 and welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's program on aging. Don't just age and gauge. I'm Larry Grimm, your host for the program today. And every two weeks we look at the issues, but mostly the internal dynamics of aging, the spiritual dimensions and what happens to us inside ourselves as we seek to have a truly extraordinary, extraordinary elderhood. I'm Larry Grimm and I'm the question today is, how do aging and spirituality really affect each other? And to have someone, an authority on that speak with us today, I've invited Father Chris Bridges to come and join me here on screen. Chris? Hi, Larry. It's good to see you. Hi. It's good to see you again, Larry. And me to see you. Thank you so much for consenting to be with me today in this discussion. You and I have had really a couple of years of looking at this issue. And for me, it's just a delight to have your companionship in this process of discerning what it is to be aging into those elder years and to be people of spirit and mind. So Chris has been a pastor, a priest recently. Is it a priest in residence? Is that what you call? Right now it's a priest in charge at Epiphany Episcopal Church in Kinal Ki. And I've been there since the 1st of January 2020. Yeah, bring up the beautiful, beautiful building that they have. And I have become kind of entranced and enthralled with the beauty of the building as well as the congregation itself. And would encourage you to take some time to look at the website and get to know the people and to get to know Father Chris through the good video work that's included there. Thank you. Thank you, Max. So I want, first of all, my friend, for people, the viewers, to be able to know a little bit about you. Would you share that kind of thumbnail? Sure, sure. Who you are? Yeah. Well, I, as I said, I've been there at Epiphany Episcopal Church since January the 1st, 2020. And I was, before I became a priest, I was in the military in the army for about 25 years serving in the United States military. And then God was continuing calling me to the ministry and here I am. And I went to seminary at the, at one of our Episcopal seminaries in Swanee, Tennessee, which was great. It was scary. But I got through it and made some wonderful friends and enduring relationships there. And I was just so fortunate, I think, to be accepted, called, as we call it, in the church to be a part of Epiphanes family as their priest. And certainly, when I started, I hit the ground running, but of course, the pandemic pulled the horse out from under me. And so I had to stop, stop a little bit there. So, but it's been challenging, but the people have been so good. And I've learned a lot going through this. What have been some of the critical effects of the pandemic on community life? Well, it is, of course, it has changed community life. I mean, the whole social distancing, the wearing mask, it's cut the closeness of community. It's really kind of separated us. And which for a church, the church is built on community. We are designed to be together. And the early church, they gathered together in homes and so forth. And so that has been a challenge for us. But we've overcome it through social media. And it has made us to reach out to one another by phone, by email more, by written letter. And then also, when we were allowed to come back and worship our church, put in some very good COVID protocols, six feet apart, taking temperature at the door, the whole CDC recommendations. And so we have been able to weather the storm, if you will, as a congregation. And I think that particularly liturgically oriented congregations and denominations, such as the Episcopal Church, where the Eucharistic experience is at the center. It is particularly devastating not to have that kind of coming together in community. Companion is an interesting word. At the center of that word, companion is pan. And which in Spanish at least is bread. And so when we are companions, we are sharing bread together. And that's so highlighted so beautifully. I mean, that's done so beautifully and expressed so beautifully in the Eucharistic action of the people as they gather in liturgy. So here's this spirit and spirituality and the aging. How do you think? I know you're pretty young still, so you can't speak totally from experience. That's why I have you, Larry. That's why I have you. You teach me so much. How do you see spirituality and aging interacting? Well, I can say just through my own observations at Epiphany, we have elders in our congregation. And I would say the majority of our congregation is elders. And what I have noticed over the time that I have been here of how much spirituality or their church, their faith, is a central part of their life. It's not the total part of their life. It's a component of it. And it's just been interesting to see. I was so surprised during the pandemic of people who were told, you really shouldn't go to church because of your age. This was before the vaccine. But we were allowed to gather at certain times in certain amounts. It was so interesting for me to see these elders show up to church, put their mask on, sit six feet apart and fold their hands in prayer and be a part of the liturgy. And it just was, wow. When it first started, I didn't think anybody was going to show up. But it was really amazing to me. And even some of my parishioners had family pressure to, mom, dad, no, you shouldn't go to church. You should stay at home. But it was this draw for them. And they came. So I found that very, very interesting. You're fond of using the term now that about epiphany, that epiphany is your spiritual home. Right. Flesh that out a little bit. What does that mean? Well, for all epiphany, your spiritual home. Yeah. Well, you know, certainly I got that keen to me by seeing the activity of these members. Epiphany to them is their spiritual home. This is a place where they come to say their prayers. They come to also share their joys with one another. They gather around the table as you talk and we break bread together. And we hear the word of God together. And our church has been there since 1915. And I have to tell you that when you go into the place, and you've been there before, the prayers and the worship that has gone on in there for those many years just permeate the walls to me. And so it is their spiritual home. I had a gentleman, and I always use it such a profound impact on one of our elders who's gone on to be with Jesus now. And he would always come on Thursday to clean up the leaves around in the parking lot of the church. And I went out and I said to him, I said, Uncle Harry, why are you out here? We have someone who can take care. You don't necessarily need to be out here. And he looked up to me and he said, I know that Father Chris, but this is where I come to say my prayers. I got a lot of praying to do. So and of course, he would also come to church. And one of the last things about Uncle Harry, they just drove it even when he was sick and going through dialysis. And his family told him, we don't want you. And his wife was particular about that. We don't want you to show up to church. He would stand outside. He would sneak in actually sneak away from the house and hold his hands out to receive the bread. So that coupled with the other experiences said, these folks are spiritual home for sure. It's a draw to them. They're drawn there. So spiritual home is a strong sense of belonging, it sounds like. Yeah, to being a part of. Yeah, to the physical place. And then also to the people that come. And you know, that's through the history of our world is that we design, we set it, we set apart places for these types of things. And people go the ancient temples, churches that are all around. People go to these places that have been set apart as sacred places. You know, I think of the great cathedrals and little bitty churches in England and across Europe of how sacred those places are. So yeah, yeah. Now do you sometimes feel somewhat affronted or challenged or maybe even threatened by people who say, Oh, I don't need religion. I don't need a church because I'm a spiritual person. No, because I think, you know, spirituality is everywhere. I mean, religion or a church is just a vehicle in which spirituality is in. If that makes sense. You know, it says in the Acts of the Apostles and I went back and I looked at it in God, we live and move and have our being. So spirituality is everywhere because God is everywhere. And you know, if you take that word spirit and you know, and you know this Larry and take it down, it means breath. You know, it comes from that Hebrew word rock, I believe. And it's the breath. It's the breath of God. And so wherever we go, we are encountering spirit and spirituality. And I just say from my perspective that religion is a vehicle in which you can encounter that or become more aware of it in your life. Words are so revelatory. And here in Hawaii also is the word ha, which just as Ruach and just as Numa, just as spirit as we often use, it means several different things. It means to breathe. It means to have camaraderie. It means to be one with each other. So aloha is truly a oneness that comes as I understand it from breathing together, from sharing that spirit, if you will, sharing the oneness that comes from shared breath. Here's a question that's come in from one of our viewers. As I age, why do achievements in my life become less important than before? Can you respond to that? I think when you age, certain achievements that you strive for when you're younger, you've achieved them. You've had a great career. You've raised your children. They're successful. And then when you age, things really start really getting important to you. The relationship with that child, the relationships with those friends then become more focused and more real and more important to you than, oh, well, I made it to the vice president of some company or these achievements that we have. It's kind of getting back to the base. And that in adulthood is so rich for all of us to realize that relationships and what is real is most important. Yeah, the achievements are good, but getting to the real thing about living in adulthood. Yeah, that makes sense, Larry. Maybe I was wrong, but I don't know. That sounds very good. I like that as a response. Yes. I know from our, I'm Presbyterian, you know, and Presbyterian church had a seminar this past year, the title of which was From Role to Soul. And I think just as you have said, it's a way of saying that there's a shift we go through as we age that, as a consciousness, we begin to ask the question, or we ask the questions, what's really important? And if we, and we answer them with our lives, focused in the relationships primarily. I like that response from you that you highlighted. Yeah. Yeah. And I see that in my, in my, you know, elder members, they're focused on what really is important, you know, faith, the relationship with their children and their friends. It's just, it's different than when they were in their younger years. Yeah. Well, doesn't the church need to have more young couples with children on their roles? You know, that has been something that churches is always grappled with. And, you know, it's always, we need young people, we need young people. Well, you know, churches need all people. So, you know, but I think that that emphasis so much on young people has taken away from, there needs to be emphasis on our elders. Because our elders bring so much to the table for all of us young folks. And we just touched on it, what, you know, what is really real. And, you know, elders give us a lot of advice about things they've been through the ropes before they've been through the emotions of whatever in relationship. And so elders teach us and we've got to have elders and recognize their importance for us. You know, in churches, I think in some respects have put too much emphasis on that. I think we need to be equal with it, you know, church needs everybody. But, and you know, our society, and we've talked about this before, Larry, is our society, you know, just kind of puts elders aside. And I don't think that's right. And I don't think that's what Jesus would want us to do. There's an interesting word in the New Testament that gets translated as widows. But one of the other ways that it, what another thing that it refers to is women who within a congregation or within the church have devoted their lives to prayer. And so they're highly respected because what do they do? Well, they pray. And the power of that spiritual task of praying is recognized in the New Testament in ways that we may not see it just because that word so often detracts it from the other meaning by referring to women who have lost their husbands. And they may have lost their husbands. But what was important was that they were able to devote themselves without distraction to prayer. Well, I am fascinated by this topic, as you know. I have been aware that we have what I like to say is four stages of life in my work online with coaching people into their extraordinary elderhood. I say there's childhood, there is adolescence, there's adulthood, and then there's elderhood. And between each stage there's a transition that we go through. And the transition, if we do it effectively, means that the next stage of life is going to be so much more rewarding and understanding. But what the church offers, it seems to me, is that component of companionship, congregations are already deeply enriched with each other's lives. And so it's just a given that they have community that is important, whereas other people have to build that. Yeah, it's already there. And that's back to your question. I mean, for younger people to be able to plug into that relationships that are already there, and people who support you and are there for you in the ups and downs of life, that's very important. We need community. And that's back to the other comment about COVID. I'm very concerned about people being isolated in their homes. And just that's not good. We are built, designed by God, if you will, to be in community with one another. And our prayer every Sunday is that God will end this pandemic in our land and world, and that we can all come together as God intended us to be around a table full of food. There you go. Now, I understand from Generations Magazine that Kaimuki is one of the most densely populated areas on the island, densely populated with over 60 residents, over 60, over 65. What is all of this saying to you about the mission of Epiphany Church there in Kaimuki, a beautiful little community? Well, I believe that it's calling us to engage with the elders in Kaimuki community. As you said, it's the second largest elder population here on the island of Oahu. It used to be the first. And so we're looking at or I'm looking at in ministry as ways to engage our elder population more. We have extended an invitation to a little group of elders who play the ukulele, come and use our parish hall and do that and then be a part of our community. And then also there is ballroom dancing interest. And so it goes back. I want elders around me because they have walked it. They have talked it. And I want them to be around me and other folks in our congregation. So that's where we're kind of moving to. And we just want to be an open place for elders to come and to participate with us. And I suspect, Chris, that you're going to be able to say to them that you're there. We're here to be, we're here to nurture your spirituality. We're here to strengthen your spirit in this your spiritual home. Yeah, and strengthen that and be a companion with them as they go through these process. And also for everybody else, as you've articulated through childhood, through, you know, childhood to adulthood and our childhood adolescence and adolescence to adulthood and adulthood to adulthood. These are these transition moments. And, you know, I've had conversation with people who are getting ready to graduate out of college and they don't know what to do. Well, we've all been through that. And what is that? And they're so concerned about that. And so, you know, it, you know, the transition to to adulthood is another another way I think the church can reach out and support us. And in some ways, every transition is so seems so critical and seems like almost death. And certainly, there is sometimes a dying of my understanding of ourselves, right, as we used to be. But having elders around is a constant reminder that there is life after death. Exactly. And then if I can do it, you can do it, you know, and ship and, you know, and share those stories of, you know, when I got out of college, this is what. And so that that helps people that it's almost a role of mentorship, you know, of and we all need mentors and we all need people who understand what we're going through. And elders certainly provide that to all the rest of us. Father, Chris, I am so grateful for your insights in this. My work with with online people is gets down into really gets down in the weeds with them to where they're going with their lives. Some of them are critically ill. Some of them have come through terrific transitions of divorce and separation and and I as a coach and counselor get down in the dirty stuff with them. And we find ways to move forward. But what is so important and necessary for me is to be able to offer some resources like Epiphany Church to say, here is a community where your spirituality can be nurtured and strengthened. Give it a test. Go test. Go taste it and test it. Test. Yeah, taste and see, as they say. And Larry, I do appreciate your ministry and your work. And as I said, you're teaching me because I did not think in a million years that that I would be having these type of conversations and dealing with elderhood. And so as they say, God works in mysterious ways. And and I do appreciate your friendship to me over these very, very welcome. And we certainly have been brought together for a greater purpose than what I'm aware of, I'm sure. Yep. Thank you, Father Chris. Thank you Larry so much. Episcopal Church. There's a star in the east, I like to say. And it shines brightly through Epiphany Church. Yeah, thank you. Viewers, I hope you'll come back in two weeks. Don't don't just age and gauge is on Think Tech Hawaii every two weeks. I thank you so much Think Tech Hawaii for sponsoring this show and for doing the good work in this community which you do. By the way, if you'll go to Think Tech Hawaii, if you're there on ThinkTechAway.com, slide on over to the donate button and donate a couple of bucks to make sure that we keep community inquiry alive and well. Don't just age, engage. Aloha.