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)