Beliefs must rarely be rigid. There are few “givens” in the world. Our faith, for example, places life just about higher than anything else. Life is paramount and even in the last whispers of a person’s life can come redemption. That is why we never hasten a person’s demise. And yet.
Ambroise Pare is called the father of modern surgery. In the sixteenth century Pare traveled with the armies of France into battle. Once entering a barn to stable his horse, he found four dead soldiers and three wounded. The faces of the living were contorted with pain. Their clothes still smoldered from when gunpowder had burned them.
One solider asked if Pare could cure them of their ailments. Pare shook his head. One old solider then rose and cut the throats of those in agony “gently, efficiently, and without ill will.”
Pare cried that this man was a demon!
“No,” came his response. “I pray God that if ever I come to be in that condition, someone will do the same for me.”
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