It wasn’t a Wednesday when I visited St. Peter’s in Rome in 1979. So we didn’t get to see the new Pope. The tour guide pointed to the window at which he would otherwise appear; the same window on which the cameras have been focused these past few days. It was a very hot day and we marveled briefly at the statues atop the double colonnade, then moved on into the cool sanctuary of the basilica.

I knew even then that I would never have the words to describe the beauty of the interior of that place. If you’ve never been there, you should go. Michelangelo’s Pieta is there, a great volume of marble which looks like nothing in this world so much as the essence of sacrifice and grief. Then there’s the canopy over the tomb of St. Peter, so massive and ornate that my eighteen-year-old mind could scarcely take it in.

We humans are very good at building monuments to heroism and glory, but when it comes to marking the passage of humility and love, it seems the best we can do is gather with candles and cry. As it should be. Pope John Paul II has always struck me as a man of humility and compassion, never bombastic or proud. And while I have, as an Orthodox Christian, disagreed with his doctrines now and then, not to mention that of papal infallibility, I’ve always respected his message of peace. His presence brought people hope and pointed them to Christ, and how can one be a better Christian than that?

The Pope was opposed to the attack on Iraq, and he said so, right to President Bush’s face. No one expected John Paul to slap a yellow Support the Troops magnetic ribbon on the back of the popemobile. We knew where he stood, that he supported the troops in ways that elude the consciousness of American leadership. Let that be a lesson to us all.

Finally, he showed us how it’s done. The one thing we each and all have to do is to die, to leave this world in God’s will and God’s time. He accepted his suffering in peace and died with dignity. And it’s sad, and my thoughts and prayers are with all my Roman Catholic friends. If God wills, he will go on praying for you and for the world.

It’s not a happy day. Terri Schiavo dead, and the Pope in grave condition. It’s
hard to see people suffer ….

Here in small town America, we don’t have a very sophisticated perspective of world events. So I guess I’ve grown up just a little naive.

I’ve always assumed that the courts would tend to err on the side of protecting the lives of the innocent and the voiceless, and that it would be very difficult to find a judge willing to let one person kill another, on the grounds that the former claimed the legal right to do so. Turns out I was naive, and that it’s much harder to find a judge willing to help keep an innocent, helpless person alive. Who knew?

Turns out it’s much harder for a state government to get through the appeals process and execute someone already sentenced to die by a judge, than for a family to get a judge to save someone who has not even committed a crime. This seems extremely ironic to me, and small town guys like this writer all ill-equipped to confront irony of this magnitude.

But even here, we know that Michael Schiavo is in a whole lot of hot water as a Roman Catholic. His juggernaut of insistent self will has run afowl of the Pope, whose offices denounced the court order to remove the feeding tube. And soon it seems that both Terri Schiavo and the Bishop of Rome will be having a word with The One Judge that really matters in this case.

This is from the latest AP report on the failure of the Pope’s health:

The Vatican’s attitude to the chronically ill has been apparent in its bitter
condemnation of a judge’s order two weeks ago to remove a feeding tube from
Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged American woman who died Thursday.

Vatican Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, reacting to Schiavo’s death,
denounced the removal of her feeding tube as “an attack against God.”

Although different, some see parallels in the two cases.

Under John Paul, Vatican teaching on the final stages of life includes a firm
rejection of euthanasia, insistence on treatments that help people bear ailments
with dignity and encouragement of research to enhance and prolong life.

A 1980 Vatican document makes the distinction between “proportionate”
and “disproportionate” means of prolonging life. While it gives room for refusal
of some forms of aggressive medical intervention for terminally ill patients, it
insists that “normal care” must not be interrupted.

John Paul set down exactly what that meant in a speech last year to an international conference on treatments for patients in a so-called persistent vegetative state.

“I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory.”

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Behold, the fall of western civilization. It looks to me like, in the long run, it’s survival of the best rested.
Health News Article | Reuters.com

Love dogs? Me too. It’s amazing how many people think it’s OK to leave their dog chained up outside. It’s not OK.
Dogs Deserve Better

Thanks Barb!

32 years ago today, the last American combat troops left Vietnam, ending our direct military involvement in a bloody debacle in which we failed entirely to bring peace to the world, and gained nothing tangible but a large and sorrowful wall in Washington.

An interesting article at Herald.com about kid writers — successful ones. And I don’t mean grown-ups writing childrens’ books. I am feelin’ a little late for the party.

This seems like a good day to remind anybody who’s interested of what I think: The war in Iraq is not only illegal and immoral, but contrary to Christian doctrine. Christ teaches peace and love. It’s nice that George W. Bush, who put his hand on a Bible to take his oath, went and prayed for the troops today. I pray that hypocracy doesn’t get him him popped like popcorn in hell.

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and
the prophets.
Matthew 22:36-40

I was struck by a line in the movie Cold Mountain. Something like, “I imagine the Lord gets weary of being called down on both sides of an argument.”

Not in my name. And not in the name of my faith.

Illinois Roars Back to Catch Arizona in OT

c’est la guerre

To all my beloved brothers and sisters celebrating The Resurrection of Our Lord on the western calendar, Happy Easter. May the peace and love of Christ abide with you today and every day. Surely the stone is rolled away and the tomb is empty.

Maybe the next Slaughterhouse 5 or Catch-22? Why not?

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Here’s a great Calvin cartoon for you. … It’s too big to fit in the main column of my blog, but I don’t want to downsize it in photoshop.

Did you know there’s such a thing as coffee that’s certified fair to the farmers? I just noticed this link. Seems like something very much worth looking for when shopping for java.

And here’s a company that sells fair trade coffee online.