End-of-Life Books

Mr. Kleespies magnificent text is a must read for everyone!! One never knows when they will be faced with end-of-life care decisions and we must take the time now to be well informed and prepared. I believe that the lay person as well as the professional will gain a great deal of knowledge from this book.
A wonderful companion book to this is a marvelous new publication by Renata Vestevich entitled "Grant Me My Final Wish: A personal journal to simplify life's inevitable journey."
We all need to make our wishes known while we are still able to communicate and this journal will take you step-by-step through this process. It is something that you can begin writing in now, filling it with your requests for just how you want that inevitable day to be carried out. You can also fill it full of precious memories and photographs which will become a treasured keepsake for family members.
Now is the time..in the present..for us to become well informed about such issues as outlined in Mr. Kleespies text. After reading it you may want to go one step further by beginning to personalize your own wishes in Ms. Vestevich's beautiful journal.
Thank you both for helping us prepare for such challenging issues right now while there still is time to do so...

Helped tremendously in answering a lot of questions regarding the subject. Writer has very well divided different levels of souls with varying life cycles. Helped understand the concepts of ghosts, angels and rebirth.

Excellent and comforting in helping a grieving person to find solace in the memories of those who have passed on. It helps the modern person to incorporate a sense of immortality of the soul through our loved ones living on in our hearts. I would recommend it for anyone, whether Jewish or not, who has experienced loss and is trying to recover from that grief.

So says author Margaret Swedish in the concluding chapter of her sober but hopeful Living Beyond the End of the World. Hers is one of the most courageous books published in the last few years, and she and her publisher, Orbis, are to be commended for saying what few of us want to be told.

We--the world in general and the U.S. in particular--are in a crisis, and it's likely to get much worse. Climate change is a reality that will impact economies, geopolitical relations, individual lifestyles and health, and the very stability of the good earth itself. The "American Way of Life," predicated on an abundance of cheap, nonrenewable fuel, is over. The problem is that we've become so addicted to it in the very short time it's been around--a generation or so--that we can't quite bring ourselves to believe that it's an exception rather than the rule. So we go on pursuing it, to the detriment of the environment. In the meantime, the rich truly are getting richer (and fewer) and the poor are getting poorer (and more numerous). The end of the world as we know it is upon us, and there's nothing we can do to salvage it.

What we can do, however, is rethink who we are and what our purpose is--this is what Swedish means by reinventing our presence on earth. We need, as she says, to begin learning how to restore our "primary relationship" with our "home community"--earth. Doing this is a holistic work that necessarily redirects our interpersonal, economic, and political relationships too. We become better seers, better listeners, and better at grateful wonderment, because we've weaned ourselves from our alienated drive to subdue and seize the planet.

Swedish tells us that she chooses to believe that the reinvention our dire situation calls for is possible. She chooses hope, believing that we can discover the moral will to create a better world, one more compatible with our role as God's stewards. But her message isn't one for pollyannas. She's painfully aware that the task before us is colossal, and that whatever happens in the future, the lifestyle that the baby-boomer generation enjoyed is a thing of the past. We're moving into a "permanent fast." The only question is whether it will be voluntary, thought-through, and reflective, or forced by circumstances.

Read this book alongside James Howard Kunstler's brilliant and equally disturbing The Long Emergency, as well as his futuristic novel World Made by Hand. Equally timely are Thich Nhat Hanh's The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology and Michael Mann & Lee Kump's Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming.

It's not always an easy skill to make something so serious and scary, like the Revelation, into such a readable and enjoyable (and extremely funny, believe it or not) non-fiction book. I personally like his humour, particularly when he mocks the devil. But at the same time, he is also able to sustain the seriousness of the whole subject. Not only that. He can put the information in his book to such a readable level that, I believe, anyone can understand it. I would recommend this book to anyone who has interest in knowing about the Revelation, in a simpler version with MORE information.

I've read through At Home with God and will use the material with my school-age children. As a single parent, it is hard to find ways to spend devotional time with younger elementary kids. Too much is going on and I'm tired at the end of the day, but this book's premise is based on my scenario--and the ways all families operate today! We'll be able to pick up the book, turn to the day's devotional, read it together, do the suggestions, and enjoy ourselves as a little church.

The devotions are biblically based. They explore the Bible instead of delving into complex or ridiculous theological discussions (such as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin).

I'm looking forward to having faithfilled fun with my children.

This is a well written book and applicable to all types of relationships. I liked how each relationship characteristic was broken down into bite sized chapters and this author seemed to break open new ground in recognizing the true pitfalls and opportunities to change how marriage relationships could really be healthy and successful. I am not easily taken by all the "help-yourself," "do it yourself and mess things up" books and this is not one of them at all. This book truly lives up to what other reviewers wrote . . . follow what is written in this book and your marriage, all your relationships, for the rest of your life will be more than you could have ever imagined!

FROM THE AUTHOR: This book is a fun gift for any new or soon to be new dad. It's meant to give them a laugh, a smile and a hint or two. It's great for showing them they are not alone in their confusion about babies.

I am a very enthusiastic user of these audios, and got this one for my uncle who was dying of pancreatic cancer. He went from being agitated and miserable to being peaceful and calm. So did my aunt, who stayed in the room with him when it was playing long enough to reap some benefits. He's gone now, but she still listens to it. It comforts her in her grief. I love the voice, the music and the words on this one are just beautiful. Very poetic. The music is amazing.

For quite a few years, I've been a fan of the Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy books. After reading all the lesser quality books from the library, at an Antiquarian bookstore, I stumbled upon this book that has all of the novels into one collection. With the thickly clothed leather, and gorgeous gold lettering and page edges, this out of print Hitchhiker's Guide is a collectibe, I will treasure forever on a special place in my bookcase.