1 rich Libsyn https://www.libsyn.com 90 600 The Bible says in Psalm 39:4: &amp;ldquo;Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am.&amp;rdquo; The featured quote for this episode is from John Donne. He said, &quot;Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.&quot; Our topic for today is titled &quot;The Individual, the Church, and the Ars Moriendi (the Art of Dying), Part 5&quot; from the book, &quot;The Art of Dying: Living Fully into the Life to Come&quot; by Rob Moll. --- A Public Event As bells tolled across England and Europe announcing another death from the plague, Christians were reminded at every moment that death was a public event and instructive to the church. While death was a spiritual event, according to Christian tradition, it was and is not a private affair simply between a Christian and God. Indeed, the loss of a single brother or sister in Christ wounded deeply the community of faith. &quot;No man is an island,&quot; wrote Donne in his Devotions, &quot;every man is a piece of the continent.&quot; Two characteristics of death in the Middle Ages, says historian Phillipe Aries in his one-thousand-year history of Western attitudes of dying, lasted until the end of the nineteenth century: its familiar simplicity and public nature. &quot;The dying person must be the center of a group of people,&quot; says Aries. As late as &quot;the early nineteenth century, when the last sacrament was being taken to a sick man, anyone could come into the house and into the bedroom, even if he was a stranger to the family.&quot; ... Preparing for the Inevitable http://theinevitable.libsyn.com/podcast <iframe title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/3998104/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/88AA3C/" height="90" width="600" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe> https://assets.libsyn.com/secure/item/3998104