The challenge of growth

Although I’m not a good singer, I enjoy singing. Other than singing as I work (not something I do often at the office) and congregational singing, I don’t get a lot of opportunity to so. However, one place I do get to sing together with others is at Donwood Manor, a personal care home run by the Mennonite Brethren churches of Winnipeg. The local churches take turns bringing a Sunday morning service there and that becomes an enjoyable time of singing some of the older songs, both German and English.

All this to say, I look at the residents and see my future. Because the facility is a multi-phase residence, the residents are in many different stages of aging. Some are living in the apartments because they can no longer look after a home and a yard, but otherwise are quite capable of looking after themselves. Others are there because their spouse is no longer able to live independently. Still others are quite dependent on the caregivers.

It is not always a pleasant prospect to anticipate living in such an environment. I wonder, how can someone like me, who is active and alert, come to a place where she is totally dependent on others for care? Will I be gracious to my caregivers? What stages of change will I need to go through? Will I have the grace to be able to accept the changes that come? Is there a way of preparing for those changes?

These are all questions that have no definitive answers. And yet they do have one answer. Very likely the way I respond to people and situations around me now, is how I will respond when I am older. That means I need to continue to practise grace in my relationships now, accept the small changes that happen as I grow older, and enjoy the youth around me.

Katie Funk Wiebe encourages us to cultivate this attitude in “The curriculum is changing”. She quotes Carl Jung, saying there is a change that happens when we realize that humans are mortal – a change to seeking wisdom rather than power.

Not all the changes we encounter, of course, are a function of aging. Growth is an ongoing challenge, and privilege, in discipleship. Bob Hostetler encourages us to find new ways of praying and praising God, and James Toews compares the upcoming church (or school) year to a new page in a notebook – plans to keep it neat may not always happen, but just the chance to begin anew is exciting.

In the following issues we want to focus on laypersons/volunteers in the church and on the pastors/leaders of our congregations. As well, we will be carrying stories about Mennonite World Conference (Aug. 11–17).