Dying Sends Out Loud And Clear Message Of Life
By John Kass Chicago Tribune Published April 3, 2005
So many bitter words were shouted across America last week, as a young woman starved to death in Florida. Some were ugly and short, hurtling past curled and unthinking lips. Others were slyly dressed up, pretending to be tolerant, which made them just as sour. Then, across the world, an old man in Rome died. Immediately, the volume was lowered, the world was put on notice and the bitter words were put away, at least for a while. Earlier, as the young woman died, the angry words around her were fit into sentences. These were formed into complicated proofs, positions, essays and arguments about life and who is worthy to live it and whether death is a personal or public matter, and whether the disabled are next. Some arguments were based in reality, others were abstract, theoretical. Others were based on faith, and others were purely political. Folks on all sides were passionate--except those who search for safe passage along the middle ground and think they'll find it. After the past angry week, the consensus was that we're a people divided, irreconcilable. Yet through all those bitter words, on all sides, there was a common thread. Fear. I'm sure many folks will insist they are afraid of nothing. And I'm sure that there are those who aren't afraid. But most of us are. Humans are naturally afraid of pain, and suffering. We fear becoming a burden to those we love, of losing our dignity at the end. And most of us are afraid, too, of the knowledge that the end of our days and those of our loved ones is inevitable, and there is nothing we can do. Words alone can't help. They offer no real measure of protection from what's coming. They offer no control over what really bothers most of us--which is ultimately the loss of control, and what waits for us afterward when our bodies are cold. But the old man in Rome wasn't afraid of losing control. He was a man of words, of letters, a poet--but he knew the limits of words. And he was comfortable moving beyond them while dying, knowing that sophisticated arguments and reason couldn't help him get to where he wanted to go. He welcomed the suffering too. He considered it a gift. He was a teacher and communicating was central to his life, yet at the end, he could not speak a word. Old, infirm, in pain, he'd make it to the window of his apartment and look out at the throngs of people standing in the square below, his actions were captured on television and broadcast around the world. There, at the window, he would teach. He'd teach without talking, just by appearing, by holding on to a life many would have considered not worth living at the end. By doing this, he taught that all life is worthy, and he reminded his people of something they'd been taught almost 2,000 years ago: They didn't have to be afraid of death. You know this is about Pope John Paul II, and his dying after so much bitterness surrounding Terri Schiavo, the woman with brain damage who was legally starved to death in Florida. At first I wanted to avoid any comparison between them, for fear of stretching things to suit my purposes. They approached the end differently, he welcomed it, and she was oblivious. They were connected by a common faith. Their lives were connected, too, at least briefly, by the use of tubes to feed them. But most of all, they were connected at the end by a public message from her family, and from him, that human life is sacred. As he lay dying, I heard his legacy being chipped by some talking head on TV who called him the conservative pope. Such labeling reveals more about news bias than it does about the pope. Was it liberal of him to stand against communism in Eastern Europe and smash it, or to stand against abortion and embryonic stem cell research? Was it conservative of him to forgive the man who tried to kill him, or to condemn a conservative-led war in Iraq, or capital punishment? Was it conservative to reach out across faiths, to apologize to Jews, to Eastern Orthodox, to women, for offenses committed by the Western church? Chicago is a Catholic town and I'm Greek Orthodox, not Catholic, but I remember when he crossed the Southwest Side, and the Polish people there crowding the curbs, proud of their Polish-born pope, reaching, yearning to glimpse him, to claim him. And so, for today, I'd like to claim him too. I don't think I'm alone. Many of different faiths--and those without any faith--will mourn him. We can all agree on his goodness, hoping some of it remains behind, where we're in need of it. You don't need to ask permission to light a candle. All you do is close your eyes, and go to that place inside yourself where there are no words, where words don't matter, where they don't reach.
A good perspective on the past week.
So many bitter words were shouted across America last week, as a young woman starved to death in Florida. Some were ugly and short, hurtling past curled and unthinking lips. Others were slyly dressed up, pretending to be tolerant, which made them just as sour. Then, across the world, an old man in Rome died. Immediately, the volume was lowered, the world was put on notice and the bitter words were put away, at least for a while. Earlier, as the young woman died, the angry words around her were fit into sentences. These were formed into complicated proofs, positions, essays and arguments about life and who is worthy to live it and whether death is a personal or public matter, and whether the disabled are next. Some arguments were based in reality, others were abstract, theoretical. Others were based on faith, and others were purely political. Folks on all sides were passionate--except those who search for safe passage along the middle ground and think they'll find it. After the past angry week, the consensus was that we're a people divided, irreconcilable. Yet through all those bitter words, on all sides, there was a common thread. Fear. I'm sure many folks will insist they are afraid of nothing. And I'm sure that there are those who aren't afraid. But most of us are. Humans are naturally afraid of pain, and suffering. We fear becoming a burden to those we love, of losing our dignity at the end. And most of us are afraid, too, of the knowledge that the end of our days and those of our loved ones is inevitable, and there is nothing we can do. Words alone can't help. They offer no real measure of protection from what's coming. They offer no control over what really bothers most of us--which is ultimately the loss of control, and what waits for us afterward when our bodies are cold. But the old man in Rome wasn't afraid of losing control. He was a man of words, of letters, a poet--but he knew the limits of words. And he was comfortable moving beyond them while dying, knowing that sophisticated arguments and reason couldn't help him get to where he wanted to go. He welcomed the suffering too. He considered it a gift. He was a teacher and communicating was central to his life, yet at the end, he could not speak a word. Old, infirm, in pain, he'd make it to the window of his apartment and look out at the throngs of people standing in the square below, his actions were captured on television and broadcast around the world. There, at the window, he would teach. He'd teach without talking, just by appearing, by holding on to a life many would have considered not worth living at the end. By doing this, he taught that all life is worthy, and he reminded his people of something they'd been taught almost 2,000 years ago: They didn't have to be afraid of death. You know this is about Pope John Paul II, and his dying after so much bitterness surrounding Terri Schiavo, the woman with brain damage who was legally starved to death in Florida. At first I wanted to avoid any comparison between them, for fear of stretching things to suit my purposes. They approached the end differently, he welcomed it, and she was oblivious. They were connected by a common faith. Their lives were connected, too, at least briefly, by the use of tubes to feed them. But most of all, they were connected at the end by a public message from her family, and from him, that human life is sacred. As he lay dying, I heard his legacy being chipped by some talking head on TV who called him the conservative pope. Such labeling reveals more about news bias than it does about the pope. Was it liberal of him to stand against communism in Eastern Europe and smash it, or to stand against abortion and embryonic stem cell research? Was it conservative of him to forgive the man who tried to kill him, or to condemn a conservative-led war in Iraq, or capital punishment? Was it conservative to reach out across faiths, to apologize to Jews, to Eastern Orthodox, to women, for offenses committed by the Western church? Chicago is a Catholic town and I'm Greek Orthodox, not Catholic, but I remember when he crossed the Southwest Side, and the Polish people there crowding the curbs, proud of their Polish-born pope, reaching, yearning to glimpse him, to claim him. And so, for today, I'd like to claim him too. I don't think I'm alone. Many of different faiths--and those without any faith--will mourn him. We can all agree on his goodness, hoping some of it remains behind, where we're in need of it. You don't need to ask permission to light a candle. All you do is close your eyes, and go to that place inside yourself where there are no words, where words don't matter, where they don't reach.
A good perspective on the past week.
posted by MaximumBob | 6:00 PM
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