The question is control.
It's not simple, we know, for God certainly gives us the ways and means to heal, mend and keep our bodies going. Acknowledging God is ultimately in control doesn't mean human passivity, for it is God who gives the means to heal. We also know that as mysterious and painful as it can be sometimes, our physical lives have a purpose. God gave them to us, God wants us to live on earth in our bodies, of our bodies, as embodied creatures. Again, humility in light of this truth requires a balance: reverencing the gift of life but knowing, too, that physical existence on earth is not the ultimate value.
Certainly, there are times in which we find it such a challenge to figure out what moment this is: is this the moment to say farewell to earthly existence, or is time to keep fighting and stay? Modern medicine, in its technological wizardry and finesse, only makes it more difficult to see that moment under all the machines and tubes, to hear the final invitation calling to us under the beeping, humming machines, not to speak of the beating of our own hearts, and the tears of those who love us.
Sometimes we make the right decision, sometimes the wrong ones, and sometimes all we can do is muddle through, in prayer and hope, that we are seeing the right way through the suffering, the way that God wants, the way that forms us all more vividly in His image. The surest guide, it seems, is our commitment to treat life as a precious gift - not ours to control, but ours to treasure, as this mysterious tiny space in the vastness of the universe, in which a creature, so limited, so intricate, made of mud and breath, knows and is known by the Infinite God of Love.
Right now, there are two different people, on different sides of the world, living on this mysterious line. What Pope John Paul II and Terri Schindler Schiavo are going through represents a different stance towards the end of life, even unwillingly. We can't presume to know the Pope's mind or what is going on in that hospital, but in him, it seems from the outside, the tension is being vividly lived: the courage and will it takes to keep going, the faith that I'm here as long as God wants me, and that every minute, every second is valuable...through the suffering, the gift is still treasured.
In Terri Schiavo, we see the battle waged - between those who persist in believing, as the Pope is living out, in our responsibility to cherish the gift and to support each other when certain aspects of living become difficult, and between those who draw the line at a far different place, a line that would even deny the basic human right of food and water to those unable to provide it for themselves.
Both the Pope and Terri Schiavo also challenge us to think more broadly, generously, and daringly about life than a youth and fitness-obsessed culture wants to. We want to think of "life" only as that which is lived in the bloom of productivity and ability - what comes before it is but preparation, and what follows isn't valuable in and of itself, but only because the years before have been so glorious. They dare us to look at the present as lived by every human being who is less-than-fully conscious, who has difficulty moving, who is deeply dependent on others or even who sleeps quietly in a womb - and see something real, something active, something sacred, not because that life charms or entertains it, but because it is, there if God wants us to be here - a will that we know through physical viability as well as through the love and care of others - there is a reason. And it is not ours to try to grab control, but to merely serve the mystery, in love.
God help us when we forget that, for none of us remain among the strong forever.
