Introduction
1: The Best Funeral Ever
2: What to do when you get sick and hear the knock of death on your
door
3: The importance of the After Life
4: Early dotage, Mid Dotage and Late Dotage: Facing Mortality with
freedom
5: Spiritual Preparation for Death
6: Connecting the Practical and the Spiritual
7: Really Bad Funerals do Happen
8: Finding a Spiritual Home Before Death
9: My Lord What A Morning
Further Reading and Resources
Funeral and Memorial Service Planning Checklist
Glossary of Funeral and Memorial Service Terms
Words and Music for Funerals or Memorial Services
Template for a Funeral or Memorial Service
Budget for a Funeral or Memorial Service
Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper is senior minister at Judson Memorial Church in New York City. She is the author of numerous books, including Sabbath Keeping. She writes for the Huffington Post, Patheos, The National Catholic Reporter, Sojourners, Tikkun, and other publications.
Senior minister Schaper’s comprehensive book on death is based on
her 40 years of counseling the dying and their families. She covers
everything from the realization that one’s illness is incurable to
the memorial service and presents positive suggestions for
disclosing the imminent death to loved ones and how to prepare
spiritually (not necessarily espousing religion) for the end. . . .
VERDICT [The book is] . . . superb in discussing preparation for
death. Approaching the End of Life supplies a blueprint [to prepare
for death].
*Library Journal, Starred Review*
Over the course of her long ministry, Schaper has comforted the
sick and dying, presided over many funerals and memorials, and
counseled the bereaved. Drawing upon these many years of
experience, her book offers sensitive advice about planning one’s
own funeral or the funeral for a loved one. More important, her
book encourages us to plan for a good death, which means living a
good life. Everyone will die, and immortality remains an unresolved
issue. Therefore, we need to find a place from which to die.
Schaper argues that place is a spiritual home, one that gives our
life meaning, joy, and purpose. Whether in a faith community,
sacred space, or ritual, a spiritual home is a place where our
faults and achievements are both recognized and affirmed. It is a
place where we are comforted, challenged, and connected. It is a
community of individuals, not an institution, amid whom we can die
after having lived well. Reflecting upon one’s mortality is scary.
Schaper’s thoughtful and helpful book eases the fear.
*Booklist*
The Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper is the senior minister at Judson
Memorial Church in New York City. This book is written to provide a
spiritual and practical guide for lay people (both the dying person
and/or their loved ones) about planning and organizing things to do
with the end of life, and the funeral or memorial services that
come afterwards. I liked her straightforward, conversational style,
and the language was simple and understandable to the average
person. Above all, whilst giving what is probably very good advice,
I liked her celebration of individuality – no two patients (or two
families) will have identical wishes and needs, and she gives
permission for you to do exactly what you want or what you think is
best. For those of us who work in palliative care, it is useful to
know about books like this that you can recommend or loan to
appropriate patients and/or their families.
*IAHPC Newsletter*
Donna Schaper continually urges us to think long and broad about
our life and death. From her expansive revision of the traditional
funeral phrase, ‘Ashes to ashes, stardust to stardust,’ to her
encouragement that we think of our lives as ceramic vessels for the
Spirit and not throwaway plastic, she urges us to consider our
life, death, and afterlife in the context of the ‘great awesome.’
Her mixture of practical advice on dying and funerals, as well as
her theological reflections on the context of aging, death, and the
afterlife, gives us much to chew on and live toward.
*The Rev. Dr. Rochelle A. Stackhouse, senior pastor, The Church of
the Redeemer, United Church of Christ, New Haven*
With fresh language and a helpful breadth of perspective, Rev.
Donna Schaper has provided an invaluable tool for approaching the
end of life, a must-read for clergy and highly accessible for
laity. I will be looking forward to using Approaching the End of
Life as a solid text on practical spirituality with adults in my
parish.
*Rev. Dr. Jill R. Edens, senior co-pastor, United Church of Chapel
Hill*
Rev. Schaper does an excellent job of discussing a potentially
difficult or challenging matter in an upfront, logical, and very
caring way. I think everyone needs to read this book.
*Scott Jurica, MS, DC, PAK, ACN; holistic doctor*
Approaching the end of life, complex emotion and mundane decisions
collide. Grief mixes with mystery. Donna Schaper is a wise,
experienced guide through the colliding, the grief, the mystery,
and the intimacy of that tender time. She writes with the power of
long experience and careful observation, sharing stories of
approaching death well by living well. She writes with deep
appreciation for people in and out of faith communities, giving all
of us generous ways to honor the momentousness of dying. And she
writes convincingly that the best moment to begin preparing for our
inevitable end is right now, with close attention to the troubles
and grace that make up both a good life and a holy death.
*The Rev. Dr. John A. Nelson, pastor and teacher, Niantic Community
Church*
Donna Schaper’s new book is the ideal vehicle for tackling an
urgently essential teaching for our times. Who should read it?
Pastors, old and new, who need new tools to help those knocking at
their door without the culture of a congregation. Individuals who
have managed to avoid the topic of mortality until an
embarrassingly mature age who now must create something for
themselves or a loved one. And even those of us professionals who
have failed in our own lives to begin important processes like
retirement planning or life review. She shows us that preparation
for death can be a fulfilling and often joyful exercise of
discovering value in our unique and communal identity. Read it.
*Rev. Carrie Bail, interim pastor, First Congregational Church of
East Longmeadow, MA*
This is a book for those who wish to embrace the end of
life with open arms. May all our inevitable
passings be filled with such powerful ministry!
*Caroline Woolard, cofounder, OurGoods.org and
TradeSchool.coop*
A litany of stories into the heart of grief and life. Schaper
masterfully shapes the silences and mystery of a good death. She
fingers the beats of scars, emptiness, the questions that all of us
live with as we miss, celebrate, and are heartbroken and changed by
the pregnant absences of our loved ones. A must-read for all who
want to ritualized and face the death that comes to us all.
*Juan Carlos Ruiz, Episcopal Diocese of Long Island*
Rev. Schaper has produced a book that is thoughtful and helpful for
those who will open themselves to considering the part that death
and dying play in living and life. Written mostly from a Christian
perspective, it nevertheless has insights and refreshing, light,
and honest views on approaching these issues that are applicable to
all persons in every faith, and none. It removes a good deal of
both the "ick" factor and the fear aspect, and is quite accessible.
I recommend it to clergy, laity, students, chaplains, doctors,
nurses, hospice workers, caregivers, thanatology professionals, and
all who will allow themselves to engage with this important and
meaningful aspect of the human condition.
*Rabbi Joe Blair, Gamliel Institute of Kavod v’Nichum; Jewish
Values Online; Bridgewater College*
Reading this book made me excited to live and die well! I am in my
thirties and, technically, not approaching the end of life.
However, Donna's perspective on ending life at a place of peace and
composure makes the hard topic of death totally comfortable,
accessible—and inspiring! I am already planning the best funeral
ever and living life to the fullest so that when that funeral
happens, it can truly be a celebration for all in attendance!
*Carissa Reiniger, founder and CEO, Silver Lining, Ltd.*
While Schaper says this book is about ‘dying,’ it is just as much
about living. The reader is encouraged to embrace death (and life!)
with ‘spiritual honesty’ in the context of a postmodern,
pluralistic twenty-first century. Her words have caused me to take
pause and reflect upon how I am choosing to live each day in
preparation for a wonder-full end, instead of an inevitable
conclusion. I am filled with a profound sense of hope. I want all
the people I love to read this book.
*David R. Gaewski, conference minister, New York United Church of
Christ*
Every time I thought I knew what was coming next in this book,
something different happened. Something creative, attractive,
disturbing, and delicious. The 'end' of life? Whether you are
thinking 'purpose' or 'stop,' it’s a joyful education, like a
dance, to not know what’s next. Like the substance of the book, so
is its style.
*Rabbi Arthur Waskow, author of The Tent of Abraham; director, The
Shalom Center*
Approaching the End of Life is an indispensable guide on how to
understand death and ritualized dying in our congregations, in our
families, and as we approach our own mortality. Blending the
pastoral and the practical, Rev. Dr. Schaper offers herself as a
clear-eyed shepherd through the faith and folk traditions that
surround death and dying in the twenty-first century.
*The Rev. Dr. William Lupfer, rector, Trinity Wall Street*
In our death-defying culture, how welcome to have this new book
that teaches us not only how to have a good death and playfully
imagine the great mystery beyond, but also how to live the fullest
life. Part Garrison Keillor, part Anne Lamott, Schaper leans into a
decades-long ministry to share with us stories and deep truths that
will make readers laugh and cry and think and feel their way to
healing and wholeness.
*The Rev. Dr. Katharine R. Henderson, president, Auburn Theological
Seminary*
Donna Schaper writes about how we respond to death—our own and
others—in ways that are both wise and practical. In so doing, she
helps us engage the most important realities we will ever face and
equips us to talk about them with those we love.
*Martin B. Copenhaver, president, Andover Newton Theological
School*
Donna Schaper looks squarely at the rich fullness of life without
flinching—even when life’s last event inevitably arrives. This
candid assessment of death and its leading days is an exercise of
the deepest core values, she says. This courageous book, with its
lively and intelligent tone, ingeniously loops back to how we live
our lives now. What a freedom in that.
*George E. Packard, retired bishop of the Episcopal Church*
In our life-obsessed culture where extending life at all
costs—ethical or otherwise—is the norm, this book asks questions
which take the reader against the tide: How to age gracefully? How
to live a ‘death-aware life’? How to see our end as ‘stardust’? And
how to reinterpret biblical metaphors for our time—a time which the
author insists is scarce?
*Adeel Khan, editor, Religions*
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