Don't sugarcoat what's happening to Terri Schiavo

I've been searching for the right word to describe what is happening to Terri Schiavo, a word that has some real blood to it.

It's important to find the right word now, because, by the time you read this, the severely brain-damaged woman might be dead.

Perhaps you've noticed other bloodless words being flipped at her, words like "viability" and phrases like "pull the plug."

These words were once the issue of bloodless people, of clerks and sophists who can prove almost anything with their fine arguments. The rest of us have fed on them until they shape how we think, shaping our options, shaping our future.

If you love someone who is severely disabled, you've thought about this, about their lives years from now, and you wonder about those folks who talk abstractly, using the phrase "quality of life" and you can hear the threat in what they say.

And if you don't think what's happening has anything to do with your own future, you're wrong. Our collective attitude toward her death will likely shape the legislation of tomorrow, when the Pepsi Generation is forced to realize that immortality isn't an option.

What's happening to Schiavo suggests that Americans have finally been taught to think like bureaucrats. Bureaucrats cover their flanks with e-mail and send copies to others to establish positions. They almost say what a thing is, but not outright, not exactly. The bureaucrat embraces the neutral and avoids conflict.

And we've allowed this. We've embraced the values of the bureaucrat, of the manager, and replaced those older, iconic Western values of self-reliance, accepting responsibility and meeting things head on. One of these values--albeit ignored through countless wars and cruelties--is that human life is sacred. But now we are about process. Now we are about avoiding consequence.

I heard Shiavo's attorney, Felos (former board of director of the "hospice" where she's being murdered, by the way), say that the parents, instead of resisting further, would be better served to spend their time in reflection. Talk about insult to injury: A lawyer without a conscience lecturing the parents about reflecting on one's actions.

Felos has a warped view of death. He is a new age whack job. He gets off on the dying process.

Excerpts from Litigation as Spiritual Practice by George Felos (Blue Dolphin Publishing, 2002) Compiled by James A. Smith Sr., executive editor, Florida Baptist Witness Published November 6, 2003
Chapter Five, “Death and Resurrection,” describes Felos’ significant spiritual experience during a ten day retreat at the Kirpalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Mass., in April, 1988. The experience “birthed a personal transformation of immense and unexpected proportions. I came to the retreat in April, 1988, wanting a change in my life and was returning home with my old life vaporized.” (47)
Felos writes that although he experienced his “initial spiritual awakening in my early twenties, I had spent the last few years of my mid-thirties backsliding.” (47)
Described as “a superconscious experience,” Felos writes, “I was drunk with God” resulting in the inability to walk on his own without the assistance of others. “My predominant expression was laughter and a grin just short of it.” (49) “I had imprinted upon me the purpose of life—God-realization—and in the knowing of this purpose came instant fulfillment. Although to some I reckon the above sounds like metaphysical gobbledygook, I will attest there exists a Universal Consciousness that not only can be experienced by us but is us.” (50)
“I lost the boundary between the idea of myself and the world around me and gained immeasurably. Subject and object merged, and in some way I experienced the essence of each thing my consciousness touched. I felt the joy of grass as it grew and sense the genetic code by which it manifested into physical reality. In ecstasy I became the solemn grace and beauty of a tree and new the freedom of the passing clouds. I don’t speak metaphorically.” (50) He then cites Isaiah 55:12. (51)
He describes the same experience with other individuals at the center: “When I perceived and felt someone so completely, I often could hear her thoughts and knew what she was going to say before she said it. It was as if the individual before me was transparent and I could see the person’s form, yet look through it at the same time.” (51)
While on the plane ride home from the retreat, Felos reads a book about “conscious dying” written by a meditation teacher who is active in hospice work, which “described the enormous potential for spiritual awakening, both for the patient and the caregiver, which sometimes is realized during the death process.” (53)
“Scripture says neither hands, nor feet, nor emotion, nor mind, nor body are we. Our death—the permanent separation of our spirit, our consciousness, from the body—if experienced with awareness, can provide the opportunity to dispel the greatest of illusions: that we are this body. The author goes on to describe how meditation and spiritual practice is the process of dying—the means by which we extinguish our ego and body identification and realize we are the expression and manifestation of the Divine. Pretty heady stuff, especially for one who had just died and been reborn, so to speak. I deeply connected with the message of this book, and as I gazed out the window upon the clouds and surface below, I felt death move a bit closer.” (53)
His first legal appointment after returning from the retreat at the yoga center was with Doris F. Herbert, the cousin of Estelle Browning, seeking his assistance in the removal of her feeding tube. (54)
Felos became consumed with yoga and meditation following his retreat, including three or four hours per day to the point that his wife and those close to him were “disturbed by and concerned with my abrupt and radical change and believed I was close to becoming nonfunctional.” (55)
“I had not ‘adopted’ some new philosophy nor decided to ‘operate’ under some new belief system. I was part of a process so compelling that my participation wasn’t optional.” (56)
“The mystics have said that this world, this universe, is nothing but the thought-form of God. In Genesis, God intended that there be light and there was light. Christ fed the multitudes with only a handful of fish, not because he was a sushi master, but because he had the deepest realization that matter is an expression of mind and spirit. This creative power is not exclusive to the Divine, but comes as part of our birthright. We are made in the image of God. This does not refer to having two arms, two legs, and a head. It means that in some way we naturally possess the attributes and qualities of the Universal Consciousness. I believe Christ intended his life on Earth to be an example—a testament of what is possible for us. We are not only instructed to worship God, but to ‘become sons of God’ (John 1:12).” (60, italics in the original).
This discussion occurs in the midst of his description of his first meeting with Mrs. Herbert to discuss the case of Mrs. Browning and his joy with having this kind of legal case to deal with. “After she departed it seemed evident to me that the case, given my recently acquired fascination with death and dying, was a blessing rather than a coincidence.” (61)
Felos visits Mrs. Browning for the first time. Browning, who was radically debilitated by a stroke, was a resident of a nursing home for more than a year and one-half when Mrs. Herbert, her cousin and caregiver, sought to have the feeding tube removed, honoring Mrs. Browning living will.
He writes of his meeting, including a “soul-speak” conversation: “‘Mrs. Browning, do you want to die? … Do you want to die?’—I near shouted as I continued to peer into her pools of strikingly beautiful but incognizant blue. It was so eerie. Her eyes were wide open and crystal clear, but instead of the warmth of lucidity, they burned with the ice of expressionlessness.” (63) Felos notes that Browning was not in a coma and she was “more than vegetative, as she appeared able at times to interact with her environment in a rudimentary way.” (68) Chapter Eight, “Soul-Speak” “As I continued to stay beside Mrs. Browning at her nursing home bed, I felt my mind relax and my weight sink into the ground. I began to feel light-headed as I became more reposed. Although feeling like I could drift into sleep, I also experienced a sense of heightened awareness. As Mrs. Browning lay motionless before my gaze, I suddenly heard a loud, deep moan and scream and wondered if the nursing home personnel heard it and would respond to the unfortunate resident. In the next moment, as this cry of pain and torment continued, I realized it was Mrs. Browning. I felt the mid-section of my body open and noticed a strange quality to the light in the room. I sensed her soul in agony. As she screamed I heard her say, in confusion, ‘Why am I still here … why am I here?’ My soul touched hers and in some way I communicated that she was still locked in her body. I promised I would do everything in my power to gain the release her soul cried for. With that the screaming immediately stopped. I felt like I was back in my head again, the room resumed its normal appearance, and Mrs. Browning, as she had throughout this experience, lay silent.” (73) “I knew without a doubt what had transpired was real and dispelled the thought as intellect’s attempt to assert its own version of reality.” (73)
As proof of the existence of “soul-speak,” as he calls it, Felos cites an incident with his wife years before concerning their yet-to-be-conceived, unborn son. At this time there was disagreement between he and his wife about whether they should have children. One day at his office, Felos was “hammerstuck. While almost seeing stars like a comic book character, I heard the soul of my yet-to-be-conceived child emphatically shout: ‘I’m ready to be born…will you stop this fooling around!’ … The voice I heard was distinctly male, and I beamed with the idea I had a son—or was going to have a son—or sorta had a son out there—or something like that.” (75) Later, when his wife told him of having a similar experience that day. “I had no doubt we were beneficiaries of the same soul transmission…” (76)
[Later in the book, Felos describes another “soul-speak” conversation with Mrs. Browning the evening before the trial began in which he argued for removing her feeding tube. (216)]
In addition to other implicit and explicit suggestions of Felos’ belief in reincarnation, he discusses his previous existences and/or future existences or lifetimes (106, 138).
In a discussion of the “cosmic law of cause and effect,” Felos argues that we create our own physical realities with our mind, but most people do not understand their own power to change their life’s circumstances – even including the ability to make a new dream car appear “out of the ether.” (178-179) He cites as an example of this power, the biblical account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead because Jesus concentrated solely on that act. “Jesus knew without any shred of doubt whatsoever that through God all things were possible. That is why Lazarus rose, and that same knowing is also why the mountain did come to Mohammed.” (179, italics in original)
Felos illustrates this power in his own life by describing an incident while on a plane during a time when he was engaged in a “right-to-die” case and had become very involved in the hospice movement. He pondered, “I wonder what it would be like to die right now?” and “indulged the thought by imagining the plane starting to lose it trajectory and descend.” The plane did, creating chaos in the cabin as people began to realize the plane was going to crash. “Needless to say, the juxtaposition of my imagined death and the possibility of a real demise heightened for me my different reactions. I assure you, my hubris in assuming that I would meet a life-ending crash with equanimity was not lost on me.” (181-182) The pilot later explained to the passengers that there was an unexplained problem with the auto pilot which caused the momentary descent. “At that instant a clear, distinctly independent and slightly stern voice said to me, ‘Be careful what you think. You are more powerful than you realize.’ In quick succession I was startled, humbled and blessed by God’s admonishment.” (182)
Felos describes himself as a “crusader” for the “right-to-die” in chapter 21, where he also admits to enjoying his status as a news celebrity, describing it as “exhilarating” to see himself on television. (217) Later he writes, “I was getting pretty good at trying my case in the media and shaping public opinion. … Developing a good ‘sound bite’ helped, but so did the media’s support of the cause. Some of my best quotes appeared on the editorial pages.” (238) Responding to media requests after Gov. Martinez vetoed (July 3, 1989) the bill permitting the removal feeding tubes which was initiated by the Browning case and moved along with the assistance of a “powerful state senator from Jacksonville” (230), Felos writes, “…there I was on the holiday news—Mrs. Browning’s white knight, stalwart at his covered desk, intently crafting her plea of last hope to the Supreme Court. Did I love it! And given the strenuous effort, I much appreciated the positive reinforcement.” (242)
Chapter 22, “Collective Consciousness and the Fear of Death,” has an extensive discussion of the hospice movement which Felos is deeply involved in, noting, “The force that created today’s Hospice also propels the right-to-die movement. We sense that keeping one alive against his wishes—artificially perpetuating the body once the spirit is ready to depart—is a defilement of life’s final rite of passage. It appeared so obvious to me that the ability to die with dignity, as that term is defined by each individual, is an essential personal right.” (223)
Concerning the Florida Supreme Court’s affirmation of his position in the Browning case (Mrs. Browning actually died while still being fed and before the case was argued before the Court): “A profound satisfaction welled up. I believed I had made a difference. The result of my efforts would touch many lives, now and in the future. I felt proud to be an attorney and was grateful to God for this extraordinary opportunity. I still am.” (251)
Concerning his involvement in a income tax case in Federal Tax Court (which he ultimately won), Felos writes about his feelings while doing yoga on the eve of the trial: “I felt like an empty vessel, a vehicle through which Spirit does its own work. I felt deep gratitude for being endowed with the abilities that allow this work to be done through me. In a sense I lost, at least for that moment, a personal agenda. I became an agent and God was the principal. All I needed to do was permit the work to come through me.” (268)

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