Love Endures - Session One: What Makes a Person a Person?

Session One: What makes a person a person a person? What makes life worth living?

 

            As Alzheimer's disease takes away a person’s memory, it slowly erodes their personal characteristics. Many caregivers comment that Alzheimer's disease gradually erases the person they once knew. Some people with Alzheimer's disease question the value of living if they lose their memory, their personal characteristics and their independence. What makes a person a person? What gives life value? What does it mean to say “Love endures”? In this section, we’ll be exploring the various answers to these questions and evaluating these answers in light of Christian scripture, particularly 1 Corinthians 13. 

Warm ups     In this first session, take a moment and introduce yourself to the class. If you feel comfortable doing so, please relate any experience you have with a person with dementia. For those who care for someone with dementia, what are the things you feel you need to know in order to understand the disease and the person?     Think about your family and friends. What personal characteristics are most important in making them the individual they are? If you had to describe a person without describing their physical appearance, how would you describe them?         What makes life worth living for you? What things are essential to you, so that their loss would be devastating or would make life more difficult?

 

Video: Will life be worth living when I’m demented, when I’m no longer me?

Watch “Joe’s Blog” from the HBO Documentary, “The Alzheimer's Project”. The DVD can be purchased from HBO at: or you can stream the entire series at this web address: http://www.hbo.com/alzheimers/memory-loss-tapes.html.  Joe Potocny was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2004 at the age of 61. He keeps a blog called, “Living with Alzheimer’s” which can be accessed at: http://living-with-alzhiemers.blogspot.com/.

 

1.      What symptoms of dementia does Joe already display? Short term memory loss, disorientation, inability to perform complex activities.

 

 

 

2. What fears does he express? His main fear is of losing himself, of becoming a different person. As he says to his psychiatrist, “The person I was is not there anymore….”

 

 

 

3.      What does he mean when he worries about stepping “…over the line”? What will he do at that point? He tells his psychiatrist that when he has “…become a different person”, he will kill himself (“it will be over, said and done”).

 

 

 

4.      For Joe, life will no longer be worth living when he “steps over the line”. Why not? Joe ties much of his importance to what he has accomplished in the past as a computer programmer. He is able to describe who he was in the past (in terms of his job), but he can only describe himself now in terms of what he isn’t: “I was a genius and now, I’m just… not.”.

 

 

 

5.      Is Joe worried more about losing his memories or losing his identity? Why? He seems to be more worried about losing his identity. His thoughts about losing his old self by “little slices” are what prompts his comments about suicide.

 

 

 

6.      If you had Alzheimer’s disease, what would scare you the most about it?

 

 

The Loss of the Self:

A chief fear Joe expresses involves the loss of his identity. Many people find this loss to be unthinkable and unbearable. Joe expresses the common thought that when one “steps over the line for good” and loses one’s sense of achievement and identity (Joe says, “I was a genius, and now…. I’m not”), then life will no longer be worth living.

The apostle Paul wrote to a Christian community in Corinth which emphasized human achievement. Paul reminds the church that although Greco-Roman culture might assign worth and value according to achievement, the Christian way defines value in a completely different manner. Love gives human existence meaning and value, a value that persists when all abilities and all knowledge comes to an end.

 

 Read 1 Corinthians 13 and explore these questions together.

 

1. The Corinthians felt that gifts of prophecy or speaking in tongues deserved special regard. What does Paul say about the value of these gifts? Paul says that without love, the gift of prophecy, understanding and even faith means “nothing”, and speaking in tongues is nothing more than meaningless noise.

 

2. Paul lifts up love as the most valuable gift, that thing that truly gives life meaning. Without love, all gifts, all relationships are meaningless. What type of love is Paul talking about here (hint: even though we hear this passage most often at weddings, it’s not about romantic love)? The type of love to which Paul is referring is known as agape – a love that gives selflessly, that seeks for the good of others and takes Jesus’ example of sacrificial love to “…bear, believe, hope and endure”. This agape is the glue that holds Christians together in unity and prevents the factions that were forming in the Corinthian church.

 

3. Why do you think that Paul says “love never ends” in v. 8 and that love is greater than either faith or hope in v. 13? Verses 8-12 seem to represent a shift of focus for Paul. Instead of referring directly to the present-day Corinthian church, he now references the future, “when the complete comes” (v.10). New Testament scholars suggest that Paul is talking about the resurrection: standing in the presence of God, there will be no need of faith in something unseen – proof will stand before our eyes. Neither will there be a need for hope on the day that all hopes are fulfilled. What will never end, however, is the love that comes from God and is shared by a church that sees fully and knows fully.

 

4. Love is the thing that gives our gifts and our relationships meaning, that gives each member of that body of Christ value. This agape “never ends” because it comes from a God who is eternal and will be shared by the church eternal. Paul used this illustration to help the Corinthian church to see value in each member no matter their station in life. How could you apply this to the members of your family or church, especially those with dementia? Remind the class that since this love that comes from God is the thing that gives all humans value, then the value of each individual does not change, no matter their wealth, position or mental capacity. The love that endures forever gives value that endures forever even in the late stages of dementia.

 

5. Why do you think that people talk about suicide when they think about Alzheimer’s disease and nursing homes? How does the way people assign value to life differ from the way God assigns value?

 

Review: today we started on our journey together. We confronted the sentiment that there are certain things that can happen to a person that seem to make life less valuable, even worthless. We looked at what lies behind such statements as “I’d sooner be dead than live in a nursing home”, namely the thought that humans, not God, determine the ultimate meaning of life. We found that in Christian scripture, especially 1 Corinthians 13, it is not ability or talent which gives life value, but the love of God which is the foundation of all human worth. This love, agape, endures despite the loss of all knowledge and all ability. God’s love, the source of life’s value, endures.

 

 

Closing: time to wrap up. Share with the class any insights you have gained from this class, any questions you have about the material, or where we’re going with it. How can the group pray for you this week? In what other ways can the group help you this week? Close with prayer.