Column for syndication for Jan 15 2022

Hospice Patient Chooses Both Her Life and Her Death

 

As a hospice chaplain, I've had to come to grips with legislation passed in my home state of California called The End-of-Life (EOL) Option Act.

 

This law allows for terminally ill adults to request medication that will bring about their peaceful death. However, patients must be able to verbalize their request and they must be able to swallow the meds unassisted.

 

The law was months away from becoming active when I first visited Ruth, a 90-year-old hospice patient in Davis, Calif. Within a few minutes of entering her modest apartment, she tried dismissing me by claiming to be a life-long atheist.

 

I told her what I tell many patients: "I'm not here to persuade you, convert you or even baptize you. I'm here to be present with you through some tougher days."

Ruth smiled at that, cementing something between us.

 

Over the next several weeks, she told me stories of how she'd raised two loving sons and made a good life for herself. However, she grew up in Hitler's Germany and had legitimate reasons to doubt God's existence. She'd seen the imprisonment of relatives and the death of countless Jews.

 

Her childhood had been harassed by hunger and haunted by grief. Yet somehow, she became a woman who showed little regret about her life.

 

On my third visit, shortly before the law would take effect, she told me of her plans to request the EOL medications.

 

"Would you," Ruth stuttered, "could you, be there when I take the medications?"

 

"No," I screamed in my head. "I won't! I can't."

 

Fortunately, the law allows medical staff to follow their own conscience on this. I could say no and would not be penalized by my employer.

 

But -- and this is where things get dicey -- the legal wording expressly forbids medical staff to persuade or dissuade a patient in their EOL choices.

 

Instead of answering her straight away, I tried defusing the question.

 

"You know our hospice staff would really miss you if you did that. Everyone talks about how uplifted they are by their visits with you."

 

Then, as if loading both barrels, she aimed a look at me.

 

"Yes," she said, "but I don't think it's my job to encourage you. You must find your own reasons for living as I have my reasons for dying."

 

Ruth was right, of course. Her path was different than mine. She had to make her own decision.

 

A moment of silence broke over our bedside chat like stillness over a mountain lake. Then Ruth repeated her question.

 

"So, will you be there when I end this life?"

 

Let me interrupt my narrative for a moment to ask my own question: "If you'd been in my size-12 shoes, what would you have told the woman?"

 

If your answer is a profound, "No way," then I'd follow up with, "Why not?"

 

Consider what the woman was really asking.

 

I think she was saying, "I need to feel a kind presence. I need to know I'm not alone."

 

When I realized that, I heard myself say, "Of course I'll be there."

 

In the matter of our life, and certainly our death, the only thing we all want to know is that we aren't alone.

 

Not long after our conversation, Ruth woke up to her last day on earth and had breakfast with her sons. Then surrounded by family and hospice staff, she became our first hospice patient to end her life with medications.

 

She was never alone.

 

In the weeks and months that followed, our staff saw the truth of what she'd said -- it wasn't her job to inspire or encourage us.

 

Nevertheless, that truth never stopped us from celebrating her inspiring presence in our lives.

 

We will always remember you, Ruth.

 

______________________

 

Contact Chaplain Norris at comment@thechaplain.net or 10556 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail (843) 608-9715.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Column for syndication for Jan 15 2022

Searching for the Sound of Silence

 

Last week, my wife, Becky, and I took a bargain flight to the sun-drenched volcanic island of Hawaii, retreating from the threatening snow in our California foothills.

 

We spent much of the monotonous five-hour trip watching videos, but the sweeping sight of the endlessly smooth beaches on final approach had me imagining how I might find some peaceful silence.

 

The noise in my life had been building so slowly that I hadn't realized how it had squelched so much of what God wants me to hear in the silence of his creation.

 

A few days after landing on the "Big Island," we set out to find what Simon and Garfunkel called "The Sound of Silence." We began our search with a one-hour road trip from our Kona hotel to Mauna Kea, a 13,677-foot dormant volcano.

 

We broke through the clouds at 8,000 feet and finally reached the visitor's center at 9,200 feet. As we stepped from the car, we were spotlighted by the slanting rays of the fading sunlight.

 

We layered our summer clothing and donned sweatshirts to ward off the chilling threat of hypothermia. We then set out to ascend another 200 feet to grasp the pallet hues of the setting sun. Within a few minutes, the sun was gone, and I found myself eager for our pending engagement with silent beauty. 

 

In the darkening dusk, I was excited to peer into the night skies described on the park website as being "among the clearest, driest, darkest places on the planet."

 

"What," I asked myself, "would darkness look like? What would silence sound like?"

 

Little holes began poking through the sky like sparkling glitter on black canvas. This was the kind of sky that likely inspired pilot and poet John Gillespie Magee to claim he had "put out my hand and touched the face of God."

 

Silence is the unspoken partner in this darkness. Mount Mauna Kea is so high that astronomers say they sometimes hear meteors pass in the silence.

 

In this solitude, if God had a hearing booth this might be it. I could imagine the booth as a place where God played some tones and asked you to indicate which ear you were hearing from — your spiritual ear or your secular ear?

 

The silence told me that, as of late, I'd heard too much with that secular ear. My head seemed to be overflowing with a colluding cacophony of the distracting e-mails and voicemails, flight times and deadlines.

 

In that moment, I was anxious to hear with my spiritual senses.

 

But up in that thinning air, the only sound I heard was my weight nervously shifting over the obsidian rocks. I heard my breath and my heartbeat.

 

I was wary of being alone and covered, nearly smothered by the silence.

 

I strained to hear something. Anything at all.

 

What else might I hear?

 

Nothing. Nothing at all.

 

Yet I've never known "nothing" to sound so sacredly wonderful. It was as if I could hear the planets spin above me, as if I could hear myself aging, as if I could hear the clouds as they ran away searching for a new home.

 

This silence offered me a window into my soul as I stood honoring the sacred injunction to "Be still and know that I am God."

 

As I walked back to the visitor's center, guided by the sound of a car alarm, I couldn't help but feel a bit sad. Had silence become such a threatened commodity that it now belonged on the acoustically endangered list?

 

Has the modern day made silence so threatening, distrustful and formidable that it must be sequestered to lonely mountaintops?

 

I certainly hope not.

 

We need to find silence every day, but in my case, I was privileged to aquire an extra dose of it on Mauna Kea.

 

By the way, that car alarm that so carelessly broke the silence — it was mine.

 

______________________

 

Contact Chaplain Norris at comment@thechaplain.net or 10556 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail (843) 608-9715.

 

 

 

 

 

Column for syndication for Jan 15 2022

WISHING FOR THE GOOD OL' DAYS

 

I occasionally get emails from readers who reminisce about the good ol' days. It's as if they're hoping I'll commiserate with them about how horrible the world has become.

 

"Back in the day, we tipped our hats to gentlemen and bowed to the ladies," wrote someone from a land that time forgot.

 

But it was the reader who traced the fall of America through the entertainment industry that captured my attention. "Back in my day, the Andy Griffith show led the way in promoting wholesome values. Today's shows promote violence and sexual promiscuity," he claimed.

 

While I don't have a time portal to check the writer's premise, I do subscribe to video streaming. So I scrolled through the selection where an old favorite caught my attention — "Frasier" (1993-2004).

 

During our parenting years, Becky and I often rushed the little ones to bed, turned the TV volume down low and bust a gut watching the show. It was good clean entertainment, or so we thought.

 

If you've never seen an episode, you'll need to know that Kelsey Grammer portrayed a popular Seattle radio advice psychiatrist, Frasier Crane. The show's 42 Emmy Awards suggest that it's likely one of the funniest shows in television history. 

 

The good doctor is a fussy, uptight, cultured, but arrogant, broadcaster. Nevertheless, his sympathy toward the working-class listeners, coupled with a level-headed sense of ethics, makes him very likable.

 

Good clean show, right?

 

Well, I wouldn't be too quick on that conclusion.

 

Frasier satirizes sexism and uses humor to almost normalize sexual harassment.

 

In the supporting cast, Peri Gilpin plays Roz Doyle, Frasier's radio producer whose open approach to dating is constantly ridiculed by the other characters.  

 

Worse yet, she endures unwelcome advances from the host of the Gonzo Sports Show. Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe, played by Dan Butler, is constantly touching, kissing and butt-slapping Roz. 

 

Ouch. Where was Human Resources when it was desperately needed in those old days? 

 

And worse yet, I'm appalled at how the main cast is entirely white, with no variation of shade. The US population is over 13% Black, yet like many shows portraying America's good ol' days, Frasier reflects the racism of the day by relegating African American actors to unwelcome interrupters. 

 

But perhaps I should rewind our VCR time machine all the way back to the wholesome days of the Andy Griffith Show -that portrays a friendly, kind and close- knit community that we should strive to achieve. 

 

However, the series still confronts us, and shamefully so, with a time when various shades of color or sexual orientation were little more than unwelcome cameo appearances in our lives. 

 

So why bring up TV shows in a spiritual column? 

 

Because I think that even the best classic shows will successfully dismiss the premise that everything was better back in the day. 

 

No, I'm not trying to shame you for your entertainment choices. I'm only asking you to consider how morality can both improve while at the same time become derailed. 

 

If you read the Bible, you'll be familiar with this notion of the coexistence of good and evil.

 

In the parable of the wheat and thistles, (Matthew 13:24-30) Jesus rebukes good-ol'-days proponents who advocate spending our time rooting out the evil.

 

In verse 30 he says, 'If you weed the thistles, you'll pull up the wheat, too. Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I'll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.'"

 

Yes, our world is getting worse and worse, but this parable also tells me that it's getting better and better. The worst will always exist alongside the best. Evil is a parasite that feeds on good, not the opposite. 

 

So instead of commiserating with folks about the passing of the good ol' days, this spirituality columnist encourages the Zen Buddhist teaching that "life must exist in the present or nowhere at all."

 

Just keep in mind the church-camp song from those good ol' days  — "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."

 

Visit www.thechaplain.net or https://www.facebook.com/theChaplainNorris. Send comments to comment@thechaplain.net or 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or via voicemail (843) 608-9715.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Column for syndication for Jan 8 2022

Chappy Don't Dance

 

If you've followed my columns, you'll know this chaplain doesn't dance. Well, it's not that I don't dance -- it's more like no one can bear to watch me dance.

 

But the part I've never written about is the where-when-and-Why of my rhythmically challenged life.

 

My aversion to dancing, initially square dancing, began in Mrs. Marino's third-grade class at Strawberry Point Elementary School in Marin County, California.

 

Despite the affluent location, my classmates largely came from families living at the recently-closed campus of nearby Golden Gate Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

 

One day, in the mid-1960's, I handed my father a mimeographed notice that Mrs. Marino was teaching square dancing during our PE time

 

That year's classroom photo recalls Marino as a short Italian lady who wore her black hair in a bob. I would've given anything to dance with her but was not interested in a single one of my classmates.

 

Somehow, I must have communicated my displeasure to my dad, probably with a sneer or prepubescent squeal, because he suggested an option.

 

"I can write a note," he said, "stating dancing to be against our religious beliefs."

 

Even though Southern Baptists claim to be, "People of the Book," my dad's proposal overlooked several positive references about dancing (Exodus 15:20; 2 Samuel 6:14; Ecclesiastes 3:4; Psalm 150:4; Luke 15:25).

 

I didn't care about any of those verses of course, I just wanted to get out of dancing with -- yikes -- a girl.

 

What dad was offering was the precursor for today's "religious exemption" being sought by vaccine opponents. (Read more in my March 10, 2021 column.)

 

The thinking now is much like it was for me on the dance floor: religion can be used to avoid the uncomfortable things we don't want to do.

 

But it's not just vaccine dissenters who seek exemption from things they don't want to do.

 

For instance, we shun a coworker or friend because of their politics. We treat someone from a particular political belief as an ungodly sinner.

 

Or perhaps we ostracize a loved one because they identify as part of the LGBTQ community.

 

And even today, some churches reject women in ministry, all in the name of religion. It's not that they believe women can't preach, they just don't like change.

 

Folks that exclude people in the name of religion, don't seem to have the same problem in the everyday work-world where their doctor might be a woman or their child's teacher might be gay.

 

Like my dancing exemption, I'm not sure that our hearts really agree with exempting these people from God's love.

 

Franciscan priest Richard Rohr says our exclusion thinking stems from the fact that we see religion as goal-oriented.

 

He's talking about the kind of conversation my wife recently had while leading children's church. When she asked the kids why they should follow Jesus, they all replied, "So we can go to heaven."

 

That goal is something we're taught from childhood. The idea seems to be that following a precise list of dos and don'ts is the way to attain our gold stars and earn our merit badge.

 

In his book "Everything Belongs," Rohr debunks that idea, suggesting the resulting guilt we feel in this merit system actually becomes our punishment for not meeting these impossible rules.

 

It's "a cosmic game of crime and punishment," he says, in which we are denying ourselves God's grace. Unfortunately, "that denial becomes our own punishment."

 

So what is my punishment for not dancing?

 

I can't dance. Worse yet, my wife feels punished when she watches me bust a rhythmic move.

 

Why do our shortcomings always hurt those we love most? That's a question for another day.

 

But while we're talking about inabilities and exemptions, I should also mention that I don't know the first thing about poker either.

 

And I'm not bluffing.

 

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Contact Chaplain Norris at comment@thechaplain.net or 10556 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or voicemail (843) 608-9715.