Joyful Easter to all

Jesus feasting with the street kids 

Usually I can't stand the overly sweet Jesus one usually sees, but Joey Valesco paints a Pinoy Christ among his people.

Here in the Philippines, usually Easter is a time of reunion  with family and friends including eating together.

however, with the Island wide lockdown in Luzon, things are quiet.

No singing of the "Pasyon" in chapels in the middle of the side streets.

No visiting churches on Holy Thursday.

And alas, no visiting relatives for a family feast.

Lots of people coming for rice and/or money to buy food or medicine (for chronic health problems like high blood pressure and diabetes) because they are out of work.

I sort of like Easter: it reminds me:

oh grave where is thy victory
death where is thy sting?

As a physician, I have seen many deaths, and too much sorrow.

One of my medical school teachers reminded us that few doctors are "pious" as defined by many churches (being active in church activity, pushing our religion on patientss by praying with them when they didn't ask us to do this).

but, he said, most doctors believe there is a God, or Higher power, and that there is a meaning behind each life and death.

For we see many who should live, but die despite our best efforts.

But we also see miracles, where people live that logically should have died or not recovered because we knew our treatments were probably futile but we tried anyway...

We also see the chronically ill who bear their sufferings with courage, and the families who care for sick and handicapped loved one. (at a time when too many holier than thou preachers condemn Americans for being selfish, it should give them pause to remember there are 30 million caregivers who help care for family and friends, and this doesn't count those who visit the elderly in their own homes or in Nursing homes to help them in their daily lives.

this goes against the idea many "intellectual leaders" are pushing: That those of a certain age, whose intellectual capacities are falling, or who cannot do meaningful work, should just shuffle off the planet and let the healthy and strong be free of their burden... 

So the elites pushing the newfangled "medical ethics" who push the idea that the elderly should just die pretend that the idea would stop there" which is why the the deathmaking branch of medical ethics has eagerly jumped  out of the closet under the name of "rationing" of "scarce medical resouces" during the covid virus epidemic

But it wouldn't stop with the elderly,of course. It would soon apply to those who are handicapped, or mentally ill, or have a severe substance abuse problem, or are in jail, or people in poor countries, or... well, the list is endless. Right not it is pushed as a panacea to the depressed elderly as a voluntary thing, but just wait...

Yet here in Asia, the elderly are honored for their wisdom, and caring for them is seen as part of the "circle of life": a loving obligation we owe to them, knowing that our own children will care for us in a similar manner, just as we cared for our own children when they were small and helpless.

There is a reason for every life, although we may not recognize that reason we must cling to hope that there is a pattern, or karma, or reason for everything that happens.

ah, but what is the reason that a child or an elder, who is profoundly handicapped is still a blessing for those around them?

Author Pearl Buck, whose daughter was mentally handicapped from PKU, notes:

“[by] this most sorrowful way I was compelled to tread, I learned respect and reverence for every human mind. It was my child who taught me to understand so clearly that all people are equal in their humanity and that all have the same human rights. None is to be considered less, as a human being, than any other, and each must be given his place and a safety in the world. I might never have learned this in any other way. I might’ve gone on in the arrogance of my own intolerance for those less able than myself. My child taught me humanity.” ~Pearl S. Buck, The Child Who Never Grew, 2nd edition

But, alas, death wins in the end.

Or does it?

Because Easter reminds us that we too will live again.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

John Donne