Getting On With the Dying

This last year and a half has been a unique journey in a new 'day job,' if you will alongside of ministry in a formal church context. Working day in and day out as a hospice chaplain brings one in contact with sacred moments and experiences that at least for me have been unparalleled in my Christian ministry journey. There is much to be said about working in a hospice context. I will spare some of the details that become the brunt of our 'black humor' or 'death humor' that we use to cope with our constant exposure to decline and death.

It is a unique opportunity to serve among people who while never hastening death, do embrace death as a natural reality. It has obvious Lenten overtones all year long. Those words that were uttered over us on Ash Wednesday, "remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return," take on new force when the illness interrupts our yearly cycle of remembering that we are dust moving us quite intentionally to knowing that we are dust and that our return to it will be sooner rather than later.

Somehwere in that continuum we call the "end of life" journey we come to grips with the gravity of that shift from remembering to knowing which will ultimately turn to becoming. All respond to it differently. Some will avoid it to the very last moment when their decline into unresponsiveness forces it upon them. Some embrace it with hope for what is to come. Many are somewhere in between.

There is a phrase that has often made its way around the office context in which I do the paperwork part of my work. I would be interested to know if it is unique to those with whom I serve, or whether it might be common idiom in hospice offices. It simply says, "It's time to get on with the dying." To the outsider it might sound harsh. Realizing this we never bring this into our conversations with our patients and their loved ones. Again, we never hasten death, but part of hospice philosophy is comfort and care at end of life...at end of life. It sounds a bit more official than most of us would want to say in relation to anyone we love. We're always striving for that next procedure that the doctor can use to bring mom closer to a cure. If the chemotherapy has a twenty percent chance of treating the cancer then it needs to be done (never mind the cancer has spread so far through the body that the therapy itself could be bringing more pain and discomfort than a peaceful and holy death). I know, when it's mom, dad, sister, brother, my very own son or daughter, the decision is difficult. And when that loved one is my loved one it is a different story altogether as well. My point is this: we resist acknowledging that someone is on their end of life journey.

There often is a moment, a window of time, a combination of symptoms or stage of decline where we hospice folks begin to use that phrase in our conversations with one another. So and so needs to 'get on with the dying.' It's not a heartless assessment, rather it is one full of compassion. There comes a tipping point when the quality of life in this condition becomes lesser than the alternative. It's not that all life isn't precious, for it is. We often say we don't want people to suffer, but I wonder if we really mean that sometimes. Sometimes less suffering means letting things take their course...keep mom comfortable...hold her hand, sing to her, but to let her go.

I haven't even begun to speak of this in relation to our faith in the good news of resurrection. Perhaps I will some time during Eastertide.

For now, in the heart of Lent, it's time to get on with the dying. The unfinished business of our hearts needs to move towards finished business. The unforgiveness needs to move towards forgiveness. The unrepentance needs to move towards repentance. The denial needs to move towards acceptance. It's time to get our affairs in order. Our dying is not just some vague, off-in-the-distance sort of reality. Our full surrender to the grace of God in Christ must begin now. The psalmist cries out "teach us to number of our days so that we may grow in wisdom." Yes, it is a living in the present with the reality of our death in sight. It is more. Getting on with the dying means embracing that space between remembering we are dust and knowing we are dust while we become dust. Getting on with the dying is surrendering in faith to the one who holds our times in His nail-scarred hands. It is trusting the Christ who walked this journey before. It is living in the wisdom of 'end of life' in the here and now...so that when we die, we can die in peace.

It's time to get on with the dying folks...embrace it now before the decline into unresponsiveness takes us without our consent.