Archive for the 'Death and Dying' Category
“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen, room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” ~ Pema Chodron
So far this holy week it has been the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron who has offered me the greatest wisdom for understanding and being present to this week of suffering, death, and resurrection. While I prepare my Easter sermon I am taking the challenge of being present to the whole story, to my whole story, and letting the story of new life emerge from that. Can we be here now? Wherever that is?
March 31 2010 | Death and Dying and Eternal Life and Spiritual Struggle | 2 Comments »
I spend just about every day with people who are dying. People hear that I work for a hospice and they often recoil. “How can you do that work?” “How can you be around all those dying people?” I have stopped trying to come up with answers. We’re all surrounded by dying people. All of us will die. It may be sooner it may be later but it is certain. The only difference with the people I spend my days with is that they know it and they have a slightly shorter time frame.
What is amazing me today about these angels in the making that I am journeying with is what scares them. It’s different for everyone as you can imagine. For some it’s pain, for some it’s losing control, for some it’s leaving loves ones and family. For one gentleman who I have recently come to know it’s that some of his hair is changing color.
Of all of his symptoms, all of his pain, and loss of function, weakness, weight loss, it’s this odd, unexplainable symptom that has him the most bothered. And when I ask him why he tells me “fear of the unknown.”
Death is the ultimate unknown. What will it look like when we cross that veil? What is it to spend your days knowing this unknown is waiting to meet you?
And can we meet the unknown with something beyond fear?
August 19 2008 | Death and Dying | No Comments »
Sorry, so, so sorry….. I have been a BAD blogger. Over three weeks and not a Sage reflection to speak of….. ugh… I could hide my head in shame but it’s time to speak again! To re-enter the blogosphere and trust that while three weeks may seem like an eternity for a blogger, it is but a blip on the spectrum of eternity!
Eternity Now!!
So I am back 
And I am back coming to you live from a whole new spot on the globe. Yes, I haven’t just been hiding from my computer over the last three weeks I have been moving to Portland, ME and starting a new job with Allegiance Hospice.
My call has shifted, I have had to say goodbye for now to the parish, goodbye to my many beloved friends at The Church of the Holy City in Wilmington, and hello to a grand new adventure. A new adventure of journeying with people on the edge of this world and the next. Journeying with people saying their goodbyes and preparing to say their hellos to a even bigger spiritual future. It will be an adventure!
So stay tuned!
I will leave this initial entry with just one very simple reflection that is sitting with me this evening. If I make it to very old, what will I be like? What will you be like? Thoughtful? Dreamy? Crotchety? Content? Flamboyant? If you become a lot more what you are right now what will that be?
Hmmmmm. Good to be back!
July 16 2008 | Death and Dying | No Comments »
