Come of Age
Quillwood Academy founder Eric Garza will facilitate an online reading group centered on Stephen Jenkinson’s thought-provoking book Come of Age: A Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble. This reading group begins with an orientation on Sunday, June 2, at 3:00 pm US Eastern Daylight Time. To find out what time this is where you live, type your city, town, or time zone in the “Add locations” box at this link. Following this orientation the group meets at this same time every other Sunday through July 28. Registration for this event is offered by donation. To sign up, type the amount you want to pay in the “Choose price” box below, add the reading group to your shopping cart, and check out. If you want to pay for your registration using a personal check or money order, email eric@quillwood.org to arrange payment. Registration for this event will remain open through the end of the day on Friday, May 31.
Read a more detailed description of the event, including its schedule, expectations, and a suggested sliding scale by scrolling further down this page.
Description
As the fragilities endemic to modern societies grow more apparent, people search for guides to help them make sense of what they are experiencing. One archetypal form these guides can take is that of an elder, someone who has seen it all and knows how this script plays out. Yet it seems elders are in short supply these days. Why is this? This is one of many questions that Stephen Jenkinson invites us to ponder in his thought-provoking book Come of Age: A Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble.
Come of Age is not a recipe book for becoming an elder. Stephen is very clear about this. What his book does offer is a poetic starting place for those prone to wondering what it might mean to become an elder-in-training, or indeed to take our place in society as an elder. This reading group is also a wonderful opportunity to rub virtual elbows with others who are curious about elderhood, and about the consequence carried by a society that seems to have so few of them.
Stephen Jenkinson is a self-proclaimed culture activist, a farmer, and an author. He is co-founder and principle instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, and put his educations in social work and theology to work assisting dying people and their families in the realm of palliative care. He was featured in the documentary film Griefwalker, and has written several other books, the most well known among them being Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul.
From the publisher’s website:
Come of Age does not offer tips on how to be a better senior citizen or how to be kinder to our elders. Rather, with lyrical prose and incisive insight, Stephen Jenkinson explores the great paradox of elderhood in North America: how we are awash in the aged and yet somehow lacking in wisdom; how we relegate senior citizens to the corner of the house while simultaneously heralding them as sage elders simply by virtue of their age. Our own unreconciled relationship with what it means to be an elder has yielded a culture nearly bereft of them. Meanwhile, the planet boils, and the younger generation boils with anger over being left an environment and sociopolitical landscape deeply scarred and broken.
Taking on the sacred cow of the family, Jenkinson argues that elderhood is a function rather than an identity—it is not a position earned simply by the number of years on the planet or the title “parent” or “grandparent.” As with his seminal book Die Wise, Jenkinson interweaves rich personal stories with iconoclastic observations that will leave readers radically rethinking their concept of what it takes to be an elder and the risks of doing otherwise. Part critique, part call to action, Come of Age is a love song inviting us—imploring us—to elderhood in this time of trouble. That time is now. We’re an hour before dawn, and first light will show the carnage, or the courage, we bequeath to the generations to come.
A fair warning for those considering signing up for this reading group: Stephen’s writing (and speaking, for that matter) is rarely linear, rarely direct, rarely organized in a way that conforms to modern norms. He writes poetically, and is as much concerned about the artistry of writing as he is the informational content of the words on the page. He expects readers to work to discern the meaning in his writing. Eric, who will facilitate this reading group, has come to appreciate this about Jenkinson, having not only read his books but also attended in-person workshops with him that centered themes in Come of Age as well as Jenkinson’s earlier book Die Wise. So please do not sign up for this reading group expecting a nice, organized, linear explanation of the world’s problems and how elders will fix them. Come of Age is messier than that, and so much more beautiful.
Scroll down for a more detailed schedule, what to expect when you register, a brief bio of the reading group’s facilitator, and its pricing and refund policy. Please note that you will not receive a copy of Come of Age with your registration. If you desire a physical copy of the book, consider supporting one of your local booksellers by buying it from them. Most can order the book for you within a week or two if they do not have it in stock. Electronic and audio versions of the book are also available, and listening to Stephen read it as an audiobook is particularly enchanting. His voice brings his words to life far better than ink on the page does.
Schedule
All meetings of this reading group will be facilitated using Zoom conferencing software. To participate you will need to install the Zoom app on your computer or phone. All meetings take place on Sundays at 3:00 pm US Eastern Daylight Time. Click this link and type your city, town, or time zone in the “Add location” box to check what time this is where you live. Each meeting will last approximately 2 hours and will include a mix of large group discussion and smaller breakout groups.
Meeting 1 — Sunday, June 2, 2024: This first meeting serves as an orientation. We will use it to go over group agreements, logistics, and to get to know one another. At the end of the meeting Eric will invite participants to read the book’s Foreward, Overture, and First Act (chapters 1-6). Study questions will be provided to invite deeper reflection.
Meeting 2 — Sunday, June 16, 2024: We will use this meeting to discuss Come of Age’s Foreward, Overture, and First Act. The study questions provided at the end of our last meeting will offer some structure for the discussion, though we will likely explore other topics and themes too.
Meeting 3 — Sunday, June 30, 2024: We will use this meeting to discuss the first half of Come of Age’s Second Act, including chapters 7-10.
Meeting 4 — Sunday, July 14, 2024: We will use this meeting to discuss second half of Come of Age’s Second Act, including chapters 11-14.
Meeting 5 — Sunday, July 28, 2024: We will use this meeting to discuss Come of Age’s Third Act, and its Finale. This includes chapters 15-22.
All meetings will be recorded, and those recordings will be made available to participants within a few days. To protect the privacy of those who attend the Zoom meetings, these recordings—and screen captures taken from them—should not be shared with anyone not registered for this study group. Attendance and participation in meetings are encouraged, but not required. Recordings will remain available for 30 days following the reading group’s end.
What To Expect
When you sign up for this event, Eric will provide a structured space for you and other participants to explore the topics and themes presented in Stephen Jenkinson’s thought-provoking book Come of Age. Like all Quillwood Academy events, this reading group will be facilitated in English and will likely attract participants from across the English-speaking world. Participants will come from various ethnic, cultural, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds, and bring to the event a diverse array of life experiences, identities, and worldviews. They will bring with them many styles of communication, as well as different goals and intentions. With this in mind, please allow for cultural differences in communication styles, speaking patterns, and how people use various words. During the event’s orientation Eric will ask participants to abide by a set of agreements to guide our in-meeting conduct. Please read through these before you sign up so you have a sense of what will be expected of you.
When you sign up for this event, expect to receive a confirmation of your registration as well as a receipt of payment within a few minutes. Within a few days you will receive a welcome email with more information, including Zoom login details for our meetings and a link to the reading group’s password protected resource page. If you do not see these emails, please check your spam or junk folders in case they were diverted there. If you check these folders and still do not see these emails, email eric@quillwood.org and Eric will investigate what the problem is. In addition to these initial emails sent upon registration, Eric will send reminder emails 2 days and 2 hours before each meeting so the Zoom links are easy for you to find.
Facilitator
This reading group will be facilitated by Quillwood Academy’s founder, Eric Garza. Eric lives in Vermont’s Champlain Valley, in the Northeastern United States. He has facilitated dozens of educational events through Quillwood Academy, and has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Vermont, and at other colleges and universities, for more than a decade. Eric spends much of his time pondering the skills and practices that will help us navigate today’s many converging crises. His approach to teaching draws on the two decades he has spent exploring educational pedagogy, along with his experience in various contemplative, martial, and place-based traditions. As mentioned above, Eric has attended multiple in-person workshops with Stephen that focused on themes from both Come of Age and the author’s earlier book Die Wise. Read a more detailed bio of Eric here.
Pricing and Refund Policy
Registration for this reading group is offered on a donation basis, which can include a donation of zero. To register for this event, type the amount you want to pay in the “Choose Price” box at the top of this page, add the study group to your shopping cart, and check out. If you wish to register at no cost, simply type zero in the box and continue through the checkout process. You need to progress through all of the checkout steps to register for the event. If you encounter trouble with the checkout process, email eric@quillwood.org and Eric will do his best to help you.
In addition to paying via credit card or PayPal, you may also pay by personal check (drawn from US funds) or a money order (denominated in US dollars). Email Eric to arrange payment. If you choose to pay by check or money order, your registration is not complete until your funds are received and any checks clear. Checks should be made payable to Quillwood Academy.
The decision to offer this event on a donation basis emerges from Eric’s desire to explore the workings of gift-based economies and ecologies. As you consider what to pay, reflect on the amount of income and wealth you have access to, the cost of living in your area, and what benefits participating in this reading group might offer you, both personally and professionally. Those who pay more make it possible for others to pay less—or pay nothing—while keeping the event financially viable. If you want guidance on what to pay, consider using the following sliding scale:
- Low income/wealth: $30
- Middle income/wealth: $105
- High income/wealth: $315
For transparency, the low income/wealth suggestion above roughly equates to paying for 9 hours of contact time (4 meetings where we discuss sections of the book for 2 hours, plus a 1 hour orientation) at half the current US federal minimum wage ($7.25/hr). The middle value equates to paying for 9 hours of time at half the current average US middle class hourly wage ($23.08/hr). The high value is 3 times the middle value.
The suggestions listed in the above sliding scale are just that, suggestions. You get to decide what to pay, if you pay anything at all. No one will question your decision, or attempt to verify your income or access to wealth. The amount you pay will not impact how you are treated by the facilitator, and no details about participants’ monetary contributions or payment methods will be shared with anyone else in the reading group.
Participants can receive a full refund of their registration fee if they cancel their registration via email on or before Friday, June 7, 2024. After this date no refunds will be given except in extraordinary circumstances.