Those of us with Asperger's tend to stand out without even really trying. We speak differently, move differently, act differently, dress differently; we avoid situations that most people gravitate towards and spend way more free time than most people pursuing interests like entomology, quantum physics, and obscure retro arcade machine games. We resist following rules and trends that don't make sense to us, like backstabbing our co-workers to get a promotion and wearing acid wash jeans.
As an rather eccentric oddball (and oddball eccentric), I have found that there is something deeply freeing about the Christian faith. At its very core is the most eccentric person to ever walk the earth, eccentric because He was the very centre of Goodness in a warped and lopsided world. Many of those who have followed closely in His footsteps have done the oddest and most radical things imaginable, like the well-to-do landowner who left his 300 acres of land to live a life of bare sustenance in the desert, or the Roman officer who washed the boots of servants, or the seventeen-year-old girl who led a small army into battle, or the young noblewoman who ran away from home, traded her beautiful clothes for a plain, rustic habit, cut off her hair and went barefoot. Jesus does not care whether or not we dress fashionably, have the right houses in the right neighbourhoods, and say all the right things; moreover, he is not concerned about whether or not our Christian walk looks just like everyone else's. He cares only of our love for Him and our neighbour, in whatever odd or quirky ways we might express it. And He not only frees us to be oddballs and eccentrics, but even more, he frees us from eccentricity that is merely reactionary, superficial, and empty, instead ordering it towards things deep and permanent, ordering towards the centre: Goodness, Beauty, Truth, Love, Justice.
Now His church, unfortunately, tends to forget this. Your average American/Canadian church sometimes feels more like a social club. Certain types of people fit in and certain types don't, and the crazy thing is, if the Saints themselves walked into one of those churches they would probably be among the misfits. There is something seriously wrong with this. When we've started judging each other by appearance and status and possessions, there's a good chance we're no longer seeing each other as brothers and sisters. When we're comformed to the world, it's doubtful we're conformed to Christ. And when we have banished eccentricity, perhaps we have lost the centre.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Somewhere, one of those crotchety old church ladies who warned us all of the dangers of guitars and modern art in church feels vindicated
The Crescat is having a contest for the ugliest church art. It's hard to pick just one, but the statue of Mary in number 15 looks like she's thinking about chopping you in half with her lightsaber.
It's still hard to beat the giant Jesus on I-75, though. Or this.
Update: I almost forgot to tip my hat to Fr. Longenecker of the wonderful blog Standing on My Head for this one, how rude of me.
It's still hard to beat the giant Jesus on I-75, though. Or this.
Update: I almost forgot to tip my hat to Fr. Longenecker of the wonderful blog Standing on My Head for this one, how rude of me.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Compassion means "to suffer with", not "to kill"
Euthanasia and assisted suicide have made headlines lately, with the Quebec College of Physicians' endorsement of the former and the death of a renown conductor by the latter. And with bill C-384, which would legalize assisted suicide, up for debate in Parliament this fall, the issue is not likely to go away. Forgive me if this post sounds strident, but I must admit to having little patience for anything that cheapens the value of human life.
And euthanasia and assisted suicide do just that. Whenever these things are debated, we hear a lot of words like dignity, choice and compassion, and even I will admit that they seem appropriate, on the surface. But look more closely, and it becomes strikingly apparent that not only do euthanisia and assisted suicide rarely involve any of these things, they negate them.
To decide that it is acceptable to hasten the death or assist in the suicide of someone is to declare that his or her life is no longer worth living. Only the person's death retains any dignity; his continued existence has been stripped of it. It starts with the terminally ill (a questionable phrase, since doctors can rarely tell how long a patient is going to live), who, we figure, are going to die soon anyway, probably painfully-never mind that palliative care is better than ever at treating pain. And it doesn't stay there. It extends steadily outward, to those in comas, those with severe physical and mental disabilities, those with chronic pain, those with less severe disabilities like Down Syndrome, even to the mentally ill and clinically depressed, until the lives of thousands of people, whose disabilities and illnessess any of us could develop at any time, are declared unworthy to be lived.
If it is about choice, it's a warped version of it. When choice becomes the ultimate expression of human worth and dignity, a lot of people end up losing those things. Since the severely disabled and the comatose can't make their own choices, the thinking goes, they are effectively non-persons, and not only that, but they interfere with the choices of healthy people by being a burden on them, so their worth actually becomes negative. This kind of thinking can lead to astonishing cruelty. In the U.K, a man with Down Syndrome who was in hospital after suffering a stroke starved to death because doctors neglected to insert a feeding tube. People with severe brain damage are routinely dehydrated; we only hear about it when a family member objects. In the Netherlands, infants with severe disabilities are sometimes killed. Even people who are considered by society to be able to make their own choices are vulnerable to having the choice essentially made for them. So often there is pressure in the form of fear of being a burden, neglect and abuse, sub-standard care, and untreated depression and anxiety. And then there is a society that reduces people to their utility, leading to the neglect of people whom it deems a drain on society. Last year in Oregon, where assisted suicide is covered by the state health care plan, a woman with lung cancer was denied chemotherapy, and a few years before that, a man was denied a double organ transplant. There is already talk of the need to ration health care, and it isn't exactly a secret as to who will be denied treatment.
There's no compassion in euthanasia and assisted suicide. Compassion means "to suffer with", and to suffer with someone they have to actually be alive. True compassion is hard. Euthanasia is easy. True compassion forms an intimate bond not only with the people we suffer with, but to everyone who has ever suffered, which is everyone who has ever lived. Euthanasia is lonely. Sometimes it is the absolutely autonomous soul, the one who refuses to lean on others, who dies from it. But more often than not who dies is the people those autonomous souls do not want leaning on them, those that they don't want to comfort, to provide for, to suffer with.
And euthanasia and assisted suicide do just that. Whenever these things are debated, we hear a lot of words like dignity, choice and compassion, and even I will admit that they seem appropriate, on the surface. But look more closely, and it becomes strikingly apparent that not only do euthanisia and assisted suicide rarely involve any of these things, they negate them.
To decide that it is acceptable to hasten the death or assist in the suicide of someone is to declare that his or her life is no longer worth living. Only the person's death retains any dignity; his continued existence has been stripped of it. It starts with the terminally ill (a questionable phrase, since doctors can rarely tell how long a patient is going to live), who, we figure, are going to die soon anyway, probably painfully-never mind that palliative care is better than ever at treating pain. And it doesn't stay there. It extends steadily outward, to those in comas, those with severe physical and mental disabilities, those with chronic pain, those with less severe disabilities like Down Syndrome, even to the mentally ill and clinically depressed, until the lives of thousands of people, whose disabilities and illnessess any of us could develop at any time, are declared unworthy to be lived.
If it is about choice, it's a warped version of it. When choice becomes the ultimate expression of human worth and dignity, a lot of people end up losing those things. Since the severely disabled and the comatose can't make their own choices, the thinking goes, they are effectively non-persons, and not only that, but they interfere with the choices of healthy people by being a burden on them, so their worth actually becomes negative. This kind of thinking can lead to astonishing cruelty. In the U.K, a man with Down Syndrome who was in hospital after suffering a stroke starved to death because doctors neglected to insert a feeding tube. People with severe brain damage are routinely dehydrated; we only hear about it when a family member objects. In the Netherlands, infants with severe disabilities are sometimes killed. Even people who are considered by society to be able to make their own choices are vulnerable to having the choice essentially made for them. So often there is pressure in the form of fear of being a burden, neglect and abuse, sub-standard care, and untreated depression and anxiety. And then there is a society that reduces people to their utility, leading to the neglect of people whom it deems a drain on society. Last year in Oregon, where assisted suicide is covered by the state health care plan, a woman with lung cancer was denied chemotherapy, and a few years before that, a man was denied a double organ transplant. There is already talk of the need to ration health care, and it isn't exactly a secret as to who will be denied treatment.
There's no compassion in euthanasia and assisted suicide. Compassion means "to suffer with", and to suffer with someone they have to actually be alive. True compassion is hard. Euthanasia is easy. True compassion forms an intimate bond not only with the people we suffer with, but to everyone who has ever suffered, which is everyone who has ever lived. Euthanasia is lonely. Sometimes it is the absolutely autonomous soul, the one who refuses to lean on others, who dies from it. But more often than not who dies is the people those autonomous souls do not want leaning on them, those that they don't want to comfort, to provide for, to suffer with.
Monday, July 13, 2009
The state of the Christian blogosphere
Internet Monk recently posted an insightful critique of the Christian blogosphere. I especially appreciated this point:
I'd like to delve more deeply into this issue in future posts, but in the meantime, be sure to read the whole thing as there is a lot to chew on there.
One sees very little that is of a really radical nature in the discipleship or community exemplified in the Christian blogosphere. Despite a lot of adjectives suggesting radicalism, the Christian spirituality of the blogosphere appears to be quite conventional, especially in regard to issues of comfort, finances, lifestyle, children, community, mission, etc.
I'd like to delve more deeply into this issue in future posts, but in the meantime, be sure to read the whole thing as there is a lot to chew on there.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
A thoughtful take on Caritas in Veritate for evangelicals
...from the former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, Francis Beckwith, who recently returned to Catholicism; you can read it here.
I thought this was an especially important point given that we have squeezed so much substance out of Christianity to make it fit into those confining spaces known as "left" and "right":
I thought this was an especially important point given that we have squeezed so much substance out of Christianity to make it fit into those confining spaces known as "left" and "right":
The categories that dominate our public discourse in the United States—left, right, liberal, conservative, etc.—play no role in illuminating the Church's social doctrines or the message of Caritas in Veritate. This is why it is a fool's errand to attempt to artificially divide Catholic social teachings into its left and right wings, as if the Church's rejection of economic libertarianism and the proclamation of the principles of subsidiary and solidarity are inconsistent with support for male-female marriage and the sanctity of human life
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Maybe we'll start listening to him
Probably not, but one can hope. From Pope Benedict XVI's latest encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate":
Whether you're Protestant or Catholic, Pope Benedict XVI's encyclicals are always worth reading if you can spare the time."Striving to meet the deepest moral needs of the person also has important and beneficial repercussions at the level of economics. The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly - not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centered...
Much in fact depends on the underlying system of morality. On this subject the Church's social doctrine can make a specific contribution, since it is based on man's creation "in the image of God" (Gen 1:27), a datum which gives rise to the inviolable dignity of the human person and the transcendent value of natural moral norms. When business ethics prescinds from these two pillars, it inevitably risks losing its distinctive nature and it falls prey to forms of exploitation; more specifically, it risks becoming subservient to existing economic and financial systems rather than correcting their dysfunctional aspects."
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Happy Canada Day!
Some weird Canadian restaurants and quirky Canadian roadside attractions like the cow lookout of St.-Georges-de-Windsor Quebec, Susie, the worlds largest softball, and Quilly Willy the Porcupine to enjoy with your beer, beaver tails and poutine.
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