The Divine Art of Dying aims to empower people who are dying to live as fully as they can until life's end. The book includes reflections from Karen Speerstra's hospice journal and essays written jointly by Speeratra and Herbert Anderson on learning to wait, letting go, giving gifts, and telling stories. Each chapter has suggestions for caregivers.
The Divine Art of Dying explores the time when individuals facing a life-limiting illness make critical decisions about how they will live until they die. Authors Karen Speerstra and Herbert Anderson teamed up to write this book shortly before Speerstra's death. Their hope was that this book would be a gift to help people who are irreversibly ill (and their friends and family) navigate the perilous journey to the point at which one decides to discontinue curative treatment and turn toward death. The book includes reflections from Speerstra's hospice journal and essays written jointly by Speerstra and Anderson on themes that include learning to wait, letting go, giving gifts, and telling stories. Karen's experiential and moving reflections are woven together with Anderson's pastoral insights gleaned from years of teaching, writing, and lecturing on death, dying, and bereavement, as well as practicing hospital chaplaincy and pastoral care. Together they have created a deeply profound and practical book that aims to empower people who are dying to live as fully as they can until life's end, and to help those who care for them to share this journey with compassion and hope. Several reflections by Speerstra's friends and family are included along with sidebars describing "divine-human virtues." Suggestions for caregivers are provided at the end of each chapter.
The Medicalization of dying and the disregard for the life of the soul within contemporary health care prompt the return of the Ars moriendi, or The Art of Dying. This widely influential fifteenth-century text was designed to guide dying persons and their loved ones in Catholic religious practices at a time when access to a priest and the sacraments was similarly limited. This remarkable and inspiring work serves as a valuable resource for Catholic today, encouraging their full participation in the rich sacramental and liturgical tradition of the Church and challenging them to keep their eyes fixed on Christ and the promise of eternal life with him. This new translation includes illuminating annotations on its theological and pastoral content. A scholarly introduction examines the book's history, use, and present application. The book contains exact reproductions of the original medieval woodblock prints. Additional prayers have been incorporated from the longer version of the work, newly translated with Latin originals. The appendix presents confessions of faith, explanations of the sacraments, and guides to the examination of conscience, the rosary, and the divine mercy chaplet.
'Parry's Victorian Edinburgh comes vividly alive – and it's a world of pain' Val McDermid 'Brilliantly conceived, fiendishly plotted' Mick Herron SHORTLISTED FOR THE McILVANNEY PRIZE 2020 A Raven and Fisher Mystery: Book 2 Edinburgh, 1849. Hordes of patients are dying all across the city, with doctors finding their remedies powerless. And a whispering campaign seeks to paint Dr James Simpson, pioneer of medical chloroform, as a murderer. Determined to clear Simpson’s name, his protégé Will Raven and former housemaid Sarah Fisher must plunge into Edinburgh’s deadliest streets and find out who or what is behind the deaths. Soon they discover that the cause of the deaths has evaded detection purely because it is so unthinkable.
Based on the author's own experience, The Divine Art of Dying is about how we can die well and live well up to the very end of our physical existence. Combining personal stories with solid research on palliative and hospice care, the book looks at the unique moment when a person turns toward death and examines what the dying person and their caregivers can expect. Includes spiritual insights from many sources along with references from literature, movies, and current culture.
Utilising a wide range of early sources, this title identifies the roots of the concept of Christian martyrdom, as lloking at how it has been expressed in events such as the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999.
In this deeply personal and daring meditation, eminent theologian Jürgen Moltmann challenges many closely held beliefs about the experience of dying, the nature of death, and the hope of eternal life. Moving deftly between biblical, theological, and existential domains, Moltmann argues that while we know intimately the experience of dying--both our loved ones' dying and, ultimately, our own--death itself is a mystery. Are those who have died in fact dead? If the dead are alive, how or in what respect? When the dead awaken to eternal life, who wakes? Moltmann's interrogations yield surprising and beautiful fruits. The living soul that awakens to eternal life is not a ghost in a machine, but the Lebensgestalt, the shape and story of a life, its human and divine contexts, its whole. Drawing on themes from his oeuvre's entire arc, Resurrected to Eternal Life testifies to the inner unity of Moltmann's theology: the cross, the Spirit, the kingdom, the end, and the hope that makes the end present here and now. Seasoned readers of Moltmann will find in these pages a capstone of a lifetime of theological exploration, while those new to his complex thought will find a concise and elegant entry point into his voluminous work.
25th Anniversary Edition Over 3 Million Copies Sold 'I couldn't give this book a higher recommendation' BILLY CONNOLLY Written by the Buddhist meditation master and popular international speaker Sogyal Rinpoche, this highly acclaimed book clarifies the majestic vision of life and death that underlies the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. It includes not only a lucid, inspiring and complete introduction to the practice of meditation, but also advice on how to care for the dying with love and compassion, and how to bring them help of a spiritual kind. But there is much more besides in this classic work, which was written to inspire all who read it to begin the journey to enlightenment and so become 'servants of peace'.
Hope is not an attitude—it’s a way of life. Therapist Ted Brackman, a colleague of Jim Wallis in the early Sojourners community, mines psychological, theological, and sociological insights in this practical and compassionate guide for “living well while ill.” Ted’s work was deepened by his eleven years with pancreatic cancer (after a nine-month prognosis). He developed and lived out a way of life animated by hope in the transcendent reality of God’s future coming to us in the present. In his writing, he is an honest, inspiring companion: • for those who struggle to face the next hour with courage and strength. • for those who feel defeated and need a new way forward that reframes the present. • for caregivers and advocates who need new tools for replenishing both internal and external resources. • for communities of faith seeking to bring change to, and empowering hope within, marginalized populations. For all those ready to find a new way of living when false hopes and distractions are stripped away, to learn how to build a foundation for personal, communal, and social thriving . . . Ted Brackman offers Bright Hope.
Excerpt: CHAPTER I. HE WHO DESIRES TO DIE WELL, MUST LIVE WELL I NOW commence the rules to be observed in the Art of dying well. This art I shall divide into two parts: in the first I shall speak of the precepts we must follow whilst in good health; in the other of those we should observe when we are dangerously ill, or near death's door. We shall first treat of those precepts that relate to virtue; and afterwards of those which relate to the sacraments: for, by these two we shall be especially enabled both to live well, and to die well. But the general rule, " that he who lives well, will die well," must be mentioned before all others: for since death is nothing more than the end of life, it is certain that all who live well to the end, die well; nor can he die ill, who hath never lived ill; as, on the other hand, he who hath never led a good life, cannot die a good death. The same thing is observable in many similar cases: for all that walk along the right path, are sure to arrive at the place of their destination; whilst, on the contrary, they who wander from it, will never arrive at their journey's end. They also who diligently apply to study, will soon become learned doctors; but they who do not, will be ignorant. But, perhaps, some one may mention, as an objection, the example of the good thief, who lived ill and yet died well. This was not the case; for that good thief led a holy life, and therefore died a holy death. But, even supposing he had spent the greater part of his days in wickedness, yet the other part of his life was spent so well, that he easily repented of his former sins, and gained the greatest graces. For, burning with the love of God, he openly defended our Saviour from the calumnies of His enemies; and filled with the same charity towards his neighbour, he rebuked and admonished his blaspheming companion, and endeavoured to convert him. He was yet alive when he thus addressed him, saying: "Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done no evil." (St. Luke 23:40, 41.) Neither was he dead when, confessing and calling upon Christ, he uttered these noble words: "Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom." The good thief then appeared to "have been one of those who came last into the vineyard, and yet he received a reward greater than the first." True, therefore, is the sentence, " He who lives well, dies well;" and, "He who lives ill, dies ill." We must acknowledge that it is a most dangerous thing to deter till death our conversion from sin to virtue: far more happy are they who begin to carry the yoke of the Lord "from their youth," as Jeremiah saith; and exceedingly blessed are those, "who were not defiled with women, and in whose mouth there was found no lie: for they are without spot before the throne of God. These were purchased from among men, the first-fruits to God and to the Lamb." (Apoc. 14:4, 5.) Such were Jeremias, and St. John, "more than a prophet;" and above all, the Mother of our Lord, as well as many more whom God alone knoweth. This first great truth now remains established, that a good death depends upon a good life.
