A Holy Moment
This has been a long week at work. In the past six work days, I have had four CMO patients. CMO = Comfort Measures Only. Other sites call this AND (Allow Natural Death) or DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) or just removal of life support. The comfort care part is when the doctors order medication that causes the patient to fail to experience their death, and eases their pain and breathing. I will not give further information on the individual cases because that would violate the law and hospital policies.
In each of these cases, things went rather well. The family was in agreement on taking this step, owing to the irreversible and deteriorating condition of their patient – or at least the family was able to come to agreement without acrimony. The staff worked flawlessly to make the process peaceful, smooth, and as painless as possible for patient and family. The patients who were Catholic received the Anointing of the Sick (aka “Last Rites”) before the process started. Things went as well as they can.
This is not to say that these events were painless. The families grieved and showed a number of emotions including sadness and sometimes anger. These deaths weighed on the medical staff as well, and on me. As I said above, it was a long week for me.
But at the same time, these moments were holy. I’ve been at this chaplain thing for a while and I’ve watched people die and families mourn. Sometimes there are angry moments and fights with each other or the staff or even God. But still, there’s that moment when the patient passes from alive to not alive. From a living creature made by God to a person-shaped collection of dying cells. This week I was able to see the last breaths of most of the patients. Some were obvious. Others were notable only in that there was not another breath that followed. But I feel like the families and I were given a gift.
We talk about the joyous moment when a baby is birthed – the magic of bringing a new life into the world. A new child of God is born. In my Reformed tradition, we believe that for those who will someday join the church, that birth is the moment that God recognizes them as God’s own – a baptism is not necessary for that to happen. And we will later baptize the baby (if Christian) and officially welcome him or her into the church, taking vows ourselves to care for that child’s spiritual life.
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Death is the other end of that vow. Death becomes the moment when we are relieved of the responsibility for the spiritual life of a person and God takes over completely. We don’t exactly know what happens next, because we haven’t been there and we can’t know. But we believe and know that God is present in that other holy moment.
Of course, we are still responsible for our baptismal vow to the family who are still here, and they are the focus of a chaplain’s work at the end of life for a non-communicative patient. Their needs vary widely from simple acts (providing tissues, helping to guide them through the process) to help making meaning of the event for them. And we give to them what they need, as best we can, being the face of Christ to them.
But what about those who are not Christian? Aside from common decency, we do these services because everyone is a part of God’s creation. We are responsible to care for God’s creation regardless of whether or not we agree with the beliefs of the person who is a part of it. Also, as a Reformed chaplain, I believe that those who are chosen by God are not exclusively in the church or even believers at a given moment. Calvin teaches us that some outside of the church are chosen, while some inside are not. We need to assume that all are chosen, and treat them appropriately.
This job is a privilege sometimes (ok, oftentimes really) even though it’s tiring and emotionally stressful. I believe that nothing is more holy and a greater privilege than to witness to the death of someone, and to support their family through that death. I’m so glad that I have the chance to do this work for God.
Faith and Discomfort
As my readers know, I’m going through a tough time right now. Being out of work for 6 months (tomorrow) is very difficult.
I have often heard people make statements about people going through difficult times (unemployment, death in the family, personal health problems) along the lines of “he/she has his/her faith to comfort him/her”. Or people speak about how their faith has been a comfort to them, creating a feeling of peace.
I don’t get that. I can’t think of a single experience when my life was difficult where my faith was a comfort to me. I can think of several happy times where I’ve felt something akin to “God in the room” and once akin to “God in my heart”. But those have never been difficult times. When life gets tough for me, it seems like God is absent.
For me, faith has always been more of a discomfort. I’m Presbyterian, and like all Reformed people I believe that we are not as good as we can be and must always strive to better ourselves. For me, faith is part of what pushes me to be a better person. Faith is a Discomfort. Faith is a way to push me off of my comfortable pattern of behavior in order to better myself or help others more. I’ll never be perfect. Faith pushes me to be better.
My pastor did a sermon on this that clearly stuck with me as I remember it over 2 years later: The Discomforter
That’s great while things are good. When things are bad, faith is still pushing me to improve. At that point I’m in a more fragile state – needing to be reminded that I am good. And my faith is telling me otherwise – that I can be better. The conclusion that is easy to draw is that my lack of perfection (or distance from perfection) is the reason for what happened to me. This is particularly true in work-related trouble – it’s easier to take a pass on personal reponsibility with a bad situation in a family member or a health situation.
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So for me, faith is more of a discomfort.
There is one exception. When life gets me down, the people who help me the most (aside from Carolyn) are church people. They do their best to understand what is happening with me, and to try to keep up with my life even though that might involve hearing unwanted bad news. Church people will pray for you, and even if God is not hearing those prayers you know that someone out there cares for you – and usually not someone who wants something from you. I’ll admit it – I’m not an easy person to deal with when experiencing heavy negative emotions, but they keep trying.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself, “Hey, Mark! Those people ARE God’s presence for you.” And you’re probably right. And I do realize that and appreciate it (though that appreciation may not make it through the emotions that I’m feeling to the surface).
I just don’t get faith as comfort.
So God – thank you for your people who you have sent to help me. There are too many of them to list here, but know that I see their efforts and appreciate them. Amen.
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