I love the book, “Everything I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”  Have you read it?  Robert Fulghum wrote it back in the late 80’s.  He is profound in his simplicity.

Here is a great statement of wisdom, perhaps the deepest every uttered: “Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so.”  Really?  The childhood Sunday school song.  Yeah.  It really is the warp and woof of who we are and who the Creator is, and how we know about Him.

Although I believe scripture is authoritative and without error, the bible doesn’t speak to every issue and situation we face in life.   But when it does, I pay very close attention to what it says.

That is why I thought I would mention a passage I came across this morning.  It is one of the only places in scripture that addresses palliative treatment for the dying.

In Proverbs 31, not in the famous last 20 verses that describe an intelligent, valiant and strong woman, but in the first 10 or so verses, King Lemuel offers advice about wine.  He says kings should stay away from alcohol because it impairs judgment.

But check out what he says about those who are dying: “Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to him whose life is bitter.  Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his trouble no more.”  Pretty direct advice on palliative care, I think.

Those who minister to the dying agree with that sentiment, only, instead of wine, we use morphine and Ativan to relieve pain and suffering.  I feel that I should mention here that I have seen in my 12 years of being a physician the destructive effects of alcohol, and that I am not condoning intoxication or addiction.    In the same way, morphine can be used for evil, and yet, in one of the mysteries of life, it can be the best present one gives to another.

Actually, most of our thinking, speaking, and doing at Texas Hospice, is grounded in bible:

• Our belief that humans have inherent value comes from Genesis 1-3, where we humans are created in the image of God.
• Our belief that we treat others the way we want to be treated is not something we came up with.  Jesus offered that one.
• Our belief that death is not the enemy because our Lord conquered it is one scripture’s major themes.
• Our ability to offer hope to the dying and comfort to the suffering families originates in the reckless raging love that is the Father, well illustrated in the parable of the prodigal son.

I can keep going, and, perhaps, in a later entry I will.  But for now, let me leave us with this admonition, as we fly through our days and weeks at American speed (my Kenyan friends laugh at my torrid life).  That is to remember that those of us who provide care for the suffering and dying will one day be like-sufferers and like-dyers.  If you have read some of my previous blog entries, you will know how joyous and meaningful a time that will be for many of us.

A mischievous friend once advised me, “always ask for forgiveness, not permission.”  It was his way of justifying some of his adventurous antics that sometimes came at the (small) expense of local property owners.  Don’t let trifle rules stifle a wild idea.

How many of us desire something strongly, but, if we think about it, have never asked for it from the Father?  I have written in these pages about a blind man who, after being led to Jesus for healing, heard Jesus say to him, “What do you want me to do for you?”  That questions was, I think, Jesus’ way of telling the man, “I want you to ask me to satisfy your deepest longing.”   Within the asking would come spiritual, psychological healing, and a commencement of seeking the Creator.

I just finished reviewing Ha-Joon Chang’s “Bad Samaritans,” a book that argues for more state-control of business, particularly international commerce.  Although Professor Chang means well, in that he desires better and more equal wealth creation spread around the world,  I disagree with most of his arguments.  (Professor Chang is a world-renowned economist whose advice is sought by organizations such as the World Bank.  I don’t pretend to understand economic theory at his level, or to have the broad knowledge base in world commerce that he has.  But I do have some real-life experience of starting, building, and operating a business.  And that is a realm of experience that he does not have, as far as I know).

I picked up the book because I have been asking myself recently, if China’s communistic regime is so stifling to business, why do they have the second largest economy in the world?  Can we chalk up all their success to their very large population?  Do I need to rethink the merits of limited government and free markets, two concepts I believe in very strongly (though both have significant insufficiencies, they are the best working models in the world)?

While in Kenya last week, I saw Kenyan men driving gigantic red Chinese-company labeled dump trucks, and Chinese foremen overseeing the works.  I was witnessing what I had read about: direct Chinese involvement in Kenyan infrastructure, particularly road building.

It is good for Kenya in the short-run, I think.  They need better roads, quickly, as their population surges.  But it may be bad for Kenya in the long-run, when the Chinese firms will control the exchange of goods up and down the Kenyan highway map.  Private enterprise may never have invested in Kenyan roads, for many reasons, but perhaps predominantly because private firms need more immediate investment returns.  I suspect road-building is a 10-15 year return.  Is state-run and directed investment better than private in this instance?  Chang argues that it is, and I agree with him.

Let’s bring this line of thinking around to end-of-life care.  The Kenyans, Chinese, and Americans, in the realm of economics, are all after the same goal: wealth creation.  It is a good thing to desire, particularly when it lifts human beings out of poverty, and the depression and other diseases that accompany poverty.  How many conversations in the business world speak of God’s provision, or requesting the Lord’s guidance and blessing?

I hesitate to ask the Father to bless our business.  I don’t want to obligate God for anything, particularly wealth.  And I loathe the prosperity gospel message, which tries to tell me that if I lead a good life and give to God, He will bless me financially and in other ways.  The way of Jesus is the cross, and he asks me to follow Him.

You won’t hear one of our hospice patients petitioning the Father for more wealth.  Our patients settle for things of much greater substance.  Getting up close with their deaths, humans filter out so much of the junk they once held sacrosanct.  They are after peace with God and man.

I spent a half-hour with one of our patients recently.  He suffers from end-stage heart disease, is long past his working/productive days, but is in other ways doing pretty well.  He sat on an old couch, in a small wood house, listening and watching with a small content smile on his face.  He answered a few questions.  But mostly he was silent, not talking away as if he needed to prove something to me.  He smiled more when his wife talked.  Perhaps he was grateful that the bride of his youth was still loving him 60 years later, and during his sick days.

He probably picked up on my type-A, hard-pressing personality, and was glad that he didn’t have the strain and push that he saw in my life.  I hope he prayed for me.  I know he did.  I felt the peace of the Lord in that house, the house of a praying man.

Jesus tells us to ask Him for the bread that endures to eternal life.  He asks us to drink the water from which, after drinking, we are never again thirsty.  These currents run deep, traversing under the realms of business, world economics, and hospice care.  I do not know what you really long for, reader.  Perhaps it is the restoration of a relationship, or it may be the lifting of guilt.  But I do know that He wants you to ask Him to satisfy whatever is that deep longing in your heart.