May 5, 2013
Good morning.
Ann Barnett asked me a few weeks ago if I had something to share with our church about dying. I wasn’t sure then that I did have something to share.
David Hilfiker had just shared his awareness of the life transition towards dying and eventual death he finds himself in now: big for him, big news for us all and to me, dare I say, “glorious” for the sense of awareness and wonder and something even deeper than acceptance – perhaps “welcome” – is the spirit I sense in David at a time when he is beginning to lose his life as he has always known it. Is that right? What manner of loss is this? A big part of David’s loss includes a deeper sense of wellbeing, if I understand him well, than almost ever before in his life. Wow. David shared his truth, and my fear of losing my mind, my fear of loss of control of my life, my fear of dying this way was lifted. A lot. Now I’m kind of curious. What might become possible for me when it’s my turn to lose the things that have defined me to myself and others all of my life? I’ve been giving this question a lot of thought.
And Gordon died. At the evening gathering here in the Potters House the day Gordon died I heard someone share, saying of him that as he neared the end of his life Gordon said, “I’m starting to enjoy this dying bit.” Hearing that I thought to myself that Gordon could say “I’m starting to enjoy this dying bit”, this letting go of this life, because all his life, every day, in many, many different ways and situations, he had practiced letting go. Letting go and letting God. Wow.
In his Easter sermon, Fred Taylor spoke of both David and Gordon and Fred, your reflection about Gordon included that he “had an amazing gift for hearing our issue and need and framing a practical way to follow Jesus in our situation. He did not listen to us, you said, to think of a clever way to make us feel better in the moment, but to help us discern a step to take to be more fully who we are as whole human beings and servants of God.” I’ve been thinking on this and on David’s sharing and up until a few days ago there didn’t seem to be much room in my mind and heart for much else; at least not for anything about dying, to share with you.
Then grace came into my awareness on Friday night and I was reminded of many, many other moments of grace. So I do have some thoughts on living and dying to share. And I’m grateful for this chance to share it.
Sometimes someone asks me if, in my work at Joseph’s House, I have learned something that will help me when it is my time to die. The question gives me pause.
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I was once with a man who was fierce in other circumstances; a man who had been greatly harmed and who returned great harm and did not regret it. I was with this man when he died as gently as a sleepy baby falls asleep. I never heard him speak of anything he did within himself to make peace with his life. But he died in peace. Grace was present. The Holy Spirit was with him.
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I was a privileged witness to a man who died reconciled to his daughter, whom he had not seen for 30 years, until he was dying of cancer and came out of prison on compassionate release, to Joseph’s House. His bitterness was so deep and his fear so great that you could taste it in the air, standing at the door to his room. But his daughter, who had been with him only once before—as a 6 month old baby when her mother took her to visit him in prison—was passionate about her own healing. After a lifetime of resentment that her father had abandoned her and hearing that he was coming out of prison and that he was dying, she took leave from her job to care for her father as he died at Joseph’s House. She slept on a cot beside his bed. She helped him to the commode. She brought movies that they watched together. They soaked each other’s presence up. She told me after his death, that they never did speak of the past. He never did say he was sorry. But he accepted her love. And she felt healed. Some healing must have happened for her father too. Grace. The presence of the Holy Spirit.
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And just this past Friday night a dying man asked me to dance. We had all finished dinner. As usual, the table was crowded with the men and women of Joseph’s House, their friends and families, staff and volunteers. We had been eating and talking and listening to music. Joey was there too. He doesn’t eat much anymore. He has liver cancer.He sleeps a lot. He gets pretty confused sometimes. Joey came to the table anyway because he has a place there whether he feels like eating or not. Al Green was singing in the background until Shana got up from the table and turned the volume up. Way Up! And right there we had a party. I looked over at Joey and that music was taking him back to a timeless place. He looked like he was 16 years old just sitting there feeling the music. Then he caught me watching him and he said, “C’mon. Let’s dance, Baby”. We did and everybody did. Nobody wanted it to stop. Thomas, who hasn’t been at the House more than a week, said,“There is trouble out there. Right now somewhere a woman is grabbing her kids and running out the door in fear. Here, we are singing and dancing, at ease. The world can be either way and someday people will see that this is the way to live. If I die today, I’ll die happy. I look forward to dying here, in this place.” Peace, not as the world gives.
So, in answer to that question I get asked sometimes, yes, at Joseph’s House I learn over and over again that it’s possible grace will be present when it’s my time to die too.Why not?
And this brings me to something else that’s really got my attention.It’s concerning love. It’s the practice and power of lovingkindness.
Over the years I have worked with practices – prayers – to help me remember to welcome everything and push away nothing, to help me not need a person or a situation to be other than it actually is to have my love. With fatigue and anxiety, with suffering and loss it is so instinctive to turn away, to run away sometimes, to abandon even that which we love, most often, in my experience, to abandon ourselves. To abandon myself. And that is so painful. Now, as I become more aware of this abandoning, I want to understand it. I want to bring loving attention, loving kindness to the suffering that so often I can’t bear – that I turn away from.
So far in my experience, American Buddhism seem to know—better than any other group I know of—they know how to help a person learn to be more aware and more skillfully present, including being really present to someone who is dying. At Joseph’s House I think of the Beatitudes as the “why” of Joseph’s House. And for me, lovingkindness meditation is the “how”: Howto turn toward suffering, the suffering of others and my own suffering time after time. How not to give up when my heart feels closed.How I, an imperfect person can love other imperfect beings under very difficult conditions time after time and learn to love with fewer strings attached.
May I be free from danger and live in safety.
May I be happy.
May I be health in body and in mind.
May I live with ease.
May my mentor…
May my good friend…
May my difficult person…
May all beings…
There are many difficult moments at Joseph’s House. These days, many of those moments are in our Development Office! Feeling the tension in my body. Becoming aware that I’m breathing from high up in my head, not from my belly. Becoming aware of the little story spinning in my mind about this situation that has me stressed. Now, because I really work with the lovingkindness meditation, more often the very sensation of tension itself reminds to me to pause, take a deep breath and offer this meditation, this prayer, for my own wellbeing and for the wellbeing of the other – no matter what the difficult details are about. This pause creates some space for healing to be present within these difficult feelings. Helps me to welcome everything as it is. Push away nothing.
I notice that over the years our staff and volunteers also have taken their places at Joseph’s House as part of their spiritual paths. I feel the ever deepening compassion within the culture of Joseph’s House. In our staff meetings I hear more insights and understanding expressed than complaining and blaming. The capacity to understand more than to blame is developed over time, with intention. There is strong support for this kind of personal growth at Joseph’s House. Within it, lovingkindness flowers and healing happens.
Friends, it matters very much how tender and how gentle we learn to be. There’s a beautiful poem by Galway Kinnell that speaks to the power of lovingkindness. Here it is:
The bud stands for all things; even for those things that don’t flower,
For everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing.
Though sometimes it is necessary to re-teach a thing its loveliness,\To put a hand on the brow of the flower, and retell it in words and in touch,
It is lovely. Until it flowers again from within.
Of self-blessing.
I want to be fully myself as a whole being and servant of God. All of us long for this.
In my own life,as I turn my attention gradually, gradually to becoming more willing, sometimes even able to let go and let God; when I remember to practice loving kindness, loving without conditions; and when I learn to welcome my world, my friends and community members and myself - as is - I feel a little lighter. I notice things differently. Sometimes I see somebody like Joey sitting there feeling the music, looking like he’s 16 again. There is another world. But it is in this one. I think maybe this is The Kingdom.
John 14: 26-27
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.