A Gradual Transformation

I've been meditating a few minutes each day, while seated silently at my kitchen table. As the years have passed, I've gradually begun to spend more time in silent contemplation out here in my kitchen, which is not totally barren of spiritual reminders: my angel candle holders are in view, and I usually have a couple of post-it notes displayed nearby reminding me that the present moment is the key to liberation, or something like that.

I might legitimately be asked, “What good has all that meditation done you?” Looking back over the years I'm surprised to recognize a gradual transformation in myself and my outlook on life. As a youth from a large impoverished family I wanted very much to become a successful writer, earning good money for my work – I was not entirely self-centered in my ambitions: I dreamed of helping family members out who continued to struggle in poverty.

My ambitions have changed in later years to less emphasis on material success to a desire to offer a healing presence in my daily life, as well as in my writing, to those who are suffering from a variety of causes, including illness, disability, poverty, loss of a loved one or a zillion other painful circumstances.

At this stage of my life, I live in a residence for people over the age of 55. As might be expected, my neighbors are often dealing with low income, physical disability, and/or the death of a family member. Approaching a table in our community room, I sometimes pick up on the grief being expressed by my neighbors, and I usually offer to say a brief prayer. I've never been turned down. ­

In my prayers I not only ask God to welcome the loved one home, I also ask for divine comfort for those left behind. It has occurred to me more than once, that the deceased loved one is now healed and whole; whereas, those left behind continue to suffer his or her loss. Prayer helps. As the bowed heads at the table are raised, I sense an all around letting go and peace.

Amen

t

Ellen Goodman’s Last Column

The other day we learned that Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin came close to tying for first place as the most admired women in America. You all know how I feel about Hillary Clinton by this time; given the chance, I would’ve voted for her to take first place. And although I continue to have major differences with Sarah Palin, I continue to stand up for her against the unrelenting sexist attacks from the left and right wing extremes.

For years columnist Ellen Goodman was near the top of my list of most admired women. In the past two years, however, her lukewarm support for Hillary and her over the top attacks on Sarah dampened my enthusiasm for her work. Even so, I felt a twinge of something akin to grief just now as I read her final column in today’s Boston Globe:

Ellen writes:

Looking backward and forward, I belong to a generation that has transformed our culture. We’ve been the change agents for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights. Now, we find ourselves on the cutting edge of another huge social change. This time, it’s the longevity revolution. Ours is the first generation to collectively cross the demarcation line of senior citizenship with actuarial tables on our side.

“Senior citizen’’ is now a single demographic nametag that includes those who fought in World War II and those who were born in World War II. We don’t have a label yet to describe the early, active aging. But many of us are pausing to recalculate the purpose of a longer life. We are reinventing ourselves and society’s expectations, just as we have throughout our lives.

Ellen concludes by quoting herself at an earlier age:

“The trick of retiring well may be the trick of living well,’’ I wrote back then. “It’s hard to recognize that life isn’t a holding action, but a process. It’s hard to learn that we don’t leave the best parts of ourselves behind, back in the dugout or the office. We own what we learned back there. The experiences and the growth are grafted onto our lives. And when we exit, we can take ourselves along - quite gracefully.’’

She knew then what I know much more intimately now. So, with her blessing, I will let myself go. And go for it.

All rancor aside, I wish Ellen Goodman well as she steps off the stage at the Boston Globe.

Obamacare: Nudging Granny Toward End-of-Life Decisions

Maybe it's because I'm one of those adults in the population conveniently classified as seniors, but I've been nervous about Obamacare ever since I learned about the proposal to incorporate end-of-life counseling in the treatment of Medicare recipients.

Obama's smooth denials given at AARP town hall gatherings haven't reassured me in the least, nor have the irrational screechings of extremists on either the far left or far right.

Lee Siegel's post at the Daily Beast titled Obama's Euthanasia Mistake has the effect that one typically experiences in at last confronting the reality of a situation. At least you know what you're dealing with and are thus better equipped to either support or protest what's happening.

Before turning to Siegel this morning, however, let me clarify something that has been bothering me since this discussion began. Obama and others have repeatedly referred to Social Security and Medicare as "entitlement" programs, making it sound as if seniors are getting handouts from the government in their retirement years. Wrong. We paid a Social Security tax throughout our working years, and we've also been taxed for Medicare. Post-retirment, the government deducts substantial monthly contributions to Medicare from our measley Social Security benefits. I just calculated it: my Medicare deduction equals about 11% of my monthly benefits.

On that note, let's go to Siegel. After introducing us to a couple of influential people in Obama's University of Chicago background, Siegel zeroes in on the issues at stake for seniors in Obamacare:

The section, on page 425 of the bill, offers to pay once every five years for a voluntary, not mandatory, consultation with a doctor, who will not blatantly tell the patient how to end his or her life sooner, but will explain to the patient the set of options available at the end of life, including living wills, palliative care and hospice, life sustaining treatment, and all aspects of advance care planning, including, presumably, the decision to end one’s life.

The shading in of human particulars is what makes this so unsettling. A doctor guided by a panel of experts who have decided that some treatments are futile will, in subtle ways, advance that point of view. Cass Sunstein calls this “nudging,” which he characterizes as using various types of reinforcement techniques to “nudge” people’s behavior in one direction or another. An elderly or sick person would be especially vulnerable to the sophisticated nudging of an authority figure like a doctor.

Bad enough for such people who are lucky enough to be supported by family and friends. But what about the dying person who is all alone in the world and who has only the “consultant” to turn to and rely on? The heartlessness of such a scene is chilling.

Yet many liberals seem drawn to such fantasies of power and control. We live in a highly quantified society, entertained on all sides by divertissements that reduce human life to cute little anecdotes illustrating the morality of statistical, utilitarian analysis, from Malcolm Gladwell to Freakonomics and beyond.

To read Siegel's post in its entirety - it's well worth it - go here.