What’s Your Sage-ing Story? A Reflection on Community in a Digital Age
- Ronnie Dunetz
- Mar 1
- 4 min read
I think we all need community.
As human beings, we are predisposed to it. We thrive in it. We create through it. And yet - community can be strangely elusive.
For years, I have asked myself: What community do I truly feel a part of? I can see myself in many different circles - professional, spiritual, academic, family, cultural - but to confidently say, “I belong to this community”… that has not always been simple. I wonder how many of you recognize that feeling.
In our digital age, community has become even more complex. On the one hand, we have unprecedented opportunities to join groups, initiatives, networks, and global conversations. On the other hand, this abundance can create digital overload - and sometimes even a subtle alienation from physical presence and embodied interaction.
And yet, community remains essential. It is not only the support we receive.It is the energy and intention we give.It is the shared meaning that shapes who we become.
A Movement Rooted in Conscious Aging
Since 2019, I have been affiliated with Sage-ing International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the mission of conscious aging - the deepening of the idea that the elder years are not merely about “staying active,” but about continued personal, emotional, and spiritual growth.
In recent months, I have joined the Learning Programs Team, helping create and host new programs with fascinating speakers and facilitators from around the world. It has been deeply satisfying to contribute in this way.
But an idea had been quietly sitting with me for quite some time.
The need for conversation, for meaningful conversation with others, new people whom we have never met. The need to not let the “zoom squares” online be passive but to find a way to connect the people “inside the squares”.
An online “mixer” of sorts. A space not to teach — but to meet.
February 25: An Idea Comes to Life
On February 25th, that idea came to fruition. More than 40 participants gathered online for a two-hour event, which I created and facilitated entitled: “What’s Your Sage-ing Story?”
The structure was simple:
Three rounds of small-group dialogue, three of four in a zoom room
20 minutes in breakout rooms
10 minutes of harvesting reflections together after each round
A short integration and closing
No keynote speaker. No PowerPoint-heavy presentation. Just three guiding questions:
The BeginningWhat drew you to Sage-ing at that time in your life?
The ImpactHow has Sage-ing shaped or changed you?
The Road AheadHow do you see Sage-ing continuing in your life?
The reception was warm. Encouraging. Even enthusiastic.
By no means, this does not replace the content, the workshops, it just complements them.
People are looking for connection, looking to share their story, looking to meet new people at a time and an age where so many of us find ourselves behind some screen, oftentimes at home.
When I asked for “takeaways” from the meeting, the chat began filling with words:
Connection.
Affirmation.
Inter-connection.
One participant wrote, “I feel my commitments growing deeper.”
Another reflected that in a world that feels tilted on its axis, the opportunity for regular people to meet and talk authentically is “much needed.”
The Beginning: A Fork in My Own Road
When I opened the gathering, I shared something personal.
I remember standing at the threshold of 60 and asking myself:Is this all there is?
The professional world can subtly (or not so subtly) suggest that if you are fifty and over you are entering the “later” stage - sometimes code for “not relevant.” But inside, I felt anything but finished. In fact, I felt in some way I was “jus beginning”.
That was when I discovered From Age-Ing to Sage-Ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older which reframed aging not as decline but as ripening. Not as loss, but as development, the ushering in of a new life witih new opportunities, tasks and meaning.
In the breakout rooms, I heard echoes of that threshold again and again:
Retirement that created disorientation.
Loss that opened spiritual searching.
A longing for deeper purpose.
A desire to serve in new ways.
Different stories. Same turning point.
What Actually Makes Community?
What struck me most during the event was how powerful the small rooms were.
Three or four people. No performance. No need to impress.
Just:
“This is what brought me.”“This is how I’ve changed.”“This is what I hope for.”
Sage-ing International, like any nonprofit, is as a terrific organization with a vital mission. It has structure, governance, and board responsibilities. Those matter. They give stability. They create the walls.
But what we experienced that day was something else. It was people building a home together by creating connection.
There is a quote from the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the UK, “The home we build together is stronger than the walls we build alone.”
The walls matter. But what makes it a home is what we bring into it
.
I feel proud and happy that this event that I initiated brought together:
Decades of lived experience.
Curiosity.
Vulnerability.
Commitment.
A willingness to listen.
Finding Community in a Digital World
In a digital world saturated with incessant communication, distraction, overwhelm and noise, we experienced presence. In a time when belonging can feel fragmented, we experienced connection.
Perhaps community is not something we “join.” Perhaps it is something we create - every time we gather with sincerity.
I continue to take my search for community very seriously, knowing quite well that it may exist “in-between”, “this and that”, “sometimes here and sometimes there”.
I take with me two beautiful things that people said in this meeting which I found profoundly powerful:
“I don’t just want to get old, I want to GROW old”.
“You can only really help other older people when you accept the older person inside of you.”
That is just some of the beauty of coming together in community!
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