“Wait! I Don’t Want To Die After All!”

I’ve been thinking about writing a book to help people dealing with end-of-life situations. Between the deaths of my wife and my parents and other family members, I’ve been through enough of them that I’ve had to think hard about the spiritual, moral, and evangelistic aspects of these situations.

If I am able to write such a book, one aspect that I will definitely cover is the need for humility and caution in assessing the sick person’s will to live.

Very frequently these days people end up in situations where they cannot speak for themselves and clearly communicate what kind of care they want or whether they even want care. In such situations, family members are typically consulted, and this can cause a rift inside the family as they try to figure out what their loved one would want.

This is one of the most painful kinds of conversations for family members to have, and it if goes the wrong way, it can permanently injure relations in the family. “You killed Dad!” or “You wouldn’t let Mom die with dignity!” are things that can haunt families for years after the event, permanently turning people against each other. (I am very thankful to say, however, that my own family was able to get through the difficult days without such damage being done—and in spite of the fact that I’m the only Catholic in my immediate family.)

Sooner or later the “Do you want to pull the plug?” question is going to be presented to virtually every family, and it’s good to be prepared for it.

In some cases the patient may have left explicit instructions, but often not. Sometimes family members will remember (or think they remember) things the patient said in conversation about what they would want if something terrible happened. Other times they won’t have such memories and will simply rely on their feeling of what the loved one would want.

Regardless of which of these is the case, there is reason for great caution here. The stakes are, after all, life and death.

But there is another reason for caution: None of these things—from explicit written instructions to the vague feeling of what someone would want—is a good indicator of what they actually would want now that they are in the situation.

Certainly, pre-written instructions are a better indicator than a gut feeling assessed in a moment of crisis. If someone has taken the trouble to write instructions in advance then those instructions are more likely to reflect the settled views of person in question. But the thing is . . . views change. Particularly when we’re put in a dramatically different life situation.

There is also a danger of the loved ones, without fully realizing it, simply taking the easy way out—regardless of what that easy way is for them.

For some people the easy way would be for the loved one not to want to continue treatment. Under the pressure of watching a loved one dying they are emotionally worn out and in pain and they are ready for it to be over. It’s not that they want their loved one to die. But they can’t stand seeing the loved one suffer and want the mutual agony to be done with.

This is a human response.

But it poses a danger of leading the relative to believe what is convenient rather than what is true. In this case what is convenient would be for the loved one to want to discontinue treatment, and so the relative starts feeling certain that the loved one would never want to live this way. That would be preposterous. Of course they would just want to let go and die in peace.

And if there are a few dimly-remembered conversations that might support this view then they will be taken as proof positive. There even might be a little exaggeration used to help convince doubtful relatives who are also being consulted.

But even if that isn’t the case. Even if the person clearly expressed a preference, that preference may no longer apply.

A good illustration of that is the case of the British man in this news story from July:

Richard Rudd was paralyzed and brain damaged after being injured in a motorcycle accident last October and suffering subsequent medical complications. Treated in Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, England his family thought they knew he would not want to live.

“We said that knowing Richard, there was no way in a million years that he would want to live with his injuries,” his father told the Daily Telegraph. Rudd had told his daughter that if he suffered a severe injury in an accident like a car crash, he “wouldn’t want to go on,” Rudd’s father reported.

Rudd’s father gave permission for treatment to be withdrawn. As hospital staff gathered around Rudd’s bed, they noticed he was able to blink his eyes for the first time in several weeks.

The doctors asked Rudd three times whether he wanted to continue to live. He blinked “yes” in reply to each of their three questions.

Rudd was lucky, to say the least. No doubt there are vast numbers of people who aren’t.

But his case is illustrative of the fact that someone—when feeling able and healthy—could decide that they don’t want to live if it means the kind of existence Rudd is facing, yet when they’re actually in that situation they decide that they do want to live after all.

Rudd’s case is thus a valuable cautionary tale: We must recognize that past statements are not a good guide to what someone would actually want in this kind of situation. And especially we must not allow ourselves to believe what is convenient for us—the relatives— and what will help ease our own suffering.

This goes both ways, though.

Just as a person can change his mind about wanting to die, so he can change his mind about wanting to live.

There may be—and no doubt are—many people who when healthy and active think, “I’d want them to do everything to keep me alive, no matter what shape I’m in.” Yet, when they get down to the end of live, they may change their mind and say, “You know, I’m ready to go. I’m ready for this suffering to be over.”

In the same way, if they can’t speak for themselves, their relatives may make the same mistake of believing what is convenient rather than what is true. There are people—not as many as their used to be given our society’s growing death ethic—for whom the easy thing would be to keep the loved one alive as long as possible, for any number of reasons. They may find themselves thinking, “Of course this person would want to live! They would want everything done to keep them alive!” And perhaps the person even said this in the past, though now the person would say differently.

The point is that people’s minds can change and that we must cross examine our feelings when we are being asked these questions. We must make sure we are not just choosing what is easy and convenient for us to believer rather than focusing on what is true.

I’m afraid that I don’t have a magic solution, here. I wish I did!

Obviously, committing an immoral procedure—such as deliberately killing the patient or withholding nutrition and hydration that they would be capable of assimilating—is off the table. And, if the patient can’t speak for himself then previously written instructions are the best available guide, followed by clear memories of what the patient said, followed by fuzzy ones, followed by gut instincts. And the default should be in favor of preserving life.

But there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the question of when to end treatment. All too often a judgment call is involved.

The case of Mr. Rudd from England highlights the fact that people’s opinions can change and that we need to be cautious—and prayerful—in making these decisions.

What are your thoughts?

Stephen Hawking’s Cosmic Slot Machine (Part 2)

In their new book, The Grand Design, co-authors and physicists Stephen Hawking (pictured) and Leonard Mlodinow argue that God is not necessary to explain the existence of the universe as we experience it.

Why not?

After all, if you look at the universe it looks suspiciously like it has been deliberately designed with us in mind. This is something that Harking and Mlodinow go into in some depth. They point out, as have many theistic apologists, that the laws governing our universe seem finely tuned to allow the existence of life. There are any number of constants—the gravitational constant, the mass of the proton, etc.—that are set at just the value needed to allow life to exist. If any of these constants were off by even a small amount, life would not be possible. It therefore appears that our universe has been intelligently designed to allow for life, which implies the existence of an intelligent designer.

In apologetics, this argument is sometimes called the argument from design from cosmological constants.

In their book, the two authors try to provide an alternative account of the universe’s origin that does not require an intelligent designer.

In the account they sketch they claim that ours is not the only universe. In fact, ours is only one of a vast number of universes, all of which pop into existence out of nothing as spontaneous creations. What’s more, the laws of physics take on every possible permutation in these universes, so there are vast numbers of them out there where the cosmological constants are different. So there isn’t a single uni-verse but a multi-verse in which every possible flavor of individual universes occur.


KEEP READING

Stephen Hawking’s Cosmic Slot Machine (Part 1)

I’ve read a number of books by Stephen Hawking (pictured) and Leonard Mlodinow, writing both together and separately. I’ve enjoyed them. They’re informative and funny, and they make clear some pretty deep concepts of physics and mathematics—without burdening you with a bunch of equations (that’s some trick).

But their new book The Grand Design
was a disappointment.

It’s a short read, which is fine, though I was surprised when I discovered that the last 25% of the alredy-short book to be composed of back matter (an exotic form of matter discovered by publishers; it consists of glossaries, indexes, author bios, acknowledgements, and the like).

Despite its brevity, it does a good job making clear some pretty far-out physics concepts, many of which are also treated in similar works, including Hawking’s and Mlodinow’s previous books. It is also nicely laced with humor.

What is disappointing is the way the book treats philosophy and theology.


KEEP READING.

“Stop All Shows Glorifying Human Birthing!”

Al Gore Lied, James J. Lee Died.

That's the premise of this piece at Big Hollywood (warning: language). Author John Nolte writes:

[M]ost environmentalists are lying liars who know they’re lying. Because if you honestly believe man is destroying the planet, that the apocalypse is nigh, you prepare for it. Most coastal elites are Global Warming believers and yet Global Warming, we’re told, will make the oceans rise to the point that will someday put much of the coast, especially Manhattan underwater. So why aren’t coastal elites moving inland? Why aren’t they pulling a Lex Luthor and buying up all that cheap property that will someday be the new coast?

Strongly worded! And you gotta give him points for the Superman: The Movie reference (it is Big Hollywood), but he goes on to juxtapose Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth with the recent hostage situation at the Discovery Channel headquarters in Maryland.

In that event, gunman James J. Lee (pictured) took several people hostage and, while they made it out alive, he didn't. Police shot him and later safely detonated several explosive devices that he had strapped to his body.

Thing is, Lee was an environmental extremist who claimed on his MySpace page to have been "awakened" by watching Gore's movie.

It's easy, then, to do a variant of the "Bush lied, people died" mantra, as Nolte did in his post at Big Hollywood. But like the anti-Bush mantra, the anti-Gore one is problematic.

KEEP READING.

Treasure of the Broken Land

Renee

Every year in August I have a series of special days. First, the 22nd (Queenship of Mary) is the anniversary of my reception into the Church. Then comes my birthday. Then, on the 26th, it is the anniversary of my wife’s death.

Renee passed eighteen years ago today after a two-month battle with colon cancer. She had just turned 28.

You can read about it if you like.

I realized that I’d never put a picture of her online, and so I scanned this one.

You don’t know it from looking at the picture, but she’s actually standing on phone books to make her look taller.

In the words of a Mark Heard song,

I see you now and then in dreams
Your voice sounds just like it used to
I know you better than I knew you then
All I can say is I love you

I thought our days were commonplace
Thought they would number in millions
Now there’s only the aftertaste
Of circumstance that can’t pass this way again

Treasure of the broken land
Parched earth, give up your captive ones
Waiting wind of Gabriel
Blow soon upon the hollow bones

I can melt the clock hands down
But only in my memory
Nobody gets a second chance
To be the friend they meant to be.

Okay, Liturgical Rant Time

This Sunday when I went to Mass there was a guest priest, someone I’d never seen before. As soon as I head him speak, I knew there was going to be trouble. While everyone as saying the Gloria, this is what the priest said:

Glory to God in the highest
And peace to

his

God’s people on earth.

“Oh, great,” I thought. “We’re already off to a bad start.”

Things went downhill from there.

Not only did Fr. Gender Edit tamper with the Gloria, he also was seemingly unaware of the existence of the subjunctive mood in English. Thus whenever the text called for him to say, “The Lord be with you,” he would instead say, “The Lord is with you.”

This is wrong for so many reasons. While it is true that the Lord is always with us in one sense—actually, in several senses—it is also true that the Lord is not with us in other senses and that there are senses in which he is sometimes with us and sometimes not. For example, he’s not always with us the way he is in the Eucharist. Christ’s Real Presence disappears once the appearances of bread and wine cease.

There are also senses in which the Lord can choose to be with us or choose not to be—for example, he is certainly with us in a particular way when we are doing his will but not when we are sinning.

Priests who chuck the subjunctive “The Lord be with you” in favor of the indicative “The Lord is with you” are presumably wanting to assure the flock of God’s presence, but what they’re actually doing is falsifying the liturgy, not just by tampering with the approved text but also by speaking presumptuously on behalf of God. It is precisely those senses in which God can choose to be with us (or not) that the Church intends in this greeting. That’s why the Church uses the subjunctive mood here—which is used in this case to express a wish or desire. By offering this greeting, the priest is asking God to bless us. He’s praying for us in the greeting.

By using the indicative mood—which is used to express actual states of affairs—the priest is not praying for us but announcing a result, which means either that he is speaking of one of those senses in which God is always with us (changing and flattening the meaning of the greeting) or he is presuming upon God’s free choice. Either way, it’s bad.

It’s also bad because we are supposed (for the next year and a bit) to respond by saying, “And also with you.” (Come Advent 2011, though, it’ll be the more literal, “And with your spirit.”)

This means that the priest is not only altering the meaning of what he’s saying, he’s also forcing a shift in meaning on what we say. The meaning of our response is conditioned by his greeting, and so to say, “And also with you” would mean “And the Lord is also with you.”

In other words, he’s forcing upon us his own modification of meaning and expecting us to make it our own via the reply.

A friend of mine pointedly refuses to give the response when a priest does this, and frankly, I do too. I just keep my mouth shut. The priest may have the power to deform the liturgy at this point, but that doesn’t mean I have to vocally affirm him in doing so.

Fr. Gender Edit’s defiant refusals to say what the Missal says for him to say, though, were peccadillos compared to what he did in the homily.

You may recall that the Gospel for the day was Luke 13:22-30, wherein our Lord is asked the question of whether those who are saved will be few and he replies,

“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.
After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.
And you will say,
‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’
Then he will say to you,
‘I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.”

So. . . . Salutary warning about the possibility of damnation, right? Not in Fr. Gender Edit’s hands! He got up and completely un-preached this passage. He started by talking about how the question raises Jesus’ “nightmare scenario” (Fr. Edit’s words)—the idea that even one soul might not be saved, and which he came to earth in order to prevent. The question thus revealed the anxiety of the one who asked it, but Jesus reassured him.

No comment whatsoever on the “many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough” or “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!” Following Ludwig Wittgenstein, that which he could not speak of, Fr. Gender Edit passed over in silence.

Which raises the question: Why did he feel the need to subvert the Gospel reading of the day in this way? It wasn’t just a question of soft-peddling its message. It was completely reversing what the text was emphasizing.

So not only did Fr. Edit feel free to tamper with the prayers of the Mass, he also felt free to counter the text of sacred Scripture.

Why?

I hate to say it, but when a priest does this—especially with the possibility of damnation—one can’t help but wonder if there is a psychological dynamic of bad conscience at work. One can’t help but wondering if he has some moral fault—perhaps one of the various kinds of priestly moral faults that have so often appeared in the press in recent years—that makes it unendurable for him to acknowledge the possibility of damnation.

However that may be, it’s just a sad situation.

And it was made sadder when, as the Communion hymn, they did “I Am the Bread of Life”—a modern composition that has been systematically stripped of any and all gender references, despite the fact that it is based on John 6, where such references are used.

I tell you, the better you know Scripture, the more awful that song is, because it just grates on the nerves hearing the word of God systematically neutered, one line after another, in the service of a socio-political agenda. (And that’s even if you can get past singing line after line in the voice of Jesus.)

This song—especially its gender edited version—is another which I just keep my mouth shut for.

I’m sure that, as a visiting priest, Fr. Gender Edit had nothing to do with the selection of that song, but it was ironic and depressing that they picked for that particular Mass.

What I wonder, though, is what Fr. Gender Edit and his ilk will do come Advent 2011, when the new translation of the Roman Missal will go into effect (it has now been announced).

Over the last decade plus, the Holy See has been using a step-by-step approach to improve the quality of the liturgy, and it has been bearing fruit. Things aren’t as bad now as they were fifteen years ago. Not hardly.

But the new translation of the Mass will be a particularly big step, and I wonder what dissidents like Fr. Gender Edit will do when it gets here.

What are your thoughts?

How to Make Low Carb Pizza: The Movie!

The other day on Facebook (where you can friend me if you'd like) I posted a picture of some low carb pizza I had made over the weekend. I got a number of requests–online and off–for the recipe, and so I made the following video (my apologies for the camera work at a few points; it's not easy to make pizza with one hand while holding an iPhone with the other).

President Obama Defends Ground Zero Mosque!

In a speech at the White House on Friday—the Muslim holy day—commemorating the start of Ramadan—the Muslim holy month—President Obama expressed support for the right of Muslims to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City and, in fact, at the site of a building that was damaged in the 9/11 attacks when part of one of the planes used by terrorists crashed into the building’s roof.

In his usual snippy tone President Obama stated:

Let me be clear: as a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances

By the next day, he was backpedaling, stating:

I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there.

Okay, so he’s a politician. You gotta expect flip-flops.

And non-denial denials, which is what his second remark was. He is deliberately not telling us what he thinks about the wisdom of building a mosque at Ground Zero. Let’s take him at his word on that. He may very well think it’s a great idea. Or he may not. We don’t know because he isn’t telling. He just wanted to take some of the political edge off his remark of the previous day.

I could even give him credit for defending a legal right on the part of Muslims to build a mosque on private property “in accordance with local laws and ordinances”—assuming two things: (1) That they actually have such a legal right (the First Amendment does not guarantee the right to build a place of worship anywhere you want) and (2) if he was backed into a corner and forced to answer the question.

Whether condition (1) obtains, I don’t know. But condition (2) didn’t.

He wasn’t backed into a wall and forced to answer the question. This wasn’t a press conference where Helen Thomas (or someone) sprang the question on him. It was part of his prepared remarks for a Happy Ramadan speech. This means that he chose to put in his oar on this issue. He didn’t have to do that. He chose to.

And he chose to for political reasons—to try to curry favor with the Muslim community.

It’s a calculated risk, because in making such remarks the President also opened himself up to critique on the issue, so if it results in a net loss of political capital for him, he deserves it. He invited it.

While it’s understandable that the President getting involved would focus the spotlight on him, I think that some light also should be shown on the people who are providing the property (presumably by selling it) to the mosque builders and on the mosque builders themselves.

Why do they want to build a mosque right there?

According to their website, they’re all about “improving Muslim-West relations.”

Hmmm.

Build a mosque—a place for Muslims to worship—within two blocks of the site of the worst Muslim terrorist attack in living memory—at the site of a building that was itself damaged as part of the attack.

Let’s flip some religious identities around.

Suppose that there was a Christian terrorist organization and that it attacked an iconic site in a major Muslim city—say, the Kaaba in Mecca—and in so doing not only destroyed the site but also killed 3,000 innocent people, overwhelmingly Muslim.

Then a group of Christians, who have set about “improving West-Muslim relations” announce that they want to build a Christian cultural center and church—a place for Christians to worship—just outside the former site of the Kaaba, at the spot where once stood a building damaged in the Christian terrorist attack.

Would any of us (a) think that this really would improve relations or (b) believe claims that this was the real motive (as opposed, e.g., to being a kind of covert Christian triumphalism)?

I know the Kaaba in Mecca isn’t a direct equivalent of the World Trade Center. It is more important to Muslims than the latter was to Americans—far more so, in fact. But the point remains the same. (And yes, I know that Saudi Arabia would never allow this, but we’re doing a thought experiment to tease out an underlying principle.)

I could understand Muslims wanting to build some kind of inter-religious discussion facility near Ground Zero as a way of allowing visitors to the area to hear the message, “We are Muslims and we don’t approve of what was done here. Please don’t judge our religion by this horrible atrocity.”

But that’s not the same thing as building a mosque—a place of worship for Muslims.

One would always have to suspect the motives of the builders-of-churches-near-the-demolished-Kaaba, as well as the motives of Christians who would go there to worship, and in the same way one must suspect the motives of the builders-of-mosques-near-Ground-Zero, as well as the motives of Muslims who would go there to worship.

Something smells rotten here because something is rotten here.

This is at best a colossally tone deaf and insensitive venture (particularly so for the families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks, but also for all Americans).

At worst it is something far darker.

What are your thoughts?