Introduction

As we get older, challenging questions can arise concerning the meaning and purpose of life, especially as we move beyond the main phases of career and family building and look back on the mix of experiences that most lives encounter. There is a common-sense and culturally based understanding that the meaning of our life so far, and of its future, becomes more salient with age and that life review in various forms is an important means of exploring these issues. Faith and spirituality have traditionally been lenses through which people have explored existential matters such as identity, calling and purpose in life as well as their significance within the cosmos, relationship with an ultimate ‘other’, and other great mysteries of life and death.

This chapter explores ideas about spirituality in relation to ageing and learning and in particular how spirituality is experienced in later life. It focuses on the question of whether, and in what ways, learning in the later years can enhance a spiritual dimension to life. As a gerontologist who has a special interest in lifelong learning, I find that spirituality can be usefully discussed in terms of learning and development over the lifetime, and as part of mature identity (Walker 2010). The relevance of older people's faith and spirituality, often expressed in membership of a religion, is being rediscovered by social scientists as an important element in the meaning, experience and quality of later lives.

Faith and spirituality can enable older people to experience their lives as meaningful despite challenges to their quality of life; new meanings and purposes can replace those that experience has found wanting. Where physical or economic powers may diminish, a potential remains to reflect and make sense of things using the resources of faith and inner spiritual strength. Membership of a faith community can offer a valuable source of support, encouragement and identity. Participation in communal expressions of hope and belief, as well as in symbolically meaningful activities, are still significant aspects of many older people's lives.

Gerontological research across many disciplines and professional fields of practice increasingly links faith and spirituality in older people with higher levels of life satisfaction, better adjustment and coping with stressful life events, and recovery from illness and bereavement.

From a faint glimmer in the eyes of the editors a plan was evolved to bring together international experts on ageing and spirituality and provide them with surroundings and a structure sufficient to enable significant discussion of their current thinking. The vision gained support, sponsorship and interest in a potential publication of the invited papers – all of which we are most grateful to acknowledge, since nothing could have taken place without them. The Symposium on Spiritual Dimensions of Ageing took place in Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Great Park in the UK, with sixteen scholars from Europe, America and Australia.

Abstracts and first drafts of chapters had been received and shared, and the arrangement of the presentations was not dissimilar to the eventual order of appearance in this volume, as their common interests or approaches seemed to suggest. The huge value, as well as the pleasure, of hearing papers delivered lies in the interaction that ensues. This process was orchestrated both on the days of the symposium and extended as far as possible through recording, transcribing and further circulation of responses and suggestions. Participants were asked to identify key points of their own papers, and links with others’, and to suggest themes for the book. All of this has fed into the chapters now before the reader.

The accumulation of expertise, combined with long experience and the wisdom that knows the limits of such knowledge, was powerful indeed and has left a lasting impression on those who participated, not least the editors whose dream had come to reality. We were grateful for the continued generosity of the participants, all of whom have subsequently revised their papers in the light of the discussions and made them available for this publication.

We are aware that spirituality and ageing is a field of study that draws on many disciplines, professions and philosophical approaches. It is also becoming more visible as an academic enterprise, though still widely distributed, so it seemed timely to bring together some excellent, but similarly diverse contributions. Our hope for the book is the encouragement and inspiration of contributions yet to come; for the benefit of our ageing societies, and the older people we wish not only to live alongside but also to become.

Introduction

A fundamental underlying theme of this book is that the later years are a significant time for the spiritual dimension of life, both as a resource for facing the challenges of ageing and for the potential it offers for growth and development. Spirituality is, of course, as much a part of human experience as any other normal kind of thought or behaviour, although this has not always been the view of scholars or practitioners. Furthermore, both spirituality and religion are widespread phenomena, being part of many cultures and of the lives of people of all ages and statuses. Spirituality continues to adapt and evolve new forms because it addresses people's human needs to connect meaningfully with themselves, with each other and to a higher power or larger source of meaning and purpose. Thus, the sources of spiritual inspiration and sustenance are internal, drawing on and making sense of experiences and interactions in the world as well as through any perceived transcendent connection.

However, until recently, this inner life of older people has been largely ignored or treated as problematic by gerontologists. Research is heavily directed towards physical and economic well-being and the political economy of ageing populations. The unseen dynamics of living are investigated principally in terms of physical and psychological pathologies within conventional disease paradigms or the policy challenges that they pose. This volume offers a more detailed map of the way individuals in later life experience and manage their psychological and spiritual self-identities, especially when finitude intensifies the process of life review.

Much of the current rise in interest in spirituality is related to its traditional link with health and well-being, making it a potential contributor to interventions or therapies that can improve people's lives. For instance, spiritual experiences and practices that are capable of helping establish an integrated personality are being recognised as playing a part in mental health. Older people with a developed spiritual dimension to their lives are said (in various experimentally established situations) to deal better with negative life events and their attendant stress, and to recover more quickly from illness or trauma (Mohan 2001). Such research is based on, and gives rise to further investigation of, ideas about spirituality being involved in coping, adjusting, social inclusion, mature self-identity and esteem, meaning and purpose, death awareness and so on.