death

The suffering God

Tue, 01/26/2010 - 11:27 — Debra Dean Murphy

Debra Dean Murphy's blog

Today would have been my sister’s 46th birthday. She died in a car accident in 1987. She was 23 years old and a newly-minted 6th grade teacher. Her name was Kim.

In the fog of grief that November my parents and I listened to the well-meaning words of family, friends, and neighbors who tried to offer comfort, whose own heads were spinning with disbelief at the loss of this beautiful girl whom they too knew and loved. We were all groping, in vain, for meaning.

We rarely seem to ponder questions of theodicy (why a good God permits evil and suffering) when things are going well, when we have our wits about us and the issue is more theoretical than personal. Unfortunately, theodicy usually kicks us in the stomach through a tragedy or loss that leaves us stunned, emotionally spent, and choking with rage and grief.

What has struck me most about God-talk and the recent earthquake in Haiti is this: Whether God’s (inscrutable) ways are being defended or God’s very existence is being denied, the kind of God under consideration seems to be something on the order of a comic-book superhero.... READ MORE.

 

Martha Hoverson's picture

Caring bridge

Wed, 12/23/2009 - 11:11 — Martha Hoverson

Martha Hoverson's blog

We met standing in line for something at the beginning of seminary, our last names different by only one letter. I had a different last name then, a different husband, only two children. They were a married couple, both leaving another profession to pursue a calling to ministry. They had two very little girls, an infant and a preschooler; I had two boys, 8 and not quite 4.

We had classes together our first semester. We were all in our mid-thirties, and that made us fairly young students. S told me she'd been diagnosed with cancer, breast cancer, and from there the details are faint in my memory. Did she delay treatment to have the baby, or am I remembering a story from my girlhood, superimposing one young mother's death over another young mother's illness?

My third child arrived shortly after the end of our first year, and our paths did not cross during the second when I attended only very part-time. You will laugh to think that I did not have an email address or the Internet at home in 1995-96. I typed my Field Ed sermons in the church office. Once I was off-campus, I was out of the world of seminary.

So the next part of the story is misty to me. All I can tell you is that she died.... READ MORE.

 

Adam Thomas's picture

Baby Boy (Davies Tales #4)

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 14:28 — Adam Thomas

Adam Thomas's blog

During the summer between his first and second years of seminary, Aidan Davies grew up all at once. The summer began with a breakup and ended with a baptism, but those are pieces of a larger story. This story is about a baby boy.

Davies was a chaplain only because his badge said he was. For that first month, he didn’t particularly feel like one. I’m not a chaplain, but I play one at this hospital, he often thought. His clinical pastoral educators – the hospital’s professional chaplains – had borrowed their teaching style from mother birds. On the third day of the summer, they pushed Davies and the seven other interns out of the nest and watched as eight pairs of arms, flapping wildly, disappeared in a downward spiral. The wingless interns crashed into the rocky bottom, and, miraculously, found their patients there.

Rock bottom was on the top floor of the hospital, but Davies had no patients on that level considering another intern had chosen the ICU as his normal beat. However, that night, Davies was on-call, and the on-call pager had beckoned him to Intensive Care, and he stared at the message on the little screen the whole elevator ride to the twelfth story.... READ MORE.

 

Chris Brundage's picture

A touch of hospitality

Mon, 09/21/2009 - 10:17 — Chris Brundage

Chris Brundage's blog

I visited a woman who will die soon. She lay asleep in her nursing home bed, a plastic mat on the floor in case she fell. A black and white photo of her as a young woman hung on the wall next to her dresser. I anointed her with oil and sat quietly with her for a time. A ministry of presence is a simple thing.

A nurse in blue scrubs stopped by the room. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“No thanks,” I said, surprised by the offer.

“If you need anything, just ask,” he said and walked on. I said nurse, but he may have been a CNA, certified nursing assistant. Whatever he was, he was kind and attentive to my needs as I sat with a dying woman.... READ MORE.

 

James Lumsden's picture

If I should fall behind...

Wed, 12/03/2008 - 10:16 — James Lumsden

James Lumsden's blog

Last night, after the fullness of the first Sunday of Advent had come to a quiet close, I received a phone call from the spouse of one of my staff. He and the doctors confirmed what I had sensed earlier last week: my colleague and friend's kidneys are shutting down and she has about a week to live. In a flash, this tune from the Dead came to me, one of my all time favorites... READ MORE.