and pistol, calmly picking off his schoolmates.rn”Pluralism,” the modern deity, has made it impolite to tout arnreligious sanction for life. Yet what other sanctions exist? Well,rnlaws, to be sure; but laws can be changed, as were the abortionrnlaus by Supreme Court fiat. Laws depend on the convictionsrnof those who choose the lawmakers. At present, those conictionsrnare considerably shaped by the slap-happy secular modelrn—you do your thing, I’ll do mine; and, oh, yes, I do feel, inrnm- inner self, your pain. By whatever route we fetched up atrndie bottom of this slope, no safe footing is to be found there.rnThe old premise —life is good-washes much more poorlyrnthan it once did. “Consumer choice” increasingly becomes therndeterminant.rnThe question is much larger than suicide. Suicide is a cornerrnof the picture: one response to tire perceptiorr that the bodyrnbelongs to its tenant and nobody better tell him how to use it,rnsee?rnKevorkian todav, Auschwitz tomorrow? That is one way ofrnlooking at it, and not the worst way by any means, (hi ThernThanatos Syndrome, Walker Perc’ does look at it so.) Just fromrnthe daily news we find that suicide has become in many instancesrnan escape route not from pain but from responsibility.rnI write these lines in the week a Florida man suspected ofrnmurdering his four-vear-old son overpowered two policemenrntaking him to jail, shot them both to death, murdered a staterntrooper—and committed suicide. His indifference to humanrnlife was total: other’s lives, his own life. As deftly as he mightrnhave chosen a Ford Taurus over a Geo, Fritos over Lays potatornchips, our alienated consumer elected death over life. Nextrnda’, a 15-year-old boy, suspended from school for carrying arngun, barged into the high school cafeteria, firing his rifle as hernwent. “It didn’t look like he was bothered by anything,” a studentrnsaid. “Like the shooting was just something he was doing.”rnIn the 90’s a religious stance is forbidden society? We cannotrnofficially bury our pain and passions in piety toward the Creatorrnof life? If not, we are in vast trouble. We need—promptK’, decisivelyrn—to change. The religious view of life —its origins, itsrndestinations —urgently needs resuscitation. Suicide as an imputedrn20th-eentury “right” —on a par with trial by jiirv—wouldrnbe a laughable concept, save that nothing about it is funny.rnPoor Pier delle V’igne! Poor old thorn tree! Was he so terribK”rndisadvantaged at that? Amid undeserved suffering he hadrnone resource no etremy arrow could penetrate, no brandingrniron could scorch —the love and mercy of God. This he discarded.rnIn the religious view—the Christian view that supposedlyrninformed Pier and his contemporaries—earthly miseryrnis no barrier to jo’. If anything, according to that worldview,rnmisery- functions as a ladder, boosting the sufferer higher, higher,rnand so at last over the heavenly fence. Always provided hernremains faithful—as Pier did not.rnHigh on the list of diseases afflicting candidates for assistedrnsuicide is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—Lou Gehrig’s disease;rna tridy awful way to die, marked by progressive paralysis of basicrnphvsical functions, including, at the last, breathing. Life withrn:LS can hardly be described as life at all.rnExcept that, in a case with which I am familiar—the case ofrna voung traditionalist Episcopal priest with a ministr)’ to Washington,rnD.C.’s, inner-city children—ALS proved a vehicle forrnheroism and inspiration. The priest and his family offered hisrnsuffering to God for whatever use the Creator of the Universernmight make of it. He must have found it usefid indeed. Happinessrnflooded the afflicted familv: joy at serving the Lord and atrnawaiting His pleasure. That pleasure, the Lord had madernknown in the hearts of the afflicted, embraced ever so muchrnmore than the hospital bed on which his suffering servant lay.rnWhen the end finally came, it was not—how shall I put this?—rnthe end. It was the beginning.rnSuch things are easv enough to sav, I suppose, from the outsidernlooking in. One should not draw unduly large deductionsrnfrom someone else’s sufferings. But, then, suffering is part ofrnlife. Unable to abolish it, we may indeed settle contentedly forrnescape. But there is another alternative: dealing with suffering,rndirectlv and forcefully; turning evil —it comes down to this —rninto good.rnCan a secular world be made to see such things? Well, thernworld, before it was secular, saw such things with relative clarit)’.rnWliether it understood them perfectiy or not, it drank themrnin with humilit)’. Hearts might ooze blood in behalf of Pierrndelle Vignc; but as for the fitness of his punishment—that wasrnjust how things were. And had to be.rnNeither “pluralism” nor tiie semi-paganism so fashionablerntoday is an excuse for the refusal to assert the theological valuernof life. A defense of life on secular premises can be mounted —rnyes, of course. But these premises, as we see, are slender andrnweak. They collapse when stepped on hard, as with abortionrnand mavbe also, quite soon, with euthanasia. Human will, humanrnselfishness, human pride do the stepping. We’re modern!rnWliat we want, we get! Or else.rnAmid his thorny branches in the dark, dark wood, what mustrnpoor old Mr. delle Vigne be thinking? crnLIBERAL ARTSrnONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNGrn”Dear Student: Thank vou for visiting the Hemlock SocietyrnUSA web site. We trust vou will find the items inrnour Student Forum to be ot help to on…. We hope yournwill agree with our goals and join todav. . . . If you arernwriting a paper, we would like to see a copy. At the endrnof 1998 we will offer a $50 reward to the best papers inrneach of four categories: 8th grade or lower, 9th to 12thrngrade, college, and graduate or professional school.”rn— from the Hemlock Society USA’s websiternAUGUST 1998/19rnrnrn