Navigating death.

"What's it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live
What's it all about
When you sort it out, Alfie?"

       Bert Bacharach and Hal David, promoting the movie "Alfie," 1966

In 1997 Oregon enacted a law that allowed terminally ill people to end their lives by taking a drug prescribed by a physician. I helped my friend, Bob Warren, through that process just before his 96th birthday. He was uncomfortable. He was in decline and he knew all his problems would get worse. He had had enough.

Bob Warren

The two posts I wrote about helping him die are among posts that have drawn the most attention and readership. One described his decision; the second described the process of death. For Bob, what "it" was all about wasn't spiritual. In the end he had a purpose, to make sure other old, sick people could leave on their own terms. He died surrounded by caring people, medical people, but no chaplains. He wanted nothing to do with religion. Raz Mason read those posts.

Raz Mason is a chaplain--and educator and advocate. She has a degree in mathematics from Bryn Mawr, a Master’s in Pastoral Studies from Seattle University, and a Master’s in Divinity from Harvard Divinity School. In 2023-24 she will serve as the Puget Sound VA’s Mental Health Chaplain Fellow, assisting on the locked psychiatric unit. She writes “Power-with Perspectives” on Substack.

Guest Post by Raz Mason

Mason

 In April, Peter wrote movingly about his friend Robert Warren’s assisted death, and journeying with him to the end. In case you missed it, I recommend Peter’s powerful post, especially the last two paragraphs.

Peter writes, “We were born knowing how to die.” This is a simple yet immensely difficult truth to understand. Peter invited me to share my thoughts as a chaplain and how I have cultivated skills to accompany people into death.

Prelude: What Is a Chaplain, Really?

Maybe you’re unsure or skeptical about what chaplains do. Professional chaplains provide spiritual care to people of any faith or no faith. Most work in hospitals. Others work in the military, police departments (where positions must be unpaid), prisons, nursing homes, and increasingly in workplaces.

Professionally-educated chaplains, ones credentialed to work in hospitals, go through at least 800 hours of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), a rigorous and structured training process that is half spiritual care practice and half various forms of instruction and group reflection on patient interactions and one’s personal development. If we have not wrestled with issues of life, death, loss, and life’s ultimate meaning ourselves, we cannot offer care to others mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

A good chaplain offers a non-anxious presence, invites reflection on a person’s inner resources, and offers or facilitates spiritual support as requested via prayers, readings, or religious services in the faith tradition of the one being served. They could be a patient, family member, or staffer. Chaplains respect that many are “spiritual but not religious,” nourished by sources other than “God.” It is taboo to a professional chaplain to attempt religious conversion. Our focus is on the actual reality of the person we are helping—each is a unique and complicated individual, even though health crises or death do bring common concerns.

It's powerful for individuals to have a discussion partner capable of emotional presence for the hardest of topics. Not only does this help people feel less alone, but invites reflection to tell the story of one’s life. Many craft a unifying narrative that makes sense of both struggles and triumphs.

The Political

This need is not only individual.

Readers of Peter’s posts come for political commentary. I am one of his avid followers and a political participant. Last year I ran for the Oregon State Senate. I lost, but earned 41% of the vote. That experience, and much political engagement before and after, has highlighted the parallels between chaplaincy and politics.

It takes courage and practice to be lovingly present, as was Peter at the end of his friend’s life, to illness and death. Not unlike facing death, we all need to cultivate the ability to consider current, potential, and/or looming losses. They can be things like physical and social threats from climate change, threats to civic stability and democratic institutions, global resource limitations, economic problems, the possibility of war in Ukraine escalating, and social injustices.

Without knowing it, it’s natural to defend ourselves emotionally by avoiding contemplation of possible losses and challenges. But the structure of the universe includes both positives and negatives. Our families, communities, and society are desperately in need of mature leaders firmly able to work with the diverse contours of reality, whether a given situation can improve, stay the same, or seemingly worsen.

Together, if we face and work through feelings of fear and grief, we will be much better positioned to take wise next steps and identify hopeful moments, even during immense loss.

 

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