FootprintsintheWind.com

Ars moriendi: Art of the ends

:- Doug.

I have read some things, thought some things you have not. I can help.

:- Doug.

How can we make end of life fulfilling, healing?

:- Doug.

The butterfly flies and dies
falls and disintegrates
smaller insects feast and eliminate
earth is rejuvenated
plants flourish and provide food
we eat, we procreate,
we die, after the butterfly
wheels within wheels
death but an arbitrary point
life is immortal
we but carriers

:- Doug.

Do you picture yourself again running a marathon, walking the entire grocery store, babysitting the grandchildren for a week? What is your most realistic recovery?

:- Doug.

Don’t make your doctor your enemy—enlist your doctor to do what you want.

:- Doug.

You are influential people. You are people. Therefore you are influential. I authorize you to use your influence.

:- Doug.

Death happens
Get ready

:- Doug.

I have come to some framework for thinking about the end of life conversation: 1. we don’t know when death is approaching; 2. we never anymore reach the point of nothing more we can do; 3. having the conversation reduces suffering (for individual and family), costs, and increases life, gentleness, and healing in dying.

:- Doug.

We are so unconscious about the words we use, we mostly don’t know what we’ve said, nor how the words have chosen the path of our thinking.

:- Doug.

I cannot offer you an inoculation against death. But I do offer you an inoculation against the avoidable suffering of death.

:- Doug.

What I want for you:
1. To have the conversation with your family;
2. To have the conversation with your doctor.

:- Doug.

How do we know when we are dying? When ought we bring our 17 Things into play? Is it a per centage chance of survival? Is it time left? Is it when we don’t like the looks of life if we choose what’s offered?

Maybe we just have to face our thinking now.

:- Doug.

We are faced with a powerful combination—we don’t know when we’re dying; we never get to “nothing more we can do.” So we keep pushing the gas pedal. The brakes are not necessary: can’t we coast gently to rest?

:- Doug.

We have tried this at home. The results have been pretty good. Let’s keep making better.

:- Doug.

I’ve had the luxury of two lifetimes, compared to Jesus. Now to Work.

But I have been Working. Observe what that Work has been.

:- Doug.

All culture is idio-culture: home-concocted.

:- Doug.

Identity is in intimacy.

:- Doug.

The system fights back against love. Yet I tell you: we are the system. Moreover: we are the love.

:- Doug.

We are angry about the Ebola outbreak; it has not been handled well. We want to blame. Yet even the scientists, technologists, and doctors cannot humpty put us together dumpty again. Our anger at least in part is because our medical/science god is not magic after all. We are just us helping us. But saying helping is saying something.

:- Doug.

Alzheimer’s is not a solitary disease
It is the dis-ease of being made solitary

:- Doug.

Love is not
What we think
It is

:- Doug.

There is a person
Its body is us
We express

:- Doug.