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<div><font face="Arial" size="2">IMHO, a humanist perspective. Nicie
nice, politically correct almost as far as it can be taken, and
all that. Unfortunately, she FAILS MISERABLY in offering what
the dying truly MUST understand about Christ before they take
their final breath!! ANYONE who really cares about people can do
what she does, as well or better. I know....been there and done
it! Chaplaincy has become a joke because so many who get
involved are theologically liberal knuckleheads, and most
chaplaincy organization management are so far left they forbid
chaplains talking to patients about Christ unless the patient
asks, and I understand that some management still have some
limitations in that situation! <br>
<br>
Fred<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/28/my-faith-what-people-talk-about-before-they-die/?hpt=hp_c2">http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/28/my-faith-what-people-talk-about-before-they-die/?hpt=hp_c2</a></font></div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<h1 class="cnnBlogContentTitle"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="Permanent Link:My Faith: What people talk about before
they die"
href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/28/my-faith-what-people-talk-about-before-they-die/"
rel="bookmark">My Faith: What people talk about before they
die</a></h1>
<div class="cnnBlogContentPost">
<p class="cnn_first"><img style="MARGIN-LEFT: 10px;
MARGIN-RIGHT: 10px" class="alignright" alt=""
src="cid:part1.05030507.09070604@lightlink.com" height="122"
width="214"><em><strong>Editor's Note</strong>: Kerry Egan
is a hospice chaplain in Massachusetts and the author of
"Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual
Renewal on the Camino de Santiago."</em></p>
<p>By <strong>Kerry Egan</strong>, Special to CNN</p>
<p>As a divinity school student, I had just started working as a
student chaplain at a cancer hospital when my professor asked
me about my work. I was 26 years old and still learning what
a chaplain did.</p>
<p>"I talk to the patients," I told him.</p>
<p>"You talk to patients? And tell me, what do people who are
sick and dying talk to the student chaplain about?" he asked.</p>
<p>I had never considered the question before. “Well,” I
responded slowly, “Mostly we talk about their families.”</p>
<p>“Do you talk about God?</p>
<p>“Umm, not usually.”</p>
<p><span id="more-25074"></span>“Or their religion?”</p>
<p>“Not so much.”</p>
<p>“The meaning of their lives?”</p>
<p>“Sometimes.”</p>
<p>“And prayer? Do you lead them in prayer? Or ritual?”</p>
<p>“Well,” I hesitated. “Sometimes. But not usually, not
really.”</p>
<p>I felt derision creeping into the professor's voice. “So you
just visit people and talk about their families?”</p>
<p>“Well, they talk. I mostly listen.”</p>
<p>“Huh.” He leaned back in his chair.</p>
<p>A week later, in the middle of a lecture in this professor's
packed class, he started to tell a story about a student he
once met who was a chaplain intern at a hospital.</p>
<p>“And I asked her, 'What exactly do you <em>do</em> as a
chaplain?' And she replied, 'Well, I talk to people about
their families.'” He paused for effect. “And <em>that</em>
was this student's understanding of faith! <em>That </em>was
as deep as this person's spiritual life went! Talking about
other people's families!”</p>
<p>The students laughed at the shallowness of the silly
student. The professor was on a roll.</p>
<p>“And I thought to myself,” he continued, “that if I was ever
sick in the hospital, if I was ever dying, that the last
person I would ever want to see is some Harvard Divinity
School student chaplain wanting to talk to me about my
family.”</p>
<p>My body went numb with shame. At the time I thought that
maybe, if I was a better chaplain, I would know how to talk to
people about big spiritual questions. Maybe if dying people
met with a good, experienced chaplain they would talk about
God, I thought.</p>
<p>Today, 13 years later, I am a hospice chaplain. I visit
people who are dying <strong>–</strong> in their homes, in
hospitals, in nursing homes. And if you were to ask me the
same question - What do people who are sick and dying talk
about with the chaplain? – I, without hesitation or
uncertainty, would give you the same answer. Mostly, they talk
about their families: about their mothers and fathers, their
sons and daughters.</p>
<p>They talk about the love they felt, and the love they gave.
Often they talk about love they did not receive, or the love
they did not know how to offer, the love they withheld, or
maybe never felt for the ones they should have loved
unconditionally.</p>
<p>They talk about how they learned what love is, and what it is
not. And sometimes, when they are actively dying, fluid
gurgling in their throats, they reach their hands out to
things I cannot see and they call out to their parents: Mama,
Daddy, Mother.</p>
<p>What I did not understand when I was a student then, and what
I would explain to that professor now, is that people talk to
the chaplain about their families because that is <em>how</em>
we talk about God. That is <em>how</em> we talk about the
meaning of our lives. That is <em>how</em> we talk about the
big spiritual questions of human existence.</p>
<p>We don't live our lives in our heads, in theology and
theories. We live our lives in our families: the families we
are born into, the families we create, the families we make
through the people we choose as friends.</p>
<p>This is where we create our lives, this is where we find
meaning, this is where our purpose becomes clear.</p>
<p>Family is where we first experience love and where we first
give it. It's probably the first place we've been hurt by
someone we love, and hopefully the place we learn that love
can overcome even the most painful rejection.</p>
<p>This crucible of love is where we start to ask those big
spiritual questions, and ultimately where they end.</p>
<p>I have seen such expressions of love: A husband gently
washing his wife's face with a cool washcloth, cupping the
back of her bald head in his hand to get to the nape of her
neck, because she is too weak to lift it from the pillow. A
daughter spooning pudding into the mouth of her mother, a
woman who has not recognized her for years.</p>
<p>A wife arranging the pillow under the head of her husband's
no-longer-breathing body as she helps the undertaker lift him
onto the waiting stretcher.</p>
<p>We don't learn the meaning of our lives by discussing it.
It's not to be found in books or lecture halls or even
churches or synagogues or mosques. It's discovered through
these actions of love.</p>
<p>If God is love, and we believe that to be true, then we learn
about God when we learn about love. The first, and usually the
last, classroom of love is the family.</p>
<p>Sometimes that love is not only imperfect, it seems to be
missing entirely. Monstrous things can happen in families.
Too often, more often than I want to believe possible,
patients tell me what it feels like when the person you love
beats you or rapes you. They tell me what it feels like to
know that you are utterly unwanted by your parents. They tell
me what it feels like to be the target of someone's rage.
They tell me what it feels like to know that you abandoned
your children, or that your drinking destroyed your family, or
that you failed to care for those who needed you.</p>
<p>Even in these cases, I am amazed at the strength of the human
soul. People who did not know love in their families know
that they <em>should</em> have been loved. They somehow know
what was missing, and what they deserved as children and
adults.</p>
<p>When the love is imperfect, or a family is destructive,
something else can be learned: forgiveness. The spiritual
work of being human is learning how to love and how to
forgive.</p>
<p>We don’t have to use words of theology to talk about God;
people who are close to death almost never do. We should learn
from those who are dying that the best way to teach our
children about God is by loving each other wholly and
forgiving each other fully - just as each of us longs to be
loved and forgiven by our mothers and fathers, sons and
daughters.</p>
<p><em>The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely
those of Kerry Egan.</em></p>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"Socialism is so bad a system that not even the Germans could
make it work".
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