"Welcome to the first-ever meeting of Geezers Unanimous. My name is Paul, and I am a geezer-in-training." This was my greeting to the participants in this year's Lazy Daze older adult retreat, sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Conference. Held at Lazy F, our church camp in central Washington, Lazy Daze has been an annual event for many older adults for a good number of years. In my role as chairperson of the Conference Council on Older Adult Ministries, I was asked to be the keynote speaker at the two-day retreat. My theme was "Welcome to Geezers Unanimous: Be the Difference." The age range of retreatants was early '60s to mid-'80s.

While technically a retired United Methodist pastor, I refer to myself as "refocused." I simply exchanged parish ministry some years ago for a ministry refocused on geriatric needs in our north Idaho community. Now I have an elder- education consulting ministry called Elder Advocates.

"Geezers Unanimous is not an organization, but an attitude adjustment," I told my listeners. "Some attitude adjustments are deeply needed when it comes to issues of aging. So I hope to introduce you to some new ideas about aging that challenge what you currently think about aging in general, and maybe even about your own aging experiences."

I invited participants to write down some attitudes that members of Geezers Unanimous should cultivate. One person suggested that these be called BE-Attitudes, since "being" is generally more important to elders than "doing." So now I am compiling the BE-Attitudes of Geezers Unanimous.

We settled on a few BE-Attitudes such as:

• Gray hair and wrinkles are not fashion statements. They are value statements.
• How we use the language of aging says something of what we think about aging.
• The health of my humor is shown not in how I tell a joke, but in how I see life.
• When I feel off-balance, I will laugh my way back to balance.

In my four one-hour presentations, I explored the transforming power of humor ("An Attitude Worth Laughing About"), the deep need we have for life-meaning ("Meaning Means Belonging"), how elders still make a difference ("How Much Time Do I Have Left?"), and the three basic tasks elders have before they die ("Life Beyond Gray Hair and Wrinkles"). In my first presentation, I introduced them to my new description of "geezer," from a French word for "disguise." So to me, geezer is a gender-neutral word for a person who may look old, but whose spirit and mind are young, vital, and hopeful. I shared many examples of "geezer humor." After that first hour, I heard that one of the participants struggled with the word "geezer." He still thought of the word as derogatory. I hope his understanding of "geezers" was expanded at Lazy Daze.

We spent a few moments discussing what people might be called who were brave enough to say they were part of Geezers Unanimous. After we explored the power of "belonging" -- helped along by Rachael Remen's powerful essay on belonging in "My Grandfather's Blessing" – some folks chose to call us "Be-Longers of Geezers Unanimous." It's nothing official, but it made good sense to us. One of the BE-Attitudes we spoke of is a firm repudiation of a chronic condition in our denomination and other faith-communities: ageism. For decades, the fear of aging has caused people within the church and in the general community to ignore elders' rights to basic human respect and dignity.

So one of our BE-Attitudes is this: To admit who I am enhances my chances to become who I'm meant to be. This, of course, can be interpreted in a variety of ways by each of us. But Geezers Unanimous wants everyone to know that aging is not to be feared.

To accept the realities of aging is to be free to choose how to respond to those realities. In aging, we can experience gratitude and hope in ways not possible when we are younger.

In her novel, Broken for You, Stephanie Kallos created a wise old man named Gus. His courage to admit who he was allowed him to realize "We don't grow old. It's the wrong expression. When we stop growing, we are old."

Gus knew what we in the church don't realize often enough: We have the capacity to never stop growing. Perhaps our cultural preoccupation with youth and adulthood has blinded us to the potential for personal and social growth as we accumulate our gray hair and wrinkles.

The Council on Older Adult Ministries of the Pacific Northwest Conference of The United Methodist Church is rediscovering its mission to help our local churches combat the ageism in our local churches. Education is a prime ingredient in that effort.

We already provide districtwide workshops on developing older adult ministries in our local churches. In 2009, we will ask local church members to explore aging as a reality in their own lives and in the corporate lives of their churches.

We will invite our churches to engage in small groups studies of Dr. Richard Gentzler's new, helpful book Aging and Ministry in the 21st Century: An Inquiry Approach. It is well-suited as a gentle but focused tool for church members to consider their own attitudes toward aging as a precursor to developing some kind of older adult ministry (read "program").

Dr. Gentzler also calls for what I have also called for on many occasions. To be more effective, older adult ministry must include ministry to, by, and with older adults, not just for older adults. Older adults are more physically and cognitively fit than their counterparts twenty years ago were. But we often develop ministries forgetting that vitality.

Yet even when elders are not either physically or cognitively capable of doing for themselves, we must remember this: An elder is not a human "doing" but a human "being." The dignity of any elder is determined by his or her "being," not by what the person has done or can no longer do.

At Lazy Daze, I shared a good deal of truth-pieces from What Are Old People For? How Elders Will Save the World by Dr. William Thomas. Based on the "being" of elders, Dr.Thomas identifies three basic tasks of elderhood that Lazy Daze participants explored together.

Elders are called to make peace (within yourself, your family and the world), give wisdom (especially through stories), and create your legacy. As Be-Longers of Geezers Unanimous, we can engage in each of these elder tasks.

Through these tasks of being, we can be the difference to our families, our churches, even the world.

A note about Paul R. Graves:
I served as a parish pastor for 27 years, all in the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference. My wife and I have lived in Sandpoint, ID, for 20 years. After stepping out of parish work, I became a geriatric social worker in local nursing homes, and I also served as administrator of a local assisted living facility. I've also served for 16 years as a volunteer Hospice chaplain, a city council member and mayor of Sandpoint, ID. Currently I conduct an education-consulting ministry, Elder Advocates, to assist elders and adult children preparing themselves for life in the Elder Maze. I've been chairperson of our Conference Council on Older Adult Ministries since September 2007.

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