Apparently they call it cognitive dissonance—a mental phenomenon that occurs when the ideas or beliefs commonly tied with an event or place conflict with reality. Dissonance usually breeds discomfort. Think of that scene, for instance, from “The Sound of Music” when Julie Andrews returns to the nunnery after months of nannying for the Von Tropp children; she expects a happy homecoming, a return of the comfort, safety, and familiarity from her days of youth, but what she experiences is dissatisfaction, displacement, and a longing for what has become her new home with the Von Tropps. If you have your PhD, you say that Julie Andrews is experiencing an identity crisis fueled by cognitive dissonance. If you’re a normal person, you say she is confused, and has a bit of soul-searching to do.

I think I experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance one Sunday last month when, returning from my lunch break, I could hear singing coming from the Woods’ chapel—quite normal, you say, but imagine my shock when I found it was not the chorus of some old spiritual (“Come Thou Fount” perhaps), but the roistering anthem of sports fans everywhere, Queen’s classic “We Will Rock You.” A retirement community. On a Sunday. Singing Queen. Was I missing something?

Further dissonance ensued when, upon investigation, I found not only alter pieces, vestments, and hymnals adorning the chapel, but speaker boxes, laptop computers (macbooks no less), and eclectic lighting effects. The congregants, too, joined in the fray, a mixture of well-mannered, venerable seniors and spunky teenagers, complete with ripped denim and spiky hairstyles. Myself: a mixture of wonder, fear and trembling. Apparently it’s called “Intergenerational Rock Choir”— the brainchild of Kameri Muir, a senior from Florida State University who, for her final project in the Music Therapy program concocted a way of bridging the gap between the young and old through song. “I just love doing this,” says Kameri energetically after choir practice, held typically on Sunday afternoons. “Everybody responds to music—it’s a great connector. And it’s multipurpose, you know: you refresh the older generation while inspiring the new.”

 The formula itself is inspired: take a group of teenagers eager to exercise their melodious chops (drawn, in this case, largely from volunteers from Forest Hills Eastern high school); put them together with a group of thriving retirees (drawn, of course, from the vivacious population of MapleCreek); place a dynamic song leader in front of them (I don’t think Kameri stopped singing or moving once), and the result is no less than orchestral. But the core of her concept lies in finding classic hits that both ends of the age spectrum will recognize and consider “their own” in some degree; music thus becomes the common ground, a mutual space in which the two groups, so different in so many ways, can relate and engage one another effectively. In other words, real community between the two populations is possible with ambassadors like Freddy Mercury, James Brown, and Bob Dylan.

With my dissonance dissipating, I was more prepared than most, I think, when on April 17^th the Intergenerational Rock Choir held its first concert in Trinity chapel. It was (I can’t help myself) a show for the ages; a chapel full of family members and loved ones sat in awe as hit after classic hit

issued from the choir, from the soulful camaraderie of “Lean on Me” to the exuberant frivolity of “I Got You!” Many songs took on deeper meanings, given the context—The Who’s “My Generation,” for example, struck exactly the right theme of unification that the choir seemed to manifest, and when Dylan’s “Forever Young” poured forth, there were, as Woods’ Life Enrichment Coordinator Beth Terborg recalls, “tears everywhere!”

“It was such an awesome time,” Beth reminisces, offering her kudos to Kameri for a job well done: “families were really impressed.”

Jean Skiver, 85, just never got around to being baptized. She attended a Baptist church with her first husband, and became close to the pastor’s wife. Her second husband was an active member of a Lutheran church, and she attended worship services with him but never formally joined.

Jean moved to The Terraces in Grand Rapids, which offers catered independent living for active seniors, 13 years ago. She says it’s a very caring community.

“When I moved here, I met a man who is still a friend and who was active in the chapel. I would also attend his Lutheran church in the community,” said Jean, who spent her working years as a housekeeper in a hospital and a college.

At MapleCreek, Jean enjoys the wide variety of social activities that offer fellowship with other residents. She started going to a volunteer-led Bible study Because Jean has some health problems that it hard for others to understand her, she doesn’t like to speak in group settings. She relies on her friend, Barb Bell, who also lives at MapleCreek, to be her voice, helping her to participate in activities she formerly avoided. She also began talking to MapleCreek's chaplain, Rebecca Ebb-Speese, known as Pastor Becky, about spiritual matters. Jean says she enjoys exploring issues of faith.

Early in the new year, Jean told Pastor Becky she wanted to be baptized. “I want to accept God and to feel more connected to church,” she said.  “I had my children baptized and now it’s time for me.”

Pastor Becky officiated at the ceremony and Barb Bell served as Jean's sponsor.

“My quality of life has changed since I moved to MapleCreek and started attending spiritual activities,” Jean said. “I know these are good for me. I feel better about my life.”

After witnessing Jean’s baptism, another resident came to Pastor Becky and said she’d never been baptized either, and she wanted to do it too. Her ceremony was held the following day, with all the residents in attendance serving as sponsors.

Mildred and Wesley Van Tuinen, 95-year-old residents at The Terraces at MapleCreek, will celebrate their 76^th wedding anniversary on Feb. 19. A few days ago, Mildred repeated her tradition of giving Wesley the same Valentine card that she mailed to him when they were both 18. “It took a 2-cent postage stamp,” Mildred said.

Wesley really liked the little Valentine card, so he saved it. Inside it says, “In honor of that good old saint, whose birthday we now celebrate, I send my love as lovers do, and all of it belongs to you.”  It was the first time Mildred told Wesley she loved him. They were married a year later. 

Each Valentine’s Day, they take out their precious keepsake and enjoy it again. “She has used the same card every year since 1934,” said Wesley . “I figured, as long as she doesn’t change her mind, she may as well use the same card and save the money.”

Mildred said there is no hidden secret to sustaining a long-lasting relationship. “Love is all it takes,” she said. “Love is what has kept us together this long.” 

The two of them first went out in 1933 when Wesley was headed to a Michigan State University baseball game with a buddy, Mildred’s brother Henry Andringa. Because Wesley didn’t have a date, Henry urged him to invite his sister. “He asked me to go and I said, ‘Sure,’” said Mildred. “We rode together on the rumble seat in an old Ford all the way to the ballpark in Lansing.” 

  The Great Depression was on and resources were scarce. Their families both lived in Byron Center, Michigan, and their mailman played cupid in their young romance. “We lived on the same rural delivery route,” Wesley said. “The mailman would pick up my letter from our family's mailbox and deliver it to her mailbox. But he would also take the one she was mailing to me, and drop it off in our box on his way back by our house.”

The Van Tuinens are proud of a letter they recently received from The White House signed by President and Mrs. Obama, congratulating them on their anniversary. It said in part, "Through moments of great challenge and triumph in our Nation's history, you have supported one another and exemplified the strength of lasting love."

Diet ("deet") Eman, 90, moved into The Terraces at MapleCreek in October 2010. With the downsizing, she has been going through her old papers, some going back to the time when she was part of a Dutch resistance group against the Germans with her fiance, Hein, during World War Two. For two years, she lived under an assumed name because the Nazi Gestapo wanted to kill her. Consider how young she was, just 20 when Germany invaded The Netherlands in 1940.

The resistance group hid Jewish people and the young downed American pilots and flight crews, both acts punishable by death. They transported weapons and stole thousands of I.D. and ration cards from Nazi offices and distributed them across the country. Even when she was imprisoned under a false name, the Gestapo continued to look for Berendina "Diet" Eman, and had regular contact with her parents. While in a maximum security prison and then in a concentration camp, Diet has said, she "did so super stupid" (pretended to be dumb) so that she would not seem threatening enough to bother with, not worth executing. She believes God preserved her life. Among the other prisoners was Corrie Ten Boom.

On Monday morning, Jan. 17, 2011, Diet was interviewed about her war experiences live on the radio by Shelley Irwin, host of the WGVU Morning Show. Also involved in that interview was Bruce Tinker, who is the director for a local production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Grand Rapids Civic Theater running through Jan. 30, 2011. (Shelley is in her first stage role as the woman who rescued Anne Frank's diary, who recently died at age 100.) The third guest for this 24-minute interview was Len Robinson, a director and producer and president of Jewish Theater Grand Rapids. Len served as a coach for the all-gentile cast, helping them with pronunciation of Hebrew and with insights into aspects of the Jewish tradition.

Diet assisted the actors in understanding what things were going on in The Netherlands outside of the hiding place shown in the play. She admits during the interview that working with the drama has been bringing back her post-traumatic stress from the war.

LISTEN TO THIS 24-MIN. INTERVIEW HERE:  http://www.wgvu.org/wgvunews/audio/fplayer1.cfm?styid=10195&id=tms

NOTE: Director Bruce Tinker shared that Diet did a wonderful "talk-back" with the play's audience and the actors after the Sunday matinee on Jan. 16, and that she will do so again on Sunday, Jan. 23. This is a great opportunity to hear Diet in person. 

For show dates and times and to order tickets to see "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Grand Rapids Civic Theater, visit: http://www.grct.org/ or by phone at 616-222-4000. 

Diet Eman's life story is featured in the January 2011 issue of the "Celebrating Life at MapleCreek" newsletter. For your free copy, send your request by email to the editor, John Elmore (jelmo@lssm.org). Please include your name and your postal mailing address.

Diet Eman's personal story about her wartime experiences is shared in her moving book Things We Couldn't Say -- and in the 2005 documentary film "The Reckoning" featuring Diet and five other people who were involved in the Dutch Resistance during World War Two (produced by Grand Rapids-based Storytelling Pictures).

A chapel hanging by liturgical fiber artist Jeanne Logan was dedicated in Trinity Chapel at The Terraces at MapleCreek on Wednesday, Oct. 27. It was given by Dianne Visser (at left in photo) in memory of her husband Bruce, who died in December 2009. The Vissers and MapleCreek chaplain Rebecca Ebb-Speese (at right in photo) got to know each other as members of Christ Lutheran Church in Wyoming, Mich. Bruce requested that memorial gifts go to MapleCreek. Jeanne also is familiar with MapleCreek because her father moved into The Lodge at MapleCreek last year; he died in the spring. Jeanne said her inspiration was Revelation 22:2, which describes the tree of life. She hand-dyed white silk, appliqued and quilted the many pieces, and attached  hundreds of natural stone beads with thread. Jeanne says the piece took about 80 hours to complete. You can see examples of her fabric artwork at