Keeping Spiritual Balance As We Grow Older , livre ebook

Turner Publishing Company - Bernie Srode , Molly Srode

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109 pages

English

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Your Guide to Exploration and Adventure in the Years Ahead

As we grow older and face new demands on our bodies—illnesses, limited mobility, loss of vision or hearing—it is easy to focus on only the changes to our physical bodies and forget about the transformations our spiritual selves are going through.

Keeping Spiritual Balance As We Grow Older will guide you through readings and practical exercises to reintroduce you to your spiritual side. Molly and Bernie Srode discuss how the power of spirit can help you overcome the obstacles of aging, add meaning to your everyday life, and attain both your material and spiritual goals regardless of your religious orientation.

With creative, practical advice, this book is brimming with ideas to add purpose and spirit in the building of your meaningful retirement.

Sujets

Santé et bien-être

Santé du quotidien

Philosophie et théologie

Prayer

Informations

Publié par	Turner Publishing Company
Date de parution	12 septembre 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781594735585
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0850€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Thank You For Purchasing This Skylight Paths eBook!
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SkyLight Paths authors are available to speak and teach on a variety of topics that educate and inspire. For more information about our authors who are available to speak to your group, visit www.skylightpaths.com/page/category/SLP-SB .
To book an event, contact the SkyLight Paths Speakers Bureau at publicity@skylightpaths.com or call us at (802) 457-4000.
In loving memory of our parents Marcella and Walter Srode, Sr., Loretta and Richard Ashbaugh, and our friend Henrietta Lyons
CONTENTS
Introduction
Part I The Ground on Which We Stand
1. Citizen of Two Worlds
2. The Spiritual Body
3. The Red Flags
4. The One Who Is
5. A Higher Calling
6. Angels among Us
7. A Sure Thing
8. Thoughts Are Things
9. The Right to Choose
10. The Doorway to Life
Part II Spirituality- Day by Day
11. New Year s Resolutions
12. What If
13. The Gift
14. The Fog
15. The Smile
16. Spring Sonata
17. A River Runs through Us
18. Feathers and Fur
19. The Banquet
20. A Room with a View
21. Sacred Space
22. Crisis in America
23. Sursum Corda
24. Finding Our Niche
25. This Moment in Time
26. Creating a Spiritual Holiday
27. Moving On
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright
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Introduction
We have always been campers. From tent to tow trailer, Bernie and I have seen a lot of the United States in the past twenty-some years. One of the things we enjoy most is the friendly people we meet at the campgrounds where we stay.
One morning as I was walking the dog, I met an elderly man who was also walking his dog. As the dogs went nose to nose, we enjoyed chatting about the weather, the campground, and our pets. I noticed that he became a bit teary as he stated, I am retired now. I miss my work. If it weren t for this little dog, my life would not mean anything. He then ambled on down the road and entered his $150,000 motor home.
This man and our brief encounter set in motion a resolve to write that book about spirituality that I had been considering for a year or so. Bernie was already deep into writing his own book on spirituality, When in Doubt Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Now I knew I had to write mine. The result was Creating a Spiritual Retirement: A Guide to the Unseen Possibilities in Our Lives (SkyLight Paths).
As we have observed the impact of these books on the lives of others, and the needs of an aging population, we decided to join forces to give birth to a new book on spirituality that would answer questions prompted by our first two books and give us the opportunity to share new insights into the power of spirituality as we grow older.
The search for meaning began early in life for each of us. At age thirteen, Bernie entered the seminary and, after completing thirteen years of training, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1965.
At age seventeen I entered the convent and lived for nineteen years as a religious sister and elementary school teacher. Bernie and I worked together for eight years in a parish. We became good friends and eventually fell in love. At this point I left the convent and went to work in another city while Bernie continued to serve the parish and then spent a year as a hospital chaplain. Our relationship survived separation and time. Since priests could not marry, Bernie received a dispensation from the priesthood and we were married in 1976.
Over the years, one of the pillars of our marriage has been the spirituality that we share. This began as we were steeped in the Catholic tradition of our childhood and religious training. After marriage we began studying many different religious traditions. We came to realize that there are common spiritual threads that run through all our religions. The existence of a Supreme Being, the soul or spirit, angels, the struggle between good and evil, the meaning of suffering, finding one s purpose in life, life after death-these are but a few of them.
We have talked to countless people over the years about retirement and aging. We found that many were asking the question, Is this all there is? These were people who had the material resources for an enjoyable retirement and comfortable old age, and yet they were looking for something more.
We believe that something more is finding the place of spirituality in your life-finding and keeping spiritual balance. This does not necessarily mean that you attend a particular church, synagogue, or other place of worship, or embrace a particular religion. It has more to do with connecting with your spiritual self-your soul/spirit and the God who made you.
What do you need to know about spirituality as you age? What part does spirituality play in your daily life as you grow older? Can aging be enhanced by applying spiritual principles to your life? These are some of the questions we address in Keeping Spiritual Balance As We Grow Older.
In Part I, The Ground on Which We Stand, we present basic ideas about spirituality. It is a spirituality that will help you see body and spirit as a whole. It will connect you with your spiritual self and guide you through the challenges of retirement. It will give you tools to deal with the various losses that are an inevitable part of aging. It will help you see your life as a continuous existence that does not begin with birth or end with death.
Part II, Spirituality-Day By Day, offers practical examples of how spirituality can make a difference in your day-to-day life and teaches you how to access and utilize the power of your spirituality to attain both your material and spiritual goals.
You will notice that each chapter includes affirmations. We believe that thoughts and words are powerful tools in the spiritual life. An affirmation is a positive thought, worded in a way that is appropriate to the situation. It is repeated thoughtfully during the day, to help change thought patterns and, eventually, behavior.
The affirmations are an expression of some of the main themes of the chapter. They are merely suggestions to get you started in formulating your own affirmations. The more personal the affirmation, the more effective it will be in helping you deal with your life. When I am formulating an affirmation, I sometimes reword it a number of times in my mind or on paper until it says exactly what I want it to say.
Writing the affirmation down can be a valuable way of making it work more effectively for you. A written affirmation that is mounted on your mirror or placed in a book you are reading is a great reminder to use it.
Emphasis in this book is on a spirituality that reaches across and beyond religious traditions and offers practical suggestions for enhancing spirituality in day-to-day life for everyone.
We hope that you enjoy the suggestions presented here and find them helpful. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to e-mail us at bjsrode@aol.com or write us in care of the publisher at SkyLight Paths.
Part I
The Ground on Which We Stand
1
Citizen of Two Worlds
The first step in keeping your spiritual balance is to recognize at this moment, as you read this page, that you are a citizen of two worlds. Your physical body entitles you to citizenship in the material world. This is a world with which you are very familiar. Most of us are experts at navigating this world.
Your second citizenship may come as a surprise to you. Because you have a soul/spirit, you are also a citizen of the spiritual world. Some people think that when the physical body dies their existence ceases. Others have always had a sense that there is more to our existence than the physical body. Many have spoken of this more as a type of spiritual element to life. I like to refer to it as a spiritual body.
Your physical and spiritual bodies have been knit together since your birth. When you discover that your present existence involves a dual citizenship, with rights and responsibilities in both worlds, then you are on your way to finding and keeping the balance that is so important not only to your growth as a person, but ultimately to your peace and happiness in this lifetime.
Let s start by taking a look at your citizenship in the material world. Your birthright to this citizenship comes from the gift of your physical body. What an incredible gift of the Creator it is! Biology 101 taught us to marvel at its intricate construction. We get up every morning and take for granted this astonishing creation we call the physical body. As we go through the day, we expect things to run smoothly and are surprised if pain or fatigue suggest that things are not going the way they should.
Along with the body, you have a built-in instinct for physical survival, which we call the ego. Thank God for the ego. Without it there would be few if any people on this earth today. The ego, along with the instruction of adults, teaches you the skills you need to survive. You began with the basic survival skills, such as eating, walking, talking, reproducing, and then advance to the finer nuances of survival, such as gaining recognition, acquiring material possessions, and enjoying pleasurable experiences. It is the function of the ego to develop these skills and it pursues them relentlessly. The ego is good at what it does but its vision is limited, and, left alone and unchecked, the ego can get carried away.
In contemporary society, almost every family has a car-at least one. It is the way in which we get to work, school, the grocery store, and appointments. It is our means of reaching places of recrea