Hospice of Lenawee today had an open house for its new Hospice Home on Wolf Creek Highway. It houses administrative offices, a bereavement center, and an 8-bed residential care facility for the dying. Cost 5 million dollars. It is a lovely place. The woman whose ordination we attended a few weeks ago is a chaplain here, and the wife of our church’s senior pastor is the vice-president.
This from the daily lectionary yesterday set me to thinking.
Abraham was 99 years old when he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin, and his son Ishmael was 13 years old when the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised. That same day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised. All the men of his household, those born in his household and those purchased with silver from foreigners, were circumcised with him.
Genesis 17.24-27 CEB
I imagine a conversation among Abraham’s men over this little development in their lives.
Eliezer: “The master is going to circumcise us tomorrow.”
Asher: “What is circumcision?”
Eliezer: “He will take a knife and cut off that flap of skin on your penis.”
Asher: “What!? That will hurt.”
Eliezer: “I know.”
Asher: “Knife and penis do not belong together.”
Eliezer: “True.”
Asher: “Why is he going to do this?”
Eliezer: “He had another of his visions.”
Asher: “I wish God would stop talking to him.”
The benefit of circumcision as a symbol of the covenant is that it was a permanent mark in the body itself — like a tattoo, although that can be removed with some effort. The disadvantage is that one half of all Jews could not take part in the ritual that made you a Jew. So circumcision contributed to a segregation of the sexes in Judaism, which continued on in Christianity (in spite of Galatians 3.28). Even today, at the Western Wall of Temple Mount in Jerusalem, men pray on the left, and women on the right. I have prayed at that wall. Men get the larger share of the wall, no doubt because we had to endure the knife and penis thing.
There was a healing service tonight for a woman whose cancer has returned, or perhaps never left. She received the anointing with oil, as well as many prayers for her strength and healing. Olive oil is an ancient symbol of God’s healing presence: ‘You anoint my head with oil.’ (Ps 23.5) We held the service in the chancel as people stood in a circle around the altar. There were long periods of silent prayer, and afterward people lingered as if they did not want to part. During the service we sang an evening hymn.
All praise to thee, my God, this night,
for all the blessings of the light!
Keep me, O keep me, King of kings,
beneath thine own almighty wings.Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son,
the ill that I this day have done,
that with the world, myself, and thee,
I, ere I sleep, at peace may be.Teach me to live, that I may dread
the grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die, that so I may
rise glorious at the judgment day.O may my soul on thee repose,
and with sweet sleep mine eyelids close,
sleep that may me more vigorous make
to serve my God when I awake.Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
praise him, all creatures here below;
praise him above, ye heavenly host;
praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
It’s one of my favorite hymns, but the third verse was hard to sing in light of cancer. You can listen to the melody here.
(Image: The Olive Trees by Van Gogh)
A woman comes to terms with her illness and its treatment:
I have been diagnosed with stage three colon cancer. I don’t think of myself as being sick: I think of myself as having a diagnosis. I don’t want to be defined by the cancer, or by chemotherapy. But whether you like it or not, having it does change your relationships.
I was very careful about how I told my children, but I have been much more relaxed with friends. Some have been fantastic. Others are literally shattered by the news, or can’t handle it at all. I can understand that, but it’s been quite hard when I really wanted a particular friend to be there for me. She simply can’t do it.
Quite a few people respond by saying things like “You’ll be fine — I know you will.” On the one hand, it helps me to see a future in which I will be fine. On the other, of course, they don’t know I will be fine — especially with such a diagnosis.
What has been most helpful is having friends and family who are willing to spend time with me, and being okay with what’s happening to me.
I don’t see what has happened as a punishment or a judgment. I am frightened of pain, but I am not frightened of dying. I would like to have a spiritually conscious death — to know I am dying, to be able to say all my goodbyes, and to embrace the dying moment.
I haven’t felt sad either. I have so much love around me from family and friends. So maybe I haven’t had time, or I just don’t feel it. My cancer has instilled a deep sense of gratitude in me. I am so grateful to have seen my children grow up. I am also deeply grateful for what I have each day. It makes me live in the moment.
At the same time, I have had to learn to compromise. Initially I did not want to have chemotherapy — I have seen what it can do to others suffering from cancer. But my children and my husband thought otherwise. I didn’t want them to feel angry with me for not trying to save my life.
Therefore I have had to change my perception of chemotherapy from a toxic poison to a healer. So when I go for treatments I talk to my cancer, and invite in my healer and surrender to what I call a divine devouring fire. It makes it much easier.
Alys, age 54
From The D-Word: Talking About Dying
The Art of Dying: Living Fully into the Life to Come, by Rob Moll. The title to this book intrigued me most. The art of dying, or ars moriendi, is an old practice in the church that Rob Moll is trying to revive and reinterpret for today. As this book presents it, the art of dying has at least six sides to it. First, there is awareness. A hundred years ago most deaths happened in the home, and then the deceased was laid out for viewing there. These things happen now in hospitals and funeral homes. Death has become remote to our experience. With its preoccupation with youth and beauty, too, our culture conspires to hide death and the process of dying. So the art of dying begins with a willingness to pay attention to the fact of death, the inevitability of death for each of us.
Second, communication. Talk about death now before the days of crisis come. It’s hard to have conversations about death in an intensive care unit if the subject has been taboo until then. Moll sees a place for living wills and the like, but these cannot take the place of heartfelt discussion about the reality of our death and the way in which we wish to die. Third, there is presence. When someone is dying, we seldom know what to say to them, and so we avoid them or remain quiet in an embarrassed silence. But the best way we can care for the dying — apart from the medical attention they require — is simply to be present with them. Visit them, sit with them, share life with them, and pray with them. A simple presence can bring grace and peace to the dying. These visits are also a time to say the last four things one needs to say to the dying: forgive me, I forgive you, thank you, I love you.
Fourth, ritual. The book recounts traditional rituals that have accompanied death: visitation with the family (and the dead), a procession to the grave, and a service of worship at the church, among others. These rituals help share the burden of grief in a wider community. Moll admires the old church buildings, with the graveyard on the property, so that the community of faith includes the living and those who have fallen ‘asleep in the Lord.’ He urges churches to be creative in finding ways to include the aged and the dying in their faith community so they are not forgotten. Fifth, lament. The mourning need generous space to grieve and to weep. There is a time honored place for lament in the life of faith. Moll counsels against praising those who have lost loved ones for going back to normal living as soon as possible. Life will not be normal again. There will be a new life for the grieving, and it will take time to find it. And sixth, hope. The book stresses the hope present now in the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of eternal life. Death remains an enemy, but a defeated one we need not fear.
Dying is an art only because through it God is at work. Only in God’s hand can something ugly and terrible be transformed into a thing of beauty and purpose. In the end death is as mysterious as resurrection. In our churches we spiritually enter into Christ’s death and resurrection in the waters of baptism. In the same way, we must practice for our deaths, prepare to care for others as they face it and look for the hand of God who welcomes us through death to life everlasting.
Rob Moll is a journalist and an editor with Christianity Today magazine. His book is written in an open, accessible style, full of real life stories and devotional warmth.
(picture of Hudson cemetery by Lad Strayer)
“And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.”
Mark 6:5-6 NRSV
In the Gospels Jesus heals many people, but there were times when he could not heal more than a few. And during his short work on earth, the great majority of suffering people in the world never felt his healing power.
I visited a man at the U of M Hospital with its cramped rooms and serpentine halls. He has suffered for many years from many ailments, and he has endured surgeries, transplants, and too many treatments to count. Medicine, for all its wonders, can keep him alive, but it cannot cure what afflicts him. He lives in a limbo between death and life. I cannot imagine how exhausting it is, for him and for his family.
Driving home from Ann Arbor, my thoughts turned to Philip Gulley and his book The Evolution of Faith. God’s apparent deafness to prayers for healing led Gulley to a radical reappraisal of his beliefs some years ago. God is all loving, he decided, but not all powerful; God is not able to heal or help us, and to pretend God is able is a poisonous pill. Suffering shrank Gulley’s sense of who or what God is. Actually, in his theology God continues to shrink — Gulley hopes human beings evolve to a state where they no longer need God at all. In his mind, God evaporates in the end.
Maybe Gulley is right and God is smaller than we thought. I hope not. I do not want God to evaporate. I want to believe in a robust God with power to help. I admit, though, that prolonged suffering makes me wonder. Why does God not heal? Then I remember a line from a catechism: “My heartache and pain are contained by a larger purpose and a higher power than I can presently discern.” The key word in that sentence is presently. But a catechism is not a cure. It takes a lot of faith to say that these things will one day be clear.
(Image from the Library of Congress)
The advertisement was effective. A woman talks about her cancer. A doctor gives her two months to live. Then her sister makes her an appointment at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. They care for her. They conduct tests. They overturn the findings of the doctor who gave her two months to live. They tell her, “You don’t have an expiration date.” She rejoices. Images of her smiling and doing happy things, knowing now she has no expiration date. At the end of the commercial she says, “Health is everything.”
I stare at the TV in disbelief. I say it out loud, “Everyone has an expiration date. It’s the second date on your grave.” Bodies do not live forever; they eventually wear out, break down and quit. Ask any hospice nurse. And her belief that ‘health is everything’ reminded me of this comment from Jurgen Moltmann:
“True health is the strength to live, the strength to suffer, and the strength to die. Health is not a condition of my body; it is the power of my soul to cope with the varying condition of that body.”
Physical health is good. Medicine is good. Cancer is bad. Death is bad. But death is real too, and it is not good to live as if death is not real. No body lives in a fantasy land with no expiration date, except in the world of advertising.
I picked up a bug, perhaps in the hospital visit after church Sunday. Hospitals are like a giant petri dish of germs. I felt a scratchy throat Sunday night, and by yesterday night my head and chest were filling up. Ever since my bout with pneumonia four years ago, colds now settle deep in my lungs. My breath becomes shorter, and my voice drops an octave. So the people in the office laugh at me and call me Barry White, a singer famed for his low voice. Today, I am Barry White. And today, Barry is worried. Vacation Bible School is next week, the all-consuming vortex of Vacation Bible School. I do love VBS. I am preparing to teach the Bible lessons for the older children, wondering how to create the belly of a whale for the Jonah story. But there may be one or two funerals next week too, and I am not sure how it will be possible for me to handle VBS and funerals, or even how we would host a funeral meal with fellowship hall set up for PandaMania. So I am worried, and feeling run down. I may go home early today. I am preaching Sunday too, and of course when you are preaching it’s good to have lots of gunk in your lungs. Would you like some cheese with that whine, Chris? Yes, extra sharp cheddar.
My job often has me walking down hospital hallways. Today it was at St Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ypsilanti where a parishioner is recovering from pneumonia. Last week he slept as I sat in the room and worried about him, but today he met me with a smile. He explained a procedure I didn’t understand. Medical information seldom sticks in my brain. Enough to say he is doing better. I pulled up a chair, and we talked for a bit. I read Psalm 86 — an apt scripture for folks in the hospital — and offered a prayer for his continued healing.
Afterward, I drove to the Glacier Hills Care Facility to visit a parishioner recovering from knee surgery. She will go home tomorrow. During the visit, a man from a medical supply company delivered a walker and cane for her trip back to Adrian. She wanted to keep the cane she had used during her weeks in rehab, but he told her his company didn’t stock that kind. She had spent a lot of time walking the hallways with that cane and had grown accustomed to its feel. The cane he left with her looked sturdy enough, but its handle wasn’t as well padded as the one she had. It seems to me if a cane has helped you walk again, you should be allowed to keep it. She plans to check out the canes at Wheelock Pharmacy.
I went home via Carpenter Road (less stressful than the freeway), thinking about the scripture “We walk by faith, not by sight.” I wondered what canes help us walk by faith, and if it matters whether you have the right one, the one that feels right in your hand.
Ten years ago he worked in the financial services industry, but dementia began to take away his mind piece by piece. Now he lives here at an assisted living center. I brought flowers yesterday and took him out to feed the ducks. We threw slices of white bread into the river and watched 40 ducks converge and tear them apart. Over and over he told me his son kicked a 39 yard field goal on October 2. I am quieter than usual after seeing him. There is little to say after visits like this. He lives on the first floor of the building above, which once was a hospital. In this picture I like the contrast between the sunlit side of the building and the shade. If you stare at the building and unfocus slightly, it appears you are looking down at two buildings at right angles to one another. The mind plays its tricks.
A man we know is trying to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research, through the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Only he is doing it in a unique way:
Phil Comar watched his father, Robert, struggle for years with Parkinson’s disease. Now, in his father’s memory, Comar will ride his Harley-Davidson motorcycle nonstop and “hands free” from the Mackinac Bridge to the Ohio border Oct. 10 to raise money for Parkinson’s research…
As for the no-hands ride, Comar, who has been riding motor bikes and motorcycles almost 50 years, said the steering is done with legs and by leaning to allow the wheels to turn. An extra gas tank has been added to the back of his bike that will allow him to make the 300-mile trip without stopping.
I visited a parishioner at St Joseph Mercy Hospital yesterday and found an indoor garden filling an area on the 4th and 5th floors. The trees and ivy are artificial, but the grasses and sunlight are natural. Skylights fill the space with light and ceiling fans stir the air. I sat there for a time and let the quiet seep into me. They are doing lots of renovation and new construction at St Joe’s. I have noticed in new hospital construction a more intentional use of light and space. Older hospitals look dark and clinical inside, but newer ones feature far more natural light and open space. I think it fosters healing.
Our church sponsored a team in the Relay for Life cancer walk. My wife and I walked in the opening Parade of Teams on Friday evening, and then again this morning at 3:30 and 6:30. Our team was one of 80 entered, each keeping a walker on the track during the entire 24 hour event. A walker above makes her way through an archway of balloons before 7 AM. Our team sat through the night around a raised iron fire pit with cut-out stars and moons on it. We watched one woman walk briskly through all the night hours, a glowing baton in her hand. There is something quasi religious about an all-night vigil in search of healing, like the crowds that followed after Jesus hoping to touch the hem of his robe. The event raised over $145,000 for cancer research. Many of us registered for the CPS-3 cancer study too. We had to fill out a medical questionnaire and give four vials of blood. It’s odd to see someone in gloves handling your own blood; it goes from your body to a tube with a number on it. They ran out of supplies and had to turn people away who wanted to join the study.
Help medical researchers learn how to prevent cancer:
You can join the movement for more birthdays and fight back against cancer by enrolling in a new research study called the Cancer Prevention Study – 3 (CPS-3). The American Cancer Society’s Epidemiology Research Program is inviting men and women between the ages of 30 and 65 years who have no personal history of cancer to join this historic research study. The ultimate goal is to enroll 500,000 adults from various racial/ethnic backgrounds from across the U.S.
I will enroll this summer at our local Relay For Life event.
Craig Keener on miracles in the Gospels and today.
But theological questions about supernatural causation aside, the historical question as to whether many people believed that they witnessed people cured by Jesus is more easily answered. Even today, literally hundreds of millions of people claim to have witnessed events that they interpret as miracles. Why should we deny that first-century followers of Jesus’ ministry could have had analogous experiences, however we explain them? Most historical Jesus scholars today, regardless of their personal theological orientation, do accept that Jesus drew crowds who believed that he performed cures and exorcisms.
I’ve not experienced any healing in my life I’d call a miracle, but my parishioners have spoken to me of miraculous healings they’ve witnessed. Their testimony has deepened my wonder and gratitude.
She lies in her bed each day at the care facility, her muscles slowing regaining the ability to move. She’s learned to manipulate the TV remote — a good skill since she watches lots of TV now. Her ability to speak has improved.
It’s been nearly two months, and her rehabilitation will take many more. Her physical therapist promises to get her on her feet next week. But it’s lonely and frustrating, more than I can imagine.
We talked about how it’s like becoming a baby all over again — learning to move, eat, talk, sit, stand and finally walk.
Me: “It’s like being born again.”
Her: “Yeah… I’d never thought of it that way.”
Watching her, I’ve learned that being born again is a hard thing to do. They didn’t mention this part at the Billy Graham rally… then it sounded easy.
Sociologist Wendy Cadge believes physicians need to do a better job of handling faith issues that arise in patient care.
Many doctors see religion and spirituality as a barrier to medical care or, at most, a useful crutch when medicine has no more answers. But healing involves more than just medical diagnosis and treatment. Often patients and families see spirituality as a source of support when they are ill, or appear to be dying.
A holistic approach to medicine requires physicians to understand the complex role of spirituality and religion in compassionate patient care. The best prescription: Integrate these topics throughout medical education.
She urges physicians to pay closer attention to patients’ religious and spiritual traditions; she also wants chaplains and nurses more involved in educational programs highlighting spirituality. Nurses especially have more contact with patients than physicians and are more open to talk with them about their spiritual concerns.
It’s not surprising there’s a disconnect between physicians and faith. In terms of James Sire’s worldview categories, western medicine falls under naturalism — all that matters is matter itself. But spirituality, by its very nature, belongs to a theistic or existentialist worldview. So the starting point is different from medicine. Different assumptions.
I’ve visited in hospitals for 15 years, and whenever the doctor has walked into the room, everything I do stops. I become wallpaper. I don’t mind so much because I’m on their turf. But I recall one time — one time — when the doctor came in, realized a patient was talking with a pastor, and said, “I’ll come back a little later.” It was surprising. I was grateful.
Her fever spiked two weeks ago at 106 degrees, and now she lays in a critical care room at the University of Michigan Hospital. I sat by her bedside yesterday afternoon as the nurse wiped blood oozing around her trache and emptied a full urine bag.
After the nurse left the room, I talked to K for a few minutes but quickly ran out of things to say. I don’t have the gift of chatter. I asked if I could read psalms to her, and she nodded yes. So I read aloud.
Hear, O Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
Guard my life, for I am devoted to you.
You are my God;
Save your servant who trusts in you.
Have mercy on me, O Lord,
for I call to you all day long. (Psalm 86.1-3)
Psalms 130, 145, 27 and 23 followed.
Calvin Miller suggests pastors read scripture to the sick.
In all my years as a pastor, I counted it a great joy to read the Scriptures to those who were ill. There is something healing in the mere opening of the Word of God. Every part of the Word is a lorica of protection. All of it heals. All of it confidently readies the bearer for what lies ahead. If I had my ministry to live through all over again, I would read the Bible even more often than I did the first time–acknowledging freely that the Word of God has intrinsic power to heal and protect. (The Path of Celtic Prayer, p. 66)
I have less confidence than Miller that all of scripture has the same healing power, but the Psalms and the Gospels certainly do — as medicine for the spirit, these readings compliment other treatments the ill receive.
A good post at Beliefnet on how to help people with cancer:
1. Don’t be afraid of honesty.
2. Offer to hug us.
3. Organize a fun get-together.
4. Tell success stories.
5. Skip the psychobabble.
6. Ask and listen.
7. ‘Let me bring it up.’
8. Offer yourself.
9. Don’t try to fix it.
These come from cancer survivors themselves. More at the link above.
And check out the author, Lori Hope.
My mother had surgery Monday at the University of Toledo Medical Center. (Known to locals by its old acronym MCO, Medical College of Ohio.)
I said goodbye to her in the pre-op area at 9 a.m. and returned to that place of purgatory on earth — the waiting room. The surgeon came by after lunch to tell us the procedure was successful, but we didn’t see her till 5 p.m.
There were a dozen folks waiting throughout the day. We sat on green chairs and read books, magazines and the Toledo Blade. A couple of people worked on laptops, which made the familiar Windows music when they powered up. Everyone talked on cell phones. Since voices carry I learned more than I cared to know about personal lives and business projects. I read all the jokes in Readers Digest and solved a Sudoku puzzle from the paper (no small feat).
When The Loud Family came into the waiting room, I left looking for silence, or at least less noise. I walked over to the Meditation Room, a small space with a prayer log, a semi-circle of chairs and a floor-to-ceiling picture of sunlight through trees. A woman was sitting with her back to the door, talking on her cell phone. I paced the halls instead and came back to the Meditation Room later.
Philosopher Dallas Willard says silence is a critical practice for disciples. It can be a hard commodity to come by in some places, hospitals among them. My mother is doing well, but the noise has made it difficult for her to sleep. Many forces in our day resist silence.
