Well, that seems like a dreary title for a Health Ministry article. We try to champion that “The Glory of God is a person fully alive”. Here’s the whole title of a book some of us have read and believe is a landmark for being “fully alive” while aging and being cared for:
“BEING MORTAL: Medicine and What Matters at the End”
This book was written by a very dissatisfied and awakened physician, Dr. Atul Gawande, a compassionate son of a prominent physician, who was startled to learn what his parents and patients were headed for in aging.
He writes: “I find that neither I nor my patients find our current state (of care for the aging) tolerable.” And then: “I have the writer’s and scientist’s faith, however, that by pulling back the veil and peering in close, a person can make sense of what is most confusing or strange or disturbing.”
“I wrote this book in the hope of understanding what has happened”…..” Lacking a coherent view of how people might live successfully all the way to their very end, we have allowed our fates to be controlled by the imperatives of medicine, technology, and strangers.”
This is a human story really, not a text, but a tracing of very personal concerns well illustrated by family and personal experiences. Not morbid, not dreary, it is very readable and filled with relatable stories.
You will find it an eye-brow raiser, a mind-opener, a heart-warmer, and a hope-instiller that will arouse many “Amen!” moments.
Dr. Gawande saw that the three “afflictions” of aging were “boredom, loneliness and helplessness” and that “institutionalized routines and safety” were key priorities rather than “making life worth living.”
We are mortal, but totally human all our days. Dr. Gawande became keenly aware of the “inner person” in the aging who needs to be recognized, regarded, listened to, and treated as a feeling, needful, desiring, deciding, belonging being.
Dr. Gawande’s personal expression: “I never expected that among the most meaningful experiences I’d have as a doctor- and, really, as a human being would come from helping others deal with what medicine cannot do as well as what it can.”
If you aren’t concerned about aging or about anyone else who is, you need not open this book. However…….
~Earl Laman, Health Ministry Member