Ron was in his late 80s, a bushman who valued his independence.

He wouldn't let Hospice visit him at home because he didn't want the neighbours to know he was sick. But he did agree to me visiting him at the pub, so I would meet with him every Tuesday at the Devonport Tavern.

My very first visit was on a Friday, and I remember standing at the doorway thinking, ‘What am I doing?'

I hadn't been in a bar since before I was married.

The bar was thick with smoke, and there were two TVs showing a boxing match; people were roaring.

I asked the barmaid where I could find Ron and she pointed to a man by the jukebox.

Ron was such a regular he had his own plaque on the wall and his own chair beneath it.

Our first conversation was very difficult because there was so much noise and he was more interested in the boxing match.

We agreed that next time we would meet on a Tuesday when it was quieter.

Over a five-week period, Ron became more and more frail, so I got him to come to Hospice Daycare once a week, where he could have a decent meal and meet other patients.

One day I had a call from the barmaid asking me to come because Ron did not seem well.

I arrived to find Ron looking dreadful.

I took him home and we called his GP, who recommended he go into a Hospice inpatient unit.

At that stage we didn't have one, so we rang St Joseph's Hospice.

At St Joseph's, Ron sat on the bed and pulled out his mouth organ. He had always promised to play it for me, but when he put the instrument to his lips, no sound came.

We both cried.

Ron died a couple of days later.

All the bar regulars were at his funeral, and that was just the most amazing tribute to a wonderful Devonport character.

My Hospice role was honestly the best I ever had.

It was tough at times, but knowing I made a difference has given me immense satisfaction.

Orla and Brian were devout Irish Catholics.

They shared a very strong faith and had crosses all over their house.

I had been calling in regularly to help Orla care for Brian, who had cancer.

On this particular day, I was on a rostered day off, but Orla found my number and called me and said, "You'd better come quickly, it's time."

I said, "Orla, I'm off duty. But tell me, what is Brian doing?"

She said, "He's sitting at the table eating his porridge."

I said, "Well, Orla, I can probably reassure you that Brian's not dying today."

She said, "He is. He'll be going at three o'clock today. I've prayed to the Holy Spirit. I've prayed to the Novena of the Precious Blood that he will have a holy death and I will be told. And she told me Brian's going today at three o'clock."

Orla had called their only son and told him to be there to say goodbye to his father.

I stopped by to reassure them and saw that Brian was fine, so I went on my merry way.

The next morning I got to work… only to learn that Brian had passed away at exactly three o'clock the previous afternoon, just as Orla had said he would.

To my absolute surprise, she had been right, and I had been wrong.

I'll never forget Orla.

She's affected me hugely over the years in regard to her practice and her total belief in the hereafter.

The reality for me was that her belief was so strong that it came to fruition.

And I don't think it would have mattered what religion she followed - whether it was Hindu or Buddhism or whatever - it was the depth of her belief system that defied all logic and made what she saw, true. Continue reading

Their differing views of happiness had moved them farther and farther apart until they lost all contact with each other to the loss of both since there were no longer any Enting offspring.

"We believe that we may meet again in a time to come, and perhaps we shall find somewhere a land where we can live together and both be content," Treebeard says.

"But it is foreboded that that will only be when we have both lost all that we now have. And it may well be that that time is drawing near at last."

In many parts of Christendom, the same story is being re-enacted. Differing views of what the Church can and must be are driving people farther and farther apart.

Among the managers of the Catholic part of the Church, there are not a few who seem determined to drive away anyone who looks anew at old moral positions (especially those related to sex).

Those new thinkers generally believe that Christianity is not about morality, but is a living and growing relationship with God in Jesus Christ that is the foundation and norm for morality.

Traditionalists move farther and farther from the mainstream, in some cases going so far as to question the authority and even the orthodoxy of the pope.

Others, fed up with scandals, cover-ups, closed-mindedness, clericalism, irrelevance and refusal to accept the working of the Holy Spirit in Vatican 2 and the People of God, simply withdraw from involvement.

Is it possible that "we may meet again in a time to come, and perhaps we shall find somewhere a land where we can live together and both be content"?

Well, nothing is impossible with God. However, the rest of Treebeard's words may say something important about how God achieves the impossible: "that will only be when we have both lost all that we now have."

When we look at the history of the divine relationship with God's people, we tend to overlook the middle of the process.

We see Moses lead the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the miraculously opened sea.

Then, we jump ahead to the Promised Land as if there were not a period of 40 years of wandering in the desert (looking, as some Israelis quip, for the one place in the Middle East without oil). Egypt ends, but the Promised Land does not begin until after the long period of nothing when those who came out of Egypt are dead.

Or look at our Sacred Triduum. We mark Good Friday by hearing the account of the Passion and we venerate the Cross. Then, we jump ahead to Easter, using Holy Saturday as a day to decorate the church for the Vigil and Sunday. We forget the tomb.

But what if the 40 years in the desert and Jesus' time in the tomb are actually key events in God's bringing about something new?

Can it be that actually being dead, being nothing, is the means by which God prepares us for something truly new, whether it be a promised land or new life?

It is increasingly obvious that parts, at least, of the Church are in Good Friday mode, undergoing a painful and confusing death, a crucifixion.

Attempts are made to hide from the situation or mitigate it by developing some sort of rubber nails. They are already failing.

Death increasingly appears inevitable, and attempts to forestall it may in fact be contrary to the will of God who may have something totally new in store for us.

But that unimaginable something will, like the Promised Land or the Resurrection, come through death, the end of what was.

And not just dying. It will come from being dead. There will be no shortcut from the cross we live with now to a new life. All shall be cleared away.

What will being dead look like? What will it feel like? What shall we do while the Church is dead?

During the centuries when Christianity was banned in Japan and being found out as a Christian meant torture and death, Christians had no clergy, no hierarchy, no facilities, no guidance and no contact with other communities.

The Church was dead.

The only thing those Christians had was their commitment to each other.

Violating that commitment would bring them rewards from the persecutors. Yet, believers remained faithful to one another and to their understanding of Christ.

Instead of attempting to thwart what may be God's will by postponing the dying, we should concentrate on building communities of mutual support that can define themselves by faithfulness not to forms but to Christ and one another.

As Treebeard said, "it may well be that that time is drawing near at last."

• William Grimm is a missioner and presbyter in Tokyo and is the publisher of the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News).
• Republished with permission.

Not only that: it teaches that "... all the good fruits of human nature, and all the good fruits of human enterprise, we shall find again, cleansed and transfigured..." (Second Vatican Council, GS 39).

In other words, nothing that is precious to us - in our own life or in the lives of our friends - is ever lost. It will all belong in the "new creation".

It is natural also to remember those who have died.

This helps us to experience our on-going relationship with them.

A sense of still belonging to each other is heightened when our remembering is ritualized, as it is in our nation's ANZAC memorial services.

A deep human instinct assures us of this belonging, and so does our faith.

This is evidenced by the participation of so many young people who are choosing to participate in these services.

Just as our life is a gift from God in the first place, so too is eternal life.

There are no words for describing the wonderful future God has in store for us. The scriptures use picture language, e.g. a great banquet.

And because it is a gift - not owed to us - we wait for God to invite us in, at a time of God's choosing; we don't decide the time - we don't gate-crash.

Nor do we let our life or our death just happen to us; we actively receive them.

We receive gifts by saying "thank you."

And remember: hope is not an assurance that things will always turn out the way we would like; rather, it is deep conviction that "all will be well" even when they don't!

In the end, all our becoming is safely in God's hands:

Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Trust in God still, and trust in me.
There are many rooms in my Father's house;
If there were not, I should have told you.
I am going now to prepare a place for you,
and after I have gone and prepared you a place,
I shall return to take you with me;
so that where I am, you may be too. (John 14:1-3)

• +Peter Cullinane was the first bishop of the Diocese of Palmerston North. Now retired he continues to be a respected writer and leader of retreats and is still busy at local, national, and international levels. Here he shares his reflections on sciences and Christian faith. To conclude the introduction of this series he quotes Albert Einstein, "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."
• This is the twelveth and final in a series of chapters from his letter to senior students
• Image: Manawatu Standard

Emanuel vowed to refuse not only heroic medical interventions once he turned 75, but also antibiotics and vaccinations. His argument: older Americans live too long in a diminished state, raising the question of, as he put it, "whether our consumption is worth our contribution."

Emanuel was born into a combative clan. One brother, Rahm, recently completed two terms as the controversial mayor of Chicago; another brother, Ari, is a high-profile Hollywood agent. But even given his DNA, Emanuel's death wish was a provocative argument from a medical ethicist and health-care expert.

Emanuel, now 62, talked with me about the social implications of longevity research and why he isn't a fan of extending life spans. I was particularly curious to get his reaction to several promising new anti-aging drugs.

Q: It's five years since you published the essay. Any second thoughts as you near the deadline?
A: Not really! [Laughing]

Q: You announced that you wouldn't take any measures to prolong your life after 75. Isn't that an extreme position?
A: First of all, it's not an extreme position. I'm not going to die at 75. I'm not committing suicide. I'm not asking for euthanasia. I'm going to stop taking medications with the sole justification that the medication or intervention is to prolong my life.

Q. But it's called "Why I hope to die …"
A. As you probably know better than everyone else, it's editors that choose titles and not authors.

I often get, from the people who want to dismiss me, "You know, my Aunt Nellie, she was clear as a bell at 94, and blah-blah-blah …" But as I said in the article, there are outliers. There are not that many people who continue to be active and engaged and actually creative past 75. It's a very small number.

Q: You suggest that one effect of our obsession with longevity is that it diverts attention from the health and well-being of children.
A: Lots of presidents and lots of politicians say, "Children are our most valuable resource." But we as a country don't behave like that. We don't invest in children the way we invest in adults, especially older adults. One of the statistics I like to point out is if you look at the federal budget, $7 goes to people over 65 for every dollar for people under 18. Continue reading

• Image: The Atlantic

The book introduced readers to the "five stages of grief" model she had developed to explain how people cope with death.

The five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

Then in 1995, following a series of strokes, Kübler-Ross was confronted with the prospect of her own death.

Her son, Ken Ross, says though his mother dedicated her life to articulating grief to others, when faced with her own grief, she still had a big lesson to learn.

'Kenneth, I don't want to die'

Mr Ross cared for his mother for nearly a decade leading up to her death in 2004.

"A few weeks before she passed she said to me, 'Kenneth, I don't want to die'," he recalls.

It surprised him, as it seemed to contradict the stages of grieving she'd spent her life teaching others about.

He observed that, though his mother was an expert on dying, she wasn't immune to its challenges.

Only recently has Mr Ross come to fully understand what he observed in his mother in her final years.

"The fact is she was paralysed for nine years and she was in [the] anger stage," he says.

Mr Ross says his mother "got a lot of flak" in the media in the years before her death, because her lack of ease with death made her appear she wasn't practising what she taught.

"People felt that she shouldn't go through [the stages of grief] for some reason," he says.

Kübler-Ross's anger did dissipate before her death — after she processed it with those closest to her.

Mr Ross admits he "pushed" his mother out of her comfort zone in her final years, assisting her through marathons in her wheelchair and travelling with her to Europe to visit her sisters.

He says Kübler-Ross "gave up on the anger" after these demonstrations of love.

"[She] let herself be loved and taken care of, then that was her final lesson — and then she was allowed to graduate," he says.

"For years I thought about this and what I realised was, that's exactly what she teaches."

When "you learn your lessons you're allowed to graduate", Mr Ross says; that is, you're allowed to die.

Pioneer and rebel

Kübler-Ross spent her life speaking openly about death and dying, and fighting for the rights of the dying.

"She would always do whatever she felt was right to help dying people and anyone who was downtrodden," Mr Ross says.

She did this even when, in the earlier parts of her career in particular, speaking openly about death was frowned upon, he says.

"She was a pioneer and such a rebel."

Kübler-Ross's controversial work, especially in the 1960s and 70s, wasn't always met with a positive reception.

"You can't imagine how shocking it was at that time for someone to be talking to dying patients and telling them the truth," he says.

According to Mr Ross, throughout his mother's life she received death threats, was spat on by doctors and the family home was even burnt down — twice. Continue reading

• Image: iPerspective

• Some people are unprepared to die.
• Others are worried about those left behind.
• Some are angry.
• Many are frightened.
• Not everyone is hungry for more life, but almost everyone at some point feels apprehensive about letting go.

If you or someone you love is struggling with these issues, here are some tips to navigate the future.

Talk to your oncologist

Studies show that, when it comes to prognosis, oncologists and patients often have different interpretations of the information shared.

One found that, while oncologists said they had discussed a poor prognosis, many patients felt that they'd not been made aware of it.

Your oncologist should be clear on your prognosis and what that means, but never be afraid to push for more information - it is both appropriate and valuable to ask your oncologist about what to expect.

A lack of awareness or understanding of your prognosis could have major implications for acceptance and planning for the end of life.

In terms of details, dividing life expectancy into broad groups of days, weeks, months or years seems helpful for many people.

Asking your doctor to describe what decline may look like can also be helpful, as can ­­getting an understanding of how people die from cancer, medically speaking - a question I've tackled here.

If you are not sure how or what to ask, get help from your family doctor or palliative care nurse, who can help you write out some questions to take to your next appointment.

Talk to each other

While it can be heart-wrenchingly difficult to talk about the finality of dying, patients and relatives say that even one discussion around an incurable situation can be helpful.

Acknowledging mortality allows doctors and families to ask the patient, directly, what they want.

This kind of honesty can infuse purpose to a time of challenge by allowing the patient to openly express love, regret and desires, and the family to fulfil the patient's wishes - whether it's for their final days or after death.

Martin Ledwick, head information nurse at Cancer Research UK, adds that friends and relatives should leave space for their loved one to express what they need at this time:

"Take their lead about how they want you to support and care for them," he says.

"Sometimes they may want the opportunity to talk about deeper feelings, but at other times they may want to feel ‘normal' and do some of the things they would normally do in your company.

"It is good to have the opportunity to be able to tell each other how you are feeling and express love, but sometimes it's useful to be distracted from this."

Live well before you die well

Being adequately informed about prognosis allows you control over your life.

A patient who has had multiple lines of chemotherapy may be offered yet another treatment, but if they have a realistic understanding of its effectiveness, they may choose to stop treatment and focus on "quality of life" - enjoying cherished experiences: spending time with family, enjoying favourite foods or sitting in a favourite environment.

Patients who accept the inevitability of death can make every day count, ultimately improving their own experience and leaving their loved ones in a better place. Continue reading

So why now, at the beginning of the 21st century, after prohibiting euthanasia for thousands of years and when we can do so much more to relieve suffering than in the past, do we suddenly think that legalising it is a good idea?

I propose a major cause is a catastrophic failure of collective human memory and collective human imagination.

Let‘s look at the approaches taken on each side of the debate.

If euthanasia were a stone thrown into a pond, pro-euthanasia advocates see only the stone and the immediate splash, not the stone's antecedents or the widespread ripples it sets off.

These blind spots constitute, respectively, a failure of human memory and of human imagination.

The pro-euthanasia case is straightforward and easy to make. (I will use the word euthanasia to include physician-assisted suicide (PAS).

It focuses on a suffering, competent, adult individual who wants to die and gives informed consent to euthanasia.

Proponents argue that the person's right to autonomy overrides other considerations, concerns and values, and that denying them euthanasia is cruelty and providing it kindness.

Pro-euthanasia advocates reject history - especially any reference to the Nazi atrocities - as having anything, or at least anything valuable, to teach us regarding euthanasia.

Nobody believes legalising euthanasia will result in a Holocaust, but the justifications for the Third Reich's early 1930's euthanasia program for people with disabilities - "lives not worth living" - are eerily similar to present justifications for euthanasia.

As Catherine Frazee, a Canadian professor of disability studies has said, "The Nazi ... euthanasia program is part of my history as a disabled person."

Pro-euthanasia advocates also deny the reality of the slippery slopes it's opened up in the Netherlands and Belgium. Continue reading

• Margaret Somerville is professor of bioethics in the school of medicine at the University of Notre Dame, Australia.

"Most people have an instinctive fear of death, but many also have a conviction that something lies beyond, that death does not have the last word," the website explains. Read more

And then…? Well, a few weeks of lilies and extra "Alleluias!" and then back to business as usual. (E.g., First Confessions and Communions in May, a spate of weddings in June, etc.)

It seems that Holy Week is a lot of work for a few, an inconvenience for a few more ("How many times do I have to drag the kids to church this week?!?"), and an annual irrelevance for many, if not most Catholics. But does it have to be that way?

Here's the key problem with Holy Week as described above: People who halfheartedly believe that they're sinners try to stir up sorrow for an atoning death they're not quite convinced they need, so that a few days later they can try to stir up joy for the benefits of a resurrection they don't quite understand or believe in.

So understood, it's not very convincing theater, and even less is it worthy worship.

Why do we put up with it? Why does the Church ask us to put on this act year after year? That's asking the wrong question. Better: What is divine mercy and providence offering us in Holy Week?

And how can we be good stewards of what could be the last Holy Week we will ever see? (Remember that not one future moment is guaranteed to anyone.)

We're created in the image and likeness of God. Our souls, which we surrendered to the dominion of Satan by our sin, are worth fighting for.

Jesus, Son of God and son of Mary, ransomed our souls with his own blood. If you were given one week before your death to contemplate that truly shocking fact—how would you spend it? Continue reading

• Father Robert McTeigue, SJ, is a member of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus.

Unable to ignore the crowd, and before "off-the-cuff" remarks were simply what popes did, he improvised the most famous speech of his pontificate.

"My dear children, I hear your voices. Mine is just one, but it sums up the world's. Here, the entire world is represented. I should say that even the moon has come out here tonight, to witness this amazing moment," he said.

"Returning home, you will find your children. Give them a caress and tell them ‘This is the caress of the pope,'" said "the good pope," as he was known, to the torch-lit cheers. "You will find some tears to dry, say a good word: the pope is with us, especially in times of sadness and bitterness."

Francis, who has been an outspoken supporter of his predecessor - so much so that he declared him a saint by dispensing with the miracle requirement - recently borrowed almost exactly these words for a message that had a much sadder tone.

"Your pictures are now on my desk, because in your truly special eyes I see the light of kindness and innocence," Francis wrote in a letter to a 9-year old, Paolina Libraro.

"Thank you for sending them to me! Read this letter together with your mother, and the kiss she will now give you will be the kiss of the pope."

The pope's letter, dated September 22, was accompanied with a VIP ticket to the Wednesday audience of October 26, where Francis presumably would have given Libraro a kiss himself. Yet she missed the appointment: she was already too weak, fighting a three-year long battle against cancer.

Libraro died Friday, November 22, the day the Catholic Church marks the feast of St. Cecilia, patroness of musicians, exactly six months after receiving her first Communion.

"When she died, she joined the choir of the saints, led by St. Cecilia," her cousin, Giuseppe Delprete, told Crux.

"Young Paulina was lucid, and courageous, until the very end," Delprete said. "She never cried, she was a lively, outgoing young girl who died fighting." Continue reading

Sources

• Crux article by Inés San Martín, an Argentinean journalist who covers the Vatican in Rome for Crux.
• Image: Aleteia

Yes, there is. A new website hosted by the Catholic Church in England and Wales has decided to confront the big taboo and is using Instagram to talk about death.

Called The Art of Dying Well, the website includes an animated film a terminally ill man's death. His story includes reconciling with his family before his peaceful, prayerful end.

To create the website and film the Church has been working with experts who care for terminally ill people, chaplains - and consulting history.

History - or rather, an historical text, has provided inspiration. The text - Ars Moriendi - or the "Art of Dying" includes information and guidance plus Catholic rites and special Prayers for the Dying.

The prayers are illustrated in an animated story narrated by English actress Vanessa Redgrave.

The Ars Moriendi are two related Latin texts. They date from about 1415 and 1450 and offer advice on the protocols and procedures of a good death. Their advice includes an explanation of how to "die well" according to the Christian precepts of the late Middle Ages.

However, as Dr Kathryn Mannix, a consultant in palliative care, from Newcastle upon Tyne says, these days most of us have no idea what dying is like.

Unlike our forebears, we haven't witnessed many deaths during our youth, we live longer than ever before and medicine defers - and at times, defies death.

The process of dying is new territory for us.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• Herald Malaysia Online
• Christian Today
• Image: Wikimedia Commons

An incredibly subjective experience, we can only make guesses as to what being in that ‘twilight zone' of hovering between life and death might actually be like.

When I worked in hospitals in a pastoral care and chaplaincy role for a decade, I noticed a variety of responses to death from people as they approached this inevitability. Sometimes I found that those with a strong religious background might fear death because of what they were taught about hell as a child.

For others, it might be that they wanted to die because they felt they had become a burden to their families.

Exploring the emotional and social context of a person's life is incredibly important for those working in pastoral and palliative care. In particular, aiming to discern: What really are the major concerns in this person's life? What kind of death do they really want? Are they afraid of death? Or are they afraid of what comes after death?

As Moira Byrne Garton previously pointed out in the March edition of The Good Oil, euthanasia is an issue that can be extremely complex and subjective.

Unlike physical suffering, the spiritual and emotional dimension of suffering may never be fully understood or communicated by a patient or loved one.

The search for peace is integral to being human and when patients find themselves at peace with God, they are more likely to be more at peace within themselves. I cannot tell you how many times as a pastoral carer I heard the phrase "I want to die", by a terminally ill or critically ill patient.

Yet in many of those situations I encountered, it was often existential suffering that was the biggest motivator of the statement "I want to die", rather than direct physical suffering.

Existential suffering can only be uncovered by deeply exploring someone's feelings, fears, and apprehensions about their life - what it has meant, what it means now, and what they believe about what happens to us after death, and so on. Continue reading

• Joanna Thyer worked for ten years as a pastoral carer and chaplain in major hospitals. She is also a published author. Her most recent work is 12 Steps to Spiritual Freedom (Loyola Press, 2014).
• This article is re-published from The Good Oil, the e-magazine of the Good Samaritan Sisters, with the permission of the Editor.

SPIEGEL: Doctor Gawande, are you beginning to feel your age?

Gawande: Without question. I had to switch bifocals this year. I was always near-sighted and now I'm also far-sighted.

My 19-year old daughter has started beating me at word games because I just don't process like I used to. While playing tennis, I never had to stretch nor worry about injuries. That's over as well. Overall, it's the kind of little aches and pains that make you think: Yes, I'm getting older.

SPIEGEL: In your book "Being Mortal," you describe vividly what happens when we age: Our heart muscle's performance begins to deteriorate at 30, before the age of 40 our brain power starts to decline. At the age of 60, on average, we'll have lost one third of our teeth. Does your own decline scare you?

Gawande: It's an experience that definitely bothers me. The mental image I have of myself is still the person who was 30 years of age rather than the person turning 50 this year.

SPIEGEL: Four years ago, your father passed away at the age of 76. Did the experience of his death magnify your concerns?

Gawande: Surprisingly, no. It actually helped me. Up until the end, my father had things he loved and cared for. We should consider ourselves lucky to become older than the generation before us.

Many of us will become dependent, that's inevitable, but that doesn't mean one can't have a good life. For my book, I talked with a 94-year-old man. Every joint he had was aching. He had to support himself with one of those walkers that had tennis balls on each of the legs. Sometimes, he seemed confused. Yet, he had things he loved about life and that was true of my father as well. Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: AnswerCare

She died Sunday morning, at 95, after a long and full life. It was a good death, to use an unfortunately old-fashioned phrase, but death is still death.

One effect, as many of you will understand, is to make me think more about death and those I loved who have died, like my father. (One blessing of writing is that you can pay tribute. Here's my reflection on his death.)

The death of a loved one is one of those extreme moments that put human disagreements in context, even the deep differences between now divided Christians. My parents started going to church and settled in conservative Protestant churches.

I started going to church and moved in the other direction, first to Episcopalianism and then into the Church. Now that I'm older, I see that there's less difference in the places we finished than either of us thought, looking at the other's choice with the zeal of converts. But not no difference.

Their last church was the classic New England Congregationalist church: white clapboard, tall clear windows, and steeple, and inside a pulpit on a raised platform with a table (a kind of vestigial altar) on the floor in front of it.

Besides the flowers always set on the table, the church had no decoration on its white walls. There was not even a cross to be seen.

For my father's funeral, the pastor had put a picture of him on the table, and with his face surrounded by the professional photographer's light blue background, it looked like an icon.

Emmanuel had also put flowers either side of the picture. They had been close friends. Continue reading

• David Mills, former executive editor of First Things, is a senior editor of The Stream, editorial director for Ethika Politika, and columnist for several Catholic publications. His latest book is Discovering Mary.

Technological advances and intellectual knowledge we continue to acclaim, leaves us with the sense that we are in control and that there is enough time to achieve what it is we want to achieve.

We become complacent about the need to take care of ourselves… always something more to do.

Some of this is driven by our desire to save the world, others driven by the desire we have to reach the many goals we have set ourselves - many of them superficial.

The simple reality is that we are not in charge and that moment of realisation comes to us when we learn of the fragility of the human spirit. For some, that lesson comes unexpectedly and hard.

Late last year I slowly became unwell.

The stress of the lifestyle I was living, the demands I made of myself, the demands other people made of me and expected to meet became too great and as 2014 closed I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had spread to my liver.

No treatment, no cure, only palliative care. I'd waited too long to look after myself and my body broke.

To say that it was and is a shock is a major understatement. And as I look at the amazing family and group of friends I'm surrounded with as I now travel a different journey warms my heart. At the same time, there are feelings of trepidation about what lies ahead.

I'm now focused on the moments of magic that are appearing in front of me: The laughter of my grandchildren; a smile of a friend attempting to walk this journey with me and the pure beauty and strength of my adult children as they battle their anger, grief and sadness at what is happening to their beloved mother.

It's time to leave the work to others now.

My wish is that others will learn to stop before I did, to take into account the limitations of their physical bodies and to take the time to listen to the yearnings of their soul. It is in the taking care of ourselves we learn the ability to take care of others.

"When we walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen :

There will be something solid for you to stand on, or, you will be taught to fly." "Faith" by Patrick Overton - "The Leaning Tree"

• Celia Lashlie

Celia Lashlie died on 16 February.

I was at the intersection, stalled between errands and an afternoon of teaching; counting the minutes, wondering how many cars the cortege numbered.

I knew what was coming, just around the corner. After Groundhog Day and Valentine's: Ashes. The crush of pitch black on my forehead, the kneeling by candlelight, the prayers.

Just as we are on the verge of emerging from winter's darkness, stowing blankets and gloves, we are pulled back into the deep. Dust to dust.

There are first things and last things, and dust is one of those last things that never ends, it seems, either in housework or in the work of the soul.

Life gives us many passes at dust. Frustrations, humiliations, sudden loss. Ash Wednesday invites us to do more than deflect these as best we can. It asks that we take the reality of dust into ourselves with space enough — the next 40 days — to walk around in it.

To enter the time of ashes is to enter our own wilderness and to take a look around.

One of my own wilderness guides is a fellow parishioner I will call Frances. Frances is an energetic single woman, an active contributor to our church community for so long that no one could imagine life without her.

Two years ago, Frances went on her first trip to the Holy Land. It was there that she broke the news to her church companions: Just days earlier, she had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The doctors told her that after seeing the places where Jesus walked and taught and performed his miracles, she would come home to die. Continue reading

• Kathleen Hirsch in Crux

Kathleen Hirsch is an adjunct professor at Boston College, spiritual director at Bethany House of Prayer in Arlington, Massachusetts, and a retreat leader.

The youth and promise of the cricketing star, who was by all accounts an extremely likeable young man, was made much of in the media.

On the night he died, 3News reader Hilary Barry wore black as the bulletin led with the story of his "freak" death.

The next night viewers watched Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke break down several times while making a speech as he struggled time and again to regain composure, at one time to admonishing himself to "do your job" as he attempted to honour the star while announcing that Hughes' one-day international shirt number 64 had been retired.

It was difficult to watch and although it was a public announcement in front of the cameras, the captain's raw pain at the loss of his friend was laid out for all to see, the speech broadcast in its entirety with all the pregnant pauses and halting sobs left in.

One couldn't help but feel it was an intrusion on private grief.

And therein lies the problem with covering tragic deaths, of how far the media should go in the very public ownership of private grief, particularly when it has to report on the reaction of social media, which can make the Fourth Estate's coverage appear muted, dull, and emotionally inadequate.

A fan had posted a photograph of a cricket bat and cap laid next to a doorway as a mark of respect and the visual had gone viral, gathered momentum.

The #putoutyourbats hashtag on Twitter prompted cricketing greats to follow suit instantly, as television coverage faithfully recorded the lineup of bats and caps from around the world.

The tragedy-hysteria bus had left the station and there was some grief to be had.

The story of a cricketing great cut down his prime had caught fire and was gaining oxygen. Continue reading

• Jane Bowron in The Press

Jane Bowron is a columnist and TV reviewer.

As a girl, I would often zone out on my bed, or at my desk in school, imagining that I was on the verge of death, and trying on a range of possible reactions: terror, confusion, grief.

What I really hoped for in those moments of morbid fantasy was a kind of peaceful, alert confidence.

I would be brave and mature enough when I died. I would let go and master whatever might be waiting on the other side. But, mostly, all I could authentically muster was a shiver of panic.

As I moved into adulthood, I began to collect glimpses into the deaths of family members and friends.

There were hints at how to be at peace, but some of these deaths were sad and torturous.

An elderly friend with pneumonia who expired tethered to ICU machines against her wishes, another who succumbed to cancer, leaving two young daughters behind, and another who died of AIDS, shunned by his family, delirious and heartbroken.

Living in a society that offers few lessons on how life should end, and where the moribund are mostly hidden from view, it's hard to find tangible examples of dying well.

A few years ago, I signed up to volunteer with a New York City hospice.

I was inspired by a dying friend who described how lonely she was being terminally ill in a death-phobic culture.

Maybe I could be of comfort to someone like her.

But also, I simply wanted to be near dying people - to get an education in death, to glean some coordinates for the roadmap to my own end. Continue reading

Sources

• Aeon
• Image: The Telegraph UK

At times like these, philosophers are of limited use because when they have talked about dying they have tended to focus on what it means for the one who dies. Plato, for instance, called philosophy a preparation for death, while Epicurus told us we had nothing to fear from dying. But such thoughts are not much use to those who die suddenly. My father had seemed fit as a fiddle, but he was struck by a heart attack and died on the spot. The same happened to his brother and his brother-in-law, while his own father was killed instantly by a stroke. It is as though the Grim Reaper enjoys playing a cruel joke on those who look intently ahead. Those who prepare to meet him face-to-face are just as likely to find he sneaks up behind them and takes them unawares.

A much more useful philosophy would help us to prepare for the deaths of others. I have never been sure that philosophy does a good job of that. But perhaps a philosophical outlook can help us make sense of death when it comes close to us. Continue reading

Sources

• Julian Baggini in Aeon
• Image: U S Institute of Peace

Julian Baggini is a writer and founding editor of The Philosophers' Magazine.

Empty handed I entered
The world
Barefoot I leave it
My coming, my going —
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.

Seigan paused outside one of the identical doors of the neurological unit, marked only with a number. He mulled over the words of the poem, letting them mingle, listening to their rhythm, refocusing. He was tired but not exhausted, nearing the end of his hospital shift. He straightened his dark scrubs and ran his hand over his clean-shaven head before adjusting his glasses.

As he entered the room he met a scent of flowers. The night lights of the city spilled in through the window and 57-year-old Cleo (as she was named in her hospital transcript), her head heavily bandaged, held out her hand to greet him. Her long, dark hair was streaked with grey and she lay propped up in her hospital bed.

"You're the Buddhist chaplain aren't you? I've been waiting for you," she said. "Please sit down. Do you have some time for me?"

"Of course," Seigan said, taking a seat next to her. "Tell me how you're doing, how you're feeling right now."

Cleo was admitted to the hospital after suffering a major seizure one day while doing her laundry. A brain biopsy a few weeks later revealed a glioblastoma, an aggressive and malignant form of brain cancer. The surgeon laid out the prognosis, cut and dried: she had less than three months to live. He urged her to go ahead with surgery and a chemotherapy follow-up. It would give her perhaps an extra nine months to a year, he said, but ultimately the cancer was terminal. Cleo explained how, despite her initial reaction to let nature take its course, she felt she should go ahead with the surgery for the sake of her 87-year-old mother, who was devastated by the diagnosis.

Seigan listened carefully.

"Can I challenge you for a little bit?" he asked. "What do you really want?" Continue reading

Sources

• The Atlantic
• Image: Sir Tony Baldry