Posted by Kendall Harmon

Linda Ledesma needed a little extra money to help pay the rising costs of living in Florida.

So she decided to sell her burial plot in Sylvan Abbey cemetery in Clearwater. The newspaper classified ad noted its scenic location "in Garden of Ascension, near waterfall, under shade tree."

At $2,500, the asking price is a relative bargain. The cemetery is selling similar plots for $3,995.

Ledesma has joined a small but growing number of people who are selling unwanted cemetery plots. The trend is particularly pronounced in states such as Florida that drew millions of retirees who have grown more accepting of cremation or are rethinking their earlier plans to be buried in the state. Others say they'd rather have the money now and worry about their final resting place later.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchReligion & Culture* Economics, PoliticsEconomy

June 24, 2008 at 9:34 am - 0 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

John Whale’s professional life was built on the truthful and elegant use of language. His delight in words and grammar emerged when he was a boy at Winchester, to which he won a scholarship. His facility with language extended to the spoken as well as the written word: he was one of those few people who could speak extempore in perfectly balanced paragraphs.

John Hilary Whale was the eldest son of the Rev Dr John Seldon Whale, a serious-minded Congregationalist minister and theologian, who had high expectations of his son. John reflected his father’s outlook and high principles; at Corpus Christi, Oxford, where he read Greats, he was studious rather than exuberant. His sense of fun developed as he matured. He owed this in part to his wife, Judy, whom he met while they were at Oxford, where they shared an interest in acting. He left Oxford intending to be an actor, and for a couple of years played in rep (juvenile leads in Farnham; on tour in Kenya), taught, and wrote plays. It was while he and Judy were in Paris, teaching at the Berlitz School and working as translators, that Whale began his career as a broadcaster, with the Section Anglaise on French radio. In London, in 1960, he joined ITN as a reporter.

He was always gracious to me in our various interactions in the early 1990's. Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - EpiscopalAnglican ProvincesChurch of England (CoE)* Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMedia

June 18, 2008 at 10:45 am - 0 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

June 17, 2008 at 4:12 am - 1 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

NPR's Andrea Seabrook memorializes journalist Tim Russert who died Friday of a heart attack.

Listen to it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMedia

June 15, 2008 at 3:07 pm - 0 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

“The Buffalo Bills organization is devastated in hearing the news of the passing of Tim Russert. Tim, as everyone knows, was a tremendous Bills fan. He was always so proud to let people know just how much he loved our team and was such a great ambassador for Buffalo. So many times he ended his “Meet The Press” show with his patented “Go Bills!” that it became part of our Game Day morning rituals. He was a true friend and we will miss him immensely. Our sincere sympathies go out to his family and our team carries a heavy heart tonight as we mourn the loss of this great man, Buffalo’s native son and a Bills fan forever.”

Watch this NFL.com video also.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMediaSports

June 14, 2008 at 9:06 am - 0 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

It really is worth watching it all. What was most striking is the degree to which his strong Christian faith as a Roman Catholic was evident throughout. My favorite piece is Tim's coverage of his own father.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMedia

June 14, 2008 at 8:56 am - 0 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

But nowhere was Russert’s passing felt harder or deeper than in Buffalo, where he was born May 7, 1950.

When Russert’s father, Timothy J. Russert Sr., who was immortalized in “Big Russ/Father and Son: Lesson of Life,” learned his famous broadcasting son had died, the 83-year-old retired truck driver broke down in tears. His son’s death came at an especially heartbreaking time — two days before Father’s Day.

He was in the Orchard Park assisted living facility, where his son had helped him to move just a week ago.

“Big Russ knows his son died. He’s crying right now,” said Joseph Passafiume, the son of Jean Passafiume, Big Russ’ companion for three decades.

Breaking the news to Big Russ were his daughter Kathryn, the last of Tim Russert’s siblings living in Western New York, and Michael Shea, a family friend.

“Kathy and Mike are with Big Russ,” Joseph Passafiume said. “Kathy’s also taking it bad. . . . My mom’s completely heartbroken.”

Mayor Byron W. Brown ordered flags on city property lowered to half-staff.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMedia

June 14, 2008 at 8:52 am - 3 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

CNBC's John Harwood said he and journalist Gerald Seib taped an appearance yesterday morning on Russert's MSNBC talk show, and that as they left, "Jerry observed that he didn't think Tim felt well."

One of the last people to see Russert alive was Michael Hart, a Comcast technician from Waldorf, who struck up a friendship and said the newsman delighted in getting Washington Wizards tickets for Hart's six children. Hart said they were laughing and joking as he set up cable service for Russert's son in a Georgetown apartment.

As they rode down in the elevator, Hart said, "we talked about the upcoming campaign. He said, 'Thank you for looking out for my family. Happy Father's Day.' He put both his hands on mine and I gave him a hug."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMedia

June 14, 2008 at 8:45 am - 0 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

I was surprised by the news, as he was only 58. As a big Meet the Press fan, I can say he will be sorely missed here.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMedia

June 13, 2008 at 3:10 pm - 14 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

The recent death from untreated diabetes of an 11-year-old Wisconsin girl has invigorated opposition to obscure laws in many states that let parents rely on prayer, rather than medicine, to heal sick children.

Dale and Leilani Neumann of Weston, Wis., are facing charges of second-degree reckless homicide after their child, Madeline Kara Neumann, died on Easter after slipping into a coma. The death, likely preventable with insulin, has renewed calls for Wisconsin and dozens of other states to strike laws that protect parents who choose prayer alone in lieu of medical treatment.

The case also has frustrated the Church of Christ, Scientist, the main promoter of prayer as therapy, which says a few tragic cases have unfairly tarred a practice that can restore health. The Neumanns, a Christian couple who run a prayer group out of their coffee shop, are not Christian Scientists. The National Center for Health Statistics, a federal agency, estimated in 2004 that more than 2% of the population uses prayer rituals.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchChildren* Religion News & CommentaryOther Faiths

June 13, 2008 at 4:19 am - 1 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

At least part of the mystery of Stonehenge may have now been solved: It was from the beginning a monument to the dead.

New radiocarbon dates from human cremation burials among and around the brooding stones on Salisbury Plain in England indicate that the site was used as a cemetery from 3000 B.C. until after the monuments were erected around 2500 B.C., British archaeologists reported Thursday.

What appeared to be the head of a stone mace, a symbol of authority, was found in one grave, the archaeologists said, indicating that this was probably a cemetery for the ruling dynasty responsible for erecting Stonehenge.

“It’s now clear that burials were a major component of Stonehenge in all its main stages,” said Mike Parker Pearson, an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield in England.

Some scholars have contended that the enigmatic stones, surrounded by a ditch and earthen banks in concentric circles, more than likely marked a sacred place of healing. The idea is at least as old as medieval literature, which also includes stories of Stonehenge as a memorial to the dead. So there could be an element of truth to both hypotheses, experts say.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchReligion & Culture* International News & CommentaryEngland / UK* Religion News & CommentaryOther Faiths

May 29, 2008 at 5:12 pm - 16 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

But perhaps the most touching story of this special day’s origin comes from Boalsburg, a quaint little village in Centre County, Pa., just off Route 322 a few miles south of Penn State University, in the picturesque foothills of the Alleghenies. It’s only a dot on the map, and a casual driver might drive past it without even being aware that it is nestled there in the rolling valley beneath a coverlet of oaks and pines and cedars – were it not for a plain little marker by the side of the road: “Boalsburg. An American Village – Birthplace of Memorial Day.”

As Herbert G. Moore recorded for the National Republic Magazine in May 1948, the event happened in October 1864.

It was a pleasant Sunday and in the little community burial ground behind the village, the pioneers of colonial times slept peacefully side by side with the recently fallen heroes of the Civil War.

On this day a pretty teenage girl named Emma Hunter and her friend Sophie Keller decided to gather some garden flowers and to place them on the grave of Emma’s father, Dr. Reuben Hunter, a surgeon in the Union Army, who had died only a short while before. And on this same day, an older woman named Elizabeth Meyer elected to strew flowers on the grave of her son, Amos, a private in the Union ranks who had fallen on the last day of battle at Gettysburg, Pa.

And so the two girls and their friend met, kneeling figures at nearby graves...

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMilitary / Armed Forces

May 25, 2008 at 1:15 pm - 2 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

A controversial new "right to die" card is being offered to the public that allows anyone to refuse treatment in a medical emergency. Who carries it, and why?

It's a morbid question, but one that many of us have pondered at least once.

If I hadn't just escaped that dreadful accident, where would I be now? Would I rather be dead than depend on others to keep me alive?

A new card seeks to address that very question. Available in pubs, banks, libraries, GP surgeries, even some churches, the Advanced Decision to Refuse Treatment (ADRT) card sits snugly in a wallet or purse and instructs a doctor to withhold treatment should the carrier lose the capacity to make decisions, because of an accident or illness.

Read it all.


Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchHealth & MedicineLife Ethics* International News & CommentaryEngland / UK

May 22, 2008 at 6:49 am - 3 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Inside Mifflin Hall at Fort Lee, Va., 11 students gather in a room that could pass for a pre-med class. A model skeleton stands on wheels in one corner; a partially dissected plastic torso rests on a table in the rear. The instructor, Sgt. 1st Class Alisa Karr, begins the lesson with a review of the body's bones.

But these soldiers are not studying anatomy to become medics. They are learning to care for the dead.

When these 11 students graduate from training at the U.S. Army's Mortuary Affairs Center, they will earn the title 92M — military code for mortuary affairs specialist. Some of those who have volunteered to work with the dead will serve at collection points in Iraq and Afghanistan; others will work in the port mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. They will help recover, identify and prepare the remains of fallen soldiers.

The 92Ms have cared for the majority of the more than 4,500 military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. They operate under a code of conduct that's part scientific and part symbolic....

I happened to catch this story this week during a run via NPR's story of the day podcast--very worthwhile I thought; see what you make of it.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMilitary / Armed Forces* Economics, PoliticsIraq War

May 17, 2008 at 12:44 pm - 1 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Most Americans believe the choice to end one's life is a personal decision and that physician-assisted death should be legal, according to a new survey.

More than 80 percent of adults questioned in the poll by Knowledge Networks said the right to die should not be decided by the government, church or a third party, yet only 50 percent of Americans over 60 and less than 25 percent of younger people said they have a living will.

"People put that off. They're in denial and they have their heads in the sand," said Dave Bunnell, editor-in-chief of ELDR magazine, which commissioned the poll.

read the whole thing.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchLife Ethics

May 16, 2008 at 8:08 am - 15 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

At first glance, the two men in monogrammed T-shirts and jeans with their rumbling generator could be mistaken for any of the hundreds of maintenance workers scattered across the vast public grounds of the city.

But Kirk Bockman, 52, and Jim Lee, 59, are highly skilled artisans whose specialized craft is cloaked in grief.

In a yearly ritual that began in 1991 with the dedication of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, Bockman and Lee have carefully etched 18,274 names of fallen officers into marbleized limestone.

This year, the engravers' burden was heavy as they prepared for the annual vigil for slain officers on Tuesday.

The pair has recorded the names of the 181 officers killed in 2007, one of the deadliest years for police in two decades. They also added 177 officers whose deaths had not been previously recorded, some dating to the 19th century, says Berneta Spence, the memorial's director of research.

"When we do this, we really feel like we become part of their family history," Bockman says, his voice hushed in deference to a victim's mother.

Read it all and don't miss the great story at the end about their visit to the White House.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMilitary / Armed Forces

May 10, 2008 at 10:10 am - 0 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Americans don't contemplate these big questions much. Reflection is especially rare in the celebrity culture, where "there is no such thing as bad publicity." Time in rehab — drug, alcohol or whatever — has become a veritable rite of passage for the young and famous. Indeed, telling the story of one's rise from the ashes of addiction has become a career-extending strategy for those past their prime.

With all the pictures of stars happily leaving the clinic, young people may assume that there are always nets to catch their fall. They forget those who didn't make it into rehab. Not everyone gets a second or third act.

Although AP wrote the Spears obituary purely for business reasons, it may have also done the star a service. Like the mock Korean funerals, the obituary could shock Spears into imagining her extinction — and thus mend her ways. In a similar vein, a court ordered troubled young actress Lindsay Lohan to work in a morgue following a drunken-driving incident.

Perhaps all those who indulge in high-risk behavior should be presented with their obituary, dressed in funeral robes and placed in a coffin. Sounds morbid, but that could be the most important thing that ever happened to them.

Read the whole piece.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-Watch

April 21, 2008 at 7:49 am - 2 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

April 13, 2008 at 5:24 pm - 0 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

“The whole thing is very strange,” Dr. Pausch said over lunch at a diner near Norfolk, Va. “I just gave a talk. I gave talks my whole life.”

But of course, this wasn’t just any talk. “Let’s not ignore the obvious,” he said. “If I’d given that lecture but I weren’t dying, it wouldn’t have had the gravitas. Context is everything.”

Dr. Pausch, 47, is dying of pancreatic cancer, a disease that kills 95 percent of its victims, usually within months of diagnosis. Except for a pill bottle on the table in front of him, there were no outward signs of the deadly tumors growing inside him. Though he had just recently recovered from heart and kidney failure, he looked boyish, with a red knit shirt and a head of thick dark-brown hair.

Last fall, after doctors told him that he would probably have no more than six months of good health, Dr. Pausch stepped down from his academic duties and relocated to be closer to his family. But he decided to give one last lecture to a roomful of students and faculty members at Carnegie Mellon.

The lecture was not about cancer. Instead, he says, it was simply a father’s effort to digest a lifetime of advice for his children into one talk — a talk that Dr. Pausch knew he would not be around long enough to deliver in person. The children are Dylan, 6; Logan, 4; and Chloe, almost 2.

Although he could have set it up on a home video, he liked the idea that one day they would watch his last lecture and see their dad at work, in his element.

“I’m speaking only to them,” he said. “I didn’t set out to tell the world about how to live life.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchEducation

April 10, 2008 at 7:43 am - 1 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

The Rev. Jane Heenan, 62, a longtime Alexandria resident who became the first woman to head an Episcopal church in Nebraska, died March 14 of congestive heart failure at her daughter's home in Galveston, Tex.

Before moving to Lincoln, Neb., in 1995, Rev. Heenan served as seminarian at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Annandale and was ordained a priest at St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Arlington County, where she served as assistant rector and interim rector.

From 1995 to her retirement on disability in 2007, Rev. Heenan was the rector at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Lincoln. She also hosted numerous spiritual retreats for parishioners in Rehoboth Beach, Del., because she saw the ocean as the perfect background for spirituality, said her daughter, Sarah Gandy.

Rev. Heenan's last formal duty as a priest was officiating at her daughter's marriage in a serene wooded Texas grove last May.

One of the great heroines of the faith, and far too little known. She will be greatly missed--read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - EpiscopalEpiscopal Church (TEC)* Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals

March 29, 2008 at 7:00 am - 6 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

These stories always do me in, but this one in particular really moved me. Maybe it was because he outlived both his parents, maybe because I have done military funerals myself and so could identify with many of the sounds, maybe it was because my mother grew up in Washington, D.C., and so I could see Arlington National Cemetery in my mind's eye, maybe it was because it came on Easter week.In any event, you need to take the time to listen to it all--KSH.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMilitary / Armed Forces* Economics, PoliticsIraq War

March 25, 2008 at 4:42 am - 0 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Believers who choose to have their ashes scattered after being cremated are entitled to a Christian funeral, the Vatican said yesterday.

The ruling follows the refusal of a parish priest in the Italian Alps to hold a funeral for a local man who had asked to have his remains spread in the mountains. Father Carmelo Pellicone, of the parish of St Etienne in Aosta, told the man’s widow that a religious funeral was impossible because it was against the dogma of the resurrection of the body.

He said that scattering ashes in the countryside or at sea was a “pantheistic communion with nature in death, which is not part of our religion” – a belief held by many priests. Bishop Luciano Pacomio, head of doctrine at the Italian Bishops Conference, said, however, that this reflected an out-of-date mentality.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Religion News & CommentaryOther ChurchesRoman Catholic

January 11, 2008 at 7:53 am - 16 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

So why are the Swiss so happy? Perhaps because things there work well, Weiner says.

"The trains really do run on time; the streets are clean," he says.

But Weiner says he believes there are other reasons why the Swiss rate high on the happiness scale.

"One is that they do vote a lot. They vote seven or eight times a year in public referendum, and they have a say in what happens. And having a say in your life is an important ingredient in happiness," he says.

They also have a healthy attitude toward money, he adds.

"In America, we have this attitude of 'If you've got it, flaunt it,' and the Swiss way is 'If you've got it, hide it. Do not provoke envy in others.' And envy, I do believe, is one of the great enemies of happiness."

In another stop on the happiness search, Weiner visited Bhutan, where he met a man with this rather unexpected advice: To be happy, you need to set aside a few minutes a day to think about death.

"That really hit home with me, I have to say," Weiner says. "In this country, we do not talk about death. ... We will talk about anything except for death. We will talk about how much money we make, we'll talk about our sex lives, we'll talk about politics. We will not talk about death."

Listen to it all from NPR


Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchGlobalizationPsychology* Economics, PoliticsEconomy

January 8, 2008 at 7:27 am - 7 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Watch it all. You just have to love the ending--KSH.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals

January 1, 2008 at 12:31 pm - 1 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

When it comes to confronting death, doctors are as much at a loss as the rest of us. They are in the business of saving lives, not ending them. By instinct and by training, they avoid what Pauline W. Chen calls “the final exam,” the emotional challenges posed by terminally ill patients. Death represents failure. It asks unanswerable questions. Perhaps most vexingly, it threatens to crack the hard professional shell of detachment that medical training puts in place. In modern American medicine, death is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Dr. Chen, a surgeon specializing in liver transplants, is her own patient in “Final Exam,” a series of thoughtful, moving essays on the troubled relationship between modern medical practice and the emotional events surrounding death. She recalls episodes from her own medical training, and cases in which she was involved, to dramatize her misgivings about the “lessons in denial and depersonalization” that help doctors achieve a high level of technical competence but can also prevent them from expressing empathy or confronting their own fears about death.

In the current system, she writes, “few of us ever adequately learn how to care for patients at the end of life.” Among other things, “Final Exam” is a crash course in the specifics of human mortality. Dr. Chen begins with her first dead body, the dissecting-room cadaver that she disassembles over a period of many weeks, sometimes sawing and flaying, at other times gently separating minute muscle fibers and veins, as she learns to itemize every muscle and bone.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchHealth & Medicine

December 31, 2007 at 9:44 am - 11 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

The Roman Catholic Church has a new member, but he's far beyond the age of any would-be altar boy.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair's conversion to Catholicism in a private ceremony in London last Friday wasn't a surprise to most Britons. He had been edging away from his Anglican roots for years, attending mass on Sundays with his four children and wife, Cherie, who are all baptized Catholics.

But the 54-year-old joins many others who have made the decision to convert later in life. Middle age, some experts say, is a time when many people begin to question their faith — or lack of it.

"A lot of it has to do with confronting death," said Rev. Daniel Donovan, a priest and professor of theology at the University of St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto.

While young people may reflect on their spirituality, those thoughts are often shoved aside by immediate pressures such as childcare, career and paying the rent, he said.

"When you're older, and some of the pressure is relieved, you can kind of think, where do I want to end up?" Father Donovan said.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchMarriage & FamilyReligion & Culture* International News & CommentaryCanadaEngland / UK

December 28, 2007 at 4:14 am - 3 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Here is one:

In his opening paragraph, Daniel Bergner (Dec. 2) describes Booth Gardner walking along the beach, his grandchildren exploring the water’s edge. Gardner says, “I can’t see where anybody benefits by my hanging around.”

I’m sorry he must struggle with Parkinson’s. However, rather than admitting defeat and withdrawing quietly from life, he could transform his disease into a means whereby his grandchildren can explore the depths of their own strength and love for one another.

My aunt lived for decades with the increasing limitations of Parkinson’s. During those years my uncle carried her from room to room, fed her, strained to understand her words. Her journey was difficult, but in the end her greatest gift to her family was a deeper appreciation for the human spirit.

Scott T. Hunsicker


Read them all.


Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchHealth & MedicineLife Ethics* TheologyEthics / Moral Theology

December 17, 2007 at 4:01 am - 2 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

When 92-year-old Ruben Edmond passed away this past summer, not everyone could make it to Norfolk, Virginia, to say goodbye to the man whose family includes five children, 28 grandchildren, 29 great-grandchildren, and five great-great grandchildren.

So while some mourners streamed into the funeral home to pay their last respects, others from North Carolina to Hawaii watched a streaming video of the ceremony online and visited a tribute page produced by the funeral home that helped organize Edmond's last rites.

"We used technology to pay our last tribute - it was just awesome," said Edmond's daughter, Estelle Edmond-Bussey, 64, of Chesapeake, Virginia. Family members regathered later to watch a replay of the ceremony, giving her a chance to remember "the things I was numb to the day of the service."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Culture-WatchBlogging & the InternetScience & Technology

November 29, 2007 at 5:00 am - 2 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

It was a great comfort to know that both prayer books expressed our deepest hopes better than we could hope to with a spontaneous prayer, and to give ourselves over to the care of those words.

We struggled for a while to find a space where the wind was not blowing Dana's ashes back into our faces. It felt important to scatter Dana's ashes into the majestic valley beneath the camp. Emily and Sarah finally found a spot where a small tree was growing. It offered shelter from the wind and a good landmark if any of us ever wanted to visit again and remember Dana's life.

Dana had spent her final few years feeling mostly estranged from the Episcopal Church, but never fully estranged from church life. Her membership was with a United Methodist congregation when she died. As Sarah and I drove to the camp that morning, she said she wanted to snap a photo of the familiar sign that says, "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You."

On that wind-driven and reverent morning, I loved that simple message more than ever before.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeLiturgy, Music, WorshipParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals

November 19, 2007 at 8:49 am - 17 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by Kendall Harmon

He served eventually in nine states, including a stint as associate rector of St. Stephen's from 1982 to 1987. His last ministry was at Church of the Holy Apostles in the Houston suburb of Katy, Texas, where he led a service just four days before his death.

Dr. Nix's warm and gentle demeanor made him well-suited to the clergy, even though he'd never focused much on religion when growing up.

"He became a different kind of doctor, not of medicine but of the souls," said his younger brother, David of Akron, Ohio. "He was someone who would always devote all of his time and attention to you. He always made you feel like, right at the moment you're with him, you're the most important thing in his life right now."

In addition to his brother, he is survived by his wife, Carol; two daughters, Joanna of Ambridge and Joy of Austin, Texas; and a sister, Eleanore Childs of Zelienople.

Read it all. He will be greatly missed--KSH.

Filed under: * Anglican - EpiscopalEpiscopal Church (TEC)* Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals

October 9, 2007 at 8:14 am - 2 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]

Posted by The_Elves

We are indebted to Terry Mattingly at Get Religion for bringing this story from the Baltimore Sun to a wider audience. The Baltimore Sun article is unique because it is based on letters to the editor to an Amish newspaper during the last year, many from the relatives of the girls who were killed or injured. The letters and thus the article are deeply moving. Here's an excerpt from TMatt's blog entry on this. The link to the longer original Baltimore Sun piece is at the end. We agree with Terry. The article is really must reading.

But the newspaper letters also offered insights into the lives of the children who survived, which is a side of this drama previously kept private. Four of the girls were quickly back in school, even as they continued to recover from their wounds. But that is not the end of that story:

A fifth girl, 7-year-old Rosanna King, suffered a serious brain injury. She was removed from life support within two days of the shooting and was expected to die. Instead, she has become a living miracle for the Amish, who found inspiration as she progressed from bed to wheelchair and began to recognize family members and laugh out loud. But progress has been slow. . . .

One writer wondered whether the community could do more for her.

“Maybe we are not praying hard enough,” wrote Yonie Esh of Georgetown. He seemed to hesitate at the idea. “But then again we want to say, ‘Thy will be done.’ If I write something that I should not, I do apologize. I certainly do not want to offend anyone.”

When Rosanna returned to church for the first time after the shooting, the moment generated considerable excitement.

“She doesn’t talk . . . but so precious to have her around,” wrote Susanna Stoltzfus.


This is a very simple story, based on these letter from inside a community that prefers to keep its sorrows and joys private. The simplicity is what makes the story so powerful.

Life continues in Nickel Mines. It was fortunate that the Sun found a way to take readers inside that story, without violating the lives of those who are living it. This is must reading.


Here's Terry's blog entry.

Here's the full Baltimore Sun feature article by Julie Scharper.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church LifeParish MinistryDeath / Burial / Funerals* Religion News & CommentaryOther Churches

October 4, 2007 at 8:42 am - 1 comments - [link] [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]