"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." ~ Blessed Mother Teresa
Friendship can be hard with our different habits, distance, and how busy we all get. But if I’ve learned anything through trial and error, it’s that friendship is worth it. We need it. We were not created to be alone or isolated. We are made in the image of God, a communion of persons, to do life with other people. It’s easier said than done, but it’s something we know we need.
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Read more over at Everyday Ediths, where I’m posting for the first time today.
It’s been a quiet year since graduating college. And if you told me in the months leading up to graduation what life would look like now, I don’t know that I would have believed you. It’s not because life is crazy, but because honestly, life has been status quo and at times mundane.
In college, my schedule was packed most of the time: classes, weekly meetings of different sorts, babysitting, event planning, group leading, spontaneous adventures and everyday living with people, etc. The funny thing is: none of that comes with you after graduation. I knew that. But now I’ve lived it too.
I started a new job, moved, and found a parish. But I’m not super busy anymore.
It’s weird.
As someone who was so used to being busy, it was and still is strange to come home from work and have nothing that absolutely must be done. It’s freeing in a way: I’ve read so much, explored creative things, gotten a bike, taken group exercise classes, killed some plants and kept others alive. But it’s also terrible. I feel a responsibility to spend my time well and give back to the world, which is easier said than done – because hello, where do you start?
When you graduate and are starting life all over again, having a world of possibilities is empowering but also frustrating. Yes, the sky’s the limit. But where do you start? I’ve tried out lots of things and have met great people since graduating. But it’s just different. And I haven’t found exactly the things to commit to yet.
I’m learning to be okay with that.
This is a time not everyone gets in their life, and really I am grateful to breath in the stillness of hikes and read and cook and work on myself. I count it as an accomplishment that I’ve grown comfortable being by myself (in a healthy way) and finding new things to try out. People say kids need to be bored to spark their creativity and imagination – is it true for adults too? Seems like it. I’ve been thinking and writing so many posts in my head to share. Maybe one day I’ll remember to!
My faith is so important to me, and the gospel from last Sunday had me thinking: it was the story of the seeds sown in different areas and how you need fertile ground for seeds to grow and thrive. Do I hear and understand God’s word and take action because of it? Do I nurture and prioritize the most important things in life? Yes, I know the power of God’s love at the capacity I can understand it right now. Have I let that soak into every part of me and radically change the way I live?
. . . a challenging question for us all to ask.
I have no idea what life will bring, but I do know the future is in the hands of a God who’s got my back.
There’s so much I could write and rage about, but really – what else matters? I mean, there’s a lot that matters and we can’t be apathetic. But this time is giving me space to read and learn and grow and seek and find what’s really most important in life. It’s been the perfect time to read Cardinal Sarah’s book The Power of Silence. He Says:
“Without noise, man is feverish, lost. Noise gives him security, like a drug on which he has become dependent. With its festive appearance, noise is a whirlwind that avoids facing itself. Agitation becomes a tranquilizer, a sedative, a morphine pump . . .this noise is a dangerous, deceptive, medicine, a diabolic lie that helps man avoid confronting himself”
Did you need a truth bomb? Because Cardinal Sarah has you covered. I want to come back to that thought and really challenge myself to use this time well: confronting what needs to be, giving how I can, working hard, and finding God in the stillness that can be so annoying.
Have you experienced a season of life like this? I’d love to hear about it!
To Life,
If you’ve been on social media lately, you’ve probably seen someone post about Charlie Gard, the 10 month old London resident who will most likely die soon due to infantile onset encephalomyopathy mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome (MDDS). For us non-medical professionals, it’s a genetic disease where muscles and the brain progressively deteriorate and lose function, leading to death.
It’s tragic.
There’s only so much you can do in a situation like this. So Charlie’s parent’s wanted to bring him to the US to undergo an experimental treatment. They made a treatment plan with a leading expert and raised over a million pounds to cover expenses. Under their socialized medicine, though, Charlie’s specialists decided it would be in Charlie’s best interest to not pursue the experimental treatment and remove life support.
Charlie’s parents appealed, but lost their legal battle. They cannot take Charlie to the US or home to die naturally. The State has the final say.
Understandably so, many people are enraged at the State’s usurping of parental rights. I am too. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to receive such a diagnosis for your child, and then to be prevented from pursuing your last hope of treatment. So what’s the point in writing about this?
The Pontifical Academy for Life recently released a statement on this, and some people are losing their minds over it. So let’s clear a few things up:
The issue here is not the removal of life support – in this case, a ventilator. The issue is the State (using that term generally to refer to various local and national legal entities) usurping the parental right to pursue a treatment plan and decide, in consultation with specialists, if and when life support becomes burdensome and should be removed.
Removing life support is not always (though can be) equal to murder. Some of the headlines are absolutely ridiculous on this. Catholic bioethical standards are clear on ordinary versus extraordinary means of keeping individuals alive. We must take advantage of ordinary means of maintaining life. But we are not obligated to pursue extraordinary means of prolonging life when they “do not offer a reasonable hope of benefit, do entail an excessive burden, or do impose excessive expense on the family or the community”.
This is not something we as the public can decide for Charlie, as it’s a delicate line the medical professionals involved need to determine with the parents.
So when The Academy says: “we do . . . have to recognize the limitations of what can be done, while always acting humanely in the service of the sick person until the time of natural death occurs” – they’re absolutely right. Charlie’s doctors and parents seem to disagree about those limitations, unfortunately, which is where the problem exists.
It’s true that parents “must be helped to understand the unique difficulty of their situation”, as The Academy says. That doesn’t mean in this particular case the specialists or State were correct. It doesn’t mean the Vatican “sided with the State” as irresponsible journalists are titling their pieces. But I think we can all recognize that parents naturally would fight for their children. In some cases, they may fight beyond the time when a reasonable chance of recovery exists, which I think the Academy is making a point to recognize as a possibility in cases like this.
What can we gather from this?
Bioethics are extremely complicated. We know that any “act or omission that of itself or by intention causes death to alleviate suffering” is always morally wrong. So no, we shouldn’t advocate for “pulling the plug” to get it over with already. Life support should not be removed to hasten death.
From what I’ve read, that seems to be the problem here. The State seems to be hastening death when Charlie’s parents were prepared to pursue one last treatment that might have been able to reasonably help and improve Charlie’s life. The State is dead wrong to usurp parental rights, that’s for sure. But that’s the problem, not the removal of life support – which is a difficult decision we’re not qualified to make.
We need to be clear in our language, and try to understand this as best we can if we’re going to talk about it.
To learn more about issues like this, The National Catholic Bioethics Center is the best resource I know of to explore these kinds of bioethical issues. You can even email or call one of their ethicists for a consultation if you are facing an ethical dilemma or difficult medical decision.
If you’re left with questions still, let’s talk. And during this extremely difficult and tragic time, let’s pray for Charlie’s family and medical professionals.
To Life,
You probably heard about the men who recently intervened between a man and two women he was verbally “racially harassing” (one of the women was black, the other was wearing a hijab). Three men intervened and two ended up being killed. The other was injured.
In response, Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler has been addressing free speech on his Facebook page. He addressed the people behind two unrelated upcoming events (Trump Free Speech Rally and March Against Sharia):
I am appealing to the organizers of the alt-right demonstrations to CANCEL the events they have scheduled . . . I urge them to ask their supporters to stay away from Portland. There is never a place for bigotry or hatred in our community, and especially not now.
Now hopefully any reasonable person would agree that harassment, murder, bigotry, racism, and hatred are all terrible things. There’s no place for those anywhere. I have no idea what the purpose of those two events is, or if they plan to be peaceful. A more recent posting in reference to the event says:
We need to reckon with the fact that racist attitudes lead to racist words, and that racist words lead to violence. And we need to decide what we’re going to do about it.
What are we going to do about it? There’s this growing idea that to prevent violence, we have to prevent people from holding and expressing certain ideas and attitudes. Now, we can agree that certain things are always wrong and terrible to even think.
But what do we do when the thought police go after people with opposing views who are reasonable and not murderers? When we get to ideas and attitudes, who gets to decide which ones we’re allowed to have?
In comment sections, articles, and everywhere on social media, I see people saying it’s “hate speech” to believe in traditional marriage or be against abortion. To some, it’s not just a personal or religious belief. Those are beliefs that personally offend other people, and they want to get rid of that uncomfortable reality by getting rid of your idea.
I think it says a lot about us when we’ve become so sensitive to differing viewpoints that we want to remove those people from our communities instead of attempting to live in peaceful disagreement.
This is not about murder and racism and violent, terrible crimes. This is about the thought police trying to appease people who disagree by silencing the people they disagree with.
I’d like to ask such individuals when we started thinking the whole world was our safe space.
Because it’s not.
When we walk out the doors or connect to the internet or have contact with another human being, we are going to encounter people who think differently than us. Of course we all think some people hold ridiculous opinions and beliefs. I’m Catholic, so I think people who are Atheist are wrong about God. I think people who are pro-choice are wrong about abortion. I think people against the right to bear arms are wrong about gun control. I think Scientology is creepy and that some animal rights activists need to chill.
But you know what?
Here in America, we are free to express and live out our beliefs, no matter how wrong we may be (as long as it doesn’t hurt people). None of us are entitled to lives without having our ideas questioned or opposed.
If you are after an eternal safe space, I’d recommend never getting on the internet or leaving your home, because there probably isn’t anyone you agree with 100%. We can’t deny that and try to live in a bubble by ostracizing people we think are wrong or ruining their livelihood.
We can disagree. We should shut crime down. But free speech is something I hold dear as an American, and infringement on that has got to go. If my ideas bother you, great. I’m glad that you have an idea too. Let’s talk and see if we can figure out what’s right. Or if it doesn’t matter. Ideas exist to be debated and researched and challenged and embraced. We can’t do that if we ignore or purposefully stifle ideas different than our own.
To Life,
Time for some quick takes on this Friday afternoon! Head over to Kelly’s place for more.
1. This week I served jury duty. I was on standby the night before. Then when I checked back, I had 1:30 to report downtown. We all sat in a giant room (at least 200 people), and then I was one of 84 people called into a courtroom to start the jury selection process. The charge was read to us, and we filled out a questionnaire about related past experiences of ours. The next day, I was one of 24 called up to the jury box to begin questioning. It was a loooooong day. And I was SHOCKED at the number of people who had difficulty following instructions. I had to come in for a third day, and was thankful to be excused then. It was fascinating to see part of the process, but I have a trip coming up and it would have been too much time away from work.
2. Speaking of, I’ve officially been at my job for a year! It was quite the experience ending up where I am, but it’s good to be here. It’s not what I expected, and who knows what the future holds. But I’m thankful to be gainfully employed.
3. In other adulting news, my sister and I have been thinking of starting an Etsy shop with greeting cards and prints. We’re experimenting with watercolor and calligraphy. Anyone have a favorite quote or type of card you’d like but can’t find?
4. Have any favorite summer recipes? This salad is the bomb diggity. This lemon ice is refreshing and light and originally from an American Girl cookbook.
5. Did you see that video preview yesterday from The Center for Medical Progress? Well, a judge ordered it to be removed from YouTube. Ask me more about it if you want to hear a rant/rage. I have no patience or tolerance for killing babies, profiting off of it, and then people trying to cover their butts. NOT. GONNA. HAPPEN.
6. In better news, this is an interesting article about the boom in young Catholic women starting initiatives and organizations. I’ve noticed this trend, and am grateful for so many fellow young Catholic women living out their faith and fulfilling needs of our world hungering for our authentic witness. I do honestly wonder if guys have the same wealth of resources, though. Hmm. Any thoughts on that?
7. Lastly, Happy Memorial Day. Let’s give special thanks this weekend for those who have given their lives for our country.
That’s it for now! What have you been up to lately? Have any thoughts on my takes?
To Life,
A Drop in the Ocean 