In past eras of human civilization, the wisdom of respected "elders" guided much of the decison-making in society.

But today, when youth is revered and age is equated with obsolesence and irrelevance, that role and its sage counsel have been lost.

It's not that we as a culture don't have desperate need for such wisdom. We do. Perhaps more than ever given the intractable and unsustainable issues we face -- an over-indebted world economy, resource depletion, species loss, eroding civil liberties, etc.

In this week's podcast, Stephen Jenkinson, author of the new book, Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble, returns to explain how the role of elder might be re-instated. It won't be easy, but it may just be one of the essential ingredients we need to make it through the challenge times ahead.

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