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By ANN LEWIS BOYD
(Hood College, USA)
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We might acknowledge death as a universal experience, but all too often we prefer to live with the illusion medicine will rescue us from death’s grasp, if not forever, at least this time. We allow modern science to deny death its proper place in the fabric of life, and so delay making end-of-life plans, forcing our caregivers to guess at our wishes as we approach death. Yet those who grant death its proper place, and those privileged to sit or kneel at their bedside, encounter the intersection of the transcendent and the imminent. All we know through reason and experience slips out of our grasp, and we cannot yet see what lies beyond death’s veil. We can accompany the dying, rowing the boat, but the one who is dying must show us the way. Death is but the final chapter, reflecting all that has been sacred and important in that individual’s life, what has been, what might have been and what might yet be. Ann Lewis Boyd’s experience at the bedside of the dying has persuaded her that Jeremy Taylor, a sixteenth century Anglican Divine correctly observed, “One dies the way one lives.” The author began the journey that led to the writing of this book at the bedside of a beloved friend, when medicine’s illusion of power over death had been destroyed by a very aggressive cancer. She sought a synthesis between theology and ethics with respect to the end of life. This book marks a major milestone but not the end of that journey. Ann Lewis Boyd explored the Christian tradition and scriptures, applied reason and her own experience seeking to integrate these various threads. She believes the resulting wisdom of hope can allow us to face death with a confidence that the compassion of friends, who surround us in this life, mirror the Compassionate One who welcomes us into eternity.
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Ann Lewis Boyd is professor of biology at Hood College in Maryland and an ordained Episcopal Priest. She began her career as a research scientist at the Frederick Cancer Research Facility in support of the National Cancer Institute. Teaching courses in biomedical science including biomedical ethics and being conversant in medical terminology for many years, she was active in pastoral care in her Episcopal parish more than twenty years before her ordination to the priesthood. Author of numerous scientific articles, Ethics and Theology Meet at the Bedside of the Dying is her first book.
xiv + 142 p. Bibliography and Index. ISBN: 1-931948-70-4
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