How do we adjudicate life and death medical decisions?  In 2014, one of my cousins passed away from mesothelioma, an insidious, and largely incurable, form of cancer which doesn't regularly strike women in their sixties.  It was tragic, really:  she left behind a husband, two children, and three grandchildren.

    I mention my cousin because a few months ago her husband and I were talking about the ethics of medical costs and decision making.  We agreed that it was very easy for someone to assert that the nation needs to ration, or at least curtail the disbursement of medical care to someone who is clearly dying.  However, as he put it, "I would have done anything to preserve Liz's life."  When we come face to face with death in our family, ethics and financial considerations suddenly become very fungible:  ethics, be they deontological or consequential, quickly fall prey to human emotion.  Numbers and politics cease to matter, and a living outcome becomes the only thing.

    How sad it is when we "weaponize" medical care and decision making and make them political or moral animals in service of larger, and usually irreverent, ends.  I venture to say that, in the big picture, there is a balance.  The deeper problem is understanding enough to find it.

    When we are dealing with matters of death and the deep feelings of longing and transcendence that accompany it, we will eventually find ourselves confronting something far greater:  God.

    And what will we do?