Our communities depend on memories to understand what makes us who we are. If you think life is fundamentally about consuming and not about memories, then the elderly have no place in your world. But I believe that the older you get, the more obligations you have to those who are part of your life to remember your mistakes—and the mistakes of the community—so you can be part of the articulation necessary, hopefully to avoid some of those mistakes in the future. Stanley Hauerwas Growing old in Christ