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Wild Goose Publications - Tom Gordon

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120 pages

English

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Tom Gordon introduces us to people who have been helped to live until they die, or to live through bereavement when they felt it was never going to be possible, or to live with illness and suffering and problems which threatened to overwhelm them completely. As well as hearing some of their stories, we learn about images and techniques the author has offered to help such people regain meaning and purpose in their lives - to face their need for living. Written when the author worked as a Marie Curie hospice chaplain.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

Christian worship

Informations

Publié par	Wild Goose Publications
Date de parution	07 juillet 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781849521727
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0550€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

will bring great support and help - a tremendous source of spiritual comfort.
Sarah Grotrian,Secretary for Scotland Marie Curie Cancer Care
Everyone has a need for meaning in life. For most of us, it is only when we are facing a life crisis, or the loss of a loved one, or the reality of our own death that the search for meaning becomes real. How then do we express what really matters?
Facing this in his work as hospice chaplain at the Marie Curie Centre, Edinburgh, Tom Gordon has often found that explanations sound trite and shallow, and that even traditional beliefs are not sufficient. So, to help him understand and respond to people s search for meaning, he has come to use word pictures, imaginative concepts into which they can be drawn, and through which they can articulate their feelings better than words.
This book presents a series of these images, woven together with some stories of people with whom they have been used. It is a book for those facing a life crisis and for those who care for the dying. Ultimately it is a book for everyone, especially those for whom traditional words and symbols have failed, and who need new images to help them live again.
A Need for Living
Signposts on the journey of life and beyond
Tom Gordon
Chaplain Marie Curie Centre, Fairmile Edinburgh
Copyright 2001 Tom Gordon
First published 2001 by Wild Goose Publications 4th Floor, Savoy House, 140 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3DH, UK www.ionabooks.com Wild Goose Publications is the publishing division of the Iona Community. Scottish Charity No. SC003794. Limited Company Reg. No. SC096243.
ePub: ISBN 978-1-84952-172-7 Mobipocket: ISBN 978-1-84952-171-0 PDF: ISBN 978-1-84952-170-3
Cover photograph Mary Gordon
All rights reserved. Apart from reasonable personal use on the purchaser s own system and related devices, no part of this document or file(s) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Non-commercial use: Prayer, reflection and exercise material in this book may be used non-commercially for worship and group work without written permission from the publisher. If parts of the book are printed out for such use, please make full acknowledgement of the source, e.g. Tom Gordon from A Need for Living, published by Wild Goose Publications, Glasgow, UK. Where a large number of copies are printed out, a donation may be made to the Iona Community via Wild Goose Publications, but this is not obligatory.
For any commercial use of the contents of this book, permission must be obtained in writing from the publisher in advance.
Tom Gordon has asserted his right in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Preparing the paintings
2 The traveller in the desert
3 The companion on the journey
4 Sharing the tears
5 A pilot in home waters
6 A door between two rooms
7 Clearing the attic
8 The broken contract
9 Finishing the business
10 The observation coach
11 Damming the stream
12 The growing child
13 The damaged painting
14 The untidy drawer
15 Climbing the rock face
16 The table
17 The picture gallery
References and copyright acknowledgements
Index of exercises, prayers and reflections
Dedication
To Mary, Mairi, Kathryn and James, for being the unique individuals they are, and for all the love and laughter we share as a family
Acknowledgements
I can t write an acknowledgement for this book without using one of my pictures. Writing a book is like giving birth. The gestation period during which the idea grows and the writing takes shape is long and often arduous, and is especially trying when it comes close to full term . Then, when the child is born, through a time of difficult labour, there is your baby, complete, new, and amazing to behold. What follows is a sense of wonder - how did you get from the moment of con -ception all that time ago to this final product? And then comes what is, perhaps, the most scary part - you have to let it go, to see your creation take its own life, independent of you, with no idea what kind of existence it will have.
So, in watching and wondering how this child of mine will develop, I pause and rest after this birthing process to recall with gratitude those who have helped nurture my baby to this stage. Thanks are due to Tom Paxton and Cherry Lane Music for their permission to quote one of Tom s songs and for giving me the title of the book; to all those people who know how important their encouragement has been with this project and many other facets of ministry over the years; to my good friend Dorothy Innes, Centre Director at the Marie Curie Centre Fairmile for twenty years, and to all my colleagues on the staff for their unfailing support and cooperation; to Sandra, Alex and the staff at Wild Goose Publications for their positive and affirming attitude, and for the suggestions and guidance which have made this a better book than I could have produced myself; for good friends and wise counsellors from whom I have gained insights, with whom I have shared love, and who have given me, often unwittingly, some of the images this book contains; and, most importantly, to my family, including those to whom this book is dedicated, for their love, enthusiasm, tolerance and good humour, and for always keeping my feet on the ground.
Finally, I pay tribute to those people who have allowed me to share their journey of life and faith, and who have welcomed me into personal and painful parts of their lives. There are those whose stories I tell in this book - and whose names and circumstances have been sufficiently altered to protect their anonymity - and those countless others with whom I have had the privi -lege to journey. For their willingness to trust and share, and for giving me much more than I have given them, I will be eternally grateful.
August 2001, Edinburgh
Introduction
Through all the changing scenes of life
Nahum Tate
Praying for grace, and faced with a need for living
Tom Paxton: Pandora s Box
Telling people at parties that I work in a hospice, and more especially that I am a hospice chaplain, is a certain conversation-stopper. There are a number of standard reactions. Faces fall and take on a worried frown, voices which were light and cheerful become serious and heavy. And among the stock responses is the phrase: Goodness, that must be very depressing.
I ve thought a lot about that comment and my reaction - along the lines of: No, never depressing. Hard work, certainly. Stressful and sad at times? Yes, that too. But depressing? Never! And why? Because my work, while perceived, not surprisingly, to be about dying, is in practice about living. And the people I work with - patients, carers and colleagues - are people who wish to live full lives even when faced with the reality of death.
I m an enthusiast for what I do. I love my work! The satisfaction which comes from helping people deal with the important things of life in the face of death is very real and sustaining for me. And that is primarily because working in a hospice is about life in all its variety and changing scenes.
There s a Tom Paxton song called Pandora s Box which contains these words:

Night passed so slowly, all the dreams were bad;
Pandora s box fell down, it broke open.
All of my memories - bound to make me sad -
I heard every unkind word I d spoken.
Hard though I tried, I couldn t get myself awake;
Hard though I cried, I would remember each mistake.
Praying for sunrise, prayers were all I had,
Prayers and all the promises I d broken.
How can I make it, feeling this way,
Not at all convinced to go on living.
No place to go to, no excuse to stay,
One more soul in bad need of forgiving.
Hard though I tried, I couldn t get myself awake;
Hard though I cried, I would remember each mistake.
Hanging on til sunrise, living day by day,
Praying for grace, and faced with a need for living.
It is often only in the face of your own mortality that Pandora s box breaks open, and the jumble of memories and fears, mistakes and broken promises tumbles out and threatens to overwhelm you and destroy any sense of the rightness in living you had worked out along the way. So it is at that point that life has to be tackled in all its com plexity. It is at that point that we hear the cry for grace, for meaning and purpose in the knowledge of the impermanence of life. And it is at that point that the chaplain s role in a hospice is real - when, faced with a need for living, people crave encouragement to live and to understand the fullness of their living, until they die.
This is the raison d tre for my work, and why I can say at parties I love what I do when others would consider it depressing. Faced with a need for living. How can you fail to find satisfaction when your role is to help people with that?
What follows in these chapters, therefore, is a collection of reflections on pictures and people in the field of spiritual care, offering practical guidance for anyone s life journey when they seek meaning and purpose in living. You will be introduced to people who have been helped to live until they die, or to live through bereavement when they felt it was never going to be possible, or to live with illness and suffering and problems which threatened to overwhelm them completely. And you will hear some of the stories and be introduced to some of the images and techniques I have offered over the years to help them face their need for living. It is not an exhaustive account of my time as a hospice chaplain, since there are many more people whose stories could be told and, I am sure, many more pic -tures which, when formed and utilised, will continue to provide benefit to such people. Nor is it a textbook on chaplaincy or spiritual care, although I hope that there might be something i