Anyone reading this review probably knows what this blog is about: death, dying, and the Christian. So it will be no surprise to you that my favorite book of the year so far is a book about just that. The Art of Dying: Living Fully Into the Life to Come by Rob Moll is a book that I’ve been telling people I wish I had written. I found myself either nodding in agreement with the author on topics I’ve already come to conclusions on, or totally engrossed as I learned new information. It’s a book I fully intend to buy and give away. I think everyone should read it.
Now, if that glowing recommendation alone doesn’t convince you to read it, I guess I will have to endeavor to entice you with a little more information.
Rob Moll is a journalist, formerly editor-at-large at Christianity Today. Inspired, at least in part, by the story of Terry Schiavo, he wrote The Art of Dying because of an awareness that Christians, surprisingly, did not seem to have an appropriate response to questions of life and death. More particularly, they did not appear to have a set of ethics or principles, informed by their faith, that could adequately inform their decisions regarding death—their own or a loved one’s. His argument is that Christians, like the rest of our Western culture, wrongly avoid all thought of death. “Death is indeed evil.” He says, “Yet there is no evil so great that God cannot bring joy and goodness from it. That is why death deserves our attention in life. Because we want to avoid it, to turn our face away, it is good to look death in the eye and constantly remind ourselves that our hope is in God, who defeated death.” His goal, it seems, is to offer a deeply Christian understanding of death as both encouragement and corrective. I think he succeeds.
The first few chapters of the book articulate our current problem of avoiding death in our daily lives, as well as the medicalization of death—a sort of “how we got here” look at our current state. He then explains what has been lost in our Christian traditions surrounding death by giving a brief and broad history of Christian death up through the end of the 19thcentury. Leading his readers gently toward the boots-on-the-ground questions about death and dying, he includes a chapter entitled “The Spirituality of Death,” making a convincing argument for why death is a monumental occasion in the life of a believer, requiring preparation. Moll then takes his reader through the dying process from start to finish, answering practical questions interspersed with interviews and personal stories related to preparing for your own or your parents’ death, caring for dying people, questions of funeral practices and traditions. He ends the book with chapters on grief, the resurrection, and what understanding death means for life.
Every chapter of this book has the potential to be life-changing for someone. There were several things, though, that come to mind from this book without even having to skim the pages. I’ll try to share them, briefly, with you here.
- The first was the effect of death on a community. Moll shares that as we lost the traditions of mourning, grief has become more and more isolating. By marking houses and clothes with signs of mourning, the community helped bear the weight of grief. Describing C.S. Lewis’ experience of isolation described in A Grief Observed, Moll says “As if the burdens of the griever weren’t enough, society gave Lewis another responsibility—the cruel job of forcing a man in mourning to help those around him feel better about their awkwardness in his presence” (129). This resonates with me, and makes me wonder what sort of steps I can take to ease this load off of the grieving around me. Along with this, I was so glad to read Moll’s exhortation to not use the hope of resurrection as a bludgeon to those in the midst of grief: “those in mourning and their comforters may make grieving more difficult when our Christian hope is used to discourage public mourning” (131).
- Secondly, I noticed lack of training in seminaries and the overall neglect of the elderly in churches. I know my church tries to care for the widows and the elderly, and as far as I know they do okay at it. I also know that it’s one of the quietest ministries in the church. Along with caring for the elderly better in life, I wonder if we should somehow try to bring the “business” of death back to our churches—can we recruit any seminarians to become funeral directors, or church-based morticians?
- Third, I was struck by his accounts of supernatural experiences as the hour of death approaches. I was convinced that we have over-medicalized death before reading The Art of Dying, mostly for practical reasons. But reading his numerous accounts of people being guided from this life to the next by spiritual beings has made me even more convinced. Moll says of previous periods of Christian history that “No one assumed that the difficult physical work of dying would leave a person spiritually unable to participate” (62). It seems clear to me that, whenever possible, we should not rob people of the spiritual experience of dying. Moll argues that this is not just for their benefit, but for ours: “Even Alzheimer’s can’t touch the life of the spirit. When a dying person gives physical evidence that his or her spirit is entering a new life, it can be spiritually encouraging to onlookers and emotionally comforting to those who will grieve the loss of the person. And as we support the dying spiritually, we help them to die well” (72).
Aside from loving the content, I loved the structure of Moll’s book. It seemed very well suited to convince the reader that there is a problem, provide its context, and then offer a solution—or at least a launching point for better thought and practice. And I know I’m maybe hyper-aware, but I see such a great need for resources like this that I’m very grateful to have read it. I think you will be too.
