Religion, Love, and the Arrival of Death

Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, Final Gifts (New York: Bantam Books), 171-183, 211-237.

Ira Byock, Dying Well: Peace and Possibilities at the End of Life (New York: Riverhead Books), xiii-xv, 1-24, 35-57.

Stephen Levine, Meetings at the Edge: Dialogues with the Grieving and the Dying, the Healing and the Healed (New York: Anchor Doubleday), 61-61-70, 109-125, 200-211.

Today, many people die alone in nursing homes. This is a distinctly modern phenomenon.

Religion, Love, and death in Tension, Conciliation, and Resolution

At the end of life:
Emotional themes of love and conflict often emerge or re-emerge with pronounced intensity
Thus, conflict can increase near the time of death, but also love can become more intense
Love may take many forms including the unwillingness to let go (attachment), the loving preparation for the end, renewed appreciation for the preciousness of life and of love, and loving release to whatever lies beyond this life.

Death:
for this reason can escalate interpersonal, familial conflicts but also help to heal and resolve them

Religion and Spirituality:
Can be an influencing factor in the process of dealing with love and death, in both positive and negative ways.

Physical pain, emotional suffering, and spiritual struggles:
Ira Byock in particular examines the process of treating the physical pain associated with death and dying and its effect on a person's emotional state and spiritual yearnings.

Stephen Levine approaches similar issues but with an emphasis on not fighting the pain, and rather more on abiding with and in the pain.