On Assisted Suicide and Perspective: A Practical Response, by Stephanie Gray

Image source: Wikimedia Commons, Adam Jones

Last Friday as I flew to Texas to speak at a mother-daughter event, I stared out the airplane window at the majesty of the setting sun which had painted the sky red, yellow, orange, and blue in a breathtaking scene of beauty, and my mind wandered to a stark contrast: the turmoil going on back in my own country.  February 6 was a dark day for Canada, for it was the day our Supreme Court overturned the law prohibiting assisted suicide.

In between flights that day, I saw my newsfeed and e-mail fill with messages of deep sadness, fear, and dread.  These were, and are, healthy reactions to a horrifying decision that attacks the dignity of the person.

Now that the news has settled over the weekend, it is good to take a moment to reflect on the importance of perspective.  Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, reminds us of a truth we must cling to during these dark days: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

The bad news is that the sick and vulnerable are in danger in Canada.  The good news is that we are in control of our response to this horrible set of circumstances.  No judge or government or individual can take away how we respond.  So a question each one of us must ask is this: Are the sick and vulnerable, in my circle of influence, in danger?  Each of us determines the answer to that question.

Consider Lord of the Rings, a story revolving around a young hobbit, Frodo, who inherits the Ring of Power and who is charged with the grave responsibility of transporting it to a volcano to destroy it.  At one point, Frodo laments, “I wish the ring had never come to me.  I wish none of this had happened.”  And the wizard Gandalf, replies, “So do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

That is perspective.  And that is what we must continue to come back to in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.  While it is understandable that we lament, “I wish the court had never decided this.  I wish euthanasia didn’t happen in Canada,” we should focus more on how we have the power to decide what to do with the time that is given to us, how we can choose our attitude in this present circumstance.

So what are we going to do with the time that is given to us?

I heartily recommend supporting worthy causes like The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.  Then, when it comes to a practical level, I think our primary response to Friday’s decision should be to love more deeply, and influence more positively, the people around us.  If no one asks for assisted suicide, and if strong people protect weak people from medical personnel who would be tempted to kill the vulnerable, assisted suicide and euthanasia won’t happen.  So what does that mean?  Each of us, in our particular circle of influence, should seek out those around us who we can 1) be a friend to and 2) be an advocate for.

Be a Friend

Many years ago, pro-life speaker Camille Pauley spoke about how she visited an elderly, unresponsive man in a hospital.  She spent time visiting him not for herself, but for him.  It didn’t matter that he couldn’t hold a conversation with her, because what mattered was that she communicated, by her time and presence and love, that he was valuable, that he was unrepeatable and irreplaceable, and that he had dignity by his very existence, not by anything he could do.  By simply “Being With” (the name of the program she developed for this very outreach), she affirmed his worth.  If someone is not made to feel like they are a burden, but instead made to feel that they are worthy of our time, they are unlikely to ask for assisted suicide.

Practically speaking, I think we all could do an inventory of our family and friends and think about one or two in our circle who most need special attention, and then be intentional about spending more time with them.  We could also seek out one or two people we don’t yet know that we will make time for.  I recently sent this message to my pastor and encourage others to copy and paste the same:

In light of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Canada's prohibition on assisted suicide, I believe one of the best ways we can respond to this horrible ruling is for everyone to make sure that the people in their circles of influence don't ever ask for assisted suicide--to make sure that everyone in our circles of influence feels loved and supported and cared for. 

So in asking, “What can I do?” it occurred to me that there could be someone at our church who is an elderly or disabled person who is shut in with no family or friends who could use some visits and help.  So I was wondering if you know of a parishioner like this who could be blessed by someone forming a friendship to spend time with them?  If so, could you please connect me to them?

Alternatively, signing up to visit at a local elderly home is another practical way to be present and loving to the vulnerable.

Be an Advocate

Besides being a friend, we also need to be an advocate.  The dictionary defines this as “a person who speaks or writes in support or defense of a person.”  If one of your family or friends is hospitalized, are you equipped to ask the right questions and seek out the right information to ensure their medical treatment is handled in an ethical fashion?  Several years ago I took a certification course in health care ethics through the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) in Philadelphia.  Thanks to the NCBC’s resources, when my friend with a brain tumor was facing possible end-of-life issues, I was able to share their advice for ethical decision-making with his wife. 

Whether you know how to ethically handle end-of-life care (e.g., how does one determine whether an intervention is proportionate versus disproportionate?), or whether you know where to look for what is the right course of action, another important point for consideration is this: do you have the legal power to ensure the right thing is done for your loved ones?  Last night I confirmed that I have Power of Attorney for my parents should they ever be incapable of making medical decisions on their behalf.  This was a legal document I signed several years ago and you can bet, should it ever need to be enforced, that I will make decisions on their behalf that respect their dignity.  You can bet I will ensure doctors respond by alleviating suffering, not eliminating the sufferer.

If you are a health care professional, you can advocate for your patients by practicing ethically and not allowing the Supreme Court’s decision to cause you to do anything different except that it motivate you to be more loving, attentive, and compassionate, someone who exemplifies what it means to be a part of a healing profession.

When we are tempted to be overwhelmed by the gravity and far-reaching consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision, let us remember that we are in control of our response.  Rather than despairing or being overwhelmed, let us remember the words of Bishop Untener of Michigan who said, “We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.  This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.”

Be a friend.  Be an advocate.  Let us each do that very well.

Learning to Weep by Stephanie Gray

Image source: File:Sépulcre_Arc-en-Barrois_111008_12.jpg

I can still remember the day—it was pouring rain.  Water was dripping from my hood and the guy I was speaking with, who was equally soaked, moved with me under a roof overhang.  I had just met this student on a university campus where he revealed profound suffering: he had been sodomized as a child, was so poor that he and his single mother had lived on food stamps, and he struggled with suicidal tendencies.  I remember at one point in the conversation, as I prayed for inspiration for the right words to say, all I could do was weep.  And as I let the tears pour down my cheeks, the rain continued to fall from the sky as if the Heavens were also weeping at his pain.

That encounter came to mind when I heard about Pope Francis’ recent visit to the Philippines when he was asked by a 12-year-old, who had suffered great poverty and abuse, why God allows innocent children to suffer.  And Pope Francis echoed a sentiment then that he’s expressed several times throughout his pontificate: Let us learn how to weep.  When we do so, we seek to understand—we seek to acknowledge the painful journey of the other. 

Let us learn how to weep.

It has been said, “Tears are words the heart can’t express,” and in the face of another’s wounds, it is often the best way to communicate sympathy.  I remember a team member coming to me on a university campus where I’d trained her to dialogue with students about abortion.  She had had a particularly tough encounter with a very angry young man who was a homeless student and spoke about horrible evils he’d experienced in life.  He had been threatening, had been yelling and swearing.  And she came to me in tears.  But her tears weren’t because she feared for her own safety.  They weren’t tears of feeling hurt by him.  They were tears of hurting for him.  She told me she felt his pain so deeply that she was overcome with sorrow.

Let us learn how to weep.

Several years ago when I spoke at a camp for the National Evangelization Team (NET), training young Catholic missionaries in pro-life apologetics, I arrived an evening early and took part in their night of Mass, prayer, and praise and worship.  In the preceding days I had met many university students who had shared their stories of suffering with me, including the horror of rape.  During that night of prayer and song, I remember being overcome with tears as I thought about all the pain these young souls were carrying.   

Let us learn how to weep.  When we do so, we maintain a softness to our spirit that allows us to be gentle with peoples’ fragility and sensitive to their suffering and needs. 

In 2013, Pope Francis spoke in Lampedusa, a small island off the coast of Italy where migrants often travel there by sea from Africa, many of them losing their lives during the rough journey.  In remembering such tragedies there, Pope Francis said the following during his visit:

“Who among us has wept for these things and things like this?  Who has wept for the deaths of these brothers and sisters?  Who has wept for the mothers carrying their babies?  For these men who wanted something to support their families?  We are a society that has forgotten the experience of weeping, of suffering with.”

Let us learn how to weep.

Love Unleashes Life: A Talk at the Geaux Forth Conference

On January 21 I presented to 1,400 teenagers at the Louisiana Right to Life Geaux Forth Conference in conjunction with the March for Life in DC.  Here is the recording: 

Seek Beauty

This morning as I sat down to begin my workday, I was awestruck at the beauty of Vancouver’s winter sunrise: as I peered from a window through some trees’ naked branches, pinks and yellows and blues filled the vast sky.

Lately I have reflected more and more about the power of beauty—and the importance of seeking it out in our daily lives.  Several years ago, the Sisters of Life published their newsletter with the theme “Beauty Everywhere,” and they wrote,

"The beauty of nature has the power to lead one to the healing truth of God’s goodness and love.  Before a sunset, snow-capped mountain, a golden meadow, whatever the scene might be, if we allow ourselves to pause from our busy lives and begin to listen, we are drawn to a mystery accessible to all, a truth that confirms our identity: the wonder and goodness of existence, of being.”

In a world where terror and violence sow discord and death in places like Nigeria and France, it can be tempting to become overwhelmed by the ugliness in our midst; but more than ever, we need beauty to draw us to the “healing truth of God’s goodness and love.”  So several times a week I make a habit of reflecting on beauty in my day, and have found that when I become intentional about making these observations, I discover beauty truly is everywhere.

One time it was my 1-year-old niece tenderly holding her stuffed monkey and smiling, while caressing it and squeezing it close to her chest, showing that even at the earliest of ages we humans are drawn to give affection.  Another time it was my sister who, even with messy hair and a tired body, radiated beauty as she got up early, after one of many short nights, to feed and serve and love her four children.  Beauty.

Or another time, just two weeks ago, it was a choral concert by Motet (www.motet.ca).  One singer in particular radiated such joy and beauty that as he sang of the heavens, to the heavens, I was drawn like a magnet to his inner light and just stared at him, smiling.  Then there was the music he and the others sang—I have discovered there’s something profoundly beautiful about sacred music, and I think it’s because it takes us beyond this world, to another place, a reminder that it is that place which is our final destination.

Beauty.  It lifts the soul and gives a moment of reprieve in this world of imperfection, enabling us to have perspective and to maintain peace amidst any storms.

So when today comes to a close, or next time you’re interacting with a loved one, pause and ask, “Where did you see beauty in your day?” 

This blog was originally published at Dynamic Women of Faith: www.dynamicwomenfaith.com

Beginning the New Year and Each New Day in Prayer

The start of a new year is like the start of a new day—while incapable of changing the past, we can certainly do in the present moment that which we wish we’d done in the past, so as to make the future better.

I started this new year fulfilling one of my goals, which is to read more.  So I started reading Peter Kreeft’s book “Prayer for Beginners” and he gives fantastic advice that, if heeded, will make our year, and days, better.  Consider his insight:

 “Eating keeps your body alive, and prayer keeps your soul alive.  Praying is more important than eating because your soul is more important than your body.  Your soul is more important than your body because your soul is you, your personality, your self.  You will get a new body after death, in the resurrection at the end of the world.  But you will not get a new soul…Praying keeps your soul alive because prayer is real contact with God, and God is the life of the soul as the soul is the life of the body.  If you do not pray, your soul will wither and die, just as, if you do not eat, your body will wither and die.

***

“Three reasons God commands us to pray correspond to our three deepest needs, the fundamental needs of the three powers of our soul: prayer gives truth to our mind, goodness to our will, and beauty to our heart.  ‘The true, the good, and the beautiful’ are the three things we need and love the most, because they are three attributes of God.

“Prayer gives truth to our mind because it puts us in the presence of Truth itself, the divine Mind who designed our minds and our lives and our whole universe.  It gives goodness to our will because it puts us ‘on line’ with God, in love with the God who is love and goodness.  That is his essence.  In prayer we become like the God we pray to and conform to; we catch the good infection of Godliness by contact.  It gives beauty to our heart because plunges us into the heart of God, which is the eternal energy of infinite joy.  That is why it gives us joy and peace and delight and happiness.”

So as we enter another year, let’s remember that if we are going to eat each day, all the more we should pray each day.  And as many say that the most important meal is breakfast, so too will praying at the beginning of our days be transformative.  So let’s take time to be still, to be silent, and to communicate with the God who loved us into being.

Year-End Highlights 2014

New friends from Dublin, Ireland where I spoke at Viva La Vida, a training conference hosted by an amazing pro-life group called Youth Defence

At the end of November, I wrapped up my speaking for the year with these three highlights: 

1. On November 17 I spoke to hundreds of grade 9 and grade 11 students Notre Dame Catholic High School in Ajax, Ontario.  At this school I partnered with Angelina Steenstra of Silent No More Awareness who shared her heartbreaking story of pregnancy from rape, followed by an abortion.  But not only a message of suffering, hers was also a message of God’s mercy and hope, and was a perfect complement to my apologetics and inspirational talk.
2. Later that day I drove to London, Ontario, where I spoke to the priests and seminarians at St. Peter’s Seminary.  The rector, Fr. Stevan Wlusek, wrote, “Your passion and enthusiasm are deeply moving.  As well, the well-researched and convincing content of your presentations have given our seminarians and guests meaningful and current information to help them in articulating a clear message proclaiming the Gospel of Life.  As future priests called to be leaders and defenders of the Church’s message of the protection of human life from conception to natural death, your articulate, practical and memorable words will greatly help in their future ministries.”
3. A few days after that I flew to Ireland for the first time where I spoke in Dublin at Viva La Vida, a training conference hosted by an amazing pro-life group called Youth Defence.  When training others, my emphasis of late has been to seek to understand the abortion supporters we speak to, to really seek out where they are coming from and what their woundedness is.  I was encouraged when it was that message which struck an attendee who wrote, “We were also told of how to consider people’s feelings, and to rely on the Holy Spirit in our battle for Life, and not to be forceful but to show by a loving example as goes in The Saint Francis Prayer (Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace), 'O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.' We were taught in a practical way too with some amazing demonstrations of being confronted on a Street Outreach etc. A lot of food for thought I believe... I was brought to tears several times throughout the day and was touched by different aspects of the program.”

Exciting Partnerships

In November I partnered with both Lighthouse Catholic Media and EWTN.  The former released a CD of a talk of mine that can be ordered online here. That same month I flew to Birmingham, Alabama where I was interviewed on “At Home with Jim and Joy.”  You can view the episode here.  During the episode I spoke with the hosts about miscarriage, mentioning that my oldest sibling died at 6 weeks in-utero. It’s amazing how, when one person references loss, it can validate the feelings of those who are suffering or remembering in silence; indeed, a short while later, a viewer posted to me on social media that she was grateful I spoke about my miscarried sibling as it reminded her of the importance of acknowledging her three children who were lost to miscarriage.

Appearance on EWTN on Nov. 7, 2014