April 12, 2025 • 18 mins
Join us for a heartfelt conversation with Jan Hosea at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as we delve into the essence of spiritual identity and Elderhood. Discover the history and current character of St. Mary's congregation, renowned for their welcoming and pastoral care. Learn about the transition from a life centered on 'doing' to one focused on 'being,' and how this shift can lead to deeper spiritual fulfillment. Jan also shares insights about a new six-week program dedicated to exploring spirituality in later life, encouraging the community to reflect on their spiritual 'bucket list.' Don't miss this enriching discussion about wisdom, contemplation, and embracing a new phase of life.
00:00 Introduction to Spiritual Identity
00:33 Welcome to St. Mary's Episcopal Church
01:00 History and Formation of St. Mary's
02:48 Current Congregation and Activities
03:55 Pastoral Care Team and Community Support
05:07 Pet Memorial Garden and Church Grounds
06:08 Elderhood and Spiritual Growth Program
10:23 Contemplative Practices and Wisdom
15:19 Spiritual Bucket List and Personal Fulfillment
17:39 Conclusion and Upcoming Events
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
And then we have this bag of ego that we carry around with us, and that's our identity.
So learning to take that spiritual ego bag and put it in our pockets.
So I really like this idea that, um, we can shift from a, a spiritual identity based on our doing to a spiritual identity based on our being.
(00:33):
Hey there, diocese of the Rio Grande.
I know you remember Jan Hosea.
Jan, it is wonderful to be with you here today at St.
Mary's Episcopal Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
It's wonderful to have you here, Bishop.
You have been priest in charge here for how long? Remind me, I'm starting my fourth year.
Alright, wonderful.
So tell us a little bit about St.
Mary's.
(00:55):
What it's like ministering here.
What's the character and nature of the congregation? What y'all been working on? It's a wonderful congregation.
A congregation that was formed out of two other congregations in the late eighties, St.
Matthews and St.
Aiden's, who came to the point where.
Gosh, a lot of us are right now of knowing that our congregations were dwindling and knowing that we needed to blend them together.
(01:18):
So the original sanctuary is St.
Aiden's Sanctuary.
St.
Matthews decided to sell.
They took the money from the sale of St.
Matthew's and built the parish hall so that when the two congregations came together, I think they did a really smart thing.
They renamed perfect, so they didn't hold well, you're in my church.
(01:42):
They came together as St.
Mary's.
It wasn't just St.
Aiden's and St.
Matthew's.
Either it was a new identity for both.
It was, and both of them owned a piece of the pie.
Mm-hmm.
Literally with, literally with St.
Matthew's money going to build the parish hall.
And St.
Mary, uh, St.
Mary's, St uh, Aiden's that had the original sanctuary.
(02:05):
So.
St.
Mary's has been going since, actually the first service was in 1989.
And many of you who are old like me, remember Father Tarbell, who was one of the first rectors here in, in making that happen.
And Father Tarbell is a wonderful, wonderful mentor of mine.
Um.
(02:25):
Who died just I think two days short of his hundredth birthday.
Is that right? Yes.
Wow.
Long life.
He was in his birthday's right around Christmas and we did his, did a service Christmas day.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, praised him and he died a couple days later.
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
Yes.
He went on to his great reward.
He did.
So this is Tarbell Hall.
Wonderful.
I had not made that connection.
(02:46):
Yeah.
That's wonderful.
That's wonderful.
And so today, tell us about the congregation today.
'cause tonight we're gonna be having confirmation, the congregations coming together.
Tell us about the character of St.
Mary's today.
The.
Everybody would say that St.
Mary's was the most conservative, um, congregation in the diocese.
That's not true.
(03:07):
St.
Mary's character is that of being opening and welcoming to anyone and everyone, and you can certainly see it by our congregation today.
I.
Of who we are and how we behave and how we welcome anybody and everybody in, uh, last Sunday we had 59 people at present.
It'll be small tonight.
(03:28):
Mm-hmm.
But that's, that's okay.
It'll be mighty.
Yep.
Um, yes, we're an older congregation and we keep attracting older.
People, and I think a lot of it, Bishop, is because we've proven over the years that we know how to take care of older people.
Yeah.
And we have a great pastoral care team that does wonderful work in doing that.
(03:48):
And we pay attention to individuals and that's beginning to get known.
Yeah.
Tell us about the pastoral care team, how it was organized, how it runs, who's on it? How do you train the people? What do they do? They do well, the pastoral care team are, essentially, the core is are the lay eucharistic visitors who have been doing, one of whom has been doing this for probably 25 years here.
(04:14):
Wow.
At St.
Mary's.
And we recruit new people to come in and help with that.
But beyond pastoral care, we also have people that make.
Phone calls to folks.
We have, uh, we encourage each other to look around.
Y all know what I'm talking about.
When you come in, you can look at the congregation, see where everybody's sitting, and you can tell that somebody's not here if they're not sitting in that view.
(04:36):
Yep.
So we pretty much encourage people to be mindful of that.
Mm-hmm.
And then to, um, make those phone calls and follow up with folks.
Pick up the guys that can't quite make it to church, but might come to the Brotherhood lunch on Wednesday.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And the women who are really shy about coming after their husband has passed, to invite them to come with you to the Wednesday service.
(05:01):
Yeah, yeah.
And do that.
This is also another thing that we've done that our elders seem to like.
It's our Pet Memorial Garden where people can bring chromas of their pets and put in the ground here, or they can just buy a little.
Um, remembrance and put in the ground here for a particular animal of theirs that they love and wanna have a place.
(05:23):
I had one couple, they were so sweet, they said, you mean we can have our puppies at St.
Mary's? And I went, yes you can.
They can be at my church.
Yeah, that's lovely.
And you've done redone the garden here.
Yeah, I think you were reminding me it was a circle the last time we were here.
And really nice.
It was a circle was really nice and pretty tight around the tree and the tree busted out the circle, so we made it into a square and a little bigger.
(05:48):
And we'll gussy it up this spring and make it really pretty.
That's wonderful.
And this tree is just such an amazing, it's about getting ready to bloom.
It's gorgeous.
It is.
And St.
Francis of course looks over everything.
Yeah.
Well now we were talking earlier about a course you, you've taken and a and a program.
(06:08):
You're about to start here to minister to people who are aging and to help with their spiritual life.
Tell us a little bit about that program and what it's, um, it's a, it's a six weeks program where we will delve into Elderhood.
Uh, there's young youth hood.
(06:29):
There's childhood.
Childhood.
There's.
Adolescence, uh, adulthood.
Mm-hmm.
And then there's Elderhood, which we found out starts at 65.
So if you didn't think you were old, you're old.
If you're 65, you're an elder.
You're an elder.
We need your wisdom.
We need your wisdom.
The other thing we know is that people begin to change, especially as they retire.
(06:51):
Mm-hmm.
Because their identity has been within their workplace and who they are.
We were talking about how you introduce yourself to somebody.
Well, tell me what you do.
Right.
The next question to ask is, tell me who you are.
Mm-hmm.
Tell me how you be.
Yeah.
And, and that's a very hard transition for most of us.
(07:13):
Mm-hmm.
About who are we really, and how can we deepen our spiritual relationship with God and figure out what is mine to do.
In these last years of life.
I love that.
I love that.
One of the questions I've started to ask people instead of What do you do for a living or that kind of thing, is, what do you do when you're not working? Because if you're at home raising kids or, or if you're in between jobs or, or given the economy today, you know, people do not.
(07:43):
Necessarily identify with one thing, you know, I'm a mechanical engineer or whatever.
It could be that people have multiple vocations in life and, and yet we do, I think, tend to define ourselves by the stuff we do that we get paid to do and or the stuff that we've studied or trained to do.
So I really like this idea that, um, we can shift from a, a spiritual identity based on our doing to a spiritual identity based on our being.
(08:13):
That sounds really profound to me.
So what, what, what, so what we gather as, um, adults in the workaday world are filling up our ego bag.
Hmm.
And then we have this bag of ego that we carry around with us, and that's our identity.
So learning to take that spiritual ego bag and put it in our pocket.
(08:35):
And become wisdom.
Mm-hmm.
Which is the opposite of ego.
Mm-hmm.
It is the absorption of all that we have been and the playing down of ego so that we can hear you and see you and absorb.
(08:55):
God's greatness all around us, in the people we meet in, where we walk in what we do.
Mm-hmm.
And that is how we pretty much, um, the, the, the theories have shown that that's how we identify somebody who is wise.
That they're, yeah.
I can really see that, that if I identify as the person who then does this or this, or this, a couple of wonderful things happen.
(09:21):
First of all, I could fail and my identity's not on the line.
I.
I can make a mistake and my identity's not on the line, my team could lose.
And I'm, my identity's not on the line.
'cause I'm a person who then does these things or hangs out with these people or, you know, is interested in these things.
But when we fuse our identity to what we do, then oh my gosh, every failure, every mistake is my core being exactly.
(09:46):
Being threatened, you know? So I can really see how we identify wisdom.
As the person who knows who they are.
Fundamentally, we talk about this a lot in discernment, right? Vocation being, who am I called to be and what am I called to do? But not what am you know, who am I called to do? It's not the same thing.
Right? Yeah.
And it's that spiritual being that is walking on this earth, um, that's that's absorbing God and seeing God in everything.
(10:16):
Yeah.
And being able to pull that in.
And there's more contemplative.
Time.
Um, and for me, who, who I'm not a contemplative learning to be more contemplative and to really listen.
Mm-hmm.
And to see and absorb is a learning experience, which is so counter-cultural in our 24 7 news cycles, in our social media, in our, every time you go into a place to eat, there's all 700 screens showing you different pieces of information.
(10:45):
Having the wisdom to kind of step back, take time to contemplate.
To pray, to meditate, to just think and be.
And the what's in it for me is, um, we, we studied, um, Anna and Simeon in the temple today in our class.
And it allows us to be Simeon who says, oh, thank you Lord, I can now die.
(11:08):
'cause I've done, I've seen the person that I.
I thought I was gonna see before I die.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So I think it's encouraging us to look at our spiritual bucket list.
I like that.
And to say, okay, I've now shifted from doing so much mm-hmm.
To being comfortable with myself.
(11:29):
Mm-hmm.
Comfortable with God's creation and feeling God around me all the time.
Mm-hmm.
Consciously.
Not having to work at that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was talking with someone, uh, kind of on a similar vein who was talking about counting.
Holidays as a way of focusing one's attention.
(11:52):
Like if we're thinking about going through Thanksgiving dinner, we are often thinking about the meal and who's coming and cleaning the house and the vacuuming and all that kind of busyness, right? What am I gonna serve? Is the Turkey gonna get done? All that kind of stuff.
And the invitation that this per, I wish I could remember who it was.
The invitation this person was saying was, you know, if you're in your fifties or in your sixties, you might have 25 or 30 more of those.
(12:16):
So if you think about like, I get to sit at this table 20 times.
Mm-hmm.
Then the focus can shift to this is one of those 20 times, this next six hours, I want to think about.
What does this mean to me this time? And who am I to that person and who am I and how do I want this to be, you know, not, not to try to put extra pressure on, oh, now it's gotta, now we gotta really run the vacuum and make sure everything's perfect.
(12:44):
It's not that kind of a, you know, old school Martha Stewart, kind of perfection, but it's Martha Mary.
It is rather valuing the sense of awareness of time and in that Simeon kind of a way.
To say, what a blessing for me to be here.
You know? And I think about Anna who was in the temple all the time.
Lots of people saw that particular family come through the temple with their little baby, right? Mm-hmm.
(13:06):
But she was watching enough to know and to take the time.
That's wisdom that the elder years can really bring to the fore.
Yes.
Anna, I think was able to do that because she's the first real homeless person we see in the Bible.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
She didn't have a male to take care of her, so she lived, literally lived in the temple.
(13:28):
Mm-hmm.
And when we look at the word contemplative, it's con and temple.
Put together.
So Anna embodies the contemplative being together with the temple, right? Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's wonderful.
And so, so this, the, the course you've been doing mm-hmm.
Is training you to lead a group on Elderhood mm-hmm.
(13:49):
And the spiritual journey of Elderhood.
Exactly.
You're gonna test it out here at St.
Mary's, we are.
Probably after Easter on Saturdays, we'll set up a time to do it and then I'll learn where all, all the places are that we goofed up and how we can make it better and open it up to more people to come.
Yeah.
'cause I want to, I wanna circle back around in the summer or in the early fall and see if you would offer that in a way.
(14:11):
Absolutely.
That the diocese might join in.
'cause I think there's a lot of folks who could really benefit from that and, and it also fits in with our diocese and emphasis on discernment and vocation.
Helping people see the ways in which the lives that you're living today are, you don't have to wait for a spiritual journey.
You don't have to have a collar around your neck to be a a, a faithful person.
(14:33):
The goal for Jesus, for all of us, is how do I follow now on my spiritual journey? And this is a wonderful opportunity.
And as we all know, in discernment.
When you say yes to something, you say no to something else.
And we don't have any choice but to say yes to Elderhood.
Mm-hmm.
So how are we gonna turn that and be ex be, have it be okay to say no to some things? And I think we've earned the right to do that.
(14:58):
Yes, absolutely.
And, and probably have the wisdom enough to choose.
There you go.
To not feel like, oh gosh, I gotta do everything.
But instead to say no.
I know enough to know I'm gonna pick that instead of this.
Mm-hmm.
Because that's where my heart is Exactly.
To fulfill that heart thing that Simeon had.
Mm-hmm.
And to live towards that.
(15:19):
Tell me more about the spiritual bucket list and how you envision and think about that.
I love that idea.
Well, it just kind of came to me this, this evening when I was finishing the class that maybe we should go really deep mm-hmm.
And say what is gonna fill our spirit? Mm-hmm.
Maybe it's a trip to the holy Land.
Mm-hmm.
(15:39):
To walk in those footsteps.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe it's spending more time, investing more time in God's creation.
Mm-hmm.
Now that we can make those choices, right, right.
That the, uh, sometimes the, the financial realities more stable.
Our needs are less.
And so we might have a chance to be able to really focus on, you know, maybe I do wanna read all of Jane Austen.
(16:06):
I never had a chance to do that.
There's one, uh, one of my favorite retired clergy stories is, uh, a dear friend of mine in North Carolina.
Um, I had a meeting with him when he was.
About to retire from the priesthood.
And I said, so what are you gonna do this? This had been, he had been a priest his entire life and served well after, well, you know, 72, made him retire and he said, I'm gonna be at the pool hall.
(16:32):
I said the what? And he said, I've always wanted to learn how to shoot pool.
I've never really had time.
'cause that's always in the evenings.
And Saturday nights are when, you know there are tournaments and things.
So I'm gonna learn how to shoot pool and you're gonna find me at the pool hall.
And then I followed up with, I saw him again like two or three years later and I said, how you doing? He goes, I love it.
I absolutely love it.
So there there are, I think we all have these yearnings.
(16:55):
For things that we wish we might have tried.
And time is precious, and there, there can be in elderhood all kinds of opportunities to spend time with folks in a different way, in a, in a deeper, more, more kind of pastime way, rather than the frenetic kind of hustle and bustle that the professional life sometimes requires, or raising kids sometimes requires.
(17:17):
Yeah, I think having a routine can shift.
Mm-hmm.
And we can say, I'm not gonna get up at six o'clock this morning because I don't need to do that.
I don't need to do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm gonna lay here and be with Jesus just looking right outside my window.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's marvelous.
Well.
(17:39):
So I want to, I wanna bring this part of the conversation to a close.
We'll let you know when we're gonna have it open.
Yeah.
So let us know.
We'll, we'll, we'll circle back around and, and watch this space for more information about how to join, what's the title of the course? The journey ahead.
Spirituality in later life.
Alright, so look for the journey ahead, spiritual reality in in later life coming up soon.
(18:02):
And uh, I look forward to hearing more about that.
Me too.
So thank you Jan for that.
Thank you.
And then we have this bag of ego that we carry around with us, and that's our identity.
So learning to take that spiritual ego bag and put it in our pockets.
So I really like this idea that, um, we can shift from a, a spiritual identity based on our doing to a spiritual identity based on our being.
(00:33):
Hey there, diocese of the Rio Grande.
I know you remember Jan Hosea.
Jan, it is wonderful to be with you here today at St.
Mary's Episcopal Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
It's wonderful to have you here, Bishop.
You have been priest in charge here for how long? Remind me, I'm starting my fourth year.
Alright, wonderful.
So tell us a little bit about St.
Mary's.
(00:55):
What it's like ministering here.
What's the character and nature of the congregation? What y'all been working on? It's a wonderful congregation.
A congregation that was formed out of two other congregations in the late eighties, St.
Matthews and St.
Aiden's, who came to the point where.
Gosh, a lot of us are right now of knowing that our congregations were dwindling and knowing that we needed to blend them together.
(01:18):
So the original sanctuary is St.
Aiden's Sanctuary.
St.
Matthews decided to sell.
They took the money from the sale of St.
Matthew's and built the parish hall so that when the two congregations came together, I think they did a really smart thing.
They renamed perfect, so they didn't hold well, you're in my church.
(01:42):
They came together as St.
Mary's.
It wasn't just St.
Aiden's and St.
Matthew's.
Either it was a new identity for both.
It was, and both of them owned a piece of the pie.
Mm-hmm.
Literally with, literally with St.
Matthew's money going to build the parish hall.
And St.
Mary, uh, St.
Mary's, St uh, Aiden's that had the original sanctuary.
(02:05):
So.
St.
Mary's has been going since, actually the first service was in 1989.
And many of you who are old like me, remember Father Tarbell, who was one of the first rectors here in, in making that happen.
And Father Tarbell is a wonderful, wonderful mentor of mine.
Um.
(02:25):
Who died just I think two days short of his hundredth birthday.
Is that right? Yes.
Wow.
Long life.
He was in his birthday's right around Christmas and we did his, did a service Christmas day.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, praised him and he died a couple days later.
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
Yes.
He went on to his great reward.
He did.
So this is Tarbell Hall.
Wonderful.
I had not made that connection.
(02:46):
Yeah.
That's wonderful.
That's wonderful.
And so today, tell us about the congregation today.
'cause tonight we're gonna be having confirmation, the congregations coming together.
Tell us about the character of St.
Mary's today.
The.
Everybody would say that St.
Mary's was the most conservative, um, congregation in the diocese.
That's not true.
(03:07):
St.
Mary's character is that of being opening and welcoming to anyone and everyone, and you can certainly see it by our congregation today.
I.
Of who we are and how we behave and how we welcome anybody and everybody in, uh, last Sunday we had 59 people at present.
It'll be small tonight.
(03:28):
Mm-hmm.
But that's, that's okay.
It'll be mighty.
Yep.
Um, yes, we're an older congregation and we keep attracting older.
People, and I think a lot of it, Bishop, is because we've proven over the years that we know how to take care of older people.
Yeah.
And we have a great pastoral care team that does wonderful work in doing that.
(03:48):
And we pay attention to individuals and that's beginning to get known.
Yeah.
Tell us about the pastoral care team, how it was organized, how it runs, who's on it? How do you train the people? What do they do? They do well, the pastoral care team are, essentially, the core is are the lay eucharistic visitors who have been doing, one of whom has been doing this for probably 25 years here.
(04:14):
Wow.
At St.
Mary's.
And we recruit new people to come in and help with that.
But beyond pastoral care, we also have people that make.
Phone calls to folks.
We have, uh, we encourage each other to look around.
Y all know what I'm talking about.
When you come in, you can look at the congregation, see where everybody's sitting, and you can tell that somebody's not here if they're not sitting in that view.
(04:36):
Yep.
So we pretty much encourage people to be mindful of that.
Mm-hmm.
And then to, um, make those phone calls and follow up with folks.
Pick up the guys that can't quite make it to church, but might come to the Brotherhood lunch on Wednesday.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And the women who are really shy about coming after their husband has passed, to invite them to come with you to the Wednesday service.
(05:01):
Yeah, yeah.
And do that.
This is also another thing that we've done that our elders seem to like.
It's our Pet Memorial Garden where people can bring chromas of their pets and put in the ground here, or they can just buy a little.
Um, remembrance and put in the ground here for a particular animal of theirs that they love and wanna have a place.
(05:23):
I had one couple, they were so sweet, they said, you mean we can have our puppies at St.
Mary's? And I went, yes you can.
They can be at my church.
Yeah, that's lovely.
And you've done redone the garden here.
Yeah, I think you were reminding me it was a circle the last time we were here.
And really nice.
It was a circle was really nice and pretty tight around the tree and the tree busted out the circle, so we made it into a square and a little bigger.
(05:48):
And we'll gussy it up this spring and make it really pretty.
That's wonderful.
And this tree is just such an amazing, it's about getting ready to bloom.
It's gorgeous.
It is.
And St.
Francis of course looks over everything.
Yeah.
Well now we were talking earlier about a course you, you've taken and a and a program.
(06:08):
You're about to start here to minister to people who are aging and to help with their spiritual life.
Tell us a little bit about that program and what it's, um, it's a, it's a six weeks program where we will delve into Elderhood.
Uh, there's young youth hood.
(06:29):
There's childhood.
Childhood.
There's.
Adolescence, uh, adulthood.
Mm-hmm.
And then there's Elderhood, which we found out starts at 65.
So if you didn't think you were old, you're old.
If you're 65, you're an elder.
You're an elder.
We need your wisdom.
We need your wisdom.
The other thing we know is that people begin to change, especially as they retire.
(06:51):
Mm-hmm.
Because their identity has been within their workplace and who they are.
We were talking about how you introduce yourself to somebody.
Well, tell me what you do.
Right.
The next question to ask is, tell me who you are.
Mm-hmm.
Tell me how you be.
Yeah.
And, and that's a very hard transition for most of us.
(07:13):
Mm-hmm.
About who are we really, and how can we deepen our spiritual relationship with God and figure out what is mine to do.
In these last years of life.
I love that.
I love that.
One of the questions I've started to ask people instead of What do you do for a living or that kind of thing, is, what do you do when you're not working? Because if you're at home raising kids or, or if you're in between jobs or, or given the economy today, you know, people do not.
(07:43):
Necessarily identify with one thing, you know, I'm a mechanical engineer or whatever.
It could be that people have multiple vocations in life and, and yet we do, I think, tend to define ourselves by the stuff we do that we get paid to do and or the stuff that we've studied or trained to do.
So I really like this idea that, um, we can shift from a, a spiritual identity based on our doing to a spiritual identity based on our being.
(08:13):
That sounds really profound to me.
So what, what, what, so what we gather as, um, adults in the workaday world are filling up our ego bag.
Hmm.
And then we have this bag of ego that we carry around with us, and that's our identity.
So learning to take that spiritual ego bag and put it in our pocket.
(08:35):
And become wisdom.
Mm-hmm.
Which is the opposite of ego.
Mm-hmm.
It is the absorption of all that we have been and the playing down of ego so that we can hear you and see you and absorb.
(08:55):
God's greatness all around us, in the people we meet in, where we walk in what we do.
Mm-hmm.
And that is how we pretty much, um, the, the, the theories have shown that that's how we identify somebody who is wise.
That they're, yeah.
I can really see that, that if I identify as the person who then does this or this, or this, a couple of wonderful things happen.
(09:21):
First of all, I could fail and my identity's not on the line.
I.
I can make a mistake and my identity's not on the line, my team could lose.
And I'm, my identity's not on the line.
'cause I'm a person who then does these things or hangs out with these people or, you know, is interested in these things.
But when we fuse our identity to what we do, then oh my gosh, every failure, every mistake is my core being exactly.
(09:46):
Being threatened, you know? So I can really see how we identify wisdom.
As the person who knows who they are.
Fundamentally, we talk about this a lot in discernment, right? Vocation being, who am I called to be and what am I called to do? But not what am you know, who am I called to do? It's not the same thing.
Right? Yeah.
And it's that spiritual being that is walking on this earth, um, that's that's absorbing God and seeing God in everything.
(10:16):
Yeah.
And being able to pull that in.
And there's more contemplative.
Time.
Um, and for me, who, who I'm not a contemplative learning to be more contemplative and to really listen.
Mm-hmm.
And to see and absorb is a learning experience, which is so counter-cultural in our 24 7 news cycles, in our social media, in our, every time you go into a place to eat, there's all 700 screens showing you different pieces of information.
(10:45):
Having the wisdom to kind of step back, take time to contemplate.
To pray, to meditate, to just think and be.
And the what's in it for me is, um, we, we studied, um, Anna and Simeon in the temple today in our class.
And it allows us to be Simeon who says, oh, thank you Lord, I can now die.
(11:08):
'cause I've done, I've seen the person that I.
I thought I was gonna see before I die.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So I think it's encouraging us to look at our spiritual bucket list.
I like that.
And to say, okay, I've now shifted from doing so much mm-hmm.
To being comfortable with myself.
(11:29):
Mm-hmm.
Comfortable with God's creation and feeling God around me all the time.
Mm-hmm.
Consciously.
Not having to work at that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was talking with someone, uh, kind of on a similar vein who was talking about counting.
Holidays as a way of focusing one's attention.
(11:52):
Like if we're thinking about going through Thanksgiving dinner, we are often thinking about the meal and who's coming and cleaning the house and the vacuuming and all that kind of busyness, right? What am I gonna serve? Is the Turkey gonna get done? All that kind of stuff.
And the invitation that this per, I wish I could remember who it was.
The invitation this person was saying was, you know, if you're in your fifties or in your sixties, you might have 25 or 30 more of those.
(12:16):
So if you think about like, I get to sit at this table 20 times.
Mm-hmm.
Then the focus can shift to this is one of those 20 times, this next six hours, I want to think about.
What does this mean to me this time? And who am I to that person and who am I and how do I want this to be, you know, not, not to try to put extra pressure on, oh, now it's gotta, now we gotta really run the vacuum and make sure everything's perfect.
(12:44):
It's not that kind of a, you know, old school Martha Stewart, kind of perfection, but it's Martha Mary.
It is rather valuing the sense of awareness of time and in that Simeon kind of a way.
To say, what a blessing for me to be here.
You know? And I think about Anna who was in the temple all the time.
Lots of people saw that particular family come through the temple with their little baby, right? Mm-hmm.
(13:06):
But she was watching enough to know and to take the time.
That's wisdom that the elder years can really bring to the fore.
Yes.
Anna, I think was able to do that because she's the first real homeless person we see in the Bible.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
She didn't have a male to take care of her, so she lived, literally lived in the temple.
(13:28):
Mm-hmm.
And when we look at the word contemplative, it's con and temple.
Put together.
So Anna embodies the contemplative being together with the temple, right? Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's wonderful.
And so, so this, the, the course you've been doing mm-hmm.
Is training you to lead a group on Elderhood mm-hmm.
(13:49):
And the spiritual journey of Elderhood.
Exactly.
You're gonna test it out here at St.
Mary's, we are.
Probably after Easter on Saturdays, we'll set up a time to do it and then I'll learn where all, all the places are that we goofed up and how we can make it better and open it up to more people to come.
Yeah.
'cause I want to, I wanna circle back around in the summer or in the early fall and see if you would offer that in a way.
(14:11):
Absolutely.
That the diocese might join in.
'cause I think there's a lot of folks who could really benefit from that and, and it also fits in with our diocese and emphasis on discernment and vocation.
Helping people see the ways in which the lives that you're living today are, you don't have to wait for a spiritual journey.
You don't have to have a collar around your neck to be a a, a faithful person.
(14:33):
The goal for Jesus, for all of us, is how do I follow now on my spiritual journey? And this is a wonderful opportunity.
And as we all know, in discernment.
When you say yes to something, you say no to something else.
And we don't have any choice but to say yes to Elderhood.
Mm-hmm.
So how are we gonna turn that and be ex be, have it be okay to say no to some things? And I think we've earned the right to do that.
(14:58):
Yes, absolutely.
And, and probably have the wisdom enough to choose.
There you go.
To not feel like, oh gosh, I gotta do everything.
But instead to say no.
I know enough to know I'm gonna pick that instead of this.
Mm-hmm.
Because that's where my heart is Exactly.
To fulfill that heart thing that Simeon had.
Mm-hmm.
And to live towards that.
(15:19):
Tell me more about the spiritual bucket list and how you envision and think about that.
I love that idea.
Well, it just kind of came to me this, this evening when I was finishing the class that maybe we should go really deep mm-hmm.
And say what is gonna fill our spirit? Mm-hmm.
Maybe it's a trip to the holy Land.
Mm-hmm.
(15:39):
To walk in those footsteps.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe it's spending more time, investing more time in God's creation.
Mm-hmm.
Now that we can make those choices, right, right.
That the, uh, sometimes the, the financial realities more stable.
Our needs are less.
And so we might have a chance to be able to really focus on, you know, maybe I do wanna read all of Jane Austen.
(16:06):
I never had a chance to do that.
There's one, uh, one of my favorite retired clergy stories is, uh, a dear friend of mine in North Carolina.
Um, I had a meeting with him when he was.
About to retire from the priesthood.
And I said, so what are you gonna do this? This had been, he had been a priest his entire life and served well after, well, you know, 72, made him retire and he said, I'm gonna be at the pool hall.
(16:32):
I said the what? And he said, I've always wanted to learn how to shoot pool.
I've never really had time.
'cause that's always in the evenings.
And Saturday nights are when, you know there are tournaments and things.
So I'm gonna learn how to shoot pool and you're gonna find me at the pool hall.
And then I followed up with, I saw him again like two or three years later and I said, how you doing? He goes, I love it.
I absolutely love it.
So there there are, I think we all have these yearnings.
(16:55):
For things that we wish we might have tried.
And time is precious, and there, there can be in elderhood all kinds of opportunities to spend time with folks in a different way, in a, in a deeper, more, more kind of pastime way, rather than the frenetic kind of hustle and bustle that the professional life sometimes requires, or raising kids sometimes requires.
(17:17):
Yeah, I think having a routine can shift.
Mm-hmm.
And we can say, I'm not gonna get up at six o'clock this morning because I don't need to do that.
I don't need to do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm gonna lay here and be with Jesus just looking right outside my window.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's marvelous.
Well.
(17:39):
So I want to, I wanna bring this part of the conversation to a close.
We'll let you know when we're gonna have it open.
Yeah.
So let us know.
We'll, we'll, we'll circle back around and, and watch this space for more information about how to join, what's the title of the course? The journey ahead.
Spirituality in later life.
Alright, so look for the journey ahead, spiritual reality in in later life coming up soon.
(18:02):
And uh, I look forward to hearing more about that.
Me too.
So thank you Jan for that.
Thank you.
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