Abstract
This article focuses on the role of songs and dance as significant tools for pastoral care with older adults. It begins by exploring Joan Erikson’s claim in The Life Cycle Completed (Erikson 1997) that “ethereal words” need to be activated in order for them to become relevant to behavior. Drawing on Erik Erikson’s life-cycle theory, the article continues by reflecting on how boleros may be a source of hope and wisdom. It presents the case of El Fonógrafo, a radio station that has contributed to the well-being of older adults in Mexico City by making music and dance available to them. The article reflects on pastoral caregiving as a ministry of hopping and hoping, and concludes by referring to time reframing and a method of reframing the past.
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Notes
It is interesting to note that Erik H. Erikson views both the mother’s face and her voice as contributing to the infant’s capacity to hope. In a chapter of Toys and Reasons (Erikson 1977) titled “Seeing is Hoping,” he suggests that hope is essentially visual (and visionary) and is based on “the two meanings of vision, namely, the capacity to see what is before us, here and now, and the power to foresee what, if one can only believe it, might yet prove to be true in the future” (p. 46). But he notes that hearing is also essential to the infant’s capacity to hope, for hearing “permits one to hear what is not in the visual field, and thus reinforces the hope that the voice heard will come ‘around the corner’ and be confirmed by the familiar face” (p. 47).
The station’s webpage, www.elfonografo.com.mx, offers a brief biography of Luna Ibarra. However, his biography does not reveal his year of birth. Considering, however, that he started his career as a radio presenter in 1943, it is fair to conclude that he is in his late eighties or early nineties.
This poem is printed on the back of the bulletin for the memorial service for Erik H. Erikson, which took place on June 15, 1992, at the First Congregational Church in Harwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He died a month earlier but June 15 was his birthday. He would have been 92 years old (Friedman 1999, p. 473). The last line of the poem seems to recall the fact that Joan and Erik were formally introduced at a masked ball celebrating Mardi Gras held at Maria Theresa’s summer place in Vienna (pp. 82–33). The poem may also have been inspired by her husband’s introductory paragraph in Toys and Reasons (Erikson 1977) in which he noted: “Of all the formulations of play, the briefest and the best is to be found in Plato’s Laws. He sees the model of true playfulness in the need of all young creatures, animal and human, to leap. To truly leap, you must learn how to use the ground as a springboard, and how to land resiliently and safely. It means to test the leeway allowed by given limits; to outdo and yet not escape gravity. Thus, wherever playfulness prevails, there is always a surprising element, surpassing mere repetition or habituation, and at its best suggesting some virgin chance conquered, some divine leeway shared” (p. 17).
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Arjona, R. A Time to Sing and a Time to Dance: Activating Hope and Wisdom. Pastoral Psychol 62, 781–790 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-012-0484-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-012-0484-6