{"id":1649,"date":"2009-09-11T00:00:23","date_gmt":"2009-09-11T00:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.brethren.org\/news\/?p=1649"},"modified":"2018-11-14T04:12:10","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T04:12:10","slug":"keynote-speakers-make","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/2009\/keynote-speakers-make\/","title":{"rendered":"Noac Keynote Speakers Make Connections Between Wisdom and Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"NOAC 2009
\nNational Older Adult Conference of the Church of the Brethren<\/h3>\n

Lake Junaluska, N.C. — Sept. 7-11, 2009<\/h3>\n

<\/h1>\n

Sept. 11, 2009\"\"<\/strong><\/h6>\n

The three keynote speakers at National Older Adult Conference 2009 each addressed the conference theme\u00a0as they\u00a0talked about\u00a0connections of\u00a0legacies and wisdom. Speaking on three different mornings, each\u00a0speaker, however, had a very different\u00a0point of view to offer to the older adult audience:<\/p>\n

Rachael Freed, founder of Life-Legacies and\u00a0author of the book “Women’s Lives, Women’s Legacies,” explained her work to reclaim the ancient\u00a0tradition of the ethical will or legacy letter.<\/p>\n

David Waas,\u00a0a Church of the Brethren member and emeritus professor of history at Manchester College in North Manchester, Ind., challenged the audience to consider what legacy their generation in the church will leave, in terms of the influence of Christianity on the state.<\/p>\n

Michael McKeever,\u00a0a\u00a0Church of the Brethren member from Elgin, Ill., who teaches at Judson University with\u00a0a specialty on the Gospels,\u00a0connected wisdom “at the crossroads” with\u00a0life journeys\u00a0of reconciliation.<\/p>\n

Rachael Freed proposed the tradition of the legacy letter as a helpful\u00a0tool for older adults to pass on a legacy of faith to succeeding generations. <\/strong>An ethical will or legacy letter is “one of the examples of weaving the old to meet the needs in the new world,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"The tradition comes straight from Genesis 49, which\u00a0Freed\u00a0described as\u00a0the story of\u00a0Jacob on his deathbed\u00a0offering blessings “along with recriminations and instructions” to his sons.<\/p>\n

After the Israelites’ exile to Babylon, the rabbis in their struggle to find ways to maintain the faith used this story as a template for Jewish men to communicate the family legacy. Freed explained that the tradition survives\u00a0in modern Jewish custom as a way to prepare spiritually for the high holy days.<\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0she is making a reinterpretation of this patriarchal tradition into\u00a0her life’s work,\u00a0offering\u00a0the legacy letter\u00a0as a\u00a0“healing\u00a0tool”\u00a0for women’s groups and\u00a0others who may be considered on the edge of society, such as prison inmates. She has started “legacy circles” in her hometown\u00a0 of Minneapolis, with a focus on “empowering women to share their wisdom for future generations.”<\/p>\n

The idea of a legacy letter is quite simple: A letter (or another form of communication) that a person writes to children or grandchildren or other descendants, in order to impart life lessons, values, meaningful stories, and blessings.<\/p>\n

Freed emphasized the importance of\u00a0legacy letters\u00a0offering\u00a0blessings for\u00a0the next generations. The\u00a0family struggles in Genesis illustrate that\u00a0“dire results” come when people do not receive such blessings, she noted. She offered the following blessing to the NOAC participants, quoted here in part, as she closed her session:<\/p>\n

\"\"
The three keynote speakers for National Older Adult Conference 2009 each addressed the conference theme in different ways, as they addressed how older adults may connect wisdom and legacy. Pictured here (from top) are Rachael Freed, David Waas, and Michael McKeever. For more photos of speakers and main sessions as well as worship at NOAC, click here. Photos by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“May this time in your life as elders be a time of wonder, of gratitude, of renewal, of connection, and contribution…. Your wisdom and blessing are shared in ways you can’t ever imagine….”<\/p>\n

David Waas\u00a0addressed connections between\u00a0the\u00a0legacy of\u00a0Christianity and what the faith–particularly\u00a0the Brethren way of\u00a0following Jesus–may have\u00a0to say to the nation-state.\u00a0<\/strong>“We are the receivers of rich legacies, and we are the conduit of legacies,” he said. Bringing to mind\u00a0stories told of Brethren leaders of past generations,\u00a0he asked participants at the 2009 NOAC,\u00a0“What will the next book be, when you and I are the subjects?” and “What will be said about how we witnessed to our time?”<\/p>\n

He\u00a0explained that\u00a0these questions needed to be asked from the point of view of two identities, shared by most of those present:\u00a0as a member of the Church of the Brethren, and as an American. “You and I have helped fashion not only our church,” he told the NOAC audience, “but you and I helped fashion our nation…. It’s on our watch and we carry a responsibility.”<\/p>\n

Waas\u00a0traced a historical shift in the Church of the Brethren from opposition to the state, at the beginning of the Brethren movement, to a focus on how to be a good citizen, as the church moved into the mid-twentieth century. Then he\u00a0traced the development of a\u00a0number of current crises in the United States: the economy, health care,\u00a0the prison population, the homicide rate, and gun violence. “While we are here today, the 9th of September, 80 people will be shot by guns in homicides,” he said.<\/p>\n

But the “crisis we never seem to be able to talk about,” he said, is the movement of military power to center stage in the United States. “That has happened in our lifetime. A shift to massive, ever-present military strength…. A tectonic shift in our society, to a different kind of nation that often we do not recognize.” Military might “has become a defining factor” of the United States, and of who Americans are in the world, he said. As a result, there is a crisis of confidence in the democratic leadership of the country, he said, along with a moral crisis in which even the legitimacy of torture can be debated by Americans.<\/p>\n

Waas called on NOAC participants to recognize the alternative\u00a0legacy that followers of Christ may offer to\u00a0a militarized\u00a0nation. “We should adopt and reinvigorate the Christian vision to call the state to its highest ideals,”\u00a0he said. “We must work as never before to advocate for peace. Our mission is to speak truth to power…. We have to have the courage to challenge the sacred cow of the military.”<\/p>\n

“You and I are citizens of a great land and we carry the mantle of a great heritage, a rich Brethren heritage which our nation needs,” Waas concluded.<\/p>\n

Michael McKeever took NOAC\u00a0“on the road,”\u00a0tying together biblical themes of people on the move with themes from\u00a0film and popular culture to talk about how a life journey may lead to reconciliation. <\/strong>McKeever has\u00a0taught a course titled “Luke and the American Road Movie” (the subject of an upcoming book) and is\u00a0the founder and director of\u00a0a film series at Judson University called “Reel Conversations.”<\/p>\n

Starting with\u00a0the image of\u00a0Lady Wisdom\u00a0in Proverbs–where\u00a0the wisdom of God\u00a0is imagined as a woman who takes her stand at the crossroads\u00a0in the midst of the people–McKeever then moved on to discuss\u00a0three parables\u00a0Jesus tells\u00a0in Luke 15 about God’s search for the lost.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0compared these stories of the lost sheep,\u00a0lost coin, and the prodigal son to a\u00a01999 film in the American road movie genre, “The Straight Story,” directed by David Lynch. The film tells the true\u00a0story of an elderly\u00a0man named Alvin Straight, who rides his lawnmower\u00a0from Iowa to Wisconsin\u00a0in order to make amends with his ailing brother before he dies.<\/p>\n

Christians are portrayed as “on the road” as “followers of the way” in the New Testament,\u00a0McKeever reminded his audience. Just as Americans often identify with the\u00a0Hollywood portrayal of “a restless people who go out on the road to find ourselves,” he said.<\/p>\n

The search for\u00a0what has been\u00a0lost–whether it is a sheep or coin, a son or\u00a0a family relationship, or in the case of NOAC participants\u00a0perhaps a life legacy–takes “active and concerned effort,” McKeever noted.<\/p>\n

“Perhaps salvation in Luke is about being found,” he said.\u00a0Putting so much\u00a0hard work into seeking what has been lost\u00a0may seem foolish in the eyes of the world, but it is the foolishness of God, McKeever told the NOAC audience. And for\u00a0the wise seeker, “giving up is not an option.”<\/p>\n

— Frank Ramirez, pastor of\u00a0Everett (Pa.) Church of the Brethren,\u00a0and Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford,\u00a0director of News Services for the Church of the Brethren, contributed to this report.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOAC 2009 National Older Adult Conference of the Church of the Brethren Lake Junaluska, N.C. — Sept. 7-11, 2009 Sept. 11, 2009 The three keynote speakers at National Older Adult Conference 2009 each addressed the conference theme\u00a0as they\u00a0talked about\u00a0connections of\u00a0legacies and wisdom. Speaking on three different mornings, each\u00a0speaker, however, had a very different\u00a0point of view<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,214,300],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":["post-1649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-of-the-brethren","tag-everett-church-of-the-brethren","tag-national-older-adult-conference"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1653,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions\/1653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1649"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=1649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}