[Dialogue] Planet Fitness

Tue Jun 27 11:46:33 PDT 2023

Wow, amazing. John Burbidge just sent me a note that we all should watch
the movie* Living*- about what death releases.
Dick

On Tue, Jun 27, 2023 at 1:10 PM Alfrieda Wilkins via Dialogue <
dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

> Couple of connections this post prompted that I wanted to share…the
> wellness center at Swedish Covenant Hospital was envisioned and came into
> being at the time I was joining Dr. JoAnn Cannon, and her company Inward
> Bound Ventures as I was moving out of 4750. JoAnn was a consultant there
> and we worked with a Dr. Tim ??? who managed the center. Our “What’s Right
> with Your Life?” self assessment formed part of the foundational focus for
> wellness there, as it was the first center of it’s kind.
> Your emphasis of focusing on facing death as an important part of freeing
> us to truly live and make the best use of our end of life time coincides
> with other work I’ve been involved with, as I’ve just returned from
> Ashland, OR where Dr. Peggy Rubin lead a seminar “Facing the Bardo and
> Dance” using Shakespeare’s Act Five as the point at which really important
> work is possible. Second session planned for Oct. 19-22. And of course all
> your efforts Dick, with The Last Chapter to assist people in preparation
> for ending/beginning.
> Alfrieda Wilkins
>
> On Jun 21, 2023, at 6:45 PM, Richard Alton via Dialogue <
> dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
> *Join Planet Fitness*
> I have been in the Chicago ICA Community about a year and half. When I
> first arrived, I asked Terry Bergdall about where the closest gym and he
> recommended the Swedish Hospital and showed me how to get there. Great
> ride. A little expensive but great service at about $73 a month. Because of
> inflation they just raised it to $83. Anyway, I was talking to Martin a
> fellow community member about biking, and he said he biked to his gym.
> Great ride and only $10/month. $10/month!! So, I go to Planet Fitness and
> it is great and is a two mile bike ride. Joined.
>
>
> Love the name because I am into PLANET fitness or maybe the lack of it. My
> Congregation has run a series of sessions on sustainability after worship
> over the last 6 months. The last session was on Palm Sunday and Dr. Michael
> Hogue, Professor of Ethics, Philosophy and Theology spoken on Death and the
> Planet Earth. It turns out he is writing a book on death. He proceeded to
> lead us in a guided exercise on facing death:
> ·      What does facing death (our own, and others) free us to know and
> conversely, what ignorance does death aversion bind us to?
> ·       How does facing death help us to notice what really matters, or
> what we ultimately value? And conversely, what
> duties/responsibilities/obligations does death aversion lead us to evade?
> This was an amazing conversation with about 20 people for an hour and a
> half
> Death aversion is big. Especially ecologically. The earth is impermanent
> and when we discount the future, we externalize the cost of what we are
> doing to the planet. This is why Dark Ecology wants us to face the abyss.
> We can’t avoid the uncertainty of life, the world.
> And then I found myself reading a section of the New York Book Review
> called  “Hastening the End” “We humans, one writes, are an essentially
> “parasitic” species, our growth and dominance has been a uniquely
> disastrous process for the planet and for those other species who must live
> on it”; “that the end of humanity’s reign on Earth is imminent and that we
> should welcome it”
>
>
> Yes, so what does facing death free us to know and do? Some say we are
> living the age of death- the great extinction. This is why confronting
> death is most needed in our time. How is facing our own death and
> civilizations so needed?
>
>
> First, death helps with our life focus. What do we want to accomplish with
> this life? As Becker in The Denial of Death points out, “this question
> gives hope, because it holds open the dimension of the unknown and the
> unknowable, the fantastic mystery of creation that the human mind cannot
> even begin to approach”  But death also releases the great perplexity of
> our time: ‘The plain debasing and silly heroics of the acquisition and
> display of consumer goods, the piling up of money and privileges that now
> characterizes whole ways of
> life.”.
>
>
>
> Second, knowing you will die helps you focus on the now. Death enhances
> the ability to live in the present. And from being right at all costs. If
> one thing relatives our anger and conflicts, it is death. You appreciate
> more fully our wonderful life when you truly know that your time is
> limited. You don’t want to waste it.
>
>
> Third, dead tends to release us from an inappropriate sense of
> self-importance. Death avoidance feeds human hubris and our earth-
> destroying fantasies of conquest and consumption. The antihuman revolt
> shares the convictions that the page has been turned on the final chapter.
> Death releases us from the absorption with our life, out to the big picture
> of life. It releases us from the immediacy of our life to embrace the
> vastness of existence that we are part of. It is said that death releases
> love. As one article titled: “Think about your death and live better.” It
> is like self-emptying, making yourself nothing to make yourself available
> to all. By leaning into the reality of one’s own death, one finds
> happiness- one loses the trivial life sucking care of everyday life.
>
>
> In facing death, one finds the marvelous, the absolute mystery of life.
>
>
> Dick Alton
> ICA GreenRise since 2021
>
> --
> Richard H. T. Alton
> ICA Global Fund
> Methodist Eco-Sustainability T/F
> T: 773.344.7172
> richard.alton at gmail.com
> Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
> Won't you be my neighbor?
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-- 
Richard H. T. Alton
ICA Global Fund
Methodist Eco-Sustainability T/F
T: 773.344.7172
richard.alton at gmail.com
Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
Won't you be my neighbor?
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