Christians with Bad Attitudes

Why, indeed…

“You never know at any given moment whether you’re [working for God]… or whether you’re being duped… whether you’re an Agent of the Other Side. It is when we feel our holiest that we are actually doing the work of the Devil.”
--- Norman Mailer


Well, the lawyer for Robert and Mary Schindler finally got one thing right.

In their testimony before the Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, they demanded that the three judges hearing their appeal restore a feeing tube to their brain-dead daughter Terri, because otherwise the actions of Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and George W. Bush will amount to “a vain and useless act.”

Which, of course, it is.

I have been able to think of little else lately besides the Terri Schiavo case, because when I think of it, I think of my God, and my church, and my grandfather, and my daughter, and my brothers, and my mother, and mostly my father.

Two summers ago, as I lounged on a beach in Cape May, reveling in the successful run of my play Acts of Contrition in the Fringe Festival, my father called me on my cell phone. At the time, I didn’t think my father even knew I had a cell phone. But there he was on the other end:

"Tim, you better give me a call. It's not good."

My mother, suffering with early onset Alzheimer's and two weeks shy of her 64th birthday, had stopped swallowing. My father had been holding her hand while she wrestled with the ever-increasing symptoms for better than ten years. Now, as she was unable to respond to him, unable to speak, unsure of what she was seeing and hearing, she had stopped taking food and water. The doctor presented my father with the choice: adminster a feeding tube or, as he said, "let her go."

My mom didn't have much life left at that point. We looked at her broken body and knew there was a vibrant, ornery, beautiful soul in there somewhere. And it was trapped. And it was tortured. We couldn't see what was to be gained by forcing nutrition on her.

We let her go. And we did the right thing.

It was the second time I had had to be part of such a decision. Two years earlier, my grandfather, who was like a second father to me, was dying of more things than I could mention. I remember sitting with him in the hospital near the end thinking the only reason I'd want to keep him around is for me. So I could see him, so I could be around him. Selfish reasons. I looked at him, at his soul straining against what was left of him mind and body.

My friend Fr. Ned Coughlin told me a story of a man and his son trapped in a burning house. The man made it to safety, looked up at the house and saw his son trapped in the smoke on the second floor. "Jump!" yelled the father. "But I can't see you!" yelled the son. "It's alright, I see you,"said the father. "Jump, I see you!" He then turned to me and said, "What you're telling your grandfather is its okay to jump." So we let him jump.

I sometimes wonder if his soul wasn't already halfway in Heaven and we just cut him loose for the rest of the trip.

Now I sit here and think about the Terri Schiavo case and wonder: What if some stranger, some Christian with a Bad Attitude (CBA) walked in, yelled stop, and then proceeded to berate us a bad fathers, sons, grandsons, and Catholics.

I’d have done what any good Irish Catholic I knew would have done. I’d have knocked all his teeth out.

Terri Schiavo was a chubby teenager, and like most chubby teenage girls in America, she was lonely. She finally went on a doctor-approved diet and changed her look in her 20's She met Michael Schiavo, and for the first time in her life a man made her feel pretty. They got married and moved to Florida.

Some say that Michael found a picture of her from her bad old sad old days and said if she ever looked like that again, he'd divorce her. Some said that her brother used to torment her by showing around old pictures of her in a mocking tone. We'll probably never know which is correct. What we do know is that Terri began getting heavy again after a few years of marriage and couldn't tolerate it. She developed an eating disorder. She stopped getting any nutrition. Her potassium levels dropped to dangerous levels. And one night at home, she collapsed from a heart attack.

Michael called 911 immediately. The paramedics came. They got her heart started. Unfortunately, they couldn't bring her brain with it. The brain, where so much of what we are - our identity, our memories, our manners, our loves, our hates - is stored, was gone.

Michael and Robert and Mary couldn't believe it. Try another doctor. Try another hospital. Try another therapy. Keep talking to her. Keep singing to her. Keep bringing her the things she loves. She's gotta wake up. I can see her eyes, I can see her looking at me. She's gotta be there. She's just gotta...

It took Michael eight years to realize that, in fact, his wife was gone. There was nothing left but a hollow shell holding a heart that had been brought back alone. He wanted to believe, he did, so bad, but there was nothing there. She could breathe, but she couldn't eat. She needed a feeding tube for that. He was keeping her around for his reasons. Selfish reasons.

So he decided to let her go. He told her to jump.

I cannot imagine the pain this man must be in.

Now, this is a bad situation for Christians with a Bad Attitude to get involved with. Because it's a real-life situation. It's messy. It's unpredictable. It doesn't fit in any perscribed right or wrong scenario. Its a lot like democracy. It isn't easy. The CBA like easy. All their answers are easy. My way or severe abuse followed by eternal damnation.

So what have the CBAs done to Michael Schiavo? Tormented him, threatened him, attacked him, slandered him. What have they done to the judge, himself a born-again Christian, who decided the case? Forced him to live under armed guard and issue rulings by telephone from undisclosed locations.

And what are they doing to Terri Schiavo herself? A woman was arrested yesterday for trying to bring Terri Schiavo a glass of water. Friends, a glass of water could have killed Terri Schiavo. Unable to swallow, the water would have gone down her throat, landed in her lungs and possibly blocked her breathing. Doctors have said this. CBAs don’t listen. This woman would have killed Terri Schiavo in the name of saving her life… and getting her own picture in the papers.

The CBAs will try to tell all of us what it means to be Christian, what it means to be American. They will try and try and try. They will use the most un-Christian rhetoric and expound the most un-American principles to get this country to line up single-file behind them. They will slander a husband and threaten a judge and callously kill a woman. They will override the Constitution and even double-back over their own espoused principles. Because it's not about what God wants or what Terri wants or what other believers want. It's not about democracy or civil rights or the law or the Constitution.

It's about winning. At any cost. And then spiking the ball in the name of God.

In the Christianity I know, and in the America I know, we don’t call people like that Christians. We call them bullies.

And sooner or later, everyone figures out that they are not being led by “assertive leaders.” They’re being bullied. This may, just may, be the moment when the people of this country, the real people who get up in the morning and try to get their kids to school on time and get their work done and worry about their bills and wish they had a weekend free, realize they are getting pushed around in body and soul.

All Michael Schiavo wants is to see that his wife, who he apparently loves very much, gets safely from this world to the next one with a shred of dignity. In America, of all places, he should have that right. Who's to say she's not already halfway there?

“The sanctity of marriage must be paramount.”
--- Tom DeLay

“I don’t care what the husband thinks.’
--- Tom DeLay

“Have you no decency?”
--- Joseph Welch