Some Fates are too Horrible to Contemplate

I had the funniest thought a few minutes ago.

I was watching a brokerage commercial, and it featured a middle-aged guy and his wife. He was wearing a baby-blue velour windbreaker type thing, which right away gives you a clue what his life is like (“It’s on SALE. You’ll WEAR IT”). His wife was talking about investing, and he kept saying he wanted to invest in a spiffy car. And she kept putting the lid on that suggestion, in a way that suggested she was used to shutting him down (Sex? Forget it! We did it in 1989!”).

It occurred to me that it would be funny if a third character walked into the frame, handed him a revolver with one round in the chamber, and said, “You know what to do.”

Black humor. Maybe some day I’ll get it out of my system. But it got me thinking. When is it okay to kill yourself? I am not the world’s leading authority on Catholicism, but I believe they consider it an unpardonable sin. I’m not sure if other churches have taken clear positions on it.

So often, in movies, you see people kill themselves, or plan to kill themselves, to avoid suffering. Could you do that? I’d be more scared of God than of whatever I had to face here. Earthly suffering is only temporary. Here, only your body can be destroyed. The Bible says God can permanently destroy your soul.

I also wonder: if killing yourself is a sin, how far can you go in military service, without dooming yourself? If you jump on a grenade to save your friends, surely that’s okay. But what if you fly a plane into the side of a ship? How much slack do you get? Where is the dividing line?

Today I was reading about assisted suicide and euthanasia. It seems to me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with refusing treatment. You shouldn’t be forced to exert yourself to save your own life. But acting affirmatively to kill yourself…no matter how you slice it, that’s suicide. Isn’t it wrong to do that, or to take any part in it?

The Pope (the Catholic one, not the other one) just gave a speech in which he said people should learn to accept their destiny and leave the earth when God chooses to take them. I think he’s right. Right now there’s a somewhat bogus debate going on, about using cells from aborted babies to keep people alive or make their lives better (it’s bogus, because so far, fetal cells have not proven useful). The practice of taking from the young to save the old is unnatural. The natural order dictates that the old sacrifice to preserve the young. It’s sick to carve up a baby to extend the life of an adult. For that matter, it’s sick to carve up a baby to prevent an adult who conceived it from being inconvenienced for a few months. Imagine what life might be like, if we ever reached the point where unborn life had no value at all, and we were able to use fetal tissue to keep adults alive. The world could become crowded with people who refuse to die. People who refuse to participate in a transition which is a natural part of our existence. It’s disgusting, if you think about it.

Being born is probably very unpleasant. Kids often hate their first days of school. Getting married is scary; so is having kids. So is retiring. Life is full of scary transitions, but healthy people don’t run from them. Death is one of these transitions.

A lot of my relatives are dead. I wish that were not the case, but when a loved one goes, I can tell you, no matter how bad you think it will be, the world doesn’t end. And death itself appears to be painless. I don’t think it’s healthy to fear it. We should avoid stupid risks like smoking and base-jumping. We should try to take care of ourselves so we’ll be around to spend plenty of time with our loved ones. But when it’s time, it’s time. It would be disgraceful to harm an innocent person, just to postpone something which is fundamentally healthy and right.

Sometimes a little part of me looks forward to death, simply because this world is so screwed up. Presumably, things make more sense in the supernatural realm. I certainly hope that’s true. I hate to think we’ll have to put up with corruption and injury and disease and taxes in the hereafter. The world is a mess. It’s easy to forget that, if you live in America. But look at the rest of the globe. Sudan. Somalia. Bangladesh. Any Muslim country you can name. For most human beings, life is very bad.

As a Christian, I know we live in a weird plane, where we are influenced and surrounded by beings we can’t see. If you’re a Christian, too, you should find that annoying. I do. Wouldn’t you love to get your hands around the neck of a demon just once? And just rip its rotten eyes out? Maybe it made someone deaf. Maybe it gave your grandmother, or a whole bunch of grandmothers, cancer. Wouldn’t you love an opportunity to strap it to a pole and roast it over the fire of hell and hear it scream? I know I would. At the very least, I would like to be able to see my enemies. Nothing is as frustrating as being tormented by someone you can’t identify or strike back at.

I know some people will think I sound crazy when I talk about demons. But Jesus believed in them, and he even had conversations with them. If you’re a Christian, that should mean something to you.

Truthfully, I think corporeal life is less natural than the state in which spirits exist. There are supposedly a number of types of intelligent beings with spirits, and we’re the only ones that live in the material universe, and we’re the only ones that die. Our state is unstable. It ends. The state of spirits is at equilibrium. It’s eternal. Maybe it’s more natural to be dead than alive.

If I get sick, I plan to stick it out to the end. I’ll take painkillers by the bucket, if necessary. I’m no John Wayne. But I can’t see arriving at the Pearly Gates with my own blood on my hands.