Sermon prep: storytelling.

[rivka]

I want to tell you about a guy I used to know. I'll call him Ray.

Ray was a gay man who grew up in one of the rougher neighborhoods of inner-city Baltimore. From his earliest childhood, he told me, his father and brothers rejected and abused him because they saw him as effeminate. He grew up thinking that at the core of his being was a horrible flaw, and - because he was also a devout conservative Christian - an unforgivable sin. When I met Ray, he couldn't ever remember a time that he hadn't thought he was worthless. He didn't want to live. He didn't think he deserved to live.

So, lucky Ray: he wasn't going to live. He was dying of AIDS when I met him.

This was a few years after protease inhibitors were introduced, and there were several effective drugs to treat HIV. Ray had been on all of them. But because he didn't really want to live, he'd taken them halfheartedly - skipping doses, coming on and off his meds. His HIV was resistant to every known treatment. When I met him, his T-cell count was four. (You probably have a T-cell count of more than 1000.) His doctor had run out of options for him, and was focused only on controlling his considerable pain and trying to prevent opportunistic infections. Ray was inevitably on the way to getting his death wish.

Then I came along, and whether that was good or bad luck for Ray becomes a complex question. I was a new intern in clinical psychology. Ray's doctor sent him to me for therapy. I don't think any of us thought it would actually work, but something funny happened: Ray and I clicked, and he kept coming back and coming back. Slowly, imperceptibly, he started getting better. He started to make peace with himself and his past. He started to see himself as a person who had value. And - this is the ironic part - he started wanting to live. Therapy changed him from a dying man who was glad to die to a dying man who didn't want to die. Was that a good thing? Or a bad thing?

An interesting thing happened, as we continued to work. Ray's doctor had given him six months to live, and yet six months passed and Ray lived on. He was weak and frail. He suffered from nerve damage, a toxic effect of old HIV medicines, which was so painful that he had to wear a transdermal patch that delivered narcotics through his skin, 24 hours a day. But somehow he managed to avoid the hundreds of infections that can carry off a person with advanced AIDS. The flesh melted away from his bones, but his eyes remained bright and engaged. And he told me: "I never knew I could feel this way - at peace, and really like myself." Ray lived for almost a year longer than his doctor predicted. Scared, sometimes, as his death approached. A little sad that he hadn't come to this point of loving and accepting himself before it was too late to save his life. But mostly happy and at peace.

Ray asked me once what the point of our therapy was, since he was dying anyway. Why should he work so hard to come to terms with himself? What difference would it make in the end? At that time I didn't have an answer. We struggled to look for one together.

He was a deeply religious man. He had a very literal belief in an afterlife that involved angel wings, golden streets, pearly gates. It helped him to think that therapy was preparing his soul to be better suited to heaven. I couldn't believe in Ray's version of heaven, so it wasn't that easy for me. But I did come to believe that Ray's reconciliation with himself at the end of his life mattered. That the work he did on his heart and mind and spirit was not wasted. That it made a profound difference - to Ray, to the people who knew him, and to the world - for Ray to die with peace and acceptance, not hopelessness and bitterness.

When I met him, Ray would have been a perfect candidate for assisted suicide. Terminal illness, no treatments, significant pain and suffering, no sense that living further would be of the slightest value. And frankly, he was as lousy a candidate for psychotherapy as he was for further medical therapy. It would have been what he wanted. And it would have been a profound loss of his potential, potential that no one could have guessed at.

Comments

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

A sad story -- of wasted potential. I'm glad that he learned to accept himself.

[daharyn.livejournal.com]

Normally, I'm a lurker. But I have to disagree with chipuni. It sounds like Ray realized his own potential to be a loving and caring person, in the end. That starts with self-love, self-acceptance. So he did achieve part of his potential. He got a bit further on down that path.

There is a way in which all of us are, on some level, "wasted potential." Even if I die at 90, there will be things I could have done, or wanted to do but didn't manage to make happen.

But in this case, Ray had the opportunity to realize part of his potential as a human being. That's not waste. That is a cause for celebration. It would have been great if he had had more time, if that had happened sooner. But that it happened at all is wonderful, and even if Ray had lived a longer life, there would still have been things left undone.

I don't necessarily agree with you, rivka, about assisted suicide. But I feel very privileged to read your thoughts and stories as you prepare for this event, and I do hope you'll share more with us.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Normally, I'm a lurker. But I have to disagree with [info]chipuni. It sounds like Ray realized his own potential to be a loving and caring person, in the end. That starts with self-love, self-acceptance. So he did achieve part of his potential. He got a bit further on down that path.

The other side of it is, every single one of us, however non-wasted our potential, could die tomorrow.

Thank you

[razil.livejournal.com]

I am also pretty quiet in these parts, but did want to pipe up to say thank you. Thank you for sharing these stories with your congregation, and thank you for sharing them with us.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this beautiful story, and for helping Ray to accept himself. He sounds like an interesting person--I wish I could have met him.

One part of assisted suicide that scares me so much is the way in which our society views certain members as worthless--especially the ill, the disabled, the gay, the different. It is hard for me to believe that those who would hand out the pills could possibly view disabled people correctly (ie, as people who are worthwhile, who can contribute a lot, who are worth the 'bother' or expense of the care needed to keep us functional).

[mizchalmers.livejournal.com]

I don't believe in angel wings and golden streets either. What I do believe is that our lives have meaning and that they matter; even if we can't see what or why.

My metaphor is godshatter. I think God smashes herself into tiny fragments in order to live human lives. That's why every child is an incarnation, every birth a nativity. I think we carry around these little pieces of God in our hearts because she has specific work she needs to get done. Maybe we're not even capable of understanding what that work is.

I would have to say, though, that in your specific case, the work that God is getting done is both blindingly obvious and awesome.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

That's an absolutely fascinating idea. I've never heard of godshatter before, but it resonates with me on some level.

Could you possibly point me to some more resources about it? Or journal entries, if you have them?

[mizchalmers.livejournal.com]

Um. I sort of stole it from Vernor Vinge's space opera, "A Fire Upon the Deep," although my version has evolved very differently from his! Huh, maybe I should blog it some time.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

That the work he did on his heart and mind and spirit was not wasted. That it made a profound difference

It did indeed.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of something that happened while I was working on an adult psych ward. One of the women there told me about a dream she had whwere she ran across a friend of her's who had killed himself. She asked him how he was, and he said, "Pretty good, but you know all those problems I had that I ended up committing suicide over? NOW I gotta work on 'em."

Now it seems to me that when I first "met" you in LJ you were writing a lot about Terry Schivo (sp?). How does your feeling about assisted suicide relate to her? (I'm not saying it can't, I'm just wondering. Plus this might come up after your sermon. And good on ya for doing the sermon!)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I'm not rivka (obviously), and I don't know if you want responses from anyone else, but my feeling on Terri Schiavo was that she was already dead, just her body hadn't stopped breathing yet. Quite different from a person who still has a working brain and consciousness to make a decision for themselves.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

The Schiavo case was actually a very crazy issue. Contrary to many news stories about her situation, when her husband went to the court, he did not ask to remove her feeding tube - he asked that the court determine what Terri had asked for.

The court ruled that there was clear and convincing evidence that she would not want to be kept alive on a feeding tube - that her wishes had been clearly stated at times and in circumstances in which one could determine her future wishes.

Now, at that time, her husband as guardian, was obligated to follow the dictates of the court. It just so happened that he agreed with those dictates.

There are those who are upset that her verbal desires were followed, in the absence of something written. I grant that it's better to have one's preferences written down, but what if someone had a DNR, and then decided they no longer wished to have it in force? Would we let them die, against their clearly stated wishes, just because the paper says something else? That'd be silly - one's verbal wishes must be given consideration.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Now it seems to me that when I first "met" you in LJ you were writing a lot about Terry Schivo (sp?). How does your feeling about assisted suicide relate to her? (I'm not saying it can't, I'm just wondering.

The Terri Schiavo case was about whether it is permissible to withdraw life-sustaining treatment (artificial nutrition), not about whether it is permissible to kill. There is actually a large difference between them. Because we all own our own bodies, we have a right to refuse medical treatments if, in our opinion, they are no longer beneficial. It is a very different thing to ask another person to do something active that brings about your death.

[morning-glory.livejournal.com]

You were a brave intern, and continue to be a brave woman to share so much of yourself with Ray and with your congregation. Compassion, caring, hope, love acceptance; those aren't wrong things, or bad things. Sharing them with others is not wrong or bad. If we did not share them with everyone, if we rationed them like money or food the world would be a much poorer and meaner place. I remember giving a "This I believe" sermon to my church on how everyone, no matter how bleak there life looked, had the power to change. It's why I'm against the death penalty. We do not get to play God because we do not have the omniscient perspective on what a person, any person, is capable of.

Ok, I'm sorry for rambling. I was feeling passionate and wanted to share. I was very moved by your story, particularly since I am now working in skilled nursing care as a clinical psychologist. Your story reminded me that my own work has value and isn't just "shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic." Thank you.

[ororo.livejournal.com]

That's a great story, Rivka, thank you for sharing it.

[firecat]

We're all dying, we're all living in the present, and it's never too late and never wasted effort to help improve someone's experience of the present, especially to facilitate self-acceptance.

I also think that legal assisted suicide is a good idea.

There is always lost potential. Potential is by definition impossible to perfectly realize.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing this.

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this.