Pastor's Corner 9/1/11

One Loving Action

For everything there is a season, and a time for every

matter under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die

Ecclesiastes 3.1,2

As Christians we are called to be agents of God’s love.

We’re called to love God, to love our neighbor, to love the stranger and even to love our enemies.

As important as these commands are, in this column I want to address one way we can love those people who are closest to us: our spouse, our brothers and sisters, our children.

This ‘way’ has to do with the end of our life’s journey.

Intellectually, each of us knows that none of us will escape this world alive.

Just as the time of our birth is behind us the time of our death surely lies before us.

And yet, most of us live in denial of this part of our future.

We fail to take action to prepare for the inevitable.

And all too often the price of our denial and of our failure to act is paid, not by us, but by those we hold most dear.

We put the very people that we love most in the world into the awful position of making heart wrenching decisions for us.

Today is a good day to wake up and correct this situation.

It’s a good time for you to put your love into action.

The solution is very simple.

A cartoon that appeared in the New Yorker pictured a balding gentleman standing before St. Peter at the gates of heaven. The underlying caption read: ‘Sorry I’m late, but they had me on a life support system for two months.’ This cartoon may have brought a smile to your lips, but take another look at it. What if it wasn’t the man’s wish to be on life support for such a long time? And consider the man’s loved ones. While it would be almost impossible for them to ‘pull the plug,’ their suffering would also be immense. And it could well be that the very medical personnel, those who plugged him in, understood that his life would never have the quality he once knew.

The ‘loving action,’ which could well relieve much of this suffering, is available to you through your medical provider and your local hospital.

It’s called a POLST form.

This stands for ‘Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment.’ This is a physician order sheet that is based upon the patient’s medical condition and his or her own wishes.

Trusting in the knowledge of your doctor, you decide whether you want medical staff to attempt resuscitation or to allow a natural death.

You don’t force your loved ones to make this call at a stressful time.

Consulting with your trusted medical provider, you decide whether you want comfort care only, to be ‘plugged in,’ or something in between.

With your doctor’s guidance, you decide upon the use of antibiotics or the use of a feeding tube.

In this way your family, as well as the attending physician, can understand your wishes with complete certainty.

You won’t be adding to their suffering at a time when there’s more than enough pain and suffering to go around.

The next time you find yourself in your doctor’s office, ask her about the POLST form.

This is an act of love that may well pay dividends.

Rev. Bob Ingalls,

pastor

Malden Community Church