Retired clergy gathering

Wednesday morning we had a gathering of the retired clergy group at the Dummerston Church. This group last met on April 19th! A lot of water has gone over the dam since then. The group has settled into being Jeff, Jack, Lee, Roger and myself, and sometimes Catherine. But Catherine is in an assisted-living facility in Bellows Falls, and doesn't drive. If we could meet in Bellows Falls, it would be easy for her to get there, but the part-time minister at the UCC Church in Bellows Falls has not returned any calls, so we haven't been able to set something up there. I offered to go get her and bring her to Dummerston, but she said she needed to have tests of some kind that morning. So it was just us five men. Jeff is planning to offer a course at St. Michael's Episcopal Church (which is where he attends church, even though he is UCC himself) - a course on "Aging". He brought a bunch of books with him that he has been reading on this topic - there are a lot of books on "aging!" I guess it's a hot topic! I took pictures of three in particular that caught my eye. Jeff is probably going to use Joan Chittister's book in the course. I have always admired the work of Parker Palmer, who is a Quaker, and the one by Arthur Frank looked particularly interesting - it is based on his interviews with scores of people who have a "life-changing illness" like cancer or ALS, in which he has collected their "story." He believes that people with such an illness, which he calls "The Wound," inevitably develop a story of some kind, and the book talks about those stories and the role they might play in the person's life. So we talked about aging, which we all have experience in! We also talked about what's happening in our various churches, and in our own lives. I had a lot to share because of all the things that have happened since our last meeting. I like the group - for some reason I didn't think to take a photo of the group itself, but here are the books: