A Visit "Home" and the Gospel

We have just had another great weekend away, enjoying some remarkable back roads around mid-Northland and delighting in the community and congregation which has been so much a part of our lives in the last quarter-century. We visited 20 Tui Grove and shared the excited plans of the new owners who have great hopes for major development of the house and the lovely property. They have the same feel for the bush and the view that we had...

On Sunday morning the strengths of the small church were clearly evident in the way people cared for each other, noticed absences, gave hospitality to a couple of other visitors and shared together for a long time after the service. This particular congregation has always been open to new ideas and it was really stimulating to develop a somewhat provocative interpretation of Matthew 18:3. It received only the most enthusiastic reception, even from people I might have expected to be a little resistant to my views. I would hesitate to use that sermon if I were asked to take another service our local church here at Red Beach.

Next Thursday I am to talk for five minutes about "My Gospel". Three of us are going to do this in the context of a two-monthly gathering of retired Methodist Presbyters -- a daunting audience. And of course the idea of "my" Gospel is a bit uncomfortable. But I understand the group is simply wanting to know how I interpret the Good News of Jesus in today's context. That will be interesting. Maybe I will go back to Sunday's Mt 18 and "the child in the midst", so significantly interpreted by Chris Scott in his book "Goodbye to God - A Search for a Human Spirituality"...

But any inner stirring to find new ways of offering a theoretical Good News to people in today's world pales in comparison with the urgent human need that is surfacing so dramatically in the thousands of people on the march in Europe. And the anti-refugee, anti Muslim, anti-immigrant sentiment that is swilling around the sewers of social media in this country sickens the soul.

Maybe we retired clergy should take up an offering for refugee rehabilitation rather than just "discuss" the Good News on Thursday...

The Debate Must Go On

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Health has released the terms of reference for its hearing of the issues around End of Life Choice. Submissions close in February 2016.

On the one hand, that gives everyone plenty of time to prepare statements. On the other, it moves the whole process further away in a distant future.

Furthermore, no Government has to take notice of a Select Committee. The matter will be investigated and a report produced. And that could be where it all ends. Both of the major political parties are aware that at least 30% of the country's voters do not yet support changing the law. There is too much to lose for the politicians on both sides to be enthusiastic about a debate that comes down to an actual vote on whether or not Physician Assisted Death will become a reality.

An promising feature is that the terms of reference state the Committee is to "fully understand public attitudes". A significant shift in reported public attitudes could well be prompted by publicity attached to the Select Committee submissions process. So a vigorous debate needs to continue now. Supporters of End of Life Choice must not leave the debate to the Committee. And they need to enlighten this debate by personal experiences. Some of us who have terminal cancer have to allow our stories to become public property. 

Tomorrow, Bev and I sit down again with our Oncologist and discuss the option of a fairly new chemotherapy, Abiraterone, and its vague promise of an "average of 4.6 extra months" of life.

It doesn't sound like much of an option. But, perhaps, if I am currently good for two or three years and Abiraterone could push that out a further, say, six or seven months, I could even be in the Parliamentary public gallery when the law is changed.

Sooner or later, with or without my presence, it will be.

PAD and Progressive Christianity

At a birthday nibbles and drinks last night I got into conversation with yet another person nearer my age (we don't talk about "old people" around here!). She asked me, "How are you?" and, as usual, I answered.
Most people don't actually want to know. "Too much information," they say to themselves. But if you ask me that question I am likely to answer it. And last night we got quickly around to end of life and medical care issues. She is another advocate for what she calls "euthanasia". The topic is quite close to home around here. Yet you couldn't find a more active bunch of oldies doing stuff. A black and white formal dinner dance planned by the management for this Friday night has been cancelled for lack of registrations - but I hear that a bunch of us are organising an unofficial "bring a plate" BYO "knees-up" in the Village lounge instead and we'll probably enjoy it just as much as the official dine and dance. That's the spirit of our age...

Someone said we're living in "God's Waiting Room" around here. Well, that's not quite how I would put it but I know exactly that feeling. Nobody knows better than us that we do not know what the next day will bring. When you have a terminal illness you're so much more conscious of the impermance of life. But, heck, meanwhile there's a lot of living to be done. There's a sense of urgency about how you fit in all the things you'd like to do in a day. For the first time for years, I've been working on formatting no less than three books at once. I thought I'd given up publishing. I've got caught up in our Parish's review of its badly neglected giving programme and we're experiencing a very encouraging response that is pushing us to do even better things. And today some of us from the Village are squeezing in a trip to the movies half an hour away and then rushing back to Barbershop chorus practice just before dinner. Oh, it's all Go around here...

And at the end....  What I hope for is something like this definition of PAD that I received in an email today:

There is a type of Physician Assisted Death where, at the request of the patient, the physician prescribes the drug, and the patient takes it to end their life. This is often called ‘physician assisted suicide’.  This type of PAD is beneficial to the patient, prevents suffering, is a compassionate act from the doctor, can be regarded as an extension of treatment at End-of-Life, is respectful of the patient’s autonomy, and allows the relatives and friends to say goodbye before the ravages of disease and intense sedation make this impossible. It also allows some ceremony and spiritual and religious involvement.

Members of Parliament, hear me: 
I have terminal prostate cancer. I am likely to refuse further medication next Tuesday. I believe it is a human right for me choose to die a dignified, planned death when I feel the time is right. Make it legal!

Family Budgeting

With all the interesting things to do around here, the book on family budgeting is moving along only slowly.  But it is a moving experience to enter into the lives of those who half a century ago had a vision of a country in which fewer households would suffer because of their inability to manage the financial affairs.

I am writing today of a public servant who conspired to change the way his department worked to help people into getting their own homes. I have discovered that an imaginative and sweeping proposal to assist Maori people into a better quality of life was back-burnered by one Minister of the Crown because it might become an election issue. 

But, wait, there was a change of government. The new Minister not only put the report back on the heat but appointed the report chair as acting secretary of the department. And a key person in the same department caught the vision and travelled widely around the country promoting a system of voluntary family budgeting advisors that altered the household budgeting landscape.

My own involvement in the decade from 1978 gave me huge experience in the area. I knew of the two men who dreamed up a scheme that caught the imagination of the country. But I was never enlightened about those who spread this extraordinary voluntary movement throughout fifty centres in just three or fours years. It is a privilege to be trying to put together their story...

Flag it!

The Change the Flag debate is fascinating. With many others, I am outraged at the $27m budget for the cost of discussing the flag. The flag may well be outdated and inappropriate but I suspect the allocation of that kind of money - not to mention the manipulative structure of the process - is just part of a ploy to exhaust us all with the possibilities so that nothing is eventually changed.

And I am whimsically touched that a throw-away remark from the Leader of the Opposition that we might just as well replace the NZ national anthem has launched a public discussion that has no budget but is already consuming more oxygen than the official flag debate.

I am absolutely with those who say that the anthem reflects a Victorian understanding of God and nation. But I am appalled that those critics seem to assume that all of today's Christians still promote that kind of thinking. Several times in this blog I have advocated junking the ridiculous anachronisms around the daily prayer in Parliament, saying grace on public occasions, a lot of Anzac Day liturgy, and, yes, absolutely, the national anthem.

Besides these real issues of our understanding of ourselves, and our capacity to express that understanding in appropriate and creative rituals, the flag debate is a bit of a sideshow.

More ups and downs of PSA doubling times

Today's appointment at Medical Oncology, at my suggestion, has been postponed. There being - unprecedentedly! - no significant change in my PSA for the last month, there wouldn't have been much to talk about. Up or down, another month may give us a better picture.

But I appreciate that doubling in the last three months is still a pretty steep increase. Not as steep as the two months of June/July, but still steep. So I am probably just delaying the inevitable. The white-coated ones really would like me to accept the government's offer of their fancy new drug. All my friends say "Of course you should do it." Even my very sympathetic GP, when discussing the prospect of 4.6 extra months of life in exchange for lowered quality of life from the drugs, wondered out loud:  "Well, you never know; a cure might be found in that 4.6 months!".  Now that's clutching at straws....

Right now my quality of life is very good and I am reluctant to submit it to the massive list of possible side effects of a very heavy drug regime in the hope of squeezing out a few more months at the end.

Ups and Downs of PSADT

My PSA doubling time rocked up to two months for the last three monthly readings but, last Friday, it went down to zero for the month. Quarterly trends are no doubt more reliable than one- month checks. But this is a big downwards shift for which we are all pretty grateful around here.

And, while I'm on-line, the Vol Euthansia Society has just sent me this link to a marvellous parody of the Eminem and Rhianna number Love the Way you Lie by Zdoggmd. It's called Ain't the Way to Die, and - if you can just follow the words - picks up on so many of the issues around end of life choice. A wonderful piece of work from an inspired medical team.

Oh, heck, here are the words for you. But do go and see the clip!

Based on “Love The Way You Lie” by Eminem and Rihanna

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
End of life and all my wishes go unheard
They just prolong me and don’t ask why
It’s not right because this ain’t the way to die, ain’t the way to die
Patient:
I can’t tell you what I really want
You can only guess what it feels like
And right now it’s a steel knife in my windpipe
I can’t breathe but ya still fight ‘cause ya can fight
Long as the wrong’s done right—protocol’s tight
High off of drugs, try to sedate
I’m like a pincushion, I hate it, the more I suffer
I suffocate
And right before I’m about to die, you resuscitate me
You think you’ve saved me, and I hate it, wait…
Let me go, I’m leaving you—no I ain’t
Tube is out, you put it right back, here we go again
It’s so insane, ’cause though you think it’s good, I’m so in pain
I’m more machine than man now, I’m Anakin
But no advanced directive, I feel so ashamed
And, crap, who’s that nurse? I don’t even know her name
You lay hands on me, to prolong my life again
I guess you must think that this is livin’…
Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
End of life and all my wishes go unheard
They just prolong me and don’t ask why
It’s my right to choose the way that I should die
Doctor:
You ever love somebody so much, you can barely see when you with ‘em
That they, lay sick and dying but you just don’t wanna let ‘em
Be at peace cause you miss ‘em already and they ain’t gone
Beep beep, the ventilator alarms
I swore I’d never harm ‘em, never do nothing to hurt ‘em
Hippocratic oath primum non nocere now I’m forced just to torture ‘em
They push full code, no one knows what his wishes were
His sister heard him say once, “I don’t wanna be a vegetable”
But no one agrees in the family, his caregiver Kate
Wants him comfort care but Aunt Claire lives so far away
That her guilt eats her like cancer
So she answers, “Wait! I think he’ll wake”
Maam, you ain’t even in the state!
Palliate, relieve pain, get him home, explain
Critical care? Just hypocritical when it’s so insane
But they insist I shock his heart again so I persist
Guess that’s why they say that love is pain.

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
End of life and all my wishes go unheard
They just prolong me and don’t ask why
It’s my right to choose the way that I should die
The way that I should die

Cancer a good death?

Dr Richard Smith's view of death by cancer really appeals to me. The former editor of the British Medical Journal is quoted as saying terminal cancer is the best death because you can....
"...say goodbye, reflect on your life, leave last messages, perhaps visit special places for a last time, listen to favourite pieces of music, read loved poems, and prepare, according to your beliefs, to meet your maker or enjoy eternal oblivion,"

He accepts that this is a
"... a romantic view of dying, but it is achievable with love, morphine, and whisky. But stay away from overambitious oncologists, and let's stop wasting billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a much more horrible death."

Thank you, Dr Smith. I'll have that on my mind as we debate the benefits of going on Abiraterone and Prednisone with our oncologist next Tuesday... But I'm doing a lot of more interesting stuff than "last things" at the moment... And, when that time comes, as a card-carrying Methodist, I will have to think about the whisky... Maybe, like lots of other things, that doesn't matter any more!

Another Committee - but great news!

I've just been emailed with the news that the Parliamentary Health Select Committee met today and has agreed to set up an inquiry to fully investigate the matters raised by the petition on end of life choice.

Hon Maryan Street's (and nearly 9000 others') petition asks that the committee “investigate fully public attitudes towards the introduction of legislation which would permit medically-assisted dying in the event of a terminal illness or an irreversible condition which makes life unbearable”. Health Committee chair Simon O’Connor has said today, “I would like to see a thorough investigation that covers as many aspects of this topic as possible in a responsible and robust manner.”

That is a great outcome, indeed the very best that could be hoped for, given the intransigence of most of our Parliamentarians on this issue. As one for whom a changed approach to the subject may have a very personal relevance some time in the not too distant future, I am really pleased that we have at least moved forward to this extent.

Busy days

It's been a busy time since my last post.

The Family Budgeting book is moving along reasonably well with something approaching a first draft getting towards 120 pages. It's absolutely fascinating what is turning up in the sparse records. I dare not count the number of volunteers who broke down under the sheer weight of demand through the years I am reviewing. I know of at least three personally, but in almost every town in the country there's a story of huge effort in the face of ever-increasing demand.

The huge input of government assistance has created a model that is so different from what we used to do in the 1960s and 1970s that the story really needs to be told. As the last "steam budgeter" with any knowledge of the national scene, I feel some responsibility to get it done - in spite of my commitment to myself a couple of years ago not to start any large project that I could not finish well before my "best before" date. So it's good to see it coming together.

However, the book has had to compete with quite a few other things.

We made a grand trip down to Hutt Valley, driving through some of the least-known main routes through the north island. I'd never done the Waitaanga route and we really enjoyed another run down the Forgotten Highway to Stratford where our motel provided the best view ever of Mt Taranaki.

I attended the weekend National Training Seminar for Community Patrol and then we had three or four days with the wonder Great Grand Kid, Cohen David and his parents. Saw his first dip in the local warm swimming baths. And guess who got to give him his first solid food - at four months... We had such a time with them... Another night in Upper Hutt with Bev's nephew Vaughan and Cushla and we were back up country in time for a last-minute chorus rehearsal. The ten days left us pretty whacked - but it was a terrific time of touring, family and singing.

Our Barbershop Chorus did pretty well at our own village's concert last weekend, together with a visit from the choir of Pinesong Village where we sang at their concert a couple of weeks earlier. And our men's quartet put on two pretty good numbers, our encore was musically pretty awful but it scored high on entertainment! We are having such a great time doing it.  It's back to rehearsal this afternoon for both groups.

Since then I've been heavily involved in helping the local parish address a running deficit of $2000 a month. It seems they spent $100,000 of reserves in the previous couple of years but were actually living on the same reserves for routine expenses. All reserves will be gone in December, so they are trying to do some kind of review of giving. They've had no stewardship education programme in place for at least 15 years so far as anyone can remember. Our congregation consists almost entirely of people who have been here less than four or so years and there's no "memory" of serious commitment through regular giving. Nor do most people have the slightest clue about the costs of keeping a church there in case they want to roll up now and then. The parish is in a growing area and is not declining. Indeed, a membership review last month produced an increase of nearly 30%. But we will not survive with the equivalent of a fulltime minister if the parish can't lift its giving. I've been asked to assist. But helping to raise commitment to pay for stipendiary ministry and property goes against most of my mission strategy principles. Of course, this isn't really a small parish so Local Shared Ministry is not an option. It's an unaccustomed situation in which to find myself.

Meanwhile, my fitness is pretty good. I've not had any major falls but, like a few of my age, have a bit of vertigo now and then. And my walk isn't as firm as it was. I guess the spine is probably feeling the pinch down around L4! We'll be watching that from now on, I should think. Especially if the PSA doubling time stays up around two months.

Now I am trying to put together a service for Sunday. Only my second in eighteen months here so I can't complain about having too many, I guess...