Elders Respond: "What are You Reading and Why?"

 

The photo is of books recommended by elders who meet in a study group called "Theological Reflections."  Other elders and regular readers of this group blog responded to the question "What are you reading and why?"  Some have provided succinct reviews after the titles.  Others have elaborated on books that have inspired them over the years and have written lengthy reviews.    For more book reviews, see "Contributors--"BOOKS WE READ."

Myster E

The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton. I got the idea to read this book after I read that Jackie Kennedy gave it to Robert Kennedy after JFK's assassination. The passage that was relevant to the events then is by Aeschylus: "God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."  

It is a fascinating book that describes the beginnings of our Western culture.  Here is an excerpt:  "We think and feel differently because of what a little Greek town did twenty-four hundred years ago. What was then produced of art and of thought has never been surpassed and very rarely equaled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western world."

Elder Debouli

Rough Sleepers, 2023:  This is about a physician, Dr. Jim O’Connell, who worked with the homeless in Boston for over 30 years.  It opened up a world for me that I have only touched on the fringes.  It is inspiring in its humanity.  One of my favorite authors Tracy Kidder followed this doctor for months before he wrote the book.

The Book Thief, a novel by Markus Zusak, 2005.  This story is about a young girl who couldn’t read in WWII Munich, Germany, and started stealing books.  It gave me tremendous insights into what it was like for poor families in Germany and how they were also victims of Hitler’s war machine.  Her family hid a Jew for many months and he taught her to read.  Incredibly well written.  I couldn’t put it down.

Modern Loss:  Candid Conversations about Grief.  Beginners Welcome by Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner, 2018.  This book covers many forms of grief through stories and pictures.  I read parts of it after a friend's daughter-in-law died at the age of 41.  It is a fresh approach to grief. 

Breath by James Nestor, 2020.  My daughter-in-law who is becoming a myofunctional therapist highly recommended this.  It talks about the importance to our overall health of how we breathe, and how many of us have poor health because of how we breathe.  It has good ideas for persons with asthma and respiratory illnesses but is very applicable to all of us. 

The Little Liar by Mitch Albom, 2023.  A great novel by a well-known author.   This is about the Jewish community of 50,000 persons in Thessaloniki, Greece, in WWII.   It was the largest community of Jews from the diaspora at the time.  Only about 1500 Jews are living there now.  I read it because my husband’s aunt’s family was killed by the Germans in WWII (she was saved by my husband’s uncle).  She never spoke of this or her Jewish heritage even to her children that we have remained close to.  The story is fiction but rich with the culture of Jews in Thessaloniki at that time.  

Note:  Two of Elder Debuli's book reviews appear in another Elders Speaking blog post -- Autism in Hells and Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity.  Her review on Great Bones: Taking Control of Osteoporosis by Keith McCormick will appear in a future post.

Elder D.C. 

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate.  A story of women dealing with the harsh realities of life following the Civil War, and how it impacts modern reality in a poor Southern town.  

Elder K, L.  

I am reading Think and Grow Rich (by Napoleon Hill) with my son to help him expand into his greatness (because that is the richness we are going for.)

Pussy: A Reclamation (Regna Thomashauer) because I think that the feminine power is the power that will heal the world and the more that we can tap in and share our gifts with the world, the more the human race can step into the next evolution of being.

The Go-Giver  (Bob Burg and John Mann)  The book is short and on my list of good reads. 

Elder Wren-Wren said the following book made a big impact on her: 

Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot To Take Over America, and the Woman who Stopped Them.” By T. Egan. 

Please contact us if you would like to add to our list of book reviews. Tell us what you are reading--or what books have made an impact on your life.

"I'm reading: The Fourth Turning is Here" by Elder Grateful Seeker

Photo by Elder Grateful Seeker

WHAT I AM READING – The Fourth Turning is Here – What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End   (July 2023) - by Neil Howe

WHY I AM READING IT – I have three children and eleven grandchildren that I love deeply and unconditionally.  I am amazed at the love and creativity and dedication they put into crafting their life paths in this changing landscape.  It would be good to gain a sense of the complex matrix of landscape in which each generation sees itself, with the bonds of love, the limitations and advantages they see in their decision-making. I feel we are at a tipping point – a decision point for what kind of life we choose for our future selves and for the generations beyond.

Neil Howe (and his former partner William Strauss) studied politico-sociological patterns in this country, and arrived at the conclusion that we cycle in 4-generation periods, which they name Saeculae.  Each Saeculum lasts a generation, and is associated with a season of the year.

AUTHOR’S PREMISE

The most recent “Millennial” Saeculum began right after World War II.  The nation was welcoming home its conquering heros, the women who supported the war by producing airplanes, bombs, guns and other things necessary for the war returned home.  Returning soldiers had the GI bill for college education or returned to work producing the new homes, appliances, automobiles and other amenities available in the United States.  And they built the interstate highway system.  This was the SPRINGTIME phase.  In the Howe-Strauss model, the adults of the generation were deemed “Hero” generation, protected and praised by their parents and peers.  (Rising adulthood 1929-1946)

The next generation settled into the roles established during the “Hero” generation, and just played along. This was the generation that benefitted from their parents’ unionization and stabilization, and benefited from lifelong employment at a company with pension and health benefits. Howe dubs this the “Lost” generation. (Rising adulthood 1946-64).  This was the SUMMER phase.  The importance of the individual was becoming more important, people were becoming more individualized and cynical and national pride was diminishing.  Howe names this the “nomad” archetype, abandoned by their elders: personally tough, and not necessarily bound to an ideology.

The next generation was the Boom generation, who questioned the status quo and shook things up with the civil rights movement, feminism, the protests against the war in Viet Nam.    During the early part of this period, people started to question the role of a strong central government, and push back against it.  In the late part of this period, central government had been weakened during the Reagan years, and Corporations, including Multinational Corporations became dominant through IPOs, corporate mergers, the dominance of the stock market, the view that the customer was the stockholder, not the purchaser; and then that the primary beneficiaries were the CEO, CFO and Board of Directors, not the stockholders, the employees nor the customers.  This was the FALL Phase. (Rising adulthood 1964-84) Howe deems this the “Boom” generation.  The fallout of this generation is extreme economic financial polarization, with personal wealth being skewed to a few thousand billionaires and hundreds of thousands of homeless persons trying to survive in towns and cities across the nation.  Howe dubs the leaders of this period the Prophet archetype, indulged by parents.

The next generation is the Gen X generation (Rising adulthood 1984-2008)  This is the WINTER phase. This generation is studying about the middle class and saying “Where is it? It has disappeared.  It is gone.  We need to build it.”  The author Howe says WINTER started with the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11 2001.  Since that time we have been engaged in multiple military conflicts that have not advanced the mission of ending the WINTER of Global Economic, Religious, Ethnic, Political, Environmental, Diplomatic and Military conflicts.  This is a global challenge, and also a local one in our own United States.  The most recent Biden administration has taken steps to move toward rebuilding the middle class and correcting the injustices made to minority groups in past decisions.  There is much to be done.

How will WINTER end? In the United States, the author Neil Howe says we are now faced with a choice.  We can either choose to fight at the ballot box for values we can verify as true, or the alternative is a war in a form we have not yet seen on this planet.

That’s my interpretation of what I have been reading.  Feedback welcome.

--Elder Grateful Seeker

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"6 Bible Verses on Immigrants" by Grandmother Windsong

 

        Images of numerous people crossing our southern border manufacture within me many conflicting emotions and questions: What are we going to do with the vast numbers? How do we weed out the bad actors? How do we avoid cruelty as they are herded into cages?  How do we support landowners and the state of Texas who are inundated with thousands of crossings?

        When I'm confronted with such questions, I cling to scriptures that challenge me to not judge, be compassionate, and love my neighbor.  It is a challenge at times, especially when I'm asked to be compassionate toward a "neighbor" who humiliates others.  I've heard some rather rough language directed toward people seeking a better life in America--even those who arrive legally.  Each person has a story.

        I am acquainted with a Mexican-born woman who succeeded in crossing the southern border nearly twenty years ago.  It took her three tries. Since then, she and her husband have started separate businesses.  They pay taxes and are raising two boys who make straight A's in high school. The woman has a sweet smile and speaks in broken English.  Her tamales are heavenly, made with organic tortillas and antibiotic-free chicken. Sadly in front of her children, she has been accosted by people in the Walmart parking lot--people who know nothing about her background--calling her names and telling her to go back home.

        Of course, not everyone who enters our country becomes a model citizen like my friends, and the immigration issue is complicated, but should we solve the problem with cruelty?

        Below are six strong suggestions--mandates?--of how Judeo-Christians should treat immigrants, with a reminder to Christians that our spiritual ancestors (Hebrews) fled an oppressive regime (Egypt).  

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (Complete Jewish Bible translation) 

1. Exodus 22:20 (or vs 21 in other versions) "You must neither wrong nor oppress a foreigner (also translated as "alien," "immigrant," "stranger") living among you, for you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt."

2.  Exodus 23:9  "You are not to oppress a foreigner, for you know how a foreigner feels, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt."

3.  Leviticus 19:33-34  "If a foreigner stays with you in your land, do not do him wrong. Rather, treat the foreigner staying with you like the native-born among you--you are to love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am ADONAI your God."

4.  Leviticus 24:22  "You are to apply the same standard of judgment to the foreigner as to the citizen, because I am ADONAI your God."

New Testament (Revised Standard Version)

5.  Matthew 25:35: "for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me." 

6.  Hebrews 13:2: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

7+.  Also see Psalms 146; Deuteronomy 1:16 and 24:17; Ezekiel 22:29 or any scripture highlighting love for others, including our neighbors.  Some websites list 30 scriptures with a similar altruistic focus on immigrants.  

-----

        Americans have always had a "border crisis" and prejudice toward newcomers. When politicians stoke those biases with loaded, emotional rhetoric like "poisoning the blood," we end up with policies that separate children from their parents and people thrown into jails without due process.  I even heard the words "concentration camps."  Vitriolic words hurt everyone.   

        Mostly I regard the majority of undocumented immigrants as desperate people with dreams of a better life.

        If you are like me --a Caucasian living in the U.S.--we are descendants of immigrants.  Some of our ancestors escaped persecution and immigrated to America, including the Irish Catholics before 1850, German-Russians during WWI, and refugees from German-occupied Europe during WWII.  And that's an extremely short list of European immigrants.  

        Conspiracy theories fomenting hatred among U.S. citizens toward foreigners are nothing new.  See "When America Despised the Irish: The 19th Century Refugee Crisis" on history.com. 

        The scriptures remind us to remember our immigrant ancestors when we encourage our leaders to solve the immigration crisis.  ". . . .treat the foreigner staying with you like the native-born among you--you are to love him as yourself, for you were foreigners . . . ." 

                         

--written by Grandmother Windsong, a somewhat sassy septuagenarian with roots in Kansas, Colorado, North Carolina, Great Britain, Poland, Ukraine, Ireland, Germany, and maybe even India.

Illustration from Pixaba.com. Free download.

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