Life and Death in Lent

Religion Today - Moncton Times & Transcript - February 20th 2016

The reason for Lent is, in fact, preparing for the reality of death. Good Friday is when Jesus dies horribly. The thing is, as a lot of people will tell you, we have a tendency to skip over Good Friday and move right on to Easter- the festival of light and life which declares that even death is not the end and Jesus magically returns from the grave.

Perhaps it is only natural – but we are much fonder of life than we are of death.

There is even a term, and it came up recently, “The sanctity of life” when the news started once more talking about assisted suicide. Life is holy, goes the saying, and so it should be protected at all costs. Life – apparently – is more important than all of the miraculously wonderful things that go into living.

Here is the thing. I spent a morning talking to a man who recently lost his wife. Well – she recently died after a horrific eight-month journey into hell with the rare Jakob Creutzfeldt Disease, or as we think of it, the human version of Mad Cow Disease.

Now, she had a DNR, do not resuscitate order, and they had all talked about how she did not want so-called “heroic” measures taken. But the problem came when she slipped into a coma from which she would never recover – and did not die.

The decision was taken to stop everything that was helping to keeping her alive. Which meant to take out the feeding tube. What followed was four days of starving to death…

I know, this is not a very happy topic… the thing is, I had never really thought about the fact that what actually happens is that you stop feeding them and then let them starve. It seems a horrible way to die, even if you are incurably sick already.

It was one of his final statements that stuck with me and provoked this article. “We talk about preserving the sanctity of life, but we do not talk about the sanctity of death.”

After his wife’s unnecessary suffering he became even more keenly aware of the fact that the more humane solution would have been to help her die quicker, sooner, closer to when her actual life ended.

Currently, he is a fervent advocate of the Death with Dignity movement, and a strong supporter of what the news, unfortunately, calls physician-assisted suicide but which George calls physician-assisted passing over to the great next adventure.

His argument is an interesting one – why do we think being born is a gift from god, but dying is not? Why do we think that life is to be protected at all costs, even when it is no longer worth living? Why would ending the life of a person who is brain dead, in a coma, with no chance of recovery because holes have been eaten out of their brain be called murder and come with a 17-year jail sentence?

Is it not more likely that the moral and religious answer to what would Jesus do would be to administer enough morphine to stop her heart in a second?

That too would be a tough choice to make, a tough moment of courage and letting go. But it would be the humane thing to do – and is, in fact, the human thing to do when a horse breaks their leg or a dog gets cancer. Is it more important to help a pet not suffer than a beloved family member?

Lent is a time when we think about the deeper questions of faith and what it is that keeps us from being the best possible people we can be. The truth is that Jesus saw death as the best possible way to make his point about love and life. Maybe we can stop being so afraid of death. Perhaps it is time to celebrate everything that goes into making us who we are – including our death. 

RIDING THE WAVE

Moncton Times &Transcript Faith Today, Sat Nov 23rd 2015

I watched a movie last night in which the main character did not believe in God. That actually had very little to do with the plot, it was simply part of who he was – and it played off the fact that his best friend was religious.

So when one said, you gotta thank God because we are so blessed – the other says – you gotta do what now? I worked hard for this!

It is one of the questions I have heard played out the most between people who are religious and people who are not. Whether what we have is a gift from God or the result of our hard work. And it plays out in many, many ways.

Did you meet the love of your life by random happenstance, or were you destined to be together? Did your praying for success help you to get to the top of the business ladder or was it the devotion to your job? Did you get sick because God is punishing you or because you smoke a pack a day?

One of the things I find interesting about all of this is that the people involved in these type of discussions, or arguments, are often talking past each other. They are assuming that one person is saying something so different, so black and white, that they cannot agree.

For example – do you think God is a puppet master and you have no free will, no choice, God controls you through telepathy? Not many people in the world really believe that I bet. But all of a sudden when someone says that God has blessed them with a new job that is what I start thinking in my head. I instantly jump to the conclusion that they believe something that is so far opposite of me that there is no way we can come to a common ground.

I have said before that I think language and communication are a big problem in religion. Now I am taking it a step further and saying that preconceptions are a big problem. We think we know what someone is saying or thinking or believing when we hear the way they speak. That happens because WE have a preconceived notion of what the words mean that the other person probably does not share.

What is heaven? Do you know how many answers there are to that question? What is an Angel? What does it mean to have faith? How does God act in the world? What is God? If we really took the time to stop and think we would realize that there are as many different definitions of simple terms as there are people with a mind to think them up.

For some people heaven is a place in the clouds with white buildings and golden streets, for others they are picturing open fields and sunny skies, some people are simply picturing a roof over their heads and food to eat. And heaven is populated with everything in between. So when someone says the word – what do they mean?

Back to our guy in the movie. He was fighting against his friend's belief that everything happens for a reason. And he was right to do so. Some things just happen. But neither position is right in its extreme – all of life is not random luck – some of it seems to follow some purpose or higher power. There are times I do things without knowing why and it turns out it was very important, like phone someone randomly only to find out they are going through a hard time.

All of this is just to again say don't think you have all the answers – and certainly stop thinking you know what the people you argue with mean. Truth is we are all on a journey of discovery and the world has no easy answers, we ride the wave the best we can.

Thanksgiving Hangover

I do not know if any of you have ever watched the show Undercover Boss Canada. I never had until thanksgiving weekend when I took in a couple of episodes and was actually pretty drawn into the story. The idea is that a CEO of a company goes undercover for a week as one of the front line workers. So, the Jiffy Lube guy goes and changes car oil with a fake identity, and the CEO of Toronto Transit goes and does overnight bus maintenance.

It is an interesting show to watch because we get it. We know that to own a company, to run a company, has nothing to do with whether or not you can change the oil. We know that customer service is not something a CEO is ever trained to do. And we also know, or assume, that management has no idea what labour actually does.

Turns out that assumption is pretty true.

Now, I found it interesting to watch on Thanksgiving because they also tell you a bit about the stories of these front-line workers as the show unfolds, and you realize how thankful they are for their jobs, their lives, the simple pleasures of life, despite how horrible their situation might be.

People forced to work far away from families. People making 18 thousand a year and putting 12-hour passion filled days in trying to make other people happy. People working two or three jobs to take care of sick children or elderly parents.

Life is hard.

But the thing is, most people are thankful for what they have. Most people love their family and their life and even their job. I know there are days – we all have them – when we would like to quit and walk out, or when we fight, or when it just seems too much. But they are just days... just moments in an eternity of moments.

I do not believe all the platitudes of religion. All those cheesy phrases like God never gives you more than you can handle are to be honest, full of crap. Life gives you more than you can handle and we often forget to be thankful. That is why we have a whole day set aside to remind us....

And I saw lots of people post lists on Facebook about what they were thankful for. People getting together with family and friends and enjoying a feast and remembering the good things. But this is Tuesday. And we are into the post-thanksgiving hangover of sliding into despair.

Christmas is looming with its stress and bills, the days are getting darker and the weather colder, how long are you going to remember to be thankful? Perhaps as long as we, usually, keep New Years resolutions...

If you take a casual look at the characters in the Bible from Adam through Abraham right up to the Apostles you will notice something really counter-cultural. Something that goes against the way we celebrate thanksgiving... first off, it was daily. People woke up and thanked God, they had lunch and thanked God, they went to sleep and thanked God.

Secondly, and more importantly, it was bizarrely linked to real life, not to happiness. The ancient people of the world were more likely to thank God for the hurricane destroying their thatch hut because it taught them the valuable lesson to build with wood. Thank you God for making me stub my toe so now I will watch where I am going. Thank you God for making me old so I can slow down and appreciate different things....

A way of understanding thankfulness and life that is no longer ours.

Just for the record I also do not think God causes hurricanes or puts the door jam in the way of our foot. I think that was the way people thought back then, but we know better. But what I am saying is that life is an adventure, good and bad, and that when we are finished with the Turkey we should still go on saying thanks;but not just for the good things, we should be saying thanks for every experience that propels us through this wonderful journey from cradle to grave. Because life is meant to be lived thankfully.