Transcript Humor and Spirituality Near the End of Life

Humor and Spirituality Near the End of Life
Marvin E. Herring, MD Clinical Professor Family Medicine
UMDNJ-SOM
[email protected]
Humor and Spirituality Near the End of Life
Objectives –
Attendees will be able to:
1. Understand why spirituality and humor are bound to
any processing of end-of-life issues
2. Begin or revisit exploring personal concepts of Endof Life issues.
3. Appreciate faith-based contributions to end-of-life
care, illustrated by Japanese and Jewish precepts.
4. Recognize applicability to Palliative Medical Care.
Aspects of Mortality
Death is Universal
Aspects of Mortality
Knowledge of Mortality
Immortality is not an option.
Knowledge of Mortality
Fear and Uncertainty
Knowledge of Mortality
Fear and Uncertainty
“Tell me, Father, is there a 'Next-To-The-Last' rites?"
Knowledge of Mortality –What Comes Next?
No Proof
Why We Fear Dying
• We fear the unknown.
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Shakespeare - Hamlet
Fear from uncertainty leads to the hope of
something more to come, an afterlife.
Coping with Dying and the Fear of Dying
Denial
Humor
Faith
Acceptance
and Embrace
Denial
Humor and Faith
Humor eases fear and anxiety
Humor makes angst manageable
Humor provides a communication
interface.
Uncertainly breeds hope of an afterlife
Faith diminishes anxiety
Faith - The promise of an afterlife
becomes an assurance of an afterlife.
Humor – Quotes about Death
• We're philosophers when we're feeling good; we're
frightened when we're feeling ill.
• Death is Nature's way of telling you to slow down.
• Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition
that's troublesome.
Isaac Asimov
Humor – Quotes about Death
• Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any
convenient time for any of them.
Margaret Mitchell Gone With The Wind.
• If I think more about death than some other
people, it is probably because I love life more
than they do.
Angelina Jolie
Humor – Quotes about Death
• I don't want to achieve immortality through
my work. I want to achieve it through not
dying.
• It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't
want to be there when it happens.
Woody Allen
Faith and Mortality - The Japanese
Japan Until the 5th century, Shinto Belief Systems.
Death from smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, typhoon,
flood,drought, famine, blindness, war.
Living past one year a milestone.
Talismanic prayer - lucky gods, symbols of long life , immortality.
Gosho Ningyo - fat chubby child- figurines given as gifts- happy,
fat = healthy.
Faith and Mortality - The Japanese
Adoption of Buddhism as a promise of a next life being better Zen, fatalism, and acceptance of death as a blessing, a bridge, a
"that's it."
Death poems.
“Although the consciousness of death is in most cultures very much
a part of life, this is perhaps nowhere more true than in Japan,
where the approach of death has given rise to a centuries-old
tradition of writing jisei, or the 'death poem.' Such a poem is often
written in the very last moments of the poet's life."
Crossing The Rubicon
http://northernva.typepad.com/crossing_the_rubicon/2006/01/japan
ese_death_.html
Faith and Mortality - The Japanese
A bright and pleasant
autumn day to make
death's journey.
Fukyu Age 79
Farewell...
I pass as all things do do
dew on the grass.
Banzan
The owner of the cherry blossoms
turns to compost
for the trees.
Utsu Age 50
This final scene I'll not see
to the end...
my dream is fraying. Choko
Faith and Mortality- Judaism and the Afterlife
The Jewish religion, a monotheistic religion based on the
laws and teachings of the Holy Scripture and the Talmud.
(Webster's New World Dictionary)
Holy Scripture - the Torah (Five books handed down to
Moses at Sinai)
Talmud - The compilation of discourse, dialogue,
rabbinical teaching, with major emphasis on being
measured by ethical living, deed-doing, preserving
tradition and study of Torah. 1st- 6th centuries CE.
Torah Handed Down To Moses At Sinai
Faith and Mortality- Judaism and the Afterlife
The Biblical Era - Death comes to all, with little hinting
at afterlife.
The Rabbinic Era - Punishment, even of the pious, and
the reason for "discovering" resurrection in the teachings.
(Destruction of the Temple 70 CE)
.Sadducees
.Pharisees
.Essenes
Faith and Mortality- Judaism and the Afterlife
(After Josephus – Greco-Roman Historian 38-100 CE )
Sadducees
Rigorous
fundamentalists.
Re: afterlife - "the souls
die with the bodies."
We come we live, we
go.
That's it!
Faith and Mortality- Judaism and the Afterlife
(After Josephus – Greco-Roman Historian 38-100 CE )
Pharisees - tradition is molded by contributions from a
"continuous succession of fathers.”
“Souls have a deathless vigor.beneath the earth there are
rewards (virtue) and punishments (vice). For the latter,
everlasting imprisonment…the former shall have the
power to revive and live again (..on account of which,
they are able to persuade greatly the body of the people).”
Faith and Mortality- Judaism and the Afterlife
Pharisees:– One sub sect We are resurrected body
And soul.
Another - We are clothed
at The resurrection..
Faith and Mortality- Judaism and the Afterlife
(After Josephus – Greco-Roman Historian 38-100 CE )
Essenes- a Platonic
belief that the souls,
freed from the body,
"rejoice and mount
upward."
Faith and Mortality- Judaism and the Afterlife
Kabbalah - Mystic Judaism Kabbalah became a reference to doctrines of esoteric
knowledge concerning God, God's creation of the
universe and the laws of nature, and the path by which
adult religious Jews can learn these secrets.
Hasidism - Jewish religious movement founded in Poland
in the 18th cent. by Baal-Shem-Tov. Its name derives from
Hasidim (The Pious), which stressed the mercy of God
and encouraged joyous religious expression through music
and dance.
No fear of death - Embraced the joy of passing on, a
triumph of faith over fear.
A Hasid Looks at Mortality.
Humor and Faith
Promise of Resurrection
Acceptance and Embrace
Humor eases death fear and anxiety.
Humor makes death angst manageable .
Humor provides a communication interface.
Uncertainly breeds hope of an afterlife.
Faith diminishes and conquers death anxiety.
Faith - The promise of an afterlife becomes
an assurance of an afterlife.
Spiritual Dimension of Mortality
Death is simply a shedding
of the physical body like
the butterfly shedding
its cocoon.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross visited the Maidenek
concentration camp in 1946. When she got to the
children's barracks, it was particularly sorrowful, with
toys and shoes strewn about, but there was something
else, too. The walls were covered with hundreds of
butterflies, scratched and etched with fingernails and
pebbles
Spiritual Dimension of Hospice
It was the inability of the medical model to deal with the
reality of patients who die that motivated Dame Cicely
Saunders and the interdisciplinary team she gathered in
London in the 1960s at St. Christopher's Hospice.
Accepting that death is a normal part of human life,
Dame Saunders and her team established a system of
comprehensive care that embraces the physical,
emotional, spiritual, existential, and relational
dimensions of dying.
Park Ridge Center for Health,Faith and Ethics
http://www.parkridgecenter.org/Page515.html
Humor and Faith at the Clinical Bedside
Humor and Faith, both
tangible aspects of the
human spirit, are allies
in the clinical management
of those souls and their
loved ones who are
dealing with life-limiting
illness. Longer a part of
the healer's tools than the
modern sophisticated
interventions, they have
demonstrated potency, and
stand as cornerstones of
palliative care.
Resources
• Japanese Death Poems:
Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the
Verge of Death.
Yoel Hoffman
• The Death of Death: Resurrection and
Immortality in Jewish Thought. Neil Gillman
• Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia
Google Search - Wikipedia Press Search