Dying Religions

With a balance of wisdom, candor, and scholarly rigor, the beloved archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, Charles J. Chaput, traces the human experience from ancient times to today to find threads of connection in our yearning for God, love, honor, beauty, truth, and immortality. He looks at our modern appetite for consumption and individualism and offers a penetrating analysis of how we got here and how we can look to our roots and our faith to find purpose each day amid the noise of competing desires.

On December 10, 2009, Crystal McVea was being treated in a hospital for pancreatitis. Her heart stopped pumping for nine minutes before doctors managed to revive her. In those nine minutes, she went to heaven, stood with God, and was forever changed.

Join Merry Hanson, a very modern 16-year-old living in Pennsylvania's Amish country, as she faces the true-to-life struggles and heartfelt triumphs of growing up to be the best she can be in God's eyes. Can Merry count on her friends to understand as she at last attempts to come to grips with a years-old tragedy?

In this deeply affecting and uplifting book, Janet Wehr shares the real-life stories of her many years as a hospice nurse. Her first-hand account gives illuminating and comforting insight into the spiritual aspect of what occurs in the transition between life and death, highlighting the importance of the mind-body-spirit connection as it manifests in the dying process. It also gives a candid impression of hospices and hospice nurses and the services they can provide. All of Janet’s 46 personal stories are true, fascinating, heart-felt, and thought-provoking.

Is there a way to walk into the final chapters of life with peace and confidence, and with support and wisdom? We all are living an earthly story with a beginning, middle, and end. While aspects of our story's closing hold mystery, we do not have to feel lost as we move toward it. We instead can lean on the support and wisdom of others who know the path ahead. In Anticipating Heaven, Dr. Pyle offers that same practical advice and spiritual comfort to you and your loved ones as you navigate a serious illness.

After his father died, Leon Wieseltier began to observe the traditional year-long period of mourning, going to the synagogue three times a day to recite the prayer known as the mourner's Kaddish. Struck by the profound, yet unexpected power of this practice and the poverty of his knowledge about it, Leon began to study the history and meaning of this ancient ritual.

The case for assisted suicide can seem so compelling. Surely it can't be wrong to help desperate people to kill themselves? Don't we have a right to take our own lives in certain circumstances? There are no trite or easy answers. John Wyatt helps us to navigate the arguments with hearts and heads engaged, and above all with our Bibles open. There are practical and compassionate alternatives to assisted suicide, and as many who have gone before us have found, the end of our lives on this earth may turn out to be a strange and wonderful opportunity for growth and internal healing.

What happens after we die? Where does our soul go? An experience that will never let you go. Encounters that are difficult to explain. How being a highly sensitive person has its challenges in life. Themes that deal with life and death, and the question of what comes next after we leave this planet. Based on her profound insight into these provocative questions, Monica Hards tells in her book Dying to Live of her own out-of-body and near-death experiences and much more.

When she was pregnant with her second child, Stephanie Arnold had a sudden and overwhelming premonition that she would die during the delivery. Although she tried to tell the medical team and her family what was going to happen, neither the doctors nor her loved ones gave her warnings credence. One member of the medical team who did take her concerns seriously enough made the fateful decision to order extra units of blood “just in case”. Then, during the delivery, Stephanie suffered a rare amniotic fluid embolism.

End-of-life doula Anna Lyons and funeral director Louise Winter have joined forces to share a collection of the heartbreaking, surprising and uplifting stories of the ordinary and extraordinary lives they encounter every single day. From working with the living, the dying, the dead and the grieving, Anna and Louise reveal the lessons they’ve learned about life, death, love and loss. Together they’ve created a profound but practical guide to rethinking the one thing that’s guaranteed to happen to us all.

The Art of Dying Well gives a rough sketch of how to live life well, so that one can die well, and have confidence before the judgment seat of Christ. It is a timeless classic of the Catholic world, and the advice St. Bellarmine gives rings as true now as it did 400 years ago.

Bringing Death to Life shines light onto a subject that is too often feared or avoided in our everyday conversations: death. But the authors of this book suggest that it might be wiser to recognize, understand, and accept death, rather than be frightened of it. When Patricia lost her parents, she experienced a journey of loss and grief, which later became the catalyst for this book.

John Wyatt focuses on the ars moriendi—quite simply the art of dying well and dying faithfully. He offers clear direction, warm reassurance and rock-solid confidence in the One who has conquered death. We cannot choreograph our own death, but we can die well. This is a book for those who are facing death. It is also for their relatives, friends, and caretakers.

One man's 15 year journey through the world of the paranormal, and what he came to discover, will make you think twice about ghosts....

Was ist der Tod, wie bereite ich mich vor und was kommt danach? Was passiert genau beim Vorgang des Sterbens? Wie beeinflusst mein gelebtes Leben bzw. vor allem meine aktuelle Bewusstheit und innere Reife den Prozess des Übergangs? Wie besteht unser Bewusstsein im Jenseits weiter fort und welche Wege kann es einschlagen nach dem Übergang? Welche Bedeutung hat Reinkarnation in diesem Zusammenhang?

On January 18th, 1989, Don Piper died in a car accident. Ninety minutes later, after a preacher prayed over him, Piper came back to life with an extraordinary story. He'd been to heaven. So began the phenomenon of 90 Minutes in Heaven.

Claire Broad, known as ''The Honest Medium'', experienced psychic phenomena from early childhood. As she grew older, communications from deceased loved ones became stronger and spirit teachers made their presence known. In this uplifting book, Claire teaches us why we may have confidence that there is an afterlife, how we can heal and awaken spiritually through the practice of mediumship and most importantly, what we can learn from those already living on the other side.

Women who love Jesus often struggle with the endless pursuit of things they think will make them happy. Power, possessions, pleasure, Prosecco, Pilates. You get the gist. Margaret Jen Burke noticed that her life was becoming too entangled and that she was losing touch with the Creator. Dying to Live tells her story and helps women better prepare for what matters in eternity.

This nonfiction audiobook will tell the story behind the upcoming film All Saints. The movie is inspired by the true story of salesman-turned-pastor Michael Spurlock, the tiny church he was ordered to shut down, and a group of refugees from Southeast Asia. Together, they risk everything to plant seeds for a future that might just save them all. Michael's first assignment as their new pastor is to close down All Saints, a dilapidated country church with a dozen devoted members and a mortgage well beyond its means.

Living in a Time of Dying is a spiritual manifesto for our times. It undertakes the sobering task of inviting us to feel the full weight of not only the inevitability of death, but the impending collapse of our human civilization, as evidenced through the social, psychospiritual, and ecological crises that we face in the 21st century on this planet Earth. Written for all those struggling with grief and fear about the future of our world, it offers a deeply poignant and compassionate vision for how to live in such times with integrity, courage, and grace.