Clarification of my position on dying

In my earlier blog I rambled on in a very semi-coherent way about Terri Shaivo etc. So here is some clarification.

I believe that life begins before conception, about 4 billion years before conception, and ends when your bodily processes stop.

We live in a world where we can keep a deadman alive almost indeffinitely. Terry Shaivo would have died the day her heart stopped if it had not been for amazing medical efforts. Listening to neurosurgens describe how the brain heals or does not heal it is clear to me now that Mrs Shaivo is brain dead. Her Cerebral Cortext is no longer present because it has atrophied away over the last 15 years. She wakes up, and goes to sleep since the brainstem is still alive. But nothing is above that. Her eyes may be active and respond to light etc, but there is nowhere for the signals to go after that. She can hear but there is nothing left to process the signals into anything meaningful.

So is our technology standing in the way of a death that should have happened years ago? No. The truth is that, though we use technology to lengthen lives, the quality of life is what truely matters and clearly in this case there is no life for Terry Shaivo. Her brain died years ago. But if we are not standing in the way of her dying then what are we doing? In my opinion we are simply doing what we are supposed to do, argue about life and death.

It is not good enough to simply claim to be a defender of life, the circumstances around that life count. We struggle to make life matter, last, and to pass life on. But we must also admit that we cannot stop God from taking us back to the dust when he chooses, in the manner he chooses. I do not believe that you can war against God to keep yourself alive anymore than you can war against God to end a life. When you go you go. And from a Christian standpoint, earthly life, though precious, is only a brief begining on a long long road. What is the right-to-life goon squad affraid of for Terry Shaivo? It would be nice to think that she already dwells in paradise, it's just that her broken body is still around on earth.

Death is just another part of existance. In the middleages and on into our own time Jews were called "Christ Killers" but wasn't the death of Jesus Christ for told? He new that he had to die. If you are Christian you have to believe that the Jews in those days, along with Rome, were acting out their part in the drama. God is in charge. It doesn't mean that we have no free will to choose. Our choices mean life last long or short. But even if I decide, on th spur of the moment, to jump off the top of the US Bank tower, that doesn't mean that my life and death is in my own hands. God is in charge.

In the end you are left with a sense that life and death is beyond anyones control. God will take Terry Shaivo away when it is her time. Not a moment before.

Jesus said that nothing we do here on Earth can add a moment to our lifespan. God is in charge. We struggle, do our best, fight death, save lives, but He is always in charge.