Witness & Ministry of Suffering, End-of-Life, Death
WITNESS & MINISTRY: SUFFERING, END-of-LIFE, DEATH
311. Without Nightfall Upon the Spirit (by Mary Chase Morrison; 1993)
About the Author—At 83, Mary Morrison feels qualified by age to share thoughts on growing old. She taught the Pendle Hill Gospel course for several years; she still leads Bible study at her retirement community. She has kept a journal for many years, & is the author of 6 Pendle Hill pamphlets. This pamphlet grew out of a talk in the Fall of 1992 at St. Andrews in Yardley, PA. Virginia Woolf instructed us to "Observe old age."
Reflections on Aging—I hope in this pamphlet to bring the extremes "too bright & cheery" & "too dark & gloomy" together without denying them; both are valid. Presiding over disintegration of ones body, [especially] short-term memory loss, calls for heroism no less impressive for being quiet & patient. To watch the process in someone you love, or the [fading away] that leaves an empty shell, calls for heroism in defeat beyond words.
Queries—Where does the necessary gallantry come from? How do we find it within? What will old age demand of us? Where is the dignity to be found in it? The spirit, psyche, soul, self, inner life is the area or arena of life and growth and work for our old age. Carl Jung writes: "I don't live, but life is lived in me." I follow his advice to watch what I do so I can find out who I am. Dealing with the difficulties, we can even become wise. If 2 elderly friends receive short visits, and 1 says "Why did you bother to come at all" and the other says "It's so good for you to make the time for me," which of them is headed into a happy old age? In order to learn who we are, we need to look at our attitudes, watch them day by day. watch how we approach life. It takes vigilance to be aware of the inner work that must be done to keep level with life as it moves us into old age.
What inner tools do we need for this inner work? We need to begin keeping a journal, a thoughtful writing-down of happenings, thoughts, dreams, nightmares, & our ongoing response to them. A journal is an instrument of awareness, to watch what we do & find out who we are. We need to be comfortable with paradox: Failure is success; losing life is finding it; in my end is my beginning; in my beginning is my end. In old age we begin to experience them. We must learn to live with continuing questions to which there seem to be no immediate answers: What has life been? What will death be? Who & what are we? Rainier Maria Rilke's instructions are to love the questions & live gradually into the answers. The questions come down to one personal, intimate one: How are we going to respond to the inevitable, growing diminishment that is coming upon us?
Journal: August 29, 1978—In visiting the Florida home & family, one thing was deeply & disturbingly different. Maxey & I were now the oldest generation. [No more younger or even middle generation for us]. Our parents, uncles & aunts had died or moved into retirement centers. We weren't where the action was. We weren't where the decisions, large & small, were being made. We were on the sidelines. A bad feeling/ good feeling, it was some of both—definitely a strange feeling, & a new relationship to the family, both immediate & extended. We were included in things, but people [started] making time for us & usually it was time that was hard to make; [this will get more so as we get less active]. [Other transitions and roads to different family roles] were clearly marked. The road to becoming the oldest generation is not marked at all. I am feeling its uncertainty trailing off into a whole perspective of question marks losing themselves in the distance and over the hill. Queries—Do we detach ourselves and make a new life? Do we still consider ourselves part of the family whole?
If we live along into those questions, an answer begins to emerge. Our grandchildren look to us for comfort and unconditional love when they are small; we can give it to them because we are not responsible for them. We can befriend their adolescence because of the more relaxed attitude toward conventions & outward demands that we have acquired. They may even turn to us for some of our old-fashioned ideas to guide them. This marvelous, warm place waits for us on the periphery of family life.
Next, we need to realize that the word "young" or even "middle-aged" can never be applied to us again. 1st, we mourn without envy. We say, "Let go, farewell." We have had [our life]. It was our time, and we lived it. It happened, therefore it exists, in our hearts and memories, and no one can take it from us. Living in the past is the shadow half of a process that this period of our lives requires of us—the "harvesting" of our past in memory, in thought, in writing. [There is no telling what treasures may result in delving into ones distant memories, not just for oncoming generations, but especially for us]. If we relive it well in memory, it will bring us its wisdom; we will see our life as the whole that it is. [Barely noticed] decisions become significant choices; once-devastating emotions become opportunities for forgiveness. If we have done our harvesting well, we see our life-stages from a different perspective, as parts of a whole that we could not see while we were living it.
Journal: December 31, 1990–[3 grandchildren came to visit]: Lesa (27), Suzi (24), Tim (23); youth in its glorious maturity, with some choices made, but all the possibilities of the future still ahead. Youth with its aura of peace, however temporary. Youth, full of the "precious uncertain fire of life" burning unself-consciously, so unconscious of its own beauty, a fine clear blazing. What was coming was a gift that its owners were unaware of; if they thought about it at all, they thought of it as part of themselves, not as a temporary loan. I particularly love youth when it lives in people who are using it well. Perhaps seeing that beauty is one of the gifts of old age.
The alone-ness that comes with old age is a gift waiting to be accepted, the chance to move from loneliness to solitude, [the chance] to be ourselves, to know what our tempo is if left to itself, what we think, how we feel, how we [live within ourselves]. We can turn from caring for others to finding: the riches of our own being; companionship in our own thoughts & feelings; & solitude as our best friend, & longtime companion. It takes longer to do everything. Underlying this slowing-down is a basic life-fatigue, [varying from] hardly noticeable to over-powering; it is always there. Tiredness brings its own gift if we are alert to discern it.
Journal: June 19, 1990—In Vermont, we found ourselves tired & old, sitting on benches [more]. We [also] found ourselves enjoying the clouds, the lake, the hills, the spring flowers [more]. Now in age I feel that exhaustion [from climbing] & ecstasy from the beauty of the view were connected. I think this combination is one of old age's gifts. Now there is no more climbing to do; we are too tired. But the view is still there; & we are exhausted enough to reach into (or be reached by) our ecstasy in the water, skies, clouds, trees, flowers, mountains, people. And if we wait, what we want to remember will come to mind, swimming slowly to the surface of our minds like a fish rising. Personality, character, & even basic life-wisdom can last far into the mental slowness & even confusion of old age. My father reached a state in which he wasn't sure whether I was his sister or his daughter. His years of wisdom were still available—if only I hadn't been distracted by this minor, trivial mix-up.
The ability to sleep well may forsake us too, leaving us wakeful for 2 or 3 hours in the darkest, most interminable hours of the night, say from 2 to 5. It can be an affliction, or an opportunity to: take imaginary walks; re-visit vistas; have "a good think." Best of all, we learn something new about prayer. William Law wrote: "As the heart willeth & worketh, such & no other is its prayer ... Pray we must, as sure as our heart is alive ... When our heart isn't in a spirit of prayer to God, we pray without ceasing to some other part of creation." Perhaps as we watch what we do, we can enlarge and refocus our prayer, until we find that we are not so much praying as being prayed through, and our best hopes and the world's hopes are flowing through us, but not at our bidding.
In old age we experience time differently. We used to be governed by chronos, clock/ calendar time. Now it is kairos time, the appropriate time as decided by life's rhythms. Where is the life that late we lived? What is it now time for us to do or be? Conventional wisdom is the old shouldn't segregate themselves into their own age-group, but to stay in a larger, intergenerational society. The difficulties between generations are almost all a matter of tempo. Life together exhausts patience on both sides, no matter how much love & goodwill we bring to the situation. We elders need to be together, be ourselves, sustain one another, live at our tempo. One old woman said: "Don't deprive me of old age; I have earned it." The decision to move into a new pattern brings a hard time for us when we must leave the life-setting & all the past that we have lived with and loved for so many years.
Journal: July 2, 1988—This spring consisted of dividing up possessions, what to keep, what to pass on. In the end, it came down to saying "Take it, take it" to anyone who showed the slightest interest in anything of ours. We said thank you and goodbye to all the house's sheltering gifts of the past. The children and grandchildren visit for their last times. We found tears near the surface at all kinds of unexpected times, tears that came from being emotionally moved by what we had given & shared. We were moved and awed by what a human life is; how we come and go, and others take our place in the stream of life. The more we have allowed ourselves to love fully and freely a place, person or a way of life, the more fully and freely we can leave it.
Journal: February 8, 1988 (part of a letter)—[I have found] that with things, places, & possibly people, it's easier to let go if you have let yourself love than if you've held back; letting go becomes part of fulfillment. I'm finding this long process of saying goodbye to this much loved house & to our life here a very good one. Sorting through [old daily records] gives events a perspective & clarity they didn't have in their present. Any process not held back from, is fulfilling & beautiful. I hope I can remember that when I'm dying. Our process is taking us to death; in old age we live in daily awareness of that fact. An observable moving into greater distance is part of the very old's development; it takes them longer to come back from their mysterious inner distance. Even where the inner distance is so great that the personality appears absent, there can be important soul-work going on.
We can't presume to know all that is going on inside in these last stages; what we can see may not be all that is happening. We can follow only in imagination. My doctor friend, who has sat by many a deathbed, reported that she would see, at the moment of death, a fleeting expression of incredulous joy, as if something were happening [beyond] all dreams, hopes, & promises. We can watch what we do so we can find out who we are before we come to the end of our [lifelong] day. St. Ambrose prayed in the 4th century: "May the day go by joyously:/ In the morning of purity,/ In the high noon of faith,/ And without nightfall upon the spirit." Let us close, with luck & good management, without nightfall on our spirit, which is capable of great things until the end.
Queries—When and how did you experience a transition into aging? How much need do you feel for solitude as you grow older? [How important is it] to evaluate, sort, and come to a sense of where you were, where you are, and how you got here? What is your relationship to younger people as part of the oldest generation in their lives? How does increasing age affect your attitude toward death? How much anger do you feel as you experience the diminishments of age? What do you most fear about the latter stages of the aging process? How do you deal with your fears?
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385. In God we Die (by Warren Ostrom; 2006)
About the Author—Warren Ostrom is a member of University Meeting in Seattle, Washington, where he has held many positions including clerk of meeting & of committees on oversight, worship & ministry, peace & social concerns, & religious education. For over 20 years he served on the staff of the Geriatric & Family Services clinic at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. He is author of In God we Live (PHP #268).
Introduction—Quakers have a long history of care for people at all stages of life: from birth through childhood, adulthood, raising families & old age. Those who have come before us have delivered God’s love in many ways. Quakers have been among the pioneers in creating choices in high quality, ongoing care for people in later life [to humanize & personalize] care in nursing homes, & to assure the residents’ rights & dignity. Many times what is required of us is clear. Sometimes it isn’t. We haven’t found unity on assisted suicide. I believe that God appoints an hour for each death. I believe that there is time simply to trust what God is doing. I have worked more than 20 years as a geriatric social worker. Many people have told me that they’ve lived too long.
I see death in my garden. Some of the plants live a very long time, some only a few weeks; [likewise the animals]. They need to die, to feed other plants and animals, including my family, and to free light air, water and minerals for the next generation. This essay looks at some of the issues involved in prolonging life. It also offers a discernment process for those among us who face life-shortening conditions and who want to know what God wills for them. “God” is the name that for me includes all the different terms Friends use for the ultimate source. While logic and formal learning help, what we really know of life, of death, and of God has to begin with our own experience and end with whatever sense we make of our experiences.
3 True Stories/ More True Stories—God wanted to bring 3 good and faithful servants home, but they struggled against it. A man could have died from a carotid aneurysm, but was saved to later develop Alzheimer’s and severe behavioral problems. A widow with a disabled daughter she hoped would be cared for by the widow’s estate, instead suffered a massive stroke; she “survived” in a vegetative state until her resources were gone. A former history teacher had surgery on what turned out to be a non-cancerous spot on her lung; the surgery caused new problems. When she developed breathing problems, she accepted God’s generous offer, and let her life end.
[There are numerous stories of people wishing they had died; people not wishing to live another 10 years; people wishing they’d died in surgery; people questioning the morality of spending $100,000’s on operations that could have saved 1,000’s of children; people grateful that someone died quickly and did not suffer].
Here’s some of what I’ve learned from dying people and people making decisions for dying family members. In the midst [of dying or someone close dying], most of us can’t think clearly about all the consequences of our actions, even when we think we are clear. Some medical professionals can’t or don’t tell us what we need to know, [for lack of knowledge, personal reasons, or the best of intentions]. Our choices affect people in ways we don’t know. The spiritual dimensions of our decisions can be especially hard to sort out. We need to do a lot of our reflection ahead of time about our values and about how we want our lives finally to end. It is a great relief to have help figuring out what we should do.
To Love & Treasure the Old, the Sick, & the Disabled—It is right to love and respect the old, the sick, and the disabled. They are part of who we are, and we are all part of the human condition together. Actually everyone is both able and partially disabled in some way or other; “them” and “us” is an illusion. The “disabled” have been forced to focus on what really matters, & as a result sometimes live closer to the Spirit than others.
[On different Sundays I spoke of the beauty of autumn leaves dying, & compared it to older people dying. I spoke of oft-mended articles being beyond repair & how we can be cracked or chipped, even patched together, & still contain God’s treasure & do God’s work]. I was demonstrating against invading Iraq, with people it turned out had many “cracks & chips,” but were still the key people available to speak God’s truth in that time & place. God gives us our cracks, chips, & scratches to strengthen & focus us & remind us of our weaknesses & riches. There comes a time when we are done, & God uses a new vessel. We can trust God to know when that is.
The Costs of Postponing Death—[There are costs and consequences for postponing death]. To pay for transplants, Medicare and Medicaid, and private insurance spending go up. Rates go up and people lose Medicaid and private medical insurance. Children didn’t necessarily get the cheap and effective vaccinations that they otherwise would have. In the end, funding transplants led to worse health in the general population.
All that we can control with confidence is how we spend our personal money. Sometimes voters do decide [directly] how public money will be spent, like funding for emergency services. There are people who are grateful & who continue to be a gift to all who know them [because of emergency services] & people who curse it for postponing death. For them there was the added cost of pain & misery; saving life can be a boon or a curse.
I can choose to spend my own money on my own health, or wherever in the world it could be used for others’ health. The money I can choose not to spend on myself could make a difference. Knowing the right course isn’t easy. I can’t easily say that there should be no more organ transplants or expensive lifesaving medications. [I can only make my own health-spending decisions].
Health Insurance—Trying to guarantee the security that health insurance offers costs us our freedom, [by staying in a job] “because of the benefits.” Where we spend our time & our money is where we will come to center our lives. Should my treasure & my heart be in health insurance? In spiritual terms medical benefits can become idols. I believe that God wills every human birth, truly loves us, & decides the hour of every death. So there is no need to fight to insure myself against what God has in mind. If I broke a leg, I’d pay to get it set, but I’m not going to break enough legs in a year to justify thousands of dollars in insurance. Decades of experience have taught me to trust the Spirit; the Spirit doesn’t let me down. The Guide comes to each of us separately; maybe the person next to me is called to be insured. We once expected that we would die, but weren’t especially afraid of the time before death. Now we have every expectation of long life & often we are afraid of that.
Care-giving & Ethical Uneasiness/ Long Lives and Short—There is a new fear for baby-boomers that there won’t be enough younger people to care for us. It feels wrong that well-to-do, mostly white North Americans should take long life & care availability as a right. John Woolman’s “seeds of war” would now include the services we pay other people to perform for us, when those services are beyond our real needs. I wrote: [Our lifestyle is] dependent on exploiting people … A greatly extended life … isn't what we really want on a deep level.”
Median age of death was 40 in 1800, 50 in 1900, and is nearly 80 now. Do we need more years to live full lives, & to carry out God’s intentions for our lives, than all those who came before us? A full life can have any length. The joy that a 15-year-old boy had brought his family and our meeting was boundless. My only explanation was that he had finished what the Spirit set for his life’s purpose; the love he brought into the world and shared was his life’s work. Another dear, departed Friend was deep into a ministry with homeless, clerk of Peace and Social Concerns and married only a year. He, too, I think, was done; he had helped love grow.
Even though we don’t always know what care to accept, what risks to take, and the right time for our deaths, God does; we can trust God. If we faithfully look to the Spirit for guidance and find it, we can be sure that the Spirit knows us and will guide us [near death], as before. Until the very recent past, people believed that they lived until it was their time to die. It was said that God “called them home” when their time had come.
[When someone in their 70’s dies of an accident], it is a terrible blow. But it may also be a grace, saving someone from years of painful and unenlightening decline. [Some will adopt unhealthy eating habits in order to encourage a heart attack and avoid a worse alternative]. For me, after much thought, prayer, and seeking in worship, the path is clear. I have decided that I will have no medical care after my children are grown, except for non-life-extending measures to ease pain. When my time comes, my time will come. For most of us, a time will come when we need to make a decision. Do I fight, or do I accept my death this time?
How Do We Know What God Wants For Us?—Throughout life, we search for God’s will about major decisions. Each of them is important; each should add to our training in discernment, & build on growing trust in ourselves, & in God. If we follow the discipline of regularly turning to Spirit in silent worship, usually we can depend on getting assurance about what we should do. The timing of Spirit’s guidance isn’t ours to dictate.
Sometimes neither personal worship, nor deep conversation, nor writing gives us the sureness we seek. [Then may be the time for a clearness committee]. I offer a slightly modified process, where individuals gather together with a person to pose searching questions. First, crystallize the question you’d like answered; write it out [e.g. Should I accept my daughter’s offer & move in with her? Should I have surgery to have this new tumor removed?]. Then choose a facilitator for your committee. He or she should be deeply grounded in the Spirit & experienced in discernment, preferably not someone extremely close to you. For the remainder of your committee, select several trusted family members &/or friends, [ones who will speak in complete honesty].
Give committee the question well before the scheduled meeting. Enter into silent worship together; [introduce the process if necessary]. Once the silence has deepened, it will be your turn to speak. State your question. [Seek out] what gifts you have brought to the world; whether you have unfinished work, or if you are free to go; what your life or your death would mean to those around you; what they sense is God’s calling for you now.
Ask each person to engage all of her or his life experience, wisdom, and love. Ask them to search within and when the time feels right, to speak to you. Asking you an open question can be powerful in helping you to explore your thoughts. Explain that after each speaker, the group will return to silence until the next person speaks. [These individuals] may be speaking to you with a new depth and love; they will be speaking for the Spirit. Listen to the silence between messages, and the understanding that God will be building within you.
When all have spoken and returned to silence, have someone articulate the guidance which has been given to the group, or do it yourself. You [will] still have questions. You may need to gather again, more than once. You may choose to share what you have learned about your calling and about God. [See Appendix about assuring that your wishes are carried out]. Even after several meetings, you may not be clear about what you should do. Sometimes God just doesn’t give us the answers when we think we need them.
When the Soul Leaves—The clearness process assumes we can see death coming & make a sensitive decision about how we will meet it. Sometimes death creeps up on us, & we’re not even sure its there. Death is usually obvious. The heart & brain stop. Sometimes, it’s not so clear. The body keeps going while the brain stops, or memory, judgment, & even self-awareness disappears. Throughout [my years of working with the elderly], I intended to write a book about souls of people whose minds are melting away. How do we know when the soul is still there, & how can we tell when it’s gone? I can’t write that book, because I don’t know the answers. [Even those who seem irretrievably gone can show rare, sporadic signs of still “being there.”] Maybe if a group were to gather in worship [around a bed], we could sense whether there was a soul joining us from the bed. At the very least, being there in worship as the body dies can serve as a celebration of the life that was.
Going Home—What is it to die? Living in Christ and in joy, nothing really changes later, when our bodies die. We continue to be at home in Christ. In one Christian view, all men and women are brought home again by Jesus, if they only accept and acknowledge Jesus as savior. These Christian look forward to a further homecoming either at death or in the End Times of Revelation. Many Buddhists believe that death is generally followed by rebirth as a human or in some other form. Whether we realize it or not, we are always at home, at one with all that is. Enlightenment is profound realization of that unity.
Some have told me privately that while they tell people that they believe in life after death, they don’t really. Some people say solemnly that death is the end. Period. Some believe in living on in their families, or community, or nations, or the living substance of the earth. Taking his place in the circle of life would have been my father’s kind of going home.
What I Don’t Know and Do Know and Believe about Death—A careful reader will have noticed by now that some my ideas don’t seem to line up. Is God all-powerful, or can we thwart God’s will with our own decisions? [Some believe] that the hour of a person’s death can be known to God when that person is born even though, at every step through life, the person’s free will determines their next step. God may know that I will take one path, yet wish that I would choose the other. Sometimes God does not let us know what we should do, when we want to know it. Contradiction flows through all of our speculations about God.
It may be that paradox is ultimately part of the divine. I know that a Presence enters meetings for worship, & unexpectedly, at other times, my life. [Then] there is a peace, a sense of wholeness, a sureness of being loved. In meetings gathered in this Presence, I have felt with us people long dead. Was it just that all the pathways of memory were relaxed, & I remembered what these personalities felt like in a room with us? I can’t prove [it to be memory or present reality]. It feels as though the deceased have rejoined the Source. That’s what I believe.
I believe that in death we will learn the paradoxical truth: that we all are one. We have our whole existence in God. We are a part of each other, & every rock, plant, swimming, crawling, flying thing. When my neighbor dies, I die with him. When I die, God calls me home; you will go home with me. We will die & live in each other & in everything. Acts 17:28 tells us: “In God we live & move, in God we exist.” In God, too we die.
Appendix: Forms and Procedures—When you’ve decided about your own end of life, let your family, lawyer, and especially your doctors and caregivers know; put it in writing. There is a living will, which has the most limited use. It can tell your medical team not to extend your life if you enter a persistent vegetative state with no chance of recovery. There are advance directives to physicians. They can specify resuscitation and IV feeding or not. Physician’s Order for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST). [It gives detailed instructions about your medical treatment]. A completed POLST form is actually a medical order. A medical power-of-attorney gives another person the authority to make medical decisions on you behalf if you become unable to make your own. Otherwise the doctors will turn to family or decide by default to use every means possible to extend life.
Your treatment and eventual passing are bound to be calmer, and your family’s future more harmonious, if you make your decisions ahead of time. Give the original power-of-attorney to the person whom you name on it. Schedule a time when you can give the paperwork to each person who will make decisions as your representative or caregiver, and discuss it thoroughly. You may find that a doctor or facility refuses to carry out your wishes; you may need to find another. Tell your power-of-attorney as much as you can now, so they won’t have to guess. Discuss your wishes with every involved at least once a year.
“Do not resuscitate” forms should be posted on your refrigerator door, where emergency technicians will check. Ask at your doctor’s office or senior center where these various forms can be found. It is best to work with an attorney on the advance directives and power-of-attorney. Even with your advanced directive and iron determination to honor your instructions, they may not succeed in stopping treatment. When you are clear about your wishes, do your best to prepare the groundwork for them to be honored.
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184. The Valley of the Shadow (by Carol R. Murphy; 1972)
About the Author—This is Carol Murphy’s 10th Pendle Hill Pamphlet. The present study looks at the ultimate problem of death and what we, the living, make of it. “The creative mysterious ‘I’ that stands above the battle is ‘no thing,’ and so seems to stand on the randomized chaos side of existence; out of this ‘no thing’ come the choices and creations of the developed self.”
1. We belong to the fellowship of the mortal; beyond all petty divisions and estrangements we share a common destiny: we are born; we suffer; and we shall die. The witnessing of death, which used to be part of everyone’s death, has receded into the hush of the intensive care unit and the mortician’s “slumber room.” [With the extending of life], we may well have to assert both our right to live, and our inalienable right to die.
Death doesn't seem so romantic to those no longer young. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross tells us dying patients are aware of their illness' seriousness, resent being treated like children, are tired of bogus reassurances with those closest to them & welcome breakthrough in their defenses. The 1st reaction to approaching death is denial & disbelief; then there is anger, followed by bargaining, then depression. Finally there is grief & acceptance.
For a human being, mortality must be accepted & transcended. One symbolic continuity is found through one’s descendants, tribe, or nation. Another symbol is found in creating works of art or other enduring achievements. Somehow we feel the need to make our mark. Another hope of continuity is sought in myths—attempts to picture the unpicturable & speak of the ultimate in finite terms—of an afterlife or rebirth and reincarnation. It is the prospect of annihilation of loved ones that lends its poignancy to the hope that we shall one day, in Newman’s words see “those angel faces smile, which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.”
The next 2 forms of transcendence could be called “mystical”—a merging of the temporal and the eternal. The 1st is a sense of unity with the on-going of nature; the 2nd is through a peak experience which transforms our symbolic world and fills us with “bright shoots of everlastingness” (Henry Vaughn). The mystical experience may be all we have left to rely on now. The apocalyptic mass-destruction symbolized by the H-bomb [now makes us] capable of destroying our own posterity and blasting our works into oblivion. Simone Weil writes: “Once the experience of war makes visible the possibility of death that lies locked up in each moment, our thoughts cannot travel from one day to the next without meeting death’s face.”
Science has been so successful & materialism so plausible that it is very difficult to pull out of its presuppositions. Florida Scott-Maxwell writes: “Age can be dreaded more than death …Death feels a friend because it will release us from deterioration of which we can't see end. It is waiting for death that wears us down, & dis-taste of what we are becoming.” The half-faith of most people isn’t enough to relieve dying of conflict & fear.
2. If we reach the point where we no longer worry about the the body's fate, what do we hope to preserve? What is the real you or me? Aubrey Menen, an Anglo-Indian, secluded himself for lonely self-exploration, using the Upanishads’ negative way [to answer this question]. [To each self-imposed or world-imposed self-definition, he responded Neti—not this]. When he had freed himself somewhat from the compulsion to be what he "had to be," he seemed to reach an interior void, the “space within the heart,” which he called the Tranquil Eye [I].
There is a “no thing” which is the reservoir of potentiality from which any thing comes. Florida Scott-Maxwell says: Age can seem a debacle, a rout of all one most needs, but that is not the whole truth … Part of [us] which is outside age has been created by age, so there is gain as well as loss … There is that in us which is above the battle [of life], and that which is added to when outward strength is diminished.”
“Matter” is that process which is subject to entropy—loss, running down, decay, randomization. “Mind” or “spirit” is that process which is not subject to entropy, which grows the more it is given away. The creative & mysterious “I” that stands above the battle is “no thing.” Out of this “no thing” come the choices & the developed self’s creations, & the patterns of existence. What [remains unchanged] through growth must be beyond both form and dissolution, and use both. ESP [events that transcend time and distance] are not “proof” of survival of death, yet they shake us loose from our prevailing “common sense.” Without a theory in which they can find a home, these facts can never be treated as evidence, so they are outlaws, stealing tidbits of reluctant belief. These uncanny facts share some general characteristics: a direct communicability between minds attuned to each other, an apparent power of “mind” over “matter,” and a disregard for space or time.
3. We can't build up from the facts as the physical scientist does, but we are entitled to suggest a view that will expect, discover and welcome new facts that the smaller dogmas now outlaw. If it proves a faithful guide in this world we can venture to trust it beyond the grave. Early Friends were not surprised at their ability to speak directly to someone’s private condition, to follow leadings, to sense the safety or peril of proposed voyages.
Let us postulate that we are nodes in a field of many kinds of forces, senders & receivers of energy. [Many kinds & dimensions of communication, some of which are of human manufacture, & likely some unknown forms run through us that we aren’t conscious of. It has been found that the basic brain waves called alpha waves of people who are working well together get into phase. “Brain” & “mind” aren’t the same thing. The mind is the interaction of energy from more than one direction; it has escaped from the skull. The mind isn’t the prisoner of space or time. Space curves in the presence of celestial bodies, and time slows down in any system approaching the speed of light. The mind is already a multi-dimensional hyperspace. We are looking for a dynamic relationship between the perishable & the imperishable such that the latter is the active & controlling partner.
Through a medium, an intelligence calling itself Seth stated that physical world as we know it is a creation of our senses, that our senses show only one 3-dimensional reality out of an infinite number. The human race is a stage through which forms of consciousness travel, where we learn to handle energy and see the concrete material result of thought and emotion. It said: “In many respects, you are in a dream … You have focused so strongly upon physical reality that it becomes the only reality that you know.” The dreamer is enmeshed in the symbols, the waking man must either work their meaning through or dream similar dreams when next he sleeps.
Mary Baker Eddy in her Christian Science said that death is connected with deluded state of the “mortal mind,” & must be overcome, not submitted to, before immortality appears. She said: “Error brings its own self-destruction both here & hereafter, for mortal mind creates its own physical conditions. Death will occur until the spiritual understanding of life is reached.” There are many dimensions, of which our small glimmer of consciousness is but one, a faint reflection of Mind of God's self-renewing creativity. Death is the only human predicament where knowledge can never replace faith. Only the life lived by faith can carry us over the threshold.
Jesus himself discouraged speculation about what lies beyond death; God is the God of the living. Attempts to carry our cultural and earthly preoccupations into the next stage of being [are foolish]. Perhaps the proper response of the person of faith is to let the supreme experience [of the Resurrection] judge and restructure all the other experiences of life or death. The Christian is to accept as his own inner principle of life Christ’s own spiritual life. Christ, the expression of self-renewing Spirit is available to be for the Christian the Tranquil Eye of Aubrey Menen’s meditations. Our lives can be united with the eternal life of God through our self-giving love mirroring God’s exhaustless self-giving. Our life will be a healing one, and our physical death a conflict-free culmination of a life wholly lived & full of God.
Christian or not, we all have this final journey ahead of us, & we should all have opportunity to prepare for it with such courage as we can gain from enlarging our horizons beyond the material. The value of the book, The Wheel of Death lies in its facing death unafraid as a natural & spiritual process, & offering guidance for the [important] last thoughts of the dying. Those who meet life & death unafraid are capable of dying like the Buddhist sages, who died at the time of their choosing, with dignity and without struggle. Can you use and enjoy the qualities that make up the “me” without clinging to them? What and where is your Tranquil Eye?
Perhaps healing [an unbearable life] or having a peaceful death depends in such cases on wholly choosing life or death. Will you be ready for a larger dimension that may await? [If “life is but a dream,” from what might you awaken at death, & to what? What might your life mean in a higher plane of reality? What kind of growth or contemplation would make worthwhile the final testing we all willy-nilly must undergo?
Kapleau, Philip (ed.); The Wheel of Death; Harper & Row, 1971.
Scott-Maxwell, Florida; The Measure of My Days; Knopf, 1968.
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281. A Quaker Theology of Pastoral Care: The Art of the Everyday (by Zoe White; 1988)
About the Author—Zoe White was born in 1951 & grew up in North London [in the Church of England]. She joined the Society of Friends in 1982. Zoe graduated from St. Andrews University, Scotland with a Masters in Theology in 1983. She graduated from Earlham School of Religion with a Masters of Divinity in 1987. She worked for Quaker home service and is currently working for the Quaker Council for current affairs in Brussels.
Introduction—This pamphlet emerged as a result of studies & experience in the area of pastoral care during the years of study at Earlham, [& is concerned with exploring] a theological basis which provides foundation for pastoral care for several reasons. Having clarity about theological roots will help inform the self-under-standing of the one caring and provide nourishment to prevent burn-out. It will help inform a vision for pastoral care. It can help ensure that the caring work is grounded in assumptions consistent with Friend’s practice.
Pastoral care mustn’t be primarily a problem-solving endeavor & mustn’t hand over responsibility to a team of experts. We hope for healing & a problem’s solution. This won’t happen when we set out to accomplish it. It will happen as the process’ by-product of deepening & sharing our vision of God [and in community].
Theology is what happens when I allow God’s Word of creation to speak through me in life’s daily events; it happens when [I bring] disciplines of art, self-opening & deep self-knowing into the service of love. I approach pastoral care as the Art of Everyday. Pastoral care is the work of mediating God’s love to others & the world. It happens [through everyone] & through many aspects of life in the faith community. Pastoral care also happens through conversation, through the watchful guidance of Elders and Overseers, and through spoken ministry.
It calls for presence, fellowship, communion, & commitment, & it reconciles & heals. It is a work of [all] the people, for [all] the people; it is a work of faith. I will start by reflecting on my 10-week Hospital Chaplaincy Training Program. The course was designed so that roughly half of the student’s time was spent “on the floors” with patients. This model encourages much reflection on experience and self-critical analysis of our interactions.
[Journal Entries]—This is my 3rd day. The beeper in my pocket feels like a time bomb. I feel totally overwhelmed & helpless. Did I absorb their panic, or am I just seeing my own panic reflected in them? How do I cope? This work forces me to cross boundaries. In crisis, our theological differences fade into insignificance; only shared humanity counts. This work brings me back into direct relationship with Jesus Christ. He saw this pain & hopelessness & yet continued to believe in the Vision of God. Many times over the past few days I have watched science & technology come to a screaming halt by the bedside of a dead or dying person. Death is no respecter of intellects or theologies. White, middle-class, theological agendas have kept me from, rather than connected me with, my experiences of God, the world & other people, my need for repentance & forgiveness.
Last night I prayed by Frances’ bedside, encouraging her to let go. [Frances died just before daybreak]. I asked her Aunt Mary if she would like me to say prayers; as I read the Prayers for the Dead, she packs her niece’s few belongings. 2 weeks ago, Frances told me about the gold cross around her neck, a gift from her husband. She was 55 & told me she wanted to live to see the trees again. I take a walk outside. The world is new startlingly bright and clear. Something like rage stirs within me as I begin to feel the depths of my own impotence.
[Reflections on Theology]—How have my experiences with death &/ or illness informed my thinking about my theology & pastoral care? Beside Frances’ bed, I made a resolve that I became aware of only much later. I made an agreement with God that [my theology surrounding death] has to be able to stand with me by Frances’ bedside, with a 55 year-old woman who wanted to live, [or] it is probably not worth very much. Pastoral care’s work involves the human person & is organic in nature. In pastoral care, as I seek to enter the mystery of another’s life, so I encounter my own life’s depths, my own sometimes painful faith & suffering questions.
Any theology has to be able to reflect this organic process with all the vitality and uncertainty of the moment. [It will of necessity be always incomplete and never systematic. To be adequate as a foundation for pastoral care, a theology must be able to speak with a personal voice from the depths of personal experience. Systematic theologies can become alienated from the person of the writer. A theology which is not held in tension with the stories of people’s lives may become a liability in healing a world and people in crisis. Rather than advocating an anti-intellectual stance, I am seeking to redress an imbalance in theology between affective and speculative modes of thinking and being. Pastoral care demands a theology which reflects whole personhood.
[Pastoral Theology at its Best]—Pastoral theology is at its best to the degree its intellectual rigor is informed by body knowledge and intuition. [Beverly Harrison writes]: “Feeling is the basic bodily ingredient that mediates our connection to the world … Failure to live deeply in ‘our bodies, ourselves,’ destroys the possibility of moral relations between us”; failure destroys the possibility of a practical pastoral theology. Our bodies need to be finely attuned, watching for signs of life, signs of hope and hazards. [In pastoral care], our bodies act like barometers, picking up vital signs as keenly as do monitors by the patient’s bedside.
My theology will be revealed to the extent I believe my theological task to be one of artistry, [& myself] the Spirit’s artist, & practice theology as an everyday art. I must believe myself to be bearer & receiver of this Truth. The task is delicate & demanding, requiring trust. I must be prepared to watch for images, to hold them with care & sensitivity. I must treat no thought as irrelevant, but rather find my way to its heart it. Maria Rilke writes: “The future must enter you long before it happens … Just wait for the birth … & the hour of new clarity.”
[Art of the Everyday: Example and Discipline]—I received Marilyn Monroe’s image, which seemed to be impressed onto a large rock or boulder. I played with the image, & eventually I emerged with a short poem: “I saw the face of Marilyn Monroe/ Impressed on rock,/ Not carved or painted,/ But projected from some distant shock./ Cast there for life,/ Like the resurrection on the shroud,/ It was the face of a star screaming.” I understand that we are never wounded [or healed] in isolation from one another or from the world. Without relinquishing my self to Spirit, the Spirit won’t be free to move through me; my art won’t live & my love won’t touch others. Slowly, I came to realize that I would only learn the truths necessary for this work through human interaction and engagement. My primary resource would not come in the form of a kit or system. It would come from my faith experience and my willingness to be vulnerable.
The practice of any art demands a discipline, and theological artistry is no exception. Matthew Fox writes: “It is very important that we recover a spirituality of discipline … creativity requires hard work.” There is the discipline of journal writing, which represents an honest and courageous attempt to draw close to one’s experience and to the Inner Guide. [The theological content that emerges is important, as is] the discipline and practice of writing, [which] develops some practical skills which are crucial for the work of caring.
Listening—In journal writing, I hope to listen for the unloving voices which sabotage my attempts to love myself & others. I try to encourage & nurture those other more generous voices which are expressions of Spirit which seek me out. The journal is where I engage the process of revelation & the emergence of meaning in the world. In listening to another or to my deepest self, I am involved in the process of the evolution of knowledge. Jack L. Seymour wrote: “Communication is a complex operation of understanding all the linguistic symbols used, the context within which they are used, & how they are shaped by the other person’s actions.” The interpretive process involves understanding the other in terms of his or her own self-understanding. The act of setting aside my agenda is a loving act & a faithful response to the command to love my neighbor. To the extent that we can listen well to ourselves & others, so we are able to move closer to God who calls us into being.
Story-telling—As I write in my journal, I tell my story. Paul W. Pruyser writes: “Modern pastoral theology requires in its practice a personal language that can capture experiences, events outlooks, struggles, attitudes, feelings, hopes.” Through the stories of Biblical lives, God is manifested through the personal & social, the relational & political. Here, I find a truthful theology. Story-telling is basic to pastoral care, because in telling our stories we name that which is “home” for us, our proper place, which is crucial. It is upon this developed sense of our own personal “belonging” that our spiritual authority, integrity and credibility ultimate rest. We must be prepared to speak of the places we have found and called “home” as we are to speak of the process of seeking.
In journal writing, we build the place of belonging, we tell the story of the searching and finding which we share with others. Early Quaker’s “home” was represented by their collective vision of a just society. Friends’ journal writing both informed & reflected this vision. Discovery of their common “home” motivated their wit-ness & testimony to the world. Pastoral care happens in the context of a community which listens to, writes & speaks its stories, [which provide the symbols & common language for our Art of the Everyday]. I believe one’s work in the journal [can] represent an art-full theology which will be a primary resource for our care for others.
Our shared work of pastoral care, and the artistry which is to inform it, depends upon our ability to relinquish and open ourselves to listen, create, and share our stories. We must be at home in the messiness [and incompleteness] of being human in relation to God. We must speak personally in language which conveys existential realities even as it analyzes or solves them. A theology of creation & artistry is one of playfulness, color, spontaneity & surprise. It is only being faithful, [creative] artists of the Spirit that we can avoid being victims of guilt, fear & fatalism which give rise to pain & misery. [Using] artistry is a radical act of courage, defiance, [& love], which makes us able to look death squarely in face knowing beyond doubt it doesn’t have last word.
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355. In Beauty: A Quaker Approach to End-of-Life Care (by Kirsten Backstrom; 2001)
About the Author—Kirsten Backstrom is a member of Multnomah MM in Portland, OR and a volunteer at Hopewell House Hospice in Portland. She works in physical care, spiritual care, and bereavement care. This pamphlet reflects Kirsten's process of seeking the interconnectedness of the different paths in her own spiritual landscape: [one-on-one, heart-to-heart] working with the dying; Quaker community and worship; [close, personal, near-death encounter]; home and family. Where do these life paths come together? How does a person "walk in beauty" throughout life and up to death?
Dierdre—I didn't know Dierdre well. [I helped with her personal needs], and we'd talk about small things, and the conversation was limited to courtesies and practical exchanges of requests and responses. Dierdre was not looking for any new intimacies at this point in her life; she preferred her solitude. When she came to the last hours of her life, it became evident that she needed something from those around her. She was nearly unconscious; she moaned and twisted about and attempted to lift her arms and head and to reach out. It calmed her when someone sat nearby. I sat, looked around, trying to get a better sense of who she was, and what might be meaningful to her now. She was a delicate 48-year old woman dying of breast cancer.
Even in my brief interactions with her I noticed that she was someone who appreciated beauty. She seemed to be wrestling with something, distressed by something. [It became clear to me that I should say an old, traditional Navajo prayer about walking with and in beauty]. I watched as I spoke the whole time to be sure that it was all right to continue. Her face became intent, then relaxed. The silence, her fear, and fretfulness softened. It was as if she could feel the beauty, and felt easier for it. She did not become restless again. Deirdre died the next the next day, gently, in beauty. I sense that many uniquely Quaker forms of faithfulness are essential in caring for others at the end of life, and in exploring and learning from death and the prospect of our own mortality.
Listening—In work with the dying, a listening presence is more important than almost anything else that we can possibly have to offer each other. With Deirdre, I quickly realized that the best way I could care for this particular woman was to leave her be, and let my listening attention take subtler forms than conversation. I kept my own personality out of her way—and listened with my hands, eyes and heart to the best of my ability. Deep listening [led me to listen past] those first cues that said "don't get too close." I tried to continue listening, within the limitations of privacy that she had set. Although too many questions or too much touch would have been an intrusion, a prayer was not an intrusion. It was clear to me, as I listened, that Deirdre's sense of privacy was different from mine, and that a prayer with beauty in it might have meaning for her. It seemed that the prayer was spoken through me rather than from me. I tried to allow her to call what she needed out of me, and bring it through me as instrument rather than music. I tried to listen the whole time so as to not "outrun my guide."
Perfection—I use the word perfection guardedly, since its modern associations are largely negative & sterile. Early Friends had a different understanding of "perfection" that is closer to what we might call wholeness. I have seen that those who are dying reach toward a subtler kind of perfection, a wholeness, a fullness of life that is wonderful to witness as it comes to its culmination in death. Sometimes, coming to wholeness cannot be clearly comprehended, because the conscious mind is in the midst of letting go of itself and moving on to some-thing unknown. The spirit also struggles in many intricate ways in relation to its self, others, the whole of life, [the present part], and the unknown possibilities [of the next part].
I believe and have seen that people find ways to complete or perfect their lives up to the moment of death; wonderful coincidences or synchronicities. Family members come together in unexpected ways, and offer the right insights at just the right time; a friend or stranger is there when they are needed. I've had the awesome feeling of being used by the process itself, as a single woven strand into a fabric whose pattern extends far beyond me. The prayer I spoke had to do with something in the circumstances and the spirit of the moment, and with the wholeness of her life. I have no "proof" that whatever occurred was right or significant for that person. Yet, in a few cases, there have been direct and obvious responses that have affirmed that something meaningful was happening. My intuitive sense will also tell me when I have become a disruption to the flow rather than a follower of it; [deep listening is the only way to avoid this]. Death brings immediacy and serves to remind me to pay attention, open up, to be as fully present to this moment as it is possible to be.
Humility—In these days when the trend is toward affirming self-esteem & assertiveness rather than humility, Friends seem to have a better-than average sense of the importance of being humble. Because it is our worship's nature to turn inward, we encounter beauties & weaknesses inside of us. [That makes it difficult (though not impossible) to delude ourselves about motivations & mistakes, [especially] in working with people who are dying. I have occasionally noticed a tiny part of me may be hoping someone sees me and notices how good I am at this. And analyzing and judging this behavior of mine means not attending to the other person I share this experience with. I want to be here, sitting with this person; some of my reasons I fully understand, some I don't.
Small mistakes, just like small acts of kindness can become very significant when they occur in the last days of a person's life, but only if that person had reasons within themselves that allowed those things to be meaningful. [What I do, mistake or gesture of love], could be powerfully significant, or of little or no importance. Humility means being a bit player in someone else's play. My presence in my bit part may be of great value. The important thing is the simple presence of a person sharing with another person, [whether it be] humble service or deep communion. How do I know that my work is important? [Inner answer]: You are not important, little one, but you are precious. As givers and receivers of care, we may simply need to be gentle with ourselves, let our self-importance slide, and remember we are precious.
Libby—Libby was close to my age, 38 or 39, & was paralyzed from the chest down. Cervical Cancer had metastasized to her lung; one lung was gone, the other failing. She looked like a healthy young woman: pink-cheeked, slightly plump, with silky, strawberry-blond hair, a sweet, warm smile, & clear, intelligent eyes. I could easily imagine being friends under different circumstances. But the cues for our interaction needed to come from her, not from me. One day we talked for almost 3 hours; she introduced the subject of dying. At times I got caught up in our conversation and forgot to watch closely for her cues. She said: "I'm really scared of dying. I'm scared of the suffering." [I unwisely offered the "expert" opinion that] "you've already been through the worst." I looked at her again, and realized clearly that although that was true for most people it would not be true for her.
"Letting go" was experience that she personally found most difficult & painful & terrible, the worst thing she could imagine. In the weeks that followed, dying got steadily harder. Finally, when she was just too disoriented & anxious & hurting to stand it any more, she asked to be sedated completely, & died within a few days. Even if she had been a close friend I couldn't have understood what the struggling meant. I believe, ultimately, each of us dies in a way that "completes" the life that we have lived. For some it means dying peacefully; for others it means struggling desperately. I trust that for Libby, wherever she is now, death is not fearful for her.
Direct Experience/ Simplicity—In work with the dying, the holy, awe-inspiring, & profoundly mysterious is present in the most commonplace situations. The Light is known experientially, through ordinary gestures, routines, memories, interactions, sensations, strands woven together into a rich, complex, breathtakingly beautiful pattern. Looking to the Inward Teacher & our experience may serve us well when it comes time to die. In the Light of life's approaching end, things like ambition, image, roles, possessions, plans & opinions become pointless, while immediate & ordinary experience becomes profound. Besides grief & despair, it can be a source of wonder & delight, an opportunity to experience the moment without preconceptions, & to find God close by.
In the dying person, activities, explanations, complications are all brought down to the basic fact of immediate & deeply meaningful experience: a dying man delighting in an upside-down squirrel; a 90-year-old woman takes up watching baseball; a former nurse instructs a volunteer how to wash around her catheter. A dying man takes his last breaths, with long pauses. On the last breath, the pause becomes all there is. His daughter is present, holding his still warm hand, feeling the change as it happens to the empty body. The stillness. Silence.
Integrity—Are our actions consistent with our ideals? Are we attentive to "that of God" in our self & others? Are we open to new Light in unlikely places? Do we know what is truly meaningful in our lives & give our time & emotional resources to it? My success at integrity is limited by my own unconsidered impulses & unacknowledged assumptions. Knowing that they exist doesn't necessarily help me to learn from them & change behavior. In working with the dying, instead of thinking the above queries, I find myself naturally & immediately praying these questions. [Early on in] hospice volunteering, I found myself praying I could be of use. Prayers were a simple matter of intent; the results weren't to be measured by my assessment of myself.
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281. A Quaker Theology of Pastoral Care: The Art of the Everyday (by Zoe White; 1988)
About the Author—Zoe White was born in 1951 & grew up in North London [in the Church of England]. She joined the Society of Friends in 1982. Zoe graduated from St. Andrews University, Scotland with a Masters in Theology in 1983. She graduated from Earlham School of Religion with a Masters of Divinity in 1987. She worked for Quaker home service and is currently working for the Quaker Council for current affairs in Brussels.
Introduction—This pamphlet emerged as a result of studies & experience in the area of pastoral care during the years of study at Earlham, [& is concerned with exploring] a theological basis which provides foundation for pastoral care for several reasons. Having clarity about theological roots will help inform the self-under-standing of the one caring and provide nourishment to prevent burn-out. It will help inform a vision for pastoral care. It can help ensure that the caring work is grounded in assumptions consistent with Friend’s practice.
Pastoral care mustn’t be primarily a problem-solving endeavor & mustn’t hand over responsibility to a team of experts. We hope for healing & a problem’s solution. This won’t happen when we set out to accomplish it. It will happen as the process’ by-product of deepening & sharing our vision of God [and in community].
Theology is what happens when I allow God’s Word of creation to speak through me in life’s daily events; it happens when [I bring] disciplines of art, self-opening & deep self-knowing into the service of love. I approach pastoral care as the Art of Everyday. Pastoral care is the work of mediating God’s love to others & the world. It happens [through everyone] & through many aspects of life in the faith community. Pastoral care also happens through conversation, through the watchful guidance of Elders and Overseers, and through spoken ministry.
It calls for presence, fellowship, communion, & commitment, & it reconciles & heals. It is a work of [all] the people, for [all] the people; it is a work of faith. I will start by reflecting on my 10-week Hospital Chaplaincy Training Program. The course was designed so that roughly half of the student’s time was spent “on the floors” with patients. This model encourages much reflection on experience and self-critical analysis of our interactions.
[Journal Entries]—This is my 3rd day. The beeper in my pocket feels like a time bomb. I feel totally overwhelmed & helpless. Did I absorb their panic, or am I just seeing my own panic reflected in them? How do I cope? This work forces me to cross boundaries. In crisis, our theological differences fade into insignificance; only shared humanity counts. This work brings me back into direct relationship with Jesus Christ. He saw this pain & hopelessness & yet continued to believe in the Vision of God. Many times over the past few days I have watched science & technology come to a screaming halt by the bedside of a dead or dying person. Death is no respecter of intellects or theologies. White, middle-class, theological agendas have kept me from, rather than connected me with, my experiences of God, the world & other people, my need for repentance & forgiveness.
Last night I prayed by Frances’ bedside, encouraging her to let go. [Frances died just before daybreak]. I asked her Aunt Mary if she would like me to say prayers; as I read the Prayers for the Dead, she packs her niece’s few belongings. 2 weeks ago, Frances told me about the gold cross around her neck, a gift from her husband. She was 55 & told me she wanted to live to see the trees again. I take a walk outside. The world is new startlingly bright and clear. Something like rage stirs within me as I begin to feel the depths of my own impotence.
[Reflections on Theology]—How have my experiences with death &/ or illness informed my thinking about my theology & pastoral care? Beside Frances’ bed, I made a resolve that I became aware of only much later. I made an agreement with God that [my theology surrounding death] has to be able to stand with me by Frances’ bedside, with a 55 year-old woman who wanted to live, [or] it is probably not worth very much. Pastoral care’s work involves the human person & is organic in nature. In pastoral care, as I seek to enter the mystery of another’s life, so I encounter my own life’s depths, my own sometimes painful faith & suffering questions.
Any theology has to be able to reflect this organic process with all the vitality and uncertainty of the moment. [It will of necessity be always incomplete and never systematic. To be adequate as a foundation for pastoral care, a theology must be able to speak with a personal voice from the depths of personal experience. Systematic theologies can become alienated from the person of the writer. A theology which is not held in tension with the stories of people’s lives may become a liability in healing a world and people in crisis. Rather than advocating an anti-intellectual stance, I am seeking to redress an imbalance in theology between affective and speculative modes of thinking and being. Pastoral care demands a theology which reflects whole personhood.
[Pastoral Theology at its Best]—Pastoral theology is at its best to the degree its intellectual rigor is informed by body knowledge and intuition. [Beverly Harrison writes]: “Feeling is the basic bodily ingredient that mediates our connection to the world … Failure to live deeply in ‘our bodies, ourselves,’ destroys the possibility of moral relations between us”; failure destroys the possibility of a practical pastoral theology. Our bodies need to be finely attuned, watching for signs of life, signs of hope and hazards. [In pastoral care], our bodies act like barometers, picking up vital signs as keenly as do monitors by the patient’s bedside.
My theology will be revealed to the extent I believe my theological task to be one of artistry, [& myself] the Spirit’s artist, & practice theology as an everyday art. I must believe myself to be bearer & receiver of this Truth. The task is delicate & demanding, requiring trust. I must be prepared to watch for images, to hold them with care & sensitivity. I must treat no thought as irrelevant, but rather find my way to its heart it. Maria Rilke writes: “The future must enter you long before it happens … Just wait for the birth … & the hour of new clarity.”
[Art of the Everyday: Example and Discipline]—I received Marilyn Monroe’s image, which seemed to be impressed onto a large rock or boulder. I played with the image, & eventually I emerged with a short poem: “I saw the face of Marilyn Monroe/ Impressed on rock,/ Not carved or painted,/ But projected from some distant shock./ Cast there for life,/ Like the resurrection on the shroud,/ It was the face of a star screaming.” I understand that we are never wounded [or healed] in isolation from one another or from the world. Without relinquishing my self to Spirit, the Spirit won’t be free to move through me; my art won’t live & my love won’t touch others. Slowly, I came to realize that I would only learn the truths necessary for this work through human interaction and engagement. My primary resource would not come in the form of a kit or system. It would come from my faith experience and my willingness to be vulnerable.
The practice of any art demands a discipline, and theological artistry is no exception. Matthew Fox writes: “It is very important that we recover a spirituality of discipline … creativity requires hard work.” There is the discipline of journal writing, which represents an honest and courageous attempt to draw close to one’s experience and to the Inner Guide. [The theological content that emerges is important, as is] the discipline and practice of writing, [which] develops some practical skills which are crucial for the work of caring.
Listening—In journal writing, I hope to listen for the unloving voices which sabotage my attempts to love myself & others. I try to encourage & nurture those other more generous voices which are expressions of Spirit which seek me out. The journal is where I engage the process of revelation & the emergence of meaning in the world. In listening to another or to my deepest self, I am involved in the process of the evolution of knowledge. Jack L. Seymour wrote: “Communication is a complex operation of understanding all the linguistic symbols used, the context within which they are used, & how they are shaped by the other person’s actions.” The interpretive process involves understanding the other in terms of his or her own self-understanding. The act of setting aside my agenda is a loving act & a faithful response to the command to love my neighbor. To the extent that we can listen well to ourselves & others, so we are able to move closer to God who calls us into being.
Story-telling—As I write in my journal, I tell my story. Paul W. Pruyser writes: “Modern pastoral theology requires in its practice a personal language that can capture experiences, events outlooks, struggles, attitudes, feelings, hopes.” Through the stories of Biblical lives, God is manifested through the personal & social, the relational & political. Here, I find a truthful theology. Story-telling is basic to pastoral care, because in telling our stories we name that which is “home” for us, our proper place, which is crucial. It is upon this developed sense of our own personal “belonging” that our spiritual authority, integrity and credibility ultimate rest. We must be prepared to speak of the places we have found and called “home” as we are to speak of the process of seeking.
In journal writing, we build the place of belonging, we tell the story of the searching and finding which we share with others. Early Quaker’s “home” was represented by their collective vision of a just society. Friends’ journal writing both informed & reflected this vision. Discovery of their common “home” motivated their wit-ness & testimony to the world. Pastoral care happens in the context of a community which listens to, writes & speaks its stories, [which provide the symbols & common language for our Art of the Everyday]. I believe one’s work in the journal [can] represent an art-full theology which will be a primary resource for our care for others.
Our shared work of pastoral care, and the artistry which is to inform it, depends upon our ability to relinquish and open ourselves to listen, create, and share our stories. We must be at home in the messiness [and incompleteness] of being human in relation to God. We must speak personally in language which conveys existential realities even as it analyzes or solves them. A theology of creation & artistry is one of playfulness, color, spontaneity & surprise. It is only being faithful, [creative] artists of the Spirit that we can avoid being victims of guilt, fear & fatalism which give rise to pain & misery. [Using] artistry is a radical act of courage, defiance, [& love], which makes us able to look death squarely in face knowing beyond doubt it doesn’t have last word.
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355. In Beauty: A Quaker Approach to End-of-Life Care (by Kirsten Backstrom; 2001)
About the Author—Kirsten Backstrom is a member of Multnomah MM in Portland, OR and a volunteer at Hopewell House Hospice in Portland. She works in physical care, spiritual care, and bereavement care. This pamphlet reflects Kirsten's process of seeking the interconnectedness of the different paths in her own spiritual landscape: [one-on-one, heart-to-heart] working with the dying; Quaker community and worship; [close, personal, near-death encounter]; home and family. Where do these life paths come together? How does a person "walk in beauty" throughout life and up to death?
Dierdre—I didn't know Dierdre well. [I helped with her personal needs], and we'd talk about small things, and the conversation was limited to courtesies and practical exchanges of requests and responses. Dierdre was not looking for any new intimacies at this point in her life; she preferred her solitude. When she came to the last hours of her life, it became evident that she needed something from those around her. She was nearly unconscious; she moaned and twisted about and attempted to lift her arms and head and to reach out. It calmed her when someone sat nearby. I sat, looked around, trying to get a better sense of who she was, and what might be meaningful to her now. She was a delicate 48-year old woman dying of breast cancer.
Even in my brief interactions with her I noticed that she was someone who appreciated beauty. She seemed to be wrestling with something, distressed by something. [It became clear to me that I should say an old, traditional Navajo prayer about walking with and in beauty]. I watched as I spoke the whole time to be sure that it was all right to continue. Her face became intent, then relaxed. The silence, her fear, and fretfulness softened. It was as if she could feel the beauty, and felt easier for it. She did not become restless again. Deirdre died the next the next day, gently, in beauty. I sense that many uniquely Quaker forms of faithfulness are essential in caring for others at the end of life, and in exploring and learning from death and the prospect of our own mortality.
Listening—In work with the dying, a listening presence is more important than almost anything else that we can possibly have to offer each other. With Deirdre, I quickly realized that the best way I could care for this particular woman was to leave her be, and let my listening attention take subtler forms than conversation. I kept my own personality out of her way—and listened with my hands, eyes and heart to the best of my ability. Deep listening [led me to listen past] those first cues that said "don't get too close." I tried to continue listening, within the limitations of privacy that she had set. Although too many questions or too much touch would have been an intrusion, a prayer was not an intrusion. It was clear to me, as I listened, that Deirdre's sense of privacy was different from mine, and that a prayer with beauty in it might have meaning for her. It seemed that the prayer was spoken through me rather than from me. I tried to allow her to call what she needed out of me, and bring it through me as instrument rather than music. I tried to listen the whole time so as to not "outrun my guide."
Perfection—I use the word perfection guardedly, since its modern associations are largely negative & sterile. Early Friends had a different understanding of "perfection" that is closer to what we might call wholeness. I have seen that those who are dying reach toward a subtler kind of perfection, a wholeness, a fullness of life that is wonderful to witness as it comes to its culmination in death. Sometimes, coming to wholeness cannot be clearly comprehended, because the conscious mind is in the midst of letting go of itself and moving on to some-thing unknown. The spirit also struggles in many intricate ways in relation to its self, others, the whole of life, [the present part], and the unknown possibilities [of the next part].
I believe and have seen that people find ways to complete or perfect their lives up to the moment of death; wonderful coincidences or synchronicities. Family members come together in unexpected ways, and offer the right insights at just the right time; a friend or stranger is there when they are needed. I've had the awesome feeling of being used by the process itself, as a single woven strand into a fabric whose pattern extends far beyond me. The prayer I spoke had to do with something in the circumstances and the spirit of the moment, and with the wholeness of her life. I have no "proof" that whatever occurred was right or significant for that person. Yet, in a few cases, there have been direct and obvious responses that have affirmed that something meaningful was happening. My intuitive sense will also tell me when I have become a disruption to the flow rather than a follower of it; [deep listening is the only way to avoid this]. Death brings immediacy and serves to remind me to pay attention, open up, to be as fully present to this moment as it is possible to be.
Humility—In these days when the trend is toward affirming self-esteem & assertiveness rather than humility, Friends seem to have a better-than average sense of the importance of being humble. Because it is our worship's nature to turn inward, we encounter beauties & weaknesses inside of us. [That makes it difficult (though not impossible) to delude ourselves about motivations & mistakes, [especially] in working with people who are dying. I have occasionally noticed a tiny part of me may be hoping someone sees me and notices how good I am at this. And analyzing and judging this behavior of mine means not attending to the other person I share this experience with. I want to be here, sitting with this person; some of my reasons I fully understand, some I don't.
Small mistakes, just like small acts of kindness can become very significant when they occur in the last days of a person's life, but only if that person had reasons within themselves that allowed those things to be meaningful. [What I do, mistake or gesture of love], could be powerfully significant, or of little or no importance. Humility means being a bit player in someone else's play. My presence in my bit part may be of great value. The important thing is the simple presence of a person sharing with another person, [whether it be] humble service or deep communion. How do I know that my work is important? [Inner answer]: You are not important, little one, but you are precious. As givers and receivers of care, we may simply need to be gentle with ourselves, let our self-importance slide, and remember we are precious.
Libby—Libby was close to my age, 38 or 39, & was paralyzed from the chest down. Cervical Cancer had metastasized to her lung; one lung was gone, the other failing. She looked like a healthy young woman: pink-cheeked, slightly plump, with silky, strawberry-blond hair, a sweet, warm smile, & clear, intelligent eyes. I could easily imagine being friends under different circumstances. But the cues for our interaction needed to come from her, not from me. One day we talked for almost 3 hours; she introduced the subject of dying. At times I got caught up in our conversation and forgot to watch closely for her cues. She said: "I'm really scared of dying. I'm scared of the suffering." [I unwisely offered the "expert" opinion that] "you've already been through the worst." I looked at her again, and realized clearly that although that was true for most people it would not be true for her.
"Letting go" was experience that she personally found most difficult & painful & terrible, the worst thing she could imagine. In the weeks that followed, dying got steadily harder. Finally, when she was just too disoriented & anxious & hurting to stand it any more, she asked to be sedated completely, & died within a few days. Even if she had been a close friend I couldn't have understood what the struggling meant. I believe, ultimately, each of us dies in a way that "completes" the life that we have lived. For some it means dying peacefully; for others it means struggling desperately. I trust that for Libby, wherever she is now, death is not fearful for her.
Direct Experience/ Simplicity—In work with the dying, the holy, awe-inspiring, & profoundly mysterious is present in the most commonplace situations. The Light is known experientially, through ordinary gestures, routines, memories, interactions, sensations, strands woven together into a rich, complex, breathtakingly beautiful pattern. Looking to the Inward Teacher & our experience may serve us well when it comes time to die. In the Light of life's approaching end, things like ambition, image, roles, possessions, plans & opinions become pointless, while immediate & ordinary experience becomes profound. Besides grief & despair, it can be a source of wonder & delight, an opportunity to experience the moment without preconceptions, & to find God close by.
In the dying person, activities, explanations, complications are all brought down to the basic fact of immediate & deeply meaningful experience: a dying man delighting in an upside-down squirrel; a 90-year-old woman takes up watching baseball; a former nurse instructs a volunteer how to wash around her catheter. A dying man takes his last breaths, with long pauses. On the last breath, the pause becomes all there is. His daughter is present, holding his still warm hand, feeling the change as it happens to the empty body. The stillness. Silence.
Integrity—Are our actions consistent with our ideals? Are we attentive to "that of God" in our self & others? Are we open to new Light in unlikely places? Do we know what is truly meaningful in our lives & give our time & emotional resources to it? My success at integrity is limited by my own unconsidered impulses & unacknowledged assumptions. Knowing that they exist doesn't necessarily help me to learn from them & change behavior. In working with the dying, instead of thinking the above queries, I find myself naturally & immediately praying these questions. [Early on in] hospice volunteering, I found myself praying I could be of use. Prayers were a simple matter of intent; the results weren't to be measured by my assessment of myself.
Within a few moments of meeting a patient, my clumsiness and tenderness became beside the point; I was merely following "that of God" in the moment, and it was the most natural thing to set myself aside. You do what you need to do, as respectfully and gently as possible; you figure it out as you go along. [It ended up being] a pleasure to get through this hard experience with them, making it as easy for them as it could be while acknowledging that it wasn't easy. The whole, simple point of hospice work is to ease a challenging and frequently awful situation; to find and share the essential humanness of dying.
I once washed nice underclothes of a woman very near death in her sink to relieve her concern about using the laundry service. That gave her just the slightest bit more sense of dignity, & relieved her worries at least for the moment. I am writing about what is very common in hospice care, for volunteers, family members, friends, nurses, & staff. When the priority is on caring for others in small ways as they prepare for death, integrity can come much more easily and naturally than in everyday life. Our intentions and our actions seem to be in synch.
Community—The short answer to why I wanted to be involved in hospice is that I was very sick myself some years ago, and that I know what it is like to need this kind of care. Sometimes it is useful for someone to hear that I've been as vulnerable as they are now; it is easier for them to trust me and allow me to help. I think it is [most] accurate to say that my experience of life-threatening illness taught me how vitally important small things can be. They may only be noticeable when one is helplessly vulnerable, suffering or near death. When I was ill, shared experience with others [made me feel a] part of the human community, at the deepest level. It was very important to have someone meet my eyes when they spoke to me, call and say hello, or simply sit in silence nearby so that I could feel their presence. [Every moment was meaningful], and I wanted more than any-thing just to share those moments with others. This is not how all, or even many, people feel most of the time when they are very ill. The potential for glimpses of the richness of simple human interconnectedness is high at times of illness and especially at the end of life when all other distractions are falling away.
Harmony—The Navajo word for "beauty" actually has a more complex & nuanced meaning than the English word can convey. "Harmony" or "beauty" as the Navajo see it must also take into account the ultimate relatedness of all things. Just below the surface ugliness, suffering & struggle, there is harmony—a true beauty that reflects something beyond the immediate circumstances of death; [there is perhaps] a "walking in beauty" together. After a Friends' memorial service, an elderly Friend reminded us to acknowledge dying & death along with life; he was reminding us that "that of God" was present not only in the active life of this individual in the world, but also in her essential, stripped-down presence as she died. Her subtle but significant & still precious presence was still there within each of us after she had died. Together, we made a kind of harmony with that presence.
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I once washed nice underclothes of a woman very near death in her sink to relieve her concern about using the laundry service. That gave her just the slightest bit more sense of dignity, & relieved her worries at least for the moment. I am writing about what is very common in hospice care, for volunteers, family members, friends, nurses, & staff. When the priority is on caring for others in small ways as they prepare for death, integrity can come much more easily and naturally than in everyday life. Our intentions and our actions seem to be in synch.
Community—The short answer to why I wanted to be involved in hospice is that I was very sick myself some years ago, and that I know what it is like to need this kind of care. Sometimes it is useful for someone to hear that I've been as vulnerable as they are now; it is easier for them to trust me and allow me to help. I think it is [most] accurate to say that my experience of life-threatening illness taught me how vitally important small things can be. They may only be noticeable when one is helplessly vulnerable, suffering or near death. When I was ill, shared experience with others [made me feel a] part of the human community, at the deepest level. It was very important to have someone meet my eyes when they spoke to me, call and say hello, or simply sit in silence nearby so that I could feel their presence. [Every moment was meaningful], and I wanted more than any-thing just to share those moments with others. This is not how all, or even many, people feel most of the time when they are very ill. The potential for glimpses of the richness of simple human interconnectedness is high at times of illness and especially at the end of life when all other distractions are falling away.
Harmony—The Navajo word for "beauty" actually has a more complex & nuanced meaning than the English word can convey. "Harmony" or "beauty" as the Navajo see it must also take into account the ultimate relatedness of all things. Just below the surface ugliness, suffering & struggle, there is harmony—a true beauty that reflects something beyond the immediate circumstances of death; [there is perhaps] a "walking in beauty" together. After a Friends' memorial service, an elderly Friend reminded us to acknowledge dying & death along with life; he was reminding us that "that of God" was present not only in the active life of this individual in the world, but also in her essential, stripped-down presence as she died. Her subtle but significant & still precious presence was still there within each of us after she had died. Together, we made a kind of harmony with that presence.
http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
www.facebook.com/pendlehill?fref=ts
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