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Seminars
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Our Stories, Our Legacies
Americans are realizing that we stand in danger of losing our stories. Our mobile society often separates us from our history, even our families. Grandparents often live far away, and children are less likely to hear family stories at their grandmother's knee. Your grandchildren may thank you one day for writing your story. Despite the marvels of modern technology which provides us with information at our fingertips, we lack the wisdom of our elders. We realize that family stories unite us far more than shared chromosomes. Dr. Richard L. Morgan's best seller, Remembering Your Story, has been used across the nation to help people record their stories. He has presented seminars at retirement communities in eight states in the United States, and at fifteen congregations in the southeast and northeastern states of the U.S. to help adults preserve their stories, as well as train clergy, social workers,
and hospice workers to facilitate groups. Stories help people to realize meaning in their lives, and that they have made a difference. Although genealogy and reminiscence helps to preserve the past, Remembering Your Story has an extra dimension. In his book and in groups, Dr. Morgan shows how The Great Story in the Biblical narratives relates to our stories. Biblical stories are not understood unless we make them our own story. In a day of spiritual barrenness and biblical illiteracy, story sharing and connecting with God's story creates a true community and leads to spiritual renewal. How will future generations know us? By a few sentences scratched on a tombstone? By snapshots in faded albums? By the contents of a NASA capsule? Only by the legacy of our stories.
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Making the Decision and Living In a Continuing Care Retirement Community
Richard and Alice Ann Morgan share their personal experiences about making the difficult decision to enter a retirement community and why they feel it is an important decision everyone should consider. They offer a candid look at how they went from "not being ready," to making a decision before it was too late. Their presentations have been given at Holy Cross Village in Notre Dame, IN; Greencroft in Gosen, IN, Otterbein in Lebanon, OH, Westminster Canterbury in Richmond VA, Menno Village in Chambersburg, PA, and to many retirement community prospects and staff at St. Luke's Methodist Church in Houston, TX. His book Settling In: My First Year in a Retirement Community, will help persons discover what the first year was like - from experiencing some second thoughts to settling in, meeting new people, balancing their personal time with countless activities at the community and in the larger community. Clinical Gerontologist, Dr. Jane Thibault, in the Foreword to the book writes, "In laying bare his soul in Settling In, Richard Morgan has created a way for us not-yet-frail elders, for those who serve elders, and for family members of elders facing life in a retirement community to face our fears of what it might be like to live "in a place like that." He offers elders who are already living in such settings an authentic way to reflect upon their experience from a spiritual perspective - a refreshing challenge. Although many older persons prefer to age at home, the inevitable frailties of later life happen, especially as people are living longer and longer. Considering a continuing care retirement community offers the possibility of security, a supportive community, and extended care in one's later years. |
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