How to Die Well

How to Die Well January 28, 2025

Image: Amazon

How should we die? I think it was one of the Wesleys who noted that Christians are the ones who die well. I hope this is still true, but just how to do so can be a challenging question in an affluent nation with a Byzantine health care system. To help cut through the noise, reduce the fear, and manage the physical and emotional pain, Dr. Pamela Pyle has drawn on her years as a physician and written the excellent book Anticipating Heaven: Spiritual Comfort and Practical Wisdom for Life’s Final Chapters.

And this book is primarily practical, with a few bits of spiritual wisdom here and there supported by stories from Pyle’s career in the US and Africa. In both cases, the goal of the book is to help us be ready when the time comes, so far as we can in our reasonable and limited powers. Obviously accidents happen and the end might come this very instant–the Bible is quite clear on that. But for most of us there will be some kind of advance warning, even if the warning is only the quiet passing of the years.

To that end, Pyle encourages us to do our due diligence and ready ourselves and our families. This means we need to know what we want ourselves, write everything down clearly, be sure that our families and our doctors are familiar with our wishes. We need to be specific about things like medication, resuscitation, pain management, and where we want to try to be when the moment comes (there’s a lot to be said for the home, but that does place burdens on others, but then again so do hospitals).

Overall, this is an excellent book that everyone should read, think carefully about, and then actually take the steps recommended in the text.

Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast an Amazon Associate (which is linked in this blog), and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO

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