A thought for elder care

It's been on my heart for a long time--really since I came to Christ about 28 years back--that we ought to be taking care of our elders-the seasoned citizens, as Rush would say--much differently than we do today.  And so it's joyous for me to see this column by Lenore Skenazy, one of the most brilliant columnists about family life in my view, pointing to an effort by a doctor named Bill Thomas to create retirement homes where a degree of risk and reward is still operative.  It's called the Green House Project, and in a nutshell, it's a nursing home for a dozen people or less where the elders are allowed and encouraged to be in the kitchen, outside, and elsewhere.  In other words, it's a walker and wheelchair friendly home, similar in notion to one I'm proud to say one of my cousins started and operates. 

Now of course "Green House" is a business, and they're not terribly cheap, but it strikes me that Dr. Thomas might be honored if we learned about how he does it and engaged the most sincere form of flattery: imitation.  Although I don't have a lot of people in my own family to care for at this point, there are a bunch of elders in church who might benefit.