On How to Die

A while back I wrote about my sister-in-law's bout with cancer. She has bravely battled Stage 4 cancer for 14 months now. Having gathered at her house with family for Thanksgiving, I was struck by the toll her cancer has taken. Even though doctors told her recently that they could no longer justify treatment, she voices a confidence and resolve that her fight is not over yet. Today after visiting the funeral home to discusss funeral arrangements, she was off to the Cancer Treatment Center in Illinois for a second opinion and support for her renewed will to defeat the disease.

When someone is so immersed in the fight to live, it seems awkward to consider how one might choose to die. My sister-in-law is somewhat secretive about her fight, I suspect to spare family from the overwhelming pain and the despair of being up against such an ominous foe. The family is apprehensive to dig too deeply for fear of hampering her spirits. And so both remain silent, afraid to speak openly. In my years of ministry I saw this same tension play out between the family and the one facing the life-threatening illness.

One of the things I become mindful of when I watch Survivor on Thursday nights is how comforting, reassuring it is to venture out in the jungle with someone leading the way. It is less scarey for those who follow the leader because you know something of what you are encountering and can prepare yourself for it.

Dying, like anything unknown, is scary. I would hope when I face my own death that I can be for my family and friends that person leading the way for those who will inevitably follow in my footsteps. My dying would take on meaning if I could in some way make the experience a little less scary for them by being open to sharing what I am experiencing... Like the one on Survivor leading the tribe into the jungle and confronting all the things that scare and intimidate for us.

Like my sister-in-law, I would fight as bravely as she has until such time as acceptance and embracing my death becomes a more valiant course. A couple of summers ago I had the privilege of traveling along Michigan's Great Lakes' shoreline. I am in awe at the sight of water, the different shades of blue and green and teal. I suppose my affinity for the water probably has something to do with the water in which we were formed in our mother's womb. My fascination with the water is perhaps a return to the security and nurture of the womb as I pass from this life to the next season of my existence.

And so I have let it be known that my way of dying would be to sit myself in a chair overlooking the scenic green waters of the Great Lakes. I would stay right there until I breathed my last, taking in the beauty and awesomeness of God in nature. I hope I have that privilege instead of facing my death in a hospital bed.

How would you face your death?

© Copyright 2005 gentlefootprint. All Rights Reserved.

Heaven Help Us

Sitting in the waiting room until my name was called to see the dentist this afternoon, I skimmed through the December 2005 issue of Readers Digest until falling on an article about an upcoming Barbara Walters' television special on Heaven. With only a couple of minutes to spend I never got that deep into the selection let along finish the article. Still a couple of things stood out.

There are 10,000 religions! Nine out of ten Americans believe in an afterlife with a majority believing they will realize it whatever it might be. Walters went to an Israeli prison where she interviewed a 21 year old Palestinian who, when only 17, participated in a foiled suicide bombing attempt. He wanted to kill Jews he recounts, believing he would be rewarded by entering into paradise where he would experience "joyous sex on silken couches amid rivers of milk and honey." Walters, a Jew, asked whether he believed she would be welcomed into paradise. The response sounded something like expect to rot in hell.

Then she interviews the head of the National Association of Evangelicals, the most politically influential religious group in the country. Is it possible, Walters asks, for a person to make it into heaven without accepting Jesus as their personal savior? Matter of factly and without hesitation the answer was, "No."

These thoughts set my mind into high gear pondering the contradiction inherent in such an exclusive view of religious entitlement with respect to attaining a heaven or paradise. While I do not purport to be an expert on world religions, I think it is safe to say that a majority are built on embracing as many people as possible into their fold. Community. Oneness. Yet somewhere along the line this view as been twisted as religions have become closed minded and divisive. The doors to an invitation God extends to all are closed by the religion's adherents.

Does anyone else see a contradiction here?

© Copyright 2005 gentlefootprint. All Rights Reserved.

Spiritual Renaissance

Yesterday marked the beginning of Advent. There's something about the Advent-Christmas and Lent-Easter seasons that, like facing a life-threatening crisis, instills a desire to take ones relationship with God a bit more seriously. People will show an openness to and try to incorporate into their lives spiritual practice and discipline and acts of piety. They'll read more from the Bible, pray more often or longer, meditate, contemplate and reflect and some may even participate in acts of charity and service. Then just as surely as the seasons come and go, interest and enthusiasm will fade after the holidays are over and folks will return to their former, less committed selves.

Why do you suppose people in general tend to be so non-committal about addressing the spiritual side of life and being? Do you suppose it's because we have such a hard time with commitment in general, with commitment of any kind? Do you think it reflects a failure on the part of organized religion to offer meaningful rites and rituals that touch the spirit and soul? Or do you think it has anything to do with the disrespect that seems to characterize one religion's openness toward all others, one denomination's openness toward all other denominations and one path's openness toward all other paths? Does it have anything to do with the aggressiveness with which some religions evangelize to the world or the judgmental character that colors such efforts? Does it wind up just being the hypocrisy that runs rampant over the religious landscape?

Think about it, none of the great spiritual masters to date (Old Testament Patriarchs, priests, prophets and kings, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, etc.) has captured the collective imagination of humanity. Do you think the human race will ever experience a spiritual renaissance and, if so, what do you think it would take to bring such an era about?

© Copyright 2005 gentlefootprint. All Rights Reserved.