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07162 March 20, 2007
Life and death
Conference on end-of-life issues focuses on care, hope, and faith
by Toya Richards Hill
DURHAM, NC - Alice Bond remembers the first real encounter she had with death and dying as a parish nurse.
A man in her congregation, whom she had known for many years, was dying of cancer and she had gone to visit him at the hospital.
"I was sitting by his side and he shared with me * that he was afraid of the unknown," Bond recalled. "I asked him if we could pray together. I held his hand, and prayed."
When it was over, she said the man's wife and daughter-in-law came in, and they talked more with her about the man's concerns about the dying process.
"It was, I think, my first clear understanding of what being a parish nurse really is," said Bond, a parish nurse at First Baptist Church in Altavista, VA. "It's walking on holy ground. And I have had many such experiences since."
So, too, had many of the others who gathered along with Bond March 12-14 on the campus of Duke University here to explore end-of-life issues and the roles religion and the church play in them.
"In Life and In Death We Belong To God: The Congregational Continuum of Care in the Presbyterian Church" brought together congregational care leaders, parish nurses, pastors, physicians, chaplains, long-term care workers and a host of others involved in life-care roles.
The gathering was a collaborative effort of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s offices of Theology and Worship and National Health Ministries, the Duke University Institute on Care at the End of Life, and the Duke Theology and Medicine Program. It evolved out of a mandate by the 213th General Assembly in 2001 to help the denomination deal with end-of-life care in a theological and liturgical framework through a national dialogue.
Two hundred and thirty-two people from a cross-section of denominations and professional fields attended, and though death and dying were the backdrop for the event, uplifting life through care, hope and faith was clearly the message that flowed seamlessly throughout - from plenary speakers, to workshops, to worship.
"We really do need to get back to thinking of people with illness ... not as just simply having fallen victim to disease, but truly as people who we need to care for in body, mind and spirit," said Dr. Richard Payne, director of the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life.
An array of experts examined a range of topics, from the importance of pain management and hospice care, to end-of-life care in the small church and preaching texts about death.
Participants on one particular workshop, titled "What Does the Church Community Have to Offer to the Dying?" learned that to help those dealing with death break free from isolation and disconnectedness involves listening to their stories, confirming their pain and suffering, and reminding them of their identity as children of God.
"Human suffering becomes bearable when we can share it," said workshop leader Betsy Eder, a master of divinity student from Duke Divinity School and former Triangle Area Stephen Ministry Network Coordinator. "We are to turn toward the sick, not against them."
Jesus calls us "to go toward the messiness and toward the pain," said Eder, herself a hemology/oncology patient whose own mortality was recognized after being diagnosed with a blood disorder.
The lives of caregivers and those left behind following death also were lifted up in sessions covering such things as care for parents and siblings following miscarriage, stillbirth and infant loss, and care for the grieving at times of sudden death.
"Lament marks the beginning of the healing process," said the Rev. Emilie Townes, professor of African American religion and theology at Yale Divinity School. "We ache. Lament helps us to put words to our suffering."
One of three plenary speakers during the conference, Townes spoke on the topic "Grief and Lament in Faithful Care," weaving in her own struggles with grief and lament since the deaths of her parents here in Durham.
There is no way to talk about grief and lament without confessing that, "this is not easy," she told the group. "This stuff hurts, and I'm trying to make meaning out of this hurt."
Yet, she said, "When we grieve, when we lament, we acknowledge and live the experience." And through that process we can "grow in our faith."
We need something to hold on to, to know that something else is there to take the weight off, and "for me that something is hope," Townes said. "God rocks us, God will care for us * and God does not leave us, even when we might feel abandoned and alone."
Conference preacher the Rev. Laura Mendenhall, president of Columbia Theological Seminary, concurred.
"In life and in death, we belong to God," she preached. "We belong to God on both sides of the grave."
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