Snap end-of-life decisions vs. the fear of God

The Public Square
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Sad story:

From the article:

Relatives of Lewis said medical officials removed him from life support on the morning of July 4 after the victim learned the bullet caused catastrophic damage and he would likely need a ventilator for the rest of his life… “If I have to live like this, pull the plug please. Seriously,” he spelled out, his family said.

What stuck out to me was that he reportedly requested to be removed from assistive technology after only three days in the hospital.

Suffering patients at a time like this are very vulnerable to doctors’ (and others’) presentation of the situation. I’ve thought many times about Adam Spaetti’s seminar on biblical ethics and euthanasia, where he said regarding the related issue of living wills,

I know good and well that the boxes they’ve checked on the living will are entirely dependent on how either the lawyer or the doctor–whoever explained it or did not explain it to them–chose their words.

Did the young man in the article have a pastor, elder, family member, or friend warning him to fear God and helping him to apply biblical principles? Likely not. Another soul going into eternity unprepared, making emotional decisions based on visceral reactions instead of soberly and in the fear of God.

Several years ago now I made transcripts of the sessions of the 2015 Clearnote Pastors Conference, “The Last Enemy”, of which the late Dr. Spaetti’s “Biblical ethics and euthanasia” seminar was a part. I can’t find that I ever published those transcripts anywhere, so here’s the transcript for Dr. Spaetti’s seminar, just posted:

That post will eventually have links to the other sessions from that conference as I’m able to get them posted. Take a look and see how helpful this material is!

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This is really helpful. Thank you for posting it.

Praising God for Dr Spaetti’s passion for serving God through his medical work, and praying for his widow, his children, and his fellow elders as they all live without his strength and guidance.

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God had many reasons for Adam to be here with us - and these seminars are without a doubt one of the most important.

He and I met when I was trying to fight my way through the babble of doctors and give pastoral counsel to a family dealing with a woman in a coma on a ventilator. His counsel and help has never left me. If you haven’t listened to these - go do it right now. Don’t delay. That is a snap decision you will not regret.

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Just posted the transcript of the final session, a panel involving Tim and David Bayly and Adam Spaetti:

Here’s my outline of that wide-ranging and helpful talk:

  • Funerals
    • You’ll get a call that somebody has died
    • Have the women of the church provide a very simple luncheon
    • Meet with the family
    • No eulogies; a service of worship testifying to the resurrection
    • The head of the casket
    • Funeral directors
    • “You don’t talk at this point–you have dignity”
    • “You’re going to know it, and you have to speak up with authority”
    • “Oh, well I can’t do this stuff”
  • The hospital room
    • “And so you have to be pushy sometimes to get access to the patient”
    • Bedside manner
    • It’s about Jesus, it’s not about you
    • You’re not there by the hospital’s permission
    • Interruptions
    • Talk to the children
    • Sometimes everybody wants him to die
    • “This just isn’t the man I married”
    • “Useless suffering”
    • Using your authority presumptuously
    • “Prolonging the inevitable”
    • “So often if you’ll just fight, then God…”
    • Protecting the conscience of the family
    • Deathbed confessions and repentance
    • Don’t stay too long
    • “In the hospital you can at times say things you won’t ever be able to say anywhere else”
    • “You have to be leading, not reacting”
    • Serving
    • “You, pastor, are the one that forms the lawyers, the doctors, the engineers, in your church”
    • “I don’t want this medication to hasten their death”
    • Get your people to die at home
  • Q&A
    • What do you do with a sudden and unexpected death and the guilt of the family?
    • Don’t ask permission to visit
    • Pray for the doctors and nurses too

Love,

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Thanks for the transcripts. It’s a tremendous resource and an obvious labor of love.

Are the audio recordings still available anywhere?

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Indeed - what a resource. And, timely in my case, as we’ve “now run off the known areas of the map,” as my oncologist puts it. My wife and I have been discussing and planning funeral details while we have space to do so, and many of her anxieties about the funeral service itself as put to rest by the comments of Pr. Bayly.

We are blessed in the American 1928 Prayer Book service for the committal and the requiem Eucharist, which incorporate all the sanity and sanctity of the occasion in a form which all in attendance may follow without any quibbling.

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How much longer will it be, Fr. Bill, and are you in pain?

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The Lord knows, Ben! I suppose the only one who really know (other than our Lord, and perhaps those in His courts) are those on death row!

The comment about being “off the known areas of the map” were my physician’s way of saying “we can’t predict much from here on.” Actually, we never could, even from a mrely human point of view, as the particular disease I have is very, very rare and consequently there’s no previous experiences which mean much.

Plus, I tested positive with Covid a week ago, which throws another spanner into the therapeutic machinery.

Nevertheless, my oncologist is not one to give up prematurely. Nor am I. I can put up with a lot. There are limits to what I’ll happily cooperate with the physicians about, but those limits are not (at present) linked to my discomforts, but rather to the prospect of leaving my wife a pauper. At present, there’s no prospect of that, so we’ll soldier on and see what we can learn from all this.

In fact, I am learning a lot! A lot spiritually, that is. And, why bring an end to that prematurely by throwing in the towel. Additionally, I feel I owe a debt to my nine-year old daughter who died of a brain tumor 25 years ago. Surely the hardest stretch of my fatherhood was shepherding her to the gate of heaven, and she bravely endured every desperate measure we attempted to fight her desperate disease. If she could (and did) set forth an example to her family for trusting the authorities her Heavenly Father employed to guide her life this side of death, then I can do the same.

At present, no, for which I am grateful. I’m pretty much shut up to Tylenol, and only small amounts of that. It’s cleared by the liver, and we’ve given that old organ a lot of work to do with the chemo from last summer and the ongoing chemo today (oral stuff I take at home).

The worst “pain” is the fluish feeling I’ve had the past week from Covid. Yes, that’s been thrown into the mix too! But even that is diminishing now.

Meanwhile, I’ve kept enough ability to read and understand what I read to enjoy the discussions here, for which I am genuinely grateful.

Fr. Bill

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Dear Mr. Perkins,

Try here:

Love,

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