Meditation: Placing a Body in a Body Bag

                I was supposed to be going home to my family, but the nurses on our shift told the nurses coming on that we would place the patient’s body in the body bag before we left.  So I grabbed the body bag and watched the nurses seated before their computer terminals they looked pretty settled and I wanted to go home; so I walked back to the patient’s room by myself.

                The patient was a small light lady and I knew I could place her in the bag without difficulty and so that is what I did.  She was stiff and the sort of pale color that is singular to death except where the now blue blood was accumulating, the interior of her elbow for instance.

                I unfolded the bag and unzipped it.  The bag spelled of formaldehyde and briefly reminded me of the dissection I had done in A&P class.  I placed the bag, open, alongside the further side of the patient’s body.  I gently lifted her head and moved the bag into position beneath her, muttering “God bless you” repeatedly under my breath.  I then placed her head into the body bag, I lifted her hips up with one hand enough to slide the bag beneath her with the other, and finally I placed her legs inside the bag.  During this process the thought that I focused upon was respect, it was totally apparent that her body completely void of any life, and yet it was apparent to me that I must faithfully serve the soul which once resided there in.  Having done that to the best of my ability I zipped up the bag to her foot, which I left exposed as the nurses still needed to place the toe tag on her. 

                I then said a small prayer, left the room, told the nurses that the task which separated me from home had been completed, picked up my jacket and my Kindle, and left.  I called my wife and reluctantly told her why I was late.  “You had to do what?” she responded.  I told her I had done it by myself so I could come home and then I saw a white passenger van, which had been going the other direction, sitting with its front smashed in; empty and dark save for the light of emergency vehicles and head lights.  I asked my wife if we could pray as I was now having a hard time processing the world around me.  We said an “Our Father”, a “Hail Mary”, and a “Glory Be” and I drove the rest of the way home and gave my family some love.

                The following morning I woke up still thinking of the patient and the body bag.  I realized that all I had allowed myself to think about and focus on was that I was treating the body with respect.  As I thought about the situation more as a whole I wondered if I hadn’t been wrong to take it on by myself.  The more I placed myself back into that situation, however, the more I felt certain that I was not by myself.  I thought quickly about the other people on the unit and reassured myself that I was indeed by myself; I also grew more convinced that I had felt someone else in the room with me. 

                It occurred to me that I was somehow in the presence of the care of God for the soul and as that thought slipped into place I felt the peace of the Holy Spirit descend upon me and I have been at peace with the events of that evening since that moment.

                I am not at all sophisticated enough to know who was with me at that moment.  I am thankful to God for the sake of that woman that He was there.  May God bless us in His love and mercy; now and at the hour of our death.  Amen.   

               

Nicki Minaj and the Decent of Artistic Expression

                The 2012 Grammys was marked for the memorializing of the tragic passing of Whitney Houston; all expressions seemed turned to that one end, all save one.  Nicki Minaj could not help herself.  She had to be the ying to Adele’s yang and try to prove her relevance as she attempts vainly to be the other end of the spectrum.  So she had dancers portraying Hassidic Jewish rabbis and Buddhist monks desecrate their faiths for the sake of self expression.  No, she actually focused upon the Catholic Church which is far less original, but the expression of self is rarely very original.

 In fact one seems to pursue this self expression at the cost of any real expression at all.  The message is nondescript and muddled; it is only to say vaguely the Catholic Church is the object of my ire.  One can fill in the blank with their own caricatured and misguided bigotry about the Church for they will find no real direction for it in the performance or piece of art.  It is simply perpetuated for the sake of doing so as the piece is not responding to anything specifically.  It is a sad devolution of art as described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man’s own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing.” (CCC, part 3, VI, 2501)

So as the messages turn into noise and beauty is replaced by rubbish we become incredibly nihilistic; the past seems to be passing judgment upon the modern moment in artistic expression and the resulting feelings are uncomfortable.

The laziness of modernity creates a lack of creative quality.  People cut and paste and copy and repeat until the style is devoid of any of the initial meaning.  The result is totally appropriate for the tenor of the culture however as no one appears to be willing to discuss matters past the superficial catchphrases and sound bites.

Here is an example of the nature of the argument, I found an argument which called a fetus a parasite a few blogs back, “Abortion is worse than Sharia Law”, I put forth that even if the biology involved mirrored exactly that of a parasite the fetus was still not a parasite especially one so willingly accepts the fetus via well documented means, via one’s own consent over 99% of the time, the biology in and of itself can only be neutral.  The negative connotations come directly from the heart of the author.  I believe this so completely that I almost edited the word devolution above as evolution in and of itself have not a positive or negative connotation it is necessarily neutral.  The response from the commenter was simply “I win”.  That is not a debate.

“The real objection to modernism is simply that it is a form of snobbishness. It is an attempt to crush a rational opponent not by reason, but by some mystery of superiority, by hinting that one is specially up to date or particularly “in the know.””(G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered, 1908)

Without thought there is no wisdom.  Without wisdom there is no real art.  Everyone is very sensitive and carries their hearts on their sleeves; that actually does not create great art.  Discipline is more the key to great art than a superficial appreciation of one’s own superficiality.

So as the Nicki Minajs of the world continue to contribute to the decline of the culture at large, to the dumbing down of the debate, and the debasement of expression it may actually be a huge blessing; for it is really easy to spot for those who have the ability to pay a small amount of attention.  

The Smoke Blown is called Compromise

                It has been explained to me that an insurance policy is funded in three ways: the premium paid by the employer, the premium paid by the employee, and co-pays.  These funds make up an insurance policy.  These funds together make up an insurance policy; these funds separately make up a fantasy called compromise.  Some all but say when the president blows smoke up your integrity all you can say politely is “thank you”.

                First of all I would like to say that Catholic Organizations should be autonomous.  Trouble is always tied to purse strings and institutions of faith must have their autonomy, although there are Christian Churches who are also a self funded, anti- contraception, insurance company as well and they are scratching their heads as to how this is compromise.

                I envy their ability to ponder from such a position of strength.  Their position highlights the actual lack of pluralism that is becoming status quo as the Christian Church insurance companies must be worried about being assessed fines for non-compliance.  Religious institutions are voluntary even if their tenants are strict; the laws of a country are involuntary and so must be open to pluralism which is not unethical.  The religious organizations actually and rationally can argue that contraception is unethical and even call them inherently evil.

                This essay is not about the argument for or against contraception it is about the responsibility of power.  When one looks at the psychological construct involving who must be seen as the agent of abuse it is about the power disparity between the abused and the abuser.  Sexual harassment is about someone in a position of power asserting that power inappropriately to assault a person whom the power is exerted over. The person who is not in power can be disciplined by the superior so the superior is insulated from the threat of harassment.

                The first charge I must parry is that the laity of the Church is under the oppression and harassment of the Bishops of the Church.  The Catholic Church is not a club or a democracy it is the agent of God and is concerned with shepherding its flock into eternal beatific joy.  Can one do this at the cost of the relationship with the source of the Grace which has carried the Church through over two-thousand years of history?  In other words if contraception is a mortal sin then that is not a matter of opinion it is a matter of sanctity.  One cannot both separate oneself from God and claim to be the Church of Christ. One must carry on and teach the truth of Christ regardless of persecution.  The laity of the Church has the tools through the grace of the sacraments to pray about the position they desire to take in relation to the teachings of the Church.  If there conscious leads them away from the Church that is extremely sad but they are perfectly free to function under their own ill-formed conscience.  They just can’t be Catholic; which is not something anyone in the world would be critical of.

                The Church has to function within the laws of the United States however, there is no carrying on within the borders of the county as a self excommunicated American.  Being an expat while living in Colorado makes very little sense.

                So the government is in the position of authority over the Church.  To such an extent that it has the ability to try to cause the Church to mortally sin against God through the administration of its laws.  If the government should do this it obstructs the ability of that religion to exist on a fundamental level.  The laity too must have the right to follow the tenants of the Church.  The laity of the Church must have the ability to exercise the tenants of their faith. 

                If the laity have no ability to obtain insurance that does not conflict with their conscience then they must have the option of being uninsured.  This seems counter to the heart of the president’s proposal which is universal health care.  It is logical to allow the Church to have an outlet which does not compromise its ability to reach the beatific vision and thus its very mission in existing.

                The issue is not abstract but well defined, as I have written on in the past “the Church and the State, Sat. Aug. 6, 2011”. 

“John Locke’s work laid the inspirational groundwork for Thomas Jefferson who agreed that religion should not and could not be impinged upon by the state as it was an exercise of the interior life of men and women.  Government could not govern the individual’s conscience; that governance was between the individual and his or her God. 

                In Jefferson’s letter to the Baptists of Danbury, who were concerned that their expression of religion was not an exercise of religious freedom but rather given at the discretion of the majority, he stated that they should not fear because there should be “a wall of separation between church and state.”  He affirmed that government should not attempt to interfere in the individual’s ability to express themselves to their God.

                Honestly though citing this letter is no slam dunk and should not be seen as extended to all expressions of an individual’s religion.  If this were the case people would try to prove religious expression in court rather than disprove their sanity.  The one obvious example of a religion which has tried to sight religious expression and tested the limitations thus far has been the Mormons.   In 1879 in Reynolds v. United States of America the Supreme Court upheld the Morrill Act, which outlawed Polygamy; the courts claim being that a government cannot interfere in religious beliefs but can interfere in its actions.  In 1890 a decree by church president Willford Woodriff suggested that Mormons not enter into marriages which were illegal and that was that.

                I believe that this was prudent action by the government, and I also believe that it’s a stretch to compare polygamy to vouchers for private schools.  I believe that “separation of church and state” has become a sound bite which implies so much more to a secular culture than it is willing to examine justly.  They wish to portray the church and state as competitors vying for influence.  The church has every right to be as suspicious now as the Baptists who wrote to Thomas Jefferson, as separation of church and state has been used to attack every expression of faith aired in the public sphere from nativities to the Pledge of Allegiance. 

                The position which has emerged, not in small part to these litigations, is not a neutral position but depending on the school distinct or the state could be very anti-religion.  I am looking at you California.   It seems the more pluralism is espoused the more the church’s position is washed out of consideration; creating not a true pluralism but a very distinct point of view.”

                Contraception is not illegal and the Church has no special right given to it by the government to actually prevent the laity from obtaining contraception.  Isn’t this one of the reasons the Federal Government of the United States funds Planned Parenthood?  Contraception is more than readily available without the interference of government upon the conscience of the Church.  The true existence of pluralism and religious freedom within our borders is very much at stake.

                To conclude one must juxtaposition the rigidity of care in shepherding the flock between the Church and the State.  The Church and the State, specifically this administration, may both believe they hold the truth in their belief system.  The Church is however very, very slow to publicly excommunicate any of its members.  Kathleen Sebelius has had a year long conversation with her bishop, Archbishop Joseph Naumann, who tried to shepherd her into good standing with the church and it seems she took the same opportunity to try to bring the Church into good standing with her.  The conclusion, Archbishop Naumann asked her first privately and then publically not to present herself for Holy Communion.  She is not officially ex-communicated, however, and is one good confession away from religious integrity.

                 The Obama Administration is set to issue fines that start at hundreds of thousands of dollars and jump up after that; pastoral care via sledge hammer. 

                The opportunity to practice our faith in a real way cannot be predicated upon surreal literary illusions of Government.  The insurance industry does not work in the way the administration portrays and so nothing has actually changed.  The idea that religious institutions have to live with a fatally flawed compromise is to show how little regard some in Washington and in our country have for the faith they confess out of convenience and self indulgence.

                The point of view created by the government and specifically in this case the Obama Administration, is that when the actions of the state interfere with the ability of the laity to form and exercise their very conscience then they cannot participate in the fundamental expression of that religion; as the government would have found a way into the “holiest of holies” the interior where Jefferson and Locke stated the government could never go.

Never Save Your Breasts at the Cost of Your Integrity

                ^“If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you  to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell,”(Mark 9:47, New American Standard Bible)

  “It is better for you to go into heaven a little maimed than to go hell in a push-up.” (Mark 9: 47, New Bodaciously Awesome Bible)

Do you need me to recount Henry V’s St. Crispin Day speech?  As he in essence answers Hamlet’s query, “To be, or not to be, that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them: to die, to sleep no more; and by a sleep, to say we end the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to?” (William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1603)

It is far nobler indeed!  There is nothing more precious than our honor, our integrity.  Popularity is not worth having when it is purchased with the currency of integrity.  We live in a culture which can see no other way forward than to validate, as not to offend, what it should grieve as a tragedy. 

Monetizing an institution which does evil monopolizes that capital away from saner alternatives and so potential good is choked on the vine in favor of the present evil.  Let us not mince words Planned Parenthood is evil.  One can no more say the Nazi party had an amazing infrastructure that put the population to work after the abject poverty of the First World War than one can say Planned Parenthood serves the impoverished woman.

For as each statement may have a thin veneer of some truth, the deeper truth is that no institution which does what is inherently evil has the right to claim any good.  Nazi Germany must never be known for its successful social programs because it was built upon a eugenic utopian ideal which called for the destruction of the fashionably undesirable.  This echoes the argument against holding up Planned Parenthood as the bastion of the poor woman with no other recourse to breast health.  The poor woman may require her breasts but she certainly cannot require her children.  She certainly cannot feel whole without her breasts as then she will not be able to care for her phantom children; phantom children who have brought countless women very real pain and regret.  As is inherent among parents if it be my life (the parent) or the life of my child let me die in the preservation of that child’s life and so the parents of aborted children quite often have a self imposed survivor’s guilt.

“I could fill this book with examples of the universal, unconscious assumption that life and sex must live by the laws of "business" or industrialism, and not vice versa; examples from all the magazines, novels, and newspapers. In order to make it brief and typical, I take one case of a more or less Eugenist sort from a paper that lies open in front of me—a paper that still bears on its forehead the boast of being peculiarly an organ of democracy in revolt. To this a man writes to say that the spread of destitution will never be stopped until we have educated [138]the lower classes in the methods by which the upper classes prevent procreation. The man had the horrible playfulness to sign his letter "Hopeful." Well, there are certainly many methods by which people in the upper classes prevent procreation; one of them is what used to be called "platonic friendship," till they found another name for it at the Old Bailey. I do not suppose the hopeful gentleman hopes for this; but some of us find the abortion he does hope for almost as abominable. That, however, is not the curious point. The curious point is that the hopeful one concludes by saying, "When people have large families and small wages, not only is there a high infantile death-rate, but often those who do live to grow up are stunted and weakened by having had to share the family income for a time with those who died early. There would be less unhappiness if there were no unwanted children." You will observe that he tacitly takes it for granted that the small wages and the income, desperately shared, are the fixed points, like day and night, the conditions of human life. Compared with them marriage and maternity are luxuries, things to be modified to suit the wage-market. There are unwanted children; but unwanted by whom? This man does not really mean that the parents do not want to have them. He means that the employers do not want to pay them properly. Doubtless, if you said to him directly, "Are you in favour of low wages?" he would say, "No." But I am not, in this chapter, talking about the effect on such modern minds of a cross-examination to which they do not subject [139]themselves. I am talking about the way their minds work, the instinctive trick and turn of their thoughts, the things they assume before argument, and the way they faintly feel that the world is going. And, frankly, the turn of their mind is to tell the child he is not wanted, as the turn of my mind is to tell the profiteer he is not wanted. Motherhood, they feel, and a full childhood, and the beauty of brothers and sisters, are good things in their way, but not so good as a bad wage. About the mutilation of womanhood, and the massacre of men unborn, he signs himself "Hopeful." He is hopeful of female indignity, hopeful of human annihilation. But about improving the small bad wage he signs himself "Hopeless."” (G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils, 1922)

“Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, that he which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart; his passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse; we would not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us.  This day is call’d the feast of Crispin.” (William Shakespeare, Henry V, 1599)

                There is still cause for great hope as the truth was dared uttered for a moment, though delivered with great and obvious trepidation from the outset.  The retreat is not a great surprise, though it is a great disappointment especially to those of us who felt they could finally contribute to this cause.  The battle was not undertaken with diligence and clear-headedness as this outcome could not have been a surprise.  What is lacking is not vision but resolve and that is something which is indispensable.