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In Memoriam: Steve Hayner

Leave a Comment / Colossians, Current Events, Death & Dying, People, Personal, Uncategorized / By /

A service celebrating the life and ministry of the Rev. Dr. Steve Hayner takes place today in Atlanta, Georgia. Steve was president of Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, and former president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He was also a friend and encourager to me, in the context of our national covenant group which met two weeks ago shortly after his death. Join me today in attending Steve’s memorial service at Peachtree Presbyterian Church through live-streaming. The service begins at 2 p.m. EST, and the worship bulletin is available as a PDF download here. As I participate in this service shortly, […]

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Colossians 3:1-4: We Get to Choose the Focus of Our Thoughts

2 Comments / Church, Citizenship, Colossians, Current Events, Death & Dying, PCUSA, People, Personal / By /

Last Saturday, my covenant group friend Steve Hayner died in the Lord. As his wife Sharol put it, his life was swallowed up in LIFE. I along with thousands of readers of his CaringBridge site, colleagues there at Columbia Seminary, and family and friends whose lives he touched in decades’ time, were aware that his homegoing was imminent. He was sick only about ten months, from diagnosis of his pancreatic cancer to the end of his life on earth. Occasionally he would share what was on his heart and mind as this process took its turns and twists. We all

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The Biblical Perspective on Assisted Suicide—Part III

1 Comment / Current Events, Death & Dying, People, Theological Reflection / By /

This blog series is coming slowly, as my readers can tell, because I am developing a bit of ADD over the topic. The sad thing is that there are too many “what ifs” and accounts to pore over, and it has gotten a little depressing to go there. And then, this morning, the high school shooting in Washington State puts another spin on the topic. Such a tragic waste, when a desperate, “bent” young person must shoot others before taking his own life. I’m sure I am not the first person to think, “If his real goal was suicide, why

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The Biblical Perspective on Assisted Suicide—Part I

2 Comments / Current Events, Death & Dying, People / By /

Washington, the state of my upbringing, passed an assisted-suicide law in 2008. The debate was vigorous—I heard about it from my Fuller students at the time—and ultimately the referendum passed. Most arguments in the public square were based on basic logic and emotion. An excellent set of arguments against physician-assisted suicide was presented by author Jane St. Clair in a series of thirty newspaper ads you can find here. Unmentioned in this list are the many spiritual reasons against assisted suicide. Since my blog’s theme is Bringing the Word to Life, what does the Word have to say about “death

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Suicide: When a Right Becomes an Obligation

4 Comments / Current Events, Death & Dying, People, The Pastoral Call / By /

[After two days of jury duty, during which I was not selected for a three-week trial, I am finally coming back to the topic of physician-assisted suicide. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers while I was otherwise occupied.] One of my deepest concerns, from a sociological and ethical point of view, about physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is the “slippery slope” argument. In a BreakPoint broadcast this week, Eric Metaxas addressed the broader issues with historical illustrations. The sociological equivalent of “give them an inch, and they take a mile” is a reality, as evidenced by the gradual acceptance and practice of

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Suicide and the Fear of a Diminished Self

5 Comments / Current Events, Death & Dying, Lung Cancer, Naegeli's Laws, People / By /

Suicides, particularly by those of celebrity status, make the headlines. In Robin Williams’ case this summer, the world mourned the loss of a man tormented but treated for mental illness and addiction. We will never know what drove him to his final act, but we suspect that deep psychic pain was at its root. The inelegance of his method suggests that he was as improvisational in death as he was on stage. For this we wept and wondered. In the 1990s, Jack Kevorkian helped approximately 130 people end their lives. Under Michigan law he was convicted for second-degree homicide and

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Two Women with Brain Tumors; Two Different Responses

3 Comments / Current Events, Death & Dying, People, Uncategorized / By /

One of my regular readers has asked me to comment here about the case of Brittany Maynard, a young woman who moved from San Francisco to Portland in order to organize an assisted suicide in the state of Oregon where it is legal. What I would like to do with this first post on the subject is simply to offer the different approaches of two women with brain tumors, Brittany Maynard herself and Maggie Karner. Since it is Sunday as I write this, I will not retell their stories but allow them to do so: Brittany’s story is told in

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Retrospective on Normal vs. Transformed Life

Leave a Comment / Kenya & Uganda, Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, People, Personal, Theological Reflection, Uncategorized / By /

Alene was my senior year roommate at Stanford, and our friendship has been renewed by visits in the last few years, most recently last summer in Bomet, Kenya, where she and Steve are missionaries. Thankful for the blessing of Internet contact, Facebook, and my Caring Bridge site chronicling medical adventures since my diagnosis, Alene and Steve have been keeping up with Naegeli news from afar. Yesterday I received in the mail a hand-made card from Alene. It touched me very deeply and suggested the entry point for my next series of blogs. On the cover is a rather fanciful elephant—known,

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The Sixth Mansion (Part 2): The Dark Night

5 Comments / Lent, People, Personal, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle / By /

It is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but this conventional wisdom is put to the test during a period Christians have a hard time talking about. For an intimate look at the Dark Night, which itself is not a mansion in Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle but a dynamic, we turn to her sixteenth-century contemporary John of the Cross. He describes a condition of the spiritual life that flummoxes and disturbs the Jesus-follower, especially if one does not see it coming or understand its purpose. But even if one does, the experience is heart-wrenching enough—and sometimes long

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Reflections on Kenya and Uganda: Two Musings

Leave a Comment / Kenya & Uganda, Leadership and Spirituality, People, Personal, Sermon Illustrations, Theological Reflection / By /

Two unrelated observations today . . . Lots of Children. One thing that strikes you as you drive the countryside of both Kenya and Uganda is that there sure are a lot of children around. Schools both public and private, day schools and boarding schools, dot the landscape. You can’t help but notice the kids in their school uniforms walking along the highways and byways, acting as young people do everywhere. After making this observation, when I got home, I looked up the statistics provided by the Central Intelligence Agency, of all places:  Uganda’s median age is 15.5 years (birthrate

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