Death & Dying

My Mother, Myself: A Final Word

6 Comments / Death & Dying, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

The Skagit County Tulip Festival in Mt. Vernon, Washington, draws crowds to view acres and acres of colorful bulbs each April. In the intervening days between my mother’s death and her memorial mass, my husband and daughter ventured forth to explore the tulip fields. The pair brought back two bouquets, knowing they were my favorite flower, so I brought them to Mom’s church the next day. The reason I love the tulip is that it is the only flower I know that continues to grow after it is cut. A very tight, short arrangement of blooms grows gangly over time, […]

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My Mother, Myself, in an Anxious Climate

4 Comments / Death & Dying, Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Personal, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle / By /

My mother writes in her autobiography that during her college years she began to experience anxiety, fear, and what is known as scrupulosity, a sort of spiritual Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Coming out of a home where the expression of love for her was thin and unconvincing, she was afraid that even God could not love her without serious performance of perfection. At the same time, she was suffering from clinical anxiety and developing phobias. (One notable fear was of going to the dentist, after a disastrous 2.5 hour tooth extraction when she was 20. To her credit, she made sure we

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Knowing Mother, Knowing Myself

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How does one get to know one’s mother?  The question becomes very important as one tries to get to know oneself. The process of bonding and understanding begins even before birth and is nurtured early by the intimacy of feeding, bathing, soothing to sleep. The personality types of both mother and daughter are expressed in this dynamic, and mom’s emotional health is a key factor in raising an emotionally stable and secure adult. When one does not have that security, a wounding occurs and a lifetime of compensation ensues. My mother was the third and last child in her family,

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To Know Christ and the Power of His Resurrection

1 Comment / Death & Dying, Lent, Lung Cancer, Personal, Theological Reflection, Uncategorized / By /

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.” (Philippians 3:10) I decided to wait until after Easter to reflect on my mother’s sudden death, because it just seemed proper to walk through the week of the Passion and Crucifixion of our Lord first. The convincing realization of that remembrance is that Jesus understands our sorrow, our pain, and has fully experienced death itself. What sweet comfort that reality is, and what stupendous hope we have because of his Resurrection that followed! With the knowledge

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Good Friday Reflection

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As I was sitting in the choir tonight contemplating the Scriptures, the songs, and the choral pieces offered during our Good Friday service, something struck me rather forcefully. All four gospel accounts make note that Jesus remained conscious throughout his crucifixion ordeal. The evidence that he remained alert is that, in each case, he said something right before he died and then “he gave up his spirit” (Matthew 27:50, John 19:30; “breathed his last,” Mark 15:37 and Luke 23:46). Jesus was in agony. He was slowly dying of asphyxiation, caused by the unnatural position of his body hanging by the

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The Acceptance of Tragedy

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Our newspaper has been covering two tragic situations in the last month, that warrant some reflection in light of my previous series on dying and death. The first involves a fourteen-year-old girl Jahi McMath, who died after sudden complications from surgery to remove her tonsils and repair sinuses. I—and the state of California—say she died, because in the course of this medical emergency, her brain ceased all function to the point of “brain-death.” This is not a permanent vegetative state but the complete stoppage of all neurological activity in all areas of the brain. The complicating factor was that she

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Waiting to Die, or Living to Death?

9 Comments / Death & Dying, Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, Personal, Sermon Illustrations, Uncategorized / By /

Several years ago, on the occasion of her 80th birthday, a parishioner intimated that she was the longest living member of her family at that age. Her vision of her life had not extended past that point, as every single one of her forebears had died early and suddenly or, in one case after a long illness at age 72. Since she did not know what to do with life after 80, and had no inclination to reinvent herself, it appeared to me that she was simply marking time and waiting to die. At the time, she was in perfect

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Prepare to Die—Part III

Leave a Comment / Death & Dying, It All Started in the Garden, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

For the last several days, we have been considering the process of dying and death itself, trying to push through our denial of our mortality. I have been enriched by your comments and candid reflections on the topic, realizing January is a busy month and death is probably not your first-choice topic! Yesterday was an amazing day for me, with death absolutely not on my radar screen. After a lousy weekend, I was feeling so good by yesterday, I spent virtually the entire day on the phone, doing “work”! I even had energy left to go to our small group

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Prepare to Die—Part II

3 Comments / Death & Dying, Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, The Pastoral Call / By /

Can’t help but start today’s post with the most famous quotation from Princess Bride (with heavy Spanish accent): “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” He gives that warning several times in the classic movie, enough for the viewer to know that nobody is actually going to die any time soon. But the line cracks my funny bone. I am serious today, however, when I say, “Prepare to die.” I am going to die. You are going to die. It may not be anytime soon . . . [Just for the record, my progress

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Prepare to Die—Part I

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An interesting article appeared in Sunday’s Contra Costa Times in the “Your Life” section of the paper, entitled “Coffee, cake & grave conversation.” It described a Death Café, a hosted conversation about death and grief in Santa Cruz, California (one among many in California). The group’s purpose is to formalize discussions “to help ease the anxiety around death and dying.” As I read the article, it appears that the intended benefit is spiritual and practical, as people share and learn about various burial options, celebratory rituals, and advanced directives. It reminds me of a series of adult classes we used

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