Mense soek mekaar gereeld op in kafee's in Amerika om oor die dood te praat.
Dit is 'n nuwe tendens in Amerika, soos onderstaande artikel uit vandag se NYT uitwys.
Dit klink morbied, maar die artikel wys watter interessante en boeiende perspektiewe na vore kom wanneer mense oor die dood praat. Wie het nou ooit gedink aan die sake wat in die gesprekke na vore kom.
Die artikel laat my dink: gelowige mense oral op die aarde reageer nogal soortgelyk. Die dood is ook hier by ons nie 'n gewilde onderwerp nie. Dokters, begrafnis-ondernemers en predikante is inderdaad mense wat meestal daarmee omgaan.
Maar waarom kan 'n mens nie inderdaad die "eksklusiewe" plek van die dood verander nie? Waarom kan mense nie in 'n rustige, normale gesprek daaroor praat nie (collatio!)
Die artikel kan nogal 'n hele klomp preke oor die dood genereer, dink ek terwyl ek dit lees. En dit kan 'n interessante bybelstudie-groep aan die gang sit.
En mense se innerlike behoefte, wat dikwels verdring word, na vore bring as 'n onderwerp vir bespreking.Want waaroor 'n mens nie praat nie, kan jou lewe negatief raak. Deur met ander te deel, kan 'n mens 'n groot klomp rustigheid kry.
Wat gebeur as 'n mens sterf? Hoe raak die feit dat 'n mens gaan sterf jou lewe? Hoe wil jy dat jou familie oor jou sterwe moet reageer? Waarom praat spiritualiteit oor die dood as die transformasie tot heerlikheid?
Stof tot nadenke!
¶Socrates
did not fear death; he calmly drank the hemlock. Kierkegaard was
obsessed with death, which made him a bit gloomy. As for Lorraine
Tosiello, a 58-year-old internist in Bradley Beach, N.J., it is the
process of dying that seems endlessly puzzling.
¶“I’m
more interested, philosophically, in what is death? What is that
transition?” Dr. Tosiello said at a recent meeting in a Manhattan coffee
shop, where eight people had shown up on a Wednesday night to discuss
questions that philosophers have grappled with for ages.
¶The
group, which meets monthly, is called a Death Cafe, one of many such
gatherings that have sprung up in nearly 40 cities around the country in
the last year. Offshoots of the “café mortel” movement that emerged in
Switzerland and France about 10 years ago, these are not grief support
groups or end-of-life planning sessions, but rather casual forums for
people who want to bat around philosophical thoughts. What is death
like? Why do we fear it? How do our views of death inform the way we
live?
¶“Death
and grief are topics avoided at all costs in our society,” said Audrey
Pellicano, 60, who hosts the New York Death Cafe, which will hold its
fifth meeting on Wednesday. “If we talk about them, maybe we won’t fear
them as much.”
¶Part
dorm room chat session, part group therapy, Death Cafes are styled as
intellectual salons, but in practice they tend to wind up being
something slightly different — call it cafe society in the age of the
meetup. Each is led by a volunteer facilitator, often someone who has a
professional tie to the topic (Ms. Pellicano, for instance, is a grief
counselor). The participants include people of all ages, working and
retired, who are drawn by Facebook announcements, storefront fliers,
local calendar listings or word of mouth. Women usually outnumber men.
¶“In
Europe, there’s a tradition of meeting in informal ways to discuss
ideas — the café philosophique, the café scientifique,” said Jon
Underwood, 40, a Web designer in London who said he held the first Death
Cafe in his basement in 2011 and has propagated the concept through a
Web site he maintains.
¶Mr.
Underwood adapted the idea from a Swiss sociologist, Bernard Crettaz,
who had organized “café mortels” to try to foster more open discussions
of death. “There’s a growing recognition that the way we’ve outsourced
death to the medical profession and to funeral directors hasn’t done us
any favors,” Mr. Underwood said. He envisioned Death Cafe as “a space
where people can discuss death and find meaning and reflect on what’s
important and ask profound questions.”
¶In
practice, people’s motives for attending vary, as does the depth of the
conversation. Dr. Tosiello, who said she had never lost a close family
member, was there for intellectual enjoyment. Others went to ponder the
questions and feelings that the death of a loved one had raised.
¶For
instance, at a Death Cafe meeting this month in St. Joseph, Mo., the
host, Megan Mooney, a 29-year-old social worker, asked each of the 19
participants to supply a single word that he or she associated with
death. “Freedom,” someone said. “Grief.” “Transition.” “Relief.”
“Finality.” And then, “Graduation.”
¶The
last came from Kelly Vanderpool, a 25-year-old mother, who was a high
school freshman when a friend with a new driver’s license died in an
auto accident. “Ever since, I’ve wanted to know where he was,” she said
in an interview. “Is it true that life continues? Is Joe around still?”
¶Jeneva
Stoffels, who is 69 and drove 70 miles from Auburn, Neb., to attend the
meeting, told Ms. Vanderpool that she did not have an answer. But she
did know that her late mother once spoke to her in a dream. “A younger
version, glowing and happy, an ‘I’m in a good place so you can let go’
kind of thing,” Ms. Stoffels said in an interview. “Regardless of where
it came from, it was reassuring.”
¶Ms.
Mooney, the host, asked a series of conversation-starting questions:
What is your biggest fear about death? What do you want your legacy to
be? She had brought markers and blank boards on which people could
finish the sentence “Before I Die I Want to … .” The responses included
“See Egypt,” “Win the lottery,” “Write a book of poems” and “See my
daughter grow up.”
Over all, Ms. Mooney said, “There are some somber moments, but people laugh. They have fun.”
¶The
meetings tend to be more mundane than macabre, and more likely to
produce small epiphanies than profound realizations. “It’s not like
psychotherapy,” Ms. Stoffels said. “There’s not going to be a big
breakthrough. It just widens the door a crack.”
¶Doctors
and scholars who study attitudes toward death say that for most people,
such conversations are healthy; talking about death can ease people’s
fears and the notion that death is taboo. “A major part of American
society is very averse to thinking about dying,” said David Barnard, a
professor of ethics at the Oregon Health and Science University who has
written extensively about the end of life.
In
the United States, Death Cafes have spread quickly. The first one met
last summer in a Panera Bread outside Columbus, Ohio, where guests were
served tombstone-shaped cookies. Since then, more than 100 meetings have
been held in cities and towns across the country, including Atlanta,
Baltimore, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Seattle.
“At
one cafe, I had someone who believed in reincarnation sitting across
from three atheists, telling them about her past lives,” said Lizzy
Miles, a hospice social worker who organized that first meeting in
Columbus and has led the group there ever since. Discussion topics have
included euthanasia, grief, the best-selling book “Proof of Heaven” and
do-not-resuscitate orders.
Ms.
Miles logged 112 participants in her first nine events and determined
that a quarter were under 35 and 22 percent were over 65, with most ages
45 to 64 and women predominating. About half of the people who filled
out a survey after a meeting agreed with the statement that “I feel more
comfortable talking about death and dying now.”
The
Death Cafe movement has a few ground rules. Meetings are confidential
and not for profit. People must respect one another’s disparate beliefs
and avoid proselytizing. And tea and cake play an important role.
