Where
Our Mother of Consolation Church9 East Chestnut Hill Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19118
Driving Directions
Contact
Sister Christine Konolpelski Our Mother of Consolation Catholic Church 215.247.0430 christinessj@omcparish.org
OR
Barbara Ballenger
Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields
215.247.7466 x102
bballenger@stmartinec.org
Seven Songs for a Long Life
Documentary and Discussion
Friday, Oct. 13, 2017
From 7 pm to 9 pm at Our Mother of Consolation Church
Free. Please RSVP below.
Learn how music and singing help people in hospice express a range of emotions and tap into memories and reflections on life, love, and mortality in this documentary about the Strathcaron Hospice in Sterlingshire, Scotland.
Sponsored by Our Mother of Consolation Catholic Church and Wellspring at St. Martin's.
The screening of “Seven Songs for a Long Life” is offered in collaboration with POV, PBS' award-winning nonfiction film series. website: http://www.pbs.org/pov/.
About the Film
Filming clients of the Strathcaron Hospice in Sterlingshire, Scotland over the course of four years, Amy Hardie found that the use of music and song was essential to lifting spirits.
"I had committed to making a patient-led documentary but had never imagined that what the patients would most want would be to sing!" she says. "As so many of the songs express the growing relationship between staff and patient, patient and patient, a theme emerges: just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a community to make the process of facing your own mortality, and of dying itself, safe, individual and as gentle as possible."
This innovative hospice center offers day care that allows patients to continue to live at home. Staff work out complex schedules with hospitals, doctors and nurses to meet patients' treatment and social needs, and the emphasis is on making life worth living, even in the grip of a lethal disease.
Discussion
Scott Robinson and Laura Thomai facilitate discussion after the documentary
Scott Robinson is an ordained Interfaith Minister who works as a hospice chaplain at Brookdale Hospice in Wayne, PA and TLC Hospice, in Trevose, PA. Scott’s group Mandala performs his original interfaith kirtan, a type of call and response devotional music. His book The Dark Hills is available from Sacred Feet Publishing.
Laura Thomae is the Director of Complementary Therapies at Keystone Hospice in Wyndmoor, PA. She is a board certified music therapist, and a singer and songwriter with 15 years of hospice experience. Laura has presented at various national conferences on the use of music therapy in hospice, and on the use of creativity and mindfulness to reduce stress and burnout in caregivers.
For More Information
Contact Sister Christine Konolpelski at 215-247-0430 or christinessj@omcparish.org at Our Mother of Consolation for more information or to RSVP by phone.