anathstryx
08-02-2011, 11:45 AM
Adopt an Elder!
Version 3.0
Copyright © 2005, 2009 c.e., Isaac Bonewits
Everyone thinks of adoption as something involving babies or at least children. The idea that an old person might need "adopting" isn't intuitively obvious. In this essay, I hope to explain how and why older Pagans could use some help from the rest of the community.
I'm going to open by defining how I am using the terms "senior," "elder," and "Elder." The first term, "senior," can refer to anyone over 55 or 60 years of age in a modern Western culture. The second, "elder" with-a-small-e, can refer to someone who has taken a leadership role in a coven, temple, grove, or other religious community; usually it carries an assumption that the person so refered to has more years of religious training and/or experience than the bulk of the group. When I use "Elder" with-a-capital-E, I'm refering to a combination of the first two terms. A Pagan Elder, therefore, is someone who has devoted most of his or her life to serving a local, regional, national, or even international Pagan community, earning many of their grey hairs in the process, and who is now getting slow and creaky (if not cranky)...
To read the remainder of this article, follow the link:
https://www.neopagan.net/Adopt-an-Elder.html
This article is not just relevant to Pagans and the Pagan community but to all communities which value the cumulative experience, wisdom, and service of their senior citizens. Isaac Bonewits passed over August 12, 2010, but the article, written in 2005, is even more important now with cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid looming.
Anathstryx
Version 3.0
Copyright © 2005, 2009 c.e., Isaac Bonewits
Everyone thinks of adoption as something involving babies or at least children. The idea that an old person might need "adopting" isn't intuitively obvious. In this essay, I hope to explain how and why older Pagans could use some help from the rest of the community.
I'm going to open by defining how I am using the terms "senior," "elder," and "Elder." The first term, "senior," can refer to anyone over 55 or 60 years of age in a modern Western culture. The second, "elder" with-a-small-e, can refer to someone who has taken a leadership role in a coven, temple, grove, or other religious community; usually it carries an assumption that the person so refered to has more years of religious training and/or experience than the bulk of the group. When I use "Elder" with-a-capital-E, I'm refering to a combination of the first two terms. A Pagan Elder, therefore, is someone who has devoted most of his or her life to serving a local, regional, national, or even international Pagan community, earning many of their grey hairs in the process, and who is now getting slow and creaky (if not cranky)...
To read the remainder of this article, follow the link:
https://www.neopagan.net/Adopt-an-Elder.html
This article is not just relevant to Pagans and the Pagan community but to all communities which value the cumulative experience, wisdom, and service of their senior citizens. Isaac Bonewits passed over August 12, 2010, but the article, written in 2005, is even more important now with cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid looming.
Anathstryx