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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

Dying Well – 1.0

George 1 Comment

It has been more than a year since I began writing in earnest about death and dying. ( If you missed those posts, you can read them HERE ) Writing about death and dying revealed the wisdom of planning to die well. Accordingly, I committed to develop a plan to die well. This post is a report on my “Dying Well Plan”

The dying part of my plan is progressing well. For octogenarians the process of dying is often tenuous and unpredictable. Thankfully that is not yet my experience. I have a number of maladies that could quickly alter my mostly comfortable journey. Each day requires vigilance to avoid pitfalls which could change life’s circumstances.

—“People who want to die well must be willing to confront their finitude.” 

When we avoid thoughts of death, we unconsciously assume that tomorrow will look a lot like today, so we can do tomorrow what we could do today. But when we focus on death, that increases the stakes at play in the present, and clarifies what we should do with our time.
If you insist on ignoring your own demise, you are likely to make decisions that cause you to sleepwalk through life. You may not be dead yet, but you’re not fully alive either.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/death-memento-mori-happiness/674158

Confronting one’s finitude is key to dying well and is, in my opinion, the least challenging step. Developing a “Dying Well Plan” inherently directs one’s attention to their mortality.
Daily life as an octogenarian is rife with reminders. i.e. —Lots of prescription medicine—Looking in the mirror each morning—doctor appointments— Walks through the cemetery—frequent naps—funerals—”senior moments”—Diminished competence …to name a few.
Those and many other experiences serve as memento mori (“Remember! You will die!”). What is different today is not that daily life has changed drastically, but I am now paying attention rather than ignoring or denying reality. In that regard I am reaping helpful benefits:

…death is not something to be denied, avoided, or even begrudgingly accepted. Death makes the expanse of a lifetime finite and therefore precious. Death is like the gilded frame that gives definition to our living days. It’s the built-in counterbalance that throws all beauty and goodness and aliveness into greater relief. 

Katherine Wolf

I can honestly say that confronting my mortality is making me feel more fully alive. It is a work in progress.
There is a tendency to think of developing a dying well plan as an exercise for older or elderly persons. That is a fallacy.
Dying well is contingent upon living well. Living well is a project that spans our entire life.
When we avoid thoughts of death, we unconsciously assume that tomorrow will look a lot like today, so we can do tomorrow what we could do today. But when we focus on death, that increases the stakes at play in the present, and clarifies what we should do with our time.1https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/death-memento-mori-happiness/674158/
Greeks thought about death as a matter of routine. Socrates taught that the principal goal of philosophers is to rehearse for dying and death. The ancient Hebrews agreed. Qohelet, the “Teacher” of Hebrew scripture, instructs his listeners to remember their God while they are young, “before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’ . . . and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.” Prepare now, the Teacher says, for to dust you will return.2The Lost art of Dying – Dugdale

I an increasingly convinced that memento mori (“Remember! You will die!”) should be an integral part of the church’s liturgy. Those of us in the West today will fail to die well if we refuse to acknowledge that we are finite creatures. 

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Ps. 90:12

More to Come.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

Death and Dying – Precarity

George 1 Comment

precarity 
A state of being defined by its insecurity and vulnerability.

Precarity means something that can be given and taken away and for such a long time I thought that precarity must inherently be a bad thing or at least not a very Christian thing to feel that way when I know I felt delicate and I thought well surely I just have to get back to that place before where I felt durable. And then I read a wonderful comparison of the work of Dorothy Day, Catholic reformer, and compared with Reinhold Niebuhr, the amazing Protestant, theologian, and both of their account of the word precarity. Dorothy Day used it to describe the state in which we live as people of faith aware in the world, and yet delicate, and Reinhold Niebuhr described precarity as a way of describing the delicacy of our world, but hoping that we just need to plow through with faithfulness and reasonable good conscience and I was like no,I think I’m on the Dorothy side. I think that when we’re really honest most of the things that we build our lives on are things that can come apart in any moment, and once we know that, and can maybe live inside that with a little more honesty, we might begin to start to see different spiritual things than we did before . 

Kate Bowler

In a previous post I wrote about the impact avoidance of death has on Christian communities.

Kate Bowler’s observations about precarity further affirm my belief in the importance of memento mori1The term memento mori combines the Latin memini, “to remember, to bear in mind,” with morior, literally, “to die.” Taken together, the phrase serves as a warning: “Remember! You will die!”.

Beliefs not subjected to a crucible of memento mori  will atrophy and become mental assents; ultimately useless when death becomes a personal reality.

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.2The Lost Art of Dying

We will fail to live/die well if we refuse to acknowledge that we are finite creatures.

The connection between memento mori and spiritual formation is so profound memento mori should be recognized and practiced as a spiritual discipline.

Practical suggestions for practicing memento mori :

[In the midst of composing practical suggestions I was Interrupted briefly and checked my emails and was surprised to see a post from Lee Camp’s NSE Notebook entitled THINK: Memento Mori —WOW! What follows are excerpts from his post providing specific opportunities to practice Memento Mori ] Thanks Lee.

And if we seriously engage the fact and reality of our coming day of our death, without falling prey to a morbid sentimentality about it all, memento mori has a surprising clarifying power: what ought and ought not be prioritized, what sort of life we want to live, what sort of human beings we want to be.

DO: Specific opportunities to practice Memento Mori

Keep tangible reminders of those who have died close at hand. I’m grateful for the leather bracelet I’ve been wearing since Christmas, a gift to me from Angela, the wife of my friend Clay. Clay died last year, same age as me, way too young, from cancer. Clay wore the bracelet during the final season of his life. It is now my most tangible memento mori.

Visit cemeteries and go to funerals: I hardly pass up an opportunity to wander slowly through a cemetery. Here in Florence I’ve visited the old cemetery behind San Miniato on the hill above our villa, as well as the cemetery above Monterosso in Cinque Terre, as well as the “Protestant cemetery” on the island of Capri. They are a wealth of wisdom and wonder. And in addition to wandering through cemeteries, go to funerals! The experience is most always salutary, in some fashion, and always sobering.

Begin with the end in mind,” as Stephen Covey puts it: this is not just good wisdom about project planning (have a clear idea of the desired outcome, and then design actions and strategies to get you to the desired outcome), but also good wisdom about a life: what kind of person are you seeking to become? What kinds of things do you want to characterize your life by the time you arrive at your death? Make this an actual practice: put things on paper, and give it appropriate self-reflection and contemplation.

Lee Camp –

memento mori practiced as an individual is vital but requires support of community which is strengthened in its practice of memento mori.

Practical ways Christian communities can practice memento mori3The Ars moriendi are two related Latin texts dating from about 1415 and 1450 which offer advice on the protocols and procedures of a good death, explaining how to “die well” according to Christian precepts of the late Middle Ages. :

  • Recognize and celebrate All Saints Day
  • Develop and implement meaningful ways to acknowledge deaths in the community.
  • Provide space for memorials
  • Encourage attendance at funerals
  • Initiate ars moriendi (The Art of Dying) ministries.

 “LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered- how fleeting my life is. Psalm 39:4 NLT

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

  • 1
    The term memento mori combines the Latin memini, “to remember, to bear in mind,” with morior, literally, “to die.” Taken together, the phrase serves as a warning: “Remember! You will die!”
  • 2
    The Lost Art of Dying
  • 3
    The Ars moriendi are two related Latin texts dating from about 1415 and 1450 which offer advice on the protocols and procedures of a good death, explaining how to “die well” according to Christian precepts of the late Middle Ages.

Living Well – Dying Well (9)

George 0 Comments

The intersection of living well and dying well.

It is clear, 80%+ of my life is in the rearview mirror. With the possible exception of apologies and repentance, it is what it is, but it is not done.
In our final years (second half), according to Richard Rohr, our spiritual awareness moves from adherence to a belief system to a humble inner knowing. Life in all its ups and downs becomes the great spiritual teacher. The unsatisfactoriness of human existence creates in us a kind of spiritual homesickness.
In the crucible of inner awareness and decay we can live well.
I am finding that to be my experience.

The following quotes give insight into the dynamic of living well – dying well:

By “coming to terms with life” I mean: the reality of death has become a definite part of my life; my life has, so to speak, been extended by death, by my looking death in the eye and accepting it, by accepting destruction as part of life and no longer wasting my energies on fear of death or the refusal to acknowledge its inevitability. It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich [life].

An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941–1943

The awareness of death tends to make life’s trivialities seem…trivial. “Cancer cures psychoneuroses,” one of Irvin Yalom’s therapy patients told him. “What a pity I had to wait till now, till my body was riddled with cancer, to learn how to live.” 


Lazear Ascher writes in her memoir Ghosting.
At the end, their life together was stripped down to the essentials. “There were many times when we felt blessed. It was as though certain death had granted us an extra life.”

When Bob got really sick, Barbara brought him home from the hospital so his final days would be more humane. She showered him with love and attention. “Dying was intimate, and I drew close,” Ascher writes. “We were single-minded, welded together in the process of this long leave-taking.”

How to Know a Person – David Brooks

When we avoid thoughts of death, we unconsciously assume that tomorrow will look a lot like today, so we can do tomorrow what we could do today. But when we focus on death, that increases the stakes at play in the present, and clarifies what we should do with our time.

If you insist on ignoring your own demise, you are likely to make decisions that cause you to sleepwalk through life. You may not be dead yet, but you’re not fully alive either.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/death-memento-mori-happiness/674158/

 According to ars morendi temptations emerge as death nears — lack of faith, despair , impatience , spiritual pride , avarice . Death circumstances then wer an ever present reality, often coming prematurely Today’s death circumstances are much different; death is rigorously avoided. Extended life expectancy, prolonged dying experiences facilitated by medical and technological advances, extend the dying process. To die well, requires understanding of and resolutions to the temptations.

Despite diligent efforts to avoid death, fear of death is a subconscious reality. Lack of faith, despair, impatience, spiritual pride, and avarice, are witness to the fear of death.
Tim Keller’s reflection on receiving news of terminal cancer illustrates the point.

One of the first things I learned was that religious faith does not automatically provide solace in times of crisis. A belief in God and an afterlife does not become spontaneously comforting and existentially strengthening. Despite my rational, conscious acknowledgment that I would die someday, the shattering reality of a fatal diagnosis provoked a remarkably strong psychological denial of mortality. Instead of acting on Dylan Thomas’s advice to “rage, rage against the dying of the light,” I found myself thinking, What? No! I can’t die. That happens to others, but not to me. When I said these outrageous words out loud, I realized that this delusion had been the actual operating principle of my heart.

If we don’t accept the reality of death, we don’t need these beliefs to be anything other than mental assents. A feigned battle in a play or a movie requires only stage props. But as death, the last enemy, became real to my heart, I realized that my beliefs would have to become just as real to my heart, or I wouldn’t be able to get through the day. Theoretical ideas about God’s love and the future resurrection had to become life-gripping truths, or be discarded as useless.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/tim-keller-growing-my-faith-face-death/618219/

Dying well and living well are two sides of the same coin.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY