Mark Pickup

Taking up our cross

2010-09-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about Christ's exhortation to His followers to take up their cross daily. He said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." (Luke 9.23)

People may have different types crosses but from our Lord's words we can deduce that taking up one's cross involves continual self-denial, sacrifice, and submission to the will of God with complete abandon. Our only reward is to follow Christ, to be willing to suffer for the sake of Christ, to abide in His love and will, and ultimately to be with Christ. The rewards of taking up our cross are not earthly and temporal rather heavenly and eternal.

To take up one's cross will inevitably turn the individual inward to face the internal man. A man can run from his cross, and The Cross, but he can not escape because he can not escape from himself. The cross makes Objective Truth personal and intimate. A man who is living a lie can not bear the Truth and so the cross is offensive. If Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life (which He most certainly is) then the cross is inescapable. And the man who chooses to follow Christ is assured the he will have his own cross to carry.

I wrote about this in my most recent column for Canada's Western Catholic Reporter weekly newspaper under the title "Christ walks with us as we shoulder our cross" (see http://www.wcr.ab.ca/columns/markpickup/2010/markpickup090610.shtml)

MP

A letter from the President of America's National Right to Life Committee

2010-08-24T18:06:00.000-07:00

Two blog entries ago, I wrote about my wife, LaRee, and I speaking at the 2010 U.S. National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast. The entry was entitled "A woman's pro-Life message for a time such as this." I gave it that title because LaRee spoke with such profound personal understanding of abortion, post-abortion grief, and the sorrow of watching a family member degenerate with incurable and chronic illness and unresolved grief can and does fuel calls for euthanasia and assisted suicide. LaRee knows because she has lived these. It was LaRee's words of insight and wisdom that captured the audience from across the United States.

We have received an encouraging letter from the President of the National Right to Life Committee, Dr. Wanda Franz, based in Washington, D.C.., in response to that keynote address that we delivered. Dr. Franz stated, in part:

Dear LaRee and Mark:

"Your presentation was truly inspiring and we heard so many comments about how moving it was ... ."

"I especially want to thank you for sharing such a personal story about your abortion experience. It is another dimension of the extraordinary life experience you have had."

"You have such a keen understanding that society's callousness toward these vulnerable individuals [the sick and disabled] grows out of our acceptance of abortion and our callous disregard of the unborn. These insights have given your work such urgency because you have so clearly articulated the dangers we are all facing in embracing the "culture of death" that is growing around us."

Dr. Franz concluded her letter by saying "I want to wish you well in your work, and I urge you to continue your work of speaking out on behalf of all endangered human beings. ..."

Thank you Dr. Franz. We will continue to speak out as a couple to any group willing to listen and every venue afforded to us.

A copy of Dr. Franz' letter is below, although it's likely too small for many readers. That is why much of the text was transferred above.

To book us to address abortion and post abortion grief (a woman and man's perspective), disability, suffering, euthanasia and assisted suicide (a family perspectives), contact us email at MPickup@shaw.ca or by telephone at (780) 929-9230. We will speak to pro-Life groups, provincial/state RTL conventions, churches and church groups, legislators, colleges and schools.

Mark Pickup.

Speaking about suffering ...

2010-08-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

In the Spring of 2010, I gave a presentation in Ottawa to Canada's Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF), which was co-founded by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus.

I was asked to speak about suffering from a Christian perspective. You can hear my address at

http://www.colf.ca/mamboshop/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=239

A woman's pro-Life message for a time such as this

2010-08-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

My wife, LaRee, (pronounced like Marie except with an L) and I delivered the keynote address to the 2010 U.S. National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast in Pittsburgh, PA. The ballroom was packed with Pro-Life and religious leaders from across America. We dealt with abortion and post abortion grief (we killed our first child by abortion in 1971). We spoke from our personal experiences about the suffering and grief of serious degenerative disability (multiple sclerosis) and how such conditions impact not only individuals but their families. (Unresolved grief often fuels consideration of assisted suicide and euthanasia.)

Although I addressed a man's perspective on abortion as well as suffering associated with acquired disability -- from the perspective of the individual who is chronically ill -- LaRee unintentionally stole the presentation with her riveting account of abortion and its aftermath, from the perspective of a frightened and confused 17 year old girl faced with an unwanted pregnancy. Her gripping and heart-wrenching testimony of a spouse of a mate enduring the ravages of aggressive and degenerative disability, and the sorrow and grief of watching a loved one degenerate, captured the attention of every person in the conference room. At one point she reflected: "I think it is easier to be the one degenerating than to watch the degeneration."

You could have heard a pin drop as the sold-out Prayer Breakfast audience sat in rapt attention to her every word.

I was the secondary part of the speech: LaRee spoke with such indisputable authority of someone who knows the major Life issues of our time at the deepest heart level. She wore her vulnerability on her sleeve and it connected with every young woman, mother and grandmother in the ballroom.

I sat awestruck at the command with which LaRee delivered her message. She took the audience on a journey from the perspective and mindset of a pregnant and frightened teenager, through the abortion experience, the pain of post-abortion grief, to the shock and fear of a wife learning her husband has been diagnosed with a serious degenerative disability. LaRee spoke with remarkable candor about being angry with God and life -- then concluded with how He bound her broken-heart to give her a new and greater understanding of life and love (both human and divine).

When we finished, the audience jumped to their feet in a prolonged standing ovation. LaRee was quickly surrounded by a crowd of women. They shared with LaRee their stories of abortion, disabled family members or loved ones with chronically or terminally illnesses. One weeping lady embraced LaRee and said, "Thank you. I'm going to try to be a better wife." (Her husband is chronically ill.)

The President of Michigan Right to Life immediately booked us to address their annual convention in September (but I think it is LaRee they really want to hear). Other state Right to Life organizations inquired about possibly coming to their states. LaRee was stunned by the overwhelming show of support and affection she received. People really identified with her message.

It seems that LaRee's life experiences have come together for a time such as this. Some people will listen, some will not. But her message is rooted and solid in an understanding of God's love, forgiveness and hope. LaRee speaks from a vulnerable, hurting heart to other vulnerable and hurting hearts. And love is the language of vulnerable hearts. LaRee has both in spades.

The U.S. National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast showed that LaRee's pro-Life message is timely for women across North America (and our life denying culture, if it will only listen).

MP

Email CONTACT for bookings: MPickup@shaw.ca

Squandering what our soldiers won

2010-07-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

After writing this note, I must get ready to attend a funeral of a old friend who was a soldier in the first wave storming the beaches of Normandy on June 6th 1944. Jack Mclean was a man of great courage, decency and character, and I feel fortunate to have known him. I am forever grateful to Jack and the countless other soldiers who fought in the Second World War to stop the Nazis. Hundreds of thousands of young men in that war (1939-45) paid the ultimate price and did not return to their families. Jack was one of the fortunate ones who came back.

A few weeks ago (before Jack Mclean died) I submitted a column to my editor at the Western Catholic Reporter newspaper in Canada. It appears in next weeks edition (22 July 2010) under the title "Rampant secularism is killing civilization". It deals with the freedom preserved in that terrible war and how it was squandered by the children of what Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation -- the babyboomer generation perverted freedom and turned it into licence. Although Brokaw specifically referred to Americans as the Greatest Generation, the term equally applies to the British and Canadians of that generation who fought together, and of whom Jack Mclean was a part. Rest in peace my friend, rest in peace.

I invite you to read my column at http://www.wcr.ab.ca/columns/markpickup/2010/markpickup072610.shtml

Shame on the MS Society

2010-07-09T16:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/search-results/index.aspx?pageindex=O&pagesize=208&keywords=stem+cell&x=37&y=10

The American Multiple Sclerosis Society makes the following statements on the above note webpage. My comments/translation follow in coloured italics.

Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Available for Federally Funded Research

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society urges Congress to support the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 (H.R.3 and S.5) at all levels of the legislative process. The legislation would increase the number of approved embryonic stem cell lines that can be used in federally funded research by allowing new lines to be generated from embryos that have been donated for research purposes by people using the services of in vitro fertilization clinics, while establishing important ethical protections.

[Translation: The MS Society was/is just itching to get their hands on stem cells at the cost of human life generated artificially by perverse science. They want legal free-reign to be in experimentation involving stem cells taken from human embryos, which kills the embryo. Parents can donate their unwanted children to be experimented upon by perverse researchers to try to find treatments or a cure for multiple sclerosis. The end justifies the means no matter how corrupt. The MS Society recognizes that many MS sufferers and supporters have moral objections to embryonic stem cell research because it kills a human being for the sake of harvesting its stem cells. Therefore the MS society promises to establish "important ethical protections." One is drawn to point out that any pretext ethical protections are not extended to the embryonic child.

"...Research on all types of stem cells is critical because we have no way of knowing which type of stem cells have the most value in MS research.

[Translation: The MS Society holds a very narrow definition of moral responsibility to the greater Common Good. Their only concern is multiple sclerosis. Any previous moral consensus, such as the Nuremberg Code, does not concern them.]

It pains me to publish this on my blog. After all, I have MS. But I would have to refuse any stem cell therapy developed involving embryonic sources. After more than 26 years with this progressive disability, I know what discrimination and exclusion is like. Why would I accept any treatment based upon the belief that other human life is of less value -- so much less value that it is expendable?!

Any person who is truly committed to the universality of universal human rights must demand that rights of every human being be respected and protected. True universal human rights begin when human life begins. And the first and highest human right is the Right to Life. I have said this before: If the Right to Life is not guaranteed for everyone then all other rights become arbitrary and uncertain.

The MS Society in America and Canada are wrong to support embryonic stem cell research. Many therapies and treatments for numerous conditions and diseases have been developed using NON-embryonic sem cells: No therapies have been developed using embryonic stem cells. None!

From a purely pragmatic perspective, limited research money should be directed where the most promise lies -- not the least promise!

Shame on the MS Society. They are prepared to violate proper morality and prudent use of research money.

The safety of Catholic hospitals

2010-06-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I participated on a panel discussion at an American university: the panel was made up of eight people with various disabilities. I was the only panelist who had not been openly pressured to sign a DNR order (Do Not Resuscitate) when being admitted to hospital for treatment.

Across North America we are seeing the bitter fruit pf post-Hippocratic medicine where the sanctity of human life ethic has been replaced by a quality of human life ethic. But who defines "quality of human life and by what standard? Will it be hospital ethics committees or treating physicians? Should it be families or patients -- and based upon what criteria? What patients are too young or unable to express themselves?

There seems to be a new societal view that death is preferable to disability. It's ironic. People with disabilities are receiving conflicting messages from our culture. At the same time as euthanasia is gaining prominence and acceptance , great strides are being made to include the disabled within society. Human rights legislation declares that people with disabilities are to be included yet the ultimate exclusion like euthanasia is quietly practiced in hospitals across North America -- with or without family consent.

Are the disabled welcome or not?!

Thankfully there are still Catholic hospitals. They operate within a general consensus that human life is sacred. Whenever I enter a Catholic hospital near where I live and see a cross on the wall, I feel reassured.

Catholic hospitals and health care are important options for the terminally and chronically ill, as well as people with serious disabilities. It is critically important to us because we need to know our lives will always be valued and deaths not hastened -- regardless of how compromised or hopeless our medical circumstances may become.

As medical ethics continue to coarsen in our post-Christian culture, the uncompromising standard of care found in Catholic hospitals can and must serve as a vivid witness for the love of Jesus Christ and tat love is expressed when caring for the sick, disabled and dying.

Latest blog

2010-06-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

Read "A beautiful commercial showing prenatal life" at http://humanlifematters.org/

Cardinal Virtues & the Pursuit of Perfection

2010-05-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

My parish priest at St. Vital Catholic Church in Beaumont, Alberta, is Fr. Wellington Santana. He wrote an excellent piece about virtue for our weekly church bulletin. Father Wellington allowed me share it with readers of this blog. Here it is for your reading pleasure.

______________________________________

The Pursuit of Perfection

Saint Gregory of Nyssa wrote that a man and woman should do what is honourable, just, pure, lovely and gracious. He pointed out that every Christian ought to do what is worthy of praise in order to deserve being called a disciple of Jesus. Saint Gregory was talking about habit and disposition to do what is good. Good acts enable one to achieve excellence in their spiritual live. The goal of a virtuous life, ultimately, is to become like God. (2Peter 1:4)

Virtue is the power every human being has to pursue perfection. Virtue is a stable interior disposition that helps us to govern our actions, subdue passions and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. A virtuous man or woman acts freely, but firmly in order to pursue the good. Virtue is acquirable through constant efforts and constant training. Step by step people can master their own will and do what is right instead of what is vicious. Literally speaking, to be virtuous one does not need to be Christian, since some virtues can be pursued by anyone of good will.

The cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance) are common to every human being who struggles to live according to the reason and good will. Being Christian, however, the newness of faith in Christ to every human effort. Scriptures praise the cardinal virtues in a way to please the Lord and respect others: "If anyone loves righteousness, [wisdom's] labours are virtues, for she teaches temperance and prudence, justice and courage." (Wisdom 8:7)

Prudence as virtue disposes the person to discern our true good. The means of achieving it determines and directs the person to good moral principles. In the Christian perspective, prudence helps us see Christ in our brothers and sisters, and precisely because of that, it directs us to be fair and just by discerning the best way of acting. But only Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, can inspire us to choose the best for ourselves, and our brothers and sisters and for all mankind.

Temperance moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created good. It helps to control our own appetites.

Firmness in difficulties is called fortitude. It enables us to conquer fear, resist and renounce temptation.

In short, virtues are a way of education and, it has been said, are due to every human being. Divine grace, in turn, purifies and elevates them so that we may partake in God's very life.

Rev. Wellington Santana

My Stubborn Internal Sin

2010-05-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

Latelely I have been dogged by renewed bouts of envy. The last of the 10 Commandments is not to covet.

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male or female slave, nor his ox or ass, nor anything else that belongs to him."

That's what it says. The Hebrew word for covet is hamad and means "to have a strong desire for." Coveting is an internal sin.

Let me explain how I have violated the Commandment not to covet. It's been quite some time since I have coveted other people's houses or cars -- but I find myself being jealous of other men's health and physical capabilities. Multiple sclerosis has put me into an electric wheelchair and only my left arm is unaffected by the disease. The sin of envy became a problem for me after I became a grandfather.

To see other grandfathers skiing, bicycling, swimming or rough-housing with their grandchildren makes me jealous. I see them heading off for a weekend camping, grandchildren in tow, and I sit on the sidelines burning with jealousy and think, "Why can't I be doing that too?!"

I confessed this interior sin of mine to a friend. He replied, "Well, that's understandable." I suppose he was trying to be kind but his comment was irrelevant to the sin. Understanding why someone sins does not decrease, mitigate or erase the sin.

SIN IS SIN

You may suspect that a childhood of deprivation may have caused a woman to become a kleptomaniac, but she is still a thief. A loveless marriage may contribute to a man having an affair, but he is still guilty of adultery. Sin is sin.

The reason why we sin is less important than recognizing when we sin and responding with confession and repentance. The grace of my Baptism does not inoculate me from the weakness in my nature toward sin and evil.

We are all guilty of violating God's law: The gravity of sin -- whatever that might be -- must never be discounted, denied or downplayed. Sin is destructive to our prayer life and Christian growth, our human relationships, and our relationship to Christ. Sin separates us from God.

FORGIVENESS

Through Christ's Passion, crucifixion and resurrection, and through the wonderful Sacrament of Reconciliation and Penance, reconciliation with God and His Church is readily available to you and me. It's there for the asking and we should keep short accounts with God.

For me to allow jealousy, envy or covetousness to take root in my heart is really to doubt the sovereignty and goodness of God. Something far better than anything in this life awaits me in heaven. That knowledge should be enough to live contentedly here.

CONTENTMENT

The writer of Hebrews said, "Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'" Perhaps this passage deals specifically with material possessions, but I place it in context with my reality of physical incapacity. I must not let the temptation to be jealous of other men turn me bitter. Be grateful for those things I still have? Absolutely! I can still get about in my wheelchair and my family accepts me as I am. They have not forsaken me and nor has God.

My life is so rich and there is every reason to be content. God forgive me for my discontentment.

Pro-Life conferences (Alberta and U.S. National RTL information)

2010-05-04T15:28:00.000-07:00

My wife LaRee and I will be speaking at the 2010 Alberta Pro-Life Association's convention (May) and U.S. National Right to Life Convention in Pittsburgh. For more information go to http://humanlifematters.org/

MP

The Language Police

2010-04-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

I received a bulk email from my friend Brad Mattes with the Life Issues Institute. The email was called "Language Police." It told of an internal memo from National Public Radio's managing editor David Sweeney telling staff not to refer to pro-life people as pro-life rather to call them "abortion rights opponents." Sweeney's intent was clear: He wants to cast the pro-Life movement in a negative light by portraying us as wanting to deny rights to women in crisis pregnancies.

In his email, Brad Mattes goes on explain that other media outlets have also embarked on Orwellian revisions to the use of the English language. He writes:

The Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, CNN, CBS, and NBC have all adopted similar terminology. "What does pro-life mean? That leaves people scratching their heads," CBS Senior VP Linda Mason reportedly told NPR."

Brad went on to nail the point with pinpoint accuracy: "Perhaps the problem isn't that words are confusing (most understand the meaning of pro-life), but too unsettling." Bingo!

Many of us oldtimers have been watching for decades the manipulation of language for political purposes. Linda Mason may be scratching her head at the term pro-life but main street North America understands. Pro-life means to be in favour of life. Duh! Methinks Linda Mason has been in the ivory tower of CBS too long and has lost touch with every day people on main street America, or she has an itchy scalp and a growing nose! I think it's the latter.

The term Orwellian is a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four: It is nightmarish tale of a place of totalitarianism in a place called Oceania, where ideas contrary to the official view are not tolerated and flushed out by the Thought Police. A language called Newspeak progressively narrows the range of ideas and independent thought. Doublethink becomes a necessary frame of mind in a society dominated by slogans -- War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. The novel had an extraordinary impact on our culture: many of its phrases have passed into common usage, such as the term Big Brother.

In the Appendix to his novel George Orwell explained Newspeak: "The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible." About the vocabulary of Newspeak "consisted of words which had been deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them."

North American society has entered a time rather like this where we are progressing toward such a nightmarish world where ideas are governed by Thought Police -- alternately known (in Canada) as human rights commissions. In fact, these quasi-judicial commissions stifle the fundamental human right of freedom of expression, thought and opinion that are contrary to views deemed to be acceptable or within the politically correctness of the liberal elite.

The manipulation of language is poigniantly illustrated when it comes to sexuality, and the Life issues of abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia. Many years ago homosexuals highjacked the word "gay" from its original meaning of being light-hearted and carefree to mean homosexual. It was my experience that using the word gay to describe the homosexual lifestyle. Homosexuals I knew may have been superficially "gay" but they were really very sad and tragic people. Their lives tended to lack depth and an many placed an inordinate emphasis on casual sex. Alcohol and drug abuse was common.

The term "pro-life" is actually a very succinct way to describe people who are in favour of the right to life for everyone. The word is so accurate that people in favour of abortion and euthanasia find it unsettling and irksome. And so they try to replace Pro-Life with "anti-choice" and "abortion rights opponents." They want to portary us as trying to deny people something. But deny them what? Well, of course, if accuracy and succinctness of language was the objective, and if we are talking about denying actions, then we would say that pro-Lifers want to deny others the right to kill their offspring, parents, the terminally and chronically ill or people who are suicidal. So, in that sense, I could be called "anti-choice" -- and feel rather proud of it. I am anti-choice to choose to kill an unborn child in the same way I am anti-choice when it comes to choosing to kill a born child, or the choice to dehydrate grandma to death, or help a defeated, disabled or depressed person kill themselves. I believe in a universal Right to life.

Unfortunately, accurate language and succinct descriptions have fallen out of fashion in this deceptive age. Therefore let me use the language of the age to proudly proclaim: I am anti-choice when choosing to kill.

The word "abortionists" has a negative connotation: they are now called "abortion providers" to leave the impression that they're providing a service rather than killing an unborn child. People say they are "pro-choice" without finishing the sentence and identifying the choice. To do that would reveal them as sophists. It's too unsettling to finish the sentence and identify the choice is the right to their unborn child. Then they will have to pretend that science does not know when life begins and that will reveal their woeful ignorance of basic biology. And once they have been informed that biology knows exactly that life reproducing sexually begins at conception, then they will have to say "Ah, but when is it a person?" And that will reveal their bigotry and so them in the same league as slaveholders who trying to deny the personhood of Black people, or those who denied legal personhood to women in Canada right up until 1929.

No, pro-choicers must not identify the choice; that opens a can of worms and reveals their moral insights are equivalent to the contents.

Today is the tomorrow I feared yesterday

2010-04-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

To read my latest blog "Today is the tomorrow I feared yesterday", go to http://humanlifematters.org

MP

Honest lives lead to contentment

2010-03-09T18:22:00.000-08:00

The human ability to compartmentalize life is tearing at the lives of individuals, families, communities and even tattering at the social fabric society. The saying, "What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas." But what happens in Las Vegas -- or anywhere else for that matter -- must not stay in Las Vegas! If behaviour is immoral in my comunity or personal life at home the it's immoral in Las Vegas, or in New Orleans during Marti Gras. Moral accountability resides everywhere: It must never be checked at any door.

Betrayal of solemn wedding vows and the marriage bed always destroys that which is sacred and ordained by God. Is there ever a place, time or circumstance when God turns a blind eye to the breakdown of an institution He created? Men may be unfaithful but God is faithful.

Killing a child in the womb may be accepted by people and even societies but it is an affront to God! Is the child whose birth is betrayed ever forgotten by the Almighty? Surely not! God himself said, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, but I will not forget you." (Isaiah 49.15.) A mother may forget or betray her motherhood but God will not forget his Fatherhood.

In the years leading to the recent economic melt down, many corporate executives projected a respectable and upstanding exterior while betraying investors' trust and lined their own pockets with unreasonable gain or excessive compensation even to the point of threatening the entire economy. To them, the notion of being modest people living modest but honourable lives was/is anathema: they act like uncrowned royalty entitled to lives of entitlement. The world needs people who walk with their heads in air not their noses in the air.

Ill-gotten gain remains ill-gotten. The definition of ill-gotten is still "gained by evil or unlawful means." The correct response to it is shame not pride.

A person can live like there's no Judgment Day but it doesn't change the fact that there will be a Judgment Day. A man may not believe in God but God still exists. An age of relative truths and situational ethics can not dispel the absolute truth that there is absolute Truth.

The Ten Commandments can be removed from the foyer of a courthouse and locked away, ... but the Ten Commandments still exist and will continue to exist long after the ACLU has closed its doors. The ACLU does not define justice and fairness -- God does.

History teaches that people who lead modest, honest and wholesome lives -- keeping short accounts with God -- are apt to find contentment and sleep well.

MP

We All Matter

2010-03-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

I recently gave the keynote address to a Mayor's Prayer Breakfast for the small Alberta city of Leduc. Below are my speaking notes. Some of the thoughts appeared in previous blogs and many readers received my notes under separate email attachment. At an rate, I offer this to the readership of my blogs who perhaps have not seen it.

We All Matter

In the August 2009 edition of the Reader's Digest, the Leduc County was featured. In an article that appeared under the title "Rich, yes, but happy?" freelance writer Chris Wood wrote:

"In 2005, Leduc, on the basis of the familiar gross domestic product (GDP) economic yardstick, was name one of the richest regions on earth. Yet, even as its success is the envy of other communities, some of its residents wondered whether GDP was telling the whole story." [1]

Of course, GDP does not tell the whole story either about human welfare or communities. It is only one yardstick -- it's not even the best yardstick to measure the state of the human condition. If labour and production -- be it goods or services -- does not serve humanity or make life better, then they have no real purpose.

Gross Domestic Product only measures economic output, not happiness. There is no precise way of measuring happiness. People don't have tails. (My six year old granddaughter said she thinks people should have tails like dogs so you'd know when they're happy.) Don't you love the world of children?

GDP does not measure joy or contentment. There's no measurement for those possessions. Joy is spiritual.

I think Joy is more akin to contentment than happiness. I think Joy and contentment are closer to God than happiness. Joy is not dependent so much on what happens around us as it is merely a state of being. Joy simply is. Happiness is a response to something we have attained or gained. Happiness does not usually exist by itself in a worldly void. Joy can and does, so can contentment. In fact, Joy and contentment can exist in the midst of sorrow or trial -- happiness cannot. It is for this reason that I think Joy and contentment are closer to God than happiness.

The terms happiness and joy are often confused or used interchangeably because they have many of the same superficial attributes, but you will discover that they are not the same if you examine and compare them closely.

I believe babies and small children are close to the mind of God. A newborn baby has already been in God's presence. Although they do not know it, they have known it. The Jewish prophet Jeremiah wrote the words of God when he said, "The word of the Lord came to me saying 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.'" [2] You see, what God told Jeremiah was that he was known in the mind of God before he was conceived.

The Psalmist tells us of God's presence with the child forming in its mother's womb. We read in the 139th Psalm: "You [God] created my inner most being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. ... your eyes saw my unformed body." [3] You and I were known by God before we were born. If the Bible is to be believed (and I believe it is the irrefutable, unalterable, inspired word of God) the we have always been known by God.

Have you noticed that Joy tends to be in richest supply in babies and small children, the becomes rarer as innocence is stripped away and individuals enter adulthood? Often we do nor notice the gradual slipping away of Joy; we try to replace it with happiness. Babies can and should be happy (after all, a happy baby can give us Joy). That is a mystery about Joy and happiness: Joy is the possession of babies and small children that they can give to us. Happiness is something we can give to children.

I have often been stunned at the spiritual perceptiveness in children.

Many years ago I was searching for a reason for my own pain with degenerative multiple sclerosis. I read the book The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis. I came across the following comment he made:

"From our own childhoods we remember that before our elders thought us capable of 'understand' anything, we already had spiritual experiences as pure and momentous as anything we have undergone since, though not, of course, as rich is a factual context [like GDP]. From Christianity itself we learn that there is a level -- in the long run the only level of importance -- on which the learned and adult have no advantage at all over the simple and the child." [4]

There is something universal about Joy. Cynics have described it as religious mysticism. In the 18th Century, Wordsworth described it. But it was that muscular mind of C.S. Lewis I just quoted who wrote about an early childhood encounter he had encounter with divine Joy:

"...[I]t is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton's "enormous bliss" of Eden ... comes somewhere near it. It was a sensation, of course, of desire; but desire for what?" [5]

Now I suspect that for some of you I may have tread into delicate turf. Perhaps some in this room even feel awkward that I have even dared mention that intimate longing you have had all your life long for the transtemporal. We are all aware (whether we are prepared to admit it or not) of a conscious desire that cannot be satisfied by any natural happiness. At an intimate interior level we feel like exiles on earth. I am increasingly convinced that this longing is rooted in the divine image we all bear.

For some people the ache of indefinable longing can be evoked by the smell of freshly cut grass or briny ocean air, or a prairie Spring breeze. Perhaps the sound of autumn wind blowing through the tops of mountain evergreen trees can open an internal spiritual window of primordial, inconsolable long that is within you and breaks your heart with such sweetness.

I know this is a universal longing that has crossed the ages of humanity. We see evidence of it in the Psalms, in literature, poetry and music as the great treasury of Gregorian chants, J.S. Bach's Suites for Violoncello, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, and in recent times, I would even assert that Gabriel's Oboe by Ennio Morricone touches that intimate human longing. It is, as Lewis said, like the scent of a flower you have yet to find, the haunting echo of a melody you have not heard. [6]

What I am trying to illustrate to you is that your whole life has been set against a backdrop of that distant (sometimes immediate) eternal love. That love is from God.

The Apostle John tells us that the Word of God (Christ) has always existed as God and that the essence of God is love. [7] We are told in the very first Chapter of the first book of the Bible that humanity bears the image of God. [8]

We are all part of the human community -- the human family -- by virtue of being human and bearing the indelible image of God. Communities include all their members -- or at least they should. Communities should encourage family life. Families should be places that encourage joy. By extension, the human family includes all its members, not just those who have a contribution to make but because they exist. Rene Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am." I respond by saying "I am, therefore I matter."

I've come to the conclusion that the propose of our time on earth is for spiritual growth not mere acquisition of things or even survival. It is not the the size of your house that matters -- it is the size of your heart that matters.

A heart that is open to God's love is also open to the divine love of Christ.

Jesus said:

"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that my joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." [9]

People may choose to love the world rather than the Creator of it. When our Lord said, "for where your treasure is, there also will your heart be", He was challenging human priorities. [10] Christ was laying out a stark choice for humanity: Either love God and the permanent things of heaven (yet unseen) or the temporary things of earth.

Our first love and priority can be to seek "treasures on earth" (to use Christ's words) or "treasures in heaven." It seems they are two mutually exclusive masters of the heart. He said "No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." [11]

Mammon is an Aramaic word meaning wealth or property but it could also symbolize anything temporal and fleeting such as youth, beauty, health or social status. To choose anything over God is to rebuff His love.

Many years ago I came across a saying that I taped in the front of my Bible. This is what it says: "There will be times when you will sorry for something you said; sorry that you stayed too late, or went to early; sorry you won something, or lost, but all your life you'll never be sorry you were kind."

We have only a short time to learn reciprocal love -- both human and divine. God's model for love encourages lovingkindness; it encourages interdependence not independence. We were designed for communities not fortresses. Every life should be welcome in the Human Family, under the Lordship of God. The brotherhood of man will fail without the Fatherhood of God.

I ask that we commit ourselves to interdependent community where expressions of kindness and loving concern for those we love, and those who do not think they are loved by anybody, are the rule not the exception. In doing so, we will find that we live in true richness not measured by GDP but by the higher standard of Joy only the human heart can measure.

Thank you and God bless.

Mark Pickup

___________________________________________________
FOOTNOTES

1. Chris Wood, "Rich, yes, but happy?", Reader's Digest, (Canadian edition), August 2009, p.68.
2. Jeremiah 1.4-5.
3. Psalm 139.13b & 16a.
4. C.S. Lewis, THE PROBLEM OF PAIN (New York: HarperCollins, 1996) p. 74..
5. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (London: Fontana Books, 1955) p.19.
6. All this imagery comes from an essay by C.S. Lewis called "The Weight of Glory."
7. See John 1.1 & 1John 4.7. The Apostle John is known as Apostle of love. The venerable 18th Century theologian John Lowth said that God seemed to give John pecular insight into divine love and said that John wrote about love with "such lofty eloquence as is above the rules of human art, and can only be ascribed to the Holy Spirit whic gave him utterance."
8. Genesis 1.26-27.
9. John 15.10-12.
10. Matthew 6.21.
11. Matthew 6.24.

Baby Isaiah James May (October 24, 2009-March 11th 2010)

2010-03-12T07:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday baby Isaiah died in the arms of his parents, Isaac and Rebecka May, at 12:11pm at Edmonton's Stollery Children's Hospital. He was also surrounded by uncles, and and grandparents.

You may remember that baby Isaiah was born October 24th 2009 in a small central Alberta town after a difficult 40 hour labour. His brain was oxygen deprived because his umbillical cord was wrapped around his throat. Baby Isaiah was air-lifted to the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton. He was ventilator dependent throughout his short life and never emerged from a coma. You can read details about the case in previous blog entries.

The hospital said Isaiah was brain-dead and notified his 23 year old parents by official letter, on hospital letterhead, that the baby's respirator would be turned off on 20 January 2010 (nothing like delivering such terrible news in a impersonal way!). They may have thought Isaac and Rebecka May were just a young couple who would meekingly accept the decision of the hospital but they were in for a shock. The Mays asked for 90 more days to give baby Isaiah an opportunity to improve. The hospital would not budge: Baby Isaiah was occupying a bed, ventilator and organs that could be used elsewhere. The Mays had the gall (God bless them) to take the matter to court to stop the hospital and get the 90 days they thought their baby needed.

It was the classic David and Goliath story and gained international attention. Isaac and Rebecka needed time to accept the fate that befell their baby and they weren't going to be pushed around by an arbitrary deadline decided by the head honcho of the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit.

The Mays sought a second, third and fourth independent medical opinion about Isaiah's prognosis. If their baby was going to die it wouldn't be without overturning every stone of possibility to give their baby a chance. Of course the refusal to meekly accept the decision of his presiding neonatology offended his god-complex and poisoned further communications regarding baby Isaiah's care.

It was only when baby Isaiah's dire situation became evident by independent medical input was kindly presented to the Mays on their terms and in their time, did they finally agree to let their baby's respirator be turned off and let baby Isaiah go.

What this case did for me was show the illustrate the lie of brain death. The term brain death is an invention to allow the removal of beating hearts from the chests of living but allegedly comatose patients.

More about this in future blogs.

Mark Pickup

Draw nearer to transcendent love

2010-02-27T08:12:00.000-08:00

SEARCHING FOR MEANING IN SUFFERING : A Christian Perspective
by Mark and LaRee Pickup

What is it? A 3-part interactive seminar for suffering people and their loved-ones/caregivers.
When? 2:00-4:30pm, April 24th 2010.
Where? St. Vital Catholic Parish, 4905-50 Street (rue), Beaumont, Alberta. (The big church in the center of town at the top of the hill).
Why?: To develop a Christian understanding of what God can teach suffering souls (and those who care about /for them) about finding purpose, meaning and ultimately divine love in suffering.
Who would benefit? People who are open to Christian persectives and have terminal/chronic illnesses, disabilities, as well as their families or caregivers, pastors, health care professionals.

_________________

Throughout my own grief journey, I have often gone to the Catholic church at the top of the hill in my town to spend time with my Lord Jesus Christ. In my times of deepest sorrow and suffering I have spent hours in the sanctuary of St. Vital Church seeking and receiving comfort and understanding.

Some of my most profound and dearest moments with Christ have come late at night when I went into the darkened church and communed with Him through prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, praying the rosary and laying my broken heart before Jesus -- uniting my suffering with His suffering. I rarely turned on the lights in the sanctuary, preferring instead to to move quietly in the shadows through the Stations of the Cross, letting the Holy Spirit permeate my broken body, mind and spirit. The only sound was my electric wheelchair and the occasional creaking of the old walls and ancient timbers beneath the 100 year old church.*

It was out of those blessed occasions that a spark of an idea started to develop -- something for other suffering people, as well as those who love and serve them.

I went back to Pope John Paul II's 1984 Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris which spoke about redemptive suffering and (helped me make sense of my pain). Many cynics and and critics of Christianity scoffed at the Pope's assertion there is a redeeming quality to suffering. When the Pope's Apostolic Letter first appeared, some people said that it was easy for John Paul II to write about meaning in suffering when he was not suffering. [To such people, the legitimate response to suffering is suicide. And why not! If there is no God then there is no purpose to human suffering.]** To people of faith however -- people who have actually met the living Christ -- we believe there must be meaning and purpose to suffering.

It's now evident, and plain historical record, that many years after writing Salvifici Doloris Pope John Paul II would live the reality of his words. Parkinson's disease ravaged his body, but His Holiness endured to the end, giving poignant witness to the Gospel of Suffering and calling people of the world to encounter the risen and living Christ Jesus, even in the midst of their pain and sorrow..

I developed aggressive multiple sclerosis (MS) the same year that Pope John Paul II wrote Salvifici Doloris. Throughout more than 25 years with this terrible disease I have come to understand the truth of that great document. The cynics were wrong: John Paul II was right.
Suicide is not the proper answer to pain.

Back in 1996, I wrote to Pope John Paul II about my experience with suffering and my fears of North America accepting assisted suicide. The Pope's assessor responded to me saying, in part, that the Pope would remember me in his prayers. Initially I didn't give it much thought thinking it was merely a nice but perfunctory letter of acknowledgement. Apparently not. Within five months I found myself in Washington, D.C., speaking to an international conference sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (And I wasn't even Catholic at that time!) For the next decade I was called to speak across America and Canada to legislators, hospital staffs, universities, community groups, denominational leaders and churches and about the perils of accepting assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Then in October 2006, exactly 10 years after Pope John Paul II's powerful prayers for me, and 19 months after his death, and Terri Schiavo's judicial murder in Florida, my speaking odyssey stopped with an address to fund raising banquet for Mother Teresa House for the terminally ill in Lansing, Michigan. The calls simply stopped coming and I entered a period of calm reflection and meditation.

New sorrows came with new physical degenerations and losses but they were overshadowed by divine Joy. It seemed the foundation for a new calling was being laid for something else. I felt led to go back to Salvifici Dororis and bear personal witness to its truth. In 2009 at the request of Edmonton's Archbishop Richard Smith, my wife LaRee and I develop an interactive seminar we called SEARCHING FOR THE MEANING OF SUFFERING: A Christian Perspective, for a day retreat for the staff of the Archdioces' Pastoral Centre Staff. A comment by the Director

The seminar will be presented in my community on April 24th 2010, 2:00 - 4:30 pm, at St. Vital Parish in Beaumont Alberta. It's being sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. Everyone is welcome to attend.

For groups outside the Edmonton, Alberta area that would the seminar, contact Mark Pickup by email at mpickup@shaw.ca , or by telephone: (780) 929-9230.

MP
* A few years ago, the Parish Council of St. Vital Catholic Parish decided to develop dirt space under the church into a useable basement . The ancient wood beams that held up the church a hundred years were replaced with steel beams. A parishioner took one of those beams and started making crucifixes: One sits above my bed at home.

** The latest in the long line of atheists to sneer at any possible value to be found in suffering is Susan Jacoby. In a superficial editorial for the 25 February 2010 edition of the Washington Post, entitled, "Atheism and the myth of redemptive suffering" she drips with contempt against Christianity. She did not plumb any depths of study about the concept. It was merely a vicious platform for her rail against God and the human search for meaning in suffering. She would not or could not or incapable of comment about Pope John Paul II's Salvifici Doloris.

___________________

LaRee and Mark Pickup will be delivering the keynote address to the 2010 U.S. National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast in Pittsburgh, PA., June 25th 2010. For tickets go to http://www.nrlc.org/convention/convo2010.pdf

The tyranny of Canada's socialized healthcare

2010-02-24T11:20:00.000-08:00

Read my latest post at http://humanlifematters.org/

Trusting God

2010-02-10T13:07:00.000-08:00

Read part 2 of LaRee Pickup's address regarding a loved-one's perspective about catastrophic disability. Go to http://humanlifematters.org/

The pain of watching a loved-one degenerate

2010-02-08T10:40:00.000-08:00

To read the latest blog entry by my wife LaRee, go to http://humanlifematters.org

MP

Thoughts about Mother Teresa and Barack Obama

2010-01-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

To read my blog for January 30th 2010, go to http://humanlifematters.blogspot.com/

Baby Isaiah

2010-01-30T13:42:00.000-08:00

Go to - http://humanlifematters.blogspot.com/ to read the latest about Baby Isaiah and how to show your support to him and his his parents.

Saint Clement I, on Divine love, from 1 Corinthians

2010-01-17T17:54:00.000-08:00

"Let the man truly possessed by the love of Christ keep his commandments. Who can express the binding power of divine love? Who can find words for the spendor of its beauty? Beyond all description are the heights to which it lifts us. Love unites us to God; it cancels innumerable sins, it has no limit to its endurance, bears everything patiently. Love is neither servile or arrogant. ... By it all God's chosen ones have been sanctified; without it, it is impossible to please Him. Out of love God took us to himself; because He loved us and it was God's will, our Lord Jesus Christ gave His blood for us -- He gave his body for our body, his soul for our soul.

See then, beloved, what a great and wonderful thing love is, and how inexpressible its perfection. Who is worthy to possess it unless God makes them so? To Him therefore we must turn, begging of His mercy that there may be found in us a love free from human partiality and beyond reproach. Every generation from Adam's time to ours has passed away; but those who by God's grace were made perfect in love have a dwelling place among the saints, and when at last the kingdom of Christ appears, they will be revealed."

(Saint Clement I, pope, was a disciple of Saint Peter and possibly Saint Paul and the first of the Apostolic Fathers. Some Biblical scholars believe he is the Clement mentioned in Saint Paul's letter to the Philippians 4.3)

HLM

Three pillars of truth for secular minds

2010-01-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

Read my latest post "Three pillars of truth for secular minds" at http://humanlifematters.blogspot.com/

This song is for you, far away

2010-01-09T09:03:00.000-08:00

James Taylor is singing a sweet melody

This is a song for you,
Far away, far away,
This is a song for you,
Far away,
from me.

It makes me think that on January 18th it will be 40 years since I last saw my father.

He died on a ski hill while the two of us were skiing. It was 1970. He was 52 years old and I was sixteen. He took a heart attack in front of me, fell face down in the snow and promptly died. It seems like yesterday. I took off his skiis, rolled him onto his back, but he was gone. The memory is indelibly burned into my memory of sitting in the snow beside his corpse that winter day while an off-duty doctor, by fluke, happened upon us and tried valiantly but unsuccesfully to revive him.

My father passed into the ages. We became me.

DEATH DOES NOT KILL LOVE

I keep a small room of memories of him in my mind. (I keep little memory rooms in my little grey cells for all the people I love.) His room is filled with mental pictures, things he said and did, various places we went and certain music that reminds of him. I usually keep the door gentle closed to that memory room because, after all, life carries on.

But I'm sitting here on this Saturday morning so far away from that terrible day; it all comes back again. I'm the only person awake in the house. Yes, I've been thinking and reminiscing. On January 18th at 3:30 pm it will be exactly forty years since I saw Dad's manly and beloved face. Yet his venerable face is smiling right in front of me.

Sitting here all alone
Is bringing it on again
I'm gone again,
thinking of you,
Sitting here thinking you
Is driving it home again. ...

His room, deep in my little grey cells, is filled with his words and his devotion to God and family, his love of children, his commitment to community and education -- in other words, the very essence what made him him. (After he died the small town where we lived named a school after him. See Http://www.wrsd.ca/hwpickup/about.htm). The epitaph on my Dad's tombstone reads, "He served God and man."

James Taylor's song continues on my stereo,

Open the door it takes me back,
Mention you name and I'm gone again,
Ahh, I'm gone again.

Today the door to his room in my mind is opening easily. Peeking in I can smell old books and his pipe tobacco. His reading lamp is on and and his Bible is laying open on the family's heavy, over-stuffed and worn burgundy 1940s style chesterfield. (Dad wasn't the type to discard something just because it was old.) His reading glasses are sitting on the Bible's pages waiting for him to return from somewhere far away. I look down to see Psalm 139. (The first 10 verses were read at his funeral.)

It's strange that later, much later, years after my first child was aborted in 1971, Psalm 139.13-16 broke my heart and was a major influence in my own repentance and becoming involved in the Pro-Life movement.

And so as I approach the 40th anniversary of my father's death I imagine my child sitting on his lap, in the light of Christ's love. They are waiting for me.

This is a song for you,
Far away, so far away,
from me.

Mark