I was recently the keynote speaker at an end-of-life International Congress in Strasbourg, France. It was an amazing professional and personal experience. What I found particularly near and dear to my heart was learning and hearing about how people in another country deal with end-of-life issues -- or do not...

Is someone a "bad person" or one who did "something bad" when a person does something that we think of as unthinkable?

This question has been on my mind since before the Boston Marathon bombing. One Sunday in March, when I was doing the Youth Sunday message, I commented that...

I have been thinking a lot about community recently. How communities form, how the members of the community support each other and what it means to be a part of a faith community.

After the Sandyhook shootings, Samuel Freedman in a New York Times op-ed, lamented about...

I guess because I have been a professional chaplain for many years, I am always surprised that people don't understand what it is that professional chaplains do. In a recent HuffPost article by Gina Rider, entitled, "Accepting Spiritual Support at the Hospital", Ms. Rider talked about...

I don't usually comment on the negative comments that others make about what happens in our society. However, I am having a very hard time keeping my fingers from writing about the comments that have been made about God and what happened in Newtown, Conn.

First, for anyone to claim...

I went to visit my father several weeks ago. While there, the 14th of the month occurred. I didn't realize that my dad observed the 14th of each month as the commemoration of the "monthly anniversary" of my mother's death. When he mentioned it to me, he was crying and...

Diana Bletter, in a recent opinion piece in the NY Times, mentioned, without knowing it, one of the things that stymies clergy and laypeople: What do I say and how do I say it? Should I say anything? Should I acknowledge the death (or "loss" as most prefer...

A week or so ago, we were visiting with friends who I had not seen since my mother's death in July. I had forgotten that I had not seen them, and so was not prepared for their very kind words when they first saw me and hugged me. So, I...

Forgiveness is not something that many people seem to take seriously. And yet, for those of us who are Christians, forgiveness is a part of who we are and what we believe. Matthew 18 reads as follows: "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I...

Recently, I have had the opportunity to reflect on how important community can be in someone's life. While I have been supported over the years by many different communities as I have celebrated certain markers in my life and dealt with the more difficult things that have cropped up, where...

The late William Sloane Coffin, former Senior Minister at The Riverside Church in the City of New York, preached a sermon entitled, "Alex's Death" the Sunday after his son, Alex, died in a car accident. Dr. Coffin described the wound he felt as "deep...

This past week I had to do something that I hoped I would never have to do. I had to sign a do not resuscitate order (DNR) for my mother. When the doctor told me on the phone that we had reached a point where it would not...

I was recently talking with someone who asked me if I thought that the public debate and private conversations people have about end of life issues were parallel conversations.

This question assumes that there are private conversations going on about end of life issues. Unfortunately, based on my conversations with...

We live in a world where information is at our fingertips. You can download just about anything and have access to it almost instantly. We take control of so many aspects of our lives -- we stay "informed" about our money, our financial investments, and perhaps even our health issues....

Is there such a thing as "suffering from life"? This phrase caught my attention when reading a NY Times article about two weeks ago. It was entitled "Push for the Right to Die Grows in the Netherlands," and is about expanding euthanasia in the Netherlands. There is a...

This coming Monday, April 16, is National Health Care Decisions Day. It was started to inspire, educate and empower the public and providers about the importance of advance care planning. I have written many times in this blog about the importance of people having advance directives. This is...

Well, here we are approaching Holy Week. For those of us who are Christian, this is one of the most important weeks of our liturgical calendar. This is the week that we should be contemplating what we never want to contemplate: death -- the death of the one who we...

I had never read anything by Jeffrey Zaslow (although as I realize now, I did read The Last Lecture, which he co-authored with Randy Pausch). This week, I happened upon a letter to the editor in The New York Times about him, in response to the...

How does someone maintain a relationship with God when one describes one's life as: dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable? If one believes that God is all-loving and all powerful, how then can one turn to God for help?

This question arose for me when I was reading an article...

Just before New Years, I found myself helping a family whose loved one was dying. As a chaplain in a hospital, I never know whether a family will "allow" me (or any other chaplain) "in" at the time that is most painful for them. Amazingly, most families welcome a