… encounter with reality … In the soothing softness of the modern world, the mass of traditional rules which gave consistency to life broke up as the frozen surface of a stream breaks up in spring … Thanks to the progress of technology, the greater part of the restraints imposed on us by the cosmos […]
more observation … less discussion Read More »
… a decision to die … Of Gods and Men won Gran Prix at Cannes this year. “A monastery high in the mountains of the Maghreb, some time in the 90s… Eight French Christian monks live in harmony with their Muslim brothers. But violence and terror are slowly taking hold of the region. Despite the
Schwenkler’s musings must have something to teach us about how we provide food and water to those near life’s end.
Frank Ostaseski’s Five Precepts of Service lend a strong foundation to the work of accompaniment … The First Precept: Welcome Everything. Push Away Nothing. In welcoming everything, we don’t have to like what’s arising. It’s actually not our job to approve or disapprove. It’s our task to trust, to listen, and to pay careful attention
welcome everything … push away nothing … Read More »
“Life is a mystery, and we all acknowledge it, but we don’t really know it. You don’t know the heart, you don’t know the mind, you don’t know the body. You are in front of a mystery, you have to get that straight, and you must be there with awe and trembling because this is
vigil … a sacred word … a sacred time … Read More »
… the legend of Parsifal and the Fisher King … We refer to an episode in the legend of Parsifal and the Fisher King, concerning the mysterious malady that paralyzed the old King who held the secret of the Graal. It was not he alone who suffered; everything around him was falling into ruins, crumbling
death is only the result … of our indifference to immortality … Read More »
The Swan This laboring through what is still undone, as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way, is like the awkward walking of the swan. And dying – to let go, no longer feel the solid ground we stand on every day – is like his anxious letting himself fall into the water, which
the swan … Rainer Maria Rilke … Read More »
… the importance of relationships … “What is the difference between a child who makes a mistake and an adult who makes a mistake? That the child does not sever that bond; he can’t even look at his mistake without seeing it immediately embraced by his mother. On the contrary, what happens to us? We
the key difference between a child and an adult … Read More »
We recently discussed Kelly, Varghese and Pelusi’s article “Countertransference and ethics: A perspective on clinical dilemmas in end-of-life decisions” … an excellent introduction to the many inter-personal, emotional and spiritual realities that inevitably inform any decision, in particular decisions near the end of life. A couple of quotes from the article …
A Parting Wendell Berry From many hard workdays in the fields, many passages through the woods, many mornings on the river, lifting hooked lines out of the dark, from many nightfalls, many dawns, on the ridgetops and the creek road, as upright as a tree, as freely standing, Arthur Rowanberry comes in his old age
a parting … Wendell Berry … Read More »
