(Sermon only) From the Bedside Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley December 28, 2025

Before I formally begin this sermon, let

me assure you that the stories I'm

telling are told with either the

permission of the patient or their

family, and that all personal

identifying information has been changed

to protect their privacy. Lest you sit

here and worry that someday you might

end up in one of my sermons.

I want to start this morning by

confessing to you that hospice chapency

is not nearly as glamorous or serene as

Hollywood would have you believe. As a

hospice chaplain, I do not spend most of

my time sitting quietly at the bedside

holding the hand of the soon-to-be

deceased offering the perfectly

insightful words of grace and comfort.

That does happen occasionally, but most

of the time my work is in the weeks and

months before someone dies, followed by

a year or more accompanying and

supporting the deceased loved ones as

they journey with their grief and learn

to live a new normal.

Most often, my bedside work includes

helping patients struggle to accept the

loss of autonomy and freedoms they once

enjoyed. It is about helping them make

meaning of their lives, coming to terms

with their regrets, and whenever

possible to find reconciliation for all

that weighs on their minds and souls. In

my work setting, I serve people of many

faith traditions and some with no

religious affiliation at all. I work

with people from a wide spectrum of life

experiences, economic resources, and

countries of origin. Within all of this,

I have found that there are some common

themes among those who are aware that

they are approaching their deaths. One

of the most common themes I observe with

my patients and their loved ones is the

struggle to accept changes in

independence. They struggle to ask for

and accept help.

It is not easy admitting that we can no

longer do the things we were once able

to do.

Yet, I have witnessed the joy adult

children of my patients experience when

they are able to truly care for their

parents

once everyone is over the hump of

resistance and frustration and they've

adapted to the change. But there is joy

in that helping.

Often I find myself facilitating

conversations among family members as

they struggle to make decisions about

care after a patient is no longer able

to advocate for themselves.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance

of having those uncomfortable yet

important conversations with your

family. Clearly articulate when you want

curative treatments and when you want

comfort focused care, when you want

life-saving measures, and when it is

time to let the body's natural

limitations take over. But don't stop at

those decisions. Discuss what you want

after your death, cremation or burial,

elements to your memorial service, and

whether or not you want a grave or

marker.

Just a few weeks ago, I was asked by a

patient's daughter to help her ask her

dying mother what her mother wanted to

be buried in.

What a gift it would be if we were able

to have these conversations long before

our loved ones or ourselves are facing

death.

Another common theme I often encounter

is the fear of dying. For some, this

fear is theologically grounded, born of

years or decades of belief that they

will be judged by a harsh deity for not

living their lives properly enough.

In those moments, I am thankful that our

own universalist theology grounds us in

an idea of God's grace and love, however

you frame a belief or not in God.

but that our universalist theology

teaches us that heaven and hell are what

we create here on earth and not

destinations we will be sent to after

judgment is placed on our lived lives.

But for most of the people I work with

who fear death, it is not a fear of what

happens after they die, but rather a

fear of the dying process itself. a fear

that the act of dying will be painful.

And because it is not something most of

us experience more than once,

we can only imagine what dying will be

like. And the human imagination has the

most amazing capacity to bring forth the

worst possible options. And so we are

left with a fear of dying.

One of the blessings of hospice care is

that we have truly figured out how to

keep people physically and medically

comfortable at the end of life. In

hospice, our goal is to always maximize

the quality of life someone has for

whatever time they have left. And

quality of life includes pain management

all the way through to the last breath.

Because of this, it is very rare that a

hospice patient experiences anything

less than pe physical peace at death.

But getting to play to a place of

trusting that reality takes many

patients and their families time and

assurance.

So, as we are building trust, I invite

my patients to reflect on their lives,

exploring with them what has brought

them the most meaning and what has

caused them the most strife. I have

observed that most regrets revolve

around strained or discontinued

relationships with loved ones and

friends,

and many share regrets of things done or

not done, as was the case with my

patient, who I'll call M.

I was on call and received a page to

rush to the hospital to visit M in her

hospital room. I entered the room

knowing only that she was the 96year-old

matriarch of the family and had

requested a chaplain visit as soon as

possible to hear her confession and that

she was Baptist.

When I arrived, I noted that she filled

less than half the bed and looked frail

of body, though there was still a

brightness in her eyes. Surrounding her

bed were about 12 members of her family,

five generations worth, holding vigil.

There was a somber feel to the group,

and as I entered, a br a brief hush

rippled through the room. I introduced

myself as the chaplain moving to stand

bedside and take her hand as she reached

it out to me. I asked her if she'd like

to speak privately or in front of her

family. And in a weak, shaky voice, she

answered, "Privately."

I asked the family to leave the room,

closing the door behind them, and I

still held her hand.

She was dying. I knew it, and she knew

it. "What's on your mind today?" I asked

her. There was something about her, a

properness that was almost palatable.

She gently squeezed my hand and in a

whisper said, "Will you hear my

confession?" "Of course," I replied

after clarifying a few things.

And in her shaky voice, she confessed.

"I must confess that I have never sworn

in my life, but always wanted to.

I would very much like to try doing so

before I die.

Okay.

Would you like to do that now? I asked.

She gently nodded. And while she was on

oxygen, she still took a steady, long

breath in and out came a stream of

profanity the likes of which I had never

heard before in my life.

We maintained deep eye contact as she

swore and swore and swore. And as she

whispered the last few words, we smiled

and broke out into silly giggles. She

squeezed my hand and said, "Thank you.

You can bring my family back in."

[Music]

She closed her eyes and breathed her

last breath as her family returned.

True story.

As I reflected on my visit afterwards, I

wondered how her life might have been

different if she had chosen to swear

earlier in her life.

They do say that those of us that swear

are happier.

But would that have changed the ways her

family interacted with and loved her?

Would she have found that same level of

glee at the end of life? I don't know.

Another of my patients, D, taught me

about the importance of not waiting

until the very end to do the things that

you've always wanted to do. But by the

time she and I met, she was too weak to

walk. H she could walk maybe from her

bedroom to the next room, but that was

the max. She was in her early 90s and

was declaratively not a religious

person, though was delighted that

anybody would come to visit her.

After a couple of visits of her asking

me what she should say to me, I noticed

there was a cribage board on her

bookshelf and asked if she played. And

so for the next several months, we would

play cribage together. And during our

games, out came bits and pieces of her

life story.

My favorite story from her was about her

80th birthday. She shared with me that

as a young woman, she had always wanted

to experience being on a beach with the

sun shining down on her naked body. But

she had always been too shy. Shortly

before her 80th birthday, she fell ill

and decided that she better get to this

before she was too ill to do it. And so

she researched for a good local nude

beach and inspired two of her closest

friends, both a good 20 or so years

younger than her, to join. And so the

three of them took an hour's bus ride to

their beach of choice. But when they

arrived, her friends decided they were

not comfortable entering the beach and

stayed with the bus stop. Undeterred by

their choice, D left her clothes with

her friends and stre.

As we talked and she reflected on her

life, D shared with me that after

raising her five children into good

human beings, the thing she was next

most proud of was that she fulfilled her

desire for that beach experience. That

she didn't let age or embarrassment or

fear stop her from doing something she

had always wanted to do.

Both M and D remind us of the importance

of embracing and doing the things we've

always wanted to do, particularly if

those things will bring us glee and joy

and not harm to others. Thankfully, our

faith does not teach us a theology of

denial, but rather encourages us to

embrace life and experience. It reminds

us that the here and now are important

just as how we treat one another is

important.

Our story for all ages this morning

reminds us of the importance of bearing

witness that even in the moments when we

can't do something tangible like fix a

bicycle or prevent someone we love from

dying, we can still be there with and

for them. We can accompany them on the

final segment of this journey we call

life.

In the 1991 Skinner House Books

meditation manual, Been in the storm so

long, Unitarian Universalist Minister

Reverend Mark Morrison Reed offers us a

wonderful theology of living and dying.

He writes, "We are all dying, our lives

always moving toward completion. We need

to learn to live with death and to

understand that death is not the worst

of all events. We need to fear not death

but life. Empty lives, loveless lives.

Lives that do not build upon the gifts

that each of us has been given. Lives

that are like living deaths. Lives which

we never take the time to savor and

appreciate. Lives in which we never

pause to breathe deeply.

What we need to fear is not death, but

squandering the lives we have been

miraculously given.

He continues, "So let me die laughing,

savoring one of life's surprising

moments. Let me die holding the hand of

one I love and recalling that I tried to

love and was loved in return. Let me die

remembering that life has been good and

that I did what I could. But today, just

remind me that I am dying so that I can

live, savor, and love with all my heart.

The inevitable end of life is death. It

is not something that need to be feared,

but rather embraced as the conclusion of

a lived life, hopefully a lived life

lived well. And in those circumstances

where we may struggle to believe we did

not live our lives as well as we could,

may we find forgiveness.

There is a Sufi tradition at funerals

wherein those in attendance are invited

to forgive the deceased for any

transgressions they may have made

against us and for us to forgive

ourselves in any ways in which we may

have let the deceased down.

I find this tradition to be a powerful

reminder that through forgiveness we can

find peace of heart and soul.

Forgiveness is a spiritual act. It is a

choice. It is an invitation to

restoration and release. And while there

may be some actions that we feel are

unforgivable or that we feel we cannot

forgive others for, in my experience,

finding our way to forgiveness leads us

towards an inner peace. Particularly

when we can forgive ourselves for

whatever we're holding on to. And in

this forgiveness and inner peace, it can

turn to help us face our own life and

death without fear and anger.

My hope is that we always have hearts

that stir with compassion and that we

have the courage to do the things we

most want while we can rather than

arrive at our deathbed wishing we had.

May you all find your ways to let out

those swears in the right time.

Amen.