Una Kroll is an Anglican priest and general practitioner in medicine. She is now retired. In this book she takes a hard look at the later years as a time when meaning rises to a pre-eminence it has not enjoyed before. Although it is commonplace to hear individuals talk about the innocence and beauty of infants, this same awe is rarely extended to the aged among us. Yet, as Kroll reminds us, the same Divine spirit shines through both.
Spirituality provides many resources to help the elderly deal with both the challenges and frustrations that come from decrepitude and disease. Kroll quotes the late John O'Donohue:
"Spirituality is then the awakening, articulation and integration of the diversity of possibility and presence within us. True spirituality is the continual dawn where illumination unveils the thresholds where darkness and light, memory and possibility, divine and human are sistered."
Spiritual grounding keeps the long-lived alert to the freedom that comes to many of them after retirement. It also helps them recognize the value of relationships to lift one's spirit. It is the vital force that enables caregivers of the elderly to be patient and loving in the face of suffering, pain, anger, and depression. Kroll sees wonder as a spiritual practice at this stage of life; it provides a great moral uplift to those who adopt it as a way of life.
Other subjects covered in this substantive work are the role of trust and distrust, faith and doubt in later life; and an assessment of some ethical issues such as institutional ageism, longevity, and euthanasia. Kroll also examines meeting people's spiritual needs at the end of life.
