What would Solomon do?

When a lawsuit drags on forever, through multiple levels of courts, it seems to be a tip-off that wisdom is in short supply for one or more of the parties. My first hearing of Terri Schiavo’s case was in the Court of Public Opinion. My opinions were formed based on mass media reports. First I thought Michael Schiavo’s story smelled a bit; his motives seemed questionable. Then I began to think that Terri’s parents, the Schindlers, were in utter denial. Then I thought, what does that denial matter, if they want to invest the time and love in caring for her? Why can’t Michael just butt out? Isn’t it better to err on the side of life, as the President noted, especially when the person in question left no written instructions in the event of utter incapacitation? It seemed to me that a lot of people were hoping for the intervention of a Solomon, who would provide a wise answer that revealed unambiguous truth (preferably a truth that included Terri rising from her bed and resuming her life). All critics would be silenced. I started to wonder what Solomon would do. In the Biblical story [I Kings 3:16-28], his tactic revealed which of two mothers was the “real” mother. Take that story and overlay it on Terri’s story. Solomon recommends slicing Terri in two and giving a half each to her parents and her husband. Well, that would suit her husband. But if her parents responded as did the baby’s real mother in I Kings (“Please, my lord, give her the living boy; certainly do not kill him!”), it would still result in Terri’s death. Too many differences of time and circumstance. How would the man with the reputation for being “history’s wisest” rule? My musings on this point got me nowhere. We have no handy template that points toward an easy answer. I was stuck until I began reading some of the pleadings and rulings in this case. A particularly helpful site has been The Terri Schiavo Information Page. From the home page Abstract Appeal, under “Schiavo Thoughts: Hearsay,” Matt Conigliaro says:

If you’ve read the trial court’s original decision regarding Terri’s wishes, then you know the court considered five persons’ testimony of what Terri supposedly said to them about what she wanted. That’s the supposedly inadmissible hearsay. Some say it shouldn’t have been admitted. Others say it can’t amount to clear and convincing evidence. “It’s not in writing!” they say, as if writings aren’t hearsay, or that a writing would eliminate any controversy…. Courts generally employ rules of evidence during trials, and a well known rule of evidence holds that hearsay is admissible to prove something only in limited circumstances. Under Florida law, there are about 30 or so such circumstances. You could say that one of them applies here, such as the exception for statements describing the declarant’s then-existing state of mind. You could also say that Terri’s statements were not hearsay, since they were offered to prove she said those words, not to prove that what she said was true. Hearsay is an out of court assertion offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Those are evidentiary reasons why the testimony was admissible. There’s a better reason. A constitutional reason. Terri had, and every Florida citizen has, a constitutional right to privacy that includes the right to decide that certain medical treatments should not be used to prolong her life. The Florida Supreme Court has clearly decided that this right can be exercised through written and oral statements.

Other writers have pointed out that both sides had excellent counsel who made their arguments well, in the proper venues, and appeals courts ever since have upheld the decisions. So the Schindlers took their case to the Court of Public Opinion. Issues like this can, and ought to be, debated by the public. Media can, and should, report on these issues. But it only serves the public if people understand the limitations of the Court of Public Opinion. Both sides have been able to make assertions, counter-assertions, and denials that wouldn’t be permitted as evidence in a court of law. People like the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass say things like:

What’s happening to Schiavo suggests that Americans have finally been taught to think like bureaucrats. Bureaucrats cover their flanks with e-mail and send copies to others to establish positions. They almost say what a thing is, but not outright, not exactly. The bureaucrat embraces the neutral and avoids conflict. And we’ve allowed this. We’ve embraced the values of the bureaucrat, of the manager, and replaced those older, iconic Western values of self-reliance, accepting responsibility and meeting things head on. One of these values--albeit ignored through countless wars and cruelties--is that human life is sacred. But now we are about process. Now we are about avoiding consequence. We’re about keeping our hands clean, and we use words to scrub them. Terry Schiavo is starving to death now because the machinery of the government, otherwise known as the state, has decreed that she will be starved to death. As she has been denied food and water, the state stands over her husband’s shoulder and nods assent.

Is this really what’s happening? Terri’s case has wound its way through the court system for years, with a consistent response. If either side’s counsel hadn’t been doing a good job of representation, I’m betting a lawsuit for legal malpractice would have been filed long ago. Other things are at issue. First, for Terri’s parents: appeals court is not a “do-over.” You don’t keep hammering away until you get the answer you want. Sometimes the answer is no. And that doesn’t always make it wrong, or immoral, or evil. Whatever one may think about Michael Schiavo, it really is possible that he has Terri’s best interests at heart. Maybe he finally had closure when the medical liability lawsuit was over. Maybe it took that lawsuit for him to come to terms with the situation. Can you really know? Maybe it took Terri’s father asking Michael to give them some of the money for Michael to grasp that Terri’s parents’ motives weren’t pure, either (gasp!). Maybe it was only then that he realized that their denial over the cause of her collapse would never be broken down. Second: What would the Schindlers’ response have been, had Terri actually executed a living will that stated what Michael has been asserting all along? Down to the request for cremation rather than burial? Would they have been able to accept her break with the Catholic faith they are so sure she held? I’ve known a number of parents who aren’t very good at accepting the fact that their offspring might hold different values. As long as speculation is being accepted in the Court of Public Opinion, I feel a need to raise that issue. Unless only some speculation is acceptable and I haven’t received the memo outlining exactly what is acceptable. As long as I’m busy speculating, I may as well add that I wonder what will happen to the Schindlers’ relationship once Terri dies. This kind of stress does damage to some relationships, but sometimes it’s the only thing holding a relationship together. Third: Appeals courts rarely hear a case de novo (literally, anew). And they don’t often sit en banc (the entire court), either. So because both of those requests have been rejected doesn’t mean that the Schindlers are being singled out for injustice. The “merits of the case” have been debated ad nauseum, and I doubt there’s a consensus to which we can all come. So I think it’s a good thing that most people in this country are allowed to deal with end-of-life issues without requiring the consensus of the country or approval of President and Congress. That’s what our “bureaucratic” system (according to Kass) provides for us. And that’s the way it should stay.

Sort of upside-down world

MSNBC called this “The book that’s too hot for Rolling Stone.”

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cathleen Falsani reports in her Friday, January 28, 2005 posting “God is everywhere -- except pages of Rolling Stone” that RS originally rejected an ad placement by Zondervan Publishing for its new Bible translation, Today’s New International Version [TNIV].

I wasn’t at all surprised that RS would reject an ad for a Bible. It’s not exactly their reputation, just as you won’t find certain [de-]vices advertised in Christianity Today. But Falsani noted that RS “for years published notices for the Universal Life Church’s mail-order ordination in its classified ads.” And apparently the Jan. 26 issue had a small ad for T-shirts that depict Jesus with the words “Put down the drugs and come get a hug.”

Well, that’s a horse with no name. Somebody at Rolling Stone, by chance, on something? They certainly have the right to set an ad policy, but what it is, ain’t exactly clear. Oh, wait -- I’m expecting logic.

The ad rejection stirred up enough national interest that RS changed its mind, accepting the ad, and Zondervan moved its publishing date for the TNIV up to take advantage of the buzz.

Pulling the wool over a friend's eyes

Some imp in my brain’s backside bounced this memory up front. When I was 16, I played organ for my boyfriend’s brother’s wedding—the first wedding I ever played for. (Future topic alert: Wedding stories.) Because the wedding was held rather far away, I stayed overnight with the bride and bridesmaids the night before the wedding (boyfriend and his family stayed with the groom), and thus I was away from my friends for a sufficient length of time that my subsequent Big Fat Lie had a plausible framework on which to build. The weekend following the wedding, my friend “Mabel” and I sat together on the band bus headed home from yet another parade. Must have been bored. Somehow I launched the Big Fat Lie: my boyfriend and I had secretly gotten married at the same time as his brother. You have to know that I am (usually) a lousy liar. And when I was 16, I couldn’t do it at all. Poker face I was not. I kept laughing, which really should have tipped her off. It didn’t, which only made me laugh more. Whatever the implausible story I wove, I thought no more about it once I got home. When one tells a Big Fat Lie, one can’t always think of all possible repercussions, especially not when one is as unpracticed in lying as I was. I do know that I was envious because Mabel was to leave the next morning along with five other friends/classmates on a canoe trip of the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, and I was not included. I do know that the size of the party was limited, and I was not included! I was not included. Ah, a motive? But I could never have foreseen that my Big Fat Lie would be replayed, discussed, mulled over, chewed on during the entire week of evenings with nothing to do but swat mosquitoes and nurse sore muscles. Did I mention that the leader of this expedition was our school district’s superintendent? And it’s only now that I’m wondering if the Big Fat Lie was confined only to Mabel and our friend Laura, or if the others on the trip got wind of it in the great wilderness. I believe that, upon their return, Mabel and Laura did stop to take a shower before driving over to grill me. And yes, I ’fessed up immediately. Mabel’s and Laura’s discussions on this topic appeared to have played out this way: Mabel insisted it was true and Laura insisted it couldn’t be, but by the end of that long isolation in the wild, Laura was close to believing it as well. My reputation for being truthful no doubt was a big factor in this playlet, but still, it’s sobering to ponder what happens to people’s thought processes and emotions when there’s scant information and no way to verify any of it. When hearing any breaking news story, I suspend all judgment, because time and again, I’ve learned that truth takes time, and a lot of work, to surface. Many theories are propounded in the absence of solid fact, and most often they are wrong. I’ve never told a Big Fat Lie again. Sometimes I still tell little white lies.

The Funeral

Yesterday was Michael Lefkow’s funeral. News coverage has been extensive: Chicago Sun-Times; Chicago Tribune here and here; and Channel 2 news. So I don’t need to be another reporter. I saw enough of them yesterday. But the funeral was significant in coming to terms with lessons I’ve learned and with Michael’s and Donna’s horrible deaths. So many layers to one event. Back in a grade-school field trip to the local funeral home, the funeral director told us that funerals were for the living. This one was. I can’t help but hope, however, that somewhere Michael’s essence, his soul, heard and enjoyed every bit of it. It was such a reflection of his life and love. He was so very present in all of us gathered together, even in the people who didn’t particularly like him. That’s a lesson I learned from another extremely painful funeral more than three and a half years ago; when we gather to remember a loved one, we “re-member” that person. Just as the Eucharist is the “re-member-ance” of Christ; we come together as the body of Christ. I especially want to note that the intense security measures allowed us to have the time and space to “re-member” Michael. We were insulated from any would-be attackers and the media frenzy outside, for which I am extremely grateful. The Requiem Eucharist was exactly what it should be: profound worship, and thanksgiving for Michael’s life. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) provides a rite for when the body is brought to the church: “Reception of the Body”.

The Celebrant meets the body at the door of the church and says With faith in Jesus Christ, we receive the body of our brother (sister) N. for burial. Let us pray with confidence to God, the Giver of life, that he will raise him to perfection in the company of the saints. Silence may be kept; after which the Celebrant says Deliver your servant, N., O Sovereign Lord Christ, from all evil, and set him free from every bond; that he may rest with all your saints in the eternal habitations; where with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Let us also pray for all who mourn, that they may cast their care on God, and know the consolation of his love. Silence may be kept; after which the Celebrant says Almighty God, look with pity upon the sorrows of your servants for whom we pray. Remember them, Lord, in your mercy; nourish them with patience; comfort them with a sense of your goodness; lift up your countenance upon them; and give them peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In all the funerals I’ve been at in that church, this was the first time I’d experienced that rite. Over in a flash, but gripping. We had been rehearsing music for the service, but stopped and faced the West doors when the casket was brought in. I can’t find words to depict how deeply respectful it was, but even the youngest probationers were attentive. Profound stillness allowed the simple acts of arrival and reception to be grace-filled. The readings were not from the ones appointed by the BCP for burial, but were so very appropriate: The Old Testament lesson was Ruth 1:6-18, which ends with the “Entreat me not to leave thee” text, often sung at weddings. Considering Michael’s and Joan’s marriage, it was fitting. The New Testament lesson was from Romans 8, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?... As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’… For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The Gospel, chosen by the daughters, was Luke 18:1-8, the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge. Jackie Schmitt, close friend of the family and Episcopal chaplain at Harvard, preached the sermon, and it is among the best sermons I have ever heard. I don’t think I can possibly do it any justice in a summary, though the various news sources I listed above contain some very good quotes from it. The audio is available, however, from St. Luke’s website, which is better, anyway, as it was an aural event (for anybody with dial-up connection: it’s a huge file). Thanks to Jackie’s sermon, I finally understand the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge (in the past, preachers have tried to pack God into the role of the Unjust Judge—corrupt, lazy, sloppy?). But now I also finally have a way to explain some experiences. I’ve known that bearing witness to the truth can be quite dangerous, though I’ve never before known someone personally who has lost his or her life because of it. I’ve certainly seen character assassination and personal attacks on both Michael and Joan because of their witness to the truth. And I’ve seen how they remained unbowed, anyway. From them and others like them whom I’ve known at St. Luke’s, I’ve learned how to bear witness, without apology, in the face of those who are threatened by the truth. I have more reflections on the funeral, but those belong to other layers, and so, may be addressed in a future post.

Tribute to Michael

Long before I set up this blog, I’d had topics upstairs that I’d planned at some point to bring to the blogosphere. I’ve even worked on fleshing out some of them-–no small feat for someone who has almost never willingly sat down to write. But they were all swept to the side by what happened yesterday. A friend of mine was murdered, along with his mother-in-law. If you want the details, look here. What I want to do is talk about my friends: Michael, his wife, Joan, and their family. Of course, I’m still processing--even at my ripe middle age, I’m not sure how long that all takes, or should take. I’m flipping rapidly among the various stages of mourning, though most often I seem caught in denial. Not intellectual denial, but emotional: I find myself thinking that I’m going to be talking to Michael any day now, remembering things we’ve discussed and the long-delayed answers I’d composed in my head for him. And remembering things I wished I’d said. I am also uncomfortably reminded that I hadn’t seen him and Joan in more than a year. My fault--I’m the one who faded. They sent their Christmas letter as usual, which I enjoyed as usual, because Michael was quite a writer. I’ve known the Lefkow family for years, though it’s been a gradual process. I started working fairly closely with both Michael and Joan in 1998, when it became apparent that our parish had troublesome leadership. Working through the issues over the next several years, I came to admire and respect both of them deeply. The words that come to mind are integrity, honesty, courage, principle, character, strong sense of self--always in the tone of calm consideration. Even when those they confronted were less than attentive or respectful, I think Michael and Joan both took the high road. Joan was elected in 1999 to our parish’s vestry, and she held the very tough ground of being part of “the loyal opposition,” which was a quite thankless task. A year later I was also elected, and had the privilege of serving with her, watching and learning. More lessons came after her term ended, because the situation in the parish changed. The many discussions I had with Michael in those times were challenging. Again faced with serious issues of leadership, following a change, we had to consider what had gone wrong, and how to fix it. Of course we had different theories, but disagreeing was okay. We gave each other things to ponder. I remember Michael often calling up and saying, “Here, what do you think about this?” And Joan was most often in the background (she really hated talking about parish events because they were so frustrating), but would still chime in when Michael relayed to her what I’d said. They were in every sense a partnership. The comments in the Tribune about their relationship are true: he clearly adored and respected her. This is someone who could not be threatened by a strong woman. I believe they would have celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary this year, but no complacency could be detected. So many memories flit through my head--what to include? I also taught music skills for adults, and Michael was an eager, engaged participant. I’m proud to say that I saw him progress from the much-maligned “monotone” to beginning to learn what intervals are and how they sound. He just didn’t do anything halfway. He was also the proud father of five daughters. I’ve watch four of them grow into lovely young women (never met the eldest), truly tributes to their parents. Just as I think Joan is a tribute to her parents--I never met her mother, also murdered, but she must have been extraordinary, to look at Joan. It’s hard to let go of someone who’s been so influential. Though I won’t let go entirely; the lessons learned will stay. Requiescat in pacem, Michael and Donna; may light eternal shine upon you.