Facing Death, Finding Love: The Healing Power of Grief and Loss in One Family’s Life was written by Dawson Church. 1994. 140 p. Aslan Publishing. Dawson Church is a publisher, editor and author.
Previous books he has authored or co-authored include The Heart of the Healer and Communing with the Spirit of Your Unborn Child. He works as CEO of Atrium Publishers Group – a book distributor- and lives with his wife and two children in Lake County, California. Dawson Church starts out with his acknowledgments of appreciation to all the people that have supported him in the writing and publishing of this book. The introduction by Church’s editor, Hal Zina Bennett, Ph. D.
, reflects the truths revealed in the book’s contents as reminders that in opening our hearts and minds to the greatest mysteries of all – the vast mysteries of life and death – we discover a love that is as powerful in the receiving as in the giving, transcending all our deepest and most grievous emotions. Maybe the best way to describe and sum up the contents of Church’s book that readers are about to discover is as follow… “It is perhaps in grief that we discover the force that carried us once again into incarnation, the reason we incarnated in the first place. It is in the tearing open of heart that we discover how guarded our lives have become, how small a cage we have traded off for safe ground. We see how our work is to be more loving, to live more fully in an often confusing world.” Church uses nine chapters together with his afterword and appendix A: Grieving Rituals as well as appendix B: Connecting With the Soul to cover all the contents of this book. Chapter one – The Death – starts out with the vision that death can come very unexpectedly to anyone at anytime or any place when one least prepares for it.
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Whereas the ancient Catholic Church did not have much of a problem with capital punishment, the modern Catholic Church stands resolutely against capital punishment. The stand of the Catholic Church concerning death penalty gives a clear illustration of centuries of tension in addition to uncertainties. However, the Catholic Church with its stern stand has been able to manage all the tensions that ...
Death to Church and his wife as well as to many people in the world are hard to recognize and deal with. He keeps come up with questions such as “We felt him kicking just last night. What could have happened between then and now? We didn’t feel any struggle. Surely he would have alerted us if something were wrong? He could have communicated his distress, and we could have known and perhaps done something.” Church couldn’t get over the unexpected death of Montague because he thought that no way it could possibly be happened when he and his wife did not neglect any aspect of caring for the infant in the womb.
He has been totally available to his wife emotionally. Everyone at work has supported her, and she has taken great care of herself throughout the pregnant progress. The calm wisdom of their souls coexisted with the up swelling agony of loss in their hearts when Montague’s death comes so unexpectedly. However, he and his wife try to give themselves time to grieve and deal with their own needs. Chapter two – The Prayer – has reminded many people of the idea that when they reach the bottom of hopelessness causes by death, they tend to turn to God with prayers that hope to help them with their distress or help eased their pain.
The author of this book has proved the existence of this idea through his prayers to God with sincere belief as describe as follow… “I moved into a state of heightened awareness. Closing my eyes, I expressed our petition to God. I asked for the presence of Jesus to be with me. I prayed for the healing of my loved one, and before my mind’s eye I felt the bleeding slow down and stop. Then I prayed that Brenda’s body would, from its own amazing internal pharmacy, manufacture the clotting agent, endorphins, and other chemicals it needed for the birth.
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Four Arguments For The Immortality Of The Human Soul Presented By Plato In The Phaedo. In Plato s Phaedo, he argues that the soul will continue to exist, and that it will go on to a better place. The argument begins on the day of his execution with the question of whether it is good or bad to die. In other words, he is arguing that the soul is immortal and indestructible. This argument is contrary ...
Her body felt so healthy and vibrant that I had no doubt that this prayer was answered.” Church believes that without prayer and the awareness of God’s presence, he and his wife could have taken months to move through a huge chunk of the grieving process and reach a stage of acceptance. Chapter three – The Birth – signifies a variety of forms and shapes that death can be transformed. In this case, it is signified through the birth of Montague’s dead body. When holding Montague’s dead body in his arms, Church’s thought expresses that he had never seen death this close before. He had certainly never touched death. He thinks that if anyone, a few hours before, had told him that he would wish to touch the body, he would have denounced them as having an unhealthy and morbid fascination with death.
Yet he knew that he needed to be fully within this experience with death, rather than pushing it away from him. Church’s thoughts also has served as the purpose to express the very common way of how most people in the world are looking at death although it is an everyday occurrence that happens everywhere. Chapter four – Friends, Enemies and Children – serves as the purpose to remind us to be patient, caring, loving, and understanding of our partner and our children even when they may act like our enemy. It’s worth to know that through thick and thin, through good and bad time, we ” ll be ready to help each other successfully overcome the pain and grief that bring by death. Chapter five – Welcoming the Soul – gives us the idea that if we are aware only of the physical body and stay centered in the level of appearances without paying attention to our soul (spirit), we own only the loss. To the author, this would be a truly terrible legacy to have a “tragedy” and be left only with the disaster.
Church believes that by centered in the spiritual realm, he also owns the meaning; this transforms the loss and gives it a context of purpose. Suddenly he realizes that it isn’t a loss; that in the great cosmic design energy is neither created nor destroyed. The “tragedy” brings him closer to love, and all he truly and ultimately loses is his ability to reject love. He mentions that by welcoming the soul of a child, he also welcome the healing, comforting miracle of his own soul, and the powerful reality of love it brings into his life. Therefore, death to him may remain a mystery, but it is no longer a meaningless puzzle.
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Introduction The Ancient Egyptians were not obsessed with death but death was merely a sub-heading of the overall theme of religion with which they were obsessed. Death was just considered a transition period between the mortal and heavenly lives. Religion Religion was such a important part of the Egyptian civilization that it became their lives. The Egyptians lived and breathed religion and lived ...
Chapter six – Seven Days – suggests that by taking enough rest, people would be able to put aside reflection and introspection in order to be outwardly expressive again. The author also suggests that by simply processed your grief in huge amounts quickly, rather than slowly over a long period of time, you will be able to recover sooner and faster over the grief of death. In addition, the willingness to face and embrace death also helps your grief to focus and helps you complete the experience rapidly. Chapter seven – The Memorial Service – reminds us that we should celebrate the joy we felt, and the lessons we had learned, as well as honoring our pain and loss because we human beings are capable of encompassing a wide range of emotions at the same time.
Chapter eight – Facing Death – is an essential part of growing up. Church believes that we must face our own death, not just death in the abstract, if we are to grow through our fear and insecurities to the garden of love and knowledge that awaits us on the other side. Chapter nine – Finding Love – to the author, our challenge is not to find love; instead, our challenge is to become aware of love. He believes that at any point, we can choose because love calls us whenever someone dies. Love calls when we are hurt, disappointed, angry or confused. He says that we can cling to our confusion, hurt, disappointment, anger or fear, but we can also surrender into the welcoming arms of love.
He believes that if we don’t learn the spiritual lessons that death brings, they will be presented to us again and again just as if it knocks in the form of a cold and we don’t listen, it may knock again in the form of influenza. If we still don’t hear, it may knock as double pneumonia. This lesson teaches us to be aware of love when it comes knocking on our door the very first time because it may come in disguise as death, or perhaps death is simply a disguise for love. Afterword, Montague’s death continues to teach us lessons.
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Genesis 1: 26 says, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Mark 10: 9 says, "Therefore what God has joined together, let no man put asunder." Genesis 2: 24 says, "For this cause a man shall leave his father ...
It showed us that soul and body, spirit and earth are inextricably intertwined. It taught us that no experience lies outside the container of the womb of love, not even the finality of physical death. With this understanding, Church believes that there is nowhere he can go in life without feeling the angels with him. He suggests that all we have to do is open our hearts and listen in each moment, and we will know that this is true. Appendix A: Grieving Rituals and Appendix B: Connecting With the Soul combine to help us get through our grief of death more effectively and can fulfill our purpose for coming to earth.
Church’s book can be read with profit regardless of one’s beliefs, as long as one wants to see tragedy turned to victory. I agree with the publisher of this book that it is a most tender and informative book about expanding our concepts of life, love, and death. Church has written a very honest account of the death of a baby and of his struggle to come to terms with the finality of his loss. Church has successfully bridges the two worlds – the spiritual as well as the physical.
I believe that this book will grab readers by the heart through the author’s deep moving account of how we learn to aware of love and how love can help us overcome death. Although this is a book about tragedy, but the author refuses to wallow in tragedy to create a bedrock of life-affirming joy. I would especially recommended this book to all couples, parents and parents-to-be because I believe it can help them create a loving family relationship.
