November 14, 2004
Rev. Henry Ticknor
Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley
What’s in Your Wallet?
Have you ever had to wait for something? For an important phone call from a loved one, or your boss? For traffic to clear when you are late for an appointment?
Have you ever had to wait up for a child who is returning home well past their curfew? Have you ever had to wait for the real estate agent to let you know if your house sold or if your contract on a new house was the one accepted? Have you ever had to wait for the results of important medical tests?
We all know that waiting is a very, very hard thing to do. And the more anxious we are the harder the waiting. Waiting seems particularly hard in our society that is characterized by instant meals, fast food, drive through banks, email, cell phones and, well, you get the idea. Whoever first said “anticipation is half the fun” must have had a very boring life.
But I suppose for many of us waiting is simply a part of life. I recall the day I was on my way to meet with the Ministerial Fellowship Committee that is the last step in the process of becoming a credentialed Unitarian Universalist minister.
The meeting was in Boston and Nancy and I had spent the night before at my sister’s house about 45 minutes west of the city. My appointment was set for 4:30 so we left her house around 1:00 with hopes of having being at our destination with the car parked by 2:30 at the latest.
Unfortunately the directions we were given didn’t take into account that in one town two exclusive prep-schools were having their parents’ weekends; that Tufts University was having a home football game; or that the central artery through Boston was at a dead stop due to a number of street closures to accommodate the annual “Taste of Boston Festival.”
As the minutes ticked by the time went from 3:00 o’clock to 3:30 to 4:00 and we were nowhere near our final destination.
In desperation I got out of the car, leaving poor Nancy to find her own way in an unfamiliar city, and I ran down the nearest exit ramp into the city assuming that I would be able to find a taxi.
After a few false starts I actually made it to my appointment by 4:30. A nervous wreck, but I had made it. I can still recall my nervousness as the time slipped away and to this day I still experience a heightened sense of anxiety whenever I am in heavy traffic. I was a nervous wreck.
But waiting in traffic was just a modest inconvenience compared to those who are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant. For those in need of new kidneys, livers, lungs or hearts, waiting is a matter of life and death.
For the past nine years, many religious institutions in this country have observed the National Organ Donor Sabbath. The National Organ Donor Sabbath is held two weeks before thanksgiving—a time when most of us pay special attention to our blessings and a time when individuals and religious institutions reach out to those in need.
Right now, in this country, well over 87,000 women, children and men are on the waiting list for a life saving transplant. Each day 17 people die waiting for an organ transplant.
Yet one donor can save the lives of seven people in need of new organs and can improve the lives of up to forty additional individuals through tissue transplants. Nationally, close to 25,000 people receive an organ transplant each year and 900,000 people receive cornea, skin and bone transplants annually.
In fact, as of this past Friday morning, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network there are 60,000 people waiting for new kidneys, 17,000 waiting for new livers, and over 3,00 each waiting for new hearts and lungs. From January to August of this year only 18,00 transplants have been performed nationally which leaves almost 70,000 people—men, women and children waiting—waiting for the gift of life.
What organs and tissues can we donate? Medical advances have made transplantation of the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas and intestine possible. Tissues used for transplantation include corneas, heart valves, and thin layers of skin, bone, blood and soft tissues such as ligaments, tendons, veins, cartilage and bone marrow.
According to one report, “Most people view organ donation as commendable, yet most choose not to donate their own. Although nearly two-thirds of those polled in national surveys say they would be willing to donate organs, only 42 percent say they would actually make a personal decision to donate, and even fewer tell anyone about their decision. Only 28 percent carry an organ donor card or mark their driver’s license to indicate willingness to be a donor.”
During the time I served as a chaplain at Georgetown hospital I met many people who were waiting for liver and kidney donors. These were people too sick to be at home or even in assisted living facilities.
They were each facing the end stages of life and they spent the time confined to bed in their hospital room waiting for a suitable donor to become available. Some died waiting; their critical organs unable to sustain life. And some went home with new hope and new strength.
Two of the people I remember well were a mother and a daughter who I will call Jane and Lois. When I first met Jane she looked aged lying still in her bed, hooked up to all kinds of machines that beeped and hummed and her arms were bruised from all the needle sticks and intravenous medicine she was being given. She was in kidney failure and her usual regimen of dialysis no longer cleaned her body of waste.
Lois was Jane’s daughter who came to the hospital every evening and sat with her mother for several hours. In just a few days Lois was going to give her mother one of her healthy kidneys.
As I got to know these two women I was struck by the unconditional love they had for each other and by the fact that it was now the daughter’s turn to give the gift of life to her mother.
The night before the procedure Jane asked if I would pray for them. When I finished and had said “amen” Jane turned to her daughter with a huge smile—the first real smile I had seen and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”
The procedures went well and several days later both women were able to go home. I don’t know how their stories unfolded; but I do know that in their hospital room I witnessed a moment of grace and unconditional love unlike anything I had witnessed before.
I gained renewed appreciation for the old expression “Life is a gift,” and I was reminded of the words from the Hebrew Bible that say, “ I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendents may live.”
Nearly all religions in the United States support organ and tissue donation as one of the highest expressions of compassion and generosity. Yet, the most common reason families give when they choose not to donate a loved one’s organs and tissues is “donation is against my religion.” In fact, a Gallup poll showed that fewer than 10 percent of people in the United States are aware that their religions have doctrines regarding donation.
Although specific beliefs differ from denomination to denomination, the underlying theme is the same: Organ and tissue donation represents one of the highest forms of compassion and giving. These are basic principles upon which all religions are based.
So, here is the question. What’s in your wallet? Do you carry an organ donor card? Does your driver’s license have a red heart on it to indicate that you are an organ donor? Does your family know your wishes?
In a religion in which members are not bound by any one set of doctrinal beliefs, we continually seek new ways of describing the heart of our faith, that center towards which we are all being drawn.
We Unitarian Universalists believe in the interdependent web of all existence and in the inherent worth and dignity every person. I believe these two principles should help to guide us in our personal decision to be an organ donor.
Unitarians and Universalists have been at the forefront of dramatic efforts to preserve life and enhance the quality of life for all people, and such efforts are an enduring part of our values and our traditions.
During the Civil War, a number of Universalists, including Red Cross founder Clara Barton, went to work caring for the wounded. Unitarians like Samuel Gridley Howe, a crusader on behalf of blind persons, and Dorothea Dix, who launched major reforms in the care of people with mental illness, lived out their belief that all people are capable of indefinite improvement and deserve the best treatments available. In organ and tissue transplantation, great scientific and technological advances serve to remind us of our essential connectedness to all people, to all life.
Three popular slogans about organ and tissue donation are “ Make a miracle! Be an Organ and Tissue Donor,” “Recycle Yourself…Be an Organ and Tissue Donor.” and my personal favorite "Don’t take your organs to heaven. . . heaven knows we need them here!" Whatever our beliefs about life after death, our Universalist faith has always called on us to make this life as heavenly as possible by working to improve the quality of life for all people right here on earth. Indeed, friends, it is one of the most powerful ways we can each choose life over death.
A long, long time ago, in a land far, far away the Bodhisattva, destined to become the Buddha, lived one of his lifetimes as a wealthy Brahmin who was so good and kind and intelligent that everyone honored and respected him.
Because he was determined to follow the way of liberation he experienced no pleasure from worldly success. He gave up everything to become a hermit and live in the forest. His kindly presence calmed wild beasts and they ceased preying upon one another; his contentment and compassion inspired strangers to feel affection for him, just as he felt it for them. Soon he had many followers gathered around him.
One day he went for a walk with his disciple Ajita. As they neared a mountain cave, they saw a tigress who was very weak from the stress of giving birth. She was so starved that she looked on her own cubs as something to eat. While they, trusting their mother, nuzzled her looking for milk.
The honored one was touched by her distress and sent Ajita to search for food for the tigress. When he was alone he began to reflect, "Why search for meat from some other creature when my entire body is available right here? This body is only so much matter; one would be a fool not to welcome the chance of its being useful to someone else. I cannot be happy as long as there is a creature who is unhappy." Saying this, the noble one threw himself over the cliff and died.
The sound of the Bodhisattva's body falling on the rocks caught the tigress' attention just as she was about to eat her young. She crawled over to the corpse and ate her fill. When she regained her strength she began to nurse her young.
This is only one of many stories of the Buddha’s incarnations told in the "Jataka Tales". The Buddha purified himself over numerous lifetimes by performing kind and generous actions. Sometimes he incarnated as an animal, sometimes as a human, but in all instances he helped other beings who were needy or in danger. Frequently he sacrificed his own life in order to save another's.
While reflecting on the tigress' plight, the Bodhisattva said, "This body is only so much matter; one would be a fool not to welcome the chance of its being useful to someone else." The Bodhisattva gave his life in order that the tiger and her cubs could survive.
We are not asked to give our lives. All we are asked to do on this National Donor Sabbath is to consider whether our organs could help another to live. What a wonderful opportunity we have to emulate the generosity of the Buddha! It means that we vow to save all beings from suffering - emotional and physical pain as well as spiritual suffering. Imagine that our last act occurs not before death, but after death - that we continue to save all beings even after life has left our body. Imagine that a part of us enables another to live.
In autumn, the leaves turn gold and red and brown, then wither and fall from the tree. As they decompose they form rich humus that fertilizes the roots of the tree. Our bodies can also nourish the tree of life. Buddhists believe that we are all one. There is only the One Body. How fitting for us to let go of our attachment to the individual body in order to save another.
I love the image of the newly nourished tigress nursing her young. The Bodhisattva had saved not only one tigress, but also a new generation, which would bring forth other generations. Perhaps a tiger stalking the plains of India today is a relative of the original tigress.
Just as leaf humus makes it possible for a tree to flower and bear fruit, so it's possible that my eyes, or my liver or my lungs can engender new life.
So let me close with these words from Robert Test:
Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby’s face or love in the eyes of a woman.
Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.
Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.
Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.
Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window.
Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all prejudice against my fellow man.
Give my sins to the devil.
Give my soul to God.
If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.
If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.
Amen
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