At the doctor’s office last night my physician saw something she didn’t like and ordered a few tests at the hospital today. It’s probably nothing, but the matter has prompted a scenario in my head.

What if you knew you had only one year to live? How would it make a difference in your relationship with your mate? If you knew for a fact that you were checking out in February 2009, if you were conscious every waking minute of the ticking off of days, would you be more patient with one another’s flaws? More quick to forgive? Would you see offenses downsized? Would you work harder at fanning the flames of romantic ardor? Would your priorities shift as to the best use of remaining daylight?

Remember the time your sister came for a visit from out of state, and you spent three perfectly awful, contentious weeks together? Remember how in the last two days before her departure, you both managed to summon up kindness, acutely aware of the shortness of time. Hey, if you can do it for two days, come to think of it, why couldn’t you stretch it out for two years? And if two years, why not twenty-two?

“Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom?” (Psalm 90:12).

From the Times: “Bobby Fischer, the iconoclastic genius who was one of the greatest chess players the world has ever seen, has died, the Icelandic national broadcasting service said Friday, citing his spokesman.”  His obit reads more like a profile than anything else, and it’s a great read.  It seems like his life was blessed and cursed, but mostly cursed.

This is one of the best, and shortest, pieces I’ve come across at Slate.  It’s about a man and his dog, and how they volunteer with hospice care.  The man rescued his dog, and now, it seems, his dog (”Izzy”) rescues people.  This story is not sentimental, but it is full of sentiment.

He approaches people in pain, people in comas, with dementia and paralysis, disfigured and frightened, always softly, carefully, and lovingly. He threads his way around IVs and oxygen tanks. I’ve never had a dog that could do this kind of work, nor could I begin to imagine how to train a dog to do it.

Read it here.

Kristina Robb Dover is a hospital chaplain, and she says that the Health and Wealth Heresy (ala Joel Osteen) is trickling into hospital chaplaincy.  This is evidenced, she argues, by two things:

The first is that the terminally ill patient is always right. Because he is on the threshold of death, he is presumed to enjoy greater access to virtue and judgment than is attainable by those who dwell in the land of the living. He attains a kind of sanctified status.

The second assumption is that death, embodying a “natural” transition to a carefree afterlife, is a good in itself.

Dover says that for a Christian chaplain, these two commonplaces of the death experience constitute “some disturbing theological implications.”

Disturbing Theological Implication #1: “[A]n orthodox Christian understanding of human sin and our need for divine pardon is outmoded and inadmissible. Guilt, regret, or a conviction of divine wrath only fosters unnecessary discomfort, and must therefore be eliminated.”

Disturbing Theological Implication #2: “The chaplain must leave his ‘theology’ at the door before entering a patient’s room. The chaplain’s primary purpose is to embrace the patient’s definitions of truth and salvation, whatever they might be, with the goal of helping him feel affirmed and, in turn, pain-free and comfortable.”

So, what’s a chaplain - or any minister who ministers to those who are dying - to do?

Cato Unbound’s monthly debate is up and running.  This month, as if to remind us why so many Christmas songs are in a minor key, the debate is all about death:

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