Increasing numbers of young people fail to find meaning in education, work, and community settings that once provided a sense of purpose and inspiration. In response, the Stanford Center on Adolescence aims to promote the competence, character, and well-being of all young people in today’s world. The Center provides guidance for parenting, for improved educational practice, and for youth development.

Teach for America
http://www.teachforamerica.org/
A national corps of outstanding college graduates of all academic backgrounds who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools, and become lifelong leaders in the effort to ensure that all American children have an equal chance in life. Approximately 9,000 individuals have joined since its inception in 1990, directly impacting the lives of more than 1.25 million students.

YMCA Civic Engagement Initiative
http://www.ymcacivicengagement.org/
The vehicle through which the YMCA promotes the development of civic engagement attitudes, skills, and behaviors in young people. The Initiative is designed to reach young people directly and connect them to specific opportunities, while improving the ability of the YMCA and the “civic engagement community” (political parties, nonprofit organizations, the media, schools and colleges) to engage young people.

B. Retirement Resources

Civic Ventures
http://www.civicventures.org/
Works to expand the contribution of older Americans to society and to transform the aging of America into a source of social renewal by developing avenues for meaningful service. It is the home of Experience Corps®, which operates in 13 cities to mobilize the time, talent, and experience of adults 55 or older. President Marc Freedman is the author of Prime Time: How the Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America published by PublicAffairs. The book includes stories and portraits of people serving as role models for continued contribution in later life.

Halftime
http://www.halftime.org/
Organization that inspires business and professional leaders to embrace God’s calling and move from success to significance. Accomplishes its mission through events, networking, and transitional strategies: “Halftime is a time out—a time to think seriously about one’s purpose in life and draft a game plan for the second half. . . . Most call this a ‘midlife crisis.’ We call it halftime.”

Senior Corps
http://www.seniorcorps.org/
Taps the experience, skills, and talents of older citizens to meet community challenges. Through its programs—Foster Grandparents, Senior Companions, and RSVP (Retired and Senior Volunteer Program)—more than half a million Americans age 55 and over assist local nonprofits, public agencies, and faith-based organizations. Senior Corps, part of the USA Freedom Corps, is administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that also oversees AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America.

III. Scientific Perspectives

A. Cosmology

Havel, Ivan. “Is There a Purpose in Nature?” (workshop paper)
www.cts.cuni.cz/conf98/Procee-x.htm
Thirteen scholars debated at the workshop with the goal of arriving at a reasonable description of evolution that is neither strictly mechanistic nor purely teleological. The discussions were restricted to science and philosophy, not intended to touch upon religious beliefs in a transcendent supernatural entity.

Ultimate Reality Bibliography
www.canyoninstitute.org/resources/URBibliography/urbindex.htm
Objective is to compile a comprehensive, balanced, and up-to-date bibliography to facilitate and support research on the subject of Ultimate Reality by scholars from diverse backgrounds. Bibliography contains over 2,000 entries, more than 450 of them annotated.

B. Biology

Center on Theology and the Natural Sciences
http://www.ctns.org/
International non-profit organization dedicated to research, teaching, and public service. It focuses on the relation between the natural sciences (physics, cosmology, evolutionary and molecular biology, and technology and the environment) and Christian theology and ethics. Offers courses at the doctoral and seminary levels to bring future clergy and faculty to a greater awareness of this important interdisciplinary work.

IV. Religion and Spirituality

Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life
www.coejl.org/learn/je_textcosm.shtml
Founded in 1993 to promote environmental education, scholarship, advocacy, and action in the American Jewish community. Is sponsored by a broad coalition of national Jewish organizations and has organized regional affiliates in communities across North America. COEJL is the Jewish member of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment.

Guideposts Magazine
http://www.guideposts.com/
Founded in 1945 by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale. Mission is to help people achieve their maximum personal and spiritual potential. Guideposts, which is committed to communicating positive principles for daily life, publishes magazines and books and provides outreach ministry services that demonstrate the benefits of combining faith and positive thinking.

Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation
www.ptev.org/default.aspx
Established by the Lilly Endowment Inc., which believes vital religious communities are essential for society. The Endowment offers grants to colleges to develop programs based on the concept of vocation as the center of institutional planning, educational programming, and extracurricular activity.

The Purpose-Driven Life
http://www.purposedrivenlife.com/
Rick Warren’s best-selling books The Purpose Driven Church and The Purpose Driven Life have shown there is a great hunger to learn about purpose. As he writes, “IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. The purpose of your life is greater than your own personal fulfillment, your career, or even your happiness.” The Purpose Driven Life features 40 short, life-changing chapters that reveal God’s purpose for you. See also The Purpose-Driven Church: www.purposedriven.com/home.aspx

What Color Is Your Parachute?
www.jobhuntersbible.com/index.html
Richard Bolles, author of the best-seller What Color Is Your Parachute?, has advised job-seekers for decades that the key is to figure out your purpose in life. He writes, “We get to choose between: our life as a story with ultimate purpose running beneath all that happens to us, like some great underground river; or our life as a string of meaningless events, without rhyme or reason.”

PRINT RESOURCES

I. Retirement Resources

Power and Purpose in Retirement: New Opportunities for Meaning and Significance
a book by Harold G. Koenig, M.D. published by Templeton Foundation Press
www.templetonpress.org/book.asp?book_id=51
Eighty million baby boomers are nearing retirement and each of them needs a goal to utilize their experience, wisdom, and strengths and give purpose to their lives. Dr. Harold G. Koenig, an expert in geriatrics, mental health, and religion, explains that the notion of retirement was a marketing tool developed after WWII and is based largely on myths. “Finding purpose is more urgent than ever during the retirement years, when the search for purpose becomes one of the deepest of human longings,” says Koenig.

II. Scientific Perspectives

A. Cosmology

Barrow, John D., Joseph Silk. The Left Hand of Creation: The Origin and Evolution of the Expanding Universe. New York: Basic Books, 1983.

Barrow, John D. The Origin of the Universe. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994.

Ellis, G. F. R. “The Theology of the Anthropic Principle.” in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy and C.J. Isham, editors. Vatican City State and Berkeley, California: Vatican City Publishers and The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1993.

Ellis, George F. R., G. B. Bundrit. “Life in the Infinite Universe.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 20 (1979) 37–41.
Discussion of a peculiar implication of an infinite universe: Anything that has a finite probability of happening should be happening elsewhere in the Universe at this moment.

Polkinghorne, J. “The Laws of Nature and the Laws of Physics.” in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature. Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy and C. J. Isham, editors. Vatican City State and Berkeley, California: Vatican City Publishers and The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1993.

Rees, M. “Black Holes, Galactic Evolution and Cosmic Coincidences.” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 14, 2 (1989) 148–161.

B. Biology

Damasio, Antonio R. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Avon Books, 1995.
An excellent critique of Descartes’ dualism in light of contemporary cognitive and brain science, and a strong case for emotion as being fundamental to mind along with reason.

D’Aquili, Eugene, Andrew B. Newberg. Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Random House, 2001.
Uses high tech neuro-imaging research to document what happens in the brain when we experience God. A tantalizing hypothesis of how deep within our evolutionary roots are the perceptual foundations that give rise to our experience of the transcendent.

Davies, Paul. “Teleology Without Teleology: Purpose Through Emergent Complexity.” In Evolutionary and Molecular Biology. Robert John Russell; William R. Stoeger, S.J.; and Francisco J. Ayala, editors. Vatican City State and Berkeley, California: Vatican City Publishers and The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 1998.

Russell, Robert J., Nancey Murphy, Theo C. Meyering. eds. Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action. Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1999.
A collection of twenty-one essays exploring creative interaction among the cognitive neurosciences, philosophy, and theology. Major themes include an exploration of the possibility of God’s interaction with the world, and the relationship between brain and personhood.