Dying a Secular Death

I recently read an article written by an atheist hospice nurse, Lisa Mais, on the need for 'spiritual' care at the end of life. Mais was clear that she was not using the word 'spiritual' to mean something supernatural, but rather to refer to the state of "awe or wonder in to response that which [we] hold in the highest value." She quotes an atheist patient who confided in her a need to discuss spiritual matters, and who defined spirituality as "the intermix of emotional and philosophical perspectives of that within and out of ourselves--our place, our connection within the physical world." In short, 'spiritual' questions are the big ones: Why am I here and what does my life mean? How do I understand meaning in the context of dying? The patient Mais writes about even admitted that he regretted listing himself as an atheist on his intake form "because he would have welcomed the chaplain's presence."

This is terribly tragic. Lacking religion is not the same as lacking a need to explore questions of meaning. Absence of faith in the supernatural does not equate to absence of faith in love and hope--and it is important to find a way to affirm these sacred values in the face of our annihilation. A non-theist should not have to compromise the desire for a secular death in order to have someone with whom to discuss philosophy and meaning.

From what I understand, hospice chaplains are trained to work with people from all different faith backgrounds--but they are still coming from a perspective of religious faith. The chaplain who visited my family frequently while my mom was in hospice was a Unitarian Universalist minister, and was very respectful of my atheism, my sister's ambivalence, my mom's Orthodox Judaism and my extended family's conservative Christianity. She was a good fit for my family's mish-mash of beliefs, but even while she never directly challenged my atheism, she retreated to supernatural language when talking about meaning and loss, and seemed uncomfortable with my stance that this really is all there is. She occasionally offered up lines like, "Well, there really is no way to know for sure what happens when we die."

Obviously, I disagree completely. We've observed pretty definitively that our personalities, our memories, our being, is housed in the physical brain and is a result of the activity that happens there. When the brain is damaged, memories can be lost, personalities completely altered, people changed into someone entirely new. When the brain dies, memories die, personalities die, the experience and reality of 'being' ends. And then the dead body goes into the ground, decomposes, and its constituent parts are absorbed into the earth, becoming something entirely new.

I'm not alone with this viewpoint. There are millions of other secular people worldwide who share it. But like religious people, secular people need reassurance at the end of our lives--just not false reassurance. And like religious people, many of us fear death--just not eternal damnation. And like religious people, many of us want to share our questions about meaning, to have our fears addressed, to find true reassurance--just not from religious clergy.

The hospice community is dedicated to helping people have what they call a "good death." I believe my mom had a "good death." It was awful that she had to die in her early fifties, but because it had to be done, we all rallied to make it the best death possible given the circumstances. She had the support of her husband and her religious community to address questions of meaning. She had her family around her to reassure her with love.

Giving this kind of care and compassion to people at the end of their lives is sacred work--not religious work, but sacred in that it goes to the heart of our most treasured human values. This kind of care and compassion needs to be extended to non-theists as well as religious people. I am not, of course, saying that non-theistic people aren't well cared for physically in hospice; but I don't think I'm off base here when I say there really aren't good resources for the spiritual care of dying atheists. And spiritual care is a key component in a good death.

In searching around online, at the library, and in various databases, I have found very, very few references to secular dying--one journal for the hospice profession, for example, recommends hospice workers read the Oct/Nov 2007 issue of Free Inquiry. But even that Free Inquiry issue really only addresses approaches to dealing with the death of a loved one; it does not have much for someone facing death. I checked out a couple dozen books from the library on hospice care, caring for the terminally ill, and facing death, and virtually none of them is completely secular. Even those that aren't explicitly religious (Kubler-Ross's books, for example) talk about the transformation that will take place when we "cross over to the other side," and most mention faith, God and spirituality (in the context of the supernatural).

What this says to me is that there is a huge market for humanist chaplains--in hospitals, hospices, universities and other places where theistic chaplains are usually found. There might even be a place for me in this work; I am deeply concerned with questions of meaning, and I strive to be compassionate and fearless in the face of death. I have just signed up to volunteer with a local hospice to see what I might learn about how to care for dying people, how to hear and understand their spiritual concerns, and perhaps come away with wisdom on how non-theists can care for one another when we face death ourselves.