Geoffrey's life had been action packed. He walked through his shattered home town, Coventry, after the blitz in 1941, and hardly knew the place, it was so badly damaged. He was in the Royal Navy when his ship was destroyed off Tobruk. Machine gunned while in the water, and captured, he spent time in a concentration camp en route to a prisoner of war camp.
After the war, Geoffrey rebuilt his life with his wife; things were good for many years. Geoffrey was nearly 90 when his wife died in 2008. After all he had been through, this personal tragedy was the hardest thing he had ever had to deal with. He says he felt "lonely and purposeless".
It was then that Geoffrey met a couple of volunteers from the Coventry Jesus Centre; they invited him to join the "Young at Heart" group, which meets at the Centre one lunchtime each week. Linda Bryan, who runs the group, explained to Jesus Life, "Young at Heart is a meeting space, which helps older people to share their experiences with younger ones and find friendship, while enjoying a good meal".
Yet many older people struggle to feel like they have a place in society at all and can become isolated and unhappy. Dr Mima Cattan, Professor in Public Health from Northumbria University, spoke to Jesus Life on the same day she spoke to BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme on the subject "Is our society failing the elderly?"
Professor Cattan says that the pace of life today, combined with a sense older people can sometimes have of "society moving on" - and leaving them behind - can be a problem. "Commuter neighbourhoods", where busy and highly mobile people don't seem to have time for one another, are also a contributing factor to the sense some older people have of being left behind by society.
This sense of isolation is exacerbated by the fact that more people now are living alone at the end of their lives. The 2011 census is predicted to show that there are now 1.5 million people in the UK aged 85 or over. Older people are increasing as a percentage of the population, but struggle to be properly valued in a society where youth is idolised and the good attributes of age are hardly recognised.
Certainly, in the sphere of retail and advertising, age is seen as a problem to be fixed with cosmetic products, rather than something to be celebrated as bringing wisdom, insight and maturity.
The situation frustrates veteran politician and campaigner Tony Benn, a man who has proved in his own career what older people can achieve. Aged 85 now, he is still a significant voice in British politics, speaking up for the causes he believes in. Talking to Jesus Life, last month, he said "Older people are not given the respect they deserve in our society. I want our society to wake up to the fact that old people are not a drain on the country; they are a resource".
Professor Cattan agrees: "I'd like to see older people treated as equals in society and not as a helpless, vulnerable, voiceless group who have to be 'done to'... they are a group who actually have a lot to contribute to their communities and society."
Jan Meek is someone who definitively proves that older people are not a spent force. Jan, now 66, is a Guinness World Record holding adventurer, ocean rower, international motivational speaker and polar adventurer. Her adventures began in 1997 when she took part in the first ever Atlantic rowing race, crossing the ocean in 101 days with her son. In 2007, she and her son walked and skied 350 miles to the magnetic North Pole in 20 days. Jan told Jesus Life that at age 60 she realised that she had done her "three score" years - and might only have another ten left!
"I wanted to make the next ten years as full as possible," she said. "When you are determined to do something, you can do it - whether you are 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70!"
Jan aims to encourage older people that they are not to old to learn to do something new.
The need for older people to keep taking on new adventures and challenging stereotypes is important in every sphere - even in church. Pete Bayliss, now retired, but still an active leader in the Jesus Fellowship, says of the ageing process, "You have to keep overcoming the feeling that "you're relegated" and take hold of faith for God to continue to use you."
Pete sees that older people in the church can have effective ministry in prayer and intercession, in providing a listening ear, doing important maintenance, providing wisdom, and as many other roles as there are older people.
The same view is expressed by Janie St John, another leading voice for older people in the Jesus Fellowship: "Many people in their latter years can feel sidelined or overlooked for numerous reasons; perhaps their full time job has come to an end, they can no longer do what they did. Church life can be so busy and full that older people can feel they are unable to keep up with the pace and so start to feel there is no longer a place for them."
Many cultures in the world still retain a deep sense of the worth and value of their senior citizens. It seems that in the UK today their sense of worth may be being lost. Can the Christian church rise to the challenge of showing that even though people's physical and mental capacities may (or may not!) diminish through ageing, their essential worth as individuals remains? That these people, our seniors, are to be loved and highly respected? That even as people age, God wants, as Janie St John expresses it, "To open new doors for us to serve God in significant ways, even as our daily routines reflect changing physical capacities."
Christians certainly have their part to play in showing that people can age with dignity and live with purpose in the context of the loving community which is the church. God's grace is sufficient for us from the start all the way through to the end of our lives - and beyond.
On the margins
