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“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

Category: Death & Dying

Conversations Matter – Death & Dying (4)

George 1 Comment

We modern people rarely face death in our day-to-day lives. Consequently, we rarely give death any thought at all. In fact, if we do take time to contemplate death, others might think that we have a morbid or depressive temperament. So it’s not just that we don’t think of death, it’s that we shouldn’t think of death.
…illusion of immortality, making it feel as though death has been banished from our lives. Because as a day-to-day reality, it largely has been. This is why speaking of death is generally avoided, why death is pornographic. Pausing to note death’s existence destroys the illusion. Rather than face the reality of death—which takes some effort in our society, given how death has been delayed—it’s easier to indulge the collective illusion of a deathless society.

Beck, Richard. The Slavery of Death

Writing about death and dying sensitized me to avoidance of death generally and, more specifically, in my church community. I understand an intuitive human response to the terror of death that produces the illusion of immortality, but, what perplexes me is avoidance of death in Christian communities. On the continuum of Christian communities some do not reflect an adamant avoidance of death; for example, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. However, avoidance of death characterizes much of western Christian’s experience, a deeply paradoxical reality for a faith in which death is the focal point of God’s mercy and deliverance.
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. Heb.2.14NIV

For me, at least two questions arise: 1) Why do church communities avoid death ? 2) What impact, if any, does avoidance of death have on the health of the community?

WHY?
This quote from an earlier post, provides a troubling answer:
Vast portions of American Christianity are aimed at propping up the illusion—that the lives we live are not essentially and intrinsically mortal — giving religious sanction to American death avoidance. We see this in the triumphalism within many sectors of Christianity—the almost manic optimism of church culture that cannot admit any hint of debility, disease, death, or decay. These churches are filled with smiling cheerful people who respond with “Fine!” to any inquiry regarding their social, financial, emotional, physical, or spiritual well-being. Due to many churches’ explicit and implicit religious sanctioning of the American success ethos, church members become too afraid to show each other their weakness, brokenness, failure, and vulnerability. Such admissions are avoided, as they threaten to expose the neurotic lie that sits at the heart of Christian culture and American society—that death doesn’t exist. 1Death and Life: An American Theology – David McGill 

When avoidance of death prevails, a secular mindset is exposed.
For Christians, avoidance of death is an implicit endorsement of Satan’s lie, “You will not certainly die.”.

So What? — the costs of avoiding death

Whether you are a Christian or not avoiding death is costly. This post focuses on costs to Christ-followers and their community— the Body of Christ. The list is not exhaustive but represents highlights of thoughts and ideas that have emerged in the course of writing on the subject. As usual, your input is appreciated.

  • Avoiding death denies encouragement to the body of Christ: “… thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
    Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 
    For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 
    Therefore encourage one another with these words.    21 Thess. 4:13-18
  • Avoidance of death leaves no space for mourning as a community; the bereaved mourn privately, leaving those “who are fine” undisturbed and uninvolved.
  • Where death is avoided, opportunity to die well is diminished; dying well requires continual awareness of our finitude.
  • Death wounds the body of Christ. “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 31 Cor 12
    …the good death still injures the community Death, even the good or happy death, is a painful event. It is evil and not a part of God’s are ation, though God can bring good from it. And those closest to the deceased, in particular, need their wounds healed.
    Avoidance of death inhibits healing for the body of Christ.
  • When death is avoided death is no longer sacred..
    Christians in previous centuries, death was a sacred moment long prepared for. Christians sought to learn from the dying because of their in creased spirituality as they neared eternity
    The community drew comfort and encouragement from reports of those who crossed over in peace and hope.
    Another feature of this tradition taught that the dead were a permanent part of church life.
    Not only were Christian interpretations of death marginalized by a country that had become more secular, but Christians themselves now looked differently on death. Letters from the first half of the twentieth century show a marked change in how Christians talked about death. They began to use strictly material terms. Christians used their faith not to under stand death’s meaning and purpose and prepare themselves for life eternal, but to provide comfort in grief. “She’s gone to a better place,” we now say: Death became not the inevitable result of sin but the natural process of journeying to heaven.    4The Art of Dying
  • WE HAVE NO CHRISTIAN DYING
    “The dying person in the Christian tradition is invited to immerse as she or he did in baptism-a human story in a divine story, the Christian’s dying in the paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection,” says Donald Heinz.
    “The idea that deaths can be inspirational–even redemptive-almost never enters modern conversations about death,” writes John Fanestil, “yet this understanding lies at the core of the Christian gospel.5The art of Dying
  • Avoidance of death shapes memorials, i.e. obituaries – We hide the deceased’s final months and years, We list accomplishments, books written or organizations led. We measure the subject’s significance, and we quote the fond remembrances of friends and loved ones, we never mention how the subject died, how he faced his end show she prepared for the life to come.

The church, more than anything else, is a community that believes in the resurrection of the dead-first that of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be followed by the resurrection of those who believe in him and the re-creation of the world. Our faith has this-world consequences in how we treat our neighbors, how we behave at work, how we relate to our families, how we care for loved ones nearing death. If our faith has any earthly consequence, then certainly it should affect how we practice our deaths. 6The Art of Dying

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

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    Death and Life: An American Theology – David McGill 
  • 2
    1 Thess. 4:13-18
  • 3
    1 Cor 12
  • 4
    The Art of Dying
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    The art of Dying
  • 6
    The Art of Dying

Conversations Matter – Death & Dying (3)

George 0 Comments
The path to paradise runs through the graveyard.

It is important to have meaningful conversations about death and dying.

People who want to die well must be willing to confront their finitude. We do not have to accept death, invite it, or wish for it. But we must be prepared to say, “Yes, I am human and therefore mortal. One day I will die.” We cannot both cling to the indefinite extension of life and effectively prepare for death.

.. our society today leaves little room for the contemplation of human finitude. To stave off thoughts of mortality, we like to keep everything around us looking new. We design our clothes to be fashionable for a year or two. Our technology is governed by the theory of planned obsolescence. Our built environment comes with the expectation that certain buildings be demolished and rebuilt every specified number of years. And more than ever, scientists and beauty experts alike are striving to find that elixir for infinite youth. Apart from our life-insurance policies, little reminds us of our mortality.1Dugdale, L.S.. The Lost Art of Dying .

As recognized in earlier posts, meaningful conversations about death and dying are difficult and rarely occur. Essential in keeping us aware of our mortality, it is important to initiate and welcome them.

Awareness of our mortality is essential to die well, ” … ars moriendi hit the mark with its assertion that in order to die well, you must take mortality into account, even when death seems a long way off.”2 Dugdale, L.S.The Lost Art of Dying

For most people death is thought to be “a long way off”; which is not unreasonable considering the likelihood we will “go quickly” is low and most elderly will die a slow death,
“One study found that most elderly are diagnosed as having a disease three years before it will eventually end their lives. On top of that a Rand study found that “Americans will I usually spend two or more of their final Years disabled enough to need someone else to help with routine activities of daily living because of chronic illness” 3The Art of Dying Rob Moll

Expected life spans give people confidence that they will enjoy many years after retirement, which, for many, is coming much earlier than sixty-five. Good news , but it reinforces illusions of immortality and defers meaningful conversations we need to die well.

In the ancient world, victorious Roman generals paraded triumphantly through the streets before adoring crowds. Accounts of these “triumphs” vary, but typically the general was accompanied in his chariot by a servant whose one task was to whisper repeatedly in the general’s ear, Hominem te memento! or, “Remember that you are but human!” The servant’s role was to ensure that the general did not start thinking of himself as godlike, as immortal.4 Dugdale, L.S. The Lost Art of Dying

It might not be a bad idea to have someone around who whisper in our ear “you are going to die”. Maybe a Death Pastor? 🙂 Just thinking.
On a more practical basis, we can be reminded of our mortality with memento mori (remember you must die). Popular in medieval Europe various types of memento mori — were highly popular, they may have been too popular. They were so commonplace that many people stopped paying any attention to them. Perhaps employing some comtemporary momento mori would counter our avoidance of death and stimulate meaningful conversation. As one example, I have included our local cemetery in my daily walk route. Some tattoos are memento mori. Prominently displayed cremation urns are helpful reminders. There are a lot of creative ideas which can remind us “remember you must die”.

It is important to have meaningful conversations before there is an immanent death crisis. In those circumstances, the likelihood of a dying well experience is remote for both the dying and their loved ones.

I believe Timothy Keller’s recent death exemplified what it means to die well. His final words were: “There is no downside for me leaving, not in the slightest.”

More to come.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

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    Dugdale, L.S.. The Lost Art of Dying .
  • 2
    Dugdale, L.S.The Lost Art of Dying
  • 3
    The Art of Dying Rob Moll
  • 4
    Dugdale, L.S. The Lost Art of Dying

Conversations Matter – Death & Dying (2)

George 0 Comments

Post # 2 — Conversations Matter – Death & Dying. “The Slavery of Death” and “The Lost Art of Dying”, and “The Denial of Death” are helpful resources. Interestingly, several recent sermons and podcasts have addressed death and dying. Our local cemetery is apart my regular walking route.
The more I engage the subject of death and dying, the more I am impressed with the profound implications they have for living.This is the first post addressing some thoughts and ideas about death and dying.

Why isn’t death and dying talked about ?

The following citations can be a helpful in beginning to answer — Why isn’t death and dying talked about ? Emphasis is mine.

“Americans like to appear as if they give death hardly any thought at all.” The American lifestyle is thus “for people to create a living world where death seems abnormal and accidental. [Americans] must create a living world where life is so full, so secure, and so rich with possibilities that it gives no hint of death and deprivation.” We accomplish this feat, through acts of death avoidance. Americans live with “the conviction that the lives we live are not essentially and intrinsically mortal.” But this is a neurotic fantasy. McGill calls it a “dream,” an “illusory realm of success.” So how is this illusion maintained? “Americans accomplish this illusion by devoting themselves to expunging from their lives every appearance, every intimation of death. . . . All traces of weakness, debility, ugliness and helplessness must be kept away from every part of a person’s life. The task must be done every single day if such persons really are to convince us that they do not carry the smell of death within them.”

Vast portions of American Christianity are aimed at propping up the illusion, giving religious sanction to American death avoidance. We see this in the triumphalism within many sectors of Christianity—the almost manic optimism of church culture that cannot admit any hint of debility, disease, death, or decay. These churches are filled with smiling cheerful people who respond with “Fine!” to any inquiry regarding their social, financial, emotional, physical, or spiritual well-being. Due to many churches’ explicit and implicit religious sanctioning of the American success ethos, church members become too afraid to show each other their weakness, brokenness, failure, and vulnerability. Such admissions are avoided, as they threaten to expose the neurotic lie that sits at the heart of Christian culture and American society—that death doesn’t exist.

[““You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.”
Genesis 3:4 NIV]

Death and Life: An American Theology – David McGill via The Slavery of Death- Richard Beck

We don’t know how to deal with death, and so we ignore it as much and for as long as possible. We concentrate on life. The dying don’t want to impose their plight on the people they love, even though they may be eager, even aching to talk about what it means to them now that they face it. Doctors and others fail to pick up on this desire, because they project their own reluctance to deal with death onto the patient. Sometimes the dying will ask that their loved ones make no fuss over them, hold no ceremony, just cremate them and move on; as though they were doing the bereaved a favour in colluding in their aversion to death.
Death undermines meaning. Something important is lost when one forgets this. …
The connection of death with meaning is reflected in two often-discussed features of human life as we understand it today.
The first is the way in which facing death, seeing one’s life as about to come to an end, can concentrate the issue of what we have lived for. What has it all amounted to? In other words, death can bring out the question of meaning in its most acute form.
The second is the way that those bereaved, or left behind, struggle to hold on to the meaning they have built with the deceased, while (unavoidably) letting go of the person. This is what funeral rites have always been meant to do, whatever other goals they have served. And since a crucial way of doing this is to connect this person, even in his death, with something eternal, or at the very least ongoing, the collapse of a sense of the eternal brings on a void, a kind of crisis.

The Sting of Death – Charles Taylor

…the fear of death must be present behind all our normal functioning, in order for the organism to be armed toward self-preservation. But the fear of death cannot be present constantly in one’s mental functioning, else the organism could not function. Zilboorg continues: If this fear were as constantly conscious, we should be unable to function normally. It must be properly repressed to keep us living with any modicum of comfort. We know very well that to repress means more than to put away and to forget that which was put away and the place where we put it. It means also to maintain a constant psychological effort to keep the lid on and inwardly never relax our watchfulness.
And so we can understand what seems like an impossible paradox: the ever-present fear of death in the normal biological functioning of our instinct of self-preservation, as well as our utter obliviousness to this fear in our conscious life: Therefore in normal times we move about actually without ever believing in our own death, as if we fully believed in our own corporeal immortality. We are intent on mastering death….
A man will say, of course, that he knows he will die some day, but he does not really care. He is having a good time with living, and he does not think about death and does not care to bother about it—but this is a purely intellectual, verbal admission. The affect of fear is repressed.

The Denial of Death pg 15-16

A few thoughts:

  • My church experience confirms death avoidance as the norm. That is troubling in at least two ways:
    First, it is clear indication of the infusion of American society into the Christian culture.
    Second, it is evidence that humanity, including Christianity continues to believe Satan’s lie, “You will not certainly die.”.
  • Death provides a perspective on life like nothing else; which explains, in part why we don’t talk about it. We don’t want to face hard truths. It is terrible enough to get to the end of life and realize how meaningless it was with no hope to change anything. “in order to die well, you must take mortality into account, even when death seems a long way off”
  • I am finding this discussion theologically challenging. Its tentacles reach deep into some long held assumptions.
  • A prime example of a theological quandary comes via a Christian’s response to a doctor’s suggestion that life saving measures for her terminally ill loved one be abandoned:“No, Doctor,” she replied. “We are Christians, and we believe that Jesus can heal. We believe in miracles. You do whatever you can to keep him alive.” 
  • Finally: A recent Harvard study found that patients with high levels of support from their religious communities are more likely to choose aggressive life support and to die in intensive-care units. They were also less likely to enroll in hospice. Why might this be?

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

Conversations Matter – Death & Dying

George 2 Comments

“All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”
Ecclesiastes 3:20

The most obvious and ubiquitous reality of human experience is death; ironically, in western culture, it is seldom discussed. This post begins a series on death and dying —a conversation that matters.

It is important to establish the context in which these posts are being written. When the author is eighty years old, it is easy to assume that his death might be immanent. That is not the case (as far as I know). However, considering my age and pre-existing conditions, I am acutely aware of my mortality—definitely making the subject of death and dying relevant. Since all of us are mortal and subject to life’s uncertainty, I hope you will join the conversation. Several recent resources stimulated thoughts about death and dying. I recommend “The Lost Art of Dying” by L.S. Dugdale. This podcast is a good introduction to the book. Good Faith.

At this point, I have come to two conclusions, first, conversations about death and dying rarely happen; second, failure to acknowledge our mortality has profound implications to how life is lived and how we die.

The balance of this post is a stream of thoughts and ideas that establish a framework for conversations that follow.

Why it’s important talk about death and dying?

Why are evangelical Christians mostly silent about death and dying .

What does it mean to die well?

Developing a plan to die well.

ars moriendi – art of dying

Community’s role in death and dying

Medicalized death

Euthanasia

A Theology of Death

This list is a first draft and a work in progress, it will be amended and modified as necessary as in the coming months. I would very much appreciate your feedback, questions or concerns.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY