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Suffering, Grace and Euthanasia

10/8/2014

1 Comment

 
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The American Life League has circulated a meme with this text:

Suffering is a grace-filled opportunity to participate in the passion of Jesus Christ. Euthanasia selfishly steals that opportunity.

This statement is jam-packed with problems. First of all, the use of the word “steals” implies that euthanasia is generally, or even always, something the living inflict upon the dying without their knowledge or consent. Grandma’s looking a little peaky; let’s put her out of her misery.

I have seen articles citing studies showing that many patients in Belgium and the Netherlands are euthanised without their knowledge or consent, and I am not prepared to comment on that except by quoting Augustine: abusus non tollit usum--abuse does not cancel out right use. Many things that are right, good and fitting are abused, and they are still right, good and fitting. A thing ought not to be outlawed because some people may abuse it. Denying the mentally competent a choice because some might take advantage of the incompetent is monstrously patronizing at best.

Secondly, end-of-life care has come a long way since the days of Jack “Dr. Death” Kevorkian, and the choice between suffering and suicide is largely a false dilemma. Palliative care has gotten so good that people simply do not need to die in pain the way they used to (except in very rare cases.)  I do not mean to imply that the loss of control and the ever-increasing restrictions and dependency attendant on degenerative diseases are not suffering; they are, of course, and there’s nothing we can do about that, for the most part. But we are far better at controlling pain than we used to be.

But the most troubling aspect of this meme for me as a Christian is the way is abuses the Catholic notion of “offering up” our suffering, debasing the idea for the faithful and misrepresenting it to those outside.

Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.   –Colossians 1:24

The practice is, in itself, empowering—or can be. When suffering is inevitable, “offering it up” for God to use for redemptive purposes turns us from passive sufferers to active spiritual strivers. It gives us the option of putting our pain to spiritual use rather than simply enduring it.

The obvious question, of course, is whether such offering-up is of any value when suffering is inevitable anyway. A story from India tells of a man pouring grain from a high tower to allow the wind to blow away the chaff while the kernels fell to the ground.[i] When the wind picked up to the point where it was blowing away the whole grains, the man decided that he would offer that grain to God. If you’re going to lose something anyway, offering it up seems pretty meaningless. But is the alternative—suffering unnecessarily for the sake of being able to offer up one’s suffering--any more tenable? Does palliative care “steal” spiritual opportunity, too?

However we answer these question, these choices—whether or not to endure suffering for redemptive purposes, whether or not loss of control is endurable even in the absence of pain, whether or not to avail ourselves of palliative care—are choices that only the afflicted can make. As a Dutch blogger[ii] who suffers from a degenerative disease of the nervous system put it,

If you personally believe that euthanasia shouldn’t be done then don’t use that option. You’re free to do with your life as you wish and live it according to your views. But you cannot use those religious views to advocate for legislation that would force someone to go through something they don’t want to. Some have very good reasons to say “Please, no more.”

[i] Swami Tyagananda told this story at the Boston Vedanta Center.

[ii] http://www.realsceptic.com/2014/02/12/suffering-euthanasia-passion-jesus-christ/#comment-27106

 


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"Spiritual But Not Religious"

10/8/2014

3 Comments

 
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“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the LORD. –Jeremiah 23:1

* * *

“Mrs. Lincoln, the theatre is really a fine institution, and I hate seeing you allow that one thing to deprive you of the broad spectrum of culture and entertainment the theatre offers.”

True? Absolutely. Fair? Possibly.

Helpful? No. Unkind? Definitely.

I am afraid I have played a similar role with people who identify as “Spiritual, but Not Religious.” I hear them say that religion is all rules, dogmas, abusiveness and authoritarianism, because that is what their experience has taught them. When I tell them that my experience is of acceptance, support, fellowship, intellectual stimulation, music and the arts, opportunities for service, and a story huge and awesome enough for my while life to fit inside it, I’m not trying to invalidate their experience, emotions or choices—but I’m afraid that’s what they hear.

They see anti-gay bigotry; I saw my parish sponsor the first AIDS hospice in its rural Pennsylvania county. They see judgmentalism toward unwed mothers; I attended a church that ran a free daycare center. They see priests who prey on altar boys; I see nuns who nurse the sick and care for the poorest of the poor. They see the blow-dried peddlers of the “prosperity gospel;” I see faith-based coalitions demonstrating for living wage and gun-control laws.

I want to say to the SBNRs that their experience is not of religion per se, but of religion distorted and perverted. But many of them are so raw, so armored and defended around their choices—choices they made, in many cases, against fierce opposition from family and religious community—that they cannot hear that. If I suggest they aren’t looking at the big picture, they hear me telling them they’re wrong. They carry a soft, painful wound, and they have so hardened around it that the mere utterance of a word can put them on high alert.

So just to be clear, here’s what I mean by “religion.”

1) I mean what the word itself literally means: “that which ties together.” Whatever ties your whole life together is your religion. For Scrooge, it was money; for Capt. Ahab, it was the pursuit of the white whale. For the Dalai Lama, it is kindness.

2) I mean a disciplined practice. Religion is what shows up for work when spirituality calls in sick. It is motions to go through when inspiration fails. It is the “working the Steps” that enables Twelve Steppers to “fake it till they make it.” It is ethical and moral codes of conduct.

Any relationship takes work; if I only behaved like a married person when the spirit moved me, I wouldn’t stay married for long. And as a person who has struggled on and off with depression, I cannot overstate the importance of getting my sorry butt to church on Sunday and to the meditation cushion on the other days, even when those are the last things I feel like doing. That’s what keeps the channels open; when spiritual inspiration comes home, I want it to find the fridge stocked and the lights on.

3) I mean community, whether a Buddhist sangha, a Catholic parish, a Jewish congregation, a Quaker meeting, a Kabbalist circle, a book group or a Twelve Step room—or any other collection of humans who are there to support you on your path: to pray with you, listen to you, or talk you down when you want to use.

4) I mean service. Sponsoring other Friends of Bill, canvassing for internal hiring at the Philly airport, cooking and serving meals for the homeless, listening to people who are hurting.

5) Finally, I mean reverence. Most often, this takes the form of devotion to one’s chosen form of the divine, but it can also mean saluting the Buddhas of one’s lineage, cultivating a relationship with one’s Higher Power, or contemplating the wonders of nature. It also includes prayer, aspirations (such as Buddhism’s “May all beings awaken and be free,”) or “holding someone in the Light,” Quaker style.

If I had to put it into a single sentence, I’d say that religion is a set of tools to support spirituality. If you call yourself “spiritual” and you have these things, you are “religious” to me. If you don’t have them, then I plainly don’t understand what you mean by “spiritual.”

I used to urge my Wiccan friends to quit wasting emotional energy on trying to get people to stop using the word “witch” in ways they don’t like, call themselves “Wiccans” already, save their strength for better things and move on. And though nobody’s asked for it, that’s still my prescription. But I realize that what’s sauce to them as goose is also sauce to me as gander, so here’s what I’m prepared to do: 1) stop telling people that the thing that hurt them isn’t religion but something else; 2) start calling what I mean by religion “Following a Spiritual Path,” or something—whatever it takes to keep that wall from going up between me and my fellow humans; 3) save my strength for better things—like ministering to the hurting from their own point of view rather than trying to get them to understand mine—and 4) move on.

I’m going to agree to let the “R-word” go, even though I believe lots of people are misunderstanding it and using it wrong. Because although I am powerfully drawn to the magnetic north of setting people straight, I know what True North really is: helping the wounded to heal—and if their wounds were dealt by people claiming to profess what I profess, then their claim on my forbearance is even greater.

And to the players, predators and hate-mongers who are poisoning the well of religion, I say, with the prophet Jeremiah, “’Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!’” declares the LORD.”



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    Scott Robinson is an interfaith minister, musician, and spiritual director in Philadelphia. Hear his music at www.mandalaband.net.

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