Life

In Judy Thomas' Spiritual Reading class on Wednesday nights at Otter Creek, we have been reading Anne Lamott's Grace (Eventually). I had finished Traveling Mercies the previous week so my mind had been filled with Lamott-isms for three full weeks.

One of the most fascinating things about reading Lamott is reading someone who's became a Christian and came to very different conclusions that I and most of the believers around me have. Specifically with regard to Life.

In her section called In Circulation, Lamott has two chapters. One is called At Death's Window concerning euthanasia and the other is called The Born concerning abortion. First, let it be said that Lamott is fairly liberal politically (ok, that's like saying water is fairly wet), and that she supports both euthanasia and abortion. In At Death's Window, she relates the story of helping an old friend of hers die before cancer ravaged his body. In The Born, she talks about how having two abortions prevented her from bringing children into the world while she was a drunk and addict and would not be able to care for them and give them the life they deserve.

And that seems like what Lamott's point is. Her point seems to be that there is a certain kind of life that God intended and for a child to enter into poverty or abuse is not life as God intended, and for the body to be ravaged by cancer or the mind to be ravaged by Alzheimer's is not how God intended.

I can sympathize on some level. Now, I have never had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy or watching someone close to me waste away, so my sympathy is strictly hypothetical. Maybe more on euthanasia than abortion. It seems that with children, there is an opportunity for adoption (and perhaps Christians need to be more vocal about offering this option or more vocal about how this option has been used). It seems that with children, we look at the potential for life.

So what is life? Does it begin at birth (or even conception) and end at death? If we're followers of Jesus, then we don't believe life ends at death. It just takes a rest for a bit until the resurrection. Is life defined by how we live it? Does everyone have the potential for life, even those with debilitating diseases? What if those diseases cause excruciating mental or physical pain? How does a follower of Christ with an eternal perspective look at these questions?

I'm not sure of the answers, but particularly on euthanasia, the world seems a bit grayer than how black and white it seemed a few years back.