DEATH CAFE, anyone?

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
The soul's meditation is rhythmic and cyclic in its nature, as is all else in the cosmos. The soul breathes and its form lives thereby. . . . There is an ebb and flow in all nature, and in the tides of the ocean we have a wonderful picturing of an eternal law...

Death, if we could but realise it, is one of our most practised activities. We have died many times, and shall die again and again. Death is essentially a matter of consciousness. We are conscious one moment on the physical plane, and a moment later we have withdrawn onto another plane and are actively conscious there.

Just as long as our consciousness is identified with the form aspect, death will hold for us its ancient terror. Just as soon as we know ourselves to be souls, and find that we are capable of focussing our consciousness or sense of awareness in any form or any plane at will, or in any direction within the form of God, we shall no longer know death.
Click to expand...
- A Treatise on White Magic, AAB
 
So now you have to go to a café to hear a really good pensée on the subject of death? Great! Churches used to do that didn't they? On the other hand, a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry are far more economical than clergy and a church. Then again, seeking solace and advice on the subject of death in a Death Café reminds me a little of seeking good legal or financial advice from the callers on a call-in show. Remember, also, that in order to fit in you will be required to offer solace as well as to soak it up. Here are a few icebreakers you can try (but on your second trip to the Death Café, you're on your own) ...


1) We’re not having a funeral, we’re having a celebration

2) God needed another angel

3) God wants to make you stronger through this

4) Be strong, you’ll get through this just fine!

5) God never gives you more than you can handle

6) Everything happens for a reason

7) Well, you know he was “saved” right?

8) All part of God’s plan

9) You shouldn’t be attached to the body, it’s just a shell, they’re not there anymore.

10) At least you’re young enough that you can have another child OR remarry

11) Well at least it was early in the pregnancy so you weren’t that attached.

12) It was just their time to go.
 
Last edited:
How often does faith have to "go bad" before some will question if it was ever actually good?
 
How many times does a corporation have to do bad work before all corporations are defined as evil.
How many times must a marriage fail before all marriages are deemed bad.

Just because some nut bar decides to pray someone back to life.....doesn't make all faith bad.
 
Once you have faith, you've divorced that faith from reason. It's that disconnect that I'd suggest as the main problem. Stop celebrating our ability to believe ridiculous things in the absence of evidence or even plausibility, and maybe we have fewer nutcases who take the next step and simply take the bible literally, which this family clearly did.

I mean, read the article. It's not just that the wife did not call the coroner, the husband would likely still be alive today if it wasn't for his faith that God would heal his infected foot.

Dead of a foot infection. In Canada. Only if you have "devout faith. Anyone else would see a doctor.
 
Pinga said:
How many times does a corporation have to do bad work before all corporations are defined as evil.
How many times must a marriage fail before all marriages are deemed bad.

Just because some nut bar decides to pray someone back to life.....doesn't make all faith bad.
Click to expand...
Again, it doesn't. But on balance, religion is arguably useless at getting people to behave morally, and quite useful at getting people to resist the more moral conclusion in favour of one that can be justified by the opinions of ancient authors with ancient agendas.
 
qwerty said:
So now you have to go to a café to hear a really good pensée on the subject of death? Great! Churches used to do that didn't they? On the other hand, a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry are far more economical than clergy and a church. Then again, seeking solace and advice on the subject of death in a Death Café reminds me a little of seeking good legal or financial advice from the callers on a call-in show. Remember, also, that in order to fit in you will be required to offer solace as well as to soak it up. Here are a few icebreakers you can try (but on your second trip to the Death Café, you're on your own) ...


1) We’re not having a funeral, we’re having a celebration

2) God needed another angel

3) God wants to make you stronger through this

4) Be strong, you’ll get through this just fine!

5) God never gives you more than you can handle

6) Everything happens for a reason

7) Well, you know he was “saved” right?

8) All part of God’s plan

9) You shouldn’t be attached to the body, it’s just a shell, they’re not there anymore.

10) At least you’re young enough that you can have another child OR remarry

11) Well at least it was early in the pregnancy so you weren’t that attached.

12) It was just their time to go.
Click to expand...

If that is the type of opening comment a person might hear on entering a Death Cafe, I would steer clear, giving it a wide berth. They are the type of comments I hear at the bowling alley, but there I can quickly say "Thanks. Talk to you later but I'm up next." and then avoid them for the next hour until they've forgotten about it.

Actually, thinking about it, we do occasionally have discussions about death among the small groups that meet at our church - we just don't call them Death Cafes. It might come up at a book club meeting - like aging did when we discussed "The Deception of Livvy Higgs" or dementia when we discussed "Still Alice"; or at writers' group if someone wrote an essay or short story on the subject. And of course at funerals and after when I approach an acquaintance, touch their arm and say "I was sorry to hear about your sister" and listen to their response, before I say something further, like "Tell me about her."
It's not something that we meet specifically for, like a Death Cafe.

I dare-say that when I am ready to do the actual planning for my own death, I will discuss it with my doctor and a lawyer, and of course with my family. And I will make an appointment with a carefully selected clergy person. There is a retired minister in my congregation with whom I have already broached the subject and I think he would be quite open to further discussion.
 
chansen said:
How often does faith have to "go bad" before some will question if it was ever actually good?
Click to expand...

I don't know. If a bridge fails do we break out the torches and pitchforks and go after engineers?
 
Hermann said:
What do you think about Death Cafes?
Click to expand...

Sounds like an enterprising way to address what grief counselling is designed to do though in a much more informal environment. Quite frankly it also sounds like a more corporate approach to what I do on a more personal/private level with families who have buried loved ones.

Hermann said:
Would you like one in your area?
Click to expand...

I'm not . . .you know . . . *cough, cough* . . .dying to attend one. That said I think that they might have a culturally therapeutic advantage which comes with some pros and cons. As qwerty points out some of the folk wisdom around death, dying, grief and grieving is more destructive than it is helpful and if all Death Cafes turn out to be are a bunch of hurting people slinging cliches around like TRITE anium throwing stars I couldn't think of a place I would be happier to leave than go to.

Hermann said:
Would you go there?
Click to expand...

I have no need for such a place in the present. I had the distinct honour of burying a long-time friend on Friday past. It was a very difficult service and it strikes me that all the funerals I have presided over to date never really prepared me for having to preside over someone who has been a life-long friend. The most depressing thing is that since I'm closing in on 50 it is probably something that is going to become more common. I hope all my friends don't think I'm waiting for the opportunity to preside over their funerals or that they are . . uh . . .dying to have me preside over theirs.

Hermann said:
Should a corner of Wondercafe2 become a Death Cafe?
Click to expand...

I'll have to think more on that.

Off the top of my head I think that we do provide similar service even without a devoted forum. I also don't think that this community can do the care level required for that kind of thing justice in a virtual environment.

To be candid, if I was really hurting and wrestling with issues around death, dying, grief and grieving this would not be my go to place for discussion. I'd be finding some flesh and blood because the one thing that virtual environments have not figured out how to do with any real effectiveness is how to simply sit and shut-up while people pour their hearts out.

I don't want cliches or platitudes I want someone who is prepared to tag-team with me while I wrestle with what I am feeling and/or thinking. More than anything I would need to know I am not alone but I don't need to be distracted by everyone telling me how they are hugging me virtually.

***Introvert aside***
If you were physically present and we weren't particularly intimate I would not be comforted by a physical hug either. That would actually represent a huge violation of my personal space and if you commit that trespass it wouldn't be for me it would be for you. In virtual reality we haven't figured out how you could stand shoulder to shoulder with me without violating that same sense of space. The only way any of us can demonstrate presence is to post. And when we don't know what to say but are uncomfortable saying nothing at all we end up forcing ourselves to say stupid things.
***Introvert aside ends***

There was hugging at Carter's funeral and yes I did engage in it. Carter's funeral was not about me or what I wanted or even what I needed. I am not so much of an introvert that I will ignore another's need for contact. Of course, don't expect me to pick up on it without offering some kind of clue. The mind introverts spend most time reading is their own.

I realize most of this is simply me expressing my personal preference.

That's the point though right?
 
Learning to live well is learning to die well.

In a Death Cafe, we'd learn the art of living by learning the art of dying.


While alive, be a dead man
--Thoroughly dead--
And act as you will,
And all is well.

-Zen proverb
 
Last edited:
revjohn said:
There was hugging at Carter's funeral and yes I did engage in it. Carter's funeral was not about me or what I wanted or even what I needed. I am not so much of an introvert that I will ignore another's need for contact. Of course, don't expect me to pick up on it without offering some kind of clue. The mind introverts spend most time reading is their own.
Click to expand...

You looked huggable.
 
In the life of some aboriginal religions, there are four stages. The first stage is the learning stage, the second the stage of mature and responsible adulthood, the third the senior, elder and teaching stage, and the fourth and final stage is the preparation for death, where one increasingly withdraws from family and friends, becomes one with nature, and dies.

Unlike European Christian/Western culture, aboriginal culture is not big on goodbyes. Goodbyes, especially lengthy and tearful goodbyes, are regarded as rude. Aboriginals just sort of fade away when they depart.

I envision myself dying not surrounded by teary friends and relatives but lying under a tree, looking through the branches up at the sky, and mediating myself over the threshold into death.

This, of course, is my personal preference.
 
revjohn said:
I don't know. If a bridge fails do we break out the torches and pitchforks and go after engineers?
Click to expand...
When engineers or engineering goes wrong, there are investigations, often lawsuits, and sometimes inquiries. We strive to get at the heart of the matter, and the practice of engineering can change, and has changed as a result.

That doesn't happen with faith. There is a never ending stream of these examples of fatal decisions made on faith, and when they wind up being fatal, people just throw up their hands and say that it was their right as faithful people.

And while I can agree that it's their right to be stupid and reject treatment for themselves, someone should be looking up and saying, "What the hell is wrong with Christianity that it can lead people in this direction, and how do we fix it?"

And it's not just people rejecting treatment for themselves. There are the current examples of two first nations girls with leukemia who are being treated by a "traditional therapies". The parent of one of the girls is a pastor.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/pastepisodes/makayla-s-choice-1.2809211

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...can_now_doom_their_sick_children_dimanno.html

I do not for a second believe that the parents of these girls want to see them die. But when decisions like this are made, time and again, on the back of Christian scripture or other faith systems, at what point are going to figure out that the bible or faith is broken and needs to be fixed?

Every time a practice in engineering is discovered as broken, we fix it. We change the codes. If codes are ambiguous, we clarify them. We change our version of "scripture" all the time. We improve upon it.

Christians just say they were reading the code book wrong, and throw up their hands.
 
chansen said:
Every time a practice in engineering is discovered as broken, we fix it. We change the codes. If codes are ambiguous, we clarify them. We change our version of "scripture" all the time. We improve upon it.

Christians just say they were reading the code book wrong, and throw up their hands.
Click to expand...

Perhaps this is why God sent us engineers (y)
 
Sure, whatever, but we can't fix the f***ing bible. Instead of looking for "deeper meanings", Christians should be dissecting that book and breaking it down, before rebuilding it into something Christianity can be proud of instead of spend their time making excuses for it.

But they can't, because some believe it is the "inerrant word of God". Others think they just need to look harder and presumably furrow their brows a little more, and it will all become clear and positive.

Well I'm sorry, but you've had 1900 years to do that, and so far, all you can do is point to a few groups who conservatives can argue do not follow the bible very closely.

The Bible is in more dire need of a rewrite than any book in history. Okay, the Qu'ran is up there as well. Yes, the Torah is older and first in line....but you get the point. We could fix a lot of problems by fixing the bible. But we can't. Cause people think it's finished.

Of course, the truth is that being edited used to be a regular thing with the bible. Used to be that entire chapters were added and removed. Verses appeared out of nowhere. Now? You can't touch it. Not really. There are lots of editions and translations, but the differences are not that great.

We need a new one. We can't have a new one, because the old one says so. It's a complete clusterfark.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top