Healing Ministry 1
Volume 15, Number 1, Winter 2008
Never Wait
Father Dn. Thomas Johnson-Medland, CSJ, OSL
At an early point in life, if I
had bandied the battle cry
“Don’t Wait,” or “Carpe Diem,”
I would have been branded as a
youth or young upstart. In fact, I
did and I was. But, as my hos-
pice career comes to an end, I
am still crying the same watch-
words, “Don’t Wait,” and
“Carpe Diem.”
If there has been one lesson I
have learned from the dying, a
lesson they impressed on me to
hear and preach from the highest
mountains, it has been: “Time is
short and life is long, live in the
moment and be in love with
everything and everyone—as
much as you are able.”
I am sure that having a grand
personality does not hurt in
adopting this somewhat hedo-
nistic perspective, but really that
is not what is at the core of the cry
of the dying. What the dying
really call forth in us is: life can
end at any moment and we may
never have a chance to “run the
tapes again” or backtrack and
correct some scene.
We may have to live with the
Father Dn. Thomas Johnson-Medland, CSJ,
OSL, Lighthouse Hospice, Cherry Hill,
New Jersey.
idea that this moment is the final
moment.
That is sort of sobering. What
is difficult, is to live that on a
daily basis as a long-term, life-
long commitment. It is sustain-
able for the terminally ill over
months and perhaps greater
parts of years or two, but daily
for life is a deeper commitment
than most can hold a vision for.
I would have to say, though,
that this is what they are clam-
bering to teach us. Those who are
dying want us to “get it” above
all things else in life: “Time is
Precious, Don’t Waste It. You
may have no other chance.”
You know I have found one
practice finer than all others that
I have learned from the dying. I
love to close my eyes facing into
the breeze and feel it on my face,
smell it in my nose, and hear it in
my ears. I really have learned to
feel all of the mental and social
constructs I operate under on a
regular basis, to fall aside and
lose all meaning in the face of the
wind.
Taxes mean nothing to me in
the face of the wind. My kids’ late
pizza money for school lunch
means nothing to me in the face
of the wind. My family’s crazy
patterns of dysfunction mean
nothing to me in the face of the
wind.
I am seriously not advocating
for abdicating all responsibility. I
am advocating recognizing that
what, on first blush, appears to
be vital and important, may in
fact be not at all vital and or
important. What I am advocating
for, as well, is that those who
work with the dying need to help
people see how CRITICAL these
issues are.
There is a blessed idea in the
Talmud that calls us to build a
hedge around the TORAH. This
sense of building a hedge around
the TORAH is to keep it safe, set
it apart and establish it as sacred.
It is to make sure it is revered.
I am suggesting the same for
the message of the dying. Build a
hedge around the key value the
dying teach us: “Everything
passes away, pay attention.”
Make sure that you are alert to
what is important at the moment.
Bringing this value into our
lives and business is not only
risky, but it is costly. When we
begin to recognize the value of
the apparently invisible assets in
our lives, we begin to make trade
offs of dollars for meaning. There
2 Healing Ministry
Volume 15, Number 1, Winter 2008
is something important about
leaving our children values and
ethos instead of just accounts and
funds.
Our children need to receive
ethical wills and not just material
wills. I want to leave my children
the value of standing on the
waters’ edge and feeling the alive-
ness of the wind, not just $100,000
toward college. I want my sons to
know that I fought long and hard
to find them a way to experience
freedom, not just to feel secure
because I have money set aside.
But, this invades all of our
relationships and all of our
connections. Have we heard
what the dying want us to hear. It
will literally upset kingdoms and
powers and political systems:
“Live life with an ear to death.
You will not be here forever, how
do you want to be remembered?”
Hear what the dying have
been speaking forever: “Live
attentive to the fact that you will
die.” Help them to be able to be
heard by their families, churches,
synagogues, social clubs, and
neighbors. They want people to
hear the cry, “You are gonna die,
think about how you are living
because it is over, oh so quickly.”
There are thousands of ways
to rephrase the principal of
impermanence, but please
remember, the dying have been
screaming it out loud and clear to
us for eons. They want us to
shout it out with them so that
people around them hear it.
They do not want people to be
arguing about insurance cover-
age before they die, or allowable
benefits, or advanced directives.
To them, the time is as short as a
few breathes and they want you
to be present with them before
they draw their last one. Will we
hear them?