Serving others can be something you do in a moment. And serving others, if you do it in a healthy way and avoid burning out, can be something you do for a lifetime.
Those were among the messages conveyed soulfully by Dr. Bob Atchley as the featured speaker (and singer) at the 2015 Celebrating Seniors Closing Luncheon on May 21. The event attracted nearly 150 people to the Koehneke Community Center, 7400 Augusta St., on the River Forest campus of Concordia University.
Atchley’s keynote address, dubbed “The Spirit of Service: Presence, Perspective and Action,” came before a cross-section of community leaders from throughout Oak Park, River Forest and Forest Park and capped the 5th Annual Celebrating Seniors Week.
Consisting of a weeklong series of nearly 50 events in the three communities, Celebrating Seniors Week raised money for seniors in need while honoring and celebrating those who are 60-plus years old through educational and entertainment activities.
Atchley interspersed original songs like “We’re Awake,” “Searching for Soul,” “Pay Close Attention” and “Ms. Dynamite” with principles delivered by spoken word. Since 2008, he has written 50 songs and recorded more than 30 with insights drawn from his 75 years of life and half-century in the study of gerontology.
He shared the story of one of his music instructors, Livingston Taylor — younger brother of James Taylor — who told Atchley and his peers, “You all think you’re artistes, and that the big thing you are doing is wrapped up in your art. You’re not. You’re in the service business. What you do is go out there and serve people.”
Atchley noted that he has found a correlation between those who have a strong spiritual core and interest in being of service with a higher level of life satisfaction.
“Almost anything you can do has the potential to evoke a sense of spirituality, to kindle your spirit,” he added. “Each of us has a slightly different array of things that we get spiritual comfort from.”
There are “endless opportunities to be of service,” he said, from the grocery store line or pumping gas to walking down the street and volunteering for any given cause.
“Service is a stance, an attitude we have about what we are doing. … The action is almost always based on the impulse to care.”
He urged the audience to nurture being patient and not jumping to conclusions about how to solve a problem or address a situation.
“Waiting is not something we’re really good at, but I would recommend it. Waiting is a really good discipline,” Atchley observed. “How many situations have you been in, if you had waited just a little while, what was needed would have become much clearer than it was if you tried to do it too soon?”
Flanagan, chairman of the Oak Park/River Forest Township Senior Services Committee, founded the Celebrating Seniors Coalition in 2010. The not-for-profit organization draws from individuals, businesses, congregations, government agencies and other individuals and organizations that serve the senior population.
Through its first four years, the coalition netted $25,000. Those funds are used to support a variety of initiatives to benefit seniors.
Celebrating Seniors has four main objectives: to provide financial support for seniors in need; to facilitate cooperation between the business community, government agencies and non-profit organizations for the benefit of the senior population; to promote senior groups and organizations that serve persons 60 and older; and to raise public awareness of issues affecting seniors.
For nearly 25 years, Atchley was director of the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. From 1988 to 1990, he was the president of the 10,000-member American Society on Aging. He described Celebrating Seniors as “a monumental effort.”
“The ambition of it, the audacity of it, the creativity of it, the soul and spirit of it — it’s all cool,” he said. “And I want to acknowledge all of you for being a part of it and I want to acknowledge especially the people who have organized it.”
For more information about the Celebrating Seniors Coalition, please visit www.CelebratingSeniors.net or visit the organization’s social media pages. On Facebook: www.facebook.com/CelebratingSeniors; on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CelebratingSrs.
Matt Baron runs Inside Edge PR and is president of the Oak Park Public Library Board.