{"id":3093,"date":"2017-10-03T12:17:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T12:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/?p=3093"},"modified":"2017-10-03T12:19:13","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T12:19:13","slug":"on-the-effects-of-last-rites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/03\/3093\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Effects of Last Rites"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>In my work as a chaplain I have been at many dying beds. I find it notable that people don\u2019t want to call the pastor unless their Family member is <em>really<\/em> dying. Maybe they think that when the pastor\u2019s been there, there\u2019s no way back. You could take that as a superstition. But there\u2019s some evidence that they may be right. I\u2019ve seen people survive when the medical staff said they would die in the next few hours. I\u2019ve seen one person survive for three days after the doctor told the relatives that according to brain death diagnostics the patient is already dead. I have not seen a single person survive after the pastor was there for a last prayer. I remember saying to a colleague: \u201cI\u2019ve always got a bad conscience. I feel as if I\u2019m killing these people with my prayers. They all die within hours after I\u2019ve been there.\u201d He replied: \u201cOh, you as well?\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div>I remember being at a dying bed of an old woman. She was in coma, had an oxigene mask but still had trouble breating. There were about eight relatives around her bed, a tight-knit family clan. I spoke with them and I did a little ceremony. When I spoke the Lord\u2019s prayer everyone spoke it with me real loud. It was quite a powerful experience. After I left the room one of the relatives said to me: \u201cDid you see? When you came her heart rate was at 90 but during the Lord\u2019s prayer it was at 140.\u201d The nurse said: \u201cIt can take hours or days, we don\u2019t know.\u201d I remember answering: \u201cIt\u2019s a strange thing. Mostly people die within hours after these prayers.\u201d She left that uncommented. 15 min later I got a phone call that the lady had died and the relatives wanted to see me once again. The same nurse opened the door. \u201cI had to think of your words\u201d, she said.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my work as a chaplain I have been at many dying beds. I find it notable that people don\u2019t want to call the pastor unless their Family member is really dying. Maybe they think that when the pastor\u2019s been &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/03\/3093\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117,140,1,215,268],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belief","category-death","category-general","category-ritual","category-survival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3093"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3095,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093\/revisions\/3095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}