Being with the Dying

Being with the Dying

“Witnessing a death is a profound experience for everyone, family members and loved ones, and for health care professionals who have cared for the patient-and, certainly, for the person who ministers spiritually. When you have sat vigil with a dying soul, you are forever changed. You have experienced a great mystery.”—Megory Anderson, Attending the Dying: A Handbook of Practical Guidelines (Morehouse Publishing 2005).

Megory Anderson has written a large volume on being with the dying and a short pocket-sized handbook. So many people come for spiritual direction related to a death. Someone significant has died or is about to die. Often, the death is imminent. If there is time, I review Megory Anderson’s concrete directions and then give them the small handbook. My experience is that they often do not even have time to digest the handbook, which can be helpful. Frequently, the person or caregiver is so overwhelmed that even reading is challenging.

 It is similar to my experience with hospice. My father-in-law was put on hospice care the day before he died. Unfortunately, we often wait too long before asking for help or accepting the reality of the situation.

Anderson teaches us so much. Being with someone who is dying is a sacred ministry. It can be one of the greatest gifts given to someone. Attending the dying is like the privilege of being at a birthing. It is a sometimes painful celebration of a new life.

I especially try to reread her section about creating a sacred space. We talk to the family about clearing clutter from the room, bringing in sacred objects such as devotional icons, prayer beads, photographs, childhood books, reading favorite stories, and even childhood poems. Favorite music, a lighted candle, a favorite quilt, and fresh flowers from someone’s garden remind us that something special is happening here.

We come to be with the person dying, listen to them, and hear their story. Conversations should be directed to them. My experience is always to speak to the dying as if they could hear what we say.

 As death approaches, I know of many who midwife their loved ones into a new life by singing favorite hymns, reading the psalms, taking turns saying prayers, and performing rituals for the dying from their traditions.

After the death, saying prayers and preparing the body can be one last loving ritual for family and special friends. For example, my father-in-law grew magnificent roses. The night he died, our family took rose petals from the flowers in his room and scattered them over his body before walking his body out to the funeral hearse.

This book is invaluable to anyone attending the dying. The author describes the preparation for death, the death process, what to do afterward, and how to react to the unusual behavior of well-meaning family and friends. Unfortunately, we rarely have a guidebook for life’s more difficult journeys. This book is one.

Joanna          https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Bishop Hibbs: The Jesus Prayer

 Bishop Hibbs: The Jesus Prayer

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner.”

I remember being at Camp Allen in Texas for the first time at a Community of Hope International meeting with Mary Earle as the keynote speaker. As I look over her books, I find this newly published 20th-anniversary edition of An Altar in Your Heart, Meditations on the Jesus Prayer by Bishop Robert Hibbs with a Foreword by Mary Earle.

The Jesus Prayer has been my mantra in the early morning and evening as I go to sleep. I pray the words during any time of anxiety, fear, or temptation during the day or night, especially during medical tests or procedures for my family and me. It is my feeble attempt to pray without ceasing.  

I have known Bishop Hibbs for years through work with the Episcopal Recovery Community but never knew about his work on the Jesus Prayer. As I share my connections with Bishop Hibbs with Mary, I find out he died a year ago in April. Mary preached the homily at his service.  

I thank and honor him for the support he gave me and so many others in recovery by sharing this book with you. An audio CD of his lectures at a retreat is included in the book. The Cajuns call this a lagniappe, a little something extra. For years, Bob Hibbs was the primary voice for recovery in the Episcopal House of Bishops.

Saying the Jesus Prayer is like using a prayer rope or beads in our heads. Bishop Hibbs relates the story of Cardinal Mindzenty and Father Eschmann, who survived torture and solitary imprisonment by staying connected to God with the Jesus Prayer.

The first words of the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” remind us of Jesus’ divinity and his humanity. Hibbs believes this is essential in keeping us in relationship with Jesus. These first words of the prayer with Jesus’ name express Easter, the Alleluia part of the prayer.
The last phrase about mercy expresses Good Friday. At this same conference, Sister Carol Perry reminds us that in this request for mercy, we ask for God’s mercy rather than God’s justice for how we have lived. Hibbs believes we always live in the tension between Easter and Good Friday.

Bishop Hibbs reminds us that this is an oral prayer that can be said out loud as much as possible, making the Jesus Prayer part of our being. He cautions us not to be discouraged, as we become distracted while we say it.

Instead, we gently return to the prayer without judgment on ourselves. We might consider treating distractions like those we encounter in centering prayer. We might see them as barges moving down the Mississippi or any favorite river. We are to let them pass on down without interacting with them.

Eventually, the prayer develops a rhythm in our lives. It becomes a gift from God closely related to the beating of our heart, a constant, habitual recollection or awareness of God’s presence. Hibbs also reminds us that when we pray the Jesus prayer, we attempt to connect to Jesus, God, the Trinity above and beyond us, and to Christ in our neighbor and ourselves.

For people in 12-step recovery, this is where the steps intersect with the Jesus Prayer, as we “sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God.” (Step 11, Chapter 5, “How it Works,” Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2016, p. 85)

Sometimes, I modify the prayer to the Agnus Dei, the fraction anthem, after breaking the bread in the Eucharist. “Lord God, Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.”

While we meet with someone for spiritual direction or with spiritual friends, we give them our utmost attention. However, having the Jesus Prayer running through our mind and body is a way to stay connected to the Spirit, speaking to Christ in both of us.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Loving Without Understanding

 Loving Without Understanding

“And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us, but we can still love them. We can love completely without complete understanding.”—Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It (University of Chicago Press 1976).

Beside the Clark Fork, Missoula, Montana

I remember being in Missoula, Montana, visiting our daughter, Joanna, and her husband, Dennis, with our oldest grandson, Mac, and his dad, John. Our hotel is directly on the banks of Clark Fork, and the river is racing in real-time by our small porch on the first floor.

We are mesmerized by watching the high-speed water, but the sound of the raging river enters our being and, indeed, runs through us. It calms. It soothes. In its orchestral movement, it is peaceful. It sounds like a wind instrument, perhaps a distant Native American flute. Sometimes, it has the “Om” sound chanted in yoga and Eastern meditation.

We begin to know the stillness of sitting or standing and observe the wonder of something too magnificent for words as it rapidly passes by. We can become so relaxed that we fall asleep.   Water, moving or still, has healing powers we cannot understand.

I watched Robert Redford’s movie A River Runs Through It with all of our children and most of our grandchildren. We can often quote lines in the film and answer back the responses. Stop now if you have not read the book or seen the movie because I will spoil it for you.

The story is about the Maclean family, a father and two sons, Norman and Paul, growing up fly-fishing in Missoula, Montana. The words quoted today are near the movie’s end, preached in one of the father’s last sermons.

I could almost hear Norman’s father when we rode by that same brick Presbyterian church yesterday on the way to get ice cream. The father indirectly talks about Norman’s younger brother, Paul, who died an early traumatic death related to his addictions.

As I watch and listen beside the Clark Fork, where the Macleans lived and loved a century ago, I also think of those I could not understand but wanted to love completely. Today, my prayers are to continue to try to hear these words from Norman’s father about them. Of course, there are also those I cannot understand and may never want to love the slightest bit, much less completely. I pray to see them in a new light, seeing the Christ in them.  

Loving without understanding may be on the path to unconditional love, God’s love. It is also the balm to heal our differences. Om.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/