This morning, I was interviewed on ABC Radio, Sunshine Coast about mortality, chaplaincy, Death Cafes and my last book, Decenter Everything. 😁🙏 (The interview goes for 9 minutes)....
I am honoured and excited to be the keynote speaker at the Centre for Men & Families Australia annual gathering in Queensland this year. Last year, over 100 men from around Australia gathered. This year the organisers are expecting more attendees, with tickets...
We need to move beyond thinking of ‘elders’ in terms of age. There are 35-year-olds with more emotional and spiritual maturity than 70-year-olds. It’s good to know the difference between ‘elders’ and ‘olders’. Becoming an ‘older’ is a default passive event....
Some more thoughts around metapastoring… I asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok to ‘Create an image of a Pastor helping someone in grief.’ You can see the images attached. To be honest, I was glad they weren’t all middle-aged white guys. Gemini (owned by Google)...
I have been trying to put words to an emerging company of people I keep encountering. And in this short essay I will do my best to unpack some core thoughts around what I am witnessing, and daringly, give it a name – metapastoring. Many would shudder at the...
The hype and rhetoric behind the current AI boom feels very religious to me. I became a Christian in the 90s, as a teen. It was a decision I made for myself, but in retrospect, I can’t say the compelling catalyst was the unfailing love of God. At the time, there...
A good descent can be just a hard as a climb. We live in an age where the race to the top of careers, status, wealth, success is celebrated, supported and The cost of living in an era depleted of authentic elders is high. Authors including Plotkin, Jenkinson, Wilder,...
Where did the elders go? It’s complex. A perfect century-long storm of wars and progress has transformed ageing in the West into some kind of endless summer for the soul. Now, as we live longer than any generation in history, we’ve inherited a cultural...
Before you answer that, consider the following comparative questions: What do I need to do to ensure life after death? vs. What can I accept that is a given reality? How do I need to behave in order to belong? vs. How does always belonging effect my behaviour? Do I...
I don’t know where he got the phrase ‘Boomer Brain’ from, but I do recall the hint of regret in his voice. This late Millennial-aged white guy confessed, “I sometimes think, by my age, and with my income I should have a number of properties to my name… but you know,...
What you (and I) think about God, isn’t God. In other words, what we think about God, or believe about God, or say about God doesn’t determine who or what God is. In the same way, you must know: what I think about you, isn’t you. You are you. Now, of...
just wrapped up an incredible weekend as resident poet at a men’s camp with Centre for Men Australia. The highlight? Running a workshop on eldering and selling advance copies of my upcoming book. The response to this book has been overwhelming, with generous...
This past week a resident died during one of my day shifts. If you work in residential aged care, working among the dead and dying is hardly uncommon. What is rare, however, are deaths (onsite) during the day. Most often, people die at night during the early morning...
Worldwide Stockists: (Please contact me direct for bulk order 5+ pricing. I can ship worldwide direct from the printers.) USA:Kindle ebook USPaperback US (Amazon)Paperback US (B&N)Paperback US (Walmart)Paperback US (Thriftbooks) USA Independant...
We’re living around 30 years longer than our ancestors did, in the West, just 120 years ago. We haven’t been here before as a species – meaning, living this long, and able-bodied, on average. As I write, in 2025, Australia and other Western countries have fallen into...
This is an audio extract from an interview/converation that I (David) had with Tara boothby on her Youtube channel “Sojourn Psychology With Tara Boothby” The first 17 minutes we talk about the Collective Wisdom Academy and local church, then at around...
I believe most parents will agree that regardless of how much knowledge and theory they gained before their parenting journey, the praxis, the practicality, the outworking of being a parent was largely developed during the parenting process. We learn by doing because...
The elders have left the village, and we hardly noticed their departure. This exodus wasn’t marked by ceremony or collective grief—it happened gradually, invisibly, as the perfect century-long storm of wars and progress transformed the landscape of ageing in the...
You have more to offer than an un-grieved return to your former, younger life. The world needs wisdom, yours, not winding back. Do not return to the ground laying down for the last time as a stifled soul stuck in an aged body. Endure the dark night. Heed the...
Across the wisdom traditions – from Jung to Erikson, from ancient Hindu sages to modern developmental theorists like Rohr, Plotkin, and Fowler – there emerges a shared understanding of life’s autumn-time that speaks in many tongues but carries a...
