new church life: november/december 2017
And now she reflects: “When I see the hospital where Paul lived and died
as a physician and a patient, I understand that had he lived he would have
made great contributions as a neurosurgeon and a neuroscientist. He would
have helped countless patients and their families through some of the most
challenging moments of their lives – the task that drew him to neurosurgery
in the first place. He was, and would have continued to be, a good person
and a deep thinker. Instead, this book is a new way for him to help others, a
contribution only he could make. This doesn’t make his death, our loss, any
less painful. But he found meaning in the striving.”
And so this book is a moving memorial to a man, and his commitment
to his ongoing use. But why the title: When Breath Becomes Air? It is in the
inscription this wise, poetic, philosophical, caring man chose for his book,
from 16 th Century poet, dramatist and statesman Baron Brook Fulke Greville,
in Caelica 83:
You that seek what life is in death,
Now find it air that once was breath.
New names unknown, old names gone:
Till time ends bodies, but souls none.
Reader! Then make time, while you be,
But steps in your eternity.
(BMH)
marketing life after death
Five years ago Dr. Mary Neal, an orthopedic surgeon, wrote a best-selling
book, To Heaven and Back, about a near-death experience when she was
trapped under water for 24 minutes in a kayaking accident in Chile.
The book was an immediate success, spawning a personal website, a
Facebook page, a newsletter, speaking tours and a lot of radio and TV exposure.
This has led to a recently published sequel: 7 Lessons from Heaven: How Dying
Taught Me to Live a Joy-Filled Life.
This book was prompted by a nagging question: How does knowing
heaven is real change our lives on earth? This is her attempt to answer the
question. She says: “I am praying that the words I speak during the interviews
will bring people into a new or deeper relationship with the God who is real
and present in our world, loves each of us beyond what we can imagine, and
has a plan for us that is one of hope.”
But, she adds, “I have never finished speaking at a venue, including
corporate settings, without people wanting to know more.”
Of course they do. The one sure knowledge we all live with is that someday
we will die. And then what? Most people believe in life after death and that it
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