I Am Weary

And another good song from O Brother Where Art Thou. "I Am Weary (Let Me Rest)", sung by the Cox Family. Why are the ghouls so damn sure Terri wants to "live" in her current state? What if she is saying this?

Kiss me mother kiss your darlin'
Lay my head upon your breast
Throw your loving arms around me
I am weary let me rest

Seems the light is swiftly fading
Brighter scenes they do now show
I am standing by the river
Angels wait to take me home

Kiss me mother kiss your darlin'
See the pain upon my brow
While I'll soon be with the angels
Fate has doomed my future now

Through the years you've always loved me
And my life you've tried to save
But now I shall slumber sweetly
In a deep and lonely grave

Kiss me mother kiss your darlin'
Lay my head upon your breast
Throw your loving arms around me
I am weary let me rest
I am weary let me rest

For God's sake, let her rest.

I'll Fly Away

These are the lyrics from "I'll Fly Away" a song on the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. It is sung by Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch. After listening to yet another day of bullshit about "Saving Terri," I thought I'd offer another way to look at the sitiation - from the perspective of the person afflicted:

Some glad morning when this life is o'er,
I'll fly away;
To a home on God's celestial shore,
I'll fly away (I'll fly away).

[Chorus]
I'll fly away, Oh Glory
I'll fly away; (in the morning)
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by,
I'll fly away (I'll fly away).

When the shadows of this life have gone,
I'll fly away;
Like a bird from prison bars has flown,
I'll fly away (I'll fly away)

[Chorus]

Just a few more weary days and then,
I'll fly away;
To a land where joy shall never end,
I'll fly away (I'll fly away)

[Chorus]

A Question to Christians

I am truly curious as to how a Christian would answer this question.

The Dalai Lama is generally recognized as a humane individual, a spiritual man, and a person who acts ethically and with humility towards the world and other humans. He is not, however, Christian and does not, as far as I know, accept Jesus Christ as his savior.

When he dies, is he going to Hell?

If so, why? If not, why not?

If comments are not giving you enough space, please post your answer in your own LJ or blog and put a link to it in the comments. While all perspectives are appreciated, this really is a question to Christians.

Anglachel

My Simple Wish

Th ghoul-fest surrounding Terri Schiavo finally appears to be winding down, now that her parents have realized that Jeb Bush is not going to impose martial law and snatch Ms. Schiavo away from her husband.

I have a simple wish for the Schindlers and for everyone who has been involved in exploiting Ms. Schiavo for their own pathological reasons:

I wish that each and every one of you who is claiming that Ms. Schiavo is alive shall wake up tomorrow to find yourself in the condition you believe her to be in. That is to say, I wish for each and every one of you to be 100% conscious of your surroundings, fully able to feel pain, cold, hunger, and despair, hearing every word said around you, lying in your own shitty diapers and hitched up to a catheter for your urine, getting all your food and water from a tube sewn into your gut.

I want for you to never be able to touch you spouse, parents, and/or children of your own volition. Never eat a bite of solid food. Never pick up the phone and talk to your friends. Never go shopping, drive a car, pick flowers, jump in a pool, attend your church, pet the dog, turn on the TV, sing a song, cook dinner, clean the house, or send an email.

I am merciful, however. Unlike you, who wish this for Ms. Schiavo in perpetuity, I only wish it for you for as many years as Ms. Schiavo has lived it since her parents decided to fight allowing her to die until the moment when she finally goes to her god and is at peace.

What's that, 10 years or so?

In short, I wish for you to be in perfect possession of your own will and beliefs, and to experience first-hand what you have declared in your moralistic arrogance to be the fate Terri Schiavo must endure so you can pat yourself on the back for your moral purity.

I do not want Ms. Schiavo to die. Neither do I want her to endure suffering for decades. The only consolation I have as I watch the ghoul-fest is that Ms. Schiavo no longer possesses consciousness and is not suffering. She is beyond your psychopathic obsessions.

Anglachel

What Mark Kleiman says...

My revulsion at the fascists right's behavior surrounding Terri Schiavo keeps me from speaking in reasonable terms, so I provide Mark's excellent summation on situation morality:

In war and politics, take the high ground

The key political fact about the Schiavo case so far is that it's being reported as "morality v. pragmatism." The notion that it might be immoral to tell lies about Terri Schiavo's condition and prognosis, or to keep the body alive when the self is gone, or to make a public circus out of a private tragedy, or to make up and spread horrible rumors about Michael Schiavo's actions and nasty insinuations about his motives, or to slander Judge Greer, seem to be too complicated for the typical reporter to understand.

As long as the right wing is seen as standing up for moral values, they're going to continue to win elections.

What Digby Says

Courtesy of Digby at Hullabaloo, a clear statement on what is really happening with the Terry Schiavo case:

By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are also aware that Republicans have voted en masse to pull the plug (no pun intended) on medicaid funding that pays for the kind of care that someone like Terry Schiavo and many others who are not so severely brain damaged need all across this country.

Those of us who read liberal blogs also understand that that the tort reform that is being contemplated by the Republican congress would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terry Schiavo's care thus far.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are aware that the bankruptcy bill will make it even more difficult for families who suffer a catastrophic illness like Terry Schiavo's because they will not be able to declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start when the gargantuan medical bills become overwhelming.

And those of us who read liberal blogs also know that this grandstanding by the congress is a purely political move designed to appease the religious right and that the legal maneuverings being employed would be anathema to any true small government conservative.

Those who don't read liberal blogs, on the other hand, are seeing a spectacle on television in which the news anchors repeatedly say that the congress is "stepping in to save Terry Schiavo" mimicking the unctuous words of Tom Delay as they grovel and leer at the family and nod sympathetically at the sanctimonious phonies who are using this issue for their political gain.

This is why we cannot trust the mainstream media. Most people get their news from television. And television is presenting this issue as a round the clock one dimensional soap opera pitting the "family", the congress and the church against this woman's husband and the judicial system that upheld Terry Schiavo's right and explicit request that she be allowed to die if extraordinary means were required to keep her alive. The ghoulish infotainment industry is making a killing by acceding once again to trumped up right wing sensationalism.

This issue gets to the essence of the culture war. Shall the state be allowed to interfere in the most delicate, complicated personal matters of life, death and health because a particular religious constituency holds that their belief system should override each individual's right to make these personal decisions for him or herself. And it isn't the allegedly statist/communist/socialist left that is agitating for the government to tell Americans how they must live and how they must die.

One of the things that we need to help America understand is that there is a big difference between the way the two parties perceive the role of government in its citizens personal lives. Democrats want the government to collect money from all its citizens in order to deliver services to the people. The Republicans want the government to collect money from working people in order to dictate individual citizen's personal decisions. You tell me which is the bigger intrusion into the average American's liberty?

Just when I thought the Rethuglicans could not stoop any lower, they prove me wrong again. And the TV talking heads and media poodles run along beside, yipping and yapping.

Ang