It’s Valentine’s Day, and Ash Wednesday. I’m sitting in the waiting room of my urologist, watching an endless procession of old men come and go. I’m one of them: the brotherhood of enlarged prostates and the thousand other natural shocks…
The shock of being 60 years old
I turned 60 years old this past summer. I have not quite gotten over it yet. Sixty is just different. It definitely feels at least three years older than 59. “They” say age is just a number. So maybe this…
Seeing mortality as blessing
Memories have become capricious things as I approach my seventh decade on Planet Earth. Conversations I could swear happened just a few days ago actually stretch back 20 years or more, yet there are days when I can’t remember whether…
‘Anticipatory mourning’: America’s youth on death, guns and dissent
We’ve ritualized death away from the young in this culture, in funeral homes and hospice facilities, but it has overtaken them with a vengeance in what were once safe spaces for learning.
Remember you are dust
Growing up as a Baptist, I didn’t hear much about Ash Wednesday or Lent. In my years in the States before going to Japan, including the nine years I was a Baptist pastor, I don’t recall hearing or making any…
Baptist chaplains eye growing openness to discussion of death
By Jeff Brumley Broaching the subject of death can be a serious downer in a society obsessed with beauty, health and long life. But there are signs that may be starting to change. “There are more people who are talking…
Desperate to avoid (dealing with) death
Recently I spoke at a conference of Retirement Community Chaplains. My thesis was that people who deal with the vicissitudes of life best tend to deal best with the reality of death. There are 72-year-old men and women who seem to…