DeathPresentation Team:

Joy Berry

Rev. Natalie Fenimore

Rev. Judy Tomlinson

Gail Forsyth-Vail

LREDA Fall Conference 2016

Chalice LightingLighting this chalice, we feel its strengthTogether, we are fearless

Lighting this chalice, we feel its warmthTogether, we are radiant

Lighting this chalice, we feel its clarityTogether, we are wise

Kellie Walker Hart, copyright 2016,used by permission

Love Reaches Out (Vs. 1 & Chorus)

With a mind that holds a plan, with a hand that holds a key,with a heart that holds a dream, love reaches out.When a family's torn apart, when the street is all you have,when your faith begins to break, love reaches out.

Chorus:

Love reaches out, love reaches out,here by your side, bringing you home, love reaches out.

Words & Music by Pat Humphries and Sandy OCopyright 2014Moving Forward Music, BMIwww.emmasrevolution.com

Story: The Mustard Seed Medicine

BreathsWords adapted from a poem by Birago Diop

Music by Ysaye M. Barnwell

Prayer

Goals

• Make death more visible. Ask what it means to live in awareness of the presence of death

• Explore the idea of a “good death” • Explore personal stories about death, and the ways in which they are rooted

in culture, ethnicity, geography, religious heritage, socioeconomic location, and other factors.

• Consider what is helpful about familiar narratives/practices about death, and what is not

• Explore Unitarian Universalist culture, practices, and theology about death• Learn about ethical wills and the meaning that can live beyond a loss. • Learn about questions, practices, and tools that are helpful to prepare for

one’s own death• Consider next steps and needed resources for continuing personal and

congregational work

Bringing Death into the Room: Weaving

Bringing Death into the Room: Stories

Exploring

Guided Meditation

Readings from the Common Bowl

From the Tapestry of Faith program, Facing Death with Life

Questions to Ponder

• Which quotes speak to you and why?

• Are there quotes that make you uncomfortable?

• Are there quotes that trigger memories?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.— Psalm 23 (King James Version)

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

— Mark Twain

So let me die laughing, savoring one of life’s crazy moments. Let me die holding the hand of one I love, and recalling that I tried to love and was loved in return. Let me die remembering that life has been good, and that I did what I could. — Mark Morrison-Reed

Because I could not stop for Death—He kindly stopped for me—The Carriage held but just Ourselves—And Immortality...

— Emily Dickinson

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

— Steve Jobs

There is no such thing as a natural death; nothing that ever happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die: But for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.— Simone de Beauvoir.

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Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.

— Alice Walker

When I think of ages pastThat have floated down the streamOf life and love and death,I feel how free it makes usTo pass away.

— Rabindranath Tagore

Dukkha. All is impermanence. Nothing lasts. I thought of that yesterday, watching leaves come down in a shower, and the smell of the rotting ones going back into the earth. Leaf to humus and back to earth to nourish the roots of the mother tree. The crows crying as the leaves fall and their nests are exposed: dukkha...all is impermanence.And life goes on, and people who were with us last year at this time have died, all souls pass on, all is dukkha, nothing lasts. — Elizabeth Tarbox

If you would indeed behold the spiritof death, open your heart wideunto the body of life.For life and death are one, even as theriver and sea are one.

—Kahlil Gibran

The dead are not under the earth,They are in the fire dying down,They are in the moaning rock,They are in the crying grass,They are in the forest, they are in the home:

The dead are not dead.

— Birago Diop, 20th century Senegalese poet and storyteller

Questions to Ponder

• Which quotes spoke to you and why?

• Were there quotes that made you uncomfortable?

• Were there quotes that triggered memories?

Table Conversations:

Understanding Death

How does UU theology help us relate to those who have died? What do we think happens for ourselves at and after death?

Which cultural practices about death from your communities of origin do you find helpful and affirming? Which ones do you want to embrace in your own experiences of grief, mourning, and your own death?

Which cultural practices about death from your communities of origin are less helpful? Which ones do you want to leave behind or not embrace in your own experiences of grief, mourning, and your own death?

Which Unitarian Universalist practices about death do you find helpful and affirming? Which will be helpful at the time of your own death?

Is there something missing or unhelpful in your UU experience of death, grief, and mourning-something that you wish for at the time of your own death?

Grace

Discoveries and ThoughtsShared Values and Experiences

Preparing for Death:Resources

Preparing for Death: Children’s Books

The Dead Bird (2016 edition)

Ghost Wings (out of print but available used or at librairies)

Preparing for Death: Resources

TheConversationProject.org

Conversation starter kit

Five Wishes from agingwithdignity.org

Memorial Societies

Visit Funeral Consumers Alliance www.funerals.org

to find your local chapter

Ethical WillsUUA.org/re/older-adults/legacy

From the High Hill: Odyssey Writing for Elders offers help with reviewing your life and gathering your thoughts before creating an ethical will.

Resources: UUA.org/re/older-adults/grief• Readings and Guidance for Memorial Services• End of Life Wishes and Conversations with Family• Adult Faith Development• Compassionate Choirs• Reflections about Death and Grief

Bookstore Resources

• Have you realized that there is something you need? Resources?

• What personal work do you need to do to be more comfortable with death?

• What work does your congregation need to do?

• What tools do you have?

• What insights point to what might be helpful practices in congregational life?

• What ways can we find in our churches to help hold space to honor death?

Closing Ritual