...We were discussing Terri Schiavo last time she was here and got onto the question of whether someone is obligated to receive treatment - ever. For example, you're diagnosed with, say, some kind of fatal cancer. You're given two years to live. There will of course come a time when the end is in sight, at which point you might decline further intervention. But at the beginning of the two years: are you morally obligated to take treatment (some of which might be fairly unpleasant), or are you free to say 'no'?

Today is Earth day,
Let us pray,
With Al Gore and all his ken,
That the prophet need
No more bemoan
Depletion of the sacred ozone,
That air be once more clean and pure,
Car fumes replaced by horse manure,
That an ice age soon
Will come again,
But not before our last Amen.

© 2009 and following unto the end of Time, by William Luse

(Yes, I know it was yesterday, but I wrote it yesterday and forgot to post it, which no doubt would have been fine by most of you. Any complaints about the quality of the verse should be referred to Dylan. I don't have time for them.)

...sorry, more music, but it seems the appropriate sort to mark a Resurrection. Back when I had some spare time - oh, say, in the early to late 90's - I was in a choir here in Orangelando and we sang this Gloria many times, and the whole mass on Christmas Eve. It's Mozart's Mass in C Major, the Coronation Mass, and this is my favorite of all his Glorias. Performed by the London Symphony, Sir Colin Davis conducting, the John Alldis choir supplying the voices. Included on the 2 disc CD are the Requiem and the Great Mass in C minor.

The music is here.

...posts a video, a funny exchange between Stephen Colbert and a Bible berater named Bart Ehrman. I don't know if he's a serious scholar, but I figure he'll drive Lydia nuts.

Here's another egg in your basket (I hope). I also hope you have a subwoofer attached to your sound system, as I do. Let's raise a glass together, in the hope, sent with a prayer, that some of the suffering in the world - of the kinds we inflict on each other, especially the innocent - will diminish somewhat in the coming year, by virtue of this most incomprehensible act of Divine condescension.

Here's the original version at Youtube.

The newer version is here.

Via Zippy, we are asked to pray for Kyle Cupp and his wife, who carries in her womb an anencephalic baby, the prognosis for which condition is a very, very brief life. The child's name is Vivian Marie. It sounds like they want to give her all the love they can while she's here. So God bless them, and the little one.

...or so her daddy seems to think. Lydia has a suitable Good Friday-Easter story up on her blog (appropriate links included), although for the little girl in question the Easter part is, as of now, no sure thing.

Update:

In comments at Lydia's, Beth gives a link to the Joubert's Syndrome website (the condition with which the little girl is afflicted) and says: "And here are two of the FAQs from that site that give vital information to understand that what these parents and doctors are doing is trying to murder this child because she is physically handicapped and may be mentally retarded: she is NOT 'dying' any more than are the rest of us."

I thought I had it bad. I'm in that circle of hell where teachers go to grade research papers. They get to leave the circle after a while, but must return to it a few months later. It's a cycle, like Lent. Well, the cycles are over for Terry Southard's father, whom she lost a few days ago. She tells the story here. She really loved him.

Puts me in mind of Emily Dickinson, who thought about these things on occasion:

The grieved are many, I am told;
The reason deeper lies,—
Death is but one and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

I complain about having to grade those papers. But I'll bet I'd agree to a batch a month if it meant another year of drinking the good beer of life. This life. Lent is supposed to put us in mind of our last end, so I'm not very good with it. We complain about the cycles, but I wonder how many would be willing to let them go. If any are like me, they take little comfort in knowing that one day the choice will be taken from them. Life is Lent, and death is your last, and briefest, observance of it.

I guess. Frankly, I'd rather get off this train of thought.

While discussing a story in class the other day, I almost fell out of my chair. Literally. I have this habit of rocking back and forth, but had thought myself safe because the floor was carpeted and the chair mounted on a three-wheeled tripod. But somehow I managed to tip sideways, and in the midst of elucidating all the subtleties of James Joyce's "Araby", found myself suddenly gripping the desk in speechless desperation to keep from falling over. I was 45 degrees to the floor, doing a stationary wheelie, every muscle straining to win this battle against the foreseen outcome: utter humiliation. I righted myself, but now the conversation was interspersed with giggling. Especially from the girls. They love that kind of thing. But I couldn't blame them. A few years ago, in a classroom with no carpeting, and sitting in a chair with wire rims for legs, I tilted backwards just a little too far and simply disappeared from view. As if greased, the rims went out from under me and I was sitting on the floor. For the class, it must have been as if some vortex had sucked me from sight. They couldn't see me because of the metal skirting on the desk's front. All they could see above the desk were my fingers still gripping the back edge. I never regained control that day. Here I'm trying to teach them something important and they're sitting there trying to stifle giggles behind their hands. I told them to go home and play video games.

After the "Araby" class, I ran into a couple of the girls in front of the library, a pretty redhead and a pretty Puerto Rican who's already signed up to join the Air Force at semester's end.

"You're talking about me, aren't you?"

"Yeah!" Giggle, giggle.

"I'd have thought you'd admire the balancing act. After all, I didn't fall over."

"Almost though!"

"You're silly girls, you know that?"

"Yeah!" Peals of laughter.

Speaking of students, my wife had to chaperone a field trip to Sea World and managed a few photos:











She also visited Elizabeth, who's doing a guest turn with the QuadCities Ballet, and got a shot of her in a Rock Island laundromat.



And from me you get this excerpt from a TV documentary, just cuz I think these are one of the neatest creatures God made:

See it here.

Oh, and by the way - while we're on the subject of cycling through life - I should have posted something on the anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death (guess what I was doing), but the failure was not the result of forgetting. We're giving over some of the next issue of The Christendom Review to her cause, so please try to keep it in mind. It should be out within the month.

Well, the purpose of this post was to inform readers that I'm a bit taken up for now, and might not be posting for a while, just in case anyone who'd been checking in here and not seeing anything thought that might be about to change. I like the consistency of cycles. They let me know I'm still alive.

I suppose I ought to get into a semi-Sunday Thought frame of mind, since it's that day of the week. So here's a song for Terry. Maybe it'll lift her up a little.

And it's here.