"Elizaveta Iurievna Kuzmina-Karavaeva Skobtsova, later known as Mother Maria, was a Russian Orthodox religious thinker, poet and artist. Her multi-faceted legacy includes articles, poems, art, and drama. In the 1910s she was part of the literary milieu of St. Petersburg and was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. She fled Russia soon after the Bolsheviks' takeover and lived in Paris, where she became a nun. In 1935, she participated in organizing the so-called Orthodox Action, which was designed to help Russian immigrants in France. She and her fellow-workers from Orthodox Action opened a house for homeless and sick immigrants in Paris. During the Nazi occupation of the city, the house was transformed into a refuge for Jews and displaced persons. Mother Maria and her son were arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and died in the Ravensbruck camp in Germany. Mother Maria's selfless devotion to people and her death as a martyr will never be forgotten. In 2004, the Holy Synod confirmed the glorification of Mother Maria." - from Columbia University Libraries Special Collection link

Straight Talk About Death

What we need are more books about death that are conversational.  This one is just that.  You will not find any jargon or catch phrases or medical-gobbledygook here.  This is straight forward conversations about what goes on in and around the dying.  J.I. Willett has given us plain talk about death.

The book begins and ends with a poem - which as a poet, I love.  But the meat of the book concerns our options for who we are, and become while we are going through the dying process.  What kind of character do we want to become?  Will we focus on the present?  Will we be patient with the process?  Will we act the martyr?  All of this is a part of the dialogue our author brings to us - as if sitting across a table in a Parisian cafe and just chatting about our art.

It is something we should read if we have been given a terminal diagnosis - or someone we love has.  But, it is also a good book for helping us to integrate the idea that we will someday die into our current life.

Don't wait.  Read this today.


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