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Oct 19, 2018
"Grief is not a feeling, it is a capacity. It is not something that disables you, we are not on the receiving end of grief we are on the practicing end of grief." --Stephen Jenkinson
Stephen Jenkinson Reimagines Dying
Stephen Jenkinson brings a stark new attitude to work with people who are dying. When asked why in this interview, he explains that this is an ambivalent time. "And the culture that I know well...believes in knowing. It rewards knowing." So in speaking with with the dying, who are in a not-knowing situation, even consternation, he wants to "subvert knowledge and certainty...so that learning gets a chance to appear." He sees ambivalence as a skill to be developed in the face of consternation. Because "your consternation is the place where your eloquence is most relied upon and traded upon and practiced," he encourages "the capacity to nurse several often contending things at the same time without collapsing into a decision in favour of one and banishing the others."
BE THE CHANGE
Stephen calls this preparation "an exercise in discerning not judging." Try practicing that today with whatever you have to do, separating what's important from what's not important, by discerning rather than judging.
