Unending images

At times working in a community service, visiting clients in their own home things can be disturbing. They have been burnt into my mind it seems forever.

In Melbourne probably more than ten years ago I was visiting a palliative client, it was the initial assessment. At the end of the of the interview I was ushered into a bed room: they obviously wanted to show me something. It was a time warp to the seventies.

It's was a teenage girls bed room left exactly as she left it, the day she had died. It had the wallpaper, pictures of the band "Sherbert". Everything screamed seventies. While the rest of the house had moved on, lived in, renovated. This room was a shrine.

I don't know what had happened to this girl, how she died. It seemed obvious that the parents had never gotten over her death. Grief continued to be pushed to the surface in this room.

 

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God has no favourites, but maybe we can change the odds

I have often heard lamented by a relative of how the person who has the life threatening illness lived a good life. Be it through the absence of drugs, healthy lifestyle, the goodness be it within a family or community which they contributed. To be honest it disturbes me; I often feel the distress.

It is obvious that God does not have favourites. That there is a ramdomness of whom God takes before their time. He does not have favourites even those who regularly acknowledge and worship Him no matter how ferverent. I'm often reminded of Forest Gump's line "life is like a box of chocolates", there is a randomness in death; which at times I think we can change the odds.

It would appear that lifestyle can change the odds. Moderation with alcohol, eating healthily, positive relationships within and outside the family. I would also write a centeredness which is often found in Church or wherever people slow down and have time to contemplate. The thing though even with these positives in a persons life it dosn't guarente anything. It just lowers the odds.

There is a quote going around at the moment by a Sioux Indian Vine Deloria::

"Religion is for people who are afraid of going to Hell

Spirituality is for those who have already been there"

I like it; there is an idea for me that Heaven has already been touched, it has been experienced. That there is no more fear to be had through death. Its not about somthing unknown on the other side. It is somthing about life, beauty, joy.....

This I would think is the biggest way in which we can change the odds.

 

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Gawler

An interesting article in 'The Age' about Dr Ian Gawler, who runs a center in the Yarra Valley for people who suffer cancer and wish to beat it. It's basic premies is that Gawler didn't have secondaries, thus he can't make the claims which he does.

During my time with palliative care in Melbourne we often came across people who had come from Gawler's center. My only criticism would be (an this is a generalization) is that people are overly optimistic, so much so that they often in denial that there body is shutting down and even day or hours away from death.

But on the positive side, there are many. The most important is that he gives people hope. He does so through some basic holistic ideas; eating differently, centering the mind, your environment. Stuff that all people should look at and think about. Not just those with Cancer.

The idea that Gawler did or didn't have secondaries is a furfy. It dosn't matter; giving people hope is one of the greatest gifts you can give anyone.

If you want a pin up for someone who beat cancer, read Lance Armstrongs book; amazing. 

miracles

David Hayward, who used to blog under "The Naked Pastor", has once again put up a thought provoking post. "I've never seen a miracle". The basic premise that there are plenty of miracles around us, a sun rise, reconcilliation forgivness etc. Yet the type we hear in charismatic or penticostal churches are non existent. Its a big statement to make by David, pastoring a Vineyard Church (I think) which was built on "Signs and Wonders"

But I have to come out of the closet and admit that I’ve never seen a “miracle”, like someone’s sight restored, or a limb replaced, or cancer cured, or the lame walk, or someone brought back to life (I’ll have to tell you the story some time of a guy who tried to get me to sneak into the back room of a funeral home just before the funeral was about to begin to pry open the coffin and raise the man from the dead. I weaseled my way out of that one!). Not that I don’t pray for these things to happen. And I will continue to do so. I am human and in times of great love or fear I cry out for any help at all. But I have never seen it happen.

I pretty much agree. I give a sigh of relief. That when people claim them in church settings there is a "mob" mentality to it. Where the group/congregation talks themselves into it.

Yet I don't discount miricles all together. Strangly my experience of miricles have been more dramatic outide of the church than within it. When I did my stint at palliative nursing there where a couple of amazing times of when people would be discharged from our books. Alive, and not Christians. (Oh no not the thought the devil can heal as well).