Posted on 03/27/2015 7:59:33 AM PDT by wagglebee
Raissa Maritain, the philosopher and spiritual writer, died some months after suffering a stroke. During those months she lay in a hospital bed, unable to speak. After her death, her husband, the renowned philosopher, Jacques Maritain, in preparing her journals for publication, wrote these words:
At a moment when everything collapsed for both of us, and which as followed by four agonising months, Raissa was walled in herself by a sudden attack of aphasia. Whatever progress she made during several weeks by sheer force of intelligence and will, all deep communication remained cut off. And subsequently, after a relapse, she could barely articulate words. In the supreme battle in which she was engaged, no one on earth could help her, myself no more than anyone else. She preserved the peace of her soul, her full lucidity, her humour, her concern for her friends, the fear of being a trouble to others, and her marvellous smile and the extraordinary light of her wonderful eyes. To everyone who came near her, she invariably gaveand with what astonishing silent generosity during her last two days, when she could only breathe out her lovesome sort of impalpable gift which emanated from the mystery in which she was enclosed.
The emphasis on the last sentence is my own and I highlight it because, I believe, it has something important to say in an age where, more and more, we are coming to believe that euthanasia and various forms of physician-assisted suicide are the humane and compassionate answer to terminal illness.
The case for euthanasia generally revolves around these premises: Suffering devalues human life and euthanasia alleviates that suffering and the ravages of the body and mind that come with that suffering so as to provide a terminally ill person death with dignity and death with less suffering. As well, it is argued, that once an illness has so debilitated a person so as to leave him or her in a virtual vegetative state, what is the logic for keeping such a person alive? Once dignity and usefulness are gone, why continue to live?
Whats to be said in response to this? The logic for euthanasia, compassionate in so far as it goes, doesnt go far enough to consider a number of deeper issues. Dignity and usefulness are huge terms with more dimensions than first meet the eye. In a recent article in AMERICA magazine, Jessica Keating highlights some of those deeper issues as she argues against the logic of those who have lauded Brittany Maynards (the young woman who captured national attention last year by choosing assisted suicide in the face of a terminal illness) decision to take her own life as courageous, sensible, and admirable. Keating concedes that, had she not made that decision, Maynard would no doubt have suffered greatly and would in all likelihood eventually been rendered unproductive and unattractive. But, Keating argues, she would have been present in a web of relationships. Even if she had fallen unconscious, she likely would have been read to, washed, dressed and kissed. She would have been gently caressed, held and wept over. She would simply have been loved to the end.
Thats half the argument against euthanasia. The other half reads this way: Not only would she have been loved to the end, but, perhaps more importantly, she would have been actively emitting love until the end. From her ravaged, silent, mostly-unconscious body would have emanated an intangible, but particularly powerful, nurture and love, akin to the powerful life-giving grace that emanated from Jesus broken, naked body on the cross.
We too seldom make this important distinction: We believe that Jesus saved us through his life and through his death, as if these were the same thing. But they are very different: Jesus gave his life for us through his activity, his usefulness, through what he could actively do for us. But he gave his death for us through his passivity, through his helplessness, through the humiliation of his body in death. Jesus gave us his greatest gift precisely during those hours when he couldnt do anything active for us.
And this isnt something simply metaphorical and intangible. Anyone of us who have sat at the bedside of a dying loved one have experienced that in that persons helplessness and pain he or she is giving us something that he or she couldnt give us during his or her active life. From that persons helplessness and pain emanates a power to draw us together as family, a power to intuit and understand deeper things, a deeper appreciation of life, and especially a much deeper recognition of that persons life and spirit. And this, impalpable gift, as Maritain says, emanates from the mystery of pain, non-utility, and dying in which he or she is enclosed.
In our dying bodies we can give our loved ones something we cannot fully give them when we are healthy and active. Euthanasia is partially blind to the mystery of how love is given.
Very true.
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The idea of love without words is foreign to those who have built their world around mere words, words, words
It’s a great sad human folly that if we cannot make a thing move or otherwise actively adapt it with our mortal efforts, than that thing means nothing.
Sometimes it is the time to just step back and let God be God in a situation.
You’ve been watching My Fair Lady again, haven’t you? LOL. Those lyrics actually kind of fit here.
Words! Words! Words! Im so sick of words!
I get words all day through;
First from him, now from you!
Is that all you blighters can do?
Dont talk of stars burning above;
If youre in love, Show me!
Tell me no dreams filled with desire.
If youre on fire, Show me!
Here we are together in the middle of the night!
Dont talk of spring! Just hold me tight!
Anyone whos ever been in lovell tell you that
This is no time for a chat!
Havent your lips longed for my touch?
Dont say how much, Show me! Show me!
Dont talk of love lasting through time.
Make me no undying vow. Show me now!
Sing me no song! Read me no rhyme!
Dont waste my time, Show me!
Dont talk of June, Dont talk of fall!
Dont talk at all! Show me!
Never do I ever want to hear another word.
There isnt one I havent heard.
Here we are together in what ought to be a dream;
Say one more word and Ill scream!
Havent your arms hungered for mine?
Please dont expline, Show me! Show me!
Dont wait until wrinkles and lines
Pop out all over my brow,
Show me now!
Amusingly, I have never been to that and almost never listened to it. One of my popular cultural lacunae.
The whole point of euthanasia is to make man into god. We are removing “God’s Will” to “Man’s will be done”.
Words/Language-—from the philosophy of Wittgenstein again.....Control the Words and you control the perceptions of the “ignorant” masses.
“Death with Dignity” is a Marxist creation, as is creating oxymorons (for mass consumption so Reason will disappear) like the term “homosexual “marriage”-—an impossibility which now all children who have heard that term repeated over and over believe it is god-ordained and Logical.
Words matter. Ideas matter-—particularly when children hear them over and over-—it will create the proper perceptions (for useful idiots).
All Classical education (and the Bible) teaches that Wisdom only comes through suffering. Marxists hate Wisdom in the masses and are trying to create “heaven on earth” since they believe in nothing.
Well, maybe lacunae. Which I guess would be one of my vocabulary lacunae?
Swinging back to the point you made, some people think they can substitute words for actions. Saying "I love you" is infinitely easier than providing tangible services to someone in need. Miss Doolittle figured out that life lesson in the end.
Denmark; here we come.
http://www.lifenews.com/2015/03/26/california-senate-panel-passes-bill-to-legalize-assisted-suicide-doctors-would-lie-about-deaths/
Awesome
with the whole thing egged on by the devil
i mean, this is being pulled along by a colossally evil power that is trying to “get at” God any way it can. this is not like mere bumbling and stumbling.
Euthanasia is not about putting any one out of their misery. It is spelled M O N E Y.
Hi, BB.
He tours with Pippin now as the old King(makes me feel a little bit older too.)
Hi yourself, FV. Long time no see. Hope you’re doing well. How are the ducks and kitties?
I got FUMIGATED. Me personally. The vikane gas didn’t leave like Dow Chemical says it does. One kitty and I have been ill since Nov. 1. Chloropicrin is a killer poison. So far, it’s killed my voice, wrecked lots of me but I’m workin’ on it. Naturally, no ambulance chasers for being poisoned. WHAT A COUNTRY!
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