China Revisited, Part III

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 23 September 2010 2 Comments
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Question

What advice would you give to a person who is experiencing a health crisis (from which he or she may not recover) with regard to involving God in his/her recovery or death?

Answer

Dear Deanna,

Before I could give advice to one that you describe, I would need to know so much more. What is the disease? What is the prognosis? What is the religious background of the person? What are the resources — personal, family, spiritual and emotional — with which they deal with the life and death issue? There is no one–size–fits–all panacea for facing either pain or mortality.

All of us, however, have to do it at some point in our lives. Some do it with great courage and integrity, while others need great help and support. Most of us do not know which way it will be for us until we actually face it ourselves. What is important in the pastoral relationship is the trust that exists between the person in crisis and the one who is privileged to be pastor. There are no quick fixes. There are only long term relationships and growing understandings.

I hope the person about whom you write can find a trusted friend or a skillful pastor who can walk with him or her into this critical moment in life. Ultimately, each of us enters this world and departs from this world alone, but we are born into a family and we can walk with loved ones up to the moment of death. We are blessed when a loving family receives us at birth and when loving friends, partners, spouses or family can walk the last mile with us.

Live well.

 

~John Shelby Spong

 

 

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