Sacramental stories - childlessness

Season 1, Episode 5,   Feb 08, 2021, 12:00 PM

Gillian talks with Rev Lucyann Ashdown, the vice chair of the board of trustees of the Guild of Health and St. Raphael.

Lucyann has spent most of her career in health care, training as a registered general nurse at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. During this time she became interested in women's health and went onto do her Midwifery training at The Royal London. In 1989 she became an Independent Midwife specialising in home birth across London. Alongside this Lucyann facilitated antenatal groups in the NHS in Tower Hamlets, taught pre and post registration midwives, held workshops for prospective Independent Midwives and gained a degree in Social Anthropology.

In 2003, Lucyann became a senior lecturer in Public Health at Anglia Ruskin University until she was ordained in 2008 and has continued to teach about Spirituality and health at the pivotal moments of birth and death. Lucyann has also trained as a supervisor at The Centre for Supervision and Team Development (CSTD) in Bath. She is Bishop's Advisor for health and healing in the the Diocese of Salisbury's.

In their conversation they cover the following topics:

  • A formative childhood experience led to Lucyann's healthcare career.
  • A desire to integrate faith with healthcare led to ordination in the Church of England.
  • Moving from midwifery to hospice chaplain.
  • Resonances between the birth and death journey.
  • Being an ‘alongsider’
  • The ‘handy’ women.
  • 'Western Attitudes Toward Death' - book by Philippe Ariès
  • Wisdom about transition
  • Dualistic thinking about spirit and body.
  • What does a good death or good birth mean?
  • The generative journey of parents when giving birth.
  • The deep resources of love that carers have.
  • A story of what life means in the light of death.
  • What is healing?
  • Shalom - having a deep sense of wellbeing in the midst of immense suffering.
  • Story of one man’s healing of others in the face of his own death
  • Meaning making and purpose as a source of healing
  • Birth and death as thin places.
  • Health as the strength to live and to die
  • Childlessness 
  • 'Becoming a Mother' Book by Kate Mosse
  • Questions and learning on the long journey of bereavement.
  • Gateway women, Jody Day and the Reignite weekend. 
  • Disenfranchised grief.
  • The pain of Advent and changing relationship to Scripture
  • What changes society and the church need to make that would help those living with childlessness.
  • Covid-19 and our relationship with loss
  • Profound personal experience that Lucyann had at 70th anniversary service for the NHS
  • Concern for NHS staff during second lockdown. 
  • Think more creatively about lament, loss and death and how we can be with each other in it.
  • Importance of the Psalms of Lament
  • Finding hope during the pandemic
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