 Aloha! I'm Marcia Joyner and navigating the journey which usually airs on Wednesday at 11 a.m. today we are here at noon and next week we will also be here at noon and then we go back to our regular time which is at 11 a.m. so thank you for your continued support thank you for being with us and as you know navigating the journey is dedicated to exploring the options and choices for the end of life care and to assist people to talk about their wishes it's time to transform our culture so we shift from not talking about dying but talk about it it's time to share the way we want to live at the end of our lives and it is time to communicate about the kind of care we want and don't want for ourselves we believe that the place for this to begin is not in the intensive care unit together we can explore the various paths of life's ending together we can make these difficult conversations easier together we can make sure that our own wishes and those of our loved ones are expressed and respected so if you're ready we ask you to navigate the journey today we have just the most beautiful beautiful person that I know sister Joan Chatfield she is a Marino nun missionary correct what Marino Marino sister as well as the cultural the chair of the cultural and such-and-such committee of the Interfaith Alliance of Hawaii welcome sister Joan this is such a pleasure her spirit just fills up the room wherever she goes it's just put the scenery on the green it's just wonderful to have you thank you and of most people in Hawaii know you they've met you everywhere at all kind of an event unlike anything or any other nun I have ever known and I was christened in the Catholic Church in 1938 June 1938 so it's been a lot of nuns a lot of time but you are just a beautiful you such an inspiration if someone thought you know I could be a nun after meeting you most of the time that's not what they come away with so tell me all about you about your life as a nun well mostly Marino sisters are are committed to going beyond where they came from so even though I'm a member of the New Jersey tribe I came from from New Jersey I left home at 17 to go to Mary Knoll and then Mary Knoll trained me and I was on a track for medical school and accepted at Georgetown and a sister in Kanoe who was teaching high school science and got sick and Dr. Lup Kwan Pang had to do surgery and they needed a science teacher fast so I came out here and I always say I knew so little that you couldn't have even measured it I mean it was below the scale of measurement and but it was a one I was in Kanoe for three years then Maui for eight years then back to Honolulu and during 18 years of secondary education where I learned how to teach I even got to be a very good teacher not because of any education course I ever took which I never took but because of really appreciating what the what the learning experience is so in the early days I taught always one class of religion and everything else science so biology chemistry physics general science the not the not the not but then after Vatican II there were loads of people who didn't want to go teach religion but everybody who could teach science so I let them do the science and I went on and then got a degree my first degree in religion in New Testament early Christian community studies at University of San Francisco marvelous experience and then I came back and worked at Marino High School finished my secondary education time and then I went to Berkeley Graduate Theological Union and the University of California Berkeley to get a degree in sociology of religion and I make the distinction that the psychologist is a specialist to ask questions of the individual and the sociologist trains to ask questions of society and then I specialized only in religion so I I I'm a practicing Catholic as a marinal sister but I'm also a sociologist broader than just my Catholicism and it's helped me to take positions that say look my church doesn't want this so I don't wouldn't do this but I need to tell you about the whole of society and probably got some visibility in in writing an essay that or having an essay published just before the special session of the vote on gay marriage rent and gender equity but the real issue was so Catholics don't want it that's okay I can understand that but let's go beyond and I think this is an issue that has had the wrong name put on it too much it's too it the focus is supposed to be on living and making decisions about life and then it got co-opted by the word suicide and it has nothing to do with suicide absolutely nothing and so I really when I when you asked if I would come talk about it part of it is because I have a whole new theory and we'll get to that after I let me get to my period I do have a theory well of course we will we'll get to that but I'm okay I don't know where to go first I want to talk to you one of the things you said about the history of the church and about the religion and we will get to the changes that have happened in the church because I have seen I'll be 79 next month and I have seen all the all kind of changes and but it goes back 2,000 years longer than that longer than that I think that's the problem people particularly see institutional religions as more connected with the cement and mortar that are their buildings and it's not so that's one thing the second thing is that changes occur from the good expression of the leadership for the need for the change and they don't do it haphazard and they don't do it willy-nilly but when they do it and the best example I I have right now is the the change that and I didn't look up the year but I think it was 1979 but I'm not dead certain but how about that dead certain this is the change about cremation and it was done by all of the Japanese bishops every single Japanese bishop signed on to the request that Japan be allowed to cremate because as it was a social necessity not just because they didn't have enough land but because everybody else was doing it and it was a distortion of what burial in the ground to dust though are to dust this is just getting the dust there faster that's really what permission is but the upshot of it is that the people who did that request also did a good search in history and found documents in the second and third century that showed that there was cremation in certain places and at that time it had one part of it had to do again with space but the other part had to do with disease and I'm pretty sure after the bubonic plague there was cremation I would think so because they didn't have all of the tools we have to but the other part is the other part is is the mystery of knowing that at the end of time you're going to be reconnected and decided I know as a child my first challenge was was a who was a the guy who did that the flying tiger shunalt yeah and you know he when he died he wanted his ashes sprinkled from California across Hawaii across the Pacific to Japan and I'm thinking how's God gonna put him and my mother would very dutifully say well there's nothing that's a problem for God so that was the answer for that but no I think I think it's important to learn how how history and religion fuse and this will happen eventually it's gonna take a while but it'll happen yeah I don't have those there's so many of those changes that I have seen growing up in Baltimore as a young kid and then we weren't supposed to eat meat on Friday well when you grow up in a seafood city seafood is wonderful every day so who cares is what kind of sacrifice is no sacrifice not to eat me come on and then what I remember is really small those that meat was rationed during the war so to get two slices of liver we had to stand in line at the slaughterhouse so fish was plentiful so who cares about me yeah so those kinds of things it's the whole connection with spirituality and I think I think we're more alert to the fact that the spirituality is what should determine one's holiness not performance when so when we about this I have to tell you my one story I've got thousands of them because spending that many years being a good Catholic my husband was in the Air Force and we were stationed at a place that God did not intend for people to live and that's Alamogordo, New Mexico even the rattlesnakes moved it it was just not not cut out God didn't design it for people anyway you know the Air Force Uncle Sam so there we were it's the middle of Vietnam and so we had chaplains from every faith but we didn't have a building yeah no no no church no none of the bricks and mortar so we but the military know how to do that they shift in bringing the cross bringing the candles out so we would have breakfast mass every day it's a different person's house and the person that had the best breakfast always had the biggest crowd for so father Bob and I got to be friends and I had I was created a picnic for all the children and I was so proud of it I'm in my early 30s and I'm so proud of what I had done to organize this thing and he looked at me and he says well what about rain which and I thought this is July this is the desert there's no rain it doesn't rain these are the thoughts and so I looked at him and I said well father Bob with my relationship with the Lord it's not gonna rain well needless to say that ended my relationship with him mmm because we were supposed to go through the priest to get to God right we didn't have a direct channel so so much for that relationship so I learned after that one that there's certain things we just don't do however let's get back to where we belong today to talk about medical aid and dining and so many people said to me well sister Joan really talk about that how do we arrive at this position well the church has a different position okay the first let's back up let's back up to the hospice movement okay and we had the wonderful founder of the St. Christopher's in London come here under Dr. Maria Bro when she was the medical director for Eileen Anderson so you know it goes and then we had St. Francis hospice right he had hospice Hawaii Inc that was it we didn't have any more at that time now we have five more hospices that work well and and hospices per say are able to take care of a patient when they have the determination by the doctor that this is not going to get any better they're not going to do anything more to intervene and so basically they're made comfortable and if you remember the original story was they had a thing called Dr. Brompton's cocktail Dr. Brompton was the doctor in London who figured this all out and what he did was he kept people comfortable and I think the medical profession has been doing that over time and probably a long before hospice was invented it's just that hospice gave it a dignity cut hospice gave it a space and so forth now it was very interesting in the very beginning hospice St. Francis hospice under Sister Maureen Kelleher was right on the top of the line she she really she was the daughter of a policeman I mean she she didn't miss any fun you know she that was it and she didn't particularly like the fact that hospice Hawaii Inc. was formed and so at the time I was on the board of the Honolulu Theater for Youth I come from a family where I had a mother who was on the stage in New York before before I was born so I love theater and Honolulu Theater for Youth is a great invention in this town every single student can get to see one or more plays a year and they had a play about a young man whose father had died when he was young and he was at an age where he needed a man and your mother hadn't remarried and the whole play singles around the young fellow going out and walking on the beach and meeting this man who tells him you know you got to be good you got to do this you got to do that in the meantime the mother you you learn that the mother has has backed off into depression after the death of the father so she's kind of hiding in her room and she comes out to make the meals and that and then she goes back in her room and the boy had never been in her room so the line the critical line is that at the end of the play the boy opens the door and sees that the man who has been talking with him the picture is of his father so it was a you know it was a very powerful thing and it had to do with the whole concept of what happens in death and a young person dealing with it so I decided that we would sell tickets that were green and yellow and I never told anybody anything but the green ones went to a bunch of people I know and the yellow ones went to and the board members we sell tickets and so forth at the end of the last performance we had made we had profited about $16,000 so I got my friend in the bank to say you know those big checks they have I said I need two of them and we got two checks and we made a check for $8,000 $8,000 and we called up the director of hospice st. Francis and the director of hospice Hawaii both up on the stage and they didn't know what was happening there each given a check for $8,000 I mean you can't be getting money and then being nice sister Maureen it didn't involve the sisters it involved the people who were actually working in hospice and you know a lot of that now interfaith alliance which I'm invited connected with just I think it was four years ago we gave an award to every one of the hospice units again to thank them for what they do in the society my daughter is a our and with hospice island hospice yes I'm hospice Wilson guy I mean caregivers I mean they're marvelous so so how do we go from I don't we need to take a break at this point Aloha this is Kaley Akina with the weekly a Hanukkah go let's work together program on the think Takawaii broadcast network Mondays at 2 o'clock PM movers and shakers and great ideas join us we'll see you then Aloha you want to talk about some socially sensitive issues relevant to women listen to these guys well I think it's important in Judaism that we don't take the Bible literally we take it seriously okay I agree and the really the key to understanding Christianity is compassion if you're compassionate towards other people you are living a Christian life and that relates also to dealing with women and men and women issues as well are women and men equal they're equal who's better than better depends on what tune in my name is Calvin Griffin the host of military in Hawaii which airs here on think Takawaii every Friday at 11 a.m. please Jonas will be talking about issues concerning our military veterans community and other related issues that concern all of us Aloha and we are having a wonderful discussion with sister Joan and so we were going from hospice to where we are with medical aid and how do I get from there from there here to there okay one of the things is nobody goes into hospice or engages in hospice care unless they have made the decision that the end is coming now sometimes it's going to be in a few days of few weeks sometimes it's months right but that's not the point the point is that they no longer get medical intervention they don't get any drugs other than palliative now those are for people who have have a vocabulary that supports them to bring them to that point it seems to me that we have a number of people who when you say well a lot of people say well I was born this and I'm not that anymore and they have a but they have a vocabulary from their youth or they have a vocabulary until they were hurt enough to leave but there are people who have absolutely no religious vocabulary they just have never been exposed to it they call them the nuns and it's N-O-N-E not N-U-N-S and I mean somebody told me once well I'm a nun excuse me a break but the real the issue is that for those people they don't have the the kind of tradition internal tradition which if you were a Christian Catholic or Protestant evangelical if you were a Jew reformed Orthodox or conservative if you were a Buddhist if you were a Hindu if you were a Zoroastrian you have that that religious companionship shall I say you might not be real active but you know that they're connected with you all right now for the nuns those nuns N-O-N-E-S they don't have that so sometimes I think they're the ones that most need the legislation that would allow them to make this decision and then this is what I have a friend who who is in Oregon and of course have had the rule they are longer than most of the states and they have a studied nun that only three to six percent of the people who have the medication available to them use it so that means that 97 to 95 people don't use it know what does that mean what that means is it's a security like having something on my table that if it really got to the point where I couldn't stand that I could do that but only three to six percent actually do and I think that that's a part of the argument that hasn't really been discussed and it should be that should be brought into the fact that that's really what we're talking about we're not talking about for example there's a Sacred Heart sister now a real dear 95 years old and last year and just the week before Easter she got this diagnosis of a terminal terminal illness cancer in her spine and so forth and it's going to be very painful she says you're so cute she said to me now I ask you how could I be upset when this is the week before Easter and I know what Jesus went through on the way to the cross see she has the vocabulary of the tradition and she also has the love of the people who support her and she's in a supportive community she doesn't need pills she's being kept comfortable you know so I say come on let's let's talk about the people who don't have that and and that's to my mind that's a matter of social justice it's a matter of necessity and I mind that the I mind that sometimes the institutional churches especially the big ones and in Hawaii the Catholics are the biggest and I have the best vote I mean you know if you have and and so I just always say I am a practicing Catholic don't get me wrong do not tell me I'm not a Catholic I am a very good Catholic thank you kindly but I am talking for the people who were not get any kind of religious tradition is a gift for God's sakes you don't come out of the room and say I will not be born unless I can be born in an institutional church of course not it depends on your parents it depends on your location depends on your family and we need to have more understanding for the people who really are diminished in this area if you stop and talk to somebody who has no religious tradition I mean for me it's a it's a picnic I can talk for hours because there's a lot to say and then they say to me you really mean do you believe that yes it belief is a gift it's not it's not something that I earned it's not something that it's something I better use right and I think that's the reason why I come on these programs and you know and get into trouble I do get into trouble we all know that but that's worth it you know if you get the truth out well well that is my position you know obviously coming from that same tradition that if you choose to be a Catholic or Protestant or whatever that's your choice and if you choose not to go down this route again that's your choice that's what our program is about respecting people's choices so if you choose to have the cocktail as you mentioned then you should be allowed to make that choice and I should not stand in the way of you making that choice yeah that's what our program is about and that's that's really where the more we can the more we can help people understand this I think it's I think it's a it's a gift to the whole community even to the ones that go down and get bussed into to give the objection in the legislature I mean thank you kindly that's not quite it well that should be nice to people now they they do bring up some issues that aren't in the bill they talk about a slippery slope and they talk about old folks and the handicapped and that's not so there's no it has nothing to do with the legislation it does it's there because if you want to do harm to somebody we just saw that yesterday on the news where this kid did away with his mother you know if you want to do harm to somebody you can do it our courts are full of people that did harm to somebody and we should be more careful about how we give ethical training to people along the way I mean the Unitarian Church and the United Church of Christ have done a beautiful cooperative program to teach people respect and it it could look like sex sex education because that is a component of it and often that's where the fractures come where people don't understand their sexual behavior and their ethical behavior thank you mr. governor of Alabama I didn't do anything wrong excuse me you know how people understand what's right and wrong and they can't they don't learn it automatically they have to be taught yes you have to and unfortunately people are taught racism and they're taught a lot of nasty stuff they ought to be taught a lot of good stuff yes well sister will you come back and spend more time with us whenever we can we could just talk forever for the rest of the day I tell you if nuns were like you when I wanted to be a nun I would be a nun all but one of your kids say I mean that's not nice I have lots of children lots of grandchildren and now a great-grandchild so I have a minute let me tell you that the big vocation problem in the church is with the parents oh I wanted you to be a doctor or a lawyer or an Indian chief I wanted you to bring his grandchildren I wanted you to take care of me when I'm old give me a bit I mean that prevents vocations more than anything I know oh yes that's another one yes please come back and spend some more time with us this is absolutely wonderful there's so much history about this church I love this church and