A Culture of Life is nurtured by love

The following is part of an address I will give on May 3rd 2008, to a March for Life Rally, Edmonton, Canada

When I was 25 years of age, I was healthy and athletic I was surrounded by the love of my family and the connection of a community. Disability was the furthest thing from my mind. I was uncomfortable around people with profound disabilities. To contemplate life in a wheelchair was unthinkable. I had a budding career. There were places to go and people to see. I believed I was a winner. If things somehow things had gone wrong and I became suicidal, people who loved me would have intervened to prevent me from taking my life. They would have got me the psychiatric help I needed. I might have been referred to one of many government funded suicide prevention programs. That would have been good and right, when I was twenty-five.

Then one day aggressive multiple sclerosis struck my body. It stripped away my health and physical prowess.

When I was 35, I used a cane and a scooter. I would go to bed each night not knowing what function I would wake up with or without. If I had not been loved or connected to a community where I knew I belonged, I might have been suicidal. That was 1988, and Jack Kevorkian was not known yet. The public was still uneasy with euthanasia and assisted suicide. But there were rumblings and inklings of support for euthanasia for people with serious disabilities (like MS) or terminal conditions.

Then one day I could no longer work was forced to retire. I sank into a clinical depression because 38 was too young to be put out to pasture.

When I was forty-five I had been put out to pasture for seven years and I used a wheelchair most of the time. Most Canadians supported assisted suicide and euthanasia for the terminally and chronically ill. Jack Kevorkian and his suicide machine was in full swing (20 percent of his customers had MS). No longer did I hear public discourse about suicide prevention. Euthanasia was gaining respectability in many circles. Euphemisms for assisted suicide began to emerge to sanitize what previous generations would have found unthinkable. Euphemisms like "self-deliverance", "gentle landing", and the "final autonomy to choose the time and place of one's own death." They were euphemisms to disguise the fact that segments of society were no longer interested in vigorously defending life, when that life was flawed or ceased to desire the living process.

There were times when my family held me up as worthy and valuable, and they would have held me up as worthy of life and valuable, even if I ceased to believe it. You see, at forty five with increasing physical impairment, I was still loved, and I knew it.

Now at fifty-five, my health is gone. My days are spent in an electric wheelchair. Only my left arm is unaffected my disease. No longer does physical ability or aspiring career or business matter. Those things may have given my life quality at 25 but not 55.

What gives my life quality and value is love. To love and to be loved – that is what gives life value. Love is life’s final arbiter. Euthanasia is the abandonment of love, just as abortion is the abandonment of love. I am a naif: I happen to believe that where there is love there is hope.

Perhaps a euthanasia advocate is reading this and thinking, “That’s easy for Mark to say, he’s loved. What about the terminally or chronically ill who have no love?” Yes, precisely! What about them! Do we kill them or help them search for love and connection even though life may ebb away. A civilized society never acquiesces to the the despair of unloved people by abandoning them.

If the day ever comes that I am abandoned and lose the desire to live -- I still have no right to ask another to assist me in my suicide. Whether they care or not, I do not have the right to invite them to compromise their own humanity or connection to the greater community. That would further a culture of death and abandonment rather than a culture of life and inclusion.

You see, I will never be autonomous. Even in my darkest moment I am still connected to others and I still have a responsibility to the Common Good, and those people yet to come.

The Common Good is nurtured by a Culture of Life – and a Culture of Life is nurtured by love (both human and divine) where everyone is embraced – even the useless and unloved people of the world.

Then, and only then, will it be possible to understand the joy and fulfillment in Christ’s words “This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.”

MP

The greatest and most urgent cause of the 21st Century!

I can’t get the image out of my mind!

The photograph struck me like a knife in the heart! I can’t get the image out of my mind.

A small African child, of perhaps four years of age, crouched in the tormented throes of starvation. A small lump of humanity waiting to die; a vulture in the background waited too. The end was near. I can’t get the image out of my mind!

The photograph is not new. I am informed it taken in 1993 -- about the same time I took my children to Disneyland. While my family frolicked in California, the child in the image above was starving. When my family flew home, tanned and rested and wearing Mickey Mouse ears, ... the child in the picture was probably dead and the vulture fed. Some children have everything while others have nothing.

Wrong priorities

Does it have to be this way? The answer is No. We take corn and make ethanol gas for our vehicles. That's not right. Corn should feed people not cars.

If we had the will, things could be different. If we really loved children, the small child in the photograph could have been fed. There is enough food in the world for everybody. It’s a matter of will to distribute it. North America has enough food to feed each person ten times over … and the plague of obesity in North American proves the point.

Grain should not be treated as a commodity for speculators to profit from while there are people going hungry. That is akin to sin.

The child in the photograph above laid his small head on the dust of parched earth, yet in Canada we take vast tracts of God’s richest farmland out of production for the sake of urban sprawl. I believe that is something akin to sin too. God gave us dominion over the earth not domination over it.

My brother's keeper &

the Golden Rule

There is so much hunger in the world! See the image to the right. Can you image being that hungry? Me neither. Such desperate hunger is incomprehensible to my pampered North American life.

Put your own loved ones in the images. Does it break your heart? It should. If the Golden Rule means anything to you and me, then we must be equally concerned for every person who is reduced – physically or spiritually – to dust or dung of the earth.

The greatest cause

Being pro-Life is greater than being anti-abortion: It means defending, caring and advocating for every life from conception to natural death – and in every state and stage between those two points. That is what it really means to be pro-Life. In a world where some human life has become as cheap as the dust of the earth, being pro-Life is a high and noble cause.

I am convinced the defending the cause of Life, its dignity, value and equality is the greatest and most urgent cause of the 21st Century.

Defend every vulnerable life you encounter.

MP

One issue voter?

This entry should be on the HumanLifeMatters blog, but I am having trouble posting visuals there. Until the problem has been resolved, I will be making most of my entries of my personal blog. MP

Throughout the years, I have been called a “one issue" voter. It’s not true. My accusers have used that accusation as a knee-jerk response to being backed into a corner they don’t like, during heated town-hall political meetings or candidates' debates. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been shut down with that pat response: “You’re a one issue voter! Next question, please.”

The reality is that I am deeply concerned about many issues besides the Life issues of abortion and euthanasia.

Other concerns

I care about the environment and have since before it was fashionable. No generation owns the planet; they are merely entrusted with it. My grandchildren, and their children, deserve to inherit an unpolluted, healthy planet in which to live. I care about national security, crime and punishment, education, the state of our roads and bridges, medical care and people’s access to it.

I am deeply concern how society treats its elderly and disabled citizens. I believe my blessed country has a responsibility to provide relief to areas of the world that are not blessed. The issues of abortion and euthanasia are disqualifying issues: If a candidate is in favor of abortion or euthanasia, they are not fit for public office any more than if he/she was an anti-Semite.

Let me borrow and expand slightly on a thought of the great American statesman, Thomas Jefferson: The care and protection of all human life (not just some human life) is the first and highest object of good government.

Universal human rights

u-ni-ver-sal, adj. pertaining to, or characteristic of all or the whole: affecting or concerning all. -- Webster’s Dictionary.

If we do not provide equal legal concern for all human life then all the eloquent declarations for universal human rights are just platitudes. Humanity’s embrace of humanity must be all-encompassing. The high ideal of Universal Human Rights includes all human life. That why we use the word "universal". Every life from conception to natural death is included in universal human rights.

It is a biological fact that human life begins at conception. Therefore under the belief in universal human rights, life within the womb deserves protection too. Anything less is sophistry or plain bigotry.

When a candidate asks for my vote, they must be pro-Life. That issue comes first. It is my litmus test. After all, if a person can not be trusted to resolutely protect and care for human life, they can not be trusted to be resolute in their understanding of other important issues whether they be in season or out of season with fashionable thinking.

MP

Reflections of my wife on life, disability and hope in God

A number of people have asked to know more about my wife LaRee (pronounced like Marie only beginning with an 'L'). A few years ago she wrote the devotion below. Among other things, LaRee chronicled her grief-journey watching me degenerate. Read on. -- Mark

My Childhood Sweetheart, and My God.

by LaRee Pickup

I married a man I adored and loved—my childhood sweetheart. His name is Mark. Our lives were intertwined from the age of three years! We knew almost everything about one another. Our families knew each another. We were friends before we were lovers. Mark and I eloped at the age of twenty.

Our relationship withstood distance, abortion, alcoholism and job loss. Our relationship withstood the loneliness of feeling abandoned by the partner you once knew when one partner accepts Christ into their heart and the other does not. Regardless, we were still together and committed to our marriage.

When I look back now, I lived in a fairytale world. I believed so much in my husband, that I gave him strength he NEVER could have possessed even if he were superman! I thought he could get us out of any predicament. I leaned on his strong personality. He was bright, and full of energy and enthusiasm for life. I was quiet, lacked confidence, and used his strength to hold me up.

Even after accepting Christ into my life, I still leaned on the strength of Mark more than I did my Lord. We busied ourselves raising our two children and were proud of the job we were doing.

I came from a very dysfunctional family. My parents’ marriage of 27 years had crumbled. All four of my siblings’ marriages ended in divorce, yet here we were, still together after having eloped against everybody’s wishes. “Mmmmph!” I thought, “Told ya so!” I began to take pride in the stability of our marriage. I honestly felt we could conquer anything together.

One morning Mark mentioned numbness in his legs. He couldn’t feel sharp from blunt, or cold from hot. After many tests, and trips to various doctors, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). I didn’t even know what MS was, let alone have any idea what it meant for our future. I began to research through medical literature and even visited a few auxiliary hospitals to see if I could pick out people with MS. I noticed all the canes, crutches, wheelchairs, scooters, van contraptions, ramps, sidewalk curb cuts. I looked deeply into the faces of those people whose loved ones were tied to all of the above and I wondered if I could face the heartbreak and the hurt.

How could Mark do this to me? How dare he get sick! He was supposed to be the strong one. I was the weak one! “Damn you,” I thought! I should be the one to have this disease. I could cope with it better. He was the one with most energy, I could accept this much more easily if I were the one! I could just slink away from the world. It would be okay. I was angry sad, bitter but most of all scared!

I tried to correct the fate God allowed by trying to convince Him that He got it wrong. Mark could raise the children, remarry and go on with his life.

“I can’t do this! I can’t sit back and watch this Lord.”

At first I didn’t even ask God to take the MS away completely: I pleaded with God to give it to me.

“There’s been a big mistake Lord, it was me who was supposed to get this, not him! He’s the strong one, Lord. He needs to be the one to hold up my children.”

Mark’s faith was stronger than mine, his personality stronger, his body stronger, his upbringing stronger. His ability for making a living was better. I was so angry—with Mark and GOD! I felt cornered, and so let down.

I began to gauge the distance between benches in shopping malls in case he needed to sit down with exhaustion. I began to dread places with crowds fearing he might get impatient and I might see that look of frustration on his face.

One afternoon I watched in horror as my husband began to inch his way up the stairs to our bi-level home, so that he could tend to bathroom duties. I realized that I had to begin to make some decisions. The first and foremost was whether I was prepared to stay in our marriage.

Many times Satan told me there was an easier way out. “You’re still young, the kids would get over it,” he whispered. “You can start over like many other women after divorce.” The temptation continued: “You can get help financially through family. They will understand.”



There was a transitional moment in time when we surrendered the shattered pieces of our lives. One winter night in the middle of a devastating attack that left Mark unable to walk, and we were at our wits end, we laid in bed, tears streaming down our faces, I had nothing left to say. I said, "Let’s pray." We hugged each other and prayed, “Our father …”

It didn’t take me long to realize that I needed to get serious with God and ask for His hand as I hopped onto a wild MS rollercoaster ride. My first prayer was to ask for help in finding an accessible home so we could begin our new life. We needed a home that would allow Mark to move without struggle, a home that would take us far into this disease—and further if possible. I realized the truth of the old saying: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

My prayer was two-sided: I had always yearned with all of my heart for permanence. A place to call home. As a child, I was moved from pillar to post (37 moves throughout Canada). I had attended a new school every year. I didn’t want my children to live like gypsies. There was nothing I wanted more than a stable HOME and a permanent address, and an apple tree in the backyard. The Lord knew this part of my heart well.

And so, in 1987, God provided us with a wheelchair accessible home in Beaumont, Alberta. Our home has become the meeting place our children and grandchildren.


Each autumn we all gather to pick apples from the tree. What more could I have asked for! What a special blessing the Lord has given me. God has enveloped me with His love in such a way that I don’t need a superman husband anymore.

I am truly convinced that the Lord has allowed the MS to continue so that I might continue to grow and lean on him.


We’ll probably have another big harvest of apples this year. We won’t have lemonade but apple cider is good too.

LaRee

See my commentary on CNN's Compassion Forum on April 13th, 2008, with Senators Clinton and Obama at http://humanlifematters.blogspot.com/

MP

Sandwiched between generations

Providing ongoing care to an aging or disabled family member can be challenging and heartbreaking. I read an email written by my wife, LaRee, to our adult daughter. LaRee explained that middle-age is proving to be both a joyful and sad time for her. My wife was “venting.”

Caught in the middle

LaRee’s life is a juggling act: On one hand, she is a supportive grandmother and our granchildren are a constant source of joy and laughter. On the other hand, LaRee is caring for her frail, aged mother, and a disabled husband with degenerative multiple sclerosis. This brings sadness and tears to her. She feels sandwiched between the people in her family living at both ends of the life spectrum. She’s caught in the middle. On top of it all, she must make a living to supplement my modest disability pension.

LaRee is part of a growing demographic group known as The Sandwich Generation. (She’s the best looking sandwich I’ve ever seen!) LaRee’s own needs are often neglected as she tends to the needs and wants of others.

In my own advanced disability, there’s little I can do to allay the incredible pressures LaRee is experiencing. It’s so frustrating to know that I cause much of her grief and many of her tears. She is the love of my life. I worry in silence about her while she worries (often silently) about me (and others). And so we find ourselves in two solitudes of silence, just like many other ‘boomers find themselves in similar solitudes with loved-ones. Who cares for the caregivers?

S&Fers

I wish there was a Sandwichers and Fretters Club for people like LaRee. Their objective would be to break down barriers of isolation – be they perceived or real – for family caregivers. Sandwichers and fretters (S&Fers) from across North America could meet online as a support group to talk about their challenges, sorrows and successes as caregivers to aging or disabled loved-ones. They could vent.

The Agenda would always be the same: 1. Call meeting to order with prayer around warm crackling fire. 2. Put another log on fire. 3. Friendship and venting. 4. Adjourn and sign off.

Frustrations, heartaches and victories of caregivers could be shared with each other in a supportive atmosphere of mutual understanding and friendship—germinated by the warmth of Christian love and concern.

Keyboard fellowship

In my silly illustration about “S&Fers”, I am actually trying to make a case for a fellowship of heavy-hearted caregivers who are being pulled in many directions by life’s circumstances.

Baby boomers caring for loved-ones fading from age or struggling with disability can find themselves with a tough-row-to-hoe. Coming together online with other caregivers who experience similar heartaches and soul-pain can, perhaps, make the ‘hoeing’ a little easier.

Yes, there is comfort in knowing that other middle age sons and daughters have been called to parent a parent or nurse a spouse or care for grandchildren of a divorced child. Caregivers can find themselves overcome by tears in their lonesome daily routines, but who’s to know online unless divulged.

Once a year the S&Fers could meet someplace to put names to faces and, yes, you guessed it, eat sandwiches and fritters. Now I’m being silly.

I am sure there are a lot of online groups for caregivers. Still, sometimes LaRee must feel alone and squeezed in her sandwich, although she never says anything to me.

MP

Light of Christ lends hope as I travel down a dark road

The following blog entry appears as my column, for Canada's Western Catholic Reporter newspaper, under the same title as above, for the week of April 7th 2008 -(http://www.wcr.ab.ca/columns/markpickup/2008/markpickup040708.shtml).

______________

Although my body is broken and wounded by advanced multiple sclerosis (MS), a light of hope in Christ sustains me. I depend upon an electric wheelchair for movement but my dark road still leads to a new horizon. A morning prayer proclaims:

Lord Jesus, you are the rising Sun, the first fruits of the future resurrection, -- grant that we may not sit in the shadow of death but walk in the light of life. Christ, King of Glory, be our light and our joy.

He is the future resurrection but I can live in the present basking in His light. Despite increasingly profound disability (only my left arm is unaffected by disease), I know that just as my Redeemer lives, so shall I. Even though my body is being slowly and steadily destroyed, I will be brought forth as gold (cf Job 23.10). Like Job, I live with the hope that even though I may die, in my flesh I shall be made new to see God as He is.

Words fail me! Oh how I long to see the triune God, my hope and my joy.

Torments of a chronic illness and degenerative disability have lasted for nearly quarter of a century; multiple sclerosis has turned my formerly healthy and athletic body into a living carcass.

Small voice resonates

During periods of deepest crisis, the clamor of terror drowns out everything save a small voice resonating Psalm 46 with my internal hearing: “Be still, and know that I am God.” The Lord of hosts is with me. He is my refuge.

My world has been shaken to its very foundations yet the Psalmist assures me from across the ages that God is a refuge for suffering humanity -- our strength and help in times of trouble. I know this is true, and the psalmist says “we will not be afraid”. Yet in my weakest moments, I am afraid. My heart has so often been troubled and filled with dread at what lays ahead of me with a terrible disease and the fear that I might be abandoned and forgotten in a nursing home?

Didn’t Jesus say, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”? Yes, he did. He told his Disciples that He was going away but would come back for them. He told them a permanent home awaited them (and us) with the Father in heaven.

Saint Peter told us to endure trials and use them to glorify God. Saint Paul said that earthly trials borne in faith can produce spiritual fruits that include perseverance that builds character, which leads to hope that does not disappoint.

Untroubled hearts

The hope that does not disappoint is this: I will see Christ as He is and that I will know just as I am known. I will where Jesus described when He said.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.”

I read my Lord’s words and my heart soars. He spoke of our eternal home! An inexpressible longing for eternity that has ached deep within my heart, since the dawn of human memory, will finally be satiated.

Eternal satisfaction

I believe Saint Paul referred to this eternal satisfaction or completion when he wrote: “At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.” This occurs in heaven.

Saint Augustine thought of God’s heaven as being a “kind of intellectual creature—that continually gazes upon the sweet essence of the triune God and holds so close to Him as to escape the fluttery oscillations of time.”

I will know fully as I am known fully. The reason and necessity for my present trials, sorrow, and tears will be known in their full dimensions. The reasons for my suffering will no longer matter for I will join the rapt gaze upon the sweet essence of the triune God and hold close to Christ. He shall wipe away every tear and make all things new. I will hear Him say, “I shall be his God, and he will be my son (Revelation 21.7).

MP