Tag Archives: faith

Lessons from a 93 Year Old

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

Originally posted on BeautyBeyondBones:
I had one of those experiences last night that’s going to stick with me for a long time. Sunday night. 7:30pm. And I was going to a church I had never been to. I moseyed in…

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Look Around. Your Family Consists of–Surprise!–Complex Human Beings

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

I recently read Rod Dreher’s book How Dante Can Save Your Life. Dreher wrote the book when he was struggling with depression resulting from family problems. Decades earlier he had moved away from his family in Louisiana and established a successful … Continue reading →

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Dealing With Bereavement: Irrational Thoughts and Hope

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

In Joan Didion’s memoir of grief, The Year of Magical Thinking, she reports that her thoughts were often irrational. Her husband John Gregory Dunne died on December 30, but, according to her, “It was deep into the summer… before I … Continue reading →

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Ageism Through the Ages

Posted on April 16, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

Ageism is prejudice or discrimination against those who are middle-aged or elderly. Psychiatrist Robert Neil Butler coined the term in 1969, but of course ageism existed well before that. What attitudes did people have toward the elderly a hundred or … Continue reading →

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What To Hope For Now?

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

On her blog “Everyone Has a Story,” Bird recently wrote about hope in midlife. She notes that in childhood, we all had hopes for what we would be when we grew up, in our twenties our hopes had to do … Continue reading →

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Spiritual Simplification, or Jesus at the Door with Burgers, Fries, and a Drink

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Bob Ritzema

Several months ago, I started a series of posts in response to theologian Lewis Joseph Sherrill’s contention that simplification is the primary psychological task of late adulthood. Sherrill described simplification as “distinguishing the more important from the less important, getting … Continue reading →

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Physical Simplification, Part 3: Disability

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Bob Ritzema

I’ve been writing recently about physical simplification–the process of accepting and affirming rather than rejecting or resisting the physical changes that occur in us as we age. I wrote first about accepting changes in appearance, then about accepting changes in physical … Continue reading →

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The Old Age Style

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Bob Ritzema

Some time ago I ran across an  article from 1972 on the style characteristic of elderly artists. The author, Kenneth Clark finds in their works several common features, which he identified as follows: “Now let me try to summarise the characteristics of the old-age style as they … Continue reading →

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Retirement Leisure vs. Sabbath Rest

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Bob Ritzema

I wrote a few months ago about leisure in retirement, suggesting that one benefit of leisure is to remind us that the value of human life isn’t measured solely by the yardstick of productivity. In this post, I will compare leisure with something else that involves … Continue reading →

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Doing and Being in Elderhood

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Bob Ritzema

In his book What are Old People For?, Dr. Bill Thomas says: “Simple observation has led me to see life as a dynamic and unfolding interplay between the states of doing and being.” According to Thomas, doing occurs “when we … Continue reading →

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