ELDERS NOT ELDERLY
by
Terry Jones
© 2001
There are three ways to be an older person. Most are
just folks who are pretty much the same as they were when they were
young. Then there are the elderly. And others tap the archetypal elder
energy within and express "eldership". It is important to reconsider
the word elderly by contrasting it to the more ancient word, elder.
The older person who is elder-like knows he or she
owes advocacy to the family, the community and the environment. This
person, living in the fall and winter of their life, hungers to
harvest through a celebration of their long life.
Harvesting the seeds they have sown leads to leaving
a legacy, sharing wisdom and supporting the young to make their dreams
come true.
The role of the elder in early history differed
considerably from what we call the elderly in modern times. The
elderly today are a relative small number of people who fail to
celebrate their life accomplishments, and remain angry and hurt over
harm done to them long ago by people they refuse to forgive.
The elderly live in fear of life and death, or they
long for life to end. The elderly older person of today scares the
young and reinforces the bias we grow up with about ageing.
The elderly complain about ageing and spend their
retirement separating themselves from the young. The elder continues
to deepen his experience of living even as he grows older. They are
just trying to get through it. The way we think about elders is lost
in the way we think about the elderly.
Our fear of death and our consequent desire to stay
young gets in the way of expressing elder energy. Out language
overflows with words and phrases we use to separate ourselves from
old people: relic of the-Past, old relic, out-of-date, not-with-it,
old fossil obsolete, over-the-hill old fogey, old codger, old crock,
crotchety and decrepit. When the United States was formed in the 18th
century the founding fathers turned to the young for their energy and
their hunger for individual expression. The "New Americans" wanted to
avoid the mistakes and excesses that had reduced their European mother
countries into an old, wrinkled, withered, worn-out and patriarchal
gerontocracy. Since the Industrial Revolution, the warm and nourishing
grandparent had been disappearing. Now on the new frontier the old
could not keep up and the new nation become a community of young
survivors who lost respect for the old. In response to the bias toward
the old, when the young became elder citizens, they assumed they were
to get out of the way and enter a state of retirement.
Although for many retiring is joyful, to retire
means to withdraw from business and public life. In fact, "retiring"
means, retreating, to go backward. The elder retreats in a different
way. He retreats into contemplative activities that assist in
rediscovering one's spiritual center. The message one gets is that the
he or she must move from self to other; from self to community. Sharing
one's long life experience is life enhancing. The elder's
retreat into contemplative activity usually leads to an increased need
to be with and for other people.
If we buy into the American aging model of
depletion, recreation and retirement, our long life experience is lost
to the, generations that follow. The elder seeks balance
intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and physically. And many
retirees find that much of the self-fulfilling aspects of traditional
retirement, such as play and travel, don't, in and of themselves,
enhance a persons sense of balance. I don't mean to suggest that
elders are monks. They do enjoy play and travel.
They probably won't be a shaman or a lama but if
they feel like a guru to those who benefit from their wisdom, all the
better. An American elder is just an older person who has called upon
elder energy from within their soul and psyche. They may dress
conservatively or old fashioned. They may drive too slow, golf a lot,
garden and enjoy classes taught at the local senior center. What makes
them different is the need those around them feel to be in their
presence.
The young believe that old age means being elderly.
The elder role is an alternative to elderly that is life enhancing,
energizes others and calls upon older people to be a resource rather
than a social burden.
© 2001 by Terry Jones
In Search of Elders Institute
Terry Jones, author of The Elder Within: Source of
Mature Masculinity has been a public speaker and workshop facilitator
for thirty years. He has served organizations and businesses
including:
Boise Cascade Corporation
International Childbirth Education Association
Lewis and Clark College
Standard Insurance Company
Living Enrichment Center
Hewlett Packard
Mankind Project
Pacific Lumber
National Organization of Men Against Sexism
Georgia Pacific
Key Bank
2001 is the 30-year anniversary of his marriage and
the year of birth of Terry's fifth grandchild. Jones graduated with a
Master's degree in History in 1970 at Sonoma State U. in California
and received another Master's degree in counseling at Lewis & Clark
College in 1976. He is a certified mental health counselor, spiritual
director and eldering workshop leader.
He co-authored, with Paul Kadota, the book, A
Biography of Kanaye Nagasawa, about a Japanese-American adventurer,
entrepreneur and spiritual leader. It was published in Kagoshima,
Japan in 1978. He also wrote, Also of Men Born, published by Ease Inc.
first in 1980 and again in 1996. This was his first book about men.
Jones founded EASE Inc., one of the first mental
health-consulting firms to offer employee-counseling services
nationally to business and industry in 1979. He is president.
Jones founded
In Search of Elders Institute in 1999
in West Linn, Oregon to give his eldering work an infrastructure.
In Search of Elder's Institute
1200 Stonehaven Court
West Linn, OR 97068
Phone: 800-854-9968 E.108
Fax: 503-635-7587
Copyright 2001 Terry
Jones, all rights reserved
