Comments about friendships and politics—well stated! Isn't it a pity...

This is excellent writing. Usually I toss in a snarky comment vainly trying to prove that I'm the cleverest kid in class, but not this time.

I'll just say thank you for a great post and a great site.

MG

Quite a bit to wrestle with.

Quite a bit. But wrestle we must, right? Your essay is an unsettling one and will likely take some time for me to fully digest.

That said, I don't know what to make of the Schiavo case but I do find myself wondering why the husband (who has unofficially moved on with his life but maintains his status as husband) won't just divorce her and let her blood relatives go forward. Yet, I acknowledge that he may be honoring her heartfelt wish and simply can't divorce her and walk away from the issue.

As long as there is a single human willing to care for another, both should have that chance.

You may have seen friends go, but for every one gone, you have gained many hereon.

Eliot says we die with the dying,
All ends, all beginnings, eternally wove.

I say we’re obliged to live with the living:
Not knowing our endings, our best thread is Love

To weave through our choices of pyre of pyre
To grasp when we flounder in black pits of shame,

To pull us through terror, from fire to fire,
Until in the fire we learn our true name.

- with apologies to Eliot.

And to you, Gerard; I hope I'm not being more presumptuous than usual.

Truly outstanding.
I'm just one hair in the "long tail", but it reached deep inside and caused me to reflect.

This is what I posted this morning:

Terri Schiavo
Topic: Into The Breach
Posted by Everyman - 08:57:37 EST

Too much, too much.

At least for here.

But if you do nothing else today, please read the post on the Terri Schiavo dilemma, and so very much more, here.

Read it - and ponder its message - more than once.

None of us will be untouched by this, no matter how it turns out.

Nor should we be.

I would hope that your true friends are still with you. Those who abandoned you were merely "aquaintances", who dropped you when you were no longer useful to them, or until they can resolve their own issues.

Have you really "reinvented" yourself, which is a term that doesn't imply any sort of repentance, but more of a brazen repackaging of the same bill of goods? I'm thinking of this in the context of our popular culture. Perhaps you have "redefined" yourself instead?

A fair and a good question. It is true that neither "reinvention" nor "repackaging" works when discussing this state. Repentance, it seems to me, requires grace to be sincere. Repackaging certainly doesn't do more than enhance the buzz.

All fall short or are off the mark. For the moment, "rebuild" seems to fit the bill but that too is not spot on.

Gerard--I think that, perhaps, we have walked very similar paths. I would describe my experience as waking up and realizing that--all the while I had thought I was awake, I had, in fact, been asleep. I was in the dark, but thought I had the light, and that it was the "others" who were benighted, beyond the pale--just as your former "friends" regard you now as having fallen out of grace--gone over the cliff to the "other side."

You quote Deuteronomy regarding the choice between life and death--but I believe it takes a prior epiphany to even see that choice clearly. I think it is that epiphany that leads a person to understand, first, the need for "reinvention." Perhaps a truer description of the process would be to say--as I think you are saying--that gradually an old self--and its ideas and assuptions--begins to fail, to wither, and, ultimately, to die, while a new self emerges--a new self with a new sense of being, of reality, of what is right and true, and good. Its rather like giving up pablum in exchange for real food, or like being fully awake and in the light instead of stumbling around in the dark, or like discovering the difference between fun and joy.

One discovers that it matters whether one lives or dies, matters that one has been alive and has been part of the lives of others--that pain and suffering have a value and a dignity that contributes to our stature and strength and abilty to love; that life--our own and everyone else's--is intrinsically precious and worthy.

I hope your reinvention--I would call it "rebirth"--continues, and that the light grows stronger and stronger within you.

Rick

Thank you, Rick, for those kind and wise words.

Great post Gerard. Thoreau called the first chapter of Walden "Economy." Old Henry David didn't have much dough, and so he had to be frugal, but in many ways he was incredibly extravagant. He based his personal economy not on dollars, but on how much "real life" things cost. His cabin cost just a few dollars, and a few hours of labor. The money did not concern him in the least, but his time was invaluable.

He deliberately leaves the definition of "real life" to the reader, but he insists that we make the calculation lest we be harnessed to a mortgage and doomed to lead lives of quiet desperation.

It seems that you made the calculation and found that certain friends and certain ideas simply cost too much.

I think that the Schiavos have also made the calculation. Terry is too expensive for Michael, but her parents see that she lives, however impaired. They see that she loves them and they love her back, and they find that priceless.

My God, I pity everyone involved in this heartbreaking case, and at the end of the day, only God knows what's right. When in doubt, I'd like to err on the side of life and love, though.

But someday I might be faced with Michael's choice. I really don't know what I'd do in his shoes.

This is an excellent post - and its only one of the many like it that you have written, so thank you.

Certainly Tom DeLay and Bill Frist have used their deepest concern to grandstand in Congress for all they're worth. The righteous Peggy Noonan has chastised everyone for not caring as much as she does.

I am ashamed of those who attempt to make political mileage out of a family's suffering.

Xixi-
Bite me.
Gerard,
This post has haunted me all day and all night. In a good way. Because you're right...that old saw about "it's not worth losing a friend over" has its limits. What to do, though, if you're in my position and the "friend" you're worried about is your mother?

No fear, there's no chance of any sort of estrangement between my mother and me over something as dumb as politics, but there definitely is a new tenseness in our relationship, and I don't know how to deal with it.

Example: I asked her what specifically about Bush's plan for social security offended her. She said it gave too much to the rich. I informed her that Bush had not put out a plan yet. She said that it didn't matter, and that no plan Bush could come up with would be satisfactory. How do you sensibly argue with that sort of passion? My answer: you don't. You just keep loving her because that's what you've always done.

I don't know a better answer, though I wish I did. Maybe there isn't a better one. But you're right...it does seem to be some strange sort of (mostly) nonviolent civil war. At stake is who we will be a generation from now. I hope we all win, because it would suck if we all lost, and I have a feeling it's all or nothing.

That has got to be the most wonderful, heart-felt post I've seen on this whole deplorable situation.

Vanderleun...I salute you.

Mr. Van Der Leun -

Isn't it amazing that the questions we ask of ourselves, though prompted by situations far removed from our own lives, often bring answers - or lack thereof - that hit us hardest?

A free society cannot depend on mere partisan agenda for strength. What weaves us together in common cause, or leaves us disconnected and adrift, is our character as individuals. The Schiavo case does stand out as one of those events where personal choices reflect starkly on what kind of world we would live in.

I've linked your essay.

Absolutely fantastic and unfortunately, damning.

The thing to keep in mind when addressing the issue of friendships that end over political differences is that in sharp contrast to other nations we do not share a common ethnicity or culture. The only thing we as Americans share is our diversity of opinion and the political and intillectual wherewithal to settle our differences through discussion and compromise rather than violence.
As to the polarity that has emerged in our polital endeavors,I think what must be addressed is the entering into a polital discussion with the intent of "winning" ie, making a more forecefull argument and thus requiring the other to back down from their beliefs (not likley). Shouldn't we all be looking instead to see if there might just be a more informed opinion, a more reasoned arguement, a different point of view? If not, so be it, however all seem intent on winning at all costs, and , if not, are ready to discard those that disagree.

At some point in the early winter of 2001, it became clear to me that I needed to conduct a searching inventory of my soul and rebuild, almost from the ground up, my sense of who I was and how I thought about the world I was in and the life I was leading. At the time, I knew only that I had been mistaken about a great many things for a very long time and I was long overdue for an extreme makeover of the self.

Have you written about this experience elsewhere, Gerard?

Wonderful, humbling, and ultimately very courageous writing. No wonder I always put your blog's name in caps when I link to you.

Gerard & guests;
I tend to agree with your sentiment, but I do want to ask one question: what if the husband has come to peace with his wife's condition, and wants to release her? What if he _doesn't_ consider her disposable, but instead feels sadness at what she's been reduced to -- alive, yes, perhaps, but what of the lively, smiling young woman he fell in love with?
Don't flame me and don't attack me, because I believe that we agree -- but I'm worried that there's a part of this story we don't know. Everyone involved has so much on the table that there's no nuance to the story.
I'm a father and a husband, and seeing anyone of my family in this state would reduce me to the most feral reactions. Could I let one of them go? Or would I fight to save any flicker of the light in their eyes?
Regardless, I thank God I haven't yet had to decide...and I've never been an overtly religious guy.

"what if the husband has come to peace with his wife's condition, and wants to release her? What if he _doesn't_ consider her disposable, but instead feels sadness at what she's been reduced to -- alive, yes, perhaps, but what of the lively, smiling young woman he fell in love with?"

A fair question. My answer: she is not his to "release", any more than you are mine to "release". She's not brain-dead. She's not on life support machines. They are starving her in a way tantamount to torture. If Terri was a labrador retriever, they would arrest them for animal abuse.

The "husband" has not stayed faithful to her, and I'm not damning him for that. He's free to go build a new life for himself, and he seems already to have done a good deal of that.

Sure it's been hard on him. But wouldn't it be much easier on him if he just left the situation and got on with his life, instead of giving an order for his wife to be killed and then hitting the TV talk-show and news circuits to chat about it? He's voluntarily taking the hardest road in order to kill her. Ask yourself why he would do that.

Then consider that there have been allegations of abuse involving him and Terri in the past, and that some think he might put her in the condition she's in. Hmmmm. There's one way to shut up a potential tattletale forever, right? I'm just sayin', is all.

This is a fine, powerful piece of writing and I consider myself fortunate in my insomnia-at least tonight.
When I saw Peggy Noonan's WSJ piece I knew this poor lady would not be starved to death. I do not know or really care what a person may think about our current President but he is nothing if not predictable: "thou shalt do nothing, ever, to offend your core supporters and suffer thy father's fate".
The issue here, in my mind, is not only who decides, and why, but also how. Even the most vile monsters among us are not starved to death. I wouldn't do that to the fish I was planning on having for dinner, let alone to a fellow human being.
Something else seems fishy here. The conduct of the husband is very odd-to say the least. I take little comfort in the political and social isolation of the Judges involved-they are lucky not to be lynched. This business is just starting and it will be a tsunami by the time it crests-the very short sighted politicians more brain-dead than Terri who stood up and tried to delay, Lord help them if she dies now.
It is not my fault what happens to her-God knows there is a world of misery I can't change-but I have as responsibility to try to understand and, if I can, to act. It could be me about to be starved to death or someone I knew or maybe even loved. We may not be able to agree on much as a nation but I think a consensus can be formed on this one issue-dying with dignity does not mean taking away food and water.

Here's you concisely refuted:

http://www.caltrops.com/pointy.php?action=viewPost&pid=15491