State Nullification is Back

For those of you who are unaware, there is a constitutional law concept called "state nullification."  What it is, in a nutshell, is the theory that a state has the right, as the source of authority and the basic unit of governance in the United States, to void a federal law within its boundaries.  Nullification was a big deal before the Civil War, especially in the 1830s.  The question was settled by the Civil War.  The federal government's in charge.  That's it.

Until now.

Different theories of nullification have existed from the beginning.  The most plausible one says basically, "Hey, we've got this Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that says:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So therefore, if a power is not delegated to the federal government, but reserved to the respective states, then if the federal government tries to use that power, a state should have override within its boundaries, because the power is reserved to the state."

Now, with the healthcare reform effort becoming more and more divisive and partisan, and more and more expensive (remember when it was supposed to be budget neutral?), states are fighting back to protect their citizens from this economic trainwreck-in-the-making as best they can.  Read this New York Times article to see how Virginia is leading the way.

So why is this appearing on a blog dedicated to the spiritual life?  Well, simply, because I believe that we are being lied to.  We are (were) being told it will cost nothing, when in reality it will add to the mounting debt that is literally going to enslave our children and grandchildren to foreigners who do not live near them or care about them.  We are being told it will not damage the private sector, but "rein it in."  In reality, it will destroy the insurance industry that has served most of us reasonably well for decades, leaving only government programs to help us - DMV-style and at massive expense.  Further government involvement in private life will further replace family and community bonds of charity, and seemingly absolve those who neglect the need of their family and neighbors.  Lastly, and perhaps most deviously, I believe that the American people is being deliberated manipulated emotionally to make this government expansion possible - they are playing to our real hard feelings about people we've known who've needed treatment and - many times for reasons not actually related to lack of coverage - been unable to get it.  They are offering us a health-panacea.  For materialists, who believe there is nothing beyond this life, health is the highest good, and a panacea is the key to happiness.  They are essentially promising, in so many words, heaven - or a piece of it - on earth.  They are doing so without reference to Christ, our only real hope of real salvation.  The government is proposing itself as a provider, as a caretaker, as a father.  It is setting itself up increasingly over and against Christ.  That's not good.

We need to pray very hard for our country.  We Christians need to lead the way in depoliticizing this issue so that we can look for creative ways to extend our society's immense resources to those who go without basic needs met - ways that will not further empower a massive, inefficient, power-hungry government bureaucracy - ways that will actually address the real problems of real people.

Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom Speaks Out Against Secular Sterility

Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, must have caused a stir with his speech just a few days after taking his seat in the House of Lords of the UK last week.  He said that Europeans are too busy shopping to have children.  I wonder how that went over.  His speech also does a good job of pointing out succinctly why secularism and moral relativism can never win an argument about civilization or culture.

Sharing Life's Journey

I took my godson on the Appalachian Trail for an overnight hike with me last weekend. We found a pleasant flat spot alongside a stream where some people had camped the night before. We told fart jokes and ate trail mix; cooked on a portable camping stove; made a fire to roast marshmallows over; saw some wildlife, including three black bears, though those weren't the most exotic things we saw (this was!); and played a few hands of Uno. All in all, it was a very successful weekend if "success" is measured in friendship, laughter, mutual challenge and encouragement, interesting experiences, shared joy, and ice cream (although ChocoTacos proved elusive).

Actually, come to think of it, that's not a bad standard of success. My godson told me several times that he was very grateful that I brought him hiking with me, and that he'd like to do it again. One day, he will understand how grateful I was that he came along.

Eighteen Kids, No Joke... Just Love

You gotta check out this video interview from WashingtonPost.com. The family has eighteen children, and they love it! Most of us aren't as saintly as they seem to be, for sure, but one has to wonder - maybe it's the willingness to love that we lack, sometimes. Certainly our life circumstances and emotional capacities don't lend themselves, usually, to such a big family... but I wonder how willing I am to stretch myself.

Running for Keelin

This is my sister, Keelin. She is 25 years old and lives in a group home in Columbia, Maryland, about 25-50 minutes from the various other members of our family. She lives in a group home because she is autistic.

She's not like the Rain Man, if you saw that movie. The movie, on its own merits, is good. It is a bit misleading though, because most people who are autistic aren't like the character that Dustin Hoffman played so well. Keelin certainly isn't, anyway. She cannot count matchsticks or play the piano like Mozart, or anything like that. In fact, she only learned to tie her shoes when she was fifteen (praise God!). She really doesn't talk very much, although she does understand - when she cares to - a great deal.

A couple years ago I saw a sign for a "Fourth of July Run for Autism 5k" on July 5th. Naturally, I was very disappointed. Last year, I forgot about it until too late. This year, I am already registered. The road race is sponsored by Autism Speaks, an organization dedicated to raising public awareness of autism. For myself, I am not hoping for a magical cure as much as I am hoping that our society will be able to identify and remove the causes of autism, while getting better at recognizing and incorporating those who experience it. The race is a fundraiser for Autism Speaks, and I am running in it to raise money for them because their work so closely matches my aspirations for my sister.

My sister Keelin likes to go for walks and car rides. She prefers classical music to contemporary. She likes horses (and better at a bit of a distance) and swimming. Really, I am running this race for Keelin. I am not in peak shape right now, to say the least, but I figure at least I can go out there and do it.

If anyone would like to make a donation to support my efforts for Autism Speaks and for my sister, I will be greatly obliged. To do so, click here. If you would prefer to write a check rather than make an electronic payment, click here for the form you need to print out and send in with your donation. I don't know that the organizers will tell me who's donated on my behalf, so let me thank you in advance. If anyone else wants to run it, I believe there are still entries available. Click here for their website.

The Fulcrum of Reality

Our Lord was raised bodily from the dead, but we must not make the mistake of thinking that he was some sort of zombie. What Jesus underwent was not a mere resuscitation, although resuscitation was involved in a sense. The empty tomb is mentioned in all the gospels, in the Acts of the Apostles, and in St. Paul's writings. It was an important fact, and it cannot be minimized that a real, material body got up and left the tomb. The risen body was the same body that died, but now, at the resurrection, it was transformed into something new, a new kind of body. St. Paul calls this a spiritual body, writing, "It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body," (1 Cor 15:44). But we must not make the mistake of thinking that our Lord was a ghost of some sort, or that his body wasn't material. The word translated here as physical is psychikon in Greek, which normally refers to a human life, mind, or soul. The word rendered spiritual is pneumatikon in Greek, always refering in the New Testament to supernatural power - the life of God Himself. The sentence might be rendered better as "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a supernatural body." Evidence of this interpretation abounds in the resurrection accounts of the gospels. In John 20:19, we are told that, on the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." A few verses later, St. John tells us that Jesus appears again and charbroils real fish, and with his hands breaks real bread (John 21:13-14). Ghosts cannot do that.

Jesus' body after the resurrection, we begin to sense, is not less real than our own, but more real, because even his body is no longer merely material. We experience our bodies as limiting factors, especially in childhood and in old age. A little kid reaches up to grab something on a counter that is hopelessly too high, and that the child simply cannot reach. An old person finds that his body doesn't work as fast as his mind does anymore, and that he cannot run or swim as he would like. Even in the flush of virile manhood, some things are simply beyond reach, and one's appetites and bodily urges often overrule, or at least interfere, with one's better intentions. Jesus, on the other hand, after the resurrection no longer experiences limitations on his body. And that makes sense - God did not give us our body to trap us in death, but as a beautiful way of living life. Sin and death intervene and interfere, but in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth, sin is vanquished and death is slain: "O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" (1 Cor 15:55). Time and space, dimensions that arise to accomodate our bodies, no longer bind our bodies or dominate them. In the body of Jesus of Nazareth, all that we "know" to be real is set aside, when it comes to "life" and "the way things really are," from unruly urges to hopelessness to death. Jesus of Nazareth changes all of that, and so we recognize Him as the Christ.

But Jesus wants to live with us, and knows we need to live with him, like we live with our family and neighbors and roommates. "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me," (Jn 15:4). Now Jesus did not come to be with us just to be with us, or rather them (the Apostles) for a few years and then to split, but to abide with us. Our God is NOT a deadbeat dad. Our God is a loving Father, more loving than any of us has experienced in human flesh. And he's not going anywhere, either. Jesus says to us, "I am with you always, to the close of the age," (Mt 28:20).

But how so. He certainly seems to have split, to have left the building, so to speak. Indeed.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. (1 Cor 11:23-26).

Already in just the decade following that in which our Lord suffered and died, St. Paul is reminding the early Christians in Corinth about the Lord's words. Jesus has left us his presence, not only spiritual, but physical as well, which is fitting, since he made us to be not only spiritual beings, but physical beings as well. We need both sorts of presence from the people that love us, and need to give both sorts to the people that we love. Nothing else will satisfy our whole person.

This explains the meaning of John 6. In that passage, Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes to feed the masses. They want to make him king, because, hey, he can get the economy going again, right? Free food for everyone. You'll never have to work again. "Ugh," Jesus must have thought, and then set out to correct their mistake. He does not want to nourish them with ordinary bread. They can do that themselves. He wants to nourish them with himself. He wants to BE their bread. Think about it, our God loves us so much that he wants not only to be with us, but to be in us, to be united to us in every way - spirit and body. This is the manner in which he wants to abide with us for eternity. But how can that happen?

The resurrection provides the missing key. Because at the resurrection Jesus becomes unbounded from the normal rules of reality, time, space, and all that, Jesus can be anywhere and everywhere, all at once. Jesus can physically be in me, in you, and in the golden box on the altar, and sitting on a throne of glory in a realm we cannot attain by our own strength and senses - all at once. This is weird, and outside of our immediate experience, but it makes sense. Why should we expect the ordinary conditions of time and space to limit the Almighty who made them, or the weaknesses of a human body to cage him in, when even the tomb could not?

At the Eucharist, in the act of praising and loving God, those baptized into his body receive his body, and the new, spiritual sort of body is planted in us anew, and the new sort of life grows stronger and more vibrant in us, bit by bit, hindered only by our own willfulness and sin. Our ability to attain heaven, the life of God in perfect bliss, will not come in this life by the removal of exterior obstacles, but by the removal of the interior obstacles that prevent us from handling them in peace. The spiritual life begun in us by baptism will be awakened as we embrace it and make a concerted effort to learn to live it. On the cross, Jesus defied death to its face, and at the resurrection he overcame it. In the sacraments, Jesus has transmitted to us in bodily form this way of sharing in his bodily resurrection. The resurrection is the fulcrum on which the old "reality" is lifted and overturned, and the new one set in its place.

Happy Birthday, Humanae

Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical on the regulation of births, had the 40th anniversary of its release today. Here are some excerpts and a link to the document:

1. The most serious duty of transmitting human life, for which married persons are the free and responsible collaborators of God the Creator, has always been a source of great joys to them, even if sometimes accompanied by not a few difficulties and by distress.

At all times the fulfillment of this duty has posed grave problems to the conscience of married persons, but, with the recent evolution of society, changes have taken place that give rise to new questions which the Church could not ignore, having to do with a matter which so closely touches upon the life and happiness of men.

2. The changes which have taken place are in fact noteworthy and of varied kinds. In the first place, there is the rapid demographic development. Fear is shown by many that world population is growing more rapidly than the available resources, with growing distress to many families and developing countries, so that the temptation for authorities to counter this danger with radical measures is great. Moreover, working and lodging conditions, as well as increased exigencies both in the economic field and in that of education, often make the proper education of a larger number of children difficult today. A change is also seen both in the manner of considering the person of woman and her place in society, and in the value to be attributed to conjugal love in marriage, and also in the appreciation to be made of the meaning of conjugal acts in relation to that love.

Finally and above all, man has made stupendous progress in the domination and rational organization of the forces of nature, such that he tends to extend this domination to his own total being: to the body, to psychical life, to social life and even to the laws which regulate the transmission of life...

17. Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men -- especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point -- have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.

Let it be considered also that a dangerous weapon would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies. Who could blame a government for applying to the solution of the problems of the community those means acknowledged to be licit for married couples in the solution of a family problem? Who will stop rulers from favoring, from even imposing upon their peoples, if they were to consider it necessary, the method of contraception which they judge to be most efficacious? In such a way men, wishing to avoid individual, family, or social difficulties encountered in the observance of the divine law, would reach the point of placing at the mercy of the intervention of public authorities the most personal and most reserved sector of conjugal intimacy.

Consequently, if the mission of generating life is not to be exposed to the arbitrary will of men, one must necessarily recognize insurmountable limits to the possibility of man's domination over his own body and its functions; limits which no man, whether a private individual or one invested with authority, may licitly surpass. And such limits cannot be determined otherwise than by the respect due to the integrity of the human organism and its functions, according to the principles recalled earlier, and also according to the correct understanding of the "principle of totality" illustrated by our predecessor Pope Pius XII...

18. It can be foreseen that this teaching will perhaps not be easily received by all: Too numerous are those voices -- amplified by the modern means of propaganda -- which are contrary to the voice of the Church. To tell the truth, the Church is not surprised to be made, like her divine Founder, a "sign of contradiction", yet she does not because of this cease to proclaim with humble firmness the entire moral law, both natural and evangelical. Of such laws the Church was not the author, nor consequently can she be their arbiter; she is only their depositary and their interpreter, without ever being able to declare to be licit that which is not so by reason of its intimate and unchangeable opposition to the true good of man.

In defending conjugal morals in their integral wholeness, the Church knows that she contributes towards the establishment of a truly human civilization; she engages man not to abdicate from his own responsibility in order to rely on technical means; by that very fact she defends the dignity of man and wife. Faithful to both the teaching and the example of the Savior, she shows herself to be the sincere and disinterested friend of men, whom she wishes to help, even during their earthly sojourn, "to share as sons in the life of the living God, the Father of all men."

Thank you, Holy Father Paul. Sorry we didn't listen. Please pray we finally learn.

Read the entire encyclical at http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul06/p6humana.htm.

In Paradisum Gramma

My Gramma Haber died today, two years ago. I was just finishing an eight-day silent retreat and so I received the news.

May the angels lead you into Paradise;
May the martyrs receive you at your coming
and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem.
May the choir of angels receive you,
and with Lazarus, who once was poor,
May you have eternal rest. Amen.

We love you Gramma, and we'll see ya soon. But not yet.

Ordinary Does Not Mean Ho-Hum

So, Pentecost done, we resume of Ordinary Time. Ordinary sounds so, well, ordinary, plain, drab, boring. Why would the Church call it "ordinary." That's hardly inspiring.

I want to propose an alternate understanding for this time of year. At Pentecost the Church received the wind its sails that it needs to live out the comission it received from our Lord at the Ascension: to set out into the vast horizons of the world, preaching the Good News and baptizing the whole world. The Church has just re-presented that initial descent of the Holy Spirit in the Pentecost liturgies. Now it is time for us to turn our minds back to the task of evangelizing the world. We are like Jesus' army, or navy perhaps, and we have grown into quite a massive fleet. As St. Paul notes in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 12) we cannot all just do whatever we like, but we must each find our role in the broader Body of Christ. Having found our role, we need our marching instructions for how to conduct ourselves. If we were all feet, who would think? If we were all eyeballs, who would walk? Likewise, if we were all teachers, who would pray? If we were all contemplatives, who would defend the teachings and reputation of Holy Church? Our leaders, the successors to the Apostles, have over time developed a set of methods, or procedures, or "ordinances" for figuring out who does what. Some are very exact: Everyone goes to Mass every Sunday and on other obligatory observances, unless grave circumstances intervene. Some ordinances are more vague: "Teach all nations," and we are left a great deal of discretion in determining how to work them out in our day-to-day lives. These ordinances are where we get the name Ordinary Time, I suspect. It is the time when the ordinary Ordinances, without special fasts or feasts, disciplines or dispensations, apply. It is these ordinances that structure our day-to-day life as Christians.

But the work of the apostolate is hardly boring - at least, not if we are putting our hearts and minds into it. Every apostolate has dimensions of prayer, service, and evangelization, although each apostolate will have varying proportions of each, and some dimension may be mostly implicit. Work at a soup kitchen is primarily about feeding the poor, though our love for them should draw them to Christ, and we should saturate all our work with prayer. Printing apologetic tracts is primarily about evangelization, but will be of great service to teachers of the Faith, and should be saturated from beginning to end in prayer. The apostolate is the outward mission of the Church, and is to be conducted primarily by the laity, in cooperation and guided by their pastors.

The apostolate is to be grounded in the spiritual life of each Christian, and every Christian is called to participate. Our spiritual lives, infused with the Faith, Hope, and Love of Jesus by the sacraments, are to be nurtured by solid time spent in prayer, healthy Christian community, and immersion in the Sacred Scriptures. Out of this soil grows a solid plant of apostolate: intercessory prayer, service, evangelization. There is a world out there in dire need of Christ, and only Christians can bring Him to it.

To aid us in our task, the Vatican II Council produced a document Apostolicam Actuositatem, on the apostolate of the laity. I highly recommend reading the medium-sized but easy document. Some people feel awkward about looking for ways to share their love of Jesus with others. Fair enough, and I don't want to judge them because I used to feel that way too. They might even rationalize it by saying that all religions are equal or that they don't want to force their beliefs on someone else yet. They might consider this point, though. If you don't want to share it, you probably don't get it, either.

Father of Fathers

St. Joseph the Worker (1 May)

In 1955, probably as a response to the Labor Day celebrations in communist countries, Pope Pius XII declared 1 May to be the memorial of St. Joseph, as a worker. In writing this piece, I came more and more to see how Joseph's work, marriage, and fatherhood were all deeply enmeshed with each other.

We can learn about Jesus and St. Joseph by considering St. Joseph's practical paternity of our Lord. While he was not our Lord's biological father, he was very much our Lord's father in other ways. He was foster father and protector, but also godfather and mentor to our Lord. Growing up, our Lord needed a trade, and like almost everyone else in the broad scope of history, he took the trade of his (foster) father. Our Lord was a construction worker, a carpenter. While our Lord would not have physically looked especially like St. Joseph, there is every reason to expect that he acted like St. Joseph. Jesus might not have had the same eyes as Joseph, but he had the same look in them, you might say. He might not have had the same physical structure, but he probably carried himself in very much the same way.

We can learn a lot about St. Joseph by looking at how Jesus turned out. For instance, our Lord was very terse in speech. Words mean things, and every word that our Lord used was handpicked, as it were, for its purpose. All the words of our Lord recorded in the Scriptures can fit onto a single newspaper page - but how filled with meaning! St. Joseph wasn't divine, and wouldn't have quite the natural ability for imbuing meaning into words, but we can expect that he would have something of the same as a gift. In fact, the Scriptures even point to this gift because they record no words of St. Joseph at all! Yet, each of his responses to Mary and to God are loaded with decision, purpose, and strength.

As another instance, we see our Lord unflaggingly at work for others' benefit. He wouldn't have learned that only by watching Mary working in the kitchen, but by watching Joseph in the woodshop.

Our Lord's defense of the poor and the weak, especially against the sophisticated wiles of the Pharisees and temple priests, is a blossoming of what was present in St. Joseph as well. Recall that St. Joseph took Jesus and Mary into exile in Egypt to protect them from Herod's wicked plan.

We can assume that our Heavenly Father, in selecting a spiritual father for His Son, would have picked a good one, the best available. St. Joseph raised another's Son, and did it with as much vigor and dedication as if He were his own. St. Joseph would probably have been muscular even if not big, with a solid work ethic, and a love of his family - putting them first under God. While Catholic tradition doesn't insist that he was a virgin, it does insist that he was chaste from the time of his betrothal to our Lady; this implies that he had some practice in chastity beforehand as well, even if he was a widower. His chastity, or "most chastity" if you will, implies a tremendous focus and purpose of character. As the vices dissipate our character, the virtues, especially the virtues related to temperance, tend to gather and collect our character, our energies, our attention. St. Joseph had a single, all-encompassing mission: to serve God. In his life's vocation, that meant protect, provide for, and nurture Jesus and Mary. In his daily circumstances, that probably mostly meant working hard, being home as much as his work allowed and whenever there was need, and spending lots of time with his Wife and Kid.

St. Joseph shows us that honest work, however lowly or boring, is not just a drudgery, but a calling from God. God has made us, alone among animals and angels, to aid Him in the work of creation, to create on his behalf. The most supreme case of this procreation, is of course the begetting of new human beings in the image and likeness of God. But St. Joseph, to our knowledge, never did procreated sexually (although he may have with a wife before his marriage to our Lady). Did his chastity render him sterile? Far from it. In his life's work, St. Joseph was far more fruitful, more procreative, than any husband and father before or since. In hammering and nailing, in teaching and guiding, in protecting and providing, St. Joseph prepared our Lord for His great work. Mary's virginity was essential to birthing our Lord, and Joseph's chastity must have been essential to bringing up our Lord. So it is that we, when working with grace, also join into God's great work. St. Joseph, the best human father who ever lived, shows us this fact: Every child is ultimately God's, and every human father is ultimately a foster-father, and even those without legal charges of their own can spiritually adopt the fatherless children that they meet.

St. Joseph has something to teach us all, whether one's paternity is biological or spiritual; whether one is married, presently single, or permanently celibate; whether one works with one's hands or mind. He is an excellent role model for priests and dads, and especially for foster-, step-, and adoptive-fathers. He is an excellent role model for fathers working for their families, and for the single and celibate who consciously work for God's family.

I once made a spiritual exercise of reading every mention of St. Joseph in the Gospels (they are all in the early parts of St. Matthew) and deduced from them a list of 19 character traits. I highly recommend the exercise. See how many you can discern in that discerning man. (Hint, hint!)

St. Joseph, Holy Worker, pray for us.

My Sister Keelin

Today (3 Apr '08) is the birthday of my sister Keelin. She is 24 years old, though she was a bit younger in the picture at right. I remember being about six years old when our parents sat my sister Megan and me down to talk. They told us that we would have a new baby brother or sister coming soon. We asked if we could hold the baby, and they said that of course we would be able to if we promised to be very careful.

Keelin was born and seemed normal enough, but as time went on it became clear that she had a mental disability. In the mid-1980s in outer suburban Maryland we hadn't heard of autism, and so when my parents eventually received that diagnosis, it must not have meant much to them. Over the last 24 years, though, it has come to mean a great deal to us. You can be sure about that.

Keelin isn't the Rain Man. I say that because for a long time, Dustin Hoffman's acclaimed contribution to cinema provoked that question when people would learn that she was autistic. At first, they usually thought we had said, "artistic," and then, after scanning their memory, they would say, "Oh, like the Rain Man in that movie... what was it called?" One of us would answer coldly, for the three thousand six hundred and sixteenth time, "Rain Man." And then, "Well, not exactly like that." You see, Keelin hasn't any "special skills," like counting toothpicks very quickly. In fact, from the autistic people I've gotten to know through Keelin, I rather doubt that the toothpick-counting variety of autistic persons actually exists. She was reasonably athletic, but her athleticism was of limited application because, for instance at Special Olympics footraces, she would usually veer off the track in pursuit of some grass or a bit of mulch that caught her fancy. She hadn't much use for footraces, Special Olympics, the marks of personal accomplishment, or even other persons, generally speaking.

What Keelin has is an amazing ability to entertain herself. Caught up and cut off in a world of her own by a disorder that nobody really understands, and a severe variety of the disorder for that matter, she has always been on her own, even in a crowded room. Sometimes she seems so inexpressibly sad, and all the more inexpressibly for being unable to express her sadness to someone, anyone. Once in a while, I think I kinda know how she feels. My sister's own bottled-up-ness seems to overwhelm her sometimes. She can become so frustrated that she becomes violent against herself. Her hand is scarred from biting it so much. Other times, Keelin becomes just elated - the sun on her face as we drive through Maryland's beautiful hills and woods can make her beam like nothing else. She usually likes looking for horses while we drive on our country roads, but like other people, sometimes even her normal interests don't interest her. She enjoys a lot of normal things: pancakes and ice cream, car rides and the beach, getting postcards in the mail and exploring new places.

I said earlier that she hadn't much use for other people generally speaking. Generally speaking, that's true, but not always. Sometimes she seems to come out of her bubble, just a bit, or just for a little while. She'll make eye contact, laugh, seize your attention, and give a hug that goes beyond the routine mechanical hugs she's been taught to give. This past Thanksgiving, she was more out of her bubble than normal. She laughed at all the jokes, waited patiently for dessert, was relaxed, and at peace. She suffers unwittingly so much that it was very beautiful just to be with her while she was genuinely enjoying herself. This past Christmas with her was very nice as well.

Keelin has been a blessing. No if's, and's, or but's. She has taught us patience with the frail, love of simple things, and the importance of family. In fact, in the wake of my parents' divorce, Keelin has been at times the only thing that really holds us all (or, at least my parents) together in a practical way, because we all agree that we care for her at whatever cost. She lives in a group home only 40 minutes from the rest of us, and she receives family visitors and excursions with us two or three times weekly. She comes home on holidays for an extra visit, and the staff at her home take her shopping and on vacation. It's not ideal, but neither is the world. Another important point that Keelin has taught me is that we never really know what's going on inside of anyone; so it's best to take it easy on them if we can.

The point of life, those who advocate euthanasia would be well-advised to learn, isn't to eliminate suffering, but to learn to love in the midst of suffering. Love in the midst of suffering stands out in clearer contrast and shines all the brighter, bringing more joy and more life. As hard as it is to say so, given her condition, that I am grateful that God gave her to us, entrusted her to us. Autism and all.

Even though she doesn't read, let alone surf the web, it has to be said:

Happy birthday, Kee-kee!
We love you.