When Do We Become "Soulfull"

In response to the question what is your definition of the soul, my definition is that it is the life source of the body and the significance or essence of a human being. My thoughts have been formed by my experience as a hospice chaplain. As a hospice chaplain, it is my believe that death and dying are transitional. I believe that when the spirit eventually leaves the body, the spirit being the life source of the body, the body seizes to exist and we call that moment death. Therefore I believe the lack of breath is a sign that takes place sometime after death, as a result of the spirit leaving the body. The exact moment of death we are unclear of so we pronounce death when we are unable to detect life. So the pronouncement of death usually takes place sometime after. However there has been more than one case of a person being alive after they have been clinically pronounced dead.

If we can't decide the moment of death but can only observe the body after death I suggest that we can not determine when life starts either. Some say that when it becomes viable outside of the body, but I ask you how viable is a newborn left to itself? If uncertainty rules, which I believe it does, than I would rather error on the side that life is present after conception and should be regarded as such. Ask a mother who has just lost a child through fetal demise why she feels grief if the fetus does not contain life.

I guess I would have to side with Calvin that the soul is immortal.

What color is the face of God?

In the Genesis story we find the following account of creation:

Genesis 1:26-28 (NRSV)

Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." 27So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

When I read this scripture I understand that we, humankind, have been created in God's image, not the other way around. I believe that in our search for God, we need to find a God who has the same color of skin as us for us to relate to God personally. But I don't read that God was created in our image. If he were then I could surmise that the color of God's face is white, or black, or brown, or yellow. However I believe the color of God's face is not a specific color but rather the combination of all colors, that being light.

If God is the color of light than all colors are present in God's image. Pretty neat when you think about it. If we are of different colors than I would propose to you that each of us has a little bit of God's light in us, that being the color of our own face.

Just a thought but one I needed to share.

Guess what happened on the way to the cemetery?

As a hospice chaplain, there is a saying in the industry that goes something like this; "Don't forget to tell the hearse to stop for his last chemotherapy treatment on the way to the cemetery." As cold as this sounds, every exaggeration has a point that comes from a certain amount of truth. The article by MSNBC, entitled "Cancer docotors don't know when to give up" ,linked to this entry, identifies one of the key medical issues in the treatment of patients at the end-of-life. As our knowledge and technology advances in medicine, it appears that continuous healing is just a matter of finding the correct technology or most recent miracle drug to eliviate the problem. So the trend is for physicians to continue treating cancer patients as late as the last two weeks of life when it really doesn’t help.

So you ask, why are physicians doing this if there is no healing benefit to it and it causes the patient to suffer the side effects of chemotherapy? The Hippocratic Oath of non-malfeasance, that every doctor takes, states that the physician will do no harm in the process of practicing medicine. "Overly aggressive treatment gives false hope and puts people through grueling and costly ordeals when there is no chance of a cure, cancer specialist said.”1

The answer is that physicians spend most of their time diagnosising and healing patients. They do this for their patients from the time of birth until death. So it follows that physicians are just as uncomfortable with talking about death with a patient as anyone else. However, though most of us really don’t have to deal with death if we chose not to, physicians have to be trained to understand that death is a part of life. The end part of life that a physician has accepted as part of his/her responsibility, needs to be addressed by doctor’s orders for hospice care, pain and symptom management, in the final six to twelve months of a patient’s life.

It is a natural assumption for most of us to make, that our healthcare facilities (inclusive of hospitals, nursing homes, long term care facilities, and assisted living facilities) are knowledgeable about pain and symptom management at the end of life. This simply is not the case today. Providing care for those who are actively dying is a specialized field, just as providing nursing for patients in an emergency room, a labor and delivery floor, and that of a surgical and neurological intensive care floor are all different. We would not expect an orthopedic surgeon to deliver babies, yet we consider all nursing skills as being equal. A nurse is a nurse, right? Wrong. As one example, when a person is actively dying the issue of addiction to pain medication is no longer an issue and the pain experienced in life and in the dying process is different. As another example, normally a nurse would suggest that we encourage a patient to eat and drink. However, in the dying process, it is natural to stop eating and drinking as part of the transition from one world to another.

By physicians providing such orders, the physician can give the patient the specialized treatment required at the end-of-life. However all of these services are foregone when a physician is not trained to identify the moment when medical cures have reached their limits and the fact that the patient is going to die. On the contrary when the order is written for hospice care, the physician opens up a whole new set of services. Services provided by multiple disciplines that are specialists in end-of-life issues. Items that hospices can provide include: spiritual support; psychological and emotional support, nursing and nursing assistance to provide relieve, education and general help to the caregiver, music therapy, Reki massage, life stories, advance directives, and volunteer services just to mention a few. By the physicians facing their own fears, they have the ability to provide the most complete set of services especially to those who are dying.

1. The Associated Press. “Cancer Doctors don’t know when to give up.” MSMBC.com, June 7, 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13105178/from/ET/ (accessed 11/20/2006)

Eternity – Whether you like it or not

Once we ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good an evil, that knowledge brought with it suffering. For many years I have thought that the phrase “the wages of sin is death” to be punishment for wrongdoing. I now view it as the opposite. He decided to limit the number of years of suffering that we were to experience by taking us through the transition of death into eternal life, thus securing our future.

As you can see, eternity gained through the transition of death is God’s rescue of a fallen world. Whether we like it or not, eternity has been granted to all. But eternity is only the introduction into salvation. How or where we spend that eternity is what God has given us with free will.

Now you may ask, is there truly a heaven or hell? I believe both exist. Just as I want to be with the one I love, so I perceive heaven as eternity spent in the presence of God. Alternatively, hell then would be an eternal existence without God’s presence. This type of pain is one that I cannot conceive of and burns deeper for me than fire and brimstone.

Once given the freedom of choice God places into our own hands the destination of our eternal life. Those who choose to spend it without Him, He cries over. (see Revelation for quote).

On the purpose of man:

Man was created to enjoy God’s creation, one another and to bear witness to God and all that He created. What a purpose! Did you ever think that our purpose or job is to enjoy what we have been given and to give recognition, thanks and praise to the Creator and sustainer for what He has done? Man, therefore, being made in the “image of God,” was given an immortal element. “He was endowed with life, reason, wisdom, and all the good things of God, so that we may recognize the transcendent and have the desire for God’s immortality. For man was created to enjoy God’s goodness.” [1]

In my role as a hospice chaplain, I have experienced the greatest pleasures in sharing the day and the moment with patients who are dying. Most patients who are dying value each moment, because each one might be their last. As an example, just a few weeks ago I sat with one my patients on her patio on a brisk, sunny fall day as we enjoyed the coolness of the air, the brightness of the sunshine illuminating the many colors of the leaves as they were falling from the trees. For me, that moment was like listening to Louie Armstrong’s “It’s a wonderful world.” We were in the moment. What transpired in the morning was gone. The close of day was not guaranteed for either of us. We spoke of what a magnificent God we have and how privileged we were in enjoying that moment.

God in His infinite wisdom provided us with forgiveness so that we do not live in the past. He secured our future so we need not worry about what is at the end. It is only through these two conditions that we can possibly live in the moment. The ability to live in this moment, the precious present, is our gift from God and our responsibility to God. Is it any wonder that He deserves the glory?


[1] Christology of the Later Fathers, Westminster John Know Press, reissue 2006, Ch 5 Par. 4,5

Can evil exist if all is good?

Gregory of Nyssa, in the 4th century, stated that “evil is the absence of good”, just as darkness is the absence of light. Where there is light, darkness cannot exist. Where there is goodness, evil cannot exist, for evil is the absence of good. Or put another way, all that it takes for evil to exist is for good men to do nothing.

“Just as darkness follows the removal of light and disappears in its presence, so, as long as goodness is present in a nature, evil is something nonexistent.”[1] Gregory further explains that even on the brightest of days, if we choose to close our eyes to light, we will see the darkness of our own eyelids. Gregory draws the conclusion that evil cannot exist in God’s light.

“Now the opposite of life is death; of power, weakness; of blessing, cursing; of candor, shame; and of every good thing, it’s contrary.”[2] “For nothing evil lies outside the will as if it existed by itself; but it gets its name from the absence of the good….If a man in broad daylight of his own free will closes his eyes, the sun is not responsible for his failure to see.” [3] We are unable to blame God for the exercise of our own free will, unless we agree to give up our free will and become puppets to his manipulation. The most precious blessings given to man are the gifts of liberty and free will.

[1] Christology of the Later Fathers, Westminster John Know Press, reissue 2006, p. 278
[2] Ibid, p. 281
[3] Ibid, p. 282

Eternal, Immortal, but Divine?

We say that “the Divine became man, so that man may become Divine”. For me this statement is not totally accurate because I believe to be Divine, is more than life eternal or immortality. We are given life eternal whether we believe in the Divine or not. If we chose not to believe in the Divine, then our eternity becomes the “hell” that we live in by the mere existence of life eternal, outside the presence of God. In the same manner I believe “heaven” to be eternal life in the presence of God. For if God is light and love than our own wills lead us to darkness and self obsession.

Because Christ, being God, took on human flesh to live amongst us, He died so that we might experience eternal life and goodness. So that mankind can be restored to the original image of God that we were made in.

Time is not Linear

Twenty four hours in every day, 60 minutes in every hour, 60 seconds in every minute, but are all seconds, minutes, hours equal. I contend it is dependent on your age at the time. Now, I am sure that none of this makes sense right now, but think about it. Ask a child how old he is and he is likely not to respond four or five, but rather five and a quarter or six and a half. Time moves so slow when we are young and growing and developing that we need to divide it into halves and quarters. However as we get older we can’t remember whether we are 51 or 52. Some of us still think we’re 39, and others of us will not even admit our age to others or ourselves.

I would submit that the longer we live, the faster time moves for us and the more precious time becomes. As we hear in lyrics, “once we find what we want there never seems to be enough time to do it.” When I was 23 I ask my grandfather, who was celebrating his 75th birthday, “ Does time seem to go faster the older we get?” to which he responded, “Wait until you’re 75!” His comment hit me like a ton of bricks.

How many times have we heard the expression, “Time stood still” or “I have all the time in the world” or “it was as if time had stopped”?

Chuck Currie on Blogging and Public Theology

Well our first on line session is complete. I was impresed with the various issues that were raised and the excellent participation of the class. Poor Chuck, how did you manage to stay up with multiple discussion coming at you simultaneously. Hats off to you. It's great to get the input directly from one you has been so successful with his own blog.

I personally received some advise which is reflected in my article on Oregon's Physicisn-Assisted Suicide. A position that I have changed 180 degrees since working in hospice and hospital chaplaincy. What a great media and opportunity.

Oregon's Physician-Assisted Suicide

There are worse things than death. In most cases, through organization such as hospice and palliative care, both symptoms and pain can be managed. However, there are cases in which the pain can not be managed. In these cases, I believe we are more humane with our animals than we are with each other. So I have attached this link from the State of Oregon and I welcome your thoughts and opinions on such a controversial topic.

Grief fades within 6 months for many widows

Grief is not linear but cyclic, it comes to us in waves and articles such as this one can be very misleading because it looks at a single point in time rather than the process of grieving itself.