One of the reasons I was drawn to hospice work was my interest in how Christians deal with impending death as they walk into the valley of the shadow of death. Does their belief in an afterlife give them peace as they face death? Can they arrive at a conscious state where they feel no evil? Do they keep believing in heaven? Although each person’s answers and particularities are unique, one thing is constant. People facing death or difficult situations invariable say that the prayers of others help them know that they are not alone
I’ve been praying for a long-time friend who has been diagnosed with cancer. At this point the prognosis isn’t clear, but with a cancer diagnosis there is always concern, life changes. Although we can’t be precise about how it will go, we know how important a positive attitude is. This friend has always been a church goer, and so I am praying that her faith will help her settle into a peace that passes all understanding.
One of the reasons I was drawn to hospice work was my interest in how Christians deal with impending death as they walk into the valley of the shadow of death. Does their belief in an afterlife give them peace as they face death? Can they arrive at a conscious state where they feel no evil? Do they keep believing in heaven? Although each person’s answers and particularities are unique, one thing is constant. People facing death or difficult situations invariable say that the prayers of others help them know that they are not alone
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I’ve agreed to set up one of the Stations of the Cross for the Good Friday service at my church. Focusing on Stations of the Cross is not particularly common to Protestant churches, and certainly to the UCC, but the incidents they represent aren’t. After all, they are in Scripture. I have chosen station # 1 (according to the form my church is using): “Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.” Matthew 26: 36-46; Mark 14: 32-42; Luke 22:40-46. In the story Jesus asks his disciples to sit with him in his time of trial and to pray. But each time they fall asleep, and each time Jesus admonishes them. In my station I am going to concentrate on Jesus’ words in Matthew 14:38: Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’ How does this apply to my life? Is there someone I know that I can sit with, someone who is dying, or grieving deeply, or both? How can I stay awake with them? Can I be with them as a listener? Can I keep quiet and listen when they want to talk, and when they are silent? I’m going to suggest that each visitor to the station think of a person they know, and in the week after Easter go sit with them and do their best to stay awake and listen. My dad would have been 109 on February 20th; he left us in 1984 but the memories are palpable. The last thing he said to me was, “Oh, Bobbi, I’m so glad you’re here. You’re my spiritual director.” I had come to visit, which I did every few weeks toward the end, and he was still up and about and very cognizant of what was happening to him (prostrate cancer). I don’t know which memory is more vivid, his words or his smile and welcoming outstretched arms as he walked across the yard to greet me. Blessings, for sure. In The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Rod Dreher suggests that at some time in life all human beings come face to face with their own particular Lenten experience. For his sister Ruthie and his family it was the two years between the moment she was diagnosed with lung cancer and her death. There was the suffering, with all those times filled with doubt, fear, anger, physical pain, you name it, but also moments of resurrection, times of joy, peace and reconciliation. Ruthie’s ‘little way’ was to follow the treatment prescribed by her doctors, and stay clear of delving into the medical analysis and prognosis of her condition, which she believe would keep her from hope. Ruth knew that it was through hope that resurrection finds its eternal home. I’ve started knitting prayer shawls again. A while back I knit shawls for Sarah, Sally and Edie to wrap around themselves and their cancer. My friends are no more, which is often the way it is with prayer shawls: you knit, pray for healing, knit, pray for acceptance, knit, pray for a peaceful passing. For family and friends the shawl remains because the prayer goes on. The shawl I made for my friend Sarah is around her husband’s shoulders every morning during his meditation time. I don’t know about the other two; I don’t need to know. I trust that they are just where they are meant to be. Two friends have made me shawls: one for my birthday, the other when my mother died. I can feel the prayer that they knit with every stitch. I’m amazed at how knitting has deepened my prayer time. I picked up a shawl that I started five years ago, and started knitting, knit three, pearl three, and started praying, a row for each person on my top ten prayer list. Just one of the many ways to do it. Others will evolve. If you need suggestions, prayers, patterns, encouragement, check out http://www.shawlministry.com/ As I mentioned on my cottage by the sea blog, knitting prayer shawls embraces silence, solitude and simplicity. I have four close friends on my prayer list this morning, who, as I type here on the deck of my cottage by the sea, are in the midst of crisis’s. Two are in surgery, one for breast cancer, another for a knee replacement; one just went to the ER with low blood pressure; a fourth friend called last night grieving over the sudden death of his wife of 53 years. By the very nature of my call to pray for people, I get just that—people to pray for; by the very practice of keeping a daily prayer list, I get just that—a list of people to pray for. But four intense, immediate ones is more than usual. In fact usually I don’t personally know all the people on my list. Until the right time to visit, thank God for the telephone and email as a way to keep up. Thank God for the time I have at the cottage to pray--time to empty my head of the chatter that gets in the way of prayer, and then I just need time to pray. My cousin was Scottish. My cousin in California died yesterday. As I wrote on my cottagebythesea.net blog, “He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few days before this eightieth birthday and died five weeks later under hospice care with his children tending to him. A good death, as the saying goes.” What I want to share here is what that a good death means to me from a prayer perspective—that my cousin felt God’s presence, that he knew God was there with him during this last part of his journey. Of course, I believe that God is there for everyone, all the time and certainly at the end of life, but the grace is when the person knows and feels God’s presence and embrace. Maybe that’s why I’m so intent (obsessed?) on doing my part to let God into my life. At my ending I want to feel the peace of God that passes all understanding. My mom had this peace and so did my cousin. When I talked with him two weeks before he died, he told me that he was at peace about ‘the God piece’. Daily I prayed the Twenty-third Psalm with him and he knew it. Thankfully I didn’t have to pray it secretly or ‘behind the scenes’ as it were. I hadn’t kept up with my cousin much over the years, but I felt incredibly close to him when it seemed to matter most for both of us. That is grace, and for that, I am ‘very grateful’. |
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