Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Death and Beyond: 'December Project' reviewed


The December Project: An Extraordinary Rabbi and a Skeptical Seeker Confront Life’s Greatest Mystery
By Sara Davidson
2014
HarperOne

There’s thinking ahead, and then there’s thinking beyond.

Sara Davidson’s new book is the product of a two-year, face-to-face collaboration with one of the leading lights of modern Judaism, Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, who died on July 3. The radical and innovative spiritual leader, foreseeing his upcoming demise, which came at the age of 89, wanted to treat the subject of mortality, the end of life, and spiritual preparation for it. She quotes him: “What is the spiritual work of this time, and how do you prepare for the mystery?”

The result is this remarkable collaboration, a dialogue that splits into a multitude of levels, but doesn’t fail to cohere. Readers will learn about the author and her interlocutor, and measure with them insights, conjectures, lessons, and musings about the thin interface between human death and human life.


In case you are allergic to self-help books, this is not one (even though she includes spiritual exercises one can try at the end of the book). Davidson has the good sense not to write prescriptively, but to listen and solidify thought into cogent and compelling prose. She does not idolize Reb Zalman, nor is she merely transcribing his pronouncements . . . not that he was given to make them. She honors him more by transmitting her perceptions of him as a complex whole.

An outline of and illustrative highlights from Reb Zalman’s life are interwoven with Davidson’s. Here are beautifully articulate and brutally honest accounts of her thoughts and feelings surrounding her mother’s death, her own feelings of being increasingly ignored at a professional level as she ages, the frustration of increasing physical limitations.

We read about the insanity and randomness of sudden death, whether experienced by Zalman at the hands of the Nazis, or by Davidson’s happenstance escape from slaughter by terrorists in Afghanistan.

What surfaces from these contemplations? Unlike as in Christian and some other religions, there is no proffering of hope of salvation, or promises of bliss in an afterlife to come. The refusal of most Jewish thought to assert a definitive post-mortem reality is strongly here. Instead, there’s the calm assertion that the essence of a soul persists despite physical reduction or disability, that an essential unity with the universal has always and always will exist, and that relation to God is all.

Actions that Zalman advocates to reconcile himself with the end of his earthly life are just as applicable to anyone seeking peace at any stage of life – “December Project” creates a shorthand list of concepts and intentions that can guide us. Rather than try to retail them all in this review, I will enumerate them as involving the development of intuition, useful solitude, gratitude, disengagement from negativity, accepting the path one’s life has taken, overcoming fear, particularly the fear of giving one’s pain to God, and threefold forgiveness: to others, from others, and from oneself.

This quote from Davidson is a sample of the wisdom found in this book, one that has resonated profoundly with me and with everyone I’ve shared it with to date: “ . . . you have the capacity to forgive everyone. All you have to do is release the negative energy that keeps you bound to that person. You don’t need them to apologize, discuss it, or see your point of view. You don’t have to condone or forget what they did, understand it, see what in their childhood caused them to act that way, or become friends with them. You just let go – of the resentment and anger you’re holding.”


Easy? No, like most things that sound simple, it’s not. A lot of the information in “The December Project” may confuse you, irritate you, bother you, and upset you. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. For those seeking answers, Davidson and Schachter-Shalomi’s work together will help you get to work on figuring them out for yourself.

Kathy Stobart

Dave Bickers

Motorcyclist and stunt man -- via the BBC.




Lois Johnson

Country singer -- via knoxville.com.



Hank LoConti

William Gugi Waaka

Guitarist -- via Maori Television.

http://www.maoritelevision.com/mi/purongo/a-motu/kua-hinga-william-gugi-waaka-he-pou-no-te-whare-tapere-maori?utm_source=brightcove&utm_medium=button&utm_campaign=share%20this%20video

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Monday, July 7, 2014

Paul Apted

Sound editor -- via Variety. Son of director Michael Apted.

Hisham Rizk

Graffiti artist -- via Ahram Online.

Ange-Aimée Woods

Radio journalist -- via Colorado Public Radio.

Seth Teller

Sharifah Aini aka Datuk Sharifah Aini Syed Jaafar aka Kak Pah aka Biduanita Negara

Singer -- via the Malay Mail.





OBIT READER: Our weekly roundup of stories on death, dying, mourning, and more

TOP STORIES

Let’s put the fun back in funeral? From Jaleed Kaleem in the Huffington Post:

Denver trumpeter writes his own threnody – an account by David Hill on Colorado Public Radio  https://www.cpr.org/news/story/trumpeter-joshua-trinidad-writes-music-his-own-funeral

Valentina Zanoni announces on Swide that the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s fall exhibition concerns the history of mourning attire http://www.swide.com/art-culture/met-museum-fall-2014-exhibition-mourning-dress/2014/07/03

DEATH


Jenny Che of the Wall Street Journal reports on a Copper Age funerary ware exhibit http://online.wsj.com/articles/masters-of-fire-spotlights-the-copper-age-1404421180?mod=rss_Books

MOURNING

A heartrending photo essay from NBC shows us those mourning a teen who died en route to America http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/family-mourns-guatemalan-boy-who-died-border-n146636

From Funeral News: Maintaining a relationship with the dead: an African perspective http://funeralnews.co.za/top-scholar-explains-african-way-of-mourning/

Patti Woods of NPR reports -- Mourning under cover: when a lover had to pretend to be just a friend http://www.npr.org/2014/07/02/327404618/mourning-in-the-closet-she-was-more-than-my-best-friend


The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation tell us that Ebola victim families are warned to avoid traditional mourning practices to prevent spread the epidemic http://www.gbcghana.com/1.1773089

OBITS

How does it feel to read your own obituary? Roz Warren tells us in the digital pages of Viva Fifty! http://www.vivafifty.com/reading-my-obituary-online-1265/

Slavik Boyechko & Travis Gilmour of Alaska Public Media meet the town obituarist http://www.alaskapublic.org/2014/06/29/i-am-the-town-obituary-writer/

FUNERAL HOMES

Why can’t she get her husband’s death certificate fixed? Jon Yates of the Chicago Tribune wants to know http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/problemsolver/ct-death-certificate-error-problem-0701-biz-20140701,0,5645740.column

Funeral business drawing new recruits, says Jim Ryan of the Columbus Dispatch  http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2014/07/01/a-renewed-undertaking.html

Robin L. Flanigan of the Rochester, NY Democrat & Chronicle interviews an undertaker http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/money/business/2014/06/30/funeral-director-love-embalming/11259461/

In the People's Post, Henry Booysen reports on a horrible funeral in South Africa http://www.peoplespost.co.za/articles/articledetails.aspx?mode=news&id=161947


Michael Burrell

Actor and director -- via the Huntingdon Post.

Torill Thorstad Hauger

Writer and illustrator -- via nrk.no.

Emilio Álvarez Montalván

Giorgio Faletti

Ivan Junqueira

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Mavis Whyte aka the Tiddley-Winkie Girl

Entertainer -- via Wirral Globe.






Jeffry Wickham

Damaso Ruano

Painter -- via Diario Sur.

Oscar C. Yatco

Conductor and violinist -- via the Philippine Star.

María Bernarda Seitz

Nun with a cooking show -- via clarin.com.

Therese Vanier

Doctor and pioneer in palliative and hospice care, as well as integrative living plans for the disabled (L'Arche) -- via EAPC.

From the obit -- "Unassuming and gentle, wise and simple in reaching the truth, constantly searching for justice in the service to the most vulnerable in society, Thérèse Vanier’s deep commitment was to humanity.
«S’il n’y a plus rien à faire, tout reste à faire. »(When there is nothing more that can be done, everything can still be done.)"

Ku Tho

Comedian, actor, and director -- via myanmarcelebrity.com.

Dick Seltzer

Actor and educator -- via philly.com. He's the gut in that Pennsylvania Lottery Christmas TV commercial!

Marilyn "Mitzie" Welch

Betty Cody aka Rita Cote

Singer -- via the AP.





Friday, July 4, 2014

Walter Dean Myers

Sue Fryer Ward

Activist for elders' rights -- via the Washington Post.

Louis Zamperini

Athlete, war hero, and spiritual modeler of forgiveness -- via the New York Times. An Olympian, he survived 47 days at sea after a plane crash, then a long term of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Japanese. After a period of despair and addiction, a religious epiphany led him to forgive his captors and remake his life.

Jim Brosnan

Frederick I. Ordway III

Space scientist, prolific writer, and art collector -- via the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. He dreamed of space flight as a child; he read avidly science fiction and joined the American Rocket Society in 1939, at the age of 12. His dreams came true -- he worked to develop rocket travel and space flight, and helped man go to the moon!






Stephen Gaskin

Man with a vision who figured out how to implement it; "Hippy Priest, Spiritual Revolutionary, Cannabis Advocate, shade tree mechanic, cultural engineer, tractor driver and community starter" -- via the New York Times.





Linda Rodney

Songstress -- via veooz.com.

Peter Pragas

Composer and musician -- via mysinchew.com.



Jeffrey Ressner

Journalist -- via Billboard.

Anatoly Klyan

Cameraman -- via the Guardian.

Francis Matthews

Actor; best known for roles as TV detective Paul Temple and voice of Captain Scarlet in the "supermarionation" series "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons."