Empowering Seniors to Step From the Shadows

[Music]

have you heard this one

an older woman walks into a bar

she’s in her late 60s maybe pushing 70

well on the shady side of 65

but instead of a bar let’s make it a

platform

maybe even a stage like this one

it’s not a joke you saw her walk in

you’re seeing her now i thank you

but as a woman of a certain age i am not

here to be seen

i’m here to be heard in western culture

in particular

older women often feel unseen and

unheard

on the fringes instead of part of the

fabric of society

consigned to the margins rather than

being solidly in the middle

of the stories everyone’s telling

we’re taught to be sensitive not to make

jokes based on others

ethnicity their faith practices or their

ableness

but jokes about older women even by

older women are prevalent

and the stock characters in fairy tales

wicked stepmothers and witchy crohn’s

and yet there are 28 million american

women over the age of 65.

we’re women who don’t care so much about

being noticed

as being useful we’re women who want to

use our life experiences

skills and network of relationships

before we take them out of time into

eternity

where they’ll no longer be needed

if we live as long as many of our

parents have

my generation of women will reach our

late 80s or

even our 90s but however many more spins

around the planet we have left

we know that we are inarguably in the

third

trimester of life every expectant mama

knows that the third trimester is often

the most difficult

yet also the most joyous part of a

pregnancy new life is just around the

corner

and we feel the weight of it the aching

and longing for what is yet to be

we have an urgency to accomplish all we

can before new life arrives and changes

everything now women in the third

trimester of life have a diversity of

experience

tempered wisdom and emotional equity

that’s of great value to culture and

community our elder years have the

enormous potential to be a season of

significant fruitfulness and extended

influence

our greatest calling might be ahead of

us not behind

so what is holding us back

where i live in western north carolina

the historic cherokee tradition was to

bestow a special title

on warriors once a claim down the

battlefield who had grown too old to

fight

the days of defending hunting grounds

are long past

but the eastern band of the cherokee

nation

reserves a singular honorific for

men and women of advanced years who

demonstrate the cherokee core values

of spirituality strong individual

character

stewardship group harmony

tribal education identity and

sense of humor according to the tribe’s

website

only 10 people have been so honored in

the last

75 years in

2019 it was a woman nearing 80

by the name of ella bird her special

title

beloved woman now the white settlers of

the southern appalachian mountain

culture had a different way of honoring

older females a granny woman

was an older woman who served her

community as a midwife and

herbal healer and who had the unrivaled

authority to settle

family disputes but here’s the thing

cultures like these that elevate older

women to positions of honor are rare

in our western world

women of certain age i like to call us

wochas

often live in the shadows of younger

people whose lives

loom larger many of us feel our lives

have been diminished

rather than enlarged is it possible that

we have fallen prey

to the most pervasive form of

discrimination

ageism are we even complicit in it

by denying or decrying or

defying our hard-won years rather than

embracing them

as a season of growth author and

psychologist

mary pifer writes that ultimately

ageism is a prejudice against one’s own

future self age discrimination in the

workplace aside

what constitutes prejudice against one’s

own future self

it might be describing ourselves by our

diminished health and stamina

or biasing self against self by

comparing our weaknesses

with another strengths or identifying

ourselves

by what we’ve accomplished in the past

and not what we’re capable of in the

future

maybe we’ve let our previous failures

define us

but our past performance doesn’t

prophesy

our future potential we prejudice self

against self when we define ourselves

according to what we

lack not what we have

i didn’t do that for years i did it for

decades

i have loved to write since i was old

enough to hold a pencil

and by the time i was eight or nine my

mom was submitting my stories to

children’s magazines

all of whom politely rejected my

precociousness

i didn’t want to be an author i just

wanted to get words

i loved out into the world

but as an adult fearing i’d never be

good enough

i held back for decades

until a publisher who just happened to

read my blog

along with about 29 other people

reached out to me with these

life-changing words

you’ve got a book in you

my first book as a solo author released

in hardcover from a traditional

publisher just last year

the year i turned 67. no wonder i love

stories of other women who began

later in life careers anna mary

robertson moses

also known as grandma moses earned

thousands for her primitive folk art

paintings

she started a painting earnest when she

was 77.

laura ingalls wilder renowned for her

writing

published her first little house on the

prairie novel

when she turned 65.

julia child celebrated her culinary

skills

though not her vocal quality became a

television personality at the youthful

age of 51.

sojourner truth was an abolitionist and

human rights activist

well under her 80s what did these women

have in common

they used what they had not what they

lacked

the hebrew scriptures and the christian

old testament tell the story of a widow

and her children

who were about to be sold into slavery

to settle her late

husband’s debts she cried out for help

and the property elisha instructed her

to use what little she had in the house

oil rather than focusing on all that she

lacked

a miracle of provision ensued

maybe you’ve done the math of your life

and all you see is division and

subtraction

fractured relationships and lost

opportunities

but the creator who endowed us with

certain unalienable rights is the master

of multiplication

we see what we lack rather than working

with what we have

but what we release can be reproduced

time energy material resources even that

which we’ve

lost make space in our lives for

something new

so we ask ourselves these questions

what does this experience make possible

with this loss what gain with greater

years

what greater clarity for what is truly

essential in life

the gift of advanced years is simply

this

as older women and men we are

simultaneously

all the ages we’ve ever been just as

rings within a tree bear witness to

seasons lived so too we bear within our

minds and our bodies the memories and

lessons of childhood young adulthood

middle age

hood we can lend strength to younger

saplings because our roots go

deep we’re oaks in a new growth forest

and the sap is still running

so we take this as our challenge what

does your present situation make

possible

what have you gained and what have you

lost

that can impart meaning to others the

soil of every season is fertile ground

how do we take not only the sweetness

but also frankly what stinks about our

lives

and use it as compost to enrich the

lives of others

i’m the daughter of a farmer and believe

me

manure has value

maybe it’s been hard to take the long

view

because you’re you’re looking through

the foreground of your own frustration

with the aging process maybe you felt

invisible or past prime or

saddled with a resume that feels as

obsolete as a computer

you can no longer get parts for

maybe you’ve been personally ageist

realizing that you have prejudice self

against self

because we live in a culture that

celebrates the young

rather than honoring the old

here are four things that we can do

today to step

out of the shadows and into the vibrancy

of third trimester life first

jot down 10 to 15 words that you would

use to describe yourself

now eliminate the ones that arise out of

your perceived

weaknesses second

conduct an inventory of your skills and

experiences

including your volunteer work

what is no longer a part of your life

that once took up a great deal of time

raising a family a demanding career

caregiving

what have you dreamed of doing if you

had the courage

the time the finances

and finally even if you lack

90 percent of what you feel a new

achievement

would require use the 10 percent that

you do have while actively seeking the

resources

that you need the 90

will come

the intentional life happens when we

learn to make

careful choices about the future even as

we grow in maturity from the lessons

gained in the past so we step back we

take stock

and we gain the long view of not what

we’ve lost

not just what’s left but all there is

yet to gain

in the years to come

just might be your story we’re telling

one day

thank you