Wednesday, January 22, 2014
The Pressure to Die
story here.
If this is happening when assisted suicide is still illegal (though increasingly allowed through the legal system), then it will only get worse if it is legalised.
Even those who support euthanasia agree that it is a 'slippery slope', 12 years after legalising it, Belgium has now extended euthanasia to children. The Belgian experience has seen assisted dying extended to people who aren't terminally ill, and with the change in law has come a change in culture. Once you cross a line, it becomes very difficult to draw new ones that have the same moral force.
Monday, July 02, 2012
Novel ideas - death, crisis and transformation: or not.
The man was a true shepherd of souls." (Douglas Coupland 'The Gum Thief')
still thinking this one through...
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Churches and Bereavement Support
There are also a small number of churches who are involved in a lot of funerals (40+ a year), whilst the vast majority are doing fewer than 10 per year. On the ground, that may mean that a lot of funerals are done by churches which are already heavily in demand, and that makes it difficult to offer quality support.
Care for the Family are developing more resources for local churches to use in this area.
We probably do 30-40 funerals a year, alongside a large number of baptisms and weddings, 2 churches and a lot of community involvement. With more resources and expertise we could provide more support than we currently do. Some of this is about priorities, and some of it is about available time from suitable volunteers. There's only so much people can do. It would be really good to hear from a church which thinks it's offering a good level of bereavement support, and how you've gone about it.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Its enough to make you Scream
Eventually, moth and rust will destroy this picture, and one can only hope this becomes a moment we look back on with shame.
Thursday, January 05, 2012
BBC campaign for assisted suicide continues
Click onto the main BBC page at the time of writing and ' 'Strong case' for assisted dying' is the main headline alongside the continuing story of the Stephen Lawrence investigation. Thinking that maybe this was some key report by the BMA, I clicked through to the story. It's no such thing.
The story itself is about a report by a 'group of experts'. It turns out the 'group of experts' are a group of supporters of euthanasia, gathered together by Charlie Falconer (who's twice tried to get assisted dying put into law via the Lords) and funded by Terry Pratchett, a noted public supporter of assisted dying.
This is the equivalent of the church of England appointing a group of bishops to investigate whether praying is a good thing, and reporting back that, well I never, actually it is.
There's a fairly direct statement already up on the Church of England website in response to the report, it begins:
The 'Commission on Assisted Dying' is a self-appointed group that excluded from its membership anyone with a known objection to assisted suicide. In contrast, the majority of commissioners, appointed personally by Lord Falconer, were already in favour of changing the law to legitimise assisted suicide. Lord Falconer has, himself, been a leading proponent for legitimising assisted suicide, for some years.
Rarely is the CofE press machine so quickly out of the blocks. The main issue is whether a system of safeguards can be created which enables assisted suicide for those who want it, whilst protecting those who might be vulnerable. Buried away in the BBC report is a statement from the BMA, which doesn't support assisted suicide. One might have thought their opinions would be nearer the top of the page.
Which brings me back to the BBC. They've been very careful not to step over the line on this one, but here we have a public service broadcaster, financed by the license payer. Whenever there has been an attempt in Parliament to get pro-euthanasia legislation passed, the BBC has put up a cluster of sympathetic programmes. The most recent, and most blatant, was the Terry Pratchett letter, chaired by the Dimbleby dynasty, to an audience of the great and the good. No questions, no debate, no alternative view put forward. And with the arguments being presented very personally, that makes it very hard to dispute them without looking heartless and mean. But there's no question that the BBC has an agenda here, and it's systematic enough to reach the headline writers for their web page.
Other links
Piece from the Independent earlier this week, in favour of the proposals, and focusing on Lord Blair, former police chief and commission member. A Carers Journey picks out some of the key bits.
Care not Killing on the makeup of the commission, and response to the report.
Same Difference blogging on disability.
Glyn Davies, MP for Montgomeryshire
Digital Nun on what this, and the Lawrence trial, say about our attitudes to life and death.
Cranmer, writing yesterday.
Vic the Vicar - very good and thoughtful piece.
Nick Baines
Sunday, October 09, 2011
A Tribute To Steve Jobs?
Is this....
1. Cynical exploitation of a mans name and death by a brand and a newspaper to make money/increase brand sympathy?
2. A fitting capitalist-style tribute to one of it's most successful sons?
3. Both?
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
There are other worlds to sing in
INFORMATION PLEASE
When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it.
Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person – her name was Information Please and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anybody’s number and the correct time.
My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway – The telephone! Quickly I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. Information Please I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.
A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. “Information.”
“I hurt my finger. . .” I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
“Isn’t your mother home?” came the question.
“Nobody’s home but me.” I blubbered. “Are you bleeding?”
“No,” I replied. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.”
“Can you open your icebox?” she asked. I said I could. “Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger.”
After that I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math, and she told me my pet chipmunk I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts.
And there was the time that Petey, our pet canary died. I called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child.
But I was unconsoled. Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up on the bottom of a cage?
She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.”
Somehow I felt better. Another day I was on the telephone. “Information Please.”
“Information,” said the now familiar voice.
“How do you spell fix?” I asked.
All this took place in a small town in the pacific Northwest. Then when I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the hall table. Yet as I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between plane, and I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, “Information Please”.
Miraculously, I heard again the small, clear voice I knew so well, “Information.” I hadn’t planned this but I heard myself saying, “Could you tell me please how-to spell fix?”
There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, “I guess that your finger must have healed by now.
I laughed, “So it’s really still you,” I said. “I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time.
“I wonder, she said, if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls.”
I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. “Please do, just ask for Sally.”
Just three months later I was back in Seattle. . .A different voice answered Information and I asked for Sally. “Are you a friend?”
“Yes, a very old friend.”
“Then I’m sorry to have to tell you. Sally has been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago.” But before I could hang up she said, “Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?”
“Yes.” “Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down. Here it is I’ll read it ‘Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He’ll know what I mean’.
I thanked her and hung up. I did know what Sally meant.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Paying Respects
I was most struck by an old mans recollection of his own fathers funeral. As he rode in the cortege as a boy he saw people stop by the road, remove their hats or touch their heads, and he remembers feeling a great pride that people were stopping to respect and honour his father. So, he said, whenever I see a funeral procession go past I stop and pay my respects, just in case there's a another little boy in there looking out.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
It's Death Jimbo, But Not as We Know It
It turned out that the series was set in a form of Purgatory. There can't be many TV series that last for 3 series (5 if you count Life on Mars) where all the main characters are dead. Gene Hunt, it turns out, was also a dead cop, whose role it was to see other cops who died before their time safely through the right door. In A2A, the door in question is a pub.
If a round in the Railway Arms was heaven (echoes of the banquet parables?), then Hell was the basement of a police station, with Jim Keats as Satan. He plays the role of the tempter/tester all the way through, questioning the teams faith in Hunt, and trying to lure them away from him. At the end though, the team still have a choice - do they step through the door Keats is offering them, or do they choose to walk away. Temptation never forces you to do anything, the choice is still ours.
There's even an echo of CS Lewis 'Screwtape Letters' in the reports which Jim Keats 'files' on the A2A website: Do you like to be called “sir”, sir? I don’t. Don’t like Chief Inspector or even Mister. I like it when people call me “Jimmy” or “Jimbo” or “Pencil Neck” or “Four Eyes”. Why? Because it means they are under-estimating me. And that is when I am at my most effective. My most powerful. Discuss.
Later on : As for my report on DCI Hunt - it is finished. I must say, it makes for fascinating reading. Fascinating.
“And you will know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
John Chapter 8, verse 32. I believe. I know my Bible. Must know almost every verse.
I'm kicking myself now that I didn't pick up those clues, unlike a colleague in my pub quiz team who gave me his idea of what was happening last week, and turned out to be pretty much spot on. The writers are completely up front about Keats being the Devil (see 'The Conclusion' vid here). And it turns out my theory about the Quattro numberplate and a link to July 7th was completely wrong. The biggest clue of all, of course, is the title of the show.
The spell in purgatory/limbo seems to function a bit like the Wizard of Oz (which gets repeatedly referenced through the series). Ray comes to terms with his guilt and becomes both wiser and more humane (a heart?), Chris gets his courage (the lion), Shaz gets recognition. It seems to be completing the work of personal growth that was interrupted by their premature deaths, but these changes only happen because of Alex's intervention: with just Gene Hunt as their 'guv', the three are stuck. The ferryman on the Styx needed a shove to get him all the way across, and that was Alex's job.
Great ending: Hunt back in his office looking at a brochure for a new car, to replace the beloved Quattro ("you murdered my car!"), when a new arrival bursts in "where's my desk, where's my Iphone?" and Hunt is back into action. Heaven as an inn with Jesus as the landlord: 'in my Fathers house are many rooms'. Not far off. So what does really happen after we die...?..good one to chat about over a pint.
Monday, February 01, 2010
BBC Coverage of Euthanasia: Spot the Agenda?
In the middle of the Dimbleby lecture (with both brothers on the front row), between mentions of Martin Amis and Michael Parkinson, I was struck by the presence of the Baby Boomer generation at the forefront of the pro-euthanasia campaign. The line 'my life, my death, my choice' had echoes of the Boomer mantra 'we want to be free, to do what we wanna do' (from Easy Rider I think). In the 60s and 70s they tested the sexual boundaries, in the 80's and 90's the boundaries of consumption and greed, and now that the boomers have finished their world with SAGA, the idea that a life lived totally on my own terms might not end on my own terms jars with everything the Boomers have done and campaigned for. I'd be interested to see the breakdown of the Panorama surveys by age cohort.
Today:
Panorama documentary 'I helped my daughter to die' (judging by the title, it will be sympathetic to the assisted dying argument).
Terry Pratchett lecture (same link) arguing for the right to assisted suicide.
December 08-Jan 09
'A Short Stay in Switzerland' dramatisation with Julie Walters of the death of retired doctor Ann Turner, who travelled to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to end her life.
Panorama 'I'll Die When I Choose'.
both sympathetic, and aired in the run-up to a Parliamentary debate on the issue.
News coverage of the Joffe bill in 2006, with commentary by Care Not Killing, a coalition of groups opposed to euthanasia. The summing up by reporter Fergus Walsh is quite obviously one-sided.
I'm struggling to think of a programme devoted to the issue which presented both sides equally, let alone allowed a supporter of palliative care to set the agenda and tone for the piece. If I'm wrong, then please let me know some examples, and I'll happily blog them.
In the meantime, I don't want my license payers money used so that the BBC can be a mouthpiece for the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. Yes this is a complex issue, there are arguments on both sides, and its emotionally charged, but to me it doesn't look like the BBC are facilitating a debate, more that they are running a campaign. Is that fair?
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Blast from the past: Moses and Risk
Moses has been told by God to fight the Midianites and:
1. It'll be the last thing he does before he dies, and hands over leadership to the next generation.
2. As part of the battle, they take some of the holy items from the tabernacle out with the army (v6).
In other words, Moses puts obedience before self-preservation, and part of going into battle is to take risks even with the things that are holiest to the community - there is always the chance of losing, and therefore the sacred things being carried off as plunder by the enemy.
Moses could have disobeyed God, thinking 'If I'm going to die after fighting the Midianites, I shall put off the battle as long as possible'. The self-preservation instinct means we will always put off the battle as long as possible, but the Cross may call for us to do something more radical, to give up our life in order to find it again. Christians, and churches, may need to do something which looks like death, maybe something which is death, because it's about God's purposes, not our self-preservation.
Which links to the risk thing. Can churches, and Christians, risk their 'holy things' because that's the only way we do God's will? Can you do mission without taking risks? And if mission shapes the church (buildings, ministry, finance, priorities etc.) then shouldn't risk-taking be something which comes naturally to us?
A simple exercise: list 3 things which are most precious about your church building. Are you prepared to risk them for the sake of mission, and seeing people come to know Jesus?
originally posted November '06
Friday, June 26, 2009
Through the gates?
If Coke is a mystery,
Michael Jackson History
If beauty is truth,
and surgery the fountain of youth
What am I to do?
Have I got the gift to get me through
The gates of that Mansion
If OJ is more than a drink,
a Big Mac bigger than you think
If perfume is an Obsession,
then talk shows confession
What have we got to lose?
I'll never push my way through
The gates of that mansion
Don't know if I can hold on
Don't know if I'm that strong
Don't know if I can wait that long
Til the colors come flashing and the lights go on
Then will there be no time for sorrow
Then will there be no time for shame
And though I can't say why I know I've got to believe
We'll go diving in that pool
It's who you know that gets you through
The gates in the Playboy Mansion
The Playboy Mansion
In the Playboy Mansion
Then will there be no time for sorrow?
Then will there be no time for shame?
no doubt much will be written, and much of it will be speculative. God alone knows the truth.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Death and All His Friends
The main themes of the Festival included palliative care, green burials, and helping with the dying process. Our culture has lost a lot of its rituals and beliefs around death, so it is open season for pretty much anyone who can help to steer people through it. One challenge for the church is how do we engage with New Age beliefs around death, and how do we engage more meaningfully with people than simply delivering the funeral service.
Intriguing that the BBC reported on the festival without any sense that it was coming from the 'wacky fringe'. The core of the report is that the NHS is percieved to be failing people at the point of death in the care it gives to patients and their loved ones. It also mentioned spiritual values around death.
It's significant that the reporter talks of 'new rituals' springing up around death and dying, and that people want a 'more personal approach'. At a recent research day at Church House there was talk of a 'Funerals Project', which might engage with how people percieve church-led funerals. The outcomes of a similar project on marriage spoke of how much people valued the personal touch, rather than a conveyor-belt approach. The challenge is how we create time and space for that to happen alongside so many other things which seem like priorities.
For info, here's part of the Transitus philosophy:
The Network comprises a growing group of people working in a way that honours all aspects of life - mind, body, spirit and emotions - that are involved with the sacred process of dying. Our aims are: to release fears and taboos; support those dying and bereaved; raise awareness of 'green' and family-based approaches to death; and to encourage the acceptance of the concept of continuity of consciousness. The Network also supports its members so that none of us feels alone. Members include those working with: midwifing the soul; music thanatology; alternative funerals and celebrations; natural burials; grief counselling; life after death; related workshops; and more.
At one level this is a typical New Age paragraph about death. But apart from a couple of strange bits of jargon, why isn't this seen as part of what Christian faith offers? Death as a sacred process, the treatment of the whole person, life after death, enabling people to die well, grief counselling, etc. Maybe the problem is that our engagement with death has become so professionalised - through the clergy and the clergy alone - that creative and personal approaches which could come from the wider body of Christ have been crowded out.
What do you think?
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Behind the Collar: Funerals
It starts with a phone call from the undertakers - we have some very good ones in Yeovil, and it's no reflection on them that my heart sinks every time they ring up. Taking someone's funeral is an immense privilege, but I'd be lying if I said it was my favourite part of being a vicar. A few details down the phone, then you ring the family to arrange to meet up. Having to ring someone you've never met, out of the blue, to express condolence and to fix a meeting normally means I put the call off for a day. I'd be hopeless in telesales, ringing people up isn't something I find very easy, never mind judging exactly what to say.
The Visit
Then we meet, and most of the time is spent scribbling down notes - often folk launch into their summary of the deceased persons life before you've even sat down, and it's vital to capture all of those words. I always breathe a sigh of relief if someone from the family offers to give the tribute, because if they don't then it's my job to stand up and tell the life story - usually a story of a person I've never known or met. Normally in the funeral service I'm very up front with the fact that I didn't know the person, and that I'm not going to pretend that I knew them.
At one funeral, of the youngest of 6 brothers, each of the other 5 had written down their own words for the vicar to say, and my job was to edit all 5 accounts together and deliver the tribute. They bought me a pint afterwards, so it must have gone okay. I try to use the words that mourners themselves use, rather than try to read between the lines - this isn't a time for guessing games.
At the funeral visit you're trying to gauge mood as well: emotions can range all over the place. Family splits come to the surface, and the occasional skeleton emerges from the closet. If everyone knows that the dead person was an absolute scumbag, who beat his children and swore at his neighbours, then you've got to acknowledge that somehow, without starting the funeral service with "we're here to remember John, who, as you all know, was an absolute scumbag...."
There's a whole mix of emotions: grief, relief, numbness, anger, exhilaration, guilt, you name it. And for the bereaved, questions. Did we do enough for them? Were we there at the moment of death? Is it ok to feel relieved that they're not suffering any more? Is it ok to feel relieved that we don't have to look after them 24/7 any more? And for the vicar, how do you reassure people truthfully when you don't really know the circumstances?
The Service
The funeral service is normally booked into a 30 minute slot at the crematorium. That actually means 20 minutes for the service itself. One of the first ones I took had so many mourners that we were still filling the building 10 minutes after the start time. Crem staff can get a bit twitchy, one former employee came into a service a few years ago and told them to get a move on as they were running late: that's why he's a former employee! Especially after it was picked up by a national newspaper....
There's normally both laughter and tears at a 'good' funeral - both are ways of releasing grief, and the incredible pressure and weight that can build up. Funny stories are great. It's a fine line - you want to celebrate the good things in someone's life, as well as recognise the deep grief and loss that people are feeling. Being remorselessly downbeat isn't helpful, being chirpy isn't helpful either.
There are some standard Bible readings for funerals, but where possible I try to find something new, which linked to the persons life: for a man who had worked on trawlers at Grimsby, we had an encounter between Jesus and Peter the fisherman. If folk have asked for a vicar, and a Christian funeral, then I want to set everything in the context of the Christian faith. Old, familiar words (Psalm 23, the Lords Prayer) often help, but also how you say them. Sometimes it feels like you're having faith and hope on behalf of other people who haven't got them, but need someone to have more faith than they do.
Over the years I've become more challenging - trying to pick out the things in the deceased's life that folk can be inspired by, trying to give some sense of hope or direction for the future. For many people a funeral reminds them of their own mortality, how long they might have left (especially at an untimely death), and how they're going to be remembered.
What are people going to say about you at your funeral? Alfred Nobel was one of the few who got to find out. He was surprised, to say the least, to read his own obituary in the paper one day. Even more shocking was the content: it described him as a 'merchant of death', who, by his invention of dynamite, had 'become rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before.' Nobel decided this wasn't the legacy he wanted to leave, and changed his will to endow the Nobel Peace prizes.
And then...
The service is a threshold, a final farewell, a marker post in the grief journey, and if you botch it then you can really mess people up. I'm all for children being in the service if they want to come - kids who are kept away when they wanted to be there will often feel a strong sense of unfinished business. And it's over in no time, people are filing out, shaking hands, looking at the messages on the flowers, wondering quite what to say to each other. And for the vicar it's back to the little office to take off your robes, pack everything away, and head off to the next thing. My journey home on Tuesday morning took me via the parent and toddler group - from one end of life to the other in 5 minutes.
This is a cross-post from Touching Base, a weekly column hosted by the Wardman Wire. And thanks to the Britblog Roundup for linking here.