuoc means blessing. Alongside, Yena Hwang and Tempest Strunge, F.U.Q. pushes the boundaries of conversation in healthy and faithful ways. What began as a fleeting idea in Yena’s office during her last pastoral call – and realizing the three self-identified, marginalized and minoritized women were all getting asked hard questions by confirmands – they decided their dialogue would help others. There is a sense of invitation and welcome in their presence that is undeniable. About ten minutes into our chat, I felt comfortable asking my unasked question: In the Apostle’s Creed, why does Jesus descend to hell? No one shied away from the question, and it became a beautiful discussion on how we define hell. It also made us question how and why we accept certain beliefs. With other episodes titled “Mama God — How can I talk about Her with my kiddos?” and “Why didn’t Jesus come as a woman?”, F.U.Q. is a podcast to add to your rotation. For more information visit https://fuq.captivate.fm/.

REV. AMY PAGLIARELLA is the Outlook’s Book Review Editor.

SHANI MCILWAIN is Director of Community Engagement for the Outlook.

From the archives

20 YEARS AGO: JUNE 23, 2003, ISSUE 185–23 OF PRESBYTERIAN OUTLOOK

Triumphing Over Hatred Leslie Scanlon

When an elder from a suburban Chicago congregation read in the local newspaper that the Ku Klux Klan was planning a rally in a park nearby, the elder said “If this is true, I think we should volunteer our church to have a prayer service.”

So the congregation set to work, organizing ecumenical support. And at 1 p.m. on May 31, as the Klan was outside trying to light the fires of racism, about 200 people gathered inside the Presbyterian church of Berwyn to pray for unity.

Berwyn Church ... actually houses two congregations now: a small Anglo congregation of about 60 people, and a Hispanic congregation (that) has grown to about 130 members. ... (W)hen a Klan member who’d grown up in the area ... announced his intention to return and lead a rally, a group of congregations from the area responded ... Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics, Presbyterians, (and) United Church of Christ worshipers ...

The day after the Klan rally, people from the community held a ceremony of rededication at the park where the rally had taken place.

Martin E. Marty ... wrote in his column “Sightings” after the Klan rally, “I like to believe ... that the voices of the 400 or so congregants in Berwyn yesterday demonstrate triumph over the haters ... ”

Boost your Bible study

Three software programs to take your scripture explorations to the next level by Gregg Brekke

For many pastors, Bible software is part of the toolkit they use each week to prepare sermons and study materials. These programs have also become a mainstay of Biblical language courses in seminaries, replacing stacks of reference materials. Far from being tailored for preachers and scholars, these applications are useful additions to resources used by clergy and laity alike. Although several quality programs are available – including some free options – I’ll focus on three offerings that are easy to use, cross platform, expandable and, in certain configurations, affordable. In alphabetical order, they are:

1. Accordance

With a clean, modern interface, Accordance has grown in popularity as it has expanded its language study and devotional offerings. While not as comprehensive at parsing biblical languages as Logos, it offers everything a preacher or small group leader will ever need. The introductory package is currently $19.75; Greek and Hebrew Starter packs are $99.00 each; and the Greek and Hebrew combined Discoverer collection for serious original language study is $399.00.

2. Logos

This software has come a long way since I purchased its “Scholars” edition in 1997 and installed it from 20+ floppy disks! With continually updated resources and the best Greek and Hebrew search and reference tools on the market, it’s hard to beat Logos. But this powerful tool doesn’t come cheap — the Starter pack is $295 and the Platinum is $2,150, with several options in between.

3. Olivetree

Making a name for itself as a smartphone Bible app, Olivetree is also available for PC and Mac platforms. While the base package is free, adding resources such as other Bible translations, commentaries and Greek or Hebrew study aids are added on a per-item basis. Original language tools are not as robust as the other applications, but for many people – including many pastors –Olivetree will be more than enough in its base configuration.

Advocating for older adults in long-term care: My calling, my journey, my ministry

Kathy Bradley

ADVOCACY, social justice activism and standing up for what is right are all in my genetic code. They are also foundational to my faith. With a father who was a Presbyterian minister, theologian and professor of religion, and a mother who was a lifelong champion for those without a voice, I was raised to understand the teachings of Christ and to strive to follow his example. I had two of the most exemplary role models for inspiration and strength.

No surprise, then, that I found a career serving people with severe developmental disabilities and advocating for treating them with respect and dignity as human beings.

I always said it was a “career without a path,” because I never had any idea what would come next. I trusted that opportunities would present themselves. I would recognize them, and I would figure it out.

Looking back, I can clearly see where God laid choices before me. Sometimes I chose wisely; sometimes not so much. But God continued presenting both obstacles and opportunities to challenge me.

After a career serving people with developmental disabilities, and with a child in college, I confronted a decision: retire or face undesirable life changes. I was unable to see how I could make retirement feasible with college debt, a mortgage and unfinished business at work looming. But after weeks of daily conversations with God, I discerned my path. I retired. And God revealed God’s purpose for me in short order.

Kathy Bradley and her mother.

ADVOCATING FOR MY MOTHER

Six weeks after I retired, my mother suddenly declined into severe dementia and could no longer function in my parents’ home, in the independent living section of their continuing care retirement community. She had to go into the nursing facility there.

The first thing dementia took from my mother was her ability to speak. She became a member of a group without a voice: nursing home residents who cannot speak out when something isn’t right.

Having recently retired from my own career giving voice to nonverbal people who clearly communicate their needs, objections, preferences and emotions through their behaviors, I immediately realized I had to become my mother’s

voice, to advocate for her.

The journey was arduous and heartbreaking. My mother could no longer execute simple tasks. She needed

assertiveness as combativeness. When she didn’t receive her medications separately, as she preferred and as ordered by her doctor, she spit them out, not

help to dress, eat, drink, bathe and walk. Through her behavior, however, she clearly expressed her wishes, preferences and disapproval of being treated in ways she didn’t like. But staff people didn’t perceive her behaviors as nonverbal communication. They interpreted her

understanding what she was receiving or what they were for. Staff interpreted her behavior as “refusing medications,” even though they were crushing all of them together against the doctor’s orders.

When my mother displayed modesty about her body, she was labeled as

Looking back, I can clearly see where God laid choices before me.

“resistant to care” and handled roughly. When she didn’t like the way food looked or how it felt in her mouth, she stopped eating. Staff documented that she “refused meals,” without offering her choices. When she expressed her desire to visit with friends by walking up the hall, staff considered her to be “eloping” from her designated location in

prescribing inappropriate psychotropic and antipsychotic drugs to someone who did not have a psychiatric diagnosis.

Sadly, this phenomenon occurs all too often in nursing homes and other long-term care settings. Because she couldn’t initiate drinking, she suffered repeat urinary tract infections (UTIs) and episodes of dehydration, resulting

collarbone. Although no one ever saw her fall, she was tied in a wheelchair to prevent falls. And when she was lethargic because of a UTI or dehydration, staff assumed she was just sleepy and were relieved she was quiet.

the facility, and they pursued her. Each label the staff applied to her nonverbal communications led them to try to medicate her behavior into compliance by

in hospitalizations with IV fluids and antibiotics. Her resistance to what she considered rough treatment resulted in bruises, skin tears and even a broken

My job as my mother’s advocate was to make sense of all these pieces: to interpret my mother’s nonverbal behavior, to help staff understand that her supposed actingout was her only means of communicating her dissatisfaction with what was happening and to emphasize that she was not psychotic. I worked with staff to ensure my mother’s care plan included important information, preferences and techniques for providing care and activities. Still, I had to remember and remind staff that, although my mother’s core personality had not changed, her cognitive and executive abilities had. This process took time, and I promised my mother to see it through so her quality of life would get better.

... I had to remember and remind staff that, although my mother’s core personality had not changed, her cognitive and executive abilities had.

Bradley’s mother enjoys tea with a friend.

ADVOCACY REQUIRES KNOWLEDGE

My lengthy service in long-term care taught me that strong advocacy for our loved ones is best founded upon knowledge. The field of long-term care is very different from any other aspect of our lives. Understanding state and federal regulations that govern providers of long-term care is essential. Federal regulations are quite thorough and govern all long-term care providers in any setting that accepts Medicare or Medicaid funds. They form the basis for state regulations; so even if a particular provider does not receive federal funds, understanding the federal regulations empowers our understanding of the intent behind the state regulations.

Providers are not a reliable source for information about federal and state requirements. Advocates must go to the source – the regulations themselves – to learn what is required, what is supposed to be happening and not happening, in the care of their loved ones. Then they must get to know the policies and practices of the provider and observe how the provider implements them.

WAYS TO IMPROVE CARE FOR A LOVED ONE

My organization, Our Mother’s Voice, has developed a set of concrete steps and actions that advocates can take to improve care for our loved ones. These steps are as follows (reprinted from ourmothersvoice. org/what-you-can-do-.html):

1. Stay involved with your loved one while they receive long-term care. Visit. Learn the plan of care, and make sure it meets your loved one’s needs. Provide information to staff that will help the plan of care to be complete and meaningful. Communicate regularly with your loved one’s social worker.

2. Observe and document (date, time, details) your experiences when you visit the long-term care setting: your loved one, other residents (if applicable), the surroundings, the staff. Note anything good, and let the staff know. Note anything that doesn’t seem right. Look for “trends” — more than one occurrence of something.

3. Ask questions of the staff, and work with them if you see anything that needs attention, even if it is not a trend. Left unaddressed, it could become one.

4. Become familiar with the provider’s policies and the state/federal regulations that apply, so that you know what should be happening. Identify specific problems or violations, and talk with management staff.

Ideally, you should not have to go beyond step 4. If you know what should be happening, understand the policies and regulations and work with staff, you should be able to resolve most issues. You might need to take steps 5-7, however, if the preceding steps do not result in improved care.

5. Approach the facility administration and then the corporate leadership if violations or problems persist. Cite the policies and regulations that are in violation, and give examples of your observations and efforts to work with staff to correct them. Make notes for yourself so that you will be thorough and accurate when you approach these officials.

6. If these efforts fail, the state regulatory agency has a complaint reporting process. They will need the information you have gathered in writing from steps 1–5 above, and they will refer you to the agency staff who take reports of complaints or violations.

7. The regulating agency will determine whether investigation is warranted. Follow up with the regulatory agency after it has completed an investigation, so you can learn what it found and what you can expect the facility to do in response to the investigation.

In addition to, in place of or alongside steps 6 and 7 above, advocates may take other steps. Many providers have family councils that give families a voice and a venue to discuss, learn from and interact with the provider’s administration on behalf of all consumers of care and their families. These councils occasionally conduct special activities for their consumers. You may want to become involved with the family council if your loved one’s provider has such a group. If not, you may want to advocate for them to establish a family council.

Each state also has a long-term care ombudsman program to help consumers advocate to resolve individual issues of quality of care. You can find your state’s ombudsman at theconsumervoice. org/get_help. These programs vary in structure and scope, so ask your state’s ombudsman: Are you independent, or are

My lengthy service in long-term care taught me that strong advocacy for our loved ones is best founded upon knowledge.

you a part of a governmental agency? Do you take cases in assisted living, inhome care, day services and so on?

CONSUMER-DRIVEN QUALITY OF CARE MEETS THE NEEDS OF ALL RESIDENTS

My family understood that moving my mother to another facility would not solve the underlying issue of poor care. We were committed to advocating in whatever way necessary to ensure our mother’s care. Unfortunately, not everyone has strong advocates in their corner. Our mother would have spoken out not only for herself but for everyone in her facility, to advocate for quality of care, quality of life and the rights of all residents.

So we considered our advocacy as part of a larger catalyst to change the culture in our mother’s facility. We pushed for a culture that puts the consumer in the center of quality, individualized care to meet the unique needs and preferences of each resident, respecting their dignity and honoring their uniqueness. In our case,

we had to take the seven steps listed above to initiate the culture change. But culture change began to happen.

Quality of care in a consumer-centered culture speaks to the way a consumer is treated every day — by everyone who comes in contact with the consumer and by the organization itself. A consumerdriven quality of care appears in the way the nurse approaches the consumer about taking medications and whether the nurse dispenses medications in a way that makes the consumer comfortable. Such quality of care appears in the manner in which the aide helps with personal care routines formerly performed by the person now

receiving care: modestly, independently and in private. Quality of care is the effort the staff take to ensure that people in wheelchairs have opportunities to stretch, stand and walk with assistance as they are able, because these activities provide so many health benefits. Quality of care shows up when the provider gives thought to organizing the consumer’s day meaningfully, rather than prioritizing the staff’s convenience or task schedule.

Quality of care is found in the attention the staff gives when a consumer complains of an ache or pain for the fourth time. Do staff assume the consumer is merely rambling pointlessly because of dementia? Or do they check, just in case, to rule out illness or injury?

Finally, quality of care means something different for each individual. Each person is different, with different needs and experiences. Quality of care takes these facts into account and establishes approaches that make sense for each individual, given each person’s unique circumstances. Quality of care provides enough staff, and trains those staff

sufficiently, to enable all these activities for consumers every day.

Quality of life in a consumer-centered culture includes medical care and meeting physical needs, of course. But it also means honoring each individual’s personal preferences about activities, day-to-day schedules, personal space, how personal care is provided and all the

Quality of life is not measured through the eyes of others. Rather it is measured through the individual consumer’s perspective.

Bradley’s mother greets friends.

little things the rest of us take for granted every day — even for those who cannot participate in groups, are not physically active or cannot make choices on their own. Quality of life is not measured through the eyes of others. Rather, it is measured through the individual consumer’s perspective.

The rights of residents are too extensive to list here. A dignified existence, self-determination, quality of care and quality of life are all resident rights. Visit the website of Our Mother’s Voice, ourmothersvoice.org, and follow the link for federal regulations at the bottom of each page. Once there, click “View Table of Contents” and access sections 483.10, 483.15 and 483.40 for a comprehensive description of the rights of nursing home residents. Other types of long-term care have their own regulations that include these rights, but understanding these regulations provides a good basis for advocacy in any care setting.

HOW OUR ADVOCACY HELPED MY MOTHER

In my mother’s case, consumer-centered culture change resulted in improved quality of life, even in her advanced stages of dementia.

Staff learned to interpret my mother’s nonverbal communication. Walking up the hall meant “I want to visit my friends.” Pulling away from staff meant “You’re being too rough with me” or “You’re moving too fast for me.” Striking out meant “I don’t like this situation.” Lethargy meant “I don’t feel well.” Refusing medication meant “I don’t know what this is” or “I don’t like the way this tastes.” Resisting getting

up in the morning meant “I want to sleep longer.” Refusing her food meant “This isn’t appetizing to me.” Staff rewrote my mother’s care plans to include strategies to address all these preferences, including dietary changes to accommodate her individual tastes.

My mother went from having UTIs and dehydration episodes every six weeks to experiencing two and a half years of good health. The facility implemented a hydration program, and everyone’s health improved. So even at her late stage of dementia, a culture of person-centered care mattered to her. With this culture change, not just my mother’s, but everyone’s quality of life improved.

When such culture change occurs, staff are happier, residents are happier, work is easier, and days are more enjoyable for everyone. Both staff and residents feel valued and empowered. Behavioral challenges decrease, and the use of psychiatric and sedating medications declines. Put simply, quality of life improves for everyone.

ADVOCACY TAKES STRENGTH AND PERSEVERANCE

Advocacy is hard work. It takes strength in adversity, perseverance in disappointment. My parents prepared me for this work in many ways, every day. Their example taught me to be strong. My faith lifted me up. And my favorite teaching of Christ continues to guide me. Matthew 25:31-46 instructs us all, particularly verses 35-40:

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and

you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”

Thanks be to God. KATHY BRADLEY, a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is founder, CEO and board president of Our Mother’s Voice, a nonprofit organization that provides information to empower families to advocate for quality services for loved ones needing long-term care at home or in nursing facilities.

Advocacy ... takes strength in adversity, perseverance in disappointment.

A faithful Third Act

MANY PRESBYTERIANS are voicing alarm over the climate chaos confronting our grandchildren. As mostly gray-haired Christians, we also fret over our church’s dearth of younger members. These twin worries can lead us to overlook a source of hope staring at many of us in the mirror: the vigor of baby boom retirees.

In 1935, when Social Security began to offer assistance to Americans over 65, the U.S. life expectancy was 60.7 years. But by 2020 it was 78.8: 18 bonus years. Social Security, Medicare and other protections that older adults enjoy have created a class of people who can, if they wish, spend a decade or two amusing themselves — or can meaningfully and skillfully pay forward the benefits of living in God’s creation in the United States in the 21st century. In the current decade, as we are determining the Earth’s carbon load and climate stability for the foreseeable future, what we choose matters more than ever.

The congregation my spouse, Don, serves in Scottsburg, Indiana, rarely sees more than 25 worshipers on a Sunday. These two dozen busy, creative Presbyterians know their halcyon days are behind them, but they keep leading large initiatives. During National Drive Electric Week last fall, they and a neighboring congregation hosted an EV (Electric Vehicle) Ride and Drive that invited folks to see and try Chevy Bolts, Mustang MachEs, F-150 Lightnings and e-bikes. That same weekend, the congregation hosted a public viewing of the beautiful 2017 ecofilm Chasing Coral.

They have developed environmentally themed classes, celebrated the Season of Creation in worship, endorsed carbon tax policy and refreshed the church grounds with native plants. They act from their skills, passions, financial security and, crucially, their available post-retirement time. The ringleader of many such efforts, Elder Carol Dunn, said, “I am incredibly proud of our tiny congregation. We realize we cannot count on our government to address the climate crisis without prodding from alarmed citizens.

Getting serious about earth care and helping restore the planet for our beloved grandchildren has brought us new energy, hope and even fun.”

We boomers can do so much more than we may think. We’re a large generation with outsized responsibility and capacity to help save the future. This understanding led some retired women in southern Indiana to dub themselves Presbyterian climate advocates and to teach nationwide Zoom courses called Faith and the Climate Crisis. It’s why a nearby congregation, First Presbyterian Church in Jeffersonville, Indiana, installed two solar arrays, changed every light bulb, led members into home energy conservation efforts and helped the Africa Inland Church in Kisumu, Kenya, to found a tree nursery. It’s why churches surrounding Kisumu, in the once pristine but now deforested Lake Victoria area, have sown, grown and distributed tens of thousands of seedlings along with providing environmental

Patricia Tull

education to schools, churches and farmers across the region. As a result, residents of that region of Kenya are seeing wildlife return. Just a few people instigated these large differences.

and visiting legislators and rethinking investment and banking habits, travel plans and even family menus.

This responsibility is why my spouse and I joined the ranks of those building

Julia Carney proposed in her 1845 poem “Little Things,” a lot of drops can fill an ocean. Decarbonizing requires not only governments and corporations, but also citizens, to weatherize, electrify and in some cases solarize at home and work. Empty nesters who decarbonize while they downsize can be part of the solution.

Some of us admit to feeling overwhelmed by the climate crisis. We’ve never seen anything like this. But we aren’t helpless. Baby boomers approaching retirement can help reset the needle on climate change, and nothing soothes the fretting like getting things done.

Granted, we don’t all have the fortitude of our ancestor Moses, who began his best life at age 80. Moses was first alarmed by seeing a slave being beaten in Egypt. But for decades he delayed acting. Coming around to the need to intervene was a struggle for Moses, even when he heard God calling him. Moses is well known for resisting God’s instructions, questioning God’s judgment and finally pleading with God, despite many reassurances, to “please send someone else” (Exodus 4:13).

This understanding of boomers’ responsibility is why people across the United States hop on overnight buses to attend climate marches, pipeline protests and Poor People’s rallies in Washington, DC. With both environmental justice and democracy hanging in the balance, older adults are raising their voices, calling

all-electric, net-zero solar homes to power our pursuits and commutes. It’s why we talk to visitors about how our system works and why we evangelize strangers who admire our Chevy Bolt at charging stations. We know full well that our lives are privileged and that our efforts are mere drops in the bucket. But as poet

Moses had himself been saved as an infant by his mother and sister, who convinced the previous Pharaoh’s daughter to raise him as her son. Things come full circle when God calls Moses to return to Egypt and save his own people. None of it is easy. He must confront the new Pharaoh, who is not only Egypt’s most powerful figure but apparently Moses’ own adoptive kin, with all the enmeshing that entails. Yet after many tries and setbacks, Moses manages to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, across the desert and across a whole generation to the doorstep of their promised home. In doing so, he offered a role model for senior citizens: nobody is too old, too busy, too soft-spoken, too fraught with family, too inexperienced or too easily intimidated to change the future.

Few of us will be called, like Moses, to spend our remaining lives leading thousands of not necessarily grateful people from an old world into a new one.

“ We boomers can do so much more than we may think. We’re a large generation with outsize responsibility and capacity to help save the future. ”

But we are all part of the crowd, whether we are cheering or naysaying. We can each do something significant for the Earth that has nurtured us and the neighbors who need us.

Some of us are moved, as Moses was, by a troubled sense of fairness. We are all God’s children — but in our earthly home some have the biggest rooms, the fanciest toys, the richest foods, the greatest comfort. Our misgivings arise not just from the fact that some siblings on this shared planet have less, but from the reality that their habitations are being devastated by others’ self-indulgence. The global north has produced a whopping 92% of excess greenhouse gases, yet the impacts – floods, famines, deadly heatwaves – hit poorest nations hardest. Despite the landmark UN agreement made in Nov. 2022, which seeks to reimburse developing countries for disproportionate damages caused by climate change, we have barely begun to acknowledge what rich nations owe to poorer ones. We know that’s not fair.

Others are moved by compassion, with hearts trembling at Jesus’ words: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Even if science fails to move us, we cannot sit still while others suffer.

For some, we are motivated by wanting a credible legacy. What if we nurture our kids, work hard, vote regularly, go to church, tidy our campsites, eat our vegetables and do everything we were taught, but we don’t give our grandkids a livable future with stories they will be proud to tell about us?

For me, the realization was a sudden jolt. I felt heartsick seeing the hockey-stick

graph of rising temperatures mirroring the hockey-stick graph of rising greenhouse gases. Knowing that nothing else will matter if we don’t make our best effort to change this — this has a way of reshaping all one’s plans. Every outsized hurricane, flood or fire renews the grief. What have we done? What can we do?

Lately, though, as more Americans recognize the climate crisis, my grief is tempered by visions of what success will look like: a thriving human family in a thriving creation; children growing sturdy and not subject to asthma and lead poisoning; communities drinking clean water, free from toxins; farmers enabled once again to grow human food instead of crops to produce cattle grain and high fructose corn syrup; cities built for walking. Sacrifice zones and environmental cancers can become a thing of the past. None of it is certain, but all of it is doable.

Thank God we are not alone. We have clouds of witnesses, known and unknown, to share the work and double the joy. I once heard Jewish environmentalist Roger Gottlieb talking about what makes creation care hard — the frustration, grief, anger, bewilderment. Then he articulated why, despite all this, caring matters personally: because we want to live for something larger than ourselves; because sometimes we succeed; and because, he said, lovers of creation make remarkable friends and companions.

This cloud of witnesses is growing. We who, like Moses, face the crowning third of our lives now have a movement to inspire us. It’s called Third Act (thirdact.org). It’s another brainchild of writer and climate activist Bill McKibben, the Vermont Methodist and cradle Presbyterian who

in 2008 founded the international climate organization 350.org. In 2012, with a handful of college students, he ignited the fossil-fuel divestment movement to save stock portfolios and retirement funds from the financially risky petroleum industry. McKibben, who recently turned 60 himself, instituted Third Act to rally baby boomers and the silent generation to employ our faith, voices, skills and other accumulated assets not only to rethink our individual habits but to help remake the systems that now threaten our future.

“All across the country,” McKibben said recently, “we are finding older Americans who want to be engaged in public as older Americans, who understand that elders have an important role in a working society. We come with a lifetime’s worth

Your legacy is the world you leave behind for the people you love.

of skills, sometimes with resources, often with time, and mostly with kids and grandkids who take that abstract thing called legacy and make it very concrete. Your legacy is the world you leave behind for the people you love.”

Many of Third Act’s ideas work well for elders: writing letters to the editor, registering young people to vote, evaluating and perhaps changing where we bank and protecting local elections and democracy. A beauty of Third Act’s structure is its working groups. Some are geographical. Others gather people sharing vocational interests. One that beckons Presbyterians is the Third Act Faith Working Group. In the words of its website, “Elders in the Third Act Faith Working Group are motivated to

The global north has produced a whopping 92% of excess greenhouse gases, yet the impacts – floods, famines, deadly heatwaves – hit poorest nations hardest.

explore how their spirituality and faith direct them to rise from their places of worship to stabilize the climate and our democracy.” The movement has plenty of room for new ideas, such as

• JOINING Season of Creation Sundays and other environmental worship opportunities

• OFFERING climate grief counseling and mentorship

• SHARING a local faith-andclimate movie series

• HELPING others distinguish partisanship from democratic political action

Akaya Windwood, coauthor (with Rajasvini Bhansali) of the 2022 book Leading with Joy: Practices for Uncertain Times and Third Act’s lead advisor, said, “It’s time for us to be good elders. The next generations are asking us not to step away, but to step beside them with support and enthusiasm. We want our great, great grandchildren to look back on us with pride because we met this moment with determination, grit, and joy.”

Climate scientists warned in 2018 that if we wish to avoid a future that is far more chaotic than what we already see, the world has only until 2030 to reduce our carbon pollution by 45% and until 2050 to become carbon neutral. Some of us are heeding this warning, but our work must accelerate. Six years ago we were on track to warm the atmosphere by a catastrophic 4 degrees Celsius. Now we have begun to reduce that threat. But scientists and the global community agree we must keep the warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius — and we are already at 1.2. We haven’t done enough, but we are moving in the right direction. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act will help us cut U.S. carbon pollution considerably. It is not our final answer, but it is good news.

As climate scientist and evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe said, millions of people are already working to save us, and we just need a few more hands. Our elders’ hands through the decades have handled many tools, served many meals and carried many children — these experienced hands have so much more to give.

PATRICIA K. TULL is A. B. Rhodes Professor Emerita of Hebrew Bible at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary. She is the author of the 2013 book Inhabiting Eden: Christians, the Bible, and the Ecological Crisis and wrote the 2024-2025 Horizons Bible Study on environmental justice.

Thank God clouds of to share the

God we are not alone. We have witnesses, known and unknown, the work and double the joy.

I’m justhere:

A THREE-WORD PHRASE regularly circulates among older adults. The expression reveals the mindset many people hold in late life. More importantly, it is a neon sign begging families and churches to pay attention. Three simple but heartbreaking words:

I’m just here.

I became aware of how common this phrase is while making regular visits to my parents’ senior living community in 2000. I heard the phrase repeated daily as residents passed one another in the dining room or hallways. An older adult pushing a walker would stop to ask a fellow resident how they’re doing. Almost always the resident’s response was “I’m just here.”

I’m just here. The sense of purposelessness in these words is palpable. It is just another way for these older adults to say they are biding time in God’s waiting room until Death calls their name.

My experience at my parents’ senior community is the primary reason I started writing and speaking about faithful aging.

To hear older adults still repeating that phrase today is sobering. How many of these older saints – who attended church, taught Sunday school and served on mission trips earlier in life – have arrived at the same mistaken conclusion in old age? How have they succumbed to a belief that their late lives have no purpose?

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ONE’S PURPOSE CHANGES?

I once heard a story about an ancient aqueduct that began to crumble when the water from the surrounding mountains was rerouted to flow into a modern system of pipes that carried the water downhill to the village. The town leaders who wanted to preserve the historic structure were shocked to discover that without water to cool the sunbaked bricks and mortar, the aqueduct began to disintegrate. This crumbling aqueduct is an image of older adults who have lost their purpose in late life.

Culture constantly bombards older adults with the message that they are obsolete in our fast-changing, technologydriven world. Families and churches have

Missy Buchanan

Tips for adult children and older adults to navigate faithful aging

Culture constantly bombards older adults with the message that they are obsolete in our fast-changing, technology-driven world.

a vital role in helping aging loved ones rediscover their divine purpose. Otherwise they will falter like the ancient aqueduct, unable to fulfill their calling in late life.

DIFFERING PRIORITIES AMONG ADULT CHILDREN AND OLDER ADULTS

The aqueduct story reminds me of a survey I have conducted informally for the last decade, as I have traveled to speak about faithful aging. On occasions where both adult children and their aging parents were present at the same event, I asked each generation a specific question and then wrote their responses in my journal.

I asked the adult children what they wanted most for their aging parents in their late life, other than good health. Their answers fell into three categories: safety and security, a nice living environment and help with daily activities.

Then I turned the tables and asked the aging parents what they most wanted for themselves in this season of life, other than good health. Their responses also fell into three categories: to have meaning and purpose, to be as respected and independent as possible and to have deep, fulfilling relationships.

The answers from both groups were commendable. However, as I compared the two lists, I had an epiphany. The adult children named things that mostly impact the exterior life of their aging parents, while the older adults’ answers focused on their inner life. To have a life of meaning and purpose was the top answer for the aging parents — yet the adult children didn’t mention it at all. The disparity reminded me that each generation looks through its own lens. The contrast also highlighted the need for adult children and aging parents to have meaningful conversations about difficult issues.

Generational difference was also evident on a cold winter day when I sat in a busy airport restaurant, where travelers with heavy coats and carry-on luggage packed into the dining area. I could not help but overhear a group of middle-aged women, seated next to me, who were surprisingly dressed in sandals and tropical clothes.

Caregivers for aging parents, they were headed to the beach as a respite getaway. Their champagne toast and joyful laughter quickly transitioned to a serious conversation about their caregiving roles and their frustrations with aging parents, who they wanted to quit driving or to move to assisted living.

Listening to these middle-aged friends share their innermost feelings about caregiving made me think of how often I have observed similar scenes playing out among aging parents. Many times, I have been seated at tables with older adults, who spoke honestly about their frustrations with adult children who treat them like children, who perhaps mock them for being slow to embrace technology or make decisions for them. Older adults have sought me out following speaking events to say how they wished their adult children were there to hear my message, because their kids just don’t understand what it is like to grow old.

In that moment at the crowded airport restaurant, I strongly suspected that each generation, older and younger, is talking within their own groups about the hard things of aging — but not talking with each other.

THE “SANDWICH GENERATION”

While taping a recent story for a local news network, I met a middle-aged television producer. She lingered to talk about challenges she was having with her own aging parents. As a producer, she was accustomed to the stress that comes with managing live television. She had produced segments in real time about multiple tornadoes touching down at once and had covered live shooter and hostage events. Nothing, she said, had prepared her for the anxieties she was experiencing as a caregiver for her aging parents. With tears rimming her eyes, she spoke about feeling unprepared and totally inadequate.

This news producer is certainly not alone. Another woman described to me her life in the “sandwich generation” – the season when adult children are caring for their own children and their aging parents at the same time – as being a panini: a

sandwich that is pressed and grilled on both sides.

No doubt many adult children know what it’s like to be the rock on one end of a teeter totter when a heavy load is dropped on the other side. Suddenly their lives are upended, flung in disarray, by the changing circumstances of their aging parents. At the same time, aging parents struggle to find balance as unwanted change crashes into them as well. We should not be surprised when older loved ones retreat to a cushy recliner to spend their days watching cable news.

NAVIGATING THE JOURNEY TOGETHER

Adult children and aging parents alike desperately need the church to help them build resilient, grace-filled relationships for the journey of aging. Both generations need practical advice, training and encouragement to have difficult conversations about late life in Godhonoring ways.

Here are a few tips to help adult children and older adults take the first steps toward navigating the journey together.

1. Learn to stand in the other generation’s shoes. Adult children should assume a posture of humility and imagine the frustrations and fears their aging parents must feel as they endure relentless change in this season of late life: physical decline, loss of loved ones through death or a move, loss of home and cherished belongings, loss of independence and the ability to drive, and loss of energy, hearing and vision.

The impact of these accumulated losses is typically unique to late life and is best understood as compounded loss.

Adult children and aging parents alike desperately need the church to help them build resilient, grace-filled relationships for the journey of aging.

Aging parents should likewise try to step into the shoes of their adult children and remember what those hectic middle years of life were like. Their adult children are likely juggling careers, parenting responsibilities and school, community and church activities while also navigating the unfamiliar landscape of being a caregiver for their older loved ones. Not surprisingly, they are experiencing their own tsunami of mixed-up emotions.

2. Recognize that it is not a role reversal. Contrary to what we often hear, describing the adult child–aging parent relationship as a role reversal is faulty at best. Even if an older loved one requires assistance with basic daily needs, they should not be thought of as a child. Believing that younger and older adults

Oftentimes well-intentioned family members treat aging parents as if they are invisible or somehow incapable of participating in conversations. People talk above them or past them, forgetting to include them. Adult children need to be intentional about how they engage their aging parents in decision-making conversations, especially those that directly impact their parents’ lives. Adult children should not assume they know what’s best for an aging parent or what their parent is thinking. Adult children would do better to lead with questions that show respect and help the two generations work together toward a solution. “Mom, Dad, what do you think we should do?” “What do you think would be the best way forward?”

4. Talk so the other generation can hear.

on them, actively looking for signs that they can no longer take care of themselves. Understandably, older loved ones often respond defensively. Even so, direct and healthy communication is needed. Adult children who regularly show respect and empathy for their aging parent will have greater success in communicating and working together.

5. Find purpose in the journey. Having a purpose gives older adults reason to get excited about living. Think of the retired art teacher who joyfully creates paintings that can be reproduced on notecards and sold to fund a mission project. Consider the 84-year-old accountant who volunteers at his church, helping newly single parents create budgets and make wise financial decisions. Imagine the resident of a senior living community who leads a memoir-writing class, assisting other residents to write their life stories as a gift for their families.

somehow switch roles specifically endangers the well-being of the aging parent. The idea robs the older person of dignity and respect at a time when they are the most vulnerable, and it dismisses the life experiences they have accrued over the years. Imagine what five-yearold child has been the CEO of a company, served as a union shop steward or raised a family of five. Certainly, in some situations an older loved one’s mental state requires that adult children make decisions on their behalf — but respect and dignity should always be topmost in the minds of adult children. Instead of considering it a role reversal, consider the dynamic to be a role shift, in which the adult child takes on new responsibilities for the aging parent, while each holds steadfast to the adult child and aging parent identifications.

3. Include aging parents in conversations.

Another communication pitfall between adult children and aging parents can be explained by something my grandson said when he was five years old. In the midst of a disagreement, he told his older brother, “My ears hear you but my heart just can’t.” It’s true. Sometimes the struggle to communicate has to do more with emotions than with audible words.

An example is the adult daughter who looks through her aging mother’s refrigerator and notes the expiration date on the milk. She makes an unsolicited comment with a huff of frustration: “Mom, your milk expired day before yesterday.” The aging parent bristles. In her mind, the adult child is implying something more: “You can’t take care of yourself. It’s time we move you to a nursing home.”

It is not unusual for aging parents to feel that their adult children are spying

To finish well, older adults need inspiration and ideas for ways to use their gifts, talents and life experiences to serve others, in spite of their own physical limitations. They need family members to remind them of God’s promises, even as they embark on the journey of aging together. Adult children, meanwhile, need support and encouragement from their faith community as they try to steady their aging parent on the rocky path. All desperately need God’s abundant grace as they continue to grow in faith and understanding on the journey.

MISSY BUCHANAN is an internationally recognized advocate for older adults. She has been a keynote speaker for Presbyterian Older Adult Ministries Network, the Festival of Wisdom and Grace and the National Boomer Ministry Conference and has penned 10 books on faithful aging for Upper Room Books.

All desperately need God’s abundant grace as they continue to grow in faith and understanding on the journey.

Paul Smith: A light in the darkness

Leslie Scanlon

PAUL SMITH WAS A YOUNG STUDENT at Hartford Seminary when he first heard Howard Thurman speak. Later, he formed a personal connection with the groundbreaking theologian and mystic — visiting and writing back and forth, sharing ideas and inspiration, until Thurman’s death in 1981.

Smith was a senior at Talladega College in Alabama in 1957 when Martin Luther King Jr., then a rising civil rights leader, came to speak. On behalf of his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, Smith helped to escort the speakers around campus — and on that visit introduced King and Andrew Young, who later strategized together on some of the most significant civil rights initiatives of the 1960s. Smith came away from that meeting with this impression of King: “This surely was a man of God.”

In October 2022, when Smith preached as part of the 200th anniversary celebration at First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn –a congregation where he served as minister for 20 years, as its first Black pastor – he

quoted all of these great influences on his life. King spoke at the March on Washington of a “fierce urgency of now” — a message that’s never been more significant for a broken world, Smith said. When people go deep into their faith – honestly confronting their fears, going down, down, down into the depths – “our faith is bigger than our fears,” Smith said. “There is a light that appears in the luminous darkness. ... You begin to shake hands with God.”

Deep Calling to the Deep, offers prayers and reflections based on his work with people facing death, including the tennis great Arthur Ashe.

Now retired, Smith helps lead a new initiative at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.: A program to train leaders across lines of division, funded by a $491,000 grant from Trinity Church Wall Street.

At 87, Smith embarks on a new phase of his ministry, a career which has been marked by work in racially diverse settings and later serving as a Black pastor of mostly White congregations in Georgia – Hillside Presbyterian Church in Decatur – and in Brooklyn Heights. He earned a doctor of ministry degree from Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and his book, Facing Death: The

That initiative grew out of the kind of interfaith, boundary-crossing, public theology work that has been at the center of Smith’s ministry. Ordained as a minister in what’s now the United Church of Christ, Smith has long served Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations. Hildi Hendrickson, the author of his biography, Building Beloved Communities: The Life and Work of Rev. Dr. Paul Smith, is a Buddhist academic. National Cathedral, where Smith and his wife, Fran, became involved after his retirement, is an Episcopal congregation. And Leonard L. Hamlin Sr., canon

“I would say there was something within me that enabled me to see there was something greater than myself.”

missioner at National Cathedral and Smith’s collaborator in the new project, is a Baptist minister overseeing the cathedral’s outreach and social justice work.

Hamlin said that when he and Smith met a few years ago, they began to discuss “how we might be able to remove some of the walls that really divide us” in this nation.

Their idea: to bring together leaders who work on systemic racism in their own communities, but who come from different contexts; a diverse group in terms of socioeconomics, gender, race, age and geography. Those leaders – a cohort of about 25 people who will come together for intense in-person sessions at the cathedral – likely will include faith leaders, entrepreneurs, first responders and people who work in business, government and public advocacy.

The intent, Hamlin said, is “to bring together leaders from around the country who would not have an opportunity to meet, to discuss challenging issues” and to build relationships across their

differences. Each will bring an issue of a particular concern in their context — a case study to present to the group. They will be encouraged to speak honestly, to not hold back.

The hope is to build relationships over the days together and to hear views from people they might not otherwise encounter or get to know, Hamlin said. “We know how much it’s needed right now,” he said. “We believe that inside sacred space there are conversations that can be encouraged,” and that this diverse group can build trust and work together to begin to bring new answers back to their home communities.

The organizers want the participants “to unleash all the things that are on their minds, without being judged,” Smith said. “A conversation can be held, and hopefully some kind of change is made,” emerging from a cross-cultural conversation that is rare today.

Smith leads the advisory committee for the project. Late in his career, it’s a continuation of the kind of work for racial justice he’s done all his life. He grew up Baptist in South Bend, Indiana, sitting every Sunday in church with his grandmother.

“I was actually speaking to the congregation when I was 12,” invited to preach, Smith said in an interview. “My grandmother kept telling them that I was going to be somebody, that they needed to listen to me.”

Did he feel called to the ministry even as a child? “I don’t use the word ‘call’ to describe it,” Smith said. “I don’t know what that means. ... I would say there was something within me that enabled me to see there was something greater than myself.”

Smith says the Baptist church gave him freedom to find his voice, and he won a scholarship to go to college. In 1957, when

Paul Smith

King came to speak at Talladega, “It was before Dr. King was as popular as he became,” Smith said. “Still, he could cancel on a dime” — so Young was invited as the backup speaker, just in case. As it turned out, the wives of both King and Young were expecting babies, and both Coretta Scott King and Jean Childs Young were from Marion, Alabama. When the speeches were over, Young and King drove back to Marion together, cementing their connection, and Smith was profoundly moved by his interactions with both men.

He also was deeply influenced by Thurman, a Black theologian, who with the White pastor Alfred Fisk founded The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, California. Smith calls it an

Smith said Thurman spoke of carrying on his work, and Thurman looked up and said, “Maybe the young man standing in the doorway may be the one to carry on my legacy. … He and I became the best of friends.”

As Smith taught seminary students, “every class I taught while he was living, their final assignment was to write a letter with a question they wanted Thurman to answer.” And Thurman wrote back.

Why is Thurman – author of Jesus and the Disinherited and many other books –still influential to many today?

“It’s almost like a code that Thurman spoke — that’s how close he was to God,” Smith said. “Those days of sitting along the Halifax River in Florida, watching

Interfaith listening. This has been at the heart of Smith’s ministry. His recent sermon at First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn began with a moment of meditation and the sound of a singing bowl, from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

Jim Johnson, a Harvard-educated lawyer who was a parishioner of Smith’s at First church, told Hendrickson, Smith’s biographer, that Smith “created space in which those who believed could commune with those who had questions. And those who had questions would not feel uncomfortable. … At a time when anti-Muslim sentiment was high, and it is even worse now, he had imams delivering messages and cantors giving Old Testament scripture.”

experiment — to test “was it possible for people from different racial backgrounds to worship together?”

In the mid-1970s, Smith was invited to a dinner party at the home of Annalee Scott. Smith was then the pastor, along with the White pastor Carl Dudley, of Berea Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Missouri. Scott was a parishioner there, as well as the director of the Phyllis Wheatley Branch of the YMCA, and Thurman and Scott had become friends. Smith and his wife, Fran, arrived late at the gathering – one of their daughters was sick – so when they first got to Scott’s apartment, they stood in for a few minutes in a doorway to avoid interrupting Thurman as he spoke.

the storms come in the moonlight, he talks about the undulating waves spoke strongly to him. There was strength in the trees. Thurman talked to trees. I think that resonates even today. ... The power of Thurman comes out of his deep meditation, his being a mystic, listening and paying attention to the clues. Life is always providing clues.”

What are some of the learnings Smith has gleaned from his lifetime of involvement with civil rights, with his work as a pastor and teacher in diverse settings?

Nonviolence. “I’m a strong believer in nonviolence,” Smith said. “You just can’t be angry all the time.”

Journaling. Smith’s lifelong spiritual practice has been to journal his thoughts and emotions. “When I see our ancestors being whipped and see the lashes on their backs, it just overwhelms me,” he said. “Instead of crying, I go write what I am feeling in my journal. … I sit quietly. I go to bed late. When the house is quiet, I hear the sounds. We live in a retirement center, so it’s the aches and pains of people who are there. I listen to that.”

“I’m a strong believer in nonviolence,” Smith said. “You just can’t be angry all the time.”

LESLIE SCANLON is the former national news reporter for the Outlook. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

Re-enchanting doctrine: Listening to God’s Word

Cynthia L. Rigby

Above the entry to one of our student apartment complexes at Austin Seminary there is a sign which reads, “da nobis praedicatores non odiosis.” This means, in English, “Send us preachers who are not boring.”

The funny thing is, Anderson House is not an old relic of a building built at the turn of the last century, at a time when we might imagine people were more apt to capture wisdom in Latin. It was dedicated in 2009, in honor of the Reverend John and Nancy Anderson. The quote was a favorite of John’s, and although the phrase was proffered in English, the seminary decided to translate it into Latin. The thinking was, as I recall, that we at the seminary didn’t want to put the idea of boring preachers into the head of every passer-by in central Austin. Nor did we want the incoming students worrying about being boring preachers, at least right off the bat. We put John’s appeal in Latin to disguise it, figuring most people would assume it said something academic and erudite, and pass on by. We also knew the students would figure out the ruse and join the conversation soon enough.

THE NONES CALL US OUT

Twelve years later I’d say the cat is now out of the bag on the subject of boring sermons and, for that matter, boring church and boring doctrines. The religiously affiliated, including those labeled nones and dones, brazenly call boringness as they see it, and as they do so they sharpen the tenor of their criticism to declare that the institutional church and its belief systems are not only boring, but also that they are irrelevant and even dangerous.

What specific beliefs do we have, for example, that would help us counsel a Mexican immigrant whose family didn’t make it over the border? How can we celebrate the divine omnipotence, they might ask, while kowtowing this-worldly powermongers who falsely see themselves as little versions of God? The nones and dones have shown

us that our beliefs can be used not only to promote social righteousness, but to camouflage our own hypocrisy.

The New Atheism is a movement that takes the criticism of all things religious one step further, calling everyone who believes in the existence of a transcendent God “delusional.” Founder Richard Dawkins defines a delusion as “a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence.” In The God Delusion he goes on to say, “if one person has a delusion we call it insanity, but if many people have one we call it religion.”

ARE BELIEFS SIMPLY WINDOW DRESSING?

Consider the following excerpt from an interview with Yale happiness professor Dr. Laura Santos. Speaking about why people who are members of religious communities are statistically healthier, she postulates there is something about church that functions as “cultural apparatus” for behaviors that foster wellness. We might think this is because you need a rich sense of beliefs — you need to buy into theological principles to get the benefits.” But Santos told the New York Times, “Another [possibility] is that it’s your commitment to these groups that does it, and it doesn’t have to come with a set of spiritual beliefs. But is it the Christian who really believes in Jesus and reads the Bible? Or is it the Christian who goes to church, goes to the spaghetti suppers, donates to charity, participates in the volunteer stuff? Turns out, to the extent that you can disentangle those two, it seems to not be our beliefs but our actions that are driving the fact that religious people are happier.”

When I follow Santos’ lead and ask people, “Why do you go to church? Is it for the spaghetti dinners or for the beliefs?” The church people –the ones sitting on folding chairs in Sunday School at 9:30 every week, the ones who keep up with reading the Outlook, the ones who always volunteer in the soup kitchen – reflexively answer “the spaghetti dinners!” Way to crush a theologian’s heart!

But I’m not buying that no one except systematic theologians cares about doctrine, because human beings love, or at least value, stories both glorious and difficult passed down from the past and passed up from the future, in hope. Doctrine is about the story of what it means to belong to God and to one another — a story in which we all participate.

BELIEFS MATTER

“Would you rather be boring or wrong?” I was once asked, in an interview for a job teaching theology. I responded that I’d rather be wrong then boring because if I aimed at being “right” I would not be talking about God at all because I would have failed to take into account God’s mystery, God’s incomprehensibility. “If you have understood, what you have understood is not God,” I ended with a flourish, borrowing a line from St. Augustine.

My answer, I first thought, was pretty good. But my mind kept working on the question even as I continued with the interview. It finally came to me that I had been tricked. I had been given a false dichotomy. We don’t have to choose between being wrong and being boring because to speak rightly of God is to speak beautifully and truly, never boringly. Which means Christian teachings (a.k.a. “doctrine”) should be interesting, beautiful and relevant, too. Yet I see very active church folks rolling their eyes whenever the word “doctrine” comes up. It just sounds dusty, dried up and, archaic, doesn’t it? And “dogma”? Forget about it. But I think the word “doctrine” might be redeemable, and I know doctrines are redeemable — even doctrines like total depravity, substitutionary atonement and election. That is my passion — figuring out and working with others at how and why doctrine is living and relevant to our lives today.

THE ROLE OF TRADITION

Interestingly, the religiously unaffiliated have been around long enough that they are beginning to form their own communities of support that, they claim, is not premised in common beliefs. There

is one church in London called “Atheists’ Church” where they sing popular songs and read from literature other than the Bible. But they sometimes have trouble shaping rituals because they don’t have a common tradition or text to draw from.

If I’m imagining our Outlook audience correctly we’re smiling gleefully under our turned-up collars thinking we’re going to get them (back) to real church one of these days.

Let’s consider, however our own dissatisfaction and concerns about running our lives or our churches with the doctrines of the church always in view. The scary thing is that we can see the damage to the world and to the lives that inhabit it; massive destruction that has been funded by the doctrines of the church. I would also say, very carefully, that some of these are “abuses” of doctrine such as using the doctrine of Christian vocation to keep people from trying to improve their social status or using the doctrine of election to frighten people by making them feel unsure of their salvation.

Sometimes there are problems with the beliefs themselves. For example, most contemporary Reformed theologians reject the doctrine of impassibility, which holds that God is unaffected by anything and doesn’t have emotions. But this picture of God is inconsistent with both the biblical witness and the doctrine of incarnation. Am I boring you, yet? Sorry, I’ll try to spice it up. But I thought you would want to know that we are free to make changes — if we are called to by the Word of God. More on that, next column!

What all this means is that projects related to re-enchanting doctrine must be engaged with eyes wide open to how doctrines have been used for insidious purposes by those with privilege to disempower those with less than themselves. Our goal will be not to retrieve doctrine, to defend it, to prove it or to study it so we can be “right.” Rather, our goal will be to hold these doctrines in our own hands, listen for God’s Word and maybe press on them a little, shaping them into forms that bring new life and wonder. Finally, the point is to come to see doctrine as a living, changing means by which the Spirit joins us with those who came before us – and those who will come after us – in the mystery that is the life of the triune God.

CYNTHIA L. RIGBY is the W.C. Brown Professor of Theology at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), she’s published numerous books, including Holding Faith: A Practical Introduction to Christian Faith (Abingdon Press, 2018). Dr. Rigby is a sought-after speaker known for making the “so what?” of Christian doctrine clear and accessible.

Death without regret

Ashley Mason Brown

As a Christian, I’ve always believed in life after death. But when it came to my personal life, it seemed too good to be true. My heart couldn’t handle being letdown, and so I reserved life after death for everyone else. I liked to think I would disintegrate into the Appalachian soil of my home and cease to fully exist.

When it became clear my grandmother Elizabeth was dying, I spent the month of May with her at Givens Highland Farms in Black Mountain, North Carolina. We spent our time together saying a confluence of holy goodbyes and reminisced memories. We had a month together to process her upcoming death. I napped in the twin bed, holding her and listening to the hum of her oxygen machine and the air conditioner.

Her death broke me into twenty thousand shards of memories. Everywhere I look, I see reminders of her. My grandmother’s last gift to me was the lesson of an intentional conversation about death.

She and I orchestrated the “perfect” goodbye. It was the goodbye we needed, outside of traditional norms. We read Shakespeare. We discussed Esther and Mordecai and what bravery looks like. We sang “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” I snuck her lemon loaves from Starbucks and we did our hair and nails together. In between recalling old memories and bouts of dementia, we would find moments in which we could meet in the middle. We both took full advantage of those quick moments of lucidity and grace, knowing they were numbered.

We were intergenerational allies, navigating difficult conversations only she and I could have. I’d like to think my

seminary training had prepared me to be able to listen to her without shutting down.

One of the most powerful conversations we had was about the transmutation of our relationship after she died. How often are we given an opportunity for deep dialogue with our loved ones when time is running out? She seemed to appreciate that I wanted to talk about her death. It wasn’t a topic many of her visitors wanted to cover.

We talked about what our family would look like without her here, if I would be okay without her, if her death would

Because love comes from God, her love for me could never die even after her body gave way.

Ashley with her grandmother, Elizabeth, in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

be the end of our relationship or if there was a possibility of continuing our relationship even after her death.

We landed on a soft, in-between Christian-y place, rooted in heavenly doctrine. Because love comes from God, her love for me could never die even after her body gave way.

When she did die three months after I left, I could no longer feel her. Life continued, and it felt like a betrayal of her legacy to exist in a new life without her. If a part of my soul had died, then how could I stand in line at the grocery store or do laundry or read or cook dinner? And we had dialogued; we

had prepared! If any two people were ready for death, it was me and Elizabeth.

With time, I am beginning to feel her again, and it comes through in surprising corners of my life. It may be someone using a familiar phrase of hers while on the phone walking by, or in dreams in which she’ll sit by me as I eat lunch. Sometimes it’s the simple beauty of a rainbow or of a stranger wearing the exact same shirt as the infamous polka-dotted shirt she wore everywhere. I realize now that I will never be without her. Her legacy is imprinted upon me from her Presbyterian theology to our roots in Appalachia. And the alchemy of a life well lived is a powerful thing. ◆

ASHLEY MASON BROWN is a student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and is working towards ordination in the PC(USA). Her passions include teaching reiki, studying theology and working with Afghan refugees in Austin, Texas.

Advocating for older adults in long-term care

Kathy Bradley

QUESTIONS:

1. What must it be like as an adult child to watch your elderly parent’s health fail?

2. What does the author’s journey reveal about how God interacts and intervenes in our lives? What role does paying attention play in caring for our loved ones?

3. How have you prepared for long-term care? How do you feel about the people you have appointed guarantors?

4. How do you define Quality of Care and Quality of Life in your own words? Visit www.ourmothersvoice.org for more information.

5. DoesMatthew 25:31-46 motivate you to embrace advocacy for those without a voice? If not, what will?

Transition: Kathy Bradley’s advocacy work is helping those in long-term care live better lives. Patricia Tull imagines how purposeful aging can make a difference.

A faithful Third Act

Patricia K. Tull

QUESTIONS:

1. What comes to mind when you hear the term “baby boom”? What do you find to be positive or optimistic about the designation “Baby Boomer”? Negative or depressing?

2 How do you respond to Elder Carol Dunn when she says, “Getting serious about earth care and helping restore the planet for our beloved grandchildren has brought us new energy, hope, and even fun”?

3. Do you agree with Tull: “Baby Boomers approaching retirement with pensions and social security have vast resources to help reset the needle on climate change, and nothing helps to soothe the fretting like getting things done”? Does her insight overwhelm you or inspire you?

4. Do you agree that Moses is a fitting biblical role model for staying purposefully involved in later life? Why?

5. How do you react to the idea that your experienced hands “have so much more to give”?

Transition: Patricia Tull inspires us to imagine the fruitfulness our lives could have, even in the third act of life. For others, growing older does not feel as full of opportunity. Missy Buchanan offers a hopeful and faithful vision of older adulthood.

I’m just here

Missy Buchanan

QUESTIONS:

1. What comes to mind when you think of older adulthood?

2. When have you heard an older adult utter the three simple but heartbreaking words: “I’m just here”? What feelings did those three words evoke in you?

3. What difference would it make if we adopted specific goals for our later years, such as having meaning and purpose, being respected and independent, and having deep, fulfilling relationships?

How would adopting such goals transform older adulthood from “I’m just here” to “Here I am, Lord!”?

4. Which of the five tips for navigating the relationship between adult children and aging parents most resonates with you and your experience?

Transition: Goal setting can be an important tool in staying motivated in later life and striving to be useful to God and others. Leslie Scanlon introduces us to an octogenarian pastor whose most consequential work addresses today’s broken world.

Paul Smith

Leslie Scanlon

QUESTIONS:

1

. What do you think of the boundarycrossing ecosystem Smith has created to address conflict? How do you imagine his work is developing relationships across various divides?

2. Can you imagine a “sacred space” in which all participants are encouraged “to unleash all the things that are on their minds, without being judged”? How could such a space be located and honored in your community?

3. “Smith says the Baptist church gave him the freedom to find his voice”: How are you helping young people to find their voices in your community?

4. Of the three learnings Smith identifies – nonviolence, interfaith listening, and journaling – which do you imagine to be most influential in bringing change to the world? Which will you adopt as a spiritual practice?

MARK D. HINDS, Ed.D., is a retired writer, editor and publisher for Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) curriculum development. Hinds wrote the popular confirmation curriculum “Commissioned to Change the World,” published by the Presbyterian Outlook and lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his partner and spouse, the Rev. Dr. Peggy C. Hinds.

Horizon Bible Study: Celebrating Sabbath

Lesson 6: Sabbath and Hospitality

Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15

We are a friendly church.” This is how many churches describe themselves. Generally, they mean that they notice visitors and speak to them. Before COVID hit, some churches sought out visitors and gave them a gift: a loaf of homemade bread or a goody bag with a magnetic notepad and information about the church. In other churches, visitors stopped by a welcome station where a volunteer chatted, got contact information and someone called later to invite them to an information class.

WELCOME IS A GOOD THING, BUT IT IS NOT THE SAME THING AS HOSPITALITY.

Hospitality means the “love of stranger.” Biblically, it was a sacred duty to welcome strangers into one’s home where they found protection, shelter, food and rest. Today, hotels are referred to as the “hospitality industry,” but biblically, hospitality was providing for the stranger in a more personal way.

During a mission trip to Guatemala we stayed with local Christians. I did not share my host family’s language nor did they speak English. We communicated as best we could, and it was clear they were eager to meet my needs. They provided an abundance of food with the rare addition of chicken. It was hard to eat when I knew they had used their meager income to prepare a dish for me. The home was modest. The toilet was an outhouse. The washing machine was a large tub with a wash board, which they used to wash my clothes. As a North American used to being able to afford appliances and buy meat regularly, I was humbled by their hospitality. For them it was an honor to receive a guest and welcome me into their home.

Hospitality to strangers has more radical aspects. Jewish scholar David Marcus reveals the “astonishing fact that the Bible has more laws dealing with the protection of the stranger than with any other law, including honoring God.” Not only is the stranger to be welcomed into one’s home, the stranger is not to be abused or discriminated against. In every age, it is easy to scapegoat the stranger, blaming foreigners for crime, taking our jobs or bringing undesirable elements into the culture. To include the stranger in the observance of sabbath is to remember we

were all once strangers in the land, which is true of all people in the United States who are not Native Americans.

Today, many churches are concerned with survival. The stranger is seen as a potential new member, preferably one who can serve on a committee, give money or help with the work of the church. But Americans are less interested in faith. Increasingly, there are people who are done with church, often called “nones,” who have no religious affiliation. According to the Pew Research Center, 29% of the United States population self-identifies as “nones,” a number that has grown slowly but steadily each year since the 1990s. Of those surveyed, 41% said religion was very important to them, a loss of 4% in one year.

The decline of faith in America may make us anxious about the survival of the church. If it inspires a sense of urgency, that is a good thing if it makes us do something different like thinking of hospitality not as a welcome once people visit the church, but getting to know and accept people outside of the community of faith. Hospitality is about being faithful to Christ by welcoming people to a meal or into our homes.

Michael Frost, in his book Surprise the World! The Five Habits of Highly Missional People, urges us to eat with three people per week with whom we don’t normally eat, at least one of whom is not a member of our church. In eating with individuals within the church we build supportive bonds. In inviting acquaintances or nonbelievers, our goal is neither conversion nor inviting them to church. It is opening one’s heart to another person — hearing their stories, hopes and dreams and sharing ours.

Really?! I would have to clean my house! I would have to thoughtfully reach out to people to have lunch or coffee! I would have to lay aside my stereotypes and prejudices to welcome even those with whom I might disagree! Yet, in eating with others we imitate Christ, who ate with shady characters, knuckle-headed disciples, strangers and dear friends. We accept people as they are and if faith comes up, we listen without judgment to their experience and share ours. As much as the idea challenges me, it is time to get out of my rut and try something new.

ROSALIND BANBURY lives in Richmond, Virginia and is a pastor in the Presbytery of the James.

America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible

Civilization, 1794-1911

by Mark A. Noll

Oxford University Press, 846 pages

Published June 3, 2022

Noll covers the contentious place the Bible had in shaping “a Bible civilization”...(i)f there was an issue of religious and public debate during the nineteenth century, the Bible was part of it, and Noll covers it.

BOOK IN REVIEW

Mark Noll demonstrates the truth of the dictum that the Bible, especially the King James Version, is the most influential book in American culture. Though this verdict has often been rendered, it has never been demonstrated so carefully and compellingly as in Noll’s large book.

This is the second of Noll’s two books on this theme, the first being In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492-1783. Nearly all of Noll’s prodigious publications touch on the role of the Bible in American Christianity and American culture. America’s Book represents the culmination of a career-spanning conception of what American Christianity was and how it came to be. It confirms Noll’s place as the foremost historian of American Christianity now writing and interpreting, both for the academy and the church, albeit as a professor of history emeritus at the University of Notre Dame.

In America’s Book, Noll plays a contrapuntal theme — the importance of the Bible in forming American culture and the ways in which American culture shaped the nature and meaning of Scripture. Noll writes that he hopes the book’s “arguments will not only highlight the simple importance of the nation’s biblical heritage but will do so in a way that illuminates both positive and regrettable legacies of that heritage. If it does so, the book may teach; it will certainly reprove and correct; it may even offer hints about instruction in righteousness.”

Noll covers the contentious place the Bible had in shaping “a Bible civilization” and how that fractious environment eventually broke the hegemony that the Bible held in both religious and civil discourse. His parameters are symbols of the power of the Bible in shaping America culture — 1794, when Thomas Paine’s antibiblical treatise, The Age of Reason, was published; and 1911, when the American Bible Society celebrated the 300th anniversary of the release of the King James Version with triumphant orations by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. His analysis ranges from Methodists to Roman Catholics to Jews to atheists to opponents and defenders of slavery and the Civil War and contenders over gender and more. If there was an issue of religious and public debate during the nineteenth century, the Bible was part of it, and Noll covers it.

The result is a tome — almost 700 pages of text and almost 200 pages of information- packed notes and two careful indices. This will limit the readership of Noll’s magnum opus, but it should be an invaluable addition to the library of every pastor and church leader as a guide to the future through the interpretation of the Bible in the past.

It may be ungracious to ask him to consider writing at least two more books. First, a summary and distillation of In the Beginning Was the Word and America’s Book for use in college and seminary classes and in church school settings. Second, a survey of the Bible in the twentieth century — the golden era of biblical translation and scholarship and continuing controversies over the Bible’s meaning for contemporary American, if not global, life.

A historian’s work is never done, even when it is as superb an achievement as Mark A. Noll’s. ◆

REVIEWED BY

: JOHN M. MULDER, a former president of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and a historian of American Christianity. He lives in Holland, Michigan.

BOOK IN REVIEW

We bring our whole selves to church — our skills, strengths, vulnerability, faith, compassion, and other qualities we and others consider positive. But we also bring those behaviors and personality characteristics that negatively affect us, family members, friends, and neighbors in the pew; particularly when present in leaders or clergy, these qualities often impact our congregations.

Chuck DeGroat contends that coming to understand narcissism “has been the most important revelation for my own work with pastors, ministry leaders, spouses, and organizations.” In When Narcissism Comes to Church, he draws on his years as a professor, consultant, licensed therapist and spiritual director to address the problem.

DeGroat’s introduction to narcissism is accessible to those without a clinical background, as well as grounded in his deep faith and understanding of Scripture. He writes for a wide audience yet offers numerous professional and technical resources for those who want to go deeper. As a psychologist and church member, I found his book to be well-researched, artfully crafted and clinically sound. He also cautions us to resist concluding that we see narcissism in everyone we encounter, reminding me of first-year graduate students in my classes who diagnose family and friends with every clinical issue described in the psychopathology text!

In concise chapters, DeGroat walks readers through the process of recognizing narcissism in pastors, lay leaders, and families, as well as in congregations. He illustrates with stories that follow some of his clients through journeys to healthier lives. After some stories, I found myself discouraged; fortunately, DeGroat responds with strategies for action in chapters such as “Healing Ourselves, Healing the Church,” and “Transformation for Narcissists Is Possible.”

There are many strengths in DeGroat’s book, including his ability to explain complex psychological issues and his recognition that “simple identification of an experience does not amount to healing.” Those of us who engage in clinical work to treat people presenting with symptoms of narcissism know that change is hard and takes time, and DeGroat cautions that healing and transformation is difficult work. I appreciate that he shared vignettes with positive outcomes as well as stories of those who were not ready to confront this difficult issue. I was also particularly moved by his disclosure of his own self-exploration and willingness to name some themes in his own life that resonate with his topic.

A favorite hymn in our congregation is “Gather Us In.” Marty Haugen’s lyrics acknowledge that in striving to be “light to the whole human race,” we also seek to gather in “the rich and the haughty ... the proud and the strong”; we ask for hearts “so meek and so lowly” and for “the courage to enter the song.” If we are successful in gathering in a full range of humanity, churches will inevitably include those whose personalities and behaviors might be called narcissism. DeGroat offers a compelling vision of “(W)hat does a healthy system look like?” and gives us the tools to identify narcissism and move toward healing, greater health and being better prepared to live out our calling as congregations. ◆

When Narcissism Comes to Church

by Chuck DeGroat

InterVarsity Press, 200 pages

Published in paperback, August 30, 2022

“(S)imple identification of an experience does not amount to healing.” Those of us who engage in clinical work to treat people presenting with symptoms of narcissism know that change is hard and takes time, and DeGroat cautions that healing and transformation is difficult work.

REVIEWED BY : DR. JOHN SHUSTITZKY, a psychologist and Chair of the Department of Applied Clinical Psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Southern California campuses. He lives in Los Angeles, California, and is a member of Westwood Presbyterian Church.

With the beginning of a new year comes the desire for new rhythms and practices to draw closer to God, one another and our best selves. With that in mind, we’re reviewing recently released devotional reading, as well as connecting you to our website for resources from prior years and our winter books issue.

The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie

Convergent Books, 256 pages

Publishing February 14, 2023

Oh, dear ones (as Bowler says), if your days are tough or tedious, this might be the devotional for you. She and Richie respond to a culture of “#blessed” with a volume of poetic blessings that illuminate the good and holy in all of us, while also revealing what is enduring about God.

Their collection speaks to situations from the traumatic – loss of loved ones, suffering, feeling abandoned by God – to the quotidian – sleeplessness, exhaustion or just plain grouchiness. They accommodate those seeking a regular practice by offering seasonal blessings for Advent and Lent, but their book will work just as well tucked into a backpack or nightstand drawer, ready to be pulled out when the situation demands.

A Year of Slowing Down: Daily Devotions for Unhurried Living

by Alan Fadling

InterVarsity Press, 336 pages

Published December 6, 2022

Even the cover of Alan Fadling’s devotional inspires us to slow down; reading a single entry may lead to relaxed shoulders, deeper breathing and perhaps even a slow and stretchy sigh of relief. Each entry is concise, with short sentences that get right to the point yet seem invitational rather than curt. Fadling opens with God resting (using the words of Genesis to remind us that God declared rest holy) and then makes his way through the entire Bible, reflecting upon snippets of Scripture that celebrate a gentler way of life, full of quiet walks with God and others.

While Fadling makes an effort to use careful language to describe Jewish characters, it’s not enough — his examples occasionally obscure the fact that (since Jesus and most of his followers were Jewish) these are conflicts within a community, not between two different religions. Some may find this worrisome, given ongoing concerns of anti-Semitism; regardless, this is a meaningful guide for those looking to sink more deeply into God’s presence in the year ahead.

Reflections on the Sunday Gospel

by Pope Francis Image,

304 pages

Published November 1, 2022

Pope Francis draws upon his many homilies as well as the writings of saints like Augustine and Gregory to reflect upon lectionary gospel passages. He explores each Bible story fully and reflects upon its application in the church today; this is a meaningful choice for those seeking accessible explanations of Jesus’ context and the biblical world rather than stories of the Bible applied to the day-to-day.

By quoting extensively from the church fathers, the Pope relies on exclusively male language, which may prove off-putting to some. Others may enjoy the traditional language and the richness of these weekly devotions.

Mission Possible: One-Year Devotional for Young Readers and Mission Possible One-Year Devotional

by Tim Tebow with A. J. Gregory

Waterbrook, 384 pages

Published November 8, 2022

When I first received the Mission Possible series, it seemed more likely that the Detroit Lions would win the Super Bowl than I would review it for the Outlook. If you understood that reference, then Tebow’s devotional is a good choice for you or the sports fans in your family.

A football player known for publicly sharing his faith, Tebow offers earnest pep talks that implore readers to find and accomplish their God-given purpose. My teenagers and I read his devotional for young readers aloud at the dinner table, leading to lively debates about substitutionary atonement and one son dusting off his Bible to refer to the Moses stories! Our family often disagreed with Tebow’s more conservative theology, but he backs up his beliefs with Bible references and occasional dips into New Testament Greek, as well as enthusiastic examples from life and sports that will appeal to many readers. Allow me to publicly repent — turns out that a Heisman trophy winner who’s eager to share his love of God has a great deal to offer.

Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year A

Heidi Haverkamp, editor

Westminster John Knox, 592 pages

Published August 30, 2022

Lectionary preachers (and other fans of the liturgical year) will welcome this rich and practical devotional. Heidi Haverkamp understands what inspires preachers, and she delivers a guide chock full of biblical quotes, brief reflections, suggested practices and the occasional spot to write a personal connection to the text. It’s a flexible resource, meant to be read daily, weekly or as needed alongside a Bible; busy readers can pick and choose from among the Scripture passages offered, while those looking to savor the Word can spend time in lectio divina, the Examen and other practices.

Everyday Connections is part of a series which includes Worship Companion, liturgy and prayers for every Sunday in the church year, making it an ideal choice for those enjoy their devotional reading with a side of worship prep.

In 2022 we reviewed a number of books that make for good weekly or daily devotional reading. Some speak to the daily lives of parents, the work of social justice or contemplative experiences; others speak to the unique interests of older adults or LGBT Christians. All of these can be found under “Devotional Reading” on pres-outlook.org and can be easily accessed by scanning the QR code to the right.

CLASSIFIEDS

Berkeley Springs Presbyterian Church seeks a SOLO FULL TIME PASTOR We are a small, dedicated congregation in historic, culturally rich Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, located in the eastern panhandle close to the DC metro area. We are searching for a passionate and driven person to lead us through a crucial time in the life of the congregation, helping us to grow our ministries for all ages while challenging us to find new and innovative ways to deepen our service to God, our community and to reach those often marginalized by society. View MIF #23129.AB1, email bspresbyterianchurchwv@gmail. com, or contact Mary Lou Stottlemyer at (304) 258-2689

Inland Southern California Presbytery is seeking a FULL-TIME CHARISMATIC, INNOVATIVE LEADER to guide pastors in 25 churches, many <100 members, in seeing themselves in a new light: as partners who can share gifts and resources to do more together than we can do on our own. The ideal leader would be an ordained minister or elder with at least 2 years experience, gifted in communication, big picture thinking, facilitating change, with a willingness to engage conflict. This leader would help us live into the ideal of our Matt. 25 initiative to cultivate vital congregations, dismantle structural racism, and eradicate structural poverty within the Presbytery of Riverside and the communities in which we do ministry. This person will lead our presbytery in focusing on the missional, relational, structural, and staff priorities that were revealed in our latest Mission Assessment Report. SoCal is a diverse region, but our congregations don’t always reflect that diversity. Are you the proactive, hopeful leader that we need? Contact us at riversideleadersearch@ gmail.com for more information.

FULL-TIME STATED SUPPLY PASTOR in Astoria, Oregon, a historic, fun, and fabulous place to live and work. Info at https://cascadespresbytery.org/ job-openings/

First Federated Church (FFC) of Peoria, Illinois, a medium-large sized church of approximately 500, seeks a FULL TIME SENIOR PASTOR to lead our actively involved congregation and staff as we forge into a new future. We are a traditional church with progressive people described as friendly and welcoming. Specifically, we are a multi-generational mix of backgrounds, beliefs, and political affiliations. We have beautiful indoor and spacious outdoor facilities, a vibrant music program, and strong children and youth programs. FFC is seeking a senior pastor who can communicate a message with real life examples, and who will collaborate with us to serve our community and our world. We are ready to be inspired and challenged to be the people God wants us to be. To explore our website, visit https://www.ffcpeoria.com/ Interested applicants, send a cover letter and resume to the following email: spsc2021@ffcpeoria.com

PASTOR/ HEAD OF STAFF

First Presbyterian Church of Kirkwood, Missouri

A progressive church with a heart for service and a hunger for learning is seeking a head pastor/ head of staff. We are a Matthew 25 congregation of 700+ members in a suburb of St. Louis.

Minimum required qualifications:

• A commitment to Jesus Christ and strong understanding of the Reformed Tradition

• Ordained as a teaching elder in PC(USA) or related denomination

• A Master’s degree in a related field (Doctorate degree in an appropriate field desirable)

• 10 years of experience

• Leadership and management of both staff and volunteers

An ideal candidate will:

• Be an open minded, dynamic leader and excellent communicator

• Positive, effective team leader

• Be active in the church and greater community

• Have a good sense of humor and have rapport with members of all ages and walks of life

Get to know us and check out our MIF on KirkwoodPres.org! We are accepting PIFs until the position is filled.

Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, in the heart of midtown Manhattan, seeks applicants for the position of Director of Communications and Development. We seek a person with top-drawer writing and editing skills, vision and passion for telling the evolving story of this community of faith, organizational chops and a collegial spirit.

See fapc.org/search for a detailed position description and to submit a letter of interest. We will begin interviews in January 2023.

7 West 55th Street • New York, NY 10019 fapc.org • 212.247.0490

The First Presbyterian Church in the city of New York City is seeking an ASSOCIATE PASTOR

FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AND MISSION

We are looking for an experienced leader and energetic motivator with a heart for mission, to galvanize our congregation by broadening and deepening the involvement of members in opportunities to serve. With our Associate Pastor, First Church will continue to serve in partnership with other aligned mission-driven organizations in NYC and elsewhere, creating more opportunities for new and existing members to get connected. We welcome applicants with 2+ years of experience. Learn more at: www. fpcnyc.org or email apnc@fpcnyc.org

Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church, a mission-oriented congregation, is seeking a SOLO PASTOR to work with a committed congregation. We are situated in a suburb of Syracuse, NY, a mid-sized city that is a short drive from the Finger Lakes. We enjoy all the advantages of having Syracuse University in our midst as well as a medical school and an impressive health-care system. The community is diverse and culturally rich. Recently, Micron Technology chose Greater Syracuse as the site for the largest investment of a company to a region in the United States, thus positioning the area for significant growth. To learn more about us, visit our website: https://www.phpchurch.org. To have a better sense of our aspirations and priorities, see MIF# 05929.ABO. If you have questions, feel free to email us at pncpebblehill@gmail.com

Lent Devotional

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• Read and listen online or print and share.

• Receive daily e-mails.

• Request your printed copy.

Plus download our worship planning kit with sermon ideas, prayers and liturgies, hymn suggestions, and more! www.pts.edu/devotional

PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH

Union Presbyterian Se minary invites nominations and applications for the president of our two campuses. The Seminary is one of the nation’s outstanding centers of theological education, long recognized as a leader in the Reformed tradition. Blessed with a creative cadre of faculty scholars, a talented and dedicated staff, a supportive board of trustees, and a substantial endowment, Union Presbyterian Se minary is p repared to continue it s work under the direction of a visionary leader.

For more information, or to apply or to nominate a candidate, please go to: https://bit.ly /3Q9lSWV

Richmond, Virginia Charlotte, North Carolina upsem.edu

Pittsburgh Seminary invites you to follow our daily Lent Devotional: Imago Dei

REV.

Shandon Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina. Originally from Michigan, Jenny prays for snow every winter. The rest of the year, she reads voraciously, runs slowly, and drinks (way) too much coffee.

BENEDICTORY

You can’t binge-watch a life

When it comes to television, I’m a binge-watcher. I can’t help myself. It matters little whether it’s six episodes or 16; whether the narrative is tightly constructed or interrupted a dozen times over by subplots; whether it’s the stuff of reality or out of this world. I am the target audience to whom streaming services cater. Prior commitments or daily responsibilities be damned. I have had to train myself to avoid watching altogether unless I know time is on my side. Because once the story has begun, I’m all in. Even if it’s poorly written; even if it’s ridiculously predictable; even if I would have designed it differently. I like to see a story’s full arc unfold.

This commitment to narrative is also why I’m so stubbornly loyal to the church. Because the full arc unfolds every time the congregation gathers.

Last week, some of our newest members brought their newest child – just three weeks old! –to worship. And as some of our more senior adults hovered overhead and cooed about fingers and toes and wisps of hair, a first grader wormed her way through all the adult legs, patted the infant on the cheek and whispered, “Hello, new friend,” before running off to play freeze tag on the lawn.

Last spring, one of our graduating high schoolers played a clarinet solo as the postlude to Youth Sunday. It was a length piece. And when it was over, it wasn’t just their parents who leapt to their feet and applauded and laughed holy laughter with tear-filled eyes. It was the whole sanctuary.

Last month, a parent texted me from the kindergarten drop-off line. “When I dropped [my son] off,” she wrote, “I said ‘I love you!’ and he said back, ‘Yes, mama. But remember: when we go separate ways, we say, ‘Go in peace! Peace be with you!’” Because when we share peace on Sundays, adults shake hands with children just as sincerely as they do fellow adults, and most of our kids have grown accustomed to greeting the whole room

as they make their way up front for our word with children. They know they aren’t just guests playing in an adult space. It’s their space, too.

Last summer, our Vacation Bible School looked like a one-room schoolhouse, with everyone from 2 up through 92 years of age in the same space for the same lesson and the same activities. It wasn’t seamless. It took some generosity of spirit and a brilliantly talented pair of keynote speakers, one with a specialization in teaching adults and the other equally skilled in teaching children. It was worth every minute of planning when the next Sunday the children greeted adults by name and adults bent down for hugs from their new friends.

Last Wednesday, one of our longest-tenured, deeply beloved church members died in the early morning hours. Later that night, I played games with third and fourth graders on the lawn. One of them mentioned I looked a little sad. I explained why. I later learned that little girl asked her family to say “a thank you prayer” for “all of the older people who helped make the church my home” as part of their bedtime routine.

We don’t always get it right, but the church may be one of the last places where the lives of all ages end up intertwined together. Where people choose to take responsibility for helping raise one another and look out for one another. We make important promises at baptism and we take them seriously. Those promises hold well past childhood. They hold us all the way up until the end, when we, like all the saints before us, will from our labors rest.

You can’t binge-watch a life, at least not while living it. Life insists upon unfolding one day at a time. At church, the shared story of all of our lives together, from the youngest up through the oldest, well, that’s the story worth paying attention to. This is where we see how true it is that the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.

JENNY MCDEVITT serves as Senior Pastor of

Preorder your Presbyterian Outlook Lenten devotionals today!

The Outlook is once again offering accessible and inspiring daily devotions for Lent written by editor Teri McDowell Ott.

What do you get with your order?

A digital, daily devotional that you can print and insert into your bulletin, email to your congregation, or read like a book. Color, black and white, and large print versions All files emailed directly to your inbox Learn more and place your order at pres-outlook.org/lent-devo. All files will be emailed to your inbox on January 30, 2023.

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INVEST IN YOUR VALUES

You care deeply about the world and those who live in it. You love God and want to share that love in all that you do.

We can build a custom portfolio that invests in ways that are consistent with your values. You can exclude companies that harm the planet, or that profit from the manufacture of weapons. You can make positive investments in companies that have strong records of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Let us walk with you, your congregation or ministry and build a customized portfolio that is consistent with who you are. Reach out to us today.

CONTACT

Bradley J. Masters

Vice President, Business Development & Financial Advisor 800.858.6127 ext #5910

brad.masters@presbyterianfoundation.org

The information is for discussion purposes only. It is not intended to be, nor should it be construed or used as, investment, tax or legal advice, any recommendation or opinion regarding the appropriateness or suitability of any investment or strategy, or an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Not FDIC insured. Not insured by any federal agency. Not bank guaranteed.