“Does my father know I’m here?” “What time will my father come and pick me up?”  A reasonable question that anyone might hear, but not if it’s from a 93 year old woman whose father died 65 years ago. As you might surmise, the woman in question is my mother-in-law who has advanced dementia. Ironically some years ago, I led a support group for Alzheimer’s Arkansas at the hospital, and I did so for a couple of years. I went through their training, and I led a number of groups. I now wish I had paid more attention to my training and the stories of the people in the group, now that dementia has made its abode at my house.  My mother-in-law has had dementia for most of the 11 years that she has lived with us, but it has become severe in the last year or two.  And as anyone knows who’s gone through this, it’s tough on a lot of levels: The constant questions, i.e. the same thing over and over again. Then there is the endless rummaging through her purse for her keys, her billfold, her glasses, her whatever. That is when she is not saying  “where is my purse” some 30 times a day. “Where is Boyd?” She constantly wonders about her husband who died 11 years ago, and she asks about him maybe twenty times a day, sometimes repeating the refrain as quick as 30 seconds apart. Then there is the caring for all of her needs physically.  My wife is the daughter we all hope we have someday.  I always heard pity the seniors who had only sons. But the hardest part is watching the once vibrant, energetic, never-sit-down woman with a big servant’s heart become frail mentally and now also physically.

The Apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 12, that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.  I guess Paul was the first cognitive therapist.  He is right, of course.  What we feed our minds is realized in concrete ways in our lives.  But what if our minds are no longer being renewed? Well, that is evident as well.  A decaying mind transforms the whole person.  It affects one mentally, emotionally, and in the end- physically. 

But what about spiritually?  That was the Apostle Paul’s business after all.  I am here today to say, that Alzheimer’s cannot touch us spiritually. And it’s because we are more than body, we are more than mind, and we are more than feelings.  We have a soul, a spirit. 

In ancient Greece, Plato details Socrates arguments for the immortality of the soul in what may be his greatest work, Phaedo. One of the main themes in Phaedo, is the idea that the soul is immortal. In the dialogue, Socrates discusses the nature of the afterlife on his last day before being executed by drinking hemlock. Socrates had been imprisoned and sentenced to death by an Athenian jury for not believing in the gods of the state and for corrupting the youth of the city. So he outlined four classic philosophic arguments for the immortality of the soul, arguments that are still debated today. 

It seems that the Greeks recognized that we are not just a duality of body-mind, but we have something else-something different- a soul that is immortal, that can survive even death. That was the context for the arrival of one Jesus Christ in a Hellenistic influenced world, who came to establish his Kingdom on earth and to save our souls in the process.  For many, the essence of the gospel message is that even though we die, we can live forever.  So being a Christian births hope.  And though we grieve the loss of the body and mind, we do not grieve as those having no hope.

If the soul is indeed immortal, and if it can be saved as billions of people across religious lines believe, then I believe this is true:

Dementia cannot touch the soul.

Dementia cannot rob us of our essence.

Dementia cannot change who we are.

Dementia cannot cancel what is important.

Dementia does not have the final word- Dementia can hijack our life on earth, but not in heaven.

And for the 5 million Americans living with dementia; for the one in three seniors who will die with the disease; for the 305 billion dollars the disease costs our country every year; for the 18 billion hours (yes billion) of caregiver hours of care each year (see Alz.org), at the end of the day, this is good news.  The fact that the soul lives on, untouched, is about as Good News that one finds in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul again says it best: ^“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16.