"If I die before I wake ..."

I just finished reading what may be Jack Spong’s final book, Eternal Life: A New Vision. If you like Spong, you’ll enjoy this one. It’s theology as autobiography and covers familiar Spongian turf.

One chapter that grabbed me was the epilogue, “Defining the Choice to Die.” Spong argues quite convincingly for what he calls “the personal and legal right to determine when and how I die.” (221) Of course, Spong carefully qualifies what he means and responds to several objections from the religious and medical side.

This is a conversation that we do not do well in the church, if it ever even comes up. We don’t do it well in families, either, and many families are unable to follow through on the wishes of dying loved ones. And yet it seems to me, in light of medical science’s ability to prolong life far beyond any kind of quality, that these are conversations we ought to be having.

Several years ago, I read about a pastor who had made a covenant with his wife, that should he develop Alzheimer’s (which, given his family history, was likely) and begin to lose his connection with the everyday world, that he would begin a fast toward death. What moved me most about the account, written by the wife who survived, was the way that decision honored life rather than diminished it. And so I’ve invited my family to make a similar covenant with me, to allow me in the face of an incurable disease, to enter into a holy fast and celebrate life as fully as possible through my last days.

How about you? Where are you and your family on end of life issues? How could the church help in clarifying our approach to the end of life?

Proper 29 Project

Recently I was asked to join in a project related to the U.S. war in Iraq. The Proper 29 Project grows out of recent WikiLeaks revelations called the "Iraq War Logs." (WikiLeaks is an organization that publishes classified information from all over the world.) The "Iraq War Logs" is a collection of almost 400,000 U.S. army field logs. Many of the documents detail our complicity in the torture and death of Iraqi civilians from 2004 to 2009. It appears that little has been done to address any of the abuses which is puzzling. And there seems to be little public reaction. Why? Have we just moved on? Iraq is behind us and now it's "on to Afghanistan?"

Mennonite Pastor Isaac Villegas has called on other pastors to speak out against the violence. However, several pastors have told Villegas that such a word would not be welcome in their churches. Villegas noted, "It's hard here in North Carolina. Our economy is tied to the military-industrial complex. Preaching about the suffering caused by U.S. forces in Iraq hits too close to home in a state that has such a high military population."

On November 21 (which is Proper 29 on the liturgical calendar--hence the name for the project), as we bear witness in the Christian Church to the Reign of Christ, it seems appropriate to bear witness also to what comes with the reign of empire. And since most of us, if not all of us, have an investment in empire, words of gospel peace may be not only difficult to utter but hard to hear.

I invite prayers for wisdom and discernment as pastors and lay leaders around the country seek the words to call our government to accountability, to healing, to reconciliation and to peace.