Tea and Cake+ Older person ministry: a volunteer revolution or “tea and cake plus” ‘Age’ has become a topic of the media. In churches old age has been an area of care which has been addressed, in Anglican terms, for about 400 years. Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for the NHS has spoken eloquently on the power of community: family community for care. The response of the Daily Telegraph was of ridicule (2014). What could a Secretary of State know of community values in other cultures? How would that type of care translate to Britain? I am fortunate enough to believe that our Secretary of State in this field has ample personal, family experience of various cultural norms. He will know when our cultural paradigm is abnormal. In the case of the elderly, marginalised and vulnerable we are abnormal: culture seems to have normalised an anomaly. How can this be?
Does Age matter to God? If we look at the Bible we find that there are a number of Old Testament terms for ‘age’ in Hebrew. The word Zaqen (zqn because there are no vowels in Hebrew) is the most common and relates to ‘the passing of time’. A full life was specifically denoted by fullness of years. There is a normal expectancy. We might call it three score years and ten. In Job 42:17 we find that Job was “full of years”. David is described in similar terms in 1 Chronicles 29:28. It is not David’s achievements, kingship or ability which is noted: it is his fullness of age. Rather than money, looks, prestige or power; age is the primary motif for satisfaction of life.
ז ֵָקןverb be or become old (compare, according to Thes, Arabic a shecamel that lets her lower lip hang down, see 968
Lane ; decrepit man) Brown-Driver-Briggs:
Another word for age is the word ‘eldership’. In 2 Sam 12:17 this relates to age, maturity and oversight. With age comes leadership. Immaturity of age is a bar to leadership unless it has the eldership of others supporting, such as Timothy being urged to fan into the fame the gift of faith… (2 Tim 1:6), which he received from his mother and his grandmother: a maternal-eldership (2 Tim 1:5). Age denoted by grey hair (Hebrew word – seba) is seen as “a crown of glory attained through righteous living” in Proverbs 16:311. Age – even having grey hair! - is seen as positive. Part of the important identity of older age in Scripture is that the older generation retell the story: of family, identity, community and past to the next. If you dislocate the elder from the next generation then trouble appears to be on the horizon. Sociologists have pointed to evidence of this which they discern as generational decay. 1
Baker’s Dictionary of Biblical Theology
In Scripture we find that Jacob dies at 147 years of age and takes a role up to this point. Moses takes up his ministry role at the age of 80. There is no such thing as retirement with God. What changes with age is the role and respect which goes with the role. In summary, a Christian view of old age is about a positive trajectory; internal qualities mattering more than the colour of hair; external age signs denoting authority; continuity of importance as a human being; a crucial narrative providing meaning to the next generation in society; oversight of younger people; fullness of years and wisdom. It is about a valued place throughout life even to the end of years.
Do celebrities age? Our society has an alternative position. This is Infantilisation, Individualisation and Externalisation. The last of these might also be called the Rise of Celebrity.
Infantilisation of age – the older you are the harder you must try to not be older. Dr Jacopo Bernardini, who has a background in Social and Political Theory, cites the director of a tv channel as saying, "We cater for young viewers, where ‘young’ has nothing to do with age, it’s rather a lifestyle attitude" 2
Bernardini goes on to observe that “we live in an era in which it is practically normal to refuse to accept one's own age, in which young people want to be adults and adults want to be young (Samuelson 2003). One sees the traditional stages of the life cycle… progressively postponed and altered… the boundaries of adulthood seem, by now, indefinable; and seniority, as a phase of life, is likely to become an individual concept.” This leads, in part, to a “liquid society” (a term coined by Zygmunt Bauman in 2000). In this view society is not a static structure but a series of networks (Bauman, 2007 Living in an Age of Uncertainty). If you are ‘in’ the networks then all is ok. If you fall outside of them, or are excluded for some reason – then you have a problem. Bonazzi and Pusceddu (2008, in La Figura Dell' adulto Nella Postmodernita) observe that the result is that “youth - like beauty, success and money - becomes an object that is possible to own, always [my italics]. In other words, youth, a biological condition, seems to have become a cultural definition. One is young not because he is a certain age, but because he is entitled to enjoy certain styles of life and consumption”. Those who can no longer conform to this ideal, as Bauman notes in Living in An Age of Uncertainty, will suffer enforced ghettoised isolation, in this case, of the aged, as the rest of the liquid society pools in voluntary ghettos of self-affirmation.
The end result is that if the networks of society create and reinforce infantilisation3, the choice of involvement, care and responsibility is given to the individual who is part of the voluntary self-pooling ghetto; to choose to accept this responsibility or ignore it without accepting the consequences. Who then is left to care? 2 3
The Role of Marketing in the Infantilization of the Postmodern Adult, Ivanova 2007 Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizen Whole, Barber 2008
Individualisation of community – respect for the elder; place in the community of home has been shifted to individualism and removal or ‘invisibilisation4’ of the old. In some respects the old, infirm or vulnerable (of any age) may have now become fear – you too may become this. We now hide fears away.
We have shifted as a culture from the DNA of one type of society into another. Back in 1897 Durkheim termed the flow of uncertainty during the change-period as a time of ‘anomic individualism’. Anomie, to Durkeim, was the state of lack of normal regulation within a society. This leads to a lack of clarity as to moral responsibility or constraint. Whether we are within this change period still, or have emerged into the new reality, is less important than the impact on the ground. We are in the midst of the “retreat of the classic institutions”5. Prof Ulrich Beck and Prof Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (husband and wife sociologists), observe that institutions can either fragment or become reflexive. Individualisation is not the same as individualism. The latter is the development of rights and protection seen through the advent of democracy. The former “consists in transforming human identity from a ‘given’ into a ‘task’.” (Beck) If there are no ‘givens’ of communal boundary and norm then the aged – who by nature are a ‘given’ and are therefore a constraining structure: you are old – become a burden. If identity is no longer connected to anything other than task then identity is free to morph based on tasks chosen by the individual. All becomes fluid, until you are of an age and situation where task cannot be chosen by you any longer and identity reverts to being allotted due to age.
In the 1980s Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddins coined the term ‘Risk Society’ in reference to common issues that, in the midst of the new social paragdim developing, impacted all people. One such risk society is age: it happens to everyone. It is a given, except that we no longer accept ‘givens’, it is inflexible in that it will happen, and the old code of honour no longer applies; so who will care?
Rise of Celebrity6: Externalisation of character
– character attributes have
become those which can be seen: fleeting beauty; against the Christian belief in character coming from within through the transformation of the Holy Spirit by Christ. If character is external then as the external alters; so character is deemed to lose its quality. 4
The invisible generation: Portrayals of the elderly on prime‐time television, Robinson and Skill in Communication Reports, Vo, 8:Issue 2 1995 ; Simone de Beauvoir’s Philosophy of Age: Gender, Ethics, and Time, Stollar(ed) 2014; Ageism: Stereotyping and Prejudice Against Older Persons, Nelson 2004; Challenging aging stereotypes: Strategies for creating a more active society, Ory et al, American Journal of Preventative st Medicine Vol 25, Issue 3, 2003; Daily Telegraph 21 April 2014 “Fear of Old Age Become Acute After 50, Study Finds” 5 Individualization, Beck 2002 6 See: “The celebrity as liquid modern character type” from The Bauman Institute, University of Leeds School of Sociology and Social Policy. Undated; The Mechanics of Renown; or, the Rise of a Celebrity Culture, Phd Thesis University of Michigan, Babcox 2009; The celebritization of society and culture: understanding the structural dynamics of celebrity culture, in International Journal of Culture Studies Vol 16 Issue 6, Driessens 2013
Celebrity is about some external, visible, fleeting and impossible to capture. An article in Psychology Today7 tells the story of Myrna Loy, a star of the Big Screen in the 1930s. She is quoted as saying; "I daren't take any chances with Myrna Loy, for she isn't my property…I couldn't even go to the corner drugstore without looking 'right,' you see. Not because of personal vanity, but because the studio has spent millions of dollars on the personality known as Myrna Loy." In 1963 Rev Dr Martyn Luther King uttered the famous statement “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”. The clear implication of Martyn Luther King is that character is an enduring, internal, innate quality. Character is the inner-self. Psychologists term it the Super Ego. A single page of an article titled ‘Building Character: A Leadership Essential’ in the Journal of Business and Psychology (2006) defines character as: authentic, a moral imperative to actions, personal values, develop trust through concern for welfare of others. While we may know that character is internal, the evidence is that society is not listening. In Understanding Celebrity (2014), Graeme Turner notes that celebrity is just one more example of a culture of consumption “the modern celebrity may claim no special achievements other than the attraction of public attention”, or that which Franklin termed “inauthenticity”, (1997). It is the “commodification of the individual” (Turner). In other words, “they are a celebrity because they are well known for their well-knownness” (Borstin, 1971). This is the externalisation of character. Turner cites Rojek (2001) and Frow (1998) as both observed that the cult of celebrity is a replacement for functions once provided through religious faith. This is a live debate as evidenced in the media in 2014 via the exchange between Jeremy Paxman and Hugh Edwards regarding how the news is seen as offering the function that religion once offered. The result is, as Rojek notes “the modern meaning of the term celebrity actually derives from the fall of the gods, and the rise of democratic government and secular societies. This is no accident. The increasing importance of the public face on everyday life is a consequence of the rise of public society, a society that cultivates personal style as the antidote to formal democratic equality.. [it is about] the fickle, temporary nature of the market in human sentiments. These are prominent themes in contemporary social theory.”8 It is a “public presentation of self” which “is always a staged activity, in which the human actor presents a front… celebrities frequently complain of identity confusion so that Johny Depp reportedly attacked reports saying “I don’t want to be what you want me to be tonight” (Rojek, 2001).
In a landscape where self is about presentation, external image is that which is followed and sought after and people are commodities, this is not good news for the aged.
7 8
Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America: University of California Press, Gamson 1994 Celebrity, Rojek 2001
What do we do with Grandma? Does all this make the care-home package a wrong decision? No, far from it. For many families the decision to move someone into a care home is a tortuous one. Care homes are in part a response to a demographic development; but if Jacob really was 147 and Moses really 120 at death then we have to ask where the care homes were in the nomadic communities of that day? The care home is not the problem: it is a search for a solution based on the developing cultural norms that we have drifted into. The solution is that where-ever the care occurs, the Christian value of the completeness and spiritual holism of the person (the body mind and soul) is the primary paradigm. We are therefore entering the realm of the spiritual when we look at the inversion by contemporary culture of the norms of Christian care. Bringing a Christian propensity for the poor to the fore means a confrontation with social expectations. Our call is to hold a mirror to Society and show a reflection of God in that mirror.
Towards tomorrow In recent days the Second Church Estates Commissioner, Sir Tony Baldry has said “the Church of England should agree with the Government a settlement to deliver welfare support, much as it had (sic) with education”9. It sounds a promising suggestion. There are two warnings to heed before we move forward. The first is an internal issue for the Church. Sir Tony Baldry’s suggestion may appear to be a nobrainer. Of course we should do this! We’ve been doing it for 400 years (or 2,000 depending on your view of Anglican-Catholic relationships). The warning is that the Church of England is an institution like all other institutions and has to ask itself a difficult question. Is it Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s fragmenting institution under the societal change that is developing, or is it a reflexive movement? Only if the Church is able to be reflexive then it is possible to step forward and offer welfare support. In which case, the reflexive capability belongs not at the top of the structure of The Church but in the midst of the small things of the church (small ‘c’; Zechariah 4:10). The key is localised, flexible, dynamic structure. In this scenario the organisational structures and components of delivery may, from time to time, be out of step with one another as the focus has to be core competency, capital and capacity, innovation and intentionality. In 2013 a group of 27 leaders in the field of Christianity and old age gathered at St George’s House, Windsor to address the issue of “The Church and Age: Enabling the Spiritual Growth of Old
9
General Synod, Church of England 2013
People”.10 The summary acknowledges this need for localised innovation: “ we have found that enabling spiritual growth is done through personal relationships where the minister/ministerial team directly encounters the ministered, whatever other ideological, institutional or theological structures…”. This is not about structures or systems, Diocesan hierarchies or top down decisions. It is about a desire for difference on a local level. The task of The Church is to seek those making the changes and enable them in their activism. The Report noted that power for change “exists mostly on or near the peripheries” rather than in the centre of Church House, Westminster. The role of National Church should be “enhance, expand and build a narrative that others relate to”. Perhaps this could be defined as encourage, enable and equip? A Diocesan strategy for placing the vulnerable at the heart of the mission of God’s Church would be one seeking to recognise and resource this approach. The other warning is about external influences on The Church. In 2009 the author of this paper was invited to be small part of a Church Urban Fund event on partnerships with statutory organisations11. One aspect of the delivery was an explanation that there are two ends of a spectrum to be aware of. On one extreme, if we are caring simply in order to somehow proselytise a Christian belief then we are not caring at all. Care for the aged and infirm is about expressing the love of God no matter the person or situation. Care ‘with benefits’ (akin to Friends with Benefits) is not a reflection of the love of God. On the other hand, we cannot care in partnership where this prevents us living the Christian life in which we are called. This would be the privatisation of faith in acquiescence to the advance of vigorous secularism12. Godalming+? We have a care-system in place in Godalming, across Busbridge, into Hambledon and across a wider area. It has been quietly ticking along for 20 years; growing; caring; loving; accepting. Lunches for the elderly, the idea of an internet café for the over 70s – a place to be sociable whilst skyping a niece in Australia, a befriending service for an hour a week, a drop in support for family members who are caring for someone with Alzheimer’s: somewhere to cry with others who know why you cry. A story Three weeks ago we became aware of an older person. We were called by a relative who lived far away. The older person was 87 years of age. Incidentally, before that a member of British Petroleum had called about someone else in the local village. The BP staff member was the national officer for the widows and widowers of former staff. BP invests in such a person to care. This person finds that he can easily work with churches so telephones a local church when he finds someone alone/lonely.
10
www.stgeorgeshouse.org/consultations/social-and-ethical-consultations/recent-consultations/the-churchand-age-enabling-the-spiritual-growth-of-older-people/ 11 For more information see the address on www.cuf.org.uk/category/content-class/projectissues/partnership-working 12 This is, in its own definition, itself a faith-position and therefore requires privatisation.
One of our staff offered a cream tea to the 87 year old. We had been told the person was lonely. The 87 year old was nervous: it would be sociable; they were a widow; family had moved away and they were rarely taken out. At the end of the hour the staff member took the person home. As the lady walked to her front door the staff member noticed that there was no grabhandle by the door. “Would a grab-handle help?” “Yes, but there is no-one to put it up. I have one by the stairs but it is loose.” A week later a retired person from the church had popped round, put the handle on and tightened the stair handle. It didn’t take much. A day later the elderly lady sent a note via the church. She did not know why we did it; she had never met such kindness. Thank you. Of course that lady had met kindness in her life. This wasn’t an enormous act of kindness. It was treating an older person with the respect they deserve because they matter to Christ.
Conclusion: All the King’s horses? The entire troop of king’s horses and all the king’s men in the form of government support, advisors, workers and staff cannot even dent the lid of the tin on the need hidden in the local community. There is one clear reason for this: the king’s horses, on the whole, live in the stables and the hidden need is out in the community where much of the muck is.
All the King’s horses and all the kings men in the form of government support, advisors, workers and staff cannot even dent the lid of the tin on the need hidden in the local community.
It is only when real need; deep issues; inability to cope are highlighted – often too late – that the king’s horses can come galloping in and do sterling work. Much of this is of a professional, specialist nature which churches cannot offer. These fantastic people who care with specialism do a monumental job; they do a professional job; they are saints in ordinary clothes. What would add to the king’s horses; reduce the issues; intervene earlier; would be partnership with churches where local people in local communities already live. Those are the people who know the neighbour; who care. If the king’s horses could resource the army that is in the community it is just possible the entire cultural fabric could be redrawn into a different cloth: one that put the aged, infirm and marginalised back into their place as the pinnacle of society. It is a Christian paradigm of care and for some reason we’ve been quiet about it for a very long time.
What are we doing in Busbridge and Hambledon? We have appointed a Director of Older Person Ministry on a four year part-time contract and Penny who has an Adult Services background. It is a significant investment. We have done so because we can see that if we do not bring the church to the fore in localised intra-personal support then a whole generation may suffer. We cannot allow this to occur.
Mark has begun to draw together our community care programmes. We currently have 27 different forms of involvement and care but they are disparate. He has worked with the Anna Chaplaincy (With Debbie Thrower of tv fame!) to draw strands together; gained short-term innovation funding from the Cinnamon Network; and his next step is to work with NHS Adult Services in growing the care across this area; referring to Adult Services on early specialist intervention and taking pressure from Adult Services in key areas where a church, with trained volunteers, can bring care into the open. The key ingredient is a volunteer revolution. If Government is serious about changing the state of things; then we are ready. We hope every church is ready to play its part too.
