Biopsychosociospiritual
Is that legal? It took me a long time to figure out how to break it up and read it - that middle section is a toughie - and I was hooked on the word "Biopsy" since the word that came after that conglomeration was "medicine."
The first paragraph of the essay (which was all that was posted) talked about how, for hundreds of years, sickness, death and dying took place in a monastic community. Monks and brothers were the herb masters and doctors and a large focus of monastic life was on caring for the poor and needy - those approaching death especially. In such a community the dying were tended to both physically and spiritually (thus the big old word in the title). The monks and nuns had a way of life and view of death that aided those confronting their own mortality. The author posits that, although sickness and death as well as medicine and patient care have changed dramatically, we have retained some remnants of this sort of care . . .
and that was all that was posted.
Fascinating
3 comments:
What??? That's all we get??? You can't do this to me!!! Must have more!!! Thank you for sharing it though - I'm going to think about this today - and I love that you saw the word 'biopsy' - I did not until you pointed it out! So- another fascinating reality of our world - the differences with which we see reality.
(DO NOT WATCH "being John Malkovich" - dumb movie. But it does deal with how we see reality, and seeing it from someone else's reference)
OH - and what is this? I can post to you as Grandma at the Farm and yesterday, when I had a SWEET comment for Chris it wouldn't go through?? I guess I'm not quite the 'blogarina' i would like to be. (new word from cyberworld I learned yesterday. I'm working on the lingo.) Mom
That really is fascinating. It's been something on my mind a lot these last few years, about how we "do" things like birth and death in our society. I think these things, especially death, are taken out of the communal, familiar contexts in which we live and "taken care of" by someone else. And we lose so much by not seeing death (and birth) as a spiritual as well as physical event.
If you find more of this article, POST IT!! :)
I couldn't agree more. Being with Gramps as he passed away really brought this home to me. He was in a hospice and surrounded by family and friends - and it was amazing. But it was so difficult just knowing how to "do" death. How to "be" (act, speak, think etc) in a situation like that - when it is so absolutely foreign to us. Gramps passed surrounded by loved ones - but there were so many people there who were slowing dying, without the help of a family or community. But the mentality has sunk in that "we shouldn't have to deal with this" i.e. mom or dad, grandma or grandpa dying. "we shouldn't have to look at the aged body, smell the smells and hear the sounds of death slowly overtaking this person." It is painfully difficult, but it is good for all.
Unfortunately I don't think I'll find more of the article. It was from some obscure Philosophy journal. And, I googled the title and didn't get any conclusive hits - if I can't find it on the web, I'm sure it hardly exists
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