#  Gloria White-Hammond: Church Spurs Parishioners To Plan For Illness And Death 

 



 **By Melissa Bailey**

 “It would feel like murder to pull her life support,” a young woman tells the doctor.

 The woman sits by a hospital bed where her mother, Selena, lies unresponsive, hooked up to a  
breathing tube. The daughter has already made one attempt to save her mother’s life; she  
pulled Selena out of the car and performed CPR when her heart stopped en route to the  
hospital — an experience she calls “beyond terrifying.”

 Now the doctor tells the family Selena will never wake up in a meaningful way. But the daughter  
says she can’t let her mother go: “I’m always looking for another miracle.”

 The scene, captured in the documentary “Extremis,” took place in a hospital’s intensive care  
unit in Oakland, Calif.

 Three thousand miles away, at Boston’s Bethel AME Church one recent fall evening, the Rev.  
Gloria White-Hammond watched the film with a group of women from her predominantly black  
congregation. As they gathered around a long table in the church’s youth center at 7 p.m.,  
White-Hammond offered oranges and chocolate chip cookies — and a warning that the film  
might be very hard to watch.

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 Attachments- [  picture\_as\_pdf  church\_spurs\_parishioners\_to\_plan\_for\_illness\_and\_death.pdf ](/sites/g/files/omnuum11836/files/rshm/files/church_spurs_parishioners_to_plan_for_illness_and_death.pdf)
 
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 See also:- [ Spirituality and Medicine ](/news-topics/spirituality-and-medicine)