[Nfb-greeley] Fw: Vision after 55 program at Connections for Independent Living--Newsletter

Thu May 2 02:30:17 UTC 2013

pasted before my signature is this newsletter.
It is also attached.

Connections for Independent Living

   Vision After 55! Newsletter

May/June 2013

"I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a 
thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow."

  ? Abraham Lincoln

____________________________________________________________Hi Everyone:

MagnifEyed Living at the Greeley Senior Center on April 25 was very well 
attended.  We had a large group present to listen to Dr. Deanna Alexander 
talk about low-vision exams and prescriptions as well as new macular 
degeneration treatments.

Connections has two new education and support groups.  One is Technology for 
Seniors.  Designed primarily for people with low vision, it is open to 
people 50 and older.  The other is an Education and Support Group for Low 
Vision and Blindness.  It is open to people of all ages who are blind or 
have low vision.  Topics will range from assistive technology, to adjusting 
to vision loss.  Call Lynda if you are interested in attending:  Dates to be 
announced.

The Technology for Seniors group will focus on how to magnify content on a 
computer screen as well as basic computer and cellphone use.  We can also 
provide one-on-one instruction on screen readers.  The education and support 
group is designed to provide ideas and techniques for managing low vision as 
well as discussion about adjusting to vision loss.

Lynda McCullough, Vision After 55 Coordinator

(970) 352-8682, ext 109, email: Lynda at connectionsil.com

Vision Matters in Fort Collins

Thursday, May 16, 1:00 to 4:30 pm, Fort Collins Senior Center, 1200 Raintree 
Dr., Fort Collins.  Guest speakers include Nancy Fox, who will talk about 
Discovering a New Old Age, and Dr. Peter Andrews discussing the Implantable 
Miniature Telescope.  Nancy Fox is a nationally known speaker, and her talk 
covers the need for a new perception of aging that stresses the "noble 
purpose" of elders in society. Dr. Andrews has been performing implants of 
the telescope in Denver.  The following is a preview of Nancy's topic on 
perceptions of old age:

The declinist view of aging has created negative stereotypes that fail to 
recognize that Elders have their own noble purpose in society.  When we are 
able to break away from the view of seeing aging as decline and Elders as 
broken adults, we can begin to discover a new old age.  This new old age is 
based on the belief and promise of developmental aging, a stage where we 
continue to grow and develop in many different ways.  Join international 
speaker, Nancy Fox, as together we begin to create a new map of aging that 
will lead us to a world in which we can reap the rich rewards that come with 
a new old age.

A Unique Book about Vision Loss

Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness, first published in 1990, is 
British theologian John M. Hull's classic exploration of the myriad 
processes (physical, emotional, psychological, and metaphysical) that 
accompanied his steady, intractable journey through vision loss and into 
total blindness, where he began to ".take up residence in another world" in 
which human experience was transformed.

John M. Hull is Honorary Professor of Practical Theology in the Queen's 
Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham, England and 
Emeritus Professor of Religious Education at the University of Birmingham.

The book opens in the summer of 1983 as Professor Hull begins "sinking into 
darkness" and concludes in the summer of 1986 when he "touches the rock" of 
total, absolute, "deep" blindness.  In a review in The New York Review of 
Books, entitled The Dark, Paradoxical Gift, neurologist and prolific author 
Dr. Oliver Sacks calls Touching the Rock "a masterpiece."

There have been many autobiographies written by the blind-narratives at once 
poignant and inspiring-that bring out the emotional and moral effects of 
blindness in a life, and the qualities of will and humor and fortitude 
needed to transcend them.  Touching the Rock, John Hull's account of his 
"experience of blindness," is not such a tale:  it has no clear beginning, 
middle, or end; it lacks literary pretention; it eschews the narrative form 
itself-and it is, to my mind, a masterpiece.

Touching the Rock was not written at a sitting, as a narrative, but was 
dictated at intervals-at first daily, then occasionally-after Professor 
Hull, who had trouble with his eyes since he was a boy, finally lost his 
sight completely during the late 1970s, when he was in his forties.  What he 
provides are observations piercing in their immediacy and clarity. . .

He describes how it is to cross the street; how it is to find oneself 
ignored or infantilized; how the memories and images of people's faces, one's 
own face too, no longer updated by actually seeing, become first fossilized, 
then faint, then disappear altogether; how relationships with one's family 
change . . .

The observation is minute, and it is also profound:  everything is pondered, 
explored, to its limit-every experience turned this way and that until it 
yields its full harvest of meanings.  The incisiveness of Hull's 
observation; the beauty of his language, make this book poetry; the depth of 
his reflection turns it into phenomenology or philosophy.

Touching the Rock is available on Amazon.com, and John Hull's website 
address is      http://www.johnmhull.biz/

            Free Matter for the Blind or Handicapped

Connections for Independent Living

1331 8th Ave.

Greeley, CO 80631

Blessings,
Sincerely,
Melissa and Pj
Find me on:
Twitter melissa5674
facebook Melissa R Green
Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/melissagreen5674

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