Ten Hail Mary's for the New Agers

This morning, I saw two bumper stickers on this car in front of me.       "Voluntary Euthanasia -- It's Your Choice!"       "Goddess In Training." My first reaction was "Oh brother!" I suppose someone who believes in one's own divinity can be excused such strong opinions about grave matters despite having had no personal experience with (she was driving so I guess she hasn't euthanasia yet). However, it got me wondering: just how does a thinking human being, fully aware of one's own mortality, throw around god or goddess in reference to one's self? Well of course, the pro-euthanasia stance makes sense in such a mindset since delusions of divinity go hand in hand with an exalted opinion of self that says "I can do ANYTHING I want." Perhaps the delusion starts when one starts exaggerating one's possession of one's life. They will say, with passion, that this is THEIR life. It ought to occur to them sometime to ask themselves how it could be their life when they had nothing to do with its beginning. No one chooses to be born, and, most often, death catches us all unaware. Perhaps this illogical embrace of euthanasia is an act of protest against their having been excluded from the decision to be born. On the other hand, how can they be consulted about their birth before they are conceived, born and raised up to maturity? Make no mistake: we indeed can claim ownership of our lives but only in the manner by which we live it. Since we had nothing to do with our birth and usually as little with our death, those are really beyond our purview. We used to say things like "death with honor" to refer to having kept our integrity, principles and honor intact, until the very end. These days "death with dignity" means something far less profound. It's a grave matter, I think, when what euthanasia boils down to is expiring while denying our souls to God and handing them to oblivion instead. After all, if we exclude the Maker's role in ending our life, do we not also waive His role in bringing us to the afterlife?