A friend of mine, reflecting on his father-in-law's cancer as well as a couple of our posts on the Culture of Death, was moved to write a beautiful meditation that deserves to be placed before all of our readers:
Pope John Paul II and Hunter S. Thompson have been in the news a great deal lately, reminding me of how much these two dynamic men had in common - as authors, as keen observers of contemporary mores, as charismatic countercultural figures who have inspired loyal followings.
They also shared something else: advancing age and declining health. But their responses to that condition have demonstrated just how little they have in common on the most important matters of all - that is, the meaning of suffering and, by extension, the meaning of life. On one hand, we have the frail Pope, assailed by Parkinson's disease and the flu, straining mightily to carry on his duties at the Vatican; and then we have Thompson, hounded by degenerating joints and constant pain, sitting down in his kitchen chair and shooting himself through the mouth.
Some commentators have called Thompson a coward for what he did. I won't say that. I've seen enough suffering among friends and family to know that people who attempt suicide or even contemplate it are most likely in a terribly dark place physically or mentally or both. They deserve our comfort and prayers, not our judgment. But in Thompson's case it appears that his death was entirely consistent with his philosophy of life.
"It was just like Hunter wanted. He was in control here," his wife, Anita, told a Colorado newspaper shortly after his suicide. "This is a triumph of his, not a desperate, tragic failure." Historian and author Douglas Brinkley, who edited some of Thompson's work, said in an Associated Press story, "I think he made a conscious decision that he had an incredible run of 67 years, lived the way he wanted to and wasn't going to suffer the indignities of old age. He was not going to let anybody dictate how he was going to die."
At that very time, Pope John Paul II was setting an example of his own, exhibiting a lesson handed down through centuries of Christianity - that suffering has tremendous spiritual value, that it can be more of a blessing than a curse, that it is, in fact, the bedrock of salvation. As he shuttled back and forth from the hospital, the Pope lived out the meaning of a recent Lenten message he delivered on euthanasia: "What would happen if the people of God yielded to a certain current mentality that considers these people, our brothers and sisters, as almost useless when they are reduced in their capacities due to the difficulties of age or sickness?.... Thou shalt not kill applies even in the presence of illness and when physical weakness reduces the person's ability to be self-reliant."
And that's really what it comes down to - it's about who is really in control and on whose terms we're really living. Simply put, Thompson lived on selfish terms and the Pope has lived on God's. Thompson took the easier path, the one defined by his will, not by God's - and most, if not all of us, are guilty of that to some extent. Trying to live any other way is a monumental battle, particularly in a consumer society that places premium value on getting what we want, when we want it. I don't like suffering any more than anyone else, and I certainly don't wish for it. But it's clear that the Pope has chosen the harder way, and the fruits of putting God first, rather than himself, show it to be the better way as well.
He is a man, after all, who engaged in dangerous underground work against the Nazis, forgave his would-be assassin and played a leading role in ridding his native Poland - and the world - of the Soviet regime. His unilateral leadership style and stances on hot-button issues in the Roman Catholic Church have infuriated some, but his personal example is sterling. Thompson, though clearly a gifted writer and a discerning journalist, reveled in drug and alcohol use, built a cult of self around those experiences and ultimately shot himself with his wife apparently on the phone and other family members in the house.
In his best-selling novel The Thanatos Syndrome, Walker Percy, a great cultural diagnostician of our times, examined a world that is consumed with a death-wish manifested through the unending pursuit of self-indulgence and self-gratification. We all live in that world today, and I think it's fair to say that Hunter Thompson helped create it by glamorizing excess and celebrating reckless individualism before showing us how it all ends - with a bang and a whimper.
Meanwhile, the Pope, who was once a magnificent athlete, is now so weak that strong winds literally threaten to knock him down during his travels. The man fluent in several languages often has trouble speaking at all. The many gifts God has given him are being taken away a little bit at a time, stripping him bare as death nears. In Hunter Thompson's world, that's an indignity. I can't shake the feeling and the hope that it's really a sign of grace.
Steve M.
