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