In her critically acclaimed debut memoir, author Barbara Becker sets off on a quest to immerse herself in what it means to be mortal. Can we live our lives more fully knowing some day we will die?
Join us for a conversation with author and humanitarian Barbara Becker, moderated by WNDU's Tricia Sloma.
With a keen eye towards that which makes life worth living, Barbara Becker–a perpetual seeker, a mom, and an interfaith leader–recounts stories where life and death intersect in unexpected ways. She volunteers on a hospice floor, becomes an eager student of the many ways people find meaning at the end of life, and accompanies her parents in their final days.
Becker inspires readers to live with the end in mind and proves that turning toward loss rather than away from it is the only true way to live life to its fullest. Just as with the heartwood of a tree—the central core that is no longer alive yet supports the newer growth rings—the dead become a source of enduring strength to the living.
With life-affirming prose, Becker helps us see that that grief is not a problem to be solved, but rather a sacred invitation–an opportunity to let go into something even greater… a love that will inform all the days of our lives.
Barbara Becker has dedicated more than twenty-five years to partnering with human-rights advocates around the world in pursuit of peace and interreligious understanding. She has worked with the United Nations, Human Rights First, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, and has participated in a delegation of Zen Peacemakers and Lakota elders in the Black Hills of South Dakota. She is an ordained interfaith minister who bridges the sacred and the secular, and has sat with hundreds of people at the end of their lives. Barbara speaks on a wide range of topics, including deepening our sense of meaning & spirituality and mid-career pivots. She lives in New York City with her interfaith family.
Check out Heartwood here
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