{"product_id":"the-last-passage-donald-heinz-9780195116434","title":"The Last Passage: Recovering a Death of Your Own","description":"Is death merely the cessation of life? Are our final years simply a wearing out of the body? Are hospitals and funeral homes--the bureaucratic machinery of death--capable of handling the profound spiritual dimension of dying?\u003cbr\u003e In \u003cem\u003eThe Last Passage\u003c\/em\u003e, Donald Heinz offers wise answers to these questions in a book that urges us to \"recover a death of our own\" and to view our final years as a fulfillment, a \"last career.\" Despite the recent spate of books on death and dying, death remains a fact our culture tries desperately to ignore. In other times and in other cultures, preparing for death was seen as an important spiritual task--perhaps the most important task of our lives. Heinz argues that we can reconceive of death, reinvest it with meaning, and save it from becoming a meaningless biological event. Seeking appropriate models for such a reconstruction, Heinz offers a fascinating overview of the many ways death has been envisioned and ritualized throughout human history, from the Tibetan Book of the Dead to 15th century Christian \u003cem\u003ears moriendi\u003c\/em\u003e--manuals on the art of dying--and from Jean Paul Sartre to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. He also surveys the more recent contributions of psychologists, anthropologists, cultural critics, and death awareness advocates, whose efforts have largely failed to integrate death into a larger human story and the larger human community. \u003cbr\u003e Finally, Heinz shows us how we might create rituals through the use of music, visual arts, dance, drama, and language that would enable us to approach death with reverence, as the spiritual consummation of our lives.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Donald Heinz\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0195116437\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780195116434\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press, USA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/17\/1998\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 320\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.29lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.42h x 6.31w x 1.03d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/01\/1998 pg. 136","brand":"Donald Heinz","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":44054644654335,"sku":"9780195116434","price":68.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_a80d8835-645a-4968-99bc-5e5b91f7a207.jpg?v=1685031154","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-last-passage-donald-heinz-9780195116434","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}