Virtual Methodist

OK... Warning. I'm about to rant again... This time it is due to a piece of junk mail that landed on my doorstep yesterday... The sheer amount of unsolicited mail that goes straight from letterbox to blue bin is usually enough to trigger a rant... But on this occasion it was because of a kind offer by Sarah Muggeridge to provide me with some assistance to deal with the implications of the government's " End of Life Care Strategy " published last summer. Now I don't know whether this offer is coming to me in my role as chaplain to the local hospital, where I am actually on the multi-disciplinary palliative care education sub-group (the title is longer than the meetings), but the fact that it was sent to the church's PO Box address, suggests that the name and address was gleaned by some web-crawling bot, that has cribbed my name and address from either the local or national church website. With that in mind... one general point... Any junk mail senders take note...

Today, being the Sunday closest to the feast Day of St. Luke, is celebrated as Health Care Sunday in certain churches (I'm endebted to my friend and colleague Derek Johnston for the St. Luke's Day factoid). However, my thoughts about health care are currently coloured by a number of factors: My participation this week in a major consultation among hospital staff in our Health Trust about the future of Palliative Care. The controversial death, by assisted suicide of paraplegic rugby player Daniel James. The death of a "parishioner" last night in the local Marie Curie Hospice. My continuing ministry to a lady who is visibly fading before our eyes and yet who still seeks to minister to others through prayer. The fact that today is the anniversary of my own mother's death 17 years ago. Death is, as Benjamin Franklin pointed out, together with taxes, one of life's unnegotiables, yet we live in a death-denying, if not defying, society. We do all that we can to avert...