The Manifold Letters

Nearly Beloved No 92 Death and the Best Interests of the Patient.   In an earlier Dearly Beloved letter (No 60) I told of arguments put forward by Jonathan Sumption, the ex member of the Supreme Court, when he gave a talk nearby here in France. One argument of his I did not deal with was that, in our society, there is little thought about or expectation of death, yet when death and serious illness seem more probable during an epidemic, then people are afraid and some politicians may exploit that feeling in a way which gives them greater control. Surely it is true that modern medicine has been a victim of its own success. People expect medicine to heal them and they do not expect to die, even of serious illness.  That is a relatively new development, my father always said that before the formation of he NHS, (ie pre July 1948) country people only called in the doctor when someone was actually on their deathbed -- that was partly because they could not afford to call him e...

  Nearly Beloved, 91 Questions About the Nature of Questions . Last night at St Clement's Church the choir sang a diversity of music including, Poulenc's Four Motets entitled Tenebrae factae sunt – which might be loosely translated as “ There was darkness ”. These are difficult, modern, meditative pieces but they were beautifully and movingly sung by St Clement's Choir conducted and trained by Karol Jaworski. The source of the Tenebrae is to be found in Mark 15:33 which describes Christ's crucifixion: “ And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour .” T his service, its hymns, motets and varied readings, raised the most demanding questions of Christian belief. Is any question more demanding of our understanding than that posed in the second of the motets, Christ's cry from the cross: “My God, why hast though forsaken me?' Altogether the varied texts on the service sheet contained twelve qu...