TRYING TO AVOID THE SHARP END OF THE NEEDLE IN CANADA

Canada has become a very dangerous place for the incurably ill and disabled. Last year more than 2,000 people were euthanized by lethal injection. Canada's so-called "Medical Assistance in Dying" is a euphemism for euthanasia. It is in such a climate that I asked the letter below be put on my medical file.

A MESSAGE OF HOPE FOR A TIME OF DESPAIR AND GRIEF

American bioethical thinker, Wesley J. Smith wrote a column for the National Review entitled "Canada Medical Doctors Kill Thousands in 2018."  He writes:

"Canadian doctors committed thousands of homicides in 2018. According to an interim report published by the government, in the first ten months of last year, doctors lethally injected 2,613 patients (with one assisted suicide) — and that doesn’t include the homicides committed by doctors in Quebec, Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut. 

This means well over 3,000 people are killed by their doctors each year in Canada, which — if my math is correct — is more than 250 a month, more than 58 a week, and more than eight per day. Heck, that’s about one every three hours."

What has happened to the beloved nation of my birth? We meet suicidal terminal and disabled people with lethal injections rather than palliative care and treat murder as though it is palliative care! Canada does not have assisted suicide, it has euthanasia! Before the brave and brutal 21st Century, killing was never caring. 

Most Canadians requesting and receiving lethal injections are within my age group. I am familiar with overwhelming sorrow and grief that can drive a person to want to die? I also know there is a hope that lies beyond the sorrow. Morning always follows the darkest night. 

And so I want to revisit a column I originally wrote twelve years ago for a now-defunct Canadian Catholic newspaper. I've updated it.

___________

Reflecting on the despair that can accompany loss, sorrow, and grief

Acquired and incurable disability is a lonesome journey. At the deepest point of
grieving, life can seem like an endless series of disappointments, accommodations and compromises, lost opportunities and closed doors, inaccessibility, and inexpressible sorrow. One can feel totally alone

even in a crowded room. It's not that friends are unkind, just hard to find. I know, I've had serious multiple sclerosis (MS) for over thirty-five years. I have been one of that "great family of the heavy-hearted" who must live with sorrow and grief of degenerative neurological or other disabilities.

Each night we dread making our way to the terror of our bedrooms. Darkness awaits to engulf a grieving person in fitful sleep-wake torment. A chorus of self-doubt, despair and fear whisper, "You are alone. You are a burden to people. They wish you were not here." It is then in what seems like an endless night, lying with wide-eyed fear, staring into the darkness, that a bed becomes a rack. The horrible truth of misfortune seems too great to be borne. Throbbing hearts lie open and like a gaping wound. Whimpers break into to sobs of raw, pulsating sorrow.

NO ENDLESS NIGHT

Grievers awake! Emotions are unreliable. They are apt to intensify the feelings of isolation out of all proportion! Tears can obscure vision and distort perceptions of reality. There is no such thing as an endless night. It only seems that way. The longest night must eventually give way to dawn. It is only fear and grief that tell us otherwise. Even the pitch black of Arctic winter days will, in due course, transform into a peculiar summer of midnight sun.

VICTORS NOT VICTIMS

Many people with profound disabilities have risen above their predicaments and the abyss of intense grief to great heights of human achievements—sometimes in spite of their disabilities and sometimes because of their disabilities.

Ludwig Van 
Beethoven

Perhaps the most famous example is Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827). Most of his vast contribution to the world of music was written in partial or total deafness. George Frederic
Handel (1685-1759) suffered from manic depression. His beloved Messiah was written at the end of a depressive episode. John Milton (1608-1674) was blind when he wrote Paradise Lost (1667). Paradise Lost is generally considered one of the greatest epics in the English language. (Remember that John Milton also wrote Paradise Regained.) Elizabeth Browning was an "invalid and recluse" to use the phrase of one biographer.  There was nothing invalid about her! Her gift for lyric poetry is with us to this day and still enjoyed by millions of people. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was physically crippled by polio at the age of thirty-nine; Despite this, America's 32nd President led an entire nation through the Great Depression and the 2nd World War!

EVERYONE IS AFRAID 

Grief, sorrow and fear are not unique to people with severe disabilities: They are common to the human experience. Everybody is acquainted with sorrow (or they will be). Everyone is afraid. The boastful "No Fear" t-shirt is not true. With the exception of babies and small children, everyone has fears from the past and fears about the future.

Most people are afraid of serious in-depth self-examination because they might come face-to-face with inner-demons, character flaws, and emotional handicaps. They might be challenged to go through a difficult process of change. Some people fear being forgotten while others fear being remembered.

Some people are afraid of committing themselves wholly to love yet are afraid of being unloved. Many people are afraid of committing themselves to lives with purpose—yet despise those who do. Others are afraid of dying outside of God's grace yet refuse to truly live within it.

GREAT FAMILY OF THE HEAVY-HEARTED

Helen Keller

Helen Keller (1880-1968) went deaf and blind before she was two years of age. In a time when society restricted the lives of people disabilities—not to mention women—Helen Keller overcame monumental obstacles to rise to international stature advocating for world peace, women's suffrage, human dignity and civil rights for other people with disabilities. She once said:

"When it seems that our sorrow is too great to be borne, let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance. Inevitably, we feel about us their arms, their sympathy, and their understanding."

That's my point! All humanity longs for affinity and the understanding of others. All humanity longs for belonging. A young person grieving their paralysis from a recent spinal cord injury may not yet know it but their grief has given them entrance into that "great family of the heavy-hearted" that spans centuries. Those of us who are full-fledged members of that "great family" have the Passion of Christ as our chief example and inspiration.

AFFINITY WITH CHRIST

It is to Christ we can ultimately turn with the knowledge that his sufferings dwarfed all human pains and sorrows. There is no grief Jesus does not understand! Christ is the ultimate affirmation. He is the ultimate over-comer. He can change us, if we allow it, to become victors rather than victims.

A PRO-LIFE MOVIE SCRIPT

I have retired from public speaking but I've taken on a new project. Over the past year, I've written a pro-Life movie script loosely upon the events of my life. What am I going to do with it? Well, the next step is to find finances and expertise to produce it. That's my next task. I leave it in God's hands. See the story outline below.

JOURNEY TOWARD LOVE

Story outline

 by

Mark Davis Pickup

HumanLifeMatters@shaw.ca

This is a story about a couple’s journey through the tragedies of abortion and catastrophic disability. It is a story about love’s capacity to convict human hearts of sin, transcend regrets, grief, despair and defeat to find purpose and meaning in the value of life. It is a love story based, in part, upon my life.

Now, as an old man, I have written a screenplay loosely based on those experiences and the power of God's

love to transcend it all.  The script has the working title of “JOURNEY TOWARD LOVE.” It straddles 2 genres: Christian and Romance. The story spans nearly 5 decades (1969-2018).  JOURNEY TOWARD LOVE is a pro-Life story.

It follows the fictional lives of Dan and Laura Fraser from teenage lovers through the heartbreak of abortion and trials of their marriage after Dan develops multiple sclerosis.  Dan and Laura struggle to accept their new lives with his severe disability. At the same time, they see a slow North American drift toward assisted suicide and euthanasia acceptance for the sick and disabled. Dan becomes convinced he must speak against it. He and Laura travel across Canada and America speaking to politicians, schools, universities, churches, community groups, warning about the perils to the incurably ill and disabled (like Dan). Dan becomes weaker as his multiple sclerosis progresses until he is bedridden.  He loses everything, except love.  And yet, in the end, Dan and Laura are at peace with God and themselves. They discover, through their relationship with Jesus Christ, that the only thing that really matters in life is love (both human and divine). Laura continues to take the message to anyone who will listen that every life is sacred from conception to natural death.

TIME TO STEP ASIDE

I could barely get through the
presentation's Q & A

About a year ago, I delivered my last address after 36 years working for the pro-Life cause across North America. I was exhausted and stumbled through my presentation. (See link below)

It's time to step aside and let a new generation of pro-Life activists take the helm of this sacred cause. 

I will continue with the HumanLifeMatters blog and do other creative work.
https://vimeo.com/261214898

CHRISTIAN UNITY

Twelve years ago, Pope Benedict met with Latin American bishops to discuss, among other things, "a surge in Pentecostal Protestantism." At about the same time Christianity Today reported that the President of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) had rejoined the Roman Catholic Church to the horror of many ETS members.[1]  According to Nelson's New Christian Dictionary (2001) The Evangelical Theological Society was founded in 1949 and is comprised of "North American Protestant theologians who promote conservative biblical scholarship and the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Scriptures." In 2017, Hank Haanegraff, the evangelical Bible Answer Man and host of a popular radio program converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church (in doing so he lost about a thousand radio stations). I am constantly hearing about Protestants becoming Catholics[2] and Catholics becoming Protestants.[3] 

[In this post I will not address Catholics leaving the Catholic Church over the sex abuse crisis. That's a topic for a different post.]

What's going on with crossing the Catholic-protestant divide of faithful Christians? Does it matter? My thought is this: Not particularly. Are we more concerned with protecting denominational empires than building God's kingdom? As a former evangelical Protestant and now an evangelical Catholic I have noticed each has something to offer.

Protestantism

Before I go any further, let me draw a distinction. Within Protestantism, there is a further breakdown between evangelical and liberal denominations. The gulf between the liberal and evangelical churches can as wide or wider than the Protestant-Catholic divide! In my opinion, much of the liberal Protestantism has deviated away from historical biblical Christianity to the point of being reduced to secularism expressed in theological terms.

Evangelicals

Evangelical denominations have differences amongst themselves but unite in that they are Bible-based and emphasize personal salvation solely through being “born again.” The Nelson Dictionary I mentioned above says they have an “uncompromising commitment to the person of Jesus Christ.” As an evangelical Catholic, I have the same uncompromising commitment. In fact, it is my first concern.

I believe it is this aspect of evangelical Christianity that is most attractive to many Catholics. Having a

personal relationship with Jesus, that is so eloquently illustrated by evangelicals, including Pentecostals, that concerned Pope Benedict. It is that personal daily encounter with the risen Christ that brings the Sacraments alive for Catholics. I want to help you not to overlook this point.

Relationship with Christ

The relational aspect of Christianity has always been its greatest strength. It is that personal relationship, or friendship if you will, with the person of Jesus Christ that gave early Christian church martyrs the ability to face persecution, torture and death throughout history and up to this day. 

A spiritual relationship between man and God, through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit can transform the most despicable human being into a saint. Bishop Fulton Sheen put it this way: “No character, regardless of the depths of its vice or intemperance, is incapable of being transformed through the cooperation of Divine and human action into its opposite.” C.S. Lewis said that every prison is filled with potential saints and every monastery with potential devils. It is a relationship with Christ (or the lack of one) that makes the difference in human lives.  

History has borne witness to this. As a tax collector, Saint Matthew was considered a traitor to his own people. After meeting Christ he left his profession of collecting the exorbitant and hated Roman tax and became a great patriot of Israel. In his Gospel, Matthew went back time and again to remember the glories of the Jewish people. Paul was a persecutor of Christians. He was present at the martyrdom of Stephen. After a dramatic encounter with post-resurrection

Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul became a fervent Apostle and missionary to the Gentiles. 

History is replete with countless examples of miraculously transformed people, and it continues to this day.

Catholicism

This is where Catholicism shines! Not only do we hold sacred Scriptures dear as the inerrant word of God, we have sacred Traditions and a linear, successive connection to Christianity’s beginning. Catholicism has a highly developed Eucharistic

theology.  This encourages a fuller interior understanding for open and tender hearts that culminates with the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

My evangelical brothers and sisters may disagree or take offence. Please don't. There will always be differences in theology and practices between faithful Christians, not just evangelical and Catholic Christians. But our unity is in Jesus, not theology. We have so much in common—as succinctly laid down in the Apostle’s Creed. 

If there is any genuine ecumenical dialogue and unity to be had between Catholics and Evangelicals it must center on the lordship of Jesus Christ. Christians who have a daily relationship with Christ—regardless of how its expressed—will discover our Lord’s heart for unity. Just prior to his death, Jesus prayed:

“I pray not only for them, but also for those who

believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father. Are in me and I in you, that they may also be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” (John 17.20-21).

---

[1] "ETS Resignation Triggers Tradition Discussion - Executive Committee: Roman Catholics may not join" May 9th 2007, Christianity Today, 09 May, 2007 https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2007/may/119-32.0.html

[2] See The Coming Home Network online https://chnetwork.org/converts/

[3] Thomas Reese, "The hidden exodus: Catholics becoming Protestants" 18 April 2011, National Catholic Reporter, https://www.ncronline.org/news/parish/hidden-exodus-catholics-becoming-protestants

THE BIBLE AND PROGRESSIVE THOUGHT

A man sent me an email identifying himself as "Dave." He's a 'buffet Christian' meaning he picks and chooses which parts of Christianity and the Bible he likes and rejects the rest. At one point in his email Dave wrote, "We ignore the many parts of the Bible that are repulsive and have no place in modern society." Dave's idea of selective Christianity is increasingly common. Perhaps the parts Dave finds repulsive are Scriptural condemnations of homosexuality. 

Here's a problem with selective Christianity and

vetting the Bible for repulsiveness. Dave finds passages condemning homosexuality repulsive. John is a thief: He finds the 7th Commandment repulsive. Ted is a serial adulterer. He wants to dispense with the 6th Commandment and all other references in Scripture that are against unfaithfulness. Rachel thinks accounts of the Passion of Christ are too violent. Who knows what kind of violence it might trigger in an unstable person! She wants the crucifix removed from the front of the church because that too may encourage weak minds to be cruel, violent or sadistic. Eric is of the same view and thinks the Bible should be declared hate literature and banned from public libraries. Gerald finds the teachings about the physical resurrection of Christ preposterous. He thinks it's bunk and wants a requirement for Bible publishers to add a disclaimer to the front of the Gospels saying it's just a story written by primitive men with superstitious minds. In the end, Christianity will be gutted of all meaning and that's what I think Dave, John, Rachel, Eric Gerald and other progressives want.  They may deny it but they are anti-Christians. Christophobes. They want to make their relative truths absolute.

Moderns want to create God in their own image. Other progressives want all talk of deities removed from public discourse and the public square. Their quest not to offend anyone actually offends someone: Me. I am a Canadian Christian and my right to freedom of thought, opinion, religion—and their expression is guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (a creation of a previous generation of political progressives and selectively applied by the current generation of progressives.).

Here's an inconvenient truth quite beyond fashionable thinking. There is a God who exists independent of human thought. This God created all that exists and He sets the rules. God is concerned about the course of human events and has been active in history. He will continue to be active in human events and the unfolding of time long after Dave's "modern society" ceases to exist. Self-appointed progressives will be exposed as regressive. Today's moderns will be passé tomorrow and another progressive mentality will emerge—perhaps more enlightened or more repressive and brutal than the current batch.

Modern man will pass away. God remains. We must humbly reconcile with God on His terms, not ours.

MDP

D=S MINUS M: DESPAIR EQUALS SUFFERING MINUS MEANING

I want to share EWTN's homily (sermon) from this past Friday, April 5th 2019, delivered by Father Joseph Mary. Understanding the meaning of D=S minus M helped me endure 36 years with incurable and aggressive multiple sclerosis.