JONI EARECKSON TADA SPEAKS IN CALGARY JUNE 3RD 2016

This weekend there is a Christian disability conference in Calgary. It's called the 2016 Umbrella Conference and will be at Centre Street Church (http://www.cschurch.ca/umbrella/) 

My friend Joni Eareckson Tada will be delivering the keynote address. Here's her story:

A MESSAGE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE DESPAIRED OF LIFE

St. Anthony of Padue
(1195-1231)

Saint Anthony of Padua said: "Among all things that are lovable, there is one that is more lovable than the rest, and that most lovable thing is life." Amen.

It is in life that love and joy are possible, not death. The Apostle John tells us that Christ is source of life.[1] Christ came that we might have life, and have it to the full.[2]  To reject life is to reject the source of life.  

No matter how hopeless things may seem, no matter how dark our despair becomes, God is there, whether we are aware it or not. I know, there was a time when I have felt things were hopeless, and smelled the foul breath despair whispering discouragement over my shoulder. Multiple sclerosis is a cruel disease. But in my darkest times, I sensed at some primal level, there was a light just beyond the dark storm clouds that had always been there. 

"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? if I go up to  the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there; If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your right hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me, and  the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like day, for the darkness is light to you." -- Psalm 139.7-12. 


If you are sinking into darkness, no not give up. God is there -- even if you cannot sense his presence. Feelings are unreliable. Put your faith in Christ. He is the light of the world. His light can push back your inkiest darkness. He did for me.


Love life even if you are convinced it doesn't love you. Put your life into the hands of Christ and trust Him with complete abandon. He will lead you through your darkness into the dawn of a newness of life. He did for me.

I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you in His love. 

Mark

__________________________
[1] John 1.4.
[2] John 10.10.

CINDERELLA AND ICE CREAM

It seems like an eternity ago. My daughter sat on my lap and we read about Cinderella. She gasped and looked at me with such concern at the part where Cinderella lost her slipper. Story time was always a tender time for me with my little girl. Then we'd have ice cream.

I remember she would dance around the house living out a fairy tale. Sometimes she would let me into her world and we would dance around the living room. 

Somewhere deep inside me there was a dread of a day when the clock would strike mid-night and she would be grown and someone else would tap me on the shoulder to dance with her. I would have to bow out knowing she had found her prince.

I remember when my daughter brought her prince home to meet my wife and me. She announced she was engaged. I was happy and sad. From the day she was born I knew that day would come. On her wedding day she must have remembered Cinderella. She paused for ice cream but this time it was I wasn't with her.

Fathers, cherish the time you have with your daughters. They grow up in the blink of an eye. Before you know it they will be gone and you'll be sitting at the kitchen table eating ice cream without your Cinderella. 

[Click image or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrWMBC6yoME for Steven Curtis Chapman singing "Cinderella" 4:27]

I NEED MY GRANDCHILD !

My daughter and son-in-law are in the throes of adopting a child from Haiti. They've completed all the paperwork, jumped all the hoops, and now their file sits with the Haitian authorities for action. We wait. Week ten. We wait ... my grandchild needs to be here in our family and his/her forever home. 

Me in a hoodie

While we wait, my daughter had hoodies made to fund-raise to offset the formidable costs associated with the adoption. To order a hoodie or donate to help defray the mounting costs, go to https://www.gofundme.com/poundfamily  Thank you. I need my grandchild. 

There are playgrounds and parks we need to explore, ice cream we must enjoy, playschool and Sunday school to attend. But most of all my grandchild needs his/her family. Little one, you are already here in my heart. Love is all that matters to me now.

[Click link below or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beZ5hF-qZDY&list=PL916236501D8C5F99 for Steven Curtis Chapman's "When Love Takes You In]

LONGINGS FROM THE LAND OF NOD

Many years go, while in the midst of a vicious MS attack, I wrote an article I called LONGINGS FROM THE LAND OF NOD. I am revisiting that frightening time and the article it spawned. It appears below with appropriate alterations to ages.

__________

I dreamt of sailing a grand tall ship. Initially gentle billows

swelled beneath her massive hull.  Gradually the wind began to pick up and filled the ship’s enormous sails.  Silently the large ship started to move as though being pushed by an invisible hand.  At first, the bow gently sliced through the water as we moved forward. The great ship’s speed increased and soon a marvelous adventure was full speed ahead!  

Waves crashed against the bow sending bracing showers of salty spray over the deck to drench me.  Seagulls flew alongside the ship squawking - cheering the vessel on to its unknown destination as we banked into a westerly wind.  The wooden ship creaked and moaned as the gigantic boom pitched violently starboard and the wind-filled mainsail swung overhead across the deck. Every fiber of my body felt alive – at least in my dream. Reality is quite different:  I live on the land-locked prairie in an advanced state of multiple sclerosis; the closest ocean is a thousand miles away. 

My sailing dream came as I lay in bed drifting from consciousness, through the Land of Nod[1] toward deep sleep.  The dream was so real!  I could smell, taste and hear the wind and sea.  Eventually a rude awakening came:  My eyes flickered open to discover a body that was still half-lead, my electric wheelchair still waited beside my bed. There was no tall ship, only the walls of my bedroom bathed in blue moonlight steaming through my window.  Bed sheets rustled not sails.

In months to come, the dream started to recur and I became suspicious there was something more than a desire to sail. It was a primal desire.[2] But desire for what?  It was spiritual desire,[3] not physical desire or eroticism.  My desire had different layers, like the skins of an onion. On the surface was a desire to be free from degenerative disease, the contraptions of disability, frustration and grief. At a deeper level was a yearning for the past – my own past.  Another layer deeper still was a desire for the ages, but even that was not the whole of it.  At the core of my ecstasy was a longing for something or somewhere else I sensed was just beyond me.

The dream has a generic quality:  It does not reveal whether I am crippled or healthy, boy or man, or where the ship is headed.  I am simply sitting in a ship observing and experiencing the sensations; all that was important in my life before becomes insignificant in comparison to the sensation of sailing.  The ship in my dream is always seeking yet never arriving.  But the strongest sensation of my dream is one of longing that transcends the sea, the salt, the wind and desires the Source of it all.[4]  It is the same fleeting desire or longing I experienced beginning in early childhood before disease, disability, sorrow or pain.  It is the same longing that seems to follow humanity.[5] 

C.S. Lewis at his desk writing

C.S. Lewis’ wrote about transcendent desire in his wonderful little book Surprised by Joy. Later he spoke about it as yearning for a “far off country” or Paradise.  Lewis delivered a sermon at the Oxford Church of St. Mary, which he called The Weight of Glory. He said, in part:

“ I am trying to tear open the inconsolable secret in each one of you – the secret which hurts so much that you take revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.”[6]

Lewis likened this desire for Paradise to the “echo of a tune we have yet to hear” or “the scent of a flower we have not yet found”.[7] For an incurably ill man like myself, these images strike a full chord.  Suffering intensifies spiritual yearnings, desire, longing for that flower I cannot quite find; it lies somewhere just beyond the door of temporal reality.

But what lies just beyond temporal reality that fuels this near constant yearning?  It is certainly not a sailboat, seagulls or an ocean.  If someone were to magically plop me into a sailing ship tomorrow, I think it would merely break my heart to discover that my fantasy was only a metaphor for something else, something grander, something other-worldly.  It would fall short of the ecstasy I imagined; I would soon discover that the thrilling images of wind-filled sails and the sea were inadequate metaphors for something that transcends my feeble mind or ability to even conceptualize.  The yearning is for Paradise.

The tall ship of my dream cannot reach “the far off country” because such a destination is beyond my temporal experience to imagine (or the experience of anyone else this side of the grave).  I have only tantalizing hints of somewhere else that occasionally well up from deep within,[8] tantalizing promises[9] and hope of the “far off country”[10] – the scent of the “flower not yet found” – to excite my longing.  Metaphors schmetafors!  The images turn bitter if dwelt upon.  They only point toward the ancient Joys of Heaven:[11] They are not Heaven.  Nature is a poor reflection of paradise, and ships are for mortals of little faith.[12]  I remain exiled with all Christians, spiritually drowsy, yearning, desiring in the Land of Nod.  The longing, the Romance, the desire for heaven’s ecstasy cannot be satisfied in the natural world, only in the next.

I must not rush headlong or prematurely into eternity to seek

the Object of my desire (Christ),[13] or escape the despair of life inside a diseased and withering carcass.  That would presume upon God’s mercy and Divine plan: He is a God of light not darkness[14], the author of life[15] not death.  Without light there is no life.[16] Control of life is not mine to seize plunging it into darkness, only God’s to give and take[17]  Freedom cannot be forced!  Paradise rushes for no man’s agenda, the Joy of Heaven cannot be pilfered.  It is not mine to seize or possess yet.  I am being prepared, purified, refined in a fire, made fit for eternity.  Foretastes must do for now.

John Donne
(1572-1631)

Obsessing over foretastes, sensations or vapors of the soul is counterproductive and only reveals spiritual immaturity by seeking escapism from a miserable fate.  The mystery of life is growth not desire. The hope of life is Christ not escape from sorrow or pain.   In fact, suffering, disability or pain can be a blessing.  There is blessing in suffering, the sufferer must look for it and be open to what is being said by it.  John Donne is best known for his immortal words about human interdependence “No man is an island, entire of it self; …” The same Meditation deals with the fruits of human affliction: 

"All mankind is of one Author, and one volume; when one Man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; …God employs several translators; some pieced are translated by Age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice, but God's hand is in every translation; .…"

"…for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.  No man hath affliction enough, that is not matured, and ripened by it, and made fit for God."[18]    

Dreams about ships and the sea are enjoyable and harmless.  But we are not to dwell upon snippets of spiritual ecstasy or romance or fleeting moments of spiritual longings.  Man matures more by agony than by ecstasy.  C.S. Lewis said “Joy is the serious business of heaven”[19] but spiritual growth is the serious business of our time on earth.  

Jesus calls humanity to lives of meekness,[20] as He lived.[21]   Meekness is more than being mild and gentle.  It is a temperament of the soul whereby we accept God’s dealings with us as good (whatever that may involve) without resisting or disputing.[22]  We accept, by faith in Christ, that our trials and sufferings are making us fit for eternity and that we are somehow being prepared to assume our holy citizenship in the Celestial City.[23]  Sometimes the fastest way home is the longest road and I wish that were not so.

I have been chronically ill with multiple sclerosis for more than thirty-two years.  My life has degenerated from being a normal, able-bodied, athletic husband and father to spending most of my days in an electric wheelchair.  My next mailing address will probably be a nursing home.   By most people’s standard, life is over for me at the age of sixty-three. Some people believe my life was over by age of thirty when the MS was first diagnosed.  Not true.

The sicker I become, the more evident Christ’s presence becomes to me.   Like the fourth figure in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Christ is with me in the fire of MS: [24] unlike Shadrach, Mechach and Abednego the fire has ravaged my body (but not my soul).  Jesus sits with me even in the ashes of my misery and comforts me.  He assures me there is a divine purpose to the fiery torments[25] and that we shall walk away from scorching flames into the warm light of His Kingdom.[26]  He talks of water and wind that takes me away from the fire to where I do not yet know. The image is so real – I can hear the wind and feel the spray of water on my face. [27]  Once again, I am overcome by a transcendent longing. At last I understand that the ecstasy is inextricably linked to the divine attributes of God’s love.  One day there will be no more foretastes but the real banquet; no more wandering, no more longings from the Land of Nod.  I will be home. I will see the Object of my desire.[28] 

---

[1] ‘Land of Nod’: East of Eden (see Ge.4.16).  Nod means to wander, to be exiled (see verses 12 & 14).  In a sense all of humanity is in Nod having sinned and cut off from Eden.  For the purposes of this essay, Nod serves as a play on words as in, “To nod off to sleep”.

[2] Ps. 63.1; Is. 26.9a.

[3] Ps. 42.1-2.

[4] Ge.1.1&10; Ne.9.6; He.11.3.

[5] Ecc.3.11b.

[6] C.S, Lewis, They Asked for a Paper, (London: Geoffrey Bles Ltd., 1962), p. 200.

[7] Lewis, p. 200.

[8] Lu.16.19-22; 2Co.12.2-4; Re.21.2-4.

[9] Ps.49.15;  Jn.1.12-13; 3.16; 5.24-25; 6.40, 11.25; 

[10] Is.33.17 &21; He.11.10, 12.22.  

[11] Ps.16.11.

[12] Mt.14.25-31.

[13] Ex.20.13.  The command “Thou shall not murder” is non-specific and so we must conclude this includes killing oneself.   St. Augustine in City of God, (Book I. Chap. 20) concluded that the command “Thou shall not murder” extends to self-destruction.

[14] Ge.1.3-4; Jhn.1.4-5, 9; Jhn.8.12 & 9.5; 2Sam.22.29;

[15] Ge.1.26-27; Ps.100.3. Jhn.1.4;

[16] Jn. 1.5 & 9;

[17] Job 1.21, Job 10.8-9.

[18] John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, (Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1975), Meditation XVII, p.86-87.

[19] C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, (London, Fontana Books, 1963), p.95.

[20] Mt. 5.5.

Meek (adjective) PRAÜS or PRAOS (πραΰς) denotes  gentle or mild. As a noun: PRAÜTĒS or PRAOTĒS, or an earlier form (πραΰτης) denotes meekness.  In its use in Scripture, in which it has a fuller, deeper significance that in non-scriptural Greek writings, it consists not in a person’s outward behavior only; nor yet in his relations to his fellow-men; as little in his mere natural disposition.  Rather it is an inwrought grace of the soul; and exercises of it are first and chiefly towards God.  Definitions taken from W.E. Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (London, Zondervan, 1981).  

[21] Mt. 11.29.  It is said of Christ the Messiah in Mt. 21.5 from Zech 9.9.

[22] Ps. 94.12; Pr.3.11-12; Re.3.19.

[23] John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, signifying Heaven.

[24] Dan.3.25

[25] Is.48.10; Ps.119.67; 1Co.3.13-15; 1Pe.1.7;

[26] Ps. 4-5

[27] Jhn.3.5-8. 

[28] Job 19.26-27; Ps.17.15; Is.33.17; 1Cor.13.12; Re.22.4

A REAL BATHROOM ISSUE

Disabled people in the United States =19%. The number of transgender people in US = 0.3%. I'm concerned with proper bathroom access for people with various disabilities. 

A CONVERSATION ABOUT LIFE AND DEATH, FAITH AND DESPAIR, AND MY DISABILITY JOURNEY

Deacon Pedro Guevara-Mann & me

I recently had a conversation with Deacon Pedro Guevara-Mann, host of the Salt and Light TV show Catholic Focus. We explored topics of life and death, faith and despair. We talked about Canada's move to legalize assisted suicide for the sick and disabled. He asked about my own thirty-two year disability journey with multiple sclerosis. The cameras were rolling. To watch the 25 minute interview click on link below. 

http://saltandlighttv.org/catholicfocus/?f=end-of-life-human-life-matters 

ANGELUS

My parish , Saint Vital

In a previous blog post I wrote about the Catholic Church at the top of the hill in the town where I live. The post appeared under the title "A Special Place to help calm my fears". See http://www.humanlifematters.org/2016/05/a-special-place.html 

The bell in the steeple rings three times each day throughout the seasons and marks the gentle rhythms of daily life for my wife and me. While our grandchildren have often used the sound of the noontime bell as a signal to come home to Grandma's house for lunch, ... It also serves as a reminder for me to quietly pray the Angelus.

A CATHOLIC RESPONSE TO ASSISTED SUICIDE

Under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Edmonton (Canada), in partnership with Salt and Light TV, held a 5 part series on assisted suicide. Below is a link to the programs in that series. Special thanks to Archbishop Richard Smith. 

http://saltandlighttv.org/specialfeatures/every-life-matters.php

A SPECIAL PLACE TO HELP CALM MY FEAR

I live in the French Canadian town of Beaumont, Alberta (Canada). For over a century a Catholic church has stood at the crest of the hill that the town is named after. My little house is at the bottom of the hill. For close to 30 years I have seen the church from my backyard. It's bell rings three times a day. It's Saint Vital and it is my parish. It is a special place for me. Both my children were married there. Two of my grandchildren received the Sacrament of Baptism there.

Many times throughout the decades, during multiple sclerosis attacks, my heart would fill with fear and sorrow. Sleepless nights tormented me as MS ravaged my body. When I was able, I would make my way to the top of the hill in my electric wheelchair to sit before the Blessed Sacrament. Solitude. But I was not alone: Christ was there. He consoled me in the flickering shadows of candlelight. His words would come to me in a whisper: Be not afraid. I AM with you. [1] My heart calmed and my sorrow receded. Eventually I would go back down the hill to my darkened house to finally sleep: Peace. 

Mark

(Below is Saint Vital at night.).

____________________

[1] Matthew 28:10.

I'M ONE OF CANADA'S EXPENDABLE

And so we wait for "progressive" Canada to "progress" to its next

Me speaking against
Canada's assisted suicide law
and calling Christian doctors
to completely refuse to cooperate
with medical killing

phase of choosing and toward self-annihilation. We kill our unwanted children before birth under a mistaken guise of choice. Soon we will be killing our defeated sick and disabled citizens, under the mistaken guise of choice. Whether it is choosing death for another or one's self, it is hardly progressive. It is actually regression to a Dark Age where life is expendable. I am one of the expendable. God help me if I despair. Suicide prevention will be withheld from me. Assisted suicide will be offered instead. I meet all the criteria to be euthanized if there's nobody to defend me at a point when I cannot defend myself.

Much of humanity in the 21st Century Canada believes it has progressed beyond a need for God. In doing so it is turning the lives of the unwanted and most vulnerable into hell on earth.

RECOMMENDATIONS ON CANADA'S ASSISTED SUICIDE BILL C-14

Canada's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is studying Canada's bill C-14, to legalize physician assisted suicide euphemistically labelled "medical assistance in dying". The bill has received the 1st of 3 readings in Canada's Parliament. The Standing Committee invited input for recommended amendments before 2nd reading. Most MPs have bought into the false compassion of medically assisted suicide.  Barring a miracle, Canada is going to legalize assisted suicide. My two recommendations focus on protection of religious liberty of Christian medical professionals not to be forced to participate.

See below. They restricted input to 750 words that must be submitted by May 2nd 2016. If you wish to give input, don't feel you have to abide by this artificially imposed time-frame. Contact emails can be found at the end of this post

Mark

____________

Mike MacPherson                             Sent as email attachment

Committee Clerk

Standing Committee on Justice & Human Rights

House of Commons

OTTAWA, ON, K1A 0A6

Dear Mr. MacPherson:

                                  

Recommendations for C-14

I wish with all my heart things had not come to this point where medically killing is being legalized for suicidal sick and disabled people whose deaths are "reasonably foreseeable" (whatever that means). Let me begin by registering my outright opposition to Bill C-14 or any other law that weakens protections for vulnerable life, like mine.

As I mentioned earlier, I live with advanced multiple sclerosis (MS) and meet virtually all the criteria of “grievous and irremediable medical condition” – as defined in 241.2 of Bill C-14: I have a serious and incurable illness that has severely disabled me (241.2(a)). After thirty-two years with aggressive MS, I am in an advanced state of irreversible decline (241.2.(b)). My disease has caused enduring physical and psychological suffering (241.2.(c)), for more than 3 decades. There have been times when my state seemed intolerable. If C-14 had been available back in the mid-1980s when my grief was at its height, and if I had not been surrounded by the love of my wife and family, my faith community, and my God, I might have opted for assisted suicide. Things were that horrible. But they lifted up my value as someone worth protecting and cherishing, even when I doubted my own value. I am so happy today I did not opt for suicide. I never would have known my five beautiful grandchildren.

Medically assisted death is called palliative care – not help with suicide. Assisted suicide is a profound abandonment of people at the very time they need a most tender care. 

There are two deaths that occur in helping someone killing themselves: The first death happens in the suicidal person when you agree their life is unworthy of living. The second death occurs with the deed. (In actual fact, there is also a third death. It is the death of conscience in the person who assists in the suicide.) Canada does not need more suicide. Canada needs the best palliative care available to all Canadians at their point of need. That brings me to my first recommendation for amendments to the proposed law.

Recommendation #1: Include an amendment to C-14  to recognize and fortify Charter guarantees of freedom of conscience and religion and their expression. Physicians, nurses and pharmacists who have profound conscientious or religious objections to participating, in any way, with euthanasia or assisted suicide must not be forced into it or required to refer patients to doctors who are willing to kill. This must be unequivocal in the legislation! Such emphatic recognition of religious freedom is a hallmark of a pluralistic society.

There are forces at play to force this on them.[1] Imbed in the legislation recognition of the supremacy of Charter guarantees of freedom of conscience and religion, and its expression (CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, Section 2, (a,b)).

From a Christian point of view, the Canadian Supreme Court decision on assisted suicide legitimized something that is intrinsically evil. Any Christian medical professionals can not comply. Recognize this by exempting medical professionals with conscientious objections and curtail provincial or professional associations from imposing participation in assisted suicide or forcing them to refer for assisted suicide. Mitigate the extent of this moral evil by endorsing conscience rights for doctors, nurses and pharmacists who have deep moral objections to participating in any way with medically assisted suicide.

       

Recommendation # 2: Ensure places of safe haven exist for people like me and my family, such as Catholic healthcare institutions, where we know euthanasia and assisted suicide are not practised. 

My family and I need to be able to rest assured the only medically assisted death I will receive is palliative care that rejects assisted suicide and euthanasia. The structure you are setting up will make people like me fear hospitals and nursing homes.

There are plenty of doctors and nurses willing to euthanize patients in secular health care situations. I don’t want them. My family and I need to know I can go someplace to receive care that will not acquiesce to euthanasia or assisted suicide – even if I request it because of depression, feeling I am a burden, or multiple sclerosis has affected my mental state.[2]

Thank you for considering my recommendations.

Mark Davis Pickup

---

[1] See Report of the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted  Dying, Recommendations 10 & 11. Also see Michael Cook, “Canada’s euthanasia Leviathan”, MercatorNet.com, http://www.mercatornet.com/careful/view/canadas-euthanasia-leviathan/17961 

[2] See A LETTER TO MY DOCTOR NOT TO KILL ME. I placed the text of that letter on my blog. See http://www.humanlifematters.org/2016/04/a-letter-to-my-doctor-not-to-kill-me.html

______________________

Contacts:

Mike MacPherson, clerk to the Standing Committee of Justice and Human Rights email: JUST@parl.gc.ca

- Anthony Housefather, Chair, Standing Committee on Justice & Human Rights, email Anthony.Housefather@parl.gc.ca

- Ted Falk, Vice-Chair, Standing Committee on Justice & Human Rights, Ted.Falk@parl,gc,ca

- Murray Rankin, Vice-Chair, Standing Committee on Justice & Human Rights, Murray.Rankin@parl.gc.ca

Other committee members include: Chris Bittle - Chris.Bittle@parl.gc.ca, Michael Cooper -Michael.Cooper@parl.gc.ca, Colin Fraser - Colin.Fraser@parl.gc.ca, Ahmed Hussen - Ahmed.Hussen@parl.gc.ca, Ron McKinnon - Ron.McKinnon, Rob Nicholson - Rob.Nicholson@parl.gc.ca