March 27, 2005 - The path from Tampa to Tallahassee to Atlanta to Washington DC is well worn. In the last seven years it has been traveled again and again. A panoply of judges; state and federal; liberal and conservative; Democrats and Republicans have ruled on the case. From the trial level to the highest courts in both the state and federal systems the answer has been the same. There is no further judicial appeal available to Robert and Mary Schindler. The man-made appliance by which liquefied nutritional elements and water have been delivered directly into the digestive system has been withdrawn. The hand of man has been lifted from her and the life and death of Theresa Marie Schiavo has been delivered back unto the hands of God. It is significant that the curtain is falling on this drama just as the Christian world prepares to celebrate the discovery of the empty tomb and its evidence of a triumph over death.

It is hard to reconcile that core Christian belief in the promise of resurrection and eternal life celebrated each Easter with the passionate fear of death exhibited in the streets outside the hospice in Pinellas Park. It is harder to reconcile a sincere religious belief with the political exploitation of a tragic drama. Spouting platitudes in public and only privately acknowledging that their purpose is to energize the Republican base the President and his Congressional leaders have seized on Terri Schiavo as their latest wedge issue designed to divide one America from the other. They claim to be motivated by the purest of motives, a Christian reverence for life. That reverence was absent when they voted to slash appropriations for Medicaid.

Death comes to each of us. It is as much a part of life as is our birth. Death came to Terri Schiavo fifteen years ago. Her heart stopped and she began to die. Part of her brain, that part that directs her life and personality was killed and beyond the power of man-made medical miracles to recover. For fifteen years the shell of her life has been maintained by man’s intervention holding death at bay. For fifteen years she has been suspended between life and death consigned to a man-made purgatory neither able to live nor permitted the release of death.

The old Appalachian folk hymn tells us that we have to “walk that lonesome valley. Ain’t nobody else can walk it for you. You have to walk it by yourself.” Terri Schiavo has been walking for fifteen years. It is time for her to rest.