Through Deaths Door: How To Transform Grief Into Gratitude

Bulka (Chicken Soup with Chopsticks), a rabbi and psychologist, blends personal stories with practical advice in this brief memoir. Despite the self-helpish title.
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Gilbert not only shares her personal experience with loss but shows how others have used poetry, photography, and other artistic expressions to work through their grief. To anyone who believes in bibliotherapy, poetry therapy, and the power of writing to heal, this book is an incredible academic resource.


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Jul 07, Bonnie rated it really liked it Shelves: Part of my personal preparation for a 'death" course I'm teaching in fall semester. This book provides a wealth of references to literature concerned with the topics of death and dying, particularly focused on the manner of grieving in Western culture. If you are interested in how modern humans approach dying and grief through poetry then this is a great read. May 22, Cheryl Gatling added it. This book is a remarkable piece of scholarship. Sandra Gilbert set out to explore how poets write elegies to the dead, and how that writing has changed over the years.

If a poet has written about death and what poet hasn't? Sandra Gilbert has read and pondered their work. B This book is a remarkable piece of scholarship. But along the way her subject ran away with her, and snowballed. I think that if anything at all has been written about death, Ms Gilbert has read it. At times I thought the sheer weight of the evidence made the book something of a ponderous slog to get through, despite Ms Gilbert's obvious intelligence and sensitivity. I also thought the muchness of it all sometimes made it difficult to follow the thread of her argument.

Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve by Sandra M. Gilbert

But this is it: In the past, society had a view of death as "expiration," or the breathing out of the soul, which would ascend to God. This view was accompanied by rituals which brought comfort, mostly religious rituals. And the poetry of the time had religious imagery, or pastoral imagery with references to classical gods. The modern view of death is that of "termination," a complete ending.

The industrialization and dehumanization of death delivered on a massive scale by wars and other disasters has made the old consolations useless. Modern writers write about death in the form of bearing witness. They describe the brutality, the horror, the specifics of how the death happened, and they recall details of the life of the deceased. Is there any consolation? But the last word is that facing up to the reality of death, looking clear-eyed at that "door" through which our loved ones vanish, and through which the pain of widowhood or other loss enters our lives, is a kind of victory in itself.

Feb 07, Ann Michael rated it really liked it. For me, a qualified "really liked it.

Download Through Deaths Door: How To Transform Grief Into Gratitude book pdf | audio id:ox7fp2t

Gilbert is a fine poet and her inquiries into the work of poets such as Plath, Dickinson, and Whitman are profound; it's also an intriguing idea to explore the "how" of the ways "modern grieving" developed through several avenues. She looks at psychology, social attitudes, war, religion, science, politics, and literature and how all of these including economic impuls For me, a qualified "really liked it. She looks at psychology, social attitudes, war, religion, science, politics, and literature and how all of these including economic impulses and media have contributed to current U.


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All the same, I found much of the prose tedious Her examination of our ambiguous, fraught, embarrassed attitudes is welcome, even spot-on. I'd nevertheless prefer a prose with fewer rhetorical questions. Maybe the problem for me is her attempt to bring in the personal with the scholarly--those readers who prefer the former may want to read her memoir Wrongful Death instead. For nerdy types interested in philosophy, poetry, and sociology, her bibliography is to die for.

My to-read list is now about 30 books longer than it was. Feb 05, Bookmarks Magazine added it. Following the death of her husband as a result of medical malpractice, Gilbert picked up an academic study of elegies she had begun in the s and created this "graduate seminar on m A few reviewers refer to a letter of William Butler Yeats in which he stated that "sex and the dead" are the only topics of interest "to a serious and studious mood. Aug 27, Victoria added it. Sometimes not a feel good, summer beach read kind of book, but so far, fairly interesting.

Doors of Death

Sometimes critical distance can be just as therapeutic. Oct 10, Jeannette rated it did not like it. Confession up front - I didnt read all this book. The book is way too long, the writing turgid and sloppy by turns, the aims obscure, the whole subject drowned under the authors own grieving. So many other more positive and enlightening books out there. Oct 10, Andrea marked it as to-read. This is not a book. I'll be on this one for awhile. Phil rated it it was amazing Feb 12, Adina rated it it was ok Sep 18, Jo rated it it was amazing Apr 24, Stephen Maese rated it liked it Feb 04, Robyn rated it liked it Jun 07, Mylikun rated it it was amazing Apr 19, Oksana rated it it was amazing Apr 30, Camillo rated it it was amazing Aug 30, Camillo rated it really liked it Dec 11, Bob Cat rated it really liked it Oct 29, Anrpatel rated it liked it Dec 13, Adam rated it it was amazing Apr 25, Many of you, for instance, are at the twilight of life and endure long and difficult days.


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The Savior of the world repeatedly asked that we pattern our lives after His. So we must endure trials—as did He. When hardship heaps its heavy load upon us, good may yet be gleaned. Mortality, temporary as it is, is terminated by the doors of death. Questions then come to searching minds of those left behind. The first station in postmortal life is named paradise. Some facetiously state that nothing is as permanent as death.

The grip of physical death is temporary. It began with the fall of Adam; it ended with the atonement of Jesus the Christ. The waiting period in paradise is temporary, too. It ends with the resurrection. A few years ago, our stake president and his wife had a wonderful son taken in his youthful prime because of an automobile accident. The Lord who created us in the first place surely has power to do it again.

Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve

The same necessary elements now in our bodies will still be available—at His command. The same unique genetic code now embedded in each of our living cells will still be available to format new ones then.

The miracle of the resurrection, wondrous as it will be, is marvelously matched by the miracle of our creation in the first place. Our resurrection will not be an end but a new beginning. Even before we approach that threshold of the eternal court of justice, we know who will personally preside: Loving relationships continue beyond the doors of death and judgment. Family ties endure because of sealings in the temple. Their importance cannot be overstated. I remember vividly an experience I had as a passenger in a small two-propeller airplane.

One of its engines suddenly burst open and caught on fire. The propeller of the flaming engine was starkly stilled. As we plummeted in a steep spiral dive toward the earth, I expected to die. Some of the passengers screamed in hysterical panic. Miraculously, the precipitous dive extinguished the flames. Then, by starting up the other engine, the pilot was able to stabilize the plane and bring us down safely. I remember a sense of returning home to meet ancestors for whom I had done temple work. I remember my deep sense of gratitude that my sweetheart and I had been sealed eternally to each other and to our children, born and reared in the covenant.

I realized that our marriage in the temple was my most important accomplishment. Honors bestowed upon me by men could not approach the inner peace provided by sealings performed in the house of the Lord. That harrowing experience consumed but a few minutes, yet my entire life flashed before my mind. After judgment comes the possibility of eternal life—the kind of life that our Heavenly Father lives.

His celestial realm has been compared with the glory of the sun. It is available to all who prepare for it, the requirements of which have been clearly revealed: Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. Unfinished business is our worst business. Perpetual procrastination must yield to perceptive preparation. Today we have a little more time to bless others—time to be kinder, more compassionate, quicker to thank and slower to scold, more generous in sharing, more gracious in caring.

Frequently bought together

Then when our turn comes to pass through the doors of death, we can say as did Paul: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. We need not look upon death as an enemy. With full understanding and preparation, faith supplants fear. He bestowed this gift: Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. As a special witness of Jesus Christ, I testify that He lives! I also testify that the veil of death is very thin. I know by experiences too sacred to relate that those who have gone before are not strangers to leaders of this Church.

To us and to you, our loved ones may be just as close as the next room—separated only by the doors of death. With that assurance, brothers and sisters, love life! Cherish each moment as a blessing from God. Live it well—even to your loftiest potential.