Why am I doing this when it’s so damn trendy? Trendy stuff typically pisses me off and I avoid it like the plague–but then I ended up with a website and a cell phone too, and I actually leave it on. It just goes to show you that some things are so insidious they’re inevitable. So yes, in a way I’m just giving into the inevitable. I also suck at keeping a journal, at least in a book. I have had the same blank book as a journal for the last six years. Sometimes I still write in it. I really do like the physical aspects of actually picking up a pen and filling a blank page with text, it’s just that the computer is always in front of me and the blank book isn’t.
Lately I’ve started doing a few things that other people might either a) find mildly interesting or b) be able to learn from. So I’m going to share. If you don’t wanna know go read something else.
So what am I doing? I am married for the second time–we just hit five years. We have two children, a son who will be 4 shortly and a daughter who just turned 2. We have some cats. Unfortunately they come and they go. By day I’m a banker. In fact, I’m at work right now and using this bit of my lunch break to get things started here. I’m also a member of the Universal Eclectic Wicca leadership triad, a mentor to several online students, the priestess of Star and Spiral Coven in Bethlehem, PA where I am currently teaching three in-person students, I started and run the Lehigh Valley Pagan Association, I have a website, I’m still a Third Circle UEW student with an active project AND I just started volunteering for an awesome program called No One Dies Alone. I guess you could say I’m busy.
No One Dies Alone training started yesterday. I met some really wonderful-sounding people, many of whom had been in the ministry in some capacity at some point in their lives. Of course, I was the only non-Christian in the room. This program trains volunteers to sit with dying patients in hospitals who, for whatever reason, are going to be alone. Yesterday we watched a short movie called “Wit” with Emma Thompson and Christopher Lloyd. Just for the acting alone I would recommend it, but it was quite an experience. Like many people, I’ve never been present for the death of anyone. Even my pets have all breathed their last out of my presence somehow. This short film puts you literally right in the face of death. We were also given a book called “Crossing the Creek,” which is available online. It’s a brief introduction to the dying process.
According to the pros everyone is afraid of dying to some degree. I suppose that’s true. For me, I would say that I fear dying far more than I fear death itself. The idea of being dead holds no terror for me, but the process itself is sort of alien. I’m sure this experience will teach me an amazing amount about death and about life.A lot of people are a little freaked when they find out you’re going to voluntarily be present at a death, or you’re volunteering to be around death in general. I guess a lot of people haven’t spent much time thinking about their own mortality and what that means. Because I have spent a lot of time with these thoughts and I feel the call to ministry I see NODA as a valuable service I can provide in exchange for what the dying can teach me. Yes, I want to help, but I also want to be enriched as a person. And frankly, there aren’t too many “enriching volunteer experiences” to be had outside of the 9-5 spectrum, and in order for me to give I need to be able to do so at odd hours. This is a perfect opportunity.
I don’t have class again until next week, but I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say about other things between now and then.
