About DWDC
What is the Date with Death Club?
If you found this web site, you are probably one of the growing number of people who wants to
face the fact of our human mortality
with less fear and more curiosity,
with less euphemism and more reality,
with less conformity and more creativity.
If that sounds like you, or who you hope to become,
WELCOME to Date with Death Club.
Created by Karen G. Johnston, MSW, M.Div,
DwDC explores mortality in community. DwDC is an opportunity to learn, share, and deepen your own understanding of what death means to you and how you want to approach death -- particularly your own.
Informed by spiritual sensibilities, but no specific religious dogma, Date with Death Club just may be for you.
Designed as a multi-session learning experience to take place in-person or online, DwDC participants can attend one, many, or all of the offered sessions.
DwDC is not a bereavement or grief support group.
While it may be healing of the human condition,
the nature of the DwDC is not specifically therapeutic.
Different Topics, Building on Each Other
Each Date with Death Club can be tailored to meet the needs of the community where it takes place, the interests of the participants, and the skills of the facilitator.
The curriculum contains detailed information on each of the topics. Sessions are typically structured to be just over two hours long.
Each session has been developed with an intentional anti-oppression approach.
Much love and labor went into the development of the DwDC Curriculum, generated from years of spiritual practice, learning and sharing, accompanying those who were dying, and existing in this mortal world.
Its use is available to those with positive, justice-affirming, generative intention and impact in their community and this world.
The DwDC is meant to be an act of community service; as such, commercial use of this curriculum is prohibited. There should be no financial barrier for any participant to take part; as such, DwDC sessions should always be free of charge.
How Can I Join Date with Death Club?
We are all already members of Date with Death Club -- that is the nature of mortality.
If you would like to bring a Date with Death Club to your community, please reach out to Karen to explore your leading a DwDC in your own community or asking for her to do so.
If you would like to participate in a Date with Death Club, look here for updates for when and where DwDC is being held.
Photo Gallery
Coming this fall! In-person, here in Central New Jersey. Starting with three sessions -- might be more if there is momentum. Do not need to be an East Brunswick resident or library card holder.
Year-long, monthly online gathering of DwDC, tailored for Unitarian Universalists in New Jersey. Registration required - https://www.eventbrite.com/myevent?eid=163740041873
About the Founder
Karen G Johnston
Karen is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, a practicing Buddhist, and in her previous profession, a clinical social worker.
The heart of her spiritual practice is Befriending Death.
She has been trained as an End of Life Death Doula (INELDA). She spent nearly a decade creating and facilitating engaging, fun trainings for social workers. She has traveled to Asia, Africa, Europe and throughout the United States of America. She is an adoptive parent of two grown adult children and an occasional poet. She grew up in the Pacific Northwest and currently lives in Central New Jersey.