Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth 
Living and Dying UU Style
Karen Gustafson, April 1, 2007
Over the past twenty years, I have presided at many memorial events. I have experienced my own losses in the deaths of my parents and my sister and a nephew. I have spoken of death from this pulpit at least annually. For years on Memorial Day Sunday we held a service of remembrance that we moved to the last Sunday in October to coincide with All Souls Eve or the Day of the Dead.
On most of these occasions the focus has been on the meaning of death in the context of the living. How do we immortalize the dead by how we remember them? How do we, the living, find comfort in times of loss and grief?
Have I, I wonder, really ever talked about death and dying from the perspective of one dying? There is a song that I love that contains with the words: " We are all living and we are all dying, bless us both set us both free." We ARE all living. We ARE all dying. This is such a stark reality that it goes without saying. I try to remember to say it daily because when I forget I move a little bit away from the truth of my own life.
I read obituaries – skim them mostly. "So and so went peacefully to meet her Lord surrounded by her devoted husband and her beautiful and loving children and her grandchildren."
In my own imagination there exists such a vision. My own sister died in such a way. A brief terminal illness in her early seventies; a loving family; hospice care in her own home, death in her own bed; a funeral with hundreds of people in a church where she had been a member for over thirty years, a story ended in the spirit in which it was lived, seamlessly from beginning to end.
She had her own death on her own terms. No heroics. No experimental treatment. A somewhat but not altogether premature completion like a rose bush fulfilling the cycle of its blooming and succumbing to the demands of an early autumn.
We live in a culture that is only beginning to once again make it possible to claim one's own death. From the simple farm house deaths when the overworked country doctor and friends and neighbors came to assist a grieving family to bury their loved ones in pine boxes in the back forty, to the high tech hospital heroics of the late twentieth century sometimes denying death its place in the flow of life, the hospice movement has gained great credibility just in the past decade or so. More and more people, especially the elderly and those with terminal illness and family resources are seeking help and support to understand the dying process and to embrace it with grace and dignity. Some states like Oregon have laws which allow the administration of drugs to people who are able to rationally choose a decisive end to an inevitable illness.
Our cultural mythology mediates against an understanding that death is part of life. Partly because the media context in which we are exposed to death is so often dramatic, the stories framed in terms of the survivors, but mainly because of the various religious myths of eternal life that will be either a reward or a punishment for the life we have lived on earth.
The simple truth is, that each of us will have a death which, like birth, will be an experience we will never be able to describe, an unrepeatable, once in a lifetime experience that can never be fully shared or completely understood. We come from mystery. To mystery we return…or so we as Unitarian Universalists seem to believe. And whether a death is like my sister's surrounded by loved ones, or violent or unexpected or chosen as a release from suffering of one kind or another, each of our deaths will end our conscious relationship with this life as we know it. It will forever change our relationship with the flow of familiar experience. We will lose our power to influence the outcomes of our actions. Our bodies will turn to ashes or dust or decay and our influence will be what it will be, alive in the memories of those who choose to remember or those who cannot forget.
And so the question remains, and with some greater urgency, "What will you do with this one wild and precious life?"
As a Unitarian Universalist I think the answer is two fold. First, we live as fully and responsibility as we can and second, we face the reality of death so that our dying does not take life from the living.
My colleague Lynn Thomas Strauss has stated a UU theology of death that I find both useful and compelling:
What are the values and principles of Unitarian Universalism that will guide us when that time comes? She has identified five.
"The first principle is- that all life is sacred, and that individual dignity is of paramount importance."
This calls us to live lives of passion and principle and in harmony with the interdependent web of ALL existence.
"Second, it is important to realize that our faith does not inherently value suffering. We do not believe that suffering demonstrates faithfulness."
This is a hard one because, I think, we WANT to believe that pain has meaning. What we know is that suffering can be transformed into learning and into a deepened compassion for others.
"Third, UU's hold autonomy, personal choice and individual conscience as a high value. We believe that autonomy is essential to moral action. For UUs there is no authority to tell us what is right and what is wrong, we must discern these matters for ourselves after much thought and soul searching. Thus we don't assume what others might want, we ask, what do you wish for yourself when you come to die? If the worst happens, what are your wishes?"
"Fourth, we UUs value tolerance and open-mindedness and the exercise of freedom of choice; therefore we try not to judge one another. What is right for me, what for me, constitutes a good death will be different for you. My end of life choices, will not be your end of life choices."
My sister-in-law died nearly ten years ago of complications from cancer surgery. Her final days were spent in the hospital in International Falls. A stroke had left her in a partial coma . Her advanced directive had specified the withholding of nourishment when it was clear that she would not recover. I went to visit during her last days. I spent several hours a day with her singing and talking to her. Her family drifted in and out, often mainly during designated hospital visiting hours. They were all clearly sad and anxious but able to leave her alone for hours at a time.
I became almost frantic about spending time there in their absence. I became critical and anxious about their seemingly casual attitude about having someone with her. Finally I had to go home. She died a few days later.
I realized that my anxiety was not so much about her being alone during those days but about the thought of me being alone in a similar situation. For all I knew, the pattern of visitation was completely in keeping with her family's understanding of her and their needs. I had no right to judge.
However, I was placed squarely in touch with my own needs and wishes. Within a day of my return home, I contacted my own children and said, "Here's the deal. If I am in an obviously terminal state, I want someone with me twenty-four hours a day until I draw my last breath. There will be no, ‘never mind you have your own jobs and families to attend to'. You figure it out. This is a once in a lifetime deal and I want someone there." Now, I know that they can do whatever they will with that information, but there is no ambiguity about what I want.
"And finally, a grounding principle of our faith is the significance of human relationships, the value of community. We acknowledge that we are connected to one another , that we carry obligations for one another, that all life and death decisions affect the whole family, social network and community."
"Summarizing these UU ethical guideposts… When we reflect on end of life decisions for ourselves or for loved ones, we take into account, the sacredness of life, the degree to which suffering can be relieved, the ability of each person to make an informed choice, the extent to which we are accepting of the choices of others, and the welfare of the larger community."
To this I add, "to the extent we can". It is difficult to think about preparing oneself for a violent death or preparing a child to die. But I also realize that such deaths are what they are: the only death that the one dying will ever have.
In a class I took in seminary on death and dying, we were each asked to share our worst death fantasy. I remember that our teacher said that his worst fantasy would be "to die in a car accident in a foreign country like Mexico or Boston". Mine was also around dying violently. And yet, in those occasions in which I have experienced a potential life threatening experience, I found that my body and my mind intervened somehow and I felt at peace. I can't apply this universally. I can say that when I understand myself to be part of all living things and see myself as part of the natural world, I know that there is something chemical or visceral that makes it possible to give in to death and I choose to trust that if I move toward it, it will allow me peace in whatever end may find me.
I look at the forest and the lakeshore and I see the evergreens that are strong and straight and resilient, some older than my father, dead fifteen years last month. I see tiny seedlings growing out of the rock where nothing should grow and know that in the flowerbed in front of my house that some of the carefully planted daffodils will never sprout. And I see my beautiful 95 year old mother in law her spirit strong, her body diminishing not with disease but just wearing out the way it's supposed to, for goodness sake, and I remember the young people from this congregation who have died tragically and I grieve and I know that it is all of a piece.
I will say that I, like most of you, want desperately to live a long and productive life and die like my sister, only later. I will say that I struggle with intimations of my own immortality that are most evident, not when I am doing great things but when I seem to be wasting time with mindless activity that uses what life I can control or direct to more joy or pleasure or productivity or goodness or compassion or creativity or love. What, do I think I will live forever and have this time to squander?
UU minister David Rankin writes in a poem called "Good Dying";
"Everyday is a preparation for the end, and every end should be a reflection of all the days that have gone before. Good living and good dying are a single, healthy stream."
AND there should be preparation of the practical kind. It is the worst kind of denial of death to die without a will or to become incapacitated without a health care directive that can be administered by someone who will survive you with either gratitude and grief or pain and frustration at the mess you have left behind.
Part of the reason John and I are moving to Madison is to simplify our lives so that our children can stop hoping we will outlive them and will have to deal with our own stuff…
Planning for the eventuality of death is a great help to surviving loved ones. Anxiety is vastly increased at the time of death by the added responsibilities of making major decisions about practical arrangements. If the planning is done prior to need, more time and energy will then be available for the human concerns of experiencing the death of a loved one and ministering to the bereaved. As part of your pre-planning, you need to put your wishes in writing, talk to your loved ones, and put your instructions where they are easy to find.
We are all living. We are all dying. We cannot predict how our one wild and precious life will end. But it will and that knowledge, held close and not feared but appreciated, can be a gift each day. May I end and bless you with the words of Annie Dillard;
"I think that the dying person prays at the last, not "please", but "thank you".
Lynn Strauss posits this as the definition of a good death and a good life : "that we can say a final ‘thank you.'"