A HEART OF WISDOM   APRIL 26 2009

Opening Words

The First Green of Spring by David Budbill

Out walking in the swamp picking cowslip, marsh marigold,
this sweet first green of spring. Now sautéed in a pan melting
to a deeper green than ever they were alive, this green, this life,

harbinger of things to come. Now we sit at the table munching
on this message from the dawn which says we and the world
are alive again today, and this is the world’s birthday. And

even though we know we are growing old, we are dying,
we will never be young again, we also know we’re still right here
now, today, and my oh my! Don’t these greens taste good.

Sermon

I heard this at the funeral of a friend’s father who died at 92 and had worked until he was 90. Every weekday morning, after reading the obituary page and not finding his name among those listed, he would put the paper down and say, “ I guess if I am not dead, I better go to work.”

The psalmist sang, “Teach us to number our days that we may grow a heart of wisdom…” 92 x 365 =32, 520 days to grow a heart of wisdom. But from where we sit today, none of us know when our number of days is up.

In an adult ed program called Build Your Own Theology, we begin with a line across the top of a blank page and we put a dot at one end and a dot at the other. Birth and death. And a dot along the path where you are now. We do as the psalmist suggests, we estimate the number of our days.
I have been thinking of the finitude of Human beings. Maybe because it is easier in the spring, when the sun is out and the trees are miracles of blossoms? 

Maybe because there seem to be so many books on the subject of dying that I wonder about our progressively isolating life styles, our struggling for some security in an insecure world, seeking inspiration and, consolation.

Maybe because of Hosea Ballou who said, “ If a religion cannot be reduced to practice have none of it”.  Some of those books contain wisdom worth practicing.

Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond: A practical Primer to help you and your loved ones prepare medically, legally and emotionally for the end of life, and Sherwin Nuland’s How We Die are two I can recommend.

This sermon’s message is: Live now, love well.  While we are here. Taste the sweet greens of spring.  Prepare yourself and loved ones which could include end of life care directives, to ethical wills, to letting folks know what songs you would like at your memorial service.  

Maybe because I was listening to BBCworldhaveyoursay the other day and they listed of the most popular songs played at funerals currently:  Goodbye My Lover, Unchained melody, I’ve had the Time of My Life, Candle in the Wind, Over the Rainbow, The Wind Beneath My Wings and #1, My Way.  

Maybe because I realized that my days were numbered when I was 7 years old, lying in bed one cool spring morning such as this one nestled under heavy quilts.

Maybe because my father’s seasonal ritual was to call me over to his bureau, where he would open the top right hand drawer, reach in and pull out a manila envelope, and then inventory its contents: banks books, honorable discharge and dog tags, marriage license, baptismal certificate, simple will, cemetery receipt, so I would know where to find it, “in case”. He wanted to know that I knew where it was. I could barely look at him.  

I found that practice unpleasant and icky.  Kind of like having your parents talk to you about sex and just as talking to our kids about sexuality is necessary, so they at least know that there is an adult, their parent, they can come to with their questions, and concerns, the wisdom of this became clear to me as we neared the end of his life. I knew I could, I should, because he would want me to, talk to him about his dying. About what he wanted me to know he wanted. The other lesson is that we did not ever talk about sex. 

When I read Jane Brody’s book I found a kindred spirit. Jane Brody wrote this in her Prologue:

I did not start thinking about end- of –life issues when I reached my 60’s. They’ve been with me nearly all my life. Starting at age 16 when my mother died, which prompted me to write a speech in college titled- “When you come to the end of your days, will you be able to write your own epitaph?”  
Those of you in BYOT have done just that.  Brody writes of her mother and her own life: If any good came from my mother’s death at age 49 it was my recognition at age 17 of my mortality and my decision… to live every day as thought it might be my last. I work hard but I leave room every day for having fun and seeing friends. . I try to stop and watch the birds and admire the trees, create opportunities to travel…still she writes, I’m sure I will not go gently into that good night, not even at 80. There is an important difference between intelligently, sensibly learning to accept the inevitable – and surrendering. Surrender or the refusal to surrender, actually has much more to do with attitudes toward living than dying. (Xix)

This is a sermon about growing a heart of wisdom.  Dr. Sherwin Nuland writes: “ Ars moriendi is ars vivendi- the art of dying is the art of living. Who has lived in dignity, dies in dignity… It is not in the last weeks or days that we compose the message that will be remembered, but in all the decades that preceded them.”

UU clergy person Forrest Church wrote a book, Love and Death, which is a collection of sermons, and is in his second remission from esophageal cancer.  This is his wisdom:

Want what you have,
Be who you are,
Do what you can.

He says that even about his cancer- now at 60- what good is spending time in regret, and if onlys:  Want what you have, be who you are, do what you can.
Anna Quindlin’s Short Guide to a Happy Life tells young adults:
Get a life.
Find people you love and who love you. Remember love is not leisure, it is work.  All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.
*
At some point our days come to a place toward their end time. and hope resides not in curing but caring.

Jane Brody.  “… even the healthiest of lives must come to an end. ..We live in a death denying, death defying culture. I am as guilty as the next person in not wanting ever to lose the chance to enjoy the many rewards life can offer. ..preparing for the end of life goes far beyond willing your estate to those you love or signing an organ donor card or picking out a burial plot. And for those millions of people who will have to help their parents and other relatives and friends exit gracefully from this life, preparation goes beyond finding the best doctors or hospital. It involves knowing what to say and how and when to say it. It involves doctors who do not abandon their patients once cure becomes a lost cause. It involves getting adequate treatment for pain and other debilitating symptoms.it involves knowing what to do – and what not to do – when death is imminent.

Brody says that her mother had no chance to come to terms with her own death [or] use the occasion to face her own mortality…  The pain that the family suffered watching my mother die was no doubt more than matched by the agony of her loneliness and inability to say good-bye.

Dying was a topic for the small groups and we asked, what lessons did you learn from your experience with dying?

I learned from my father – from all those times he showed me “the papers” - that he could talk about it.  I can tell you it is easier to talk about dying earlier towards the end of ones days, when you sit on the porch in the summer sun. At the end – we sat and I took his living will statement. If the good lord wants to take me, let him.

When he became unconscious and went into the hospital, I tried to make sure the doctors respected his wishes. I came in one day to ask the day nurse, what happened that day. How had he been?

She wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me. She referred me to his doctor who had disappeared in these last days and was not available.  I went to ask her again. The nurse said in exasperation and – Who are you? A doctor? “ As if only medical professional can understand.  I said no – I am a lawyer. One minute later an attending came in to tell me what was going on. I was an advocate for him.
I learned that my father’s love for me looked like that envelope. It was safely hidden, wrapped up in the back of his drawer. But with it, he was taking care of me still, even as he could not care for himself any longer. 

I said to him, not knowing if he could hear, Dad I have got it. The bank books the papers.  Don’t worry I will take care of it all. You did good preparing me for this. Thank you. 

I also learned that I did not want another family member dying in a hospital.
*

Nuland’s hope is that his work will reduce fear, and anxiety and unjustified expectations. Ars Moriendi- art of dying has been replaced with the art of saving life and he takes medical profession to task for its devotion to the brilliance of rescue, and then the “all too common” abandonment when rescue proves impossible.

He says about his death- I want it to be without suffering..where I am surrounded by the people and things I love. What I hope, unfortunately, is not what I expect…

Like most people I will probably suffer with the physical and emotional distress that accompany many mortal illnesses and like most people I will probably compound the pained uncertainty of my last few months by the further agony of indecision – to continue or to give in, to be treated aggressively or to be comforted, to struggle for the possibility of more time or to call it a day and a life- …

How do we choose, and who chooses, when our numbers up?  Death he writes- belongs to the dying and those who love them.

He tells us that we cannot expect doctors to have our values, expectations, spiritual nature, philosophy of life. So he will not allow a specialist to decide when to let lot. I will choose my own way, “ or at least make the elements of my own way clear, so that the choice can be made by those who know me best.”

“ For those who die and we who love them a realistic expectation is the surest path to tranquility.”  “ Ars moriendi is ars vivendi- the art of dying is the art of living. Who has lived in dignity, dies in dignity. “

I feel that I have learned more about the deeper meaning of choosing the song “ My Way”.
*
So my question to you and the SGM questions were: Have you talked to your family/close friends?  Not as often as my dad talked to me. It is helpful for grown children to know how their parents feel so they don’t have to guess…and for parents to know their children “get it”.

I find comfort and hope in belief that someone loves me and knows who I am and how I have tried to live and that if I can no longer act, if I can no longer make my own choices, there is someone in whom I can place my trust and faith, to make the choices according to my directions, with a full heart of wisdom.  I really hope, perhaps like you, that it is a long way ahead of me on that path before it is needed.  I know that there are those of you who are in the midst of illness, working and caring for those you love.

*
You know the child promise: Cross my heart and hope to die. That meant it was a very important promise. A promise that is taken to heart.

Here are some cross your heart and hope promises:

A cross your heart and hope promise to yourself is to live wanting what you have, being who you are and doing what you can. Then there will be no regrets, just love. 

A cross your heart and hope promise for those we love is that they will not be alone, their wishes will be honored as best as we can, that we can give and receive blessing of saying: I forgive you, please forgive me, thank you, I love you, good bye. 

I read that these are what we should say before we die to those we love, or to one who is dying. It is said that we should do this even if we are not dying.  I forgive you. Please forgive me. Thank you.  I love you. Goodbye. May the people grow hearts of wisdom.

Brody  writes:  And so dear one…However old you are now, don’t be afraid to face the inevitable which I hope will be as distant from the present as possible. because once you’ve taken care of the end of your life, you’re in a far better position to fully enjoy the time you have left.    

Maybe it is because one of you wrote me this letter last week.  I have permission to share:


Barbara
A year later.

At SGM, I realized why the conversation you and I  had in the courtyard at Rhode Island Hospital had been so helpful in the final days of my sister's life.  The only things that need to be said are that I forgive you, forgive me, I love you and goodbye.  Without really knowing it, that's what I was doing for the two years that my sister had been in Rhode Island.  I remember going back into her room that afternoon and thinking that I had nothing left unsaid and a peace that came over me by just being there (and holding her foot which was now warm from the dialysis).

I still miss her everyday, but I have no regrets. Thank you.

We have a choice: Love or regret, connect or isolate
You are a human being- you have the power
You are a heretic- you can choose, choose love.

Whether for two years, two months, two weeks two days two hours or minutes, choose.

There is a surrender at the end our days that has such freedom…clear as melting snow water dancing over hard washed stones flowing into streams, down coursing rivers, merging into a vast ocean as sure as the sun rises and sets, as it takes its daily measure across the girth of this earth, the streams of our lives make their cosmic cycling diving returning into creation and are free once more.

But now this green this life, this dawn which says we and the world are alive again today, we know, we’re still right here now, today, and, My oh my, it sure is good.