It’s not often that I prefer a remake of a song to the golden days of the 70’s. I first heard Linda Ronstadt’s “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me” while drinking beer in a car with a college friend on the banks of the San Marcos river. I didn’t recall ever hearing it. Linda in ’78, wasn’t the first to record it. Another band did in ’76 but not to much notice. I was satisfied with Linda’s version till I heard Terri Clark’s version in 1996. Give it a listen here. 
I can share this because I bought this song. You’ll have to look up Linda’s on your own.
But as much as I like the song and Terri’s version, this blog is not about a song but about a book. Graham Greene’s 1943, The Ministry of Fear. Set in WWII London it’s a cautionary tale, perhaps a morality play, on the mercy killing, euthanasia, assisted suicide that is most certainly coming to a state, a synod, a church body near you.
As all infectious things do, this one has a vector: those who own pets, treat them as people, and love them like family. This would be my sainted mother and probably myself. Most pet owner’s know that sooner or later they will have to “put down”, “put to sleep”, “take to the puppy farm” their beloved bet. And this is meet, right, and salutary. We are the “gods” of animals. We have a right to say which of them lives and dies. Since we are their “gods”, we are responsible for deciding when an animal is in too much pain to live on. Yes, here we employ the standard, rightly so, of quality of life.
So what’s the problem? If you were educated in public schools, and/or by Disney, and/or YouTube, you think what’s sauce for the goose and gander is sauce for the farmer too. And the unbelieving medical community knows this. And they play on this. I can’t believe how quickly, ER doctors particularly, get to the “unplugging” option.
Better clear something up. Refusing medical treatment, not continuing with your own, is not mercy killing, euthanasia, or assisting in a suicide. Actively causing a death is. Already in the 90’s, the hospice movement which I am no fan of, was telling us 70% of hospital deaths are “negotiated.” Both my parents were in the sense, the family had to decide to discontinue treatments.
I was right in the early ought’s when I said that the gay movement (LGBTQ wasn’t in my vocab, mercifully) was heading to our shores like a tsunami and the church, inc. would go along with it, as in, be swept away by it. If you’re affiliated with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, you know her response has been “poor, poor pitiful them.” I don’ t know about other conservative Lutherans but the liberals too start with pity.[i]
If you want the pithy Pope, as in the 18th century poet, quote on this you can go to my blog on August 29, 2022 and before that April 6, 2015. I’m not referencing here – print wise – lest I come under the censure of ad nauseum. Pity can’t be the first step toward the error that will devour you, swamp you, drown you. Read Genesis 19. Doesn’t the woebegone Lot in some sense “pity” the homosexual trying to break down his door? Why else offer his unmarried daughters to the pitiless crowd? Read Judges 19? Isn’t it a woefully misguided pity that moves the Benjamite to offer not only his guests concubine but his own virgin daughter to the mob of homosexuals hellbent on raping his male guest? And when that guest instead sent out just his concubine into the lustful crowd wasn’t that some sort of warped pity? He somehow understands their bloodlust.
Back to Graham Greene. He died in 1989 was converted to Catholicism in 1926 at the age of 22. His books reflect this, but not in an overbearing way. He’s one of the view fiction writers that I purposely reread. I’ve read 22 of his books. This was over 20 years ago. I saved them with the intent of rereading them once retired. Hence, my journey has begun. Here’s 3 quotes about pity from the aforementioned novel. His main character speaks of “that sense of pity which is more promiscuous than lust” (32). Let that sink in. An older detective much later says, “Pity is the worst passion of all: we don’t outlive it like sex” (172). Boy howdy how I’ve seen this play out among the elderly. Pity for their hellbent, prideful, grandchildren who sneer at their faith leads them to nevertheless fund them. Then the main character remembers his trial for mercy killing his wife. He sees “reflected in the crowded court the awful expression of pity: …He wanted to warn them – don’t pity me. Pity is cruel. Pity destroys. Love isn’t safe when pity’s prowling round” (218).
For pity’s sake, we can help your loved one out of their intractable pain. For pity’s sake, your beloved spouse doesn’t even know your name, her kids, or even what day and year it is! For pity’s sake, if your dog, cat, bird, or reptile was suffering like this, you do something about it. But what will push you over the edge is the unspoken assurance that you will feel better. You see in the end: it’s poor, poor pitiful ME.
Two things:; The living will originated with government because they saw upwards of 75% of Medicare costs were paid in the last 30 days of life. They needed a mechanism for pulling the plug for you. Don’t do that for them by signing a living will. If you can’t make medical decisions for yourself, you want the decisions to rest with your loved ones, spouse, then kids, and maybe I suppose even on to grandkids.
Again it’s pity that makes people sign these. They spare themselves from making such decisions. Grow up. That’s what families do for each other. And if your family is so dysfunctional as to make it genuinely unwise, use close Christian friends, a lawyer, even a pastor can do that. However, to be honest this will be tough. Dysfunctional families tend to rush to crises to prove their “love”. And they can challenge your living will naming someone outside the family on the same grounds as they challenge a dying will.
Second, I haven’t ruined the book. Sure it’s about pity, but it’s also about guilt and who in the end lives with it.
[i] Yesterday in Bible Class, there was a discussion on LGBTQ and whom the real enemy was, Satan for “we wrestle not against flesh and blood” and consequently the place of pity for those in Satan’s clutches. Let me be clear here: our Lord in the Gospels makes a distinction between the demonized and the demon. He casts the demons into pigs not the person. There is a place for pity in the sense that Heather who “has two mommies” from birth is going to be a pitifully confused child, teen, and adult. There are people convinced at an by an adult LGBTQ person that their adolescent confusion can be relieved by accepting they really are a man trapped in woman’s body and vis versa. There is line to be drawn. We aren’t to pity the person knowingly, willingly defending their sin and sinfulness. We aren’t to pity the LGBTQ movement or individual activist coming for children and the God-given order of sexuality.
