A Place for Death in the Life of the Church

From Christianity Today--

I remember the first time I touched a dead body. It was at my grandfather’s funeral. You know the scene: attendants in boxy black suits, the cloying scent of flowers, tissue boxes, breath mints, dusty funeral parlor furniture. As the sad murmur of relatives droned all around, I stepped up to the coffin and quickly reached in to touch his embalmed hands, folded nicely on his belly. They felt like cold, soft leather.

That was when death was still an anomaly to me, an outlier. Now it has become familiar, a recurring pattern in recent weeks and months. For the past several years, I’ve served as a pastor in a suburban parish, an evangelical who made his home in a mainline church. I don’t run the show, since I’m a lay pastor, but I’ve been there for most of the funerals. In the past few years we’ve had almost 40 in our parish. Those are a lot of faces I won’t get to see any more on Sunday mornings. Death is no longer a stranger to me; it is a regular part of my life.

This has been one of the more difficult parts of being a pastor, seeing people who faithfully served our Lord over decades take ill and start a steep decline. These deaths don’t have the shock of tragedy, of teenagers hit by cars or babies born without breath. Still, the dull ache of sorrow is there.

More here-

 https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2018/november-web-exclusives/place-for-death-in-life-of-church.html?fbclid=IwAR2J5Afi2zTjRgZ-NyIxeSX8U7ju9VB4La5PAcVrhRN41XuFxNXZqdEFSo0

Honest, direct, yet gentle: Raleigh Episcopal priest pens picture book to explain death, grief to kids

From North Carolina-

The subject of death, dying and grief has intrigued Mary Davila since she was at least an undergraduate student at the University of Richmond, willingly getting up to take an early morning class on the topic during her senior year.

The lessons from the class intrigued Davila – and have served her well in her current career. Davila has been an Episcopal priest for 13 years and served as a children‘s minister before she went to seminary. Today, she‘s assistant rector at Christ Church in Raleigh and the co-author of a new picture book called “Grandpa‘s Tent” about grief.

Davila lives in Raleigh with her husband and two girls, ages 8 and 5.

I checked in with Davila to learn more about her book, her work and her advice for parents about how to talk to their young children about death. Here‘s a Q&A …

More here-

https://essexcaller.com/honest-direct-yet-gentle-raleigh-episcopal-priest-pens-picture-book-to-explain-death-grief-to-kids/11672/

Honest, direct, yet gentle: Raleigh Episcopal priest pens picture book to explain death, grief to kids

From North Carolina-

The subject of death, dying and grief has intrigued Mary Davila since she was at least an undergraduate student at the University of Richmond, willingly getting up to take an early morning class on the topic during her senior year.

The lessons from the class intrigued Davila - and have served her well in her current career. Davila has been an Episcopal priest for 13 years and served as a children's minister before she went to seminary. Today, she's assistant rector at Christ Church in Raleigh and the co-author of a new picture book called "Grandpa's Tent" about grief.

More here-

 https://www.wral.com/honest-direct-yet-gentle-raleigh-episcopal-priest-pens-picture-book-to-explain-death-grief-to-kids/17826026/

I bring my kids to Ash Wednesday worship. Here’s why.

From Grow Christians-

As a child, I was somewhat confused about death. I blame Star Wars.

The original Star Wars movie came out when I was three; seeing it with my family remains one of my earliest memories. My meditation on the movie continued over a comic-book adaptation of the story that I read over and over until it finally fell apart from over-reading a couple of years later. My first conscious experience of “death” was Obi Wan Kenobi cut down by Darth Vader in a dramatic lightsaber duel—and his subsequent disappearance.

Thus, I thought that’s what everybody did when they died: their body just vanished like Ben Kenobi’s.

Around that time, my maternal grandfather passed away. I was so puzzled when my mom and dad told me that they were going to the viewing; I distinctly remember wondering, “Since he disappeared, what is it that they are going to go see…?”

Parents might be reluctant to take their children to a service like Ash Wednesday because of its thematic content; the two big things on tap are death and sin. If they’re anything like me at that age, your kids have already been exposed to the concept of death, if only in movies. Indeed, if your kids have seen the virtually obligatory Disney canon, they’ve seen death used as a plot device that turns on them understanding something about it. Think of the shooting of Bambi’s mom or the crushing of Ray the Cajun firefly in The Princess and the Frog.

More here-

http://www.growchristians.org/2016/02/08/i-bring-my-kids-to-ash-wednesday-worship-heres-why/

The Holy Work of Grieving

From Communicating Across Boundries-

Two days ago, my friend’s dad died. In twenty first century vernacular – she “lost” her dad. “Lost” is such a silly thing to say – like she needs to just go searching for him and she will find him; like it’s a child’s game of hide ‘n seek.

“Lois – just look for him! I’m sure you’ll find him.”

My dark humor comes through as I think about this. We humans delight in deceiving ourselves about death and loss by using words that are ambiguous and sweetly horrid.

As I heard the news, I immediately revisited my dad’s death and the resulting losses. The first picture taken of Lois and me together was on the banks of the Dead Sea. Each of us is holding hands with our dads. Our dads are so young and so alive. Two adventurers – as at home in Pakistan and Jordan as they were in the United States. They lived between worlds – learning languages with sounds that seemed impossible, deciphering a script that was completely foreign, and traveling to places that topped the U.S State Department watch list. They learned about Middle Eastern hospitality; about what it was to send their children to boarding schools; and about friendship in a Middle Eastern context. Most of all, they learned what it is to follow a faith until the end and to never give up.

More here-

https://communicatingacrossboundariesblog.com/2018/01/25/the-holy-work-of-grieving/

The rationalist way of death

From The New Humanist (UK)

Rationalists and secularists in the old plain style were very clear about death and dying, or at least they tried to be. “It’s just a nothing,” they would say: “the lights go out and then the curtain falls.” I won’t exist after I die, but then I didn’t exist before I was born, so what’s the big deal? It’s going to happen anyway, so just get over it. We are only forked animals after all, and when the time comes you should give my body to medical science, or burn it and use it as fertiliser; or why not eat it, if you’re hungry, or feed it to the pigs? And for goodness sake, don’t worry about how I died – whether peacefully or in pain – and don’t speculate about my last thoughts, my last sentiments or my last words. Why attach more importance to my dying moments than to any other part of my life? As for the business of seeing the body and saying goodbye, and the trouble and expense of coffins and flowers and funerals: what are they but relics of morbid superstitions that we should have got rid of centuries ago? So no fuss, please: the world belongs to youth and the future, not death and the past: go ahead and have a party if you must, with plenty to drink, but no speeches, nothing maudlin, no tears, nothing that might silence the laughter of children. And I beg you, no memorials of any kind: no stones, no plaques, no shrines, no park benches, no tree-plantings, no dedications: let the memory of who I was die with me.

More here-

https://newhumanist.org.uk/4155/the-rationalist-way-of-death

A Pastor and the loss of his child.

From Empty Arms-

Everyone knows there are certain things you just don’t say when a baby dies. Especially as the chaplain. Silence is preferable to easy answers or saying ‘something.’ I’m pretty sure every chaplaincy department drills that into you on the first day. And yet early that morning, the chaplain that met us apparently didn’t get the memo.

“Well,” she said, “Though we can’t say how, we know that this is a part of God’s plan.”

Normally, when a chaplain utters such a simplistic and insensitive platitude, those on the receiving end rip them apart. And yet, seeing her discomfort, the deer in the headlights look in her eyes, her complete inability to do or say anything else, Carolyn and I could only feel sorry for her. This chaplain was completely overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do. And I’m almost certain if I had been in her shoes during my first year of seminary, I wouldn’t have done any better. Ideally, I would have just kept quiet. But I don’t know.

More here-

http://www.emptyarmsbereavement.org/blog/2017/5/1/a-pastor-and-the-loss-of-his-child

On John Updike and eternity

From The Boston Globe-

John Updike died seven years ago this week. His last poem, “Fine Point,” is a meditation on the 23rd Psalm:

The tongue reposes in papyrus pleas,

saying, Surely —magnificent, that “surely” —

goodness and mercy shall follow me all

the days of my life, my life, forever.

It is a poem that finds solace in the Christian promise — “surely” — that believers will “dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Updike, an intellectual and an ironist, must have known that “surely,” a translation from the original Hebrew, was a slender reed to hang a faith upon.

More here-

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/01/25/updike-and-eternity/K4iPEbN4xRfPHzs2tpXt3L/story.html

Our unrealistic views of death, through a doctor’s eyes

From The Washington Post -

I know where this phone call is going. I’m on the hospital wards, and a physician in the emergency room downstairs is talking to me about an elderly patient who needs to be admitted to the hospital. The patient is new to me, but the story is familiar: He has several chronic conditions — heart failure, weak kidneys, anemia, Parkinson’s and mild dementia — all tentatively held in check by a fistful of medications. He has been falling more frequently, and his appetite has fallen off, too. Now a stroke threatens to topple this house of cards.

The ER physician and I talk briefly about what can be done. The stroke has driven the patient’s blood pressure through the roof, aggravating his heart failure, which in turn is threatening his fragile kidneys. The stroke is bad enough that, given his disabilities related to his Parkinson’s, he will probably never walk again. In elderly patients with a web of medical conditions, the potential complications of any therapy are often large and the benefits small. It’s a medical checkmate; all moves end in abdication.

More here-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-unrealistic-views-of-death-through-a-doctors-eyes/2012/01/31/gIQAeaHpJR_story.html