Now Episcopalian, I grew up Southern Baptist, in the First Baptist Church of a mid-sized Texas city. There was a world of difference between the prevailing atti

Now Episcopalian, I grew up Southern Baptist, in the First Baptist Church of a mid-sized Texas city. There was a world of difference between the prevailing attitudes of mostly-multigenerational Baptists (at 5+ generations, you might even call us "ethnic Baptists") in a congregation with loads of doctors, teachers and very successful businessmen, and one with relatively recent converts and not many professionals. My Sunday School teachers always assumed I was going to college, and were proud that it was a competitive East Coast school. My mom went through her metastatic cancer surrounded by an amazing hospice chaplain who happened to also be her Sunday School teacher, helpful Sunday School classmates and other church members, and realistic expectations all around. She was pretty blunt but cheerful about what was happening, and insisted on a DNR when it started looking really futile, which one of her fellow Baptist friends witnessed without hesitation. It was a great comfort to be able to begin her obituary, "she passed away at home, surrounded by her family and friends," and her church community believed that she went to meet her Lord in peace.