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The Stewardship of Life
The S tewardship of LifeWilliam F. MaestriFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq Recommended Citation-The Stewardship of LifeRev. William F. MaestriFather Maestri, author of 'The Role of Physician as ChristianHealer' which appeared in a recent issue of Linacre Quarterly, isreligion- biomedical ethics chairman at New Orleans' Mercy Academy.Leonard J. Weber in his very sensitive presentation on the ethicalissue of severely handicapped children, Who Shall Live?, centers onthe value of life) The basic stance that one takes toward human life,and life in general, serves as a first principle for one's value of orientation toward such issues as abortion, euthanasia, human experimentation, and care for severely handicapped children. Weber goes on topresent two fundamental modes of valuing life: life as a possession andlife as a gift. 2 Each of these modes needs to be examined.Life as PossessionWe live in a historical and cultural epoch which has, for the mostpart, eliminated the transcendental element of life. The sacred or holyhas been effectively neutralized by our faith in the scientific methodfor establishing reality. In fact, outside the scientific method, there isno reality (one is tempted to say no salvation). The application of thismethod is most evidenced in our technology. We are awe-struck notby the heavens or by nature (long since demythologized and depeopledof sacred beings), but by our technological advances and wonders.Along with the method of science and its application to technology,the sacred has been neutralized by the privatizing of life in general,and religion in particular. Religion is the 'private affair' between meand my God. Worship has been relegated to the 50-minute hour onSunday (Saturday for the vigil-goers), and in effect divorced fromdaily life . Space and time become overwhelmingly secularized inmeaning and direction. The heavens behold the glory of man's technology through satellites and rockets. Time is of the chronos variety.It is linear and mathematical. There is no 'breaking (Joint' orexistential significance in such a view. The karios time orientation is notmuch in evidence these days .The result of our absolutizing of the method of science and itsresultant view of reality, along with the privatizing of life and thesecularizing of space and time, leaves us living in a one-dimensionalworld. The cosmos has collapsed on us. We must live on the bread ofthis world alone. 'What we see is what we get. The question arises:What do we see and get?Our one-story reality offers us the following: pollution, crime andviolence, urban disaster, energy crisis upon crisis, war, and man's general inhumanity to man. Is there any wonder that we have witnessed ageneral Kierkegaardian inward-turn ? We have become self-preoccupiedand self-absorbed. We are what Christopher Lasch calls the 'narcissistsociety .' Lasch writes :Having no hope of impwving their lives in any of the ways that ma tter,people have convinced themselves that what matters is psychic self-improvement : getting in touch with their feelings, eating health food, taking lessonsin ballet or belly dancing, immersing themselves in the wisdom of the East,jogging, learning how to 'relate,' overcoming the' fear of pleasure.' 3In all of this is the underlying assumption that life in general is outof control. Events happen to us and not by us. We have becomegenerally alienated from our fabricated world. Steven Muller, writingin Daedalus, captures this mood. Muller is of the opinion that people,even the educated, are at a loss in the world of machines, a world inwhich we are entangled. The automobile, calculator, toaster, and television are the mysterious gifts of technology, gifts with which we arenot very comfortable. In effect, Muller is saying: 'Bygone is the era ofthe tinkerer.'4 These gifts we can neither explain nor repair. Wesimply use them with fear and trembling.All of the above is brought to bear on our perspective of humanlife, and life in general. Life does indeed become a possession. Evenmore than this, life becomes an obsession. It is MY individual, solitaryrock of certainty in the midst of uncertainty. My life becomes minewith a vengeance, and is seen as an anchor in a hopeless sea of dailyexperience. The orientation of life as possessio n and obsession becomes grounded in rights and individual demands. In addition, sincemy life is mine in a radical and absolute way, I become a law untomyself in terms of its use and disposal.Such a view of life has significant carry-over into the issues ofbiomedical ethics and values. If life is my possession in such a privateand radical way, euthanasia and experimentation are decided on thebasis of what I determine to be sufficient reason. From such a perspective, abortion is a rather easy issue to resolve. It is what I decide to dowith my body over which I have absolute control. In effect, we havebecome a collection of individual moral islands feeling the extensionof no obligation beyond our own solipsistic worlds .Life as GiftAt the other end of the spectrum of life is the perspective whichviews life as a gift. Life is the ultimate gift from a good and graciousGod, Who directs all things to a good end. Weber says that from such aviewpoint there are limitations to the use of one's life. To see life as agift evokes not rights but obligations and duties. Life as a gift calls oneto a stance of protection and reverence. Above all, when we recognizelife as a gift from God, we are called to a basic posture of gratitude.We see the goodness of life and we respond by singing His praise. 5However, a rather strange metamorphosis takes place during suchdiscourses on life as a gift. In the same breath there is an immediateclaim for the 'right to life.' Life, the gift from the God of love, nowbecomes a right. And to many of the so-called 'pro-life' groups it isan absolute right. Life becomes a right which must be fought for withall of one's mind, soul, and strength . Life is the absolute value and theobject of our ultimate concern.I cannot help but become uncomfortable with the language of 'theright to life.' The result of such a view is medical vitalism and theabsolutizing of this earthly and bodily existence. In many ways, 'theright to life' can also make life a possession - a possession that doesnot recognize what Pope Pius XII called a higher and more importantgood. Although Pius XII left this higher good unnamed, RichardMcCormick, S.J., has suggested human relationships and the capacityfor giving and receiving love as this higher good.6 What, in effect, ishappening is that life is becoming the coin of absolute possession andobsession. The medical pessimist who views life as worthwhile only tothe degree that it is attractive or free from suffering, and the medicalvitalist who knows no limits to the means of preserving bodily life, arejust opposite sides of this coin of life. Both make life a possession; tobe sure for different motives, but a possession and absolute rightnonetheless. To one group (the pessimist), absolute is my free choiceas to when and how life will be disposed of. To the other (the vitalist),bodily life and its preservation are the absolute norms of the moralconscience.Perhaps we are still at a point when we can listen to a voice fromthe past with much to say about such issues. That voice is of RudolfBultmann who, in his famous essay 'New Testament and Mythology,'writes:For self·assertion deludes man into thinking that his existence is a prizewithin his own grasp. How blind man is to his plight is illustrated by thatpessimism which regards life as a burden thrust on man against his will, orby the way men talk about the 'right to live' or by the way they expecttheir fair share of good fortune. Man's radical self·assertion then blinds himto the fact of sin, and this is the clearest proof that he is a fallen being. 7The words of Bultmann call us to demythologize our belief in thefalse gods of absolute freedom and bodily-earthly existence. We needto be reminded of the temporality of this world and our personalearthly existence. It is with such a view that we will now consider lifefrom the perspective of stewardship.Life as StewardshipTo be a steward is to be recognized as one who is fundamentallytrustworthy and valuable. To be a steward is to be entrusted withsomething or a state of affairs that is significant. Man stands beforeGod and his fellows in this stance of creaturely stewardship. Man isentrusted with his personal life for the purpose of giving praise toGod, the ground of all being and becoming.This stewardship of personal life involves man with his fellows andthe totality of all that is. Man is an interpersonal being who realizes hispotential in community and in historical time. If man is to grow intothe likeness of God and complete the imago Dei, he must stand increaturely openness to the Creator God. Man cannot turn his back onGod or his fellows and claim to be authentic.This stance of basic openness to the 'God Who Is' confronts manwith the feeling of awe and the graciousness of existence. Man realizesthat he need not be, and yet he is. Man is not here at his own will ordesign. But man, each new individual, comes into the world throughthe will of the God of Love. Each new being is the re-entry of thegood and gracious God in the ongoing process of God's self-communication to the world. In each new life God rededicates Himself to ourworld and its glory. Each new life is God's yes to His good creationplaced in the stewardship of man's care.From such a perspective, life at its boundaries, the alpha andomega, takes on a new depth. The good and wise steward realizes thathis existence, and that of his fellows, is not a possession to be grasped .Life is not my individual possession to do with as I will. Neither is lifethe absolute good which must be preserved at all costs. The goodsteward sees his earthy existence and all creation as provisional and onthe way. The good steward is neither a vitalist nor a pessimist, but is aperson of hope.Hope is our faith that lights the future and helps us to persevere inthe present. Life at its boundaries, from conception to death, is asacred stewardship of trust and care. Life is to be reverenced as holybecause the source of all life is the ground of holiness. So we are calledto recognize St. Paul's words to the Romans to the effect that in lifeand death we are the Lord's . This earthly existence is not the finalchapter, but the necessary introduction to the mystery of God. Wehope for that day when we will see Him as He is and be welcomed intoHis kingdom.In our earthly existence we are stewards entrusted with life andcreation. We will give an account of o ur stewardship one day. All lifeis under our care, but especially the living who are weak and defenseless. They are the voices that cry out as ' holy ground' for our reverence and agape. In our society, the fetus and handicapped childrenhave beco me the least of our brethren, which m eans they have alsobeco m e the hidden presence of Christ. They are not tissues, or fl eshypotentials, but our brothers and sisters called to God 's kingdom.Finally, at the omega boundary of existence, care and reverence arerequired of the good steward. There is no life that is insignificant oroutside our care. There is no obsolete human being to whom we donot owe what Paul Ramsey calls 'canons of loyalty.'8 But we n eed toremember the wisdom of Scripture: t here is a time to be born and atime to die. In the process of living there is the process of dying andletting go. No matter how painful the separation, how advanced thetechnology, let go we must. For as pilgrims we are o n a journey to thegood God Who first called us forth and now calls us home. Our hope isnot for this life only . Were it so, we would be the m ost to be pitied.This ' letting go' is not an act of des pair , or not caring, or a pronouncement on the quality of life . This ' letting go' is the total act offaith, hope, love, and care. It is our total handing back to God whatHe has first entrusted to us. As good stewards, we realize the provisionality of life, and the n eed to surrender and be enfolded in God'sunbounding love. This is not death with dignity; for there is no suchthing. Death is most undignified . This ' letting go ' is our imitation ofChrist and the surrendering of our spirit, confident that through thisdeath we have passed to eternal life.42.1. We be r, Leo nard J ., Who Shall Live ? (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1 976 ).2. Ibid ., p. 40 .3. Lasch , Chri sto pher, ' The Narcissist Society,' New York R eview of Bool~s, Sept. 30 , 1976 .4. Mulle r , Steve n, 'A New Am e rican Un iversity?,' Dae dalus , Win ter, 197 8 , p .5. Webe r, op. cit., pp. 40 , 8 5, 98 .6. Mc Cormick , Richard A. , S.J. , ' To Save or Let Die,' R eadillgs ill Bioet hies, e d . by Tho mas A. Shannon (New J el'sey: Pau list Press, 1976 ), pp. 12 3 · 133 .7. Bultman n , Rudolf, 'New T esta ment and Mythology, ' K ergy m a alld Mylh. e d . by Hans We rn el' Bartsc h (New York: Ha l' pe r an d Row, 1 96 1) , p . 3 l .8. R amsey, Pa ul , Ethics al th e Edges o f Life (New Have n : Ya le U ni versity Press, 1978 ), p . xi ii o f the preface .
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