Yet Another Religious Study

I refer all of you to this story on the BBC. The gist of it is this: out of 345 terminally-ill cancer patients, those who prayed most often and categorized themselves as people for whom "religion was the most important thing that kept [them] going" were more likely to receive "aggressive" end-of-life care. Put another way, those who describe themselves as religious wanted everything that could be done to be done in order to prolong life - even at a cost of reduced quality of life (being kept alive by machines, forceful resuscitation, etc - things which other studies have shown to be immensely physically and psychologically stressful on both the patient and the patient's family and caregivers). The BBC waxed a bit philosophic by saying, "It is unclear why those who pray prefer more aggressive end-of-life care," but they didn't actually make an argument either way. In fact, the conclusion which is drawn is merely this: "These findings merit further discussion within religious communities, and consideration from those providing pastoral counsel to terminally ill patients with cancer."

My question is this: why do "those who pray" prefer more aggressive end-of-life care? Why should someone who believes death is only a portal to another life (presumably a better one) seek to prolong a painful life here?

Three Wise Men

Hello, all:

A new topic for today.

A few weeks ago, Father Kallio wrote in the Evangel on what we can learn from the parable of the "three wise men" - far away from their homes, "they caught a vision powerful enough to sustain them on a journey... until they discovered its object;" they persisted on this journey to seek the truth; they brought their gifts (our hearts, minds, faith) to the newborn God-in-the-world; and they returned home via "another route," a "metaphor for living a changed life" after encountering God's divinity incarnate in the temporal world.

I'd like to take this one step further.

Surely, we (as suddenly as a new star in the night sky) see a vision of the Truth, distant and small but there nonetheless, and if our hearts are open and willing, we seek that Truth, through a journey of great distances and great spans of time. We may find, at the end of that particular journey, an instance of God in the world - perhaps not "God incarnate," but a tendril of divinity within our ordinarily mundane circumstances - and it is enough to change us fundamentally. We have "found God" - or, more accurately, we have discovered experientially some aspect of God. Out of gratitude we lay our gifts at the babe's bedside: we are thankful for the experience of God, the "mountaintop" experience as Father Bailey puts it, and the best way we know to show this is to change our lives according to that Truth which we have beheld.

But take note here. The next step is that which I would like to emphasize. The wise men leave.

What does this mean for us? I agree that leaving by a different route indicates that our lives have been changed by this experience of God in the world. But does it mean we have reached the end of our journey? Isn't the important thing the fact that, instead of spending the rest of their lives huddled around the child's feet, fawning and worshipping, the wise men continue on a much grander journey?

I think that, if we take the parable all the way through to its end, we learn that we are not supposed to dwell upon these rare instances of incarnate divinity. We are not supposed to reach the end of one journey - Christ, for instance - and then refuse to continue. The wise men leave Jesus. They are changed for what they have seen, of course, but they take this new knowledge and experience with them as they continue on a much larger, more universal quest. They do not return to Herod, but neither do they remain with Mary and Jesus. The star and the divine child were momentous, but they were not the pinnacle of the wise mens' lives.

Similarly, when Jesus asked his disciples to "follow" him, did he not perhaps intend for them to do only that? Follow me for I have something to show you, something which will help you in the grander scheme of things. Do not stay at my feet and worship me, do not fawn over me or defend me by force, just follow me.

Thoughts?