Journal of Sacred Work

A man paints with his mind and not with his hands…Genius is eternal patience  – Michelangelo

   Every educated adult in western civilization knows the image. It is Michelangelo’s exquisite depiction on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is interpreted as the ultimate portrayal of the moment when God reached out to hand the gift of life to we beings – the instant when, as some believe, God created Adam.
   What a strange gift we have in our hands. Caregivers see this gift of life at times when many, writhing in pain, may wish they had never received it. But consider the genius that lives at the center of the painting…

   Yes, the portrayal is, like all creations, fanciful. But what of that heart-breaking space between God’s finger and man’s. What if that space had never been closed?
   I have spent quite a lot of time recently at Alive Hospice in the proximity of those who draw near to the end of their life journey. For some, like 8-year-old Brannon and 13-year old Chanelle, the journey was short and difficult. For many others, the path was relatively long.
   Dying is such a frequent occurrence in America’s hospices that one might think the caregivers would get used to it – even become inured to its occurrence. But the best caregivers never do. They remain present to, and awed by, the passing of human life from this earth.
   How would Michelangelo have portrayed the instant of parting? Veteran hospice caregivers have been present at such moments many times. And yet it is beyond human ability to draw too close. As intimate as a caregiver may become with a dying patient, there will always be that instant when the caring hand must release its tender grasp. The heart stops beating, the body lets go, the spirit travels away.
   Each of us has,even if briefly, imagined how this moment might be for us. I’ve asked many people how they would like to die and their answers are nearly unanimous. "I’d like to die in the presence of those I love, without pain, in my sleep."
   This universal answer suggests that most of us would like to have a choice about our dying. Who would ask to die hooked up to machines? Who would like to pass from this earth because of some painful incident, accidental or intentional?
   Amazingly, prior to 1974, there were no hospices in America. Critically ill patients died in hospitals or at home, sometimes in considerable pain.
   Today, there are more than three thousand hospices in America. Finally, millions of critically ill Americans have a choice about how they spend their final months and weeks. The wisest select a good hospice. The best hospices, like Alive Hospice in Nashville, offer such remarkable loving care that some patients report that the last chapter of their lives was their best.
   Radical loving care shapes this kind of experience for human beings in need. If only we could carry this gift beyond patients and extend it to all we know. If only we could close that vital space that separates us from our fellow beings by extending our hands to touch each other with Love.

-Erie Chapman