An active Sedona Unitarian Universalist Fellowship congregant recently died after a short illness, stunning those who knew him.<\/p>\n
Although we know death comes for us all, we also know that we each have a unique life and offer something to this world that will never exist again.<\/p>\n
Before death, we are available to travel the road with the dying and their loved ones, providing home or hospital visits, cards and letters, transportation, meals, discussion about end-of-life arrangements, and conversations about their thoughts and feelings related to this profound transition.<\/p>\n
Ours is a community of companionship. We try to be there for each other in ways that people want. We sit, talk, hug, and sometimes cry with each other–although mostly we listen.<\/p>\n
We respect individuals\u2019 ability to make informed end-of-life decisions.<\/p>\n
UU congregations try to provide the kind of worship, community connections, and friendships that open the heart and mind and keep the dying and the bereaved connected to life.<\/p>\n
Our memorial services honor the ethnic, cultural, and spiritual traditions of the deceased and their loved ones. We affirm diverse identities, families, and loving relationships.<\/p>\n
We mourn what is lost when any of us dies, and we celebrate the contributions that person made. We do not insist on a single set of beliefs about what comes after our body\u2019s death, nor do we expect that survivors express their grief in any one way. Some want solitude and others prefer a house full of friends.<\/p>\n
We honor the religious past of some families, like sitting Shiva, having a lively wake, celebrating Home Going, delivering food to the grieving family, and, for some, washing the body of a loved one in preparation for a burial.<\/p>\n
We deal holistically with death, but don\u2019t dwell on it. We try to live fully while we can, build a legacy of love and compassion, and pass on our wisdom to those who live after us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An active Sedona Unitarian Universalist Fellowship congregant recently died after a short illness, stunning those who knew him. Although we know death comes for us all, we also know that we each have a unique life and offer something to this world that will never exist again. Before death, we are available to travel the … Continue reading Death and Grieving [#93]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8022"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8895,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8022\/revisions\/8895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}