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Hospice expert learns from the ancients By SUSAN JAY ASHLAND -- Imagine a beautiful, cathedral-like hall, where folks bring potluck dishes, children play and musicians perform. Imagine that a faint scent of lemon fills the air and that the floor is made of leaded glass, so those inside can hear the river running underneath. No, this is not a place in Ashland, but a 700-year-old hospice started by French monks in the 11th century in Beaunne, France. There, a far different, more holistic approach to caring for the dying was practiced than is common today, explained Richard Groves, a chaplain, former director of the Hospice of Bend-La Pine and co-founder with his wife, Mary, of the Sacred Art of Living Center in Bend. Nationally recognized for his cutting-edge training programs based on diagnosing and addressing the spiritual pain of the dying, Groves has visited and researched this hospice, called l'Hotel Dieu, or Hotel of God, which is still caring for the dying today. Groves, 48, was in Ashland Monday and today giving the first section of the Living Center's four-part workshop and training at First United Methodist Church. The workshop is sponsored by the Asante Health System Hospice Program. More than 100 people attended Monday's sessions, including many nurses, social workers, clergy, hospice volunteers and a few doctors. Judith Byers, a respiratory therapist at Rogue Valley Medical Center, said she went because "I want to be able to die with grace and I want to help other people do that." Marcia North, a nurse with Providence Hospice, came to learn about the spiritual aspects of dying, which are "the most important part of our work," she said. Groves, who speaks eight languages and has degrees in bioethics, pastoral theology and law, spoke about how much we can learn about caring for the dying from ancient traditions and religions. Seven hundred years ago, the monks at the hospice in France understood how the sound of rushing water soothed the dying and how the scent of citrus comforted them, he said. They used bed pans and other instruments overlaid with gold because "every part of the body was sacred, and being ministered at the end of life was sacred," he said. "It is a statement about the sanctity of everything" at the end of life. On the door to such places hung a skull or crossbones or both, with the words "Remember Death." This wasn't meant to frighten, Groves said, but to remind those entering that this was "a place where we hold death and life together." Part of his mission, Groves said, is to help heal the split or rift in end-of-life care between then and now. Of the many important concepts to remember from the ancient past is that when a loved one is dying, "time as we know it should stop," Groves said. "Nothing else matters -- only the dying person." The dying "at this point become our teachers," he said. "There is no lying now; what you see is raw truth." But today, "stopping time" is hardly allowed, because of our fear, our health system's need to cure at all costs and our business of medicine. In the past, people spent time with the dead, as well as with their feelings of grief and loss, another important concept in a holistic approach to death. That's what the Victorian parlor was for, Groves said, to be near and acknowledge the death of a loved one. Yet, in America, the parlor became the living room in the 1950s and '60s. "See how great the denial is around death and dying?" he said. Woody Allen's quote, "It's not that I'm afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens," is a perfect example of Americans' denial and fear, he said. "We've sent it off. We made it antiseptic, neat and tidy." Even though the use of hospice is growing, Groves says he worries because many hospice programs are spending less and less on the kinds of services that make hospice different and effective, such as volunteers, social workers, spiritual and emotional support and alternative care. In many ways, Groves said, "we are retreating back to a medical model." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA