WHAT MORE WAS NEEDED BY THIS OLD MAN?

Progressive disability from multiple sclerosis forced me to retire far too early in my career with the Canadian civil service. I was thirty-eight, still a young man, and had to live on a modest disability pension. That did not sit well with my Type A personality. I sank into clinical depression as disease kept ravaging my body, forcing me into stillness and eventually, after bitter anguish, contemplation. Days, months and years were spent convalescing. Seasons passed. My children grew up and married. Grandchildren were born and grew up and have begun to marry. My wife’s and my hair turned white. Still, that small voice whispered, “Be open to love as it comes to you for in love you will find God.” To my surprise and delight, I discovered it was true. New revelations about love (both human and divine) came to me in our little, red-roofed house with its yard shrouded from the world by a massive hedge. 

I still sit with my morning coffee and look at successive generations of blue jays coming into the yard. At night, I can stand there contemplating the vastness of the heavens above me. God raised me from the wheelchairs I used for many years.  The creeping paralysis that marred my adult life— beginning as a young man—receded like the tide. I stood and walked again as an old man.

The words of Victor Hugo come to me from his great novel Les Misérables:

“What more was needed by this old man who divided the leisure hours of his life, …Was not this narrow enclosure, with the sky for a background, enough to enable him to adore God in His most beautiful as well as his most sublime works? Indeed, is not at all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect upon. At his feet something to cultivate and to gather; above his head something to study and meditate upon: a few flowers on the earth, and the stars in the sky.”  

The Psalmist wrote: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; they are a marvellous display of his craftsmanship. Day and night they keep telling about God. Without a sound or word, silent in the skies, the message reaches all the world.”

Yes, it does. 

The meaning of my life did not come in a thunderclap of a potentially successful career that was smothered before it really began. It came in a gentle breeze of the ordinary rhythms of life. The purpose of my life is here with those I love, and within the greater and perfect love of Christ.

 

CHRISTIAN LOVE GIVES A DYING SOUL PEACE

I wrote a column for a Canadian Catholic newspaper, The Western Catholic Reporter from 2004-2016 when the paper folded (a victim of many newspapers to new online media). One of my columns appeared under the title "Christian love gives dying souls peace." It dealt with

my wife's adamant and resolute protection of her mother (who had dementia) from being euthanized. My column appeared on October 28th, 2013. Her Mother died two months later. Less than 3 years later Canada legalized euthanasia under the euphemism "medical assistance in dying" in May of 2016. 

Since that time, more than 30,000 Canadians have been murdered under the new law—the vast majority by lethal injection. The initial criteria of Canada's law have been slowly broadening. In March of 2023, the mentally ill will be eligible for assisted suicide. Evil advances incrementally to coarsen public acceptance for what was once unthinkable. 

See my article below. If you are unable to read, the text is below the article.

Text

My wife, LaRee, and I were asked to address a conference about critical life issues sponsored by the Diocese of Metuchen in New Jersey. They wanted us to speak about a Christian perspective on suffering, disability and end-of-life care. It is a timely topic because New Jersey is considering a law to allow assisted suicide. The diocese wanted the dual perspectives of someone with a degenerative and incurable condition like multiple sclerosis (me) ― and the perspective of a loved-one (my wife) watching the deterioration and unable to stop it.  LaRee and I looked forward to going to New Jersey for two reasons. Firstly, we thought we could bring a needed life-affirming Christian story to the debate that is raging in that state, and secondly, we were going to celebrate our 40^th anniversary after the conference in the nearby city of New York. It was not to be.

LaRee’s aged mother’s frail physical condition started to take a life-threatening turn in Edmonton. We could not risk being so far away from her. Once again, my wife is giving a profound witness by her actions for Christian care of those who are vulnerable and cannot care for themselves. We cancelled our trip. 

My wife’s active love for others has been illustrated for more than half of her lifetime. 

Her mother lives in a nursing home and has dementia; her confusion makes her frightened and she cries out for LaRee.  As soon as she enters her mother’s room, all is calm again because she knows she is safe with LaRee near. 

It’s unfortunate, but my wife has deep reservations about anything that would put her mother in an acute care hospital setting. The threat of her mother being denied nutrition and hydration (food and water) is very real. LaRee’s grandmother met with that fate ten years ago and died a torturous death.  It happens to vulnerable people all the time. In this new bioethical era, the incurably ill, dying, and severely disabled are increasingly fearful of hospitals where some physicians ― with the full backing of a hospital ethics committee ― may decide providing treatment to them is futile. 

Treatments may be futile but the patient is never futile. Doing anything to hasten the death of a sick or dying person is always wrong and flies in the face of a long tradition of Hippocratic medicine. That’s why I previously wrote that Catholic hospitals must never acquiesce to bioethical trends that do not recognize the innate dignity and worth of every human being regardless of their state or stage in life.

Whether or not physicians working in Catholic hospitals are Catholic, they must adhere to the principles of Catholic teaching. As a person with advanced multiple sclerosis, I want to know I can rest confident that medical decisions about my care follow those teachings. 

The Catechism of the Catholic teaches that euthanasia is morally unacceptable (2277-2279). Any act of omission that causes death (like withholding food and water) is considered as murder and must always be forbidden. “Withdrawal of medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate” If death of a patient is imminent “painkillers to alleviate suffering of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means.” In such cases, death is recognized as inevitable but not hastened. The underlying principle is one of motive and intent. Death must never be the intent of any medical action or inaction.

That is the ethic by which every Catholic hospital must operate its end-of-life care. They must always act in accordance with Catholic teaching on matters of life and death and never give in to trends in bioethics, secular pressures or financial burdens. If people like my mother-in-law (or me and you) cannot rely on Catholic care to always value our lives, where can go to know we will be safely treated? 

I mentioned that my mother-in-law feels safe when LaRee’s is near. Even in her mounting dementia, she seems to know she’s in good hands. LaRee’s Christianity and familial love motivate her to stand in the gap for her vulnerable loved-ones. She recently combed through her mother’s advanced directive from 2009, and updated it to reflect 2013’s reality. She met with her mother’s treating physician to make sure every measure for comfort is met and ordinary care owed to all sick people is not interrupted (just like the Catechism says).  

By caring for her mother in this way, LaRee is giving vivid testimony to a culture of life that treats dying as the last phase of living in which the bonds of humanity are strengthened, not weakened.

MARK DAVIS PICKUP AVAILABLE TO SPEAK ABOUT CHRIST IN OUR SUFFERING

·  .

CHRIST IN OUR SUFFERING:

        By Mark Davis Pickup

Addresses and interactive workshops are available via Zoom, Skype, etc.

A new way to have guest speakers

[1]

What are Christians to make of suffering? After sin has been confessed, and suffering continues, what then?  C.S. Lewis said: 

 

“Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God, or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t.”[2]

 

Mark Davis Pickup has suffered from aggressive multiple sclerosis (MS) for close to 40 years. The disease took him from being a healthy and able-bodied man to chronically ill and disabled. Weeks, months, and even years of convalescence gave him time to prayerfully reflect and seek to understand God’s purposes in his anguish. He knows Christ’s love and knows God is good. There must have been meaning or purpose to Mark’s protracted suffering. There is, and he reveals it in his new live online presentation available through video conferencing platforms such as Zoom. Mark has stopped travelling.

 

For more than 25 years Mark spoke extensively across the United States and Canada promoting the sanctity, dignity and equality of all human life, and against assisted suicide & euthanasia. He has spoken widely about the natural human dignity that is ours in Christ. Mark is available to address your group, your conferences, churches or community outreach about finding Christ in our Suffering via conferencing platforms. 

He addressed politicians and legislative committees (both Canadian and American), university forums, hospital medical staffs, religious and denominational leaders, community groups and organizations about the importance of Life and disability issues, and a Christian perspective on suffering. In the wake of Canada and 10 U.S. states and the District of Columbia legalizing assisted suicide, Mark continues to speak out about the sanctity of human life and building a culture of Life—and life-affirming responses—in our culture of death and despair. He is available to address your next conference or event.[3] Mark gave the keynote addresses to the U.S. National Right to Life Prayer Breakfasts in 2001, 2005, and jointly with his wife LaRee in 2010.

 

In 2018, God did a wonderful thing for Mark and answered Yes to his prayer: After more than 15 years of paralysis (triplegia) and dependent on an electric wheelchair, he regained the use of his atrophied legs, compromised right arm and useless hand. He’s walking! His right arm and hand are fully restored! In the aftermath of decades of horrible, slow creeping paralysis, Mark has a fresh perspective of those stormy years and calamitous times. Like the crisp clean smell in the air after a violent thunderstorm, it has become evident that Christ was always there even in the darkest times when the tempest’s black clouds darkened the world, and terrifying thunderclaps muffled that still small voice. CHRIST IN OUR SUFFERING speaks to the grief of adult-acquired disability and disease, both for the individual and those who love them. CHRIST IN OUR SUFFERING speaks to finding meaning in anguish. 

 

CONTACT:  HumanLifeMatters@shaw.ca

Why consider conferencing live speeches, sermons, workshops, or other presentations with Mark Davis Pickup?

- Precisely because they are live and in real-time.

- Conferencing allows Mark to speak anywhere in the world.

- Expense: Hosting organizations or churches are not faced with flight costs and travel-associated costs. 

- They are interactive, allowing for Q&As and discussions. 

“Mark Davis Pickup has lectured so widely here in the U.S. that a lot of people know him and have tremendous respect for him.”— Dr. Dianne Irving, former career-appointed bench research biochemist/biologist (NIH, NCI, Bethesda, MD), an M.A. and Ph.D. philosopher (Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.), and professor of the History of Philosophy and of Medical Ethics. 

 

“I met Mark Pickup in the early 1990s, and we became good friends. When I met him, he could barely walk using two canes because of his progressive MS. Over time, I observed his physical condition worsen, to the point he became triplegic, that is, was only able to use his left arm. He had no use of his legs whatsoever. I am convinced that Mark’s dramatic improvement is a miracle. What else could explain a man in the later stages of MS being able to walk again and ride a bicycle? Mark is a very prayerful Christian, and I believe his faith was answered as a sign for the world.

Wesley J Smith

Host, Humanize Podcast https://humanize.today

Chair, Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism

Washington, D.C.

 

HLM

---

[1] Photos: Top left Mark Davis Pickup speaking at a fund-raising banquet for a Christian hospice, Lansing, Michigan. Photo right: Mark being interviewed by Canadian national Christian TV program about a miracle God gave him to walk again after 16 years in an electric wheelchair and paralysed. 

[2] C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, (New York, Bantam Books, 1980), p. 50.

[3] Venues should have a large screen. Workshops should be interactive for Q&A

UNPROVEN SOCIETAL EXPERIMENTS

 

When Queen Elizabeth was a young girl, she witnessed the great sacrifices entire nations made to protect western Christian civilization—its institutions, customs and laws and mores during World War II. Later, as the Queen, she watched the horrendous systematic dismantling of western Christian civilization after the war.  even to the point where progressives now deny there ever was a Christian civilization. (Tell that to the families of the 861,000 British, Canadian, American and Australian soldiers who died to protect Christian western civilization from the jackboot of Axis tyranny.)  Progressives, the left, and secular élite who populate centers of learning and influence have made an art form out of revising or rewriting history.

CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION: 

 

But there are some things they can’t write out of history, such as the famous speech Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave to the British people on the eve of the Battle of Britain in 1941. The great man rose in Parliament and said:

 

“I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and that long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared about will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, more sinister, perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for 1000 years, men say ‘This was their finest hour.’” [My emphasis added]

 

There is no record of parliamentarians or the public shouting down the Prime Minister protesting that there was no Christian civilization. There was a general societal consensus that western civilization was Christian, and people were willing to give up their lives to protect it. No longer. 

 

Post-war progressive ‘boomers are in charge now. They want to progress Christian civilization out of existence, without a shot being fired—well, not many—and replace it with an abominable Brave New World rooted in egocentric narcissism, and nihilism fueled by raw power of an elite political, government, economic and social structure of the left intent on imposing a given ideology, by force if necessary, on the masses. Hedonistic progressives will restore state-sanctioned abortion and expand to state-sanctioned assisted suicide and euthanasia. Canada has already done this, giving unrestricted abortion under the euphemism "reproductive choice" and euthanasia by lethal injection under the euphemism Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Canada is so supportive of killing the most vulnerable at both ends of the life spectrum, we pay for every abortion of unwanted children and very lethal injection of the disabled, the mentally and terminally ill (Canadians being euthanized has skyrocketed since euthanasia was legalized in 2016.

 

Eu’phem/ism n. substitution of mild or vague or roundabout expression for a harsh or direct one.    — THE CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY

 

“The word “euphemism” comes from the Greek eu, “good,” and pheme “speech” or “saying,” and thus means literally “to speak with good words or in a pleasant manner.” Euphemizing is generally defined as substituting an inoffensive or pleasant term for a more explicit, offensive one, thereby veneering the truth using kind words.” [My emphasis added.]  — The Wordsworth Book of Euphemism 

 

 Progressives of the boomer generation are skilled wordsmiths at veneering the truths they don't like or do not fit into narratives supporting their sociological agendas or ideology. They gave their offspring the same skill. Their grandchildren are not so skilled. They simply shout down all opposition, set cities on fire and demand the police be defunded so their anarchy can continue unabated. Mob rule.  

'G'

As I mentioned above a newer catchphrase is “Love is Love.” It was used by the homosexual lobby for gay marriage. Great slogan but is it true? What are its parameters, or are there any? I know from personal experience it’s not always true. I knew a high school schoolteacher I’ll call G. He was an excellent teacher and was even voted teacher of the year. G had an affair with a fourteen-year-old student. (Think of Mary Kay Letourneau with the genders reversed.) He left his wife and four children to be with her. His family was heartbroken and have scars they will carry to their graves, but he got what he wanted. As he said, “love is love.” 

 

There was no doubt He loved the young girl. He boldly and unashamedly proclaimed his love for her. (Mind you, I remember him making the same proclamation twenty-five years earlier about his wife.)  G’s love for the girl was so strong he stood stiff-necked against the law social censure and professional punishment. He stood defiantly before the judge and was sent to prison, which was the correct response. He betrayed the trust of parents and his profession and cultural standards. G was a pedophile, and pedophilia is still anathema. Will it always remain so? I wonder.

TWISTED MORALITY 

 

In a time such as this with ever-shifting morality or abandonment of long-established morality, will pedophiles eventually be seen as a persecuted group deserving government protection? Someone may say that will never happen because pedophilia hurts children. So does divorce and that has become commonplace. So does abortion and that has become commonplace. Our perverse culture has twisted it into a right. Children always seem to pay the highest price for unproven social experiments by their elders, designed for the benefit of their elders. 

 

I remember fashionable slogans of the 1960s that were largely unchallenged by any progressive and open-minded person: “If it feels good, do it” was used to justify sex outside marriage or opposed to it. “Don’t knock ‘till you’ve tried it” was meant to justify drug use or sexual experimentation Progressives of the day bought into it all with enthusiasm. They thought themselves so enlightened, throwing off the shackles of restraint. “Free love” was a phrase used to promote promiscuity without responsibility. It was neither free nor was it love. It carried a very high cost in sorrow and broken hearts, disease and death, and it certainly was not love, it was lust. The 1960s were an unmitigated social disaster. But so typical of progressives, they won’t admit mistakes that were regressive.

 

The disastrous 1960s were just the preamble to the disasters of the 1970s. I know that looking back as an old man. A traveller may take a wrong road but when he discovers it, he does not keep going. He turns around and goes back. Our culture has taken a wrong road that intentionally deviated from the Judeo-Christian moral consensus that made the western world great. It’s time we retrace our steps and return to the right road. 

The ancients were right: Marriage is between a man and a woman, where the marriage bed is not defiled. Children need their mother and their father. They need to be raised in an environment of Biblical love, nurture and protection of a family in a home where the Holy Spirit abides. That is God’s formula for people to truly thrive.

MDP

 

 

CHRISTIAN CHILDREN IN AN ANTI-CHRISTIAN WORLD

 

I have heard it said that if a sense of order and discipline is not established in a child's life before the age of seven, he is lost. I do not know where that pearl of parenting wisdom came from and I'm not even sure I believe the age part - but I think I understand the point that was being made.

 

Children need the security of consistent boundaries for behaviour to be established early in their lives for them to thrive. I'm not sure how the seven-year age limit came into the equation; perhaps it was simply an exaggeration to illustrate the fact that every child needs a sense of order. Fair enough. On that point, I hope most reasonable and reasoned people agree.

 

Parents must establish and maintain boundaries for proper moral behaviour - boundaries within which they themselves abide. Those boundaries must be consistent with Christian morality because that is the best way to live.

 

I refuse to accept that a child is ever beyond the pale of redemption because of bad circumstances, poor upbringing or even cruelty. If I did accept such an idea, the redemptive message of Christianity would ring hollow.

 

The Bible tells us that children are a gift and a heritage from God (Psalm 127.3). Parents do not own their children - they are entrusted with their children's physical, emotional and spiritual care. God calls parents to bring their children up in the way of the Lord.

 

Do not think that small children are incapable of understanding spiritual things. They may not have the vocabulary or ability to express it, but they can have deeply profound spiritual experiences. We know this from our own memories. 

 

C.S. Lewis put it this way.

 

“From our own childhood we remember that before our elders thought us capable of “understanding” anything, we already had spiritual experience as pure and as momentous as any we have undergone since, though not, of course, as rich in a factual context. From Christianity itself we learn that there is a level—in the long run the only level of importance—on which the learned and the adult have no advantage at all over the simple and the child”

 

Marriage and family life under the lordship of God are the ideal setting for children. I know this because that is where God put his own Son. The Holy Family was the ideal place to nurture the Christ child.

 

Godly parents are one of the greatest assets any child can have. A child reared under the love and nurture of godly parents are likely to thrive.

 

It is not a guarantee that children will grow up to love and serve God—the world can tempt them away—but the chances are best that such children will emerge into adulthood as followers of Christ if their parents were. They are more likely to have the desire to serve rather than be served; they are more likely to view their lives in terms of seeking a higher calling.

 

I know forces contrary and hostile to the Christian faith are everywhere. They may seem overwhelming, but parents must not lose heart. (That is exactly what the evil one wants.) Christian parents must continue teaching and showing the way of Christ to their children. 

 

The love and hope of vibrant and living Christianity can stand in stark contrast to the chaos found in a godless worldview where materialism, consumption and temporary self-gratification often triumph over human dignity and individual worth.

 

In the midst of worldly consumption, Christ calls people to something different, something greater, something other-centred rather than self-centred. Young people who have been taught to listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit can discover the reason they were born. When this happens, they will discover meaning and purpose to their lives that far outstrips anything the world can offer.

 

We desperately need a generation of young visionaries who are unafraid of being radicals for the kingdom of God and are prepared to dedicate their lives to furthering that kingdom on earth. Young people who are on fire for God can change the world and even the course of history for the better.

 

Parents can not wish for any greater legacy. — MDP 

 

POPE FRANCIS ARRIVES IN CANADA TO APOLOGIZE

Pope Francis has arrived in Alberta (Canada) near where I live. He has come to apologize for a sorry legacy of past abuses of indigenous children in residential schools run by the Catholic Church. I cannot believe that people who had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ could have done the terrible things that are alleged. There is a lesson to be learned: The most effective attacks against Christ's Church (be it Catholic, Orthodox, or evangelical) do not come from outside the Church but from scandal within. I came across a Twitter message from Pope Francis. I commented and forwarded it to people of the greater Christian community. 

BULLIED PC CONFORMITY

 

I want to share an article published on 14 July 2022 in The American Mind titled FLOYD VOID: The Current Thing is an Opportunity for Courage. This excellent, penetrating and timely article was written by Helen Roy.  Well done Ms. Roy! I recommend HumanLifeMatters readership read this short article. Click on the title below.

FLOYD VOID  

MDP