Healing Ministry Volume 15, Number 1, Winter 2008

Healing Ministry Volume 15, Number 1, Winter 2008

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Never Wait Father Dn. Thomas Johnson-Medland, CSJ, OSL

At an early point in life, if I had bandied the battle cry “Don’t Wait,” or “Carpe Diem,” I would have been branded as a youth or young upstart. In fact, I did and I was. But, as my hospice career comes to an end, I am still crying the same watchwords, “Don’t Wait,” and “Carpe Diem.” If there has been one lesson I have learned from the dying, a lesson they impressed on me to hear and preach from the highest mountains, it has been: “Time is short and life is long, live in the moment and be in love with everything and everyone—as much as you are able.” I am sure that having a grand personality does not hurt in adopting this somewhat hedonistic perspective, but really that is not what is at the core of the cry of the dying. What the dying really call forth in us is: life can end at any moment and we may never have a chance to “run the tapes again” or backtrack and correct some scene. We may have to live with the Father Dn. Thomas Johnson-Medland, CSJ, OSL, Lighthouse Hospice, Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

idea that this moment is the final moment. That is sort of sobering. What is difficult, is to live that on a daily basis as a long-term, lifelong commitment. It is sustainable for the terminally ill over months and perhaps greater parts of years or two, but daily for life is a deeper commitment than most can hold a vision for. I would have to say, though, that this is what they are clambering to teach us. Those who are dying want us to “get it” above all things else in life: “Time is Precious, Don’t Waste It. You may have no other chance.” You know I have found one practice finer than all others that I have learned from the dying. I love to close my eyes facing into the breeze and feel it on my face, smell it in my nose, and hear it in my ears. I really have learned to feel all of the mental and social constructs I operate under on a regular basis, to fall aside and lose all meaning in the face of the wind. Taxes mean nothing to me in the face of the wind. My kids’ late pizza money for school lunch means nothing to me in the face of the wind. My family’s crazy

patterns of dysfunction mean nothing to me in the face of the wind. I am seriously not advocating for abdicating all responsibility. I am advocating recognizing that what, on first blush, appears to be vital and important, may in fact be not at all vital and or important. What I am advocating for, as well, is that those who work with the dying need to help people see how CRITICAL these issues are. There is a blessed idea in the Talmud that calls us to build a hedge around the TORAH. This sense of building a hedge around the TORAH is to keep it safe, set it apart and establish it as sacred. It is to make sure it is revered. I am suggesting the same for the message of the dying. Build a hedge around the key value the dying teach us: “Everything passes away, pay attention.” Make sure that you are alert to what is important at the moment. Bringing this value into our lives and business is not only risky, but it is costly. When we begin to recognize the value of the apparently invisible assets in our lives, we begin to make trade offs of dollars for meaning. There

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Healing Ministry Volume 15, Number 1, Winter 2008

is something important about leaving our children values and ethos instead of just accounts and funds. Our children need to receive ethical wills and not just material wills. I want to leave my children the value of standing on the waters’ edge and feeling the aliveness of the wind, not just $100,000 toward college. I want my sons to know that I fought long and hard to find them a way to experience freedom, not just to feel secure because I have money set aside. But, this invades all of our relationships and all of our

connections. Have we heard what the dying want us to hear. It will literally upset kingdoms and powers and political systems: “Live life with an ear to death. You will not be here forever, how do you want to be remembered?” Hear what the dying have been speaking forever: “Live attentive to the fact that you will die.” Help them to be able to be heard by their families, churches, synagogues, social clubs, and neighbors. They want people to hear the cry, “You are gonna die, think about how you are living because it is over, oh so quickly.”

There are thousands of ways to rephrase the principal of impermanence, but please remember, the dying have been screaming it out loud and clear to us for eons. They want us to shout it out with them so that people around them hear it. They do not want people to be arguing about insurance coverage before they die, or allowable benefits, or advanced directives. To them, the time is as short as a few breathes and they want you to be present with them before they draw their last one. Will we hear them?