It’s not every day that I read a book whose foreword is written
by a funeral director. Death is one of those things we don’t like to think
about too much. We know it’s there, looming on the horizon, but we tend to
ignore it until it rears its inevitable head, either through the death of
someone we love or our own serious illness or accident.
We are too busy living to spend much time contemplating
death. Perhaps that is how it should be. Yet, it is good sometimes to think
about the reality of death. It’s important to make practical plans, such as
making provisions for the care of our children. It is also important to think about
the spiritual lessons we want to leave behind. How do we want people to
remember us? What do we hope that they have learned from us?
This is the purpose of The
Journey Never Ends: How to Prepare a Spiritual Will by Sr. Mary Petrosky,
F.M.M. In the foreword, funeral director Thomas Lynch discusses the recent
trend of “Celebration of Life” ceremonies which often take the place of a
faith-based funeral. They are “memorial events designed not so much around what
they’d hoped for or kept faith in, but what they did with their free time.”
Sr. Mary, a psychiatric social worker and spiritual
director, invites us to dig deeper so that people remember us for more than our
hobbies. She emphasizes that creating a spiritual will in document form is not
just an effort for old age. After all, none of us knows the day or hour of our
passing from this life. But even if we were guaranteed another fifty years,
creating a spiritual will provides the opportunity to discern “what is of
enough value to you to dedicate your vision, your gifts, and your energy to.”
It offers the chance to reflect on what you learned from previous generations
as well as through your own experience.
In this brief book, Sr. Mary provides a template for writing
a spiritual will as well as offers examples of spiritual wills made by
individuals at various ages from their 40s to elderly.
The Journey Never Ends
is recommended for anyone who wishes to consider life and death more
purposefully.
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