Death—whether one of many deaths to the false self or our final physical dying—is simply returning to our spacious Ground of Being, to our foundation in Love. Life doesn’t truly end; it simply changes form and continues evolving into ever new shapes and beauty.
In addition to my own close encounters with death, I’ve been privileged to accompany others at the threshold of birth and death. These glimpses through the veil have helped me trust Love and let go of ego. Philip Simmons wrote that “living at the edge is not so extraordinary as it may sound”:
We all have within us this capacity for wonder, this ability to break the bonds of ordinary awareness and sense that though our lives are fleeting and transitory, we are part of something larger, eternal and unchanging. [1]
After her teenage daughter Jenny died in a car crash, Mirabai Starr described grief as being “suspended in the invisible arms of a Love I had only dreamed of,” “drowning” but discovering she could breathe under water. [2]
Shelley Chapin Drake, a beloved friend of the Center for Action and Contemplation, recently passed away after living with cancer for many decades. Shelley’s husband, Kirk, shared with us: “No matter what we do, we are held in wonder’s presence. I choose to surrender there, to the wonder of presence now, where Shelley is alive and well.” A few weeks before she died, Shelley wrote:
Kirk and I decided, early on, that what we long to surrender to is not an ideal or a safety net, but Wonder itself. . . .
[We] have held on to the concept of Wonder as a guiding concept . . . a way to focus our attention in these days when life is so uncertain. We have absolutely no idea what the author of Love is asking of us . . . except we are fairly certain the Beloved One is not asking us to lay claim to any certainties at all. We are fairly sure that the Beloved is simply holding us tight . . . holding us close . . . holding us in Pure Love in the palm of Love’s hand. . . . And what else could we possibly ask for?
Living in the Wonder teaches us to “show up” . . . and “showing up” teaches us to “be with” the Beloved. . . .
The Beloved is not in a far-off land, waiting for us to catch up with him (or her). . . . The Beloved is Love and there is no other place for Love to be than in the act of holding tightly to you and to me. Deep within the recesses of our very being, we are held . . . known . . . treasured . . . not “out there” somewhere, but in the very Wonder of Love . . . in the very seat of the Heart . . . in the very core of the Soul.
The more we live in the Wonder and welcome our placement in this very heart of Love, the easier it is to trust . . . to “release our fears” . . . to live without proclaiming certainties . . . to settle into this very core we can only call Love.
“One of the first things an individual must do as they get older is to accept the changes they will have to make to their lifestyle and looks and embrace these changes for the better. Accepting these life changes is a significant key to psychological health, as aging changes everyone and is inevitable…. Seniors who think rigidly do not do this, as they experience the natural changes and their health status associated with aging, they view these changes as negative, which adds a tremendous amount of stress and strain to their life.” –from Secrets To Aging Gracefully by Danielle L’Ecuyer
Linda Singer has had ovarian cancer for nine years. In recent months, her health has worsened significantly. Rather than dwelling on looming death and planning a traditional funeral service, the Atlanta woman chose the opposite course: a celebration of life.
So, on Jan. 12, more than 100 of her friends came from around the country with anecdotes and remembrances to share while Singer was still around to hear them.
“Everyone was upbeat and happy, and Singer had such a good time,” says her friend, Joy Harris, who, like most of Singer’s friends, calls her by her last name. Harris took care of the logistics for the gathering. “The room was just full of love. If you didn’t know anyone there and walked in the room, you would feel the love,” she says.
Such gatherings are becoming increasingly common for the terminally ill and their loved ones, most of whom have attended countless post-death, standard-issue services, wistfully hoping that somehow, the recently departed could hear the accolades heaped upon them.
In recent years, Charlotte Eulette, international director of the Celebrant Foundation & Institute, has seen a steady uptick in the number of “living funerals” her celebrants have been asked to coordinate and/or perform. In general, memorials are morphing before our eyes: A National Funeral Directors Association survey found that more than half of 1,000 people it polled had attended a gathering in a non-traditional place during the last year.
“[Americans] are looking for personalized funerals, where personal lives unfold, about what they liked, their history and challenges, important moments, hopes and dreams for their family,” Eulette says.
Living Funerals for Different Reasons
More and more people are opting to have that sharing experience before their bodies have “slipped the surly bonds of Earth,” looking for an amalgam of commemoration and celebration.
And some have other agendas, as Eulette noted: “People might have things they want to give away … Someone might want to treat the honoree with a favorite song. Everyone has their gifts to give and get.”
These kind of tributes are not new, even if they are new to many, if not most, Americans. Eulette pointed out that “a lot of ancients and indigenous (people) have done this.”
The popular memoir Tuesdays with Morrie included a living funeral, and in the 1990s, the Japanese began holding such rites, called “seizensō,” in lieu of traditional funerals.
Eulette says at least two factors have fueled the more recent popularity of living funerals. She cites Princess Diana’s death in 1997 and 9/11 as “tipping points on how we grieve, with people wanting to personalize these experiences.” Meanwhile, the mindfulness movement has changed how many people view death and the end of life.
Spirituality and Joy
Robin June Hood saw that firsthand when her husband, John Shields, decided to hold a living wake just before his assisted suicide in Victoria, British Columbia, which was chronicled in The New York Times.
“All I did was send out an email to his friends that this is what he wants, to come at such-and-such time and bring your wishes for a good voyage,” Hood said. “It was an encouragement of everybody, who also will die, that it was OK, to welcome them into his exploration of the next journey.”
The Celebrant Foundation’s Penny Allport served as officiant at the observance, which had spiritual and festive aspects. She brought a Tibetan prayer shawl on which people could place their blessings, but Allport ran into a snag right away.
“I had prepared notes, and they were in my purse behind the door, and then they wheeled John in and put him in front of the door so I had no access,” she explains. “So I recited a prayer that I had written and was something people had never heard. Then I asked for others to speak, and a woman opened up a Rumi poem, and it was the exact same poem that was in my purse.”
After each person spoke, “John [a former Catholic priest] would say something profound about that person. It was a current that was so deep in him. … He created this liminal space and invited everybody into it,” Hood says.
The remembrance then became more convivial. “It was an Irish wake. John was Irish, and he wanted Irish music and … there were Irish beers floating around,” says Allport, adding that it reminded her of similar traditions in other cultures, where “it’s not so controlled. It’s carrying the emotion and magic and potency for that particular person.”
Time to Share Stories
Singer’s celebration also was filled with good cheer, says her friend Pat Coggins.
“People were telling such great stories. Like one summer when she was young, she and a friend boiled peanuts and sold them at events at a park. One time they got approached by a cop who said ‘Do you have a license to sell these?’ Linda is really quick-witted and turned to her partner, Denise, and said ‘Did you not bring that license, did you leave it in the car?’ And in the midst of them arguing, the cop got another call and just left them,” Coggins recalls.
“It wasn’t like a memorial. It was truly, as she called it, a celebration of life. People were able to eat, to dance. She was able to walk around and spend as much time as she could with her friends and family. There were no tears, lots of laughter, lots of camaraderie,” she says.
Living funerals take many forms. Some are held in churches or synagogues, some even in bars. Potlucks are popular options.
Timing, of course, is a key factor. Waiting too late can make the event, well, too late. Harris says she was concerned about Singer. “I didn’t know if she was going to make it,” she says.
Allport had a client who was very private and had only a son in her family circle. “She could have died alone with her son and myself,” Allport says, “but her sharing with her community was that the space opened up for an authentic and real experience, by slowing down and having less sense of urgency. She and her son made soup, and children came and brought licorice and sat on the couch with her, and they brought a card blessing her in her afterlife. And I thought ‘wow, we need children at these things.’”
For those who time it right, these commemorations can provide solace, joy, closure, relationship resolution and perhaps more than anything else, precious face time.
At Shields’ wake, “Everyone was elevated by it,” Hood says. “It was almost like a blessing that went in two directions. It’s a pretty incredible opportunity for people to have love reflected back to them.”
By Bill WardBill Ward is a freelance wine, food, travel and lifestyle writer. His “Liquid Assets” column runs in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and he has a wine website, www.decant-this.com, with a blog and a travel-itinerary service. He won a James Beard Award in 2004 for a series on Italian regional cuisine. He lives in the Minneapolis suburb of Hopkins, Minn., with his wife, Sandy.
Something in you dies when you bear the unbearable. And it is only in that dark night of the soul that you are prepared to see as God sees and to love as God loves. —Ram Das [1]
Sooner or later, if you are on any classic “spiritual schedule,” some event, person, death, idea, or relationship will enter your life with which you simply cannot cope using your present skill set, acquired knowledge, or willpower. Spiritually speaking, you will be led to the edge of your own private resources. At that point, you will stumble over a necessary “stumbling stone” (see Isaiah 8:14). You must “lose” at something, and then you begin to develop the art of losing. This is the only way that Life/Fate/God/Grace/Mystery can get you to change, let go of your egocentric preoccupations, and go on the further and larger journey.
We must stumble and fall, I am sorry to say. We must be out of the driver’s seat for a while, or we will never learn how to give up control to the Real Guide. It is the necessary pattern. Until we are led to the limits of our present game plan and find it to be insufficient, we will not search out or find our real Source. Alcoholics Anonymous calls it the Higher Power. Jesus calls this Ultimate Source the “living water” at the bottom of the well (see John 4:10-14).
The Gospels teach us that life is tragic but then graciously added that we can survive and will even grow from this tragedy. This is the great turnaround! It all depends on whether we are willing to see down as up or, as Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) put it, “where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” [2] Lady Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) said it even more poetically, and I paraphrase: “First there is the fall, and then we recover from the fall—and both are the mercy of God!” [3]
The Prayer of Abandonment by Brother Charles de Foucauld (1858–1916) expresses openness and intention to give up control to God in the middle of life, even before our physical death:
Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me and in all your creatures— I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul: I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father. [4]
Gateway to Presence: If you want to go deeper with today’s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.
[1] Ram Das, in Stephen and Ondrea Levine, Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying (Anchor Books: 1982, 1989), 89.
[2] Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, ed. Diane K. Osbon (Harper Perennial: 1995), 24.
[3] Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, chap. 61.
[4] Charles De Foucauld, from a retreat meditation he shared in Nazareth (November, 1897). See Charles de Foucauld: Writings, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Orbis Books: 1999), 104. Brother Charles assigned these words to Jesus in Gethsemane, calling them “the last prayer of our Master, our Beloved.” This became a favorite prayer of Fr. Thomas Keating (1923–2018) toward the end of his life and was read at his memorial service last year.
