Changing Aging

There was an interesting article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune the other day on the explosion in popularity of parish nurses.   Some of the words that were used are insightful.

 For example, Rev. Granger Westberg, a Lutheran minister in Chicago, wrote a book in 1984 called: “The Parish Nurse:  Providing a Minister of Health for your Congregation.  He said that “parish nurses should be focused on ‘wholistic’ health, which he intentionally spelled with a ‘w’ to stress that it should involve the whole person.

Dianne Waarvik, who became a parish nurse at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Minneapolis in 1999, said “We’re starting to call ourselves faith community nurses.  That’s because it’s not just Christian churches that have them.  Synagogues have them.  Mosques have them.  It’s spreading everywhere.

Aging is likely going to be an exciting new form of ecumenicalism, creating a variety of partnership opportunities for multiple denominations to share skills, talents and expertise in creating holistic or wholistic communities for seniors.