Growing With Our Grandchildren

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Hello, friends, Shirley Showalter here, co-author with Marilyn McEntyre of The Mindful Grandparent: The Art of Loving Our Children's Children, from Broadleaf Books, May, 2022. Having embraced elderhood, we invite you to do the same.

In 2013 I published Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World. Previously, I was a professor, a college president (Goshen College), and a foundation executive (the Fetzer Institute).

Most recent blog posts

From "The Woman Who Bought a Mountain for God, The Atlantic, June 20, 2023. By Stephanie McCrummen. Photos by Olivia Crumm.

Separation of Church and State

The reason my family today is American and not Swiss is due to religious persecution. How to explain this? My religious ancestors left behind few words for future posterity. Felix Manz and Conrad Grebel, the earliest Anabaptists, were well-educated, ardent seekers during the early Reformation, who disputed with the leader of the Reformed movement, Ulrich…

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What’s Good About Aging?

I turned 75 years old on July 30.  This is the first birthday that seems undeniably like the beginning of old age — three quarters of the way to 100. Six years away from the average American female life expectancy of 81. No matter my fate, I am beginning to see the horizon and the…

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Cancer and Father’s Day

It began on Thanksgiving week. It has ended, for now at least, on Father’s Day week. In between were consultations with oncologists and surgeons, surgery, proton radiation treatments, and infusions of the drug Keytruda every six weeks. And now. . . Stuart’s malignant melanoma is gone! The doctor declared him to be “cancer free.” In…

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