Grief literary advocate Stephen Jenkinson connects with Raghu for a thought-provoking conversation on palliative care and dying wise.
“Without limits and frailties and endings, then everything we’re talking about has no meaning; you can’t find it.” – Stephen Jenkinson
In this episode, Stephen Jenkinson and Raghu Markus peruse:
- The importance of storytelling and the human voice
- Finding an alternative outlet for divinity
- Existential fear and dying wise
- Moral and ethical dilemmas within the healthcare system
- What constitutes care and the many gaps in medical practice wisdom
- Medical assistance in dying to relieve suffering
- Why limits and endings give life meaning
- The wisdom and belonging of sadness
- Bargaining for more time instead of examining the quality of time
- A better way to relate to the transition of life into death
- The idea of being ‘too late’ and the consequences of our perceptions
- Hope as a mortgage on life and the certainties we falsely rely on
- Death as a deity that we should accommodate
“I think if we cultivated a capacity to be sad we would make enormous headroads into our propensity for fear. I think sadness is an absolutely compelling and legitimate alternative but it needs at least as much tuition as fear does. You have to learn to be afraid, obviously, and you have to learn sadness as well.” – Stephen Jenkinson
About Stephen Jenkinson:
Stephen Jenkinson is a cultural activist, international teacher, and author. He is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School and has Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work). Apprenticed to a master storyteller when a young man, he has worked extensively with dying people and their families. He is the former program director in a major Canadian hospital and former assistant professor in a prominent Canadian medical school. Stephen is also a sculptor and traditional canoe builder.