In our We Are Caregiving section, we publish a wide array of stories that are helpful to America’s millions of caregivers, including parents.

This week we are recommending a story for parents by journalist Martin Davis, who specializes in covering the deeper personal dynamics of sports. One of Davis’s stories appears in the current issue of the Christian Science Monitor (CSM), headlined: All play, no fun: Pushing back on the pressures of youth sports.

The CSM editor’s note explains Why We Wrote This: “Amid increasing pressure to treat youth sports like a career, some families and educators are pushing back–demanding playtime be fun again, and offering solutions to make it equitable and affordable.”

Davis reports on “a growing movement to push back on a system that expects children and their parents to treat game time like a career with adult demands and expectations.”

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Care to read more?

ARE YOU INTRIGUED by this column from journalist Martin Davis? Right now, Martin and our editors are completing a book filled with uplifting stories about high school coaches and players nationwide—men and women, black and white, famous and unsung heroes alike.

His book will appear soon in our series of 30 Days With under the title: 30 Days With America’s High School Coaches.

You can follow Martin’s work through his personal website, MartinDavisAuthor.com, which describes his work as an author and editor, as well as his background as a veteran journalist for national publications.

Look around that website and sign up to receive free updates from Martin about new columns and podcasts. You’ll be glad you did!

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Let’s talk about ways to help our caregivers

This podcast may inspire your community

All of us are aging. Right now, more than 50 million Americans are serving everyday as unpaid caregivers for their loved ones.

Recently, Front Edge Publishing Editor David Crumm talked with podcaster Mark Turnbull about the many ways we can help our family and friends with these challenges. Here’s how Mark starts the podcast:

As we always do, we want to thank caregivers scattered all over the nation. The theme of our show is about aging with all the many options that are placed before us—on your terms. That’s the key—on your terms. We started this podcast four years ago because we felt there was a huge void about the aging process—and it doesn’t matter about your chronological age. This podcast is all about bringing you experts who can help us to navigate the process of aging.

We agree heartily with Mark’s theme here at Front Edge Publishing, which also produces this ReadTheSpirit.com online magazine each week. That’s why our writers focused on strength-based solutions in our new book, Now What? There are chapters of the books that help families solve common problems—as well as chapters that celebrate the new potential and possibilities that we can discover in our later years.

As we age, we encounter challenges—and, if we are looking, we also can discover many gifts.

A TIP FOR LISTENERS: We hope you will hear something in this podcast that will make you smile and nod along with us. You may find a section or two of this podcast that you would like to replay for friends in a class or small group in your community or congregation. The podcast interface can easily be set to start playing at any point in the conversation.

 

By BENJAMIN PRATT
Contributing Columnist

JULY 26, 2021—Millions of us are trying to convince friends and neighbors to take the COVID pandemic seriously—and that includes some advice from my own United Methodist denomination as well as some wisdom I’ve gleaned from good old Benjamin Franklin.

Perhaps sharing this column via social media or email might help you convince one more person to take steps that will save lives.

Right now, the extremely transmissible Delta Variant of the coronavirus now makes up more than 80 percent of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. with nearly all deaths occurring in unvaccinated people. Most regions of the country are seeing new waves of infection rising with each passing week.

Many faith groups are stepping up the promotion of vaccinations among adults and emphasizing special efforts to protect children under age 12. My own Virginia United Methodist Conference is giving very specific directives to local congregations. They are as follows:

• Rescheduling re-opening of ministries involving children under the age of 12 or revisiting our mitigation plans.
• Requiring all students, volunteers, staff and visitors to wear a mask over their nose and mouth. According to the CDC guidelines a child over 2 years old should wear a mask.
• Strongly recommend that volunteers be fully vaccinated, and implement screening for each volunteer, before any gatherings.
• Try to use outdoor spaces as much as possible.
• We recommend limiting the consuming of snacks during any event. Individually packed snacks may be shared, after the event, for consumption at home.

To stop the spread of the Delta Variant and avoid the risk of future variants, it is essential that we have everyone vaccinated! Churches have a unique role to help and assist the community in inviting unvaccinated members to receive a vaccine.

We urge churches to encourage vaccination and to protect the unvaccinated population by continuing mitigation measures, such as masking and social distancing.

We have also received advice and wisdom from a grieving Founding Father. Benjamin Franklin wrote the following in his Autobiography, “In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of 4 years old, by smallpox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret, that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.”

This is footnoted as follows: “Vaccination was not at this time known. By inoculation the smallpox poison was introduced into the arm, and produced a milder form of the disease.”

As a father, grandfather and hopefully a great grandfather, I am deeply grateful when I learn that our faith communities take specific actions to mitigate the plague confronting all of us. I’m also deeply touched to learn of the personal pain and wisdom of one of our founding fathers.

Care to read more?

There’s an in-depth story about Franklin and the smallpox epidemic in Forbes magazine.

Front Edge Publishing is part of what has now become a nationwide network of journalists who are committed to publishing stories about caregiving solutions that could help communities nationwide.

Recently, the staff at the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, New York, reported on a new program in Southern California that connects caregivers from Latino households with services like respite care, training and support groups in Spanish.

The report says, in part:

The growing need to provide help is shown in a 2020 National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP report. It revealed Hispanic caregivers feel their role gives them a sense of purpose, but they have the fewest caregiving resources and information in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups.

The report also found Hispanic family caregivers are more likely to be in higher intensity situations—meaning they often provide more care—while struggling with lower incomes and often having poor or no health insurance.

The report also explains issues involved in trying to bring such a program to other communities.

 

Learn about the Inspiring Work of Certified Music Practitioners

‘Where words fail, music speaks.’
Hans Christian Andersen

EDITOR’s NOTE: As the worldwide pandemic has risen and fallen in 2021, we are receiving more columns from writers around the world about the challenges of aging, caregiving and the end of life. This week’s story comes from Lori Brady-Neuman, a retired school social worker who has been using her life-long skills, especially her talents as a musician, to bring music to hospice patients. That kind of work by Certified Music Practitioners has been growing nationwide, including at major teaching hospitals. In her story, Lori explains how she got involved in this work, which is distinctly different than the profession of music therapy—and she tells us how her music has touched the lives of families she has met.

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By LORI BRADY-NEUMAN
Contributing Writer

Looking back over the years, I recall that I have known loss and grief in many capacities. My Dad left our home when I was 8. My husband of 20 years left the marriage, and friends of mine have struggled with many loss issues. I realize that I have walked alongside grief in many aspects of my life, so choosing to sing to the dying became the ultimate way of befriending loss.

One set of experiences that led me along the path toward working in hospice was planning and singing at various funerals over the years. I remember a significant funeral in which I sang for a dear friend, Elizabeth who was in her thirties. The night before her death, I was at her hospital bed where we shared memories and prayer and Holy Communion.

Since my hands were both involved in playing the guitar, she reached out for my knee in a desire to touch me. I introduced her to a new piece of music, “The Lights of the City,” which she loved—and then asked me to sing it at the wake, the night before the funeral.

At the memorial service, I shared the story of having sung this song to Elizabeth the night before her death. I shared what she loved about the song, and that she wanted me to sing it as the final song because she wanted her friends and family to leave the service on a happy note. I told this story just before singing it. At the end of the song, no one moved. I walked over to Elizabeth’s mother who shared a comment Elizabeth might have made if she could: “That was really cool.” I quickly returned to the microphone and shared this comment with the mourners who knew those would indeed be her words. A chuckle ensued, and then they were able to let go of their frozen stance. It was an extremely moving moment. I knew then I wanted to sing to people as they left this world.

Certified Music Practitioners: Music for Healing and Transition

I learned from a friend, who knew about my desire to sing to the dying, about the organization, Music for Healing and Transition (MHTP). I applied and was accepted. (If you care to learn more about MHTP’s work and certification of music practitioners, here is a very helpful page you’ll want to read within the MHTP website that answers questions including the distinction between a CMP and a music therapist.)

I completed my training and earned my certification as a Certified Music Practitioner through The Music for Healing and Transition Program. My training included teaching presentations by staff, background on paradigms of healing, required reading, repertoire development along with extensive internship and supervised practicum. I was assigned a mentor and, at the end of the entire process, I took an extensive exam and was required to submit a vocal recording that demonstrated my knowledge of which categories of music to use for patients in situations such as chronically ill, critically ill or actively dying.

Within the overall program, I chose hospice as my practicum. I will never forget an exercise during my hospice training that was focused on the various aspects of “letting go.” One of my assignments was to think of a final person I couldn’t bear to leave. I have three children, and I was asked to choose one child from among the three, as the final person to say “good-bye” to. I can recall quietly crying and not wanting to finish the exercise—but I had to complete this writing assignment as part of my program. Even though it was an exercise in my training, the process still was wrenching. The experience was designed to help me understand a little better the agony that a dying person could be experiencing.

During my training, I also was surprised at the breadth of music I was encouraged to prepare. As I started this process, I had prepared spiritual music, assuming from my own personal preferences that I would want spiritual music during my dying days. However, I quickly learned that we only sing spiritual songs if the patient or family asks for that type of music. This was so startling to me, at first, that I considered leaving the program for a moment.

Then, I began to understand. Not everyone loves spiritual music. For many individuals and families, other kinds of music are far more meaningful. As my trainer explained this, I decided to stay and to broaden my repertoire. I am so glad I made that choice!

My next hurdle was dealing with the question: Do I have enough musical talent? Can I remember the words and chords to all the music I wanted to share? None of this detoured me. I was determined. Eventually, I realized that the music I most commonly play falls into three general groups: spiritual music and hymns; popular and folk songs, especially music like John Denver or traditional tunes like Shenandoah; and then music that actually is new to people but that winds up closely paralleling their journey. While that’s a lot of music, my son has loaded all of my guitar chords and lyrics onto an iPad for me, so my repertoire is very portable now.

One event that vividly stands out occurred during my internship. I had sung to a woman who had COPD. She had been struggling for some time, and was experiencing labored breathing. The nurses indicated she had been trying to let go for several days but just became so anxious and rigid that she couldn’t let the process unfold. Her son asked me to sing to her that day as he was aware that I had done so the day before, and that it had gone well.

The patient was using oxygen. She was breathing extremely hard, so much so that her false teeth had fallen out of her mouth. During my studies I learned the importance of mirroring the patient’s breathing musically as a sign of respect, which is what I did. And then to immediately transition the beat to a normal heartbeat pattern, 60 to 80 beats a minute. Her breathing entrained to my normal heartbeat and then her process of letting go began. While sharing music with her, her breathing diminished to 30 breaths a minute, to 20 breaths a minute, then 10, then her actual last breath. I followed her until there was no breath at all. Her son and her sister who came from Australia were in the room. Her son was holding her hand.

During the final 5 to 10 minutes, I was playing arrhymic music, often just a chord, or I plucked a string, no singing, only following her breath. It was a gentle, slow letting go that her body was trying to achieve. As an intern, the whole event was scary and awesome at the same moment. It was amazing to be able to help the patient unbind in her own time and manner and as she was ready.

The Benefits of Music for Patients

Live therapeutic music at the bedside has been shown to reduce a patient’s anxiety, fear, pain, anticipatory grief and restlessness and offer them a sense of calm, comfort and peace.

In doing a little research for this article, I found a log, which we were required to submit to our mentor and supervisor after visiting with each patient. It references a COPD patient, age 90, who had declined all medications, even Tylenol. This is the first time I had been with a patient who was suffering so. I felt enormously helpless. At one point I thought she didn’t want music, but a nurse came in and said to share the music anyway. She needed water and I summoned the hospice nurse for that.

At one point she started moaning: “Please save my soul.”

I responded by singing those words in a chant-like melody that I improvised. It seemed like she responded favorably to this. She definitely wanted me to sing and play. She was hallucinating, however, most of the time, so it was difficult to tell. I also sang a song and inserted her name in it. She noticed even though she was hard of hearing. I spent a long time with this patient trying to see what was right for her and trying to help her relax and
hopefully she would be able to sleep. When I was ready to leave her room, she seemed more relaxed, and even had closed her eyes.

I am reminded of another vignette of a family that I had been allowed to accompany on his final journey. I was  singing to a man in his seventies. He was pretty alert. His daughter was in the room with us. I started to sing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” I invited the patient and his daughter to join if they wished. The patient, who died the following week, chose to sing with me. His daughter grabbed her smart phone and video taped the moment. It was truly special.

A week later, I received a call from the daughter letting me know her father had died and wanted my permission to show the video at his memorial service. I said: Yes, of course. It was well received and exactly what the family wanted.

Over the years, I have discovered that presence is more of a gift than musical excellence. I now understand this important gift. I experience the importance of presence every day that I volunteer at Capital Caring, Adler Center, in Aldie, Virginia, one day a week for the past 6 years.

Creating a healing environment through music

My goal as a music practitioner is to create a healing environment, a musical massage if you will. My ultimate goal is to help a person in transition as they unbind. The reason live music is more effective than recorded music is that the musician is able to make adjustments during the session depending on the patient’s mood, condition and breath.

Therapeutic music during the dying process is very effective at regulating breathing (as the person goes through the transitional stages of breathing until there is no breath), supporting relaxation, diminishing fear and anxiety, bringing family and loved ones closer together as they sit vigil, and adding a potent spiritual dimension to the event, regardless of religious affiliation. Music can help people relax and the voice can communicate a sense of healing and comfort. Since music is pure vibration, whether it’s from my voice or my guitar, it affects the body inside and out, mind and spirit.

I also find that the music has the potential of reducing feelings of isolation and fear. Music has the power to bring a fullness that words alone can’t create. I have seen the power of music reach deep inside of family members as they transform experiences of suffering into meaning.

I am also aware that the simple act of a stranger holding guitar and offering to share music, I am telling the person and family that someone is willing to sit with them for 30 to 60 minutes and share in their sorrow and feelings of loss. I am always aware that, even if the family chooses not to have me sing, they are always grateful that I offered to sing.

Before I begin each visit at Adler, I center myself. I ask God to work through me to help bring a sense of peace, comfort and calm. My intent is to be of service, not to entertain. I
am humbled and privileged to do this meaningful work. I often feel that I receive a greater gift than I give. While some Certified Music Practitioners are paid, I do all my work as a volunteer.

We play our music for those suffering with pain, anxiety and dementia to bring them comfort and a sense of belonging. The music can help release fears and attachments. It can provide us with beauty, warmth, light and hints that we are not alone. Music can help relieve stress and tension.

We also play our music for the dying because of our love and appreciation for life. The music provides a voice for this love. It is our hope that the music can accompany and journey with the person who is dying to ease their fears and surround them with a sense of beauty and blessing. The music conveys a sense of serenity and consolation that can be profoundly soothing.

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Care to read more?

A dozen writers from around the world came together to create a resource for families who suddenly discover they are facing aging issues—and immediately need a helpful orientation to the new challenges opening up around them.

It’s called Now What? A Guide to the Gifts and Challenges of Aging.

Co-sponsored by a long list of nonprofit groups that work with aging Americans, this new resource book has chapters on issues that include:

• Successful aging in place, which includes making our homes safe for us as we encounter physical changes.
• Tips for smart dressing and accessories to make life easier.
• Tips for new careers and also meaningful service we can provide to our communities as we age.
• An introduction to services including financial planning and hospice.

“An amazing feature of this volume is its ability to address both caregivers and those in need of support, fellowship and aid to improve quality of life,” Robert J. Wicks, the author of many books about resilience, writes about this new book. “You will be so much better prepared to live a full life more sagely and enjoyably with less unnecessary worry, and guide others in the process as well.”

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By ELISA Di BENEDETTO
Contributing Columnist

Over the next year, I will be sharing valuable resources I am finding through global networks of scholars, community leaders and journalists who are committed to improving media coverage of minorities, including: religious groups, especially at-risk minority faith communities; migrants and refugees; and the ever-growing “minorities” of elderly men and women in nations around the world.

One major commitment I have made, in cooperation with ReadTheSpirit online magazine, is participation in the newly launched Global Exchange on Religion in Society (GERIS), a European-Union-funded project through 2022 to encourage positive international conversations about diversity, coexistence and social inclusion.

Through 2022, GERIS is encouraging media professionals to work with scholars as well as community, nonprofit and religious leaders to promote awareness of these themes:

• “The challenge of living together in a globalized world of highly diverse societies;
• Positive experience of coexistence and inclusion, and shared citizenship;
• Fostering pluralism and respect for diversity through education;
• Challenge of being a minority;
• Tolerance and respect for diversity as a solution;
• Active citizenship, belonging and identity;
• Harnessing opportunities for reconciliation and transitional justice.”

As GERIS participants are organizing their work in this summer of 2021, we don’t yet have a lot of public resources to share.

However—because of my overall work as an international partner in various journalistic efforts to protect at-risk minorities, I am sharing today a remarkable array of resources for encouraging positive perspectives on healthy aging.

Get involved in the Decade of Healthy Aging

This spring, as a journalist, I attended a virtual conference of professionals from around the world focused on the United Nations’ Decade of Health Aging. If you visit this UN home page, you will find:

• A 7-minute YouTube video you can share that features “Leaders’ Voices,” messages from seven international leaders in this decade-long campaign. Because the video is hosted on YouTube, it’s easy to share with friends in small community gatherings or congregation-based groups to help spark discussion. (Here’s the direct YouTube link for that video.)
• The complete Decade for Healthy Aging Plan in six languages, including English, Spanish and Arabic. Just scroll down on that UN Healthy Aging page (linked above) and you can select the language you prefer to download.
• And, lots of other links, including one to learn more about how you and your community can get involved in the decade-long effort.

Resources for Positive Perspectives on Healthy Aging

At the United Nations conference I attended, a second treasure-trove of resources came from the World Health Organization. Here is the World Health Organization’s Combatting Ageism online portal. From this hub, you can branch out into dozens of other resources, including:

• As an individual or a leader in a community group or nonprofit institution, you can share details of what you are doing overall on behalf of this global effort. You also can share details about specific events, including photos of those events that might inspire others. Just follow the two prominent links: Get Involved and Register Your Event.
• Scroll down and you can choose to read the entire 200-page global report on ageism— or a shorter “executive summary” of the findings.
• Are you active on social media? On that page, there’s also a link to a Social Media and Infographic Package that provides 19 easy-to-share images and fact boxes suitable for social media.
• Eager to get involved? There’s a 22-page Toolkit for the Global Campaign to Combat Ageism available in English, French and Spanish. This is an all-in-one-PDF that combines elements of a “discussion guide,” a community-organizing strategy and lots of great ideas for communicators and group leaders. Then, if you are planning a dialogue or group discussion in your community, you will also want this 19-page Guide to Initiating a Conversation about Ageism.
• Finally, if you’re a communicator like me, there’s a specialized 5-page Quick Guide to Avoid Ageism in Communication. This guide points out a number of ways our daily journalism—or our social media—can contribute to stereotyping older men and women. This 5-page “guide” not a rigid stylebook. Rather, it raises questions to consider. In other words: If you are a community leader, his little guide also could help you to spark a spirited discussion among your colleagues.

And, Best of all: Check Out These Free-to-Use Positive Photos of Aging Men and Women

I saved the best resource for last!

One of the toughest challenges for professional communicators is finding free-to-use photographs to illustrate the aging theme in blogs, columns, newsletters and other publications. Usually, professionals adapt to this challenge by making sure to take their own photographs, which they are then free to use.

Every day, however, countless communicators are searching online databases like Wikimedia Commons, and many others, looking for images they can use to illustrate news items, columns and helpful online presentations related to aging. If you have searched those databases, you know there are not a lot of good free-to-use photographic choices to illustrate aging in a neutral or positive way—and, worse, a lot of the available photos involve old people in some kind of crisis.

The UK-based, publicly funded nonprofit Centre for Ageing Better has tackled this challenge head on, funding lots of fresh stock photography. When I discovered this photo database, I described it to ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm as we met via Skype this week and his immediate response was one word: “Wow!”

Starting at this Photo Resource Search Page within the Centre for Ageing Better’s website, you’ll likely find yourself spending quite a bit of time discovering the incredible array of photographs that you are free to use. If you share nothing else in this column with friends, this new photo database is a real treasure for anyone who regularly works on professional media!

You’ll also find that the photo archivists are paying attention to gender, ethnic, racial and religious diversity. You’ll find people working, people in both outdoor and indoor settings, people riding on public transportation, people enjoying yoga in the park or talking in small groups. Because this is a British effort, you’ll find people who play cricket. There are a number of distinctive British gems in this treasure box.

Care to Read More?

Finally, here’s just one more reminder to check out the book to which I contributed along with a dozen other writers: Now What? A Guide to the Gifts and Challenges of Aging. The production of this book was a non-profit effort co-sponsored by a dozen U.S.-based nonprofit organizations that work with aging and at-risk communities. The book is a guide to dozens of the common challenges families face as their loved ones age. The best part of the book is that it takes a “strength-based” approach to this theme. That means, the book also emphasizes many gifts, strengths and creative ideas shared by elderly men and women.

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Elisa Di Benedetto is an internationally known journalist specializing in covering religious and cultural diversity as well as global migration and refugee issues. She is co-managing director and web editor of The International Association of Religion Journalists, a worldwide network of top journalists who cover religion. Elisa also is an active member in a number of other professional networks that promote best practices in covering minorities and at-risk populations. She contributed to the new book, “Now What? A Guide to the Gifts and Challenges of Aging.”

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By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit magazine

Indian leaders often refer to the original scale of their North American communities as “500 Nations”—and in the summer of 2021 they recognize that COVID responses have been as diverse as those cultural communities spread across this continent. Some tribes have experienced the tragic loss of Elders and little—or late—help from government agencies throughout 2020 and early 2021.

Other tribes have become models of public health response.

At their best, Native American leaders have demonstrated the strengths of truly caring communities. Here are some news stories about those efforts that you may have missed—reminders of the potential of Native wisdom and culture in the midst of a public health crisis.

• PBS News Hour was one of the first to focus on this aspect of the COVID story. In November, 2020, PBS News Hour reported, How the Cherokee Nation has curtailed the pandemic
• Pew Charitable Trusts in February 2021, In Hard-Hit Indian Country, Tribes Rapidly Roll Out Vaccines
• National Public Radio in February 2021, Why Native Americans Are Getting COVID-19 Vaccines Faster
• Washington Post in May 2021, How Native Americans launched successful coronavirus vaccination drives: ‘A story of resilience’
• NBC News in June 2021, Covid deaths ravaged this Native American tribe. Now, 98% of eligible citizens are vaccinated.

Care to Read More?

Since our publishing house’s founding in 2007, we have worked with Native American writers and journalists to encourage their voices to be shared. Please, read this column in our Front Edge Publishing website that explains the two most important books we have published with Native American writers.