This book seeks to map out the parameters and boundaries of soulful aging and explores philosophical and theological perspectives on the way we grow older. It extends work in the behavioural and social sciences which address the diverse and contested connections of older people’s inner voices and social relationships.
Building on qualitative and quantitative research in age studies and gerontology, this volume extends concepts and stories that attest to the joys, tensions, and paradoxes that mount with advancing years. From ten authors versed in writing from multi-disciplinary and inter-professional perspectives with clarity, the book conjoins and challenges behavioural thoughts-and-actions and religious/spiritual spheres of late-life human development previously presented in the context of positive and productive aging as well as healthful, wise, and successful ‘Saging’.
Interdisciplinary and insightful, Soulful Aging will be a key resource for scholars and researchers of religion, theology, philosophy, psychology, gerontology, and sociology. It was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging.
A word from the journal editor
James W. Ellor
Introduction: A word from the guest editor
W. Andrew Achenbaum
1. Conscious aging, Spiritual aging, and soulful aging: A journey toward the vulnerability of love
W. Andrew Achenbaum
2. I am not aging soulfully
Jon G. Allen
3. Exploring religious/spiritual pathways between practical wisdom and depression: Testing the importance of the divine relationship in later life
Laura Upenieks and Neal M. Krause
4. Finitude and eternity: mental companions of soulful aging?
Frieder R. Lang
5. Slower, deeper, wider: what soulful aging means to me
William L. Randall
6. The Jewish soulful aging of Jacques Élie Derrida
Stephen Katz
7. Soulful ageing- a lifetime cancer journey
Janice Ryan
8. In the twinkling of an eye
Sarah Robinson Flick
9. The poetics of soulful aging
Braveheart Gillani
10. “Take my hand, precious lord and lead me home”: Witnessing soulful aging
Karen Skerrett
Biography
Author and retired professor W. Andrew Achenbaum works at the interface of aging, humanities, and policy analysis.
