Belief and Belonging

What does it mean to believe?
How does belief shape our life?
What does faith community/church/synagogue/mosque mean?

All of these questions and their answers shape our spiritual life and give direction to our spiritual journey.

Is Spirituality for you a personal practice or a corporate practice or both?
We each experience aging in an individual way.

Aging is not a homogenous experience.

As a person ages, she/he adapts by preserving a continuity with their past experiences
Internal continuity : memory, temperament, skills, etc.
External continuity : role relationships, activities

Atchely, 1989

As a person ages, she/he may experience increased feeling of affinity with past generations, & decreased interest in superfluous social interaction, develop a feeling of cosmic awareness, & redefinition of time, space, life and death. Individuals often become less self-occupied & more selective in choice of social and other activities. Individuals might experience decrease in interest in material things. For some solitude becomes more attractive. This is Gerotranscendence.

Tornstam, 1989

Source: In Thomas, Bill. Post on Changing Aging Blogstream, Feb. 3, 2011.