Terry Schiavo..............

Terry Schiavo's situation is following me everywhere this week. My cashier at Target; family; friends; etc; from Greensboro to New York. It has provoked much dialogue. Here's an article in Sojourner's magazine. Living wills; culture of life; law and politics; faith and religion. My family had to make this kind of decision after my father had a massive stroke in 1998. While God alone is the measure the rightness in our decisions, our family prayed and did what we felt led to do (following my fathers living wishes) by taking him off of life support after consulting with the medical staff at Pender Memorial Hospital. Dealing with this kind of tragedy and making informed and faithful decisions about death is truly difficult. And once again it shows we can't run from the reality that death is part of the culture of life.

On the politics, NPR commentator Daniel Schorr made this statement: "The case is full of great ironies. A large part of Terri's hospice costs are paid by Medicaid, a program that the administration and conservatives in Congress would sharply reduce. Some of her other expenses have been covered by the million-dollar proceeds of a malpractice suit - the kind of suit that President Bush has fought to scale back."