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A growing number of primary care doctors, spurred by frustration with insurance requirements, are bringing "health care for billionaires" to the masses, including people on Medicare and Medicaid, and state employees.
It's called direct primary care, modeled after "concierge" medical practices that have gained prominence in the past two decades. In those, doctors typically don't take insurance, instead promising personalized care while charging a flat fee on a monthly or yearly basis. Patients can shell out thousands to tens of thousands of dollars annually, getting care with an air of exclusivity.
Direct primary care is much less pricey. Patients pay $100 a month or less directly to the physician for comprehensive primary care, including basic medication, lab tests and follow-up visits in person, over email and by phone. The idea is that doctors can focus on treating patients, since they no longer have to wade through heaps of insurance paperwork. They spend less on overhead, driving costs down. And physicians say they can give care that's more personal and convenient than in traditional practices.
It's legal under the Affordable Care Act, which identifies direct primary care as an acceptable option. But since it doesn't cover specialists or emergencies, consumers still need a high-deductible health plan. Still, the combined cost of the monthly fee and that plan is often cheaper than traditional insurance.
The health law's language was "sort of [an] 'open-for-business' sign," said Jay Keese, a lobbyist who heads the Direct Primary Care Coalition. Before 2010, between six and 20 direct primary care practices existed across the country. Now, there are more than 400 group practices, and more on the way.
The total number of participating doctors may exceed 1,300. The American Academy of Family Physicians estimates that 2 percent of its 68,000 members offer direct care.
"This is a movement — I would say it's in its early phase," said AAFP President Wanda Filer, a doctor in Pennsylvania. "But when I go out to chapter meetings, I hear a lot more interest."
Even though the fees are much lower than concierge care, they could still be a nonstarter for people on a limited budget, said Robert Berenson, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. "Can people afford this? Or is it [still] just for well-off people?"
Doctors already offering direct care say they see patients across all incomes. Dr. Stanford Owen of Gulfport, Miss., says he treats "waitresses and shrimpers, as well as doctors and lawyers." He charges $225 for initial visits, $125 for a follow-up, if needed, and then about $50 per month after.
Experiments underway to include Medicaid and Medicare patients in direct primary care could help mitigate concerns about affordability, Berenson says.
In Seattle, a company called Qliance, which operates a network of primary care doctors, has been testing how to blend direct primary care with the state's Medicaid program. They started taking Medicaid patients in 2014. So far, about 15,000 have signed up. They get a Qliance doctor and the unlimited visits and virtual access that are hallmarks of the model.
"Medicaid patients are made to feel like they're a burden on the system," said Dr. Erika Bliss, Qliance's CEO. "For them, it was a breath of fresh air to be able to get such personalized care — to be able to talk to doctors over phone and email."
Qliance has a contract with Centene, an insurance company in the state's Medicaid program. That pays the monthly fee covering primary and preventive care, and also covers specialty and emergency services. If patients need a specialist, they'll get referred to one who accepts Medicaid.
Advocates in other states, including North Carolina, Idaho and Texas, are watching to see how well the Qliance pilot project works while considering rolling out similar programs.
There's little data so far. Bliss estimated that participants will cost Washington state between 15 and 20 percent less than traditional Medicaid. Before launching the Medicaid pilot, Qliance contracted with some companies that provide insurance to their employees, and found that employees who opted for direct primary care cost about 20 percent less than employees in traditional health insurance. Because patients get better care upfront, the theory goes, they're less likely to develop expensive chronic illnesses.
Still, expanding this approach is tricky. The number of participating physicians is low. There's already a nationwide shortage of primary care doctors. In this model, physicians see fewer patients, potentially exacerbating that shortage's impact. Also, Medicaid negotiates the monthly payment rate, which could be less than what doctors might set independently.
Employers are considering direct primary care, too. The state of New Jersey is launching access this year for state employees including firefighters and teachers. It's a hybrid. When participants pick a primary doctor, they can choose a direct primary care-style practice that gives around-the-clock access to preventive and primary care services. The monthly fee has not been determined.
Participants will get benefits such as same-day appointments for nonemergency visits. When they pick this plan, which will be administered by Aetna and Horizon, they will have access to specialists who participate in the insurers' plan networks.
In New Jersey, about 800,000 people will be eligible to enroll in direct primary care. The state is hoping to attract and accommodate at least 10,000 in the first year.
That's appealing, said Mark Blum, executive director of America's Agenda, an advocacy group that helped develop the project. He cited interest in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and Nebraska as well. "There are a lot of eyes on New Jersey right now."
Direct primary care is also finding traction with Medicare Advantage, the private health plan alternatives to traditional Medicare. Iora Health, a direct primary care system that contracts with unions and employers, a year ago launched clinics in Washington and Arizona catering to Medicare Advantage patients.
Iora is setting up similar clinics in Colorado and Massachusetts.
Despite its potential, the direct care model faces the challenges of integration into existing payment systems and attracting more participating doctors. And navigating Medicare and Medicaid rules can deter physicians.
"It's not for the faint of heart," said Dr. Rushika Fernandopulle, Iora's CEO.
This story is part of a collaboration between NPR and Kaiser Health News.
Copyright 2023 Kaiser Health News. To see more, visit Kaiser Health News.

subset: commoncrawl


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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
And I'm Audie Cornish. $7 billion - that's how much Citigroup will be paying to the Justice Department for misleading investors during the housing boom. The settlement was announced today after months of tense negotiations. U.S. officials say the bank sold mortgage-backed securities to investors even though it had been warned the mortgages had big problems. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Citigroup was never a major player in the subprime mortgage industry, but U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says the way it did business was especially bad.
U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: The bank's misconduct was egregious, and under the terms of this settlement, the bank has admitted to its misdeeds in great detail. The bank's activities shattered lives and livelihoods throughout the country and also around the world.
ZARROLI: Citigroup hired outside due diligence firms to inspect its mortgage-backed securities and it was warned repeatedly that many of the mortgages underlying them were flawed. Either the property wasn't worth what was claimed, or the borrower's credit was poor. But bank employees ordered these outside firms to change the grades on the loans so they'd be acceptable to the markets. And they continued to sell the assets to investors, including pension funds and charities. Meanwhile, Holder says, the bank's share of the subprime market and its profits grew.
HOLDER: Despite the fact that Citigroup learned of serious and widespread defects among increasingly risky loans that they were securitizing, the bank and its employees concealed these defects.
ZARROLI: U.S. officials say there was no question that Citigroup was aware that the mortgages were faulty. They quoted one Citigroup trader who said in an e-mail, I went through the diligence reports and think we should start praying. I would not be surprised if half these loans went down.
For Citigroup, today's settlement represents an opportunity to put the past behind it and try to move forward. The settlement includes a $4 billion civil penalty, which Justice Department officials say is a record. Another half billion will go to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the rest will go to various kinds of mortgage relief such as paying back states that bought Citigroup's bonds. The fines are meant to hurt, and they will, says Christopher Whalen of Kroll Bond Ratings.
CHRISTOPHER WHALEN: You know, it's probably 25 - 30 percent of total earnings for the year. That's a lot of money.
ZARROLI: In fact, Citigroup said today that the settlement, which is partially tax-deductible, will wipe out almost all of its profit for the last quarter. But Whalen says the settlement, just like the others negotiated by the Justice Department, sends the wrong message. He says there is plenty of evidence of fraud by individuals at the banks, but U.S. officials have chosen not to pursue them. Instead, the fees get paid by the banks themselves and end up coming out of the pockets of shareholders.
WHALEN: Essentially, we're punishing the institutions and the shareholders, but we're not prosecuting the officers and directors for what seem to be pretty clear-cut acts of securities fraud.
ZARROLI: U.S. officials responded that the settlement doen't absolve the bank or its employees of criminal liability. They also say other settlements could be announced very soon. Holder's office is known to be in talks with Bank of America, and those negotiations are expected to resume now that today's settlement has been made public. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Product Description
The demands of life leave many of us tired, stressed, unable to think or concentrate, and increasingly unable to cope with all the additional things that life throws at us. It may be that pressures to perform come from outside sources, but often it's our own dreams and goals that demand us to push more, sometimes beyond our capabilities.
There's nothing wrong with that. After all, we have only one life to live and some of us want to squeeze as many things in there as we possibly can. But we are also human and have certain limitations.
ATP Science specifically formulated Adrenal RX to assist in the support of adrenal and brain function during times of physical and mental stress using high-quality herbs and clinically researched ingredients.
Stress and being busy will always be part of our lives for most of us, and while we cannot always take the stressful situations away, we can improve the way we cope with it.
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- Not coping with or adapting to everyday stress very well and letting little things get to you; suffering from the symptoms of stress and mild anxiety.
- Feeling the burden of inflammation and needing anti-inflammatory support to function.
- Caring for a family member who needs long term care leaving you with limited time to recharge your own batteries.
Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera)
Ashwagandha or Withania somnifera has been used as an adaptogen in helping to cope with physical and mental stress, and to help promote the body's adaptation to stress
Rhodiola rosea is used by many people to enhance their natural resistance to both mental and physical stresses against fatigue. It also has anti-inflammatory properties to help relieve the symptoms of stress.
Schisandra Chinensis
Schisandra chinensis or wu wei zi has been traditionally used in Western herbal medicine to maintain/support adrenal gland health. Schisandra has been shown to relieve the symptoms of mild anxiety
Turmeric (Curcuma longa)
Curcuma longa or turmeric as it is more commonly known belongs to the ginger family of plants and is one of the oldest cultivated spice plants in Asian countries where it has been traditionally used in Asian and Western herbal medicine for the treatment of various disorders. Turmeric helps to remove the burden of stress through its anti-inflammatory effects. Your body can't afford to wait to see what your stress is before reacting. Inflammation from various triggers can add burden to your stress nervous system. Removing the inflammatory burden can really help.
ATP Science Adrenal RX contains 90 capsules per bottle.
Each capsule of Adrenal RX contains:
- Curcuma longa 100 mg
Equivalent: Curcuma longa (Dry) 2.5 g
- Rhodiola rosea 50 mg
Equivalent: Rhodiola rosea (Dry) 1 g
- Schisandra chinensis 200 mg
Equivalent: Schisandra chinensis (Dry) 4 g
- Withania somnifera 100 mg
Equivalent: Withania somnifera (Dry) 1 g
Benefits of ATP Science Adrenal RX
- Anti-inflammatory/relieve inflammation
- Traditionally used in Western herbal medicine to support adrenal gland health
- Enhances the body's adaptation to stress
- Relieves symptoms of stress
- Relieves symptoms of mild anxiety
- Support general mental wellbeing
- Traditionally used in Western herbal medicine to promote refreshing sleep
- Traditionally used in Western herbal medicine to support healthy sleeping patterns
When using Adrenal RX:
Always read the label.
Follow the directions for use.
If symptoms persist, talk to your health professional.


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The Moving Child Care Forward Project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada's Connections program, is designed to broaden and deepen debate and understanding of early childhood education and child care (ECEC) policy issues. The project's goals: knowledge mobilization to promote research, inform public and policy dialogue and to develop effective responses to complex policy issues to better serve young children and their families. The Moving Child Care Forward Project is a joint initiative of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, Centre for Work, Families and Well-Being at the University of Guelph, and Susan Prentice, Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba. read more about the project
Each brief responds to three questions:
What? So what? Now what?
Policy briefs may be accompanied by one or more short commentaries that augment the content or ideas or present related points of view.
read more
November 13, 2014,
Winnipeg, MB
Conference presentations are now available for review.
Moving Child Care Forward has created a directory of Canadian researchers working on ECEC policy issues. It will contribute to connecting the broad range of players with an interest in ECEC policy through sharing information about ongoing Canadian research, policy and practice developments.


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Diabetes Health's Resolution Versus Change With Your 2024 New Year's Resolutions
I have never been one to make New Year's resolutions. It stems from my life experiences. Every year at my fitness club, the gym is flooded with new faces from January until late February. Then, as the days tick by, the club becomes less and less crowded.
Likewise, at the beginning of each semester at the university where I am employed, the school is packed with students, all of them buzzing with excitement and conversation. The stairwells are crowded, there are lines for every restroom, and signs advertising student events are posted on every flat surface. Then about a month in, the parking lots become sprinkled with open spaces, and the classroom where I teach has empty desks.
Resolutions come and go. The word "resolution," it seems, implies a dream or a wish, not a goal. And really, there is nothing magical about January first. People believe that the first day of the year is a fresh start, a chance to do the right thing, finally, for real this time. But soon, the willpower, conviction, and focus dwindle, and people fall back into their usual pattern of being complacent about whatever it was that they were dissatisfied with before January first.
How can you really make a change in your life? In particular, how can you keep a vow to better care for your diabetes?
Know why you are making the change. What is your motivation to make a change in your life? Charity Lampretch, a fitness instructor, decided to change her diet after her multiple sclerosis diagnosis drastically. She says, "Real change happens because the thought of staying the same becomes worse than the fear of change." She knew that a failure to change could lead to spending some of her younger years in a wheelchair—something that she desperately wants to avoid. Suzanne Bourgeois has had type 1 diabetes for nearly twenty years. Her motivation to become a "born again diabetic" a few years ago came from realizing that her lack of diabetes control meant that she might not have the future she wanted: a husband and children. Suzanne worked to stop her unhealthy behaviors and is now married and expecting a baby in April. For me, keeping my diabetes under control means that I feel healthy and strong enough to care for myself and my family. She establishes your "why" gives you something to fall back on when you begin to waiver.
Recognize what might make you stumble, and be ready to combat. The charity notes that we can expect to face challenges when making changes in our lives because the temptation is all around us. Suzanne shares that, ultimately, each person is in charge of their health and, thus, their destiny. The stumbling blocks can add up and eventually wear down a person, so you must be prepared. For example, celebrations and holidays present me, like most people, with the challenge of unhealthy food options at every turn. To combat this, I always take a healthy dish to share, and I make sure that I eat only small servings of foods like desserts, which are still my favorite. Having a plan is empowering and will help you stay on track. Jean Weiss, a woman who recently was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, notes that each of us must either choose to change or, ultimately, choose to suffer. Although suffering is sometimes easier, initially, the change will eventually lead to better health and satisfaction.
Set a reasonable goal. Vowing to start going to a gym five times a week, throw away all of your favorite junk foods, and drop twenty pounds in a month isn't reasonable. Although each of those is a healthy goal, each one takes careful planning and execution. Choose one goal to start with, and make sure that what you are changing is something that can be changed reasonably. Suzanne shares that when she experiences a high blood sugar and corrects it, she recognizes that she has met a goal. Sometimes I have a daily plan, such as making sure that I have vegetables at each meal or checking my blood sugar more frequently. Diabetes management is all about reasonable, frequent, and small changes.
Meet with a professional. If you want to make changes to your diet, a dietitian can help. If you need to start or change your exercise routine, try a personal trainer or a motivated, knowledgeable, and physically fit friend. If you are just frustrated with your diabetes, start at square one, see your endocrinologist or certified diabetes educator, or ask your general practitioner to refer you to one. By consulting a professional, you'll be better prepared to set a reasonable goal and approach that goal with realistic expectations. Michelle Preston, a certified diabetes educator and registered dietitian, suggests that a medical professional like herself can offer solutions, support, and encouragement regarding a patient's diabetes. In my walk with diabetes, I have found that my change issue isn't something practical like eating healthier: The real problem I face is a lack of encouragement and possible, reasonable solutions.
Speak kindly and visualize success. Remember the childhood chant, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"? This is simply untrue. Words are powerful forces. Post favorite quotes or single words of motivation around your home, in your car, or at your desk at work. Upon getting my A1c down recently, I posted the lab report on my refrigerator and wrote, "I CAN DO IT!" in large letters on the paper. Every time I went into the kitchen, I was reminded of my goal to make good food choices. Likewise, each morning I remind myself of one of my favorite Bible verses: "This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it." Camille Subramaniam, a woman who recently left her teaching job to pursue her dream of writing and traveling, says, "Once you change your mind, your entire life changes. But truly changing your way of thinking and envisioning a new you is like scaling Mt. Everest. I'm still training, but as I get further up the mountain, the world's opening up for me in incredible ways."
Reward yourself. Have you ever witnessed parents toilet training their children? The parents get creative, offering their children incentives like stickers, candy, or coloring books. Remember the gold stars from grade school or the bonuses provided by employers? Reward systems are strong motivators, and they work. The charity suggests that after you meet a goal you've set, reward yourself with something you enjoy, such as a massage, a new item (a pair of shoes, for example), or time to yourself (an afternoon of book browsing). Be specific when setting the goal (is it attainable?) and the reward (is it inspirational?).
Change is possible. And many times, it's necessary for you not only to live but also to live well with diabetes. May you find the conviction and motivation to make the changes you need to right now, no matter what the date on the calendar!


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Copy and paste to seamlessly embed maps on your website
You can create an embedded Google Map without writing any code. Just copy and paste your data into BatchGeo and our tool will do all the work for you. Maps are hosted on BatchGeo servers but appear seamlessly in your website through simple embed code that we generate for you. Why spend hours writing Javascript and wrangling with the Google Maps API when you can quickly create a map and embed it in your website using BatchGeo?
Get StartedExample of embedded map
Above you see an example of a map that was created using BatchGeo and has been embedded in this page. There are a number of ways to share your maps, including with a direct link to the full screen version, a snapshot map badge, and the popular seamless embed you see above.
After you add your data to create your map using our interactive workflow, you will be given the option to save it. Make sure you include your email address while saving the map and you will be automatically emailed a copy of the code needed to embed the map your web site. Saving a map also gives you the option to change it in the future with updated data, a different underlying style, or other advanced mapping features.
Below is an example of the email you will receive with the embed code.
BatchGeo's embedded maps go beyond the basic capabilities of a Google Map without requiring any programming knowledge. You copy and paste your Excel data (or other spreadsheet) with location and other data. The addresses, zip codes, and other locations are quickly geocoded into map coordinates. These latitude and longitude values are stored along with your descriptive data, such as titles of each place, or other values like sales numbers. All of this data, both geographic and otherwise, is then available to the BatchGeo engine.
In the case of the example above, each location contains the airport's name, its country, its airport code, and the number of annual passengers who pass through the airport. Your visitors can click on your embedded map to see more about the place each marker represents. Additionally, BatchGeo's grouping technology allows users to filter the map by certain ranges of passenger volume, or by country.
It would take a programmer many hours to create and maintain even one embedded map with the interactivity available within BatchGeo's tool.
Map Badges
In addition to the traditional embedded map, BatchGeo provides a locator map badge for your website. When you don't want to devote the space required for a full map, these badges are a great option to provide a quick preview of your map. Visitors to your website can click to see the entire map, including the data within each marker.
Above you can see the badge version of the World's Busiest Airports. This map badge is a simple image, so it can even be saved and shared in non-web formats. Despite their small size, a lot of information can still be communicated in just a little space.
To see your data in a map badge or fully embeddable Google Maps, try BatchGeo now.


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Our super comfy fleece hats have your buddy's head at the front and his bottom at the back - a sure way to turn some heads! Want the matching scarf?? go to our 'Sets' page to get a discount on both items!
- Machine washable, line dry
- Soft snuggly polyester fleece


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Oh I've been hoping for it for a long time. I've been rubbing my Gossip Genie desperately to make this happen. In 2010 I wished for it here. And since then every 6 months or so. When Rachel and Michael Sheen broke up I wished for it again here.
Rachel McAdams and Jake Gyllenhaal?
They had dinner together the other night. Someone posted it on Instagram:
Easy, now.
It hasn't happened…yet.
They're working on a new movie called Southpaw. And they both very recently were in relationships. Just a month ago, Rachel was kissing her boyfriend Patrick Sambrook. Click here for a refresher. (Ahem, I know what you're thinking.) And around the same time, Jake was back with model Alyssa Miller. Click here to see that.
A dinner between colleagues is not unusual. And given that they're both rather private and seen here comfortably public, I'd say that they're public because there's nothing to be private about.
(Whining) But WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY NOTTTTTTTTTTTT????!!!!
(Thanks Anna!)


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QUICOM (Quantitative Inspection of Complex Composite Aeronautic Parts Using Advanced X-ray Techniques) is a Level 1 project funded by the Seventh Framework Programme, which aimed at taking the next big step in the characterization, simulation and modelling of aeronautic components.
The knowledge and understanding related to the defects of CFRP parts are key factors for the application of a damage tolerance approach, and for increasing the safety of composite structures.
From the beginning of the project, the development of QUICOM techniques remained closely aligned to the industrial requirements and guidelines, in order to effectively correspond to end-users needs.
The progress beyond the state of the art focused on the extensive use of X-ray computed tomography (XCT) techniques to detect defects in small high volume parts, composite metallic parts, as well as complex and large composite structures.
The QUICOM technology platform assures thorough inspections at high levels of detail, and hence allows for reducing the design, production and rework costs, due to an enhanced understanding of the real inner 3D structures. The availability of such an inspection can lead to higher structural efficiency and higher performance compared to recent state-of-the-art.
Scanning Protocols and XCT Techniques |
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Detective in Nea Smyrni, Private investigation office in Nea Smyrni
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Chapter IV.
Of those things which in the work of redemption are peculiarly ascribed to the person of the Son.
Secondly, The Son was an agent in this great work, concurring by a voluntary susception, or willing undertaking of the office imposed on him; for when the Lord said, "Sacrifice and offering he would not: in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin he had no pleasure," then said Christ, "Lo, I come, (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God," Heb. x. 6, 7. All other ways being rejected as insufficient, Christ undertaketh the task, "in whom alone the Father was well pleased," Matt. iii. 17. Hence he professeth that "he came not to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him," John vi. 38; yea, that it was his meat and drink to do his Father's will, and to finish his work, chap. iv. 34. The first words that we find recorded of him in the Scripture are to the same purpose, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" Luke ii. 49. And at the close of all he saith, "I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do," John xvii. 4; calling it everywhere his Father's work that he did, or his Father's will which he came to accomplish, with reference to the imposition which we before treated of. Now, this undertaking of the Son may be referred to three heads. The first being a common foundation for both the others, being as it were the means in respect of them as the end, and yet in some sort partaking of the nature of a distinct action, with a goodness in itself in reference to the main end proposed to all three, we shall consider it apart; and that is, —
First, His incarnation, as usually it is called, or his taking of flesh, and pitching his tent amongst us, John i. 14. His "being made of a woman," Gal. iv. 4, is usually called his ἐνσάρκωσις, incarnation; for this was "the mystery of godliness, that God should be manifested in the flesh," 1 Tim. iii. 16, thereby assuming not any singular person, but our human nature, into personal union with himself. For, "forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also 175himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil," Heb. ii. 14. It was the children that he considered, the "children whom the Lord gave him," verse 13. Their participation in flesh and blood moved him to partake of the same, — not because all the world, all the posterity of Adam, but because the children were in that condition; for their sakes he sanctified himself. Now, this emptying of the Deity, this humbling of himself, this dwelling amongst us, was the sole act of the second person, or the divine nature in the second person, the Father and the Spirit having no concurrence in it but by liking, approbation, and eternal counsel.
Secondly, His oblation, or "offering himself up to God for us without spot, to purge our consciences from dead works," Heb. ix. 14; "for he loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood," Rev. i. 5. "He loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it," Eph. v. 25, 26; taking the cup of wrath at his Father's hands due to us, and drinking it off, "but not for himself," Dan. ix. 26: for, "for our sakes he sanctified himself," John xvii. 19, that is, to be an offering, an oblation for sin; for "when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly," Rom. v. 6; — this being that which was typified out by all the institutions, ordinances, and sacrifices of old; which when they were to have an end, then said Christ, "Lo, I come to do thy will." Now, though the perfecting or consummating of this oblation be set out in the Scripture chiefly in respect of what Christ suffered, and not so much in respect of what he did, because it is chiefly considered as the means used by these three blessed agents for the attaining of a farther end, yet in respect of his own voluntary giving up himself to be so an oblation and a sacrifice, without which it would not have been of any value (for if the will of Christ had not been in it, it could never have purged our sins), therefore, in that regard, I refer it to his actions. He was the "Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," John i. 29; the Lamb of God, which himself had provided for a sacrifice. And how did this Lamb behave himself in it? with unwillingness and struggling? No; he opened not his mouth: "He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth," Isa. liii. 7. Whence he saith, "I lay down my life. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again," John x. 17, 18. He might have been cruciated on the part of God; but his death could not have been an oblation and offering had not his will concurred. "But he loved me," saith the apostle, "and gave himself for me," Gal. ii. 20. Now, that alone deserves the name of a gift which is from a free and a willing mind, as Christ's was when "he loved us, and gave himself for us an offering 176and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour," Eph. v. 2. He does it cheerfully: "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God," Heb. x. 9; and so "his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree," 1 Pet. ii. 24. Now, this oblation or offering of Christ I would not tie up to any one thing, action, or passion, performance, or suffering; but it compriseth the whole economy and dispensation of God manifested in the flesh and conversing among us, with all those things which he performed in the days of his flesh, when he offered up prayers and supplications, with strong cries and tears, until he had fully "by himself purged our sins, and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high," Heb. i. 3, "expecting till his enemies be made his footstool," chap. x. 13, — all the whole dispensation of his coming and ministering, until he had given his soul a price of redemption for many, Matt. xxvi. 28. But for his entering into the holy of holies, sprinkled with his own blood, and appearing so for us before the majesty of God, by some accounted as the continuation of his oblation, we may refer unto, —
Thirdly, His intercession for all and every one of those for whom he gave himself for an oblation. He did not suffer for them, and then refuse to intercede for them; he did not do the greater, and omit the less. The price of our redemption is more precious in the eyes of God and his Son than that it should, as it were, be cast away on perishing souls, without any care taken of what becomes of them afterward. Nay, this also is imposed on Christ, with a promise annexed: "Ask of me," saith the Lord, "and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession," Ps. ii. 8; who accordingly tells his disciples that he had more work to do for them in heaven. "I go," saith he, "to prepare a place for you, that I may come again and receive you unto myself," John xiv. 2, 3. For as "the high priest went into the second [tabernacle] alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and the errors of the people," Heb. ix. 7; so "Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by his own blood entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us," verses 11, 12. Now, what was this holy place whereinto he entered thus sprinkled with the blood of the covenant? and to what end did he enter into it? Why, "he is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us," verse 24. And what doth he there appear for? Why, to be our advocate, to plead our cause with God, for the application of the good things procured by his oblation unto all them for whom he was an offering; as the apostle tells us, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous," 1 John ii. 1. Why, how comes that to pass? "He is the propitiation for our sins," verse 2. His 177being ἱλασμός, a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, is the foundation of his interceding, the ground of it; and, therefore, they both belong to the same persons. Now, by the way, we know that Christ refused to pray for the world, in opposition to his elect. "I pray for them," saith he: "I pray not for the world, but for them thou hast given me," John xvii. 9. And therefore there was no foundation for such an interceding for them, because he was not ἱλασμός a propitiation for them. Again; we know the Father always heareth the Son ("I knew," saith he, "that thou hearest me always," chap. xi. 42), that is, so to grant his request, according to the fore-mentioned engagement, Ps. ii. 8; and, therefore, if he should intercede for all, all should undoubtedly be saved, for "he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them," Heb. vii. 25. Hence is that confidence of the apostle, upon that intercession of Christ, "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us," Rom. viii. 33, 34. Where, also, we cannot but observe that those for whom he died may assuredly conclude he maketh intercession for them, and that none shall lay any thing to their charge, — which breaks the neck of the general ransom; for according to that, he died for millions that have no interest in his intercession, who shall have their sins laid to their charge, and perish under them: which might be farther cleared up from the very nature of this intercession, which is not a humble, dejected supplication, which beseems not that glorious state of advancement which he is possessed of that sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high, but an authoritative presenting himself before the throne of his Father, sprinkled with his own blood, for the making out to his people all spiritual things that are procured by his oblation, saying, "Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am" John xvii. 24. So that for whomsoever he suffered, he appears for them in heaven with his satisfaction and merit. Here, also, we must call to mind what the Father promised his Son upon his undertaking of this employment; for there is no doubt but that for that, and that alone, doth Christ, upon the accomplishment of the whole, intercede with him about: which was in sum that he might be the captain of salvation to all that believe on him, and effectually bring many sons to glory. And hence it is, having such an high priest over the house of God, we may draw near with the full assurance of faith, for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified, Heb. x. 14. But of this more must be said afterward.
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I wonder if most Christians remember when they first heard the name of Jesus. I certainly don't. Nor can I remember, as a child, believing in Him, or disbelieving in Him. He was just something to know about, like the fact that dinosaurs once walked the earth, or that the earth revolved around the sun. Children are often romanticized, rather inconsistently, as being both remorselessly skeptical and infinitely credulous. They see fairies at the bottom of the garden, and they see through the Emperor's New Clothes. I did neither.
I do, however, recall moments in childhood when I glimpsed the sublime through the forms of Christianity. I don't think I was even aware of this at the time; they were like seeds that dropped into the soil of my consciousness, only to shoot forth many years later.
There was a banner with the Chi-Ro symbol hanging in my classroom in my second year of schooling, when I was seven or eight. (Most Irish schools were Catholic schools back then—in fact, the situation is only beginning to change today.) I recognized, in some deep part of my young mind, that this symbol spoke in a register altogether different from any of the posters on the classroom walls or any of the pictures in our schoolbooks, with their smiling cartoon faces. It undercut them; it belonged to a different order, by virtue of its grown-up mysteriousness, its sober colors, its refusal to be blatant or sugarcoated. It was like a lowered tone in a grown-up conversation; instantly, the child realizes that there's something going on here.
Holy pictures, too, fertilized my imagination, seemingly without my even noticing it. I remember two holy pictures in a bedroom in my step-grandfather's house. One of them showed a Madonna and child, I think; at first I thought the haloes were astronaut's helmets. I don't even remember what the other showed. But I can remember the feelings they inspired in me. Once again, they seemed to belong to some deeper reality—both more solemn and more romantic—than the technicolored, glowing, kinetic carnival around me, on TV and in shop windows and comics. I preferred the day-glow carnival, for sure. I loved kids' cartoons and brightly-painted collectible action figures and the glass and neon of Dublin city centre. Anything somber or earnest gave me the creeps. But somehow, those flashes of religious awe still pierced through the haze of a commercialized, banalized, infinitely distracted late twentieth-century childhood—by the grace of God.
There is also the memory of an afternoon singing Christmas carols with my class in the local shopping centre, on a crisp December day. I remember thinking our voices sounded like the voices of angels, and feeling the magnetic pull of the transcendent in the words we were singing. Of course, I didn't understand my own feelings at the time.
I had a brief conversion at the age of fourteen or fifteen. I was visiting my aunt, a farmer's wife, for the summer holidays. In her little village, everybody went to Mass, and a full church is itself a stimulant to a dormant religious imagination. But it was the gospel text that electrified me. "I am the vine, you are the branches"—for the first time, as far as I can remember, a religious idea had appealed to my sense of wonder. This was at an age when I was discovering poetry and the beauty of ideas. That Christianity could be something pulse-quickeningly romantic had never even occurred to me.
I remember, during this holiday, somehow acquiring rosary beads and (I think) a miraculous medal, along with a poster displaying the Ten Commandments. I remember taking a keen interest in another country church I visited, and writing a poem about the Resurrection on a glossy-leaved notepad when I got back to Dublin. I also remember, when I went back to school, looking at a statue of St. Francis and feeling grateful that I was attending a secondary school run by nuns, and that I was surrounded by an atmosphere of picturesque piety. But my mini-conversion soon fizzled out, one way or the other, and I slid back into my religious indifferentism.
I was a keen writer of poetry at this time, and I remember writing satirical poems that used Scriptural allusions. One attacked the women who gossip together after Mass, the other attacked the nuns who ran my school—both very unfair attacks. But in neither did I attack Christianity itself. I can't remember ever being hostile to the Catholic Church, despite having gone through the inevitable communist phase rather early. (I remember reading John Reed's Ten Days That Shook The World in the school study hall.)
I don't remember ever going to Mass aside from the times when I was taken by my mother. I didn't even realize that Sunday and holy day attendance was a requirement for a Catholic.
The religious instruction we received was poor, apart from our first year, where an old and intensely loveable nun taught us about the mysteries of the rosary, the Fatima apparitions, the story of Maximillian Kolbe, and other solid fare. After that, religion class became, more or less, a succession of inspirational videos (mostly feature films like Shadowlands and Not Without My Daughter) and pop psychology. I don't really blame our religion teachers for this. My generation had become so hardened to religion, through the propaganda of television and pop culture, that catechesis had become almost impossible. Whatever doctrine the teachers did try to impart was met with taunting questions and smirking incredulity, for the most part.
One thing did stick in my mind, to an extent I never could have anticipated. In our fourth year, our religious teacher asked us to define a mystery in the religious sense. One boy replied, "Something you can never understand". The teacher told him that was a negative way to view it, and that a better way was to think of it as "something about which you never stop learning more." Already, as a teenager, I was haunted by the idea that the waters of life were too shallow for my yearnings—that it was possible in principle to come to the end of all thought, of all discovery, of all fulfillment. This existential anxiety was to grow in the years to come, and I never forgot that single sentence that held out such hope.
Meanwhile, something odd had happened to me, something that wasn't supposed to happen to any young person in an Ireland that was going full steam ahead towards becoming a modern, progressive country. Slowly, bit by bit, I became a cultural and social conservative. I knew by my early teens that I loved the poetry of Yeats and Wordsworth and Keats, and despised the free verse of Seamus Heaney and his school. (I refused to write about Seamus Heaney in my Junior Certificate exam, and suffered in my grade as a result.) I read the poems and speeches of romantic nationalists from Ireland's recent past—a past that has fallen into disfavor with our national elites, and much, if not most, of the general population—and fell in love with their agrarian, anti-modern vision. Black and white photographs of Irish social life in the early twentieth century seemed to show me a nobler, simpler, more aesthetically-pleasing spectacle than the vista of supermarkets and designer fashions I saw around me every day.
I was the only kid in my school who was in favor of school uniforms. When I went to college, I ended up arguing with my whole class, including the lecturer, against the legalization of cannabis, and for the censorship of sick movies. The world I had been born into seemed utterly drained of innocence, reverence, tradition, community—everything, I thought, that gave life splendor and depth. I became a conscious contrarian and rejoiced in swimming against the tide of fashion, in being considered a young fogey.
Patriotism, poetry that rhymed and scanned, traditional gender roles, the superiority of the countryside over the city, monarchism—I embraced them all. But still I didn't set foot inside a church, or get on my knees to pray, or make any effort to practice the faith I had been born into. In fact, by this time, I had become a definite atheist, though a reluctant one. I only admitted my atheism on a handful of occasions, and I would have rushed to defend the Catholic Church against any of its critics. In his memoir Gentle Regrets, the English conservative philosopher Roger Scruton describes his own, ultimately frustrated, approach towards Catholicism. He writes that he could happily assent to every article of Catholic faith, except the existence of God. I was in the same boat.
Why couldn't I believe in God? In Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis describes a mental disposition that had grown up in him from the misfortune of lacking one joint in his thumb. He believed that the clumsiness to which this doomed him had made the whole cosmos seem hostile. Things would never come right; stubborn reality would always frustrate him. Ergo, there could be no Supreme Being. At least part of my unbelief could be traced to a similarly illogical idea. I was a shy, impractical, scatter-brained, lonely young man. Nothing I tried seemed to come to fruition. Yearning was always disappointed, I observed; and since the deepest of our yearnings is for the divine, there could be no such reality.
Besides, the rather Spenglerian thrust of my conservatism was that all things were in a state of decline. Suburbs replaced villages. Popular culture drowned out national culture. Chivalry gave way to hustle and salesmanship. The death of God fitted in pretty well with this trajectory.
Then, in my early twenties (I had studied journalism in college, but by this time was working in a university library, as I still do) I started to write intensively. I had always written poetry, but now I started writing fiction, dramatizing (amongst other things) the sacrifice of tradition and custom and ceremony to the all-devouring god of progress. I wrote two fantasy novels, a horror novel, and a collection of horror short stories (all still unpublished).
Anyone who writes knows that writing is a journey; a journey in search of meaning. You simply cannot write without seeking for something below the surface of life, something that links moment to moment and incident to incident, something that gives profundity and purpose to a story's climax. My fingers tapping on the keyboard were drawing me through the labyrinth of human life; and, as G.K. Chesterton says, nothing is more horrifying to man than the thought of a maze without a centre.
But how could there be a centre, a direction, a purpose worth caring about, without God, the Alpha and Omega, the magnetic North of all existence? What was the point of any story if, as Macbeth said, life itself was a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing? Because it couldn't mean anything, if the atheists were right; that much was horrifyingly clear. I fell into the deepest depression of my life, for several months. It became a kind of mental torture, at times. Nothing in my life, nothing I could even hope to achieve, meant a thing without God. I craved ultimate meaning as a man in the desert craves water.
And, for the first time in my life, I began earnestly searching for God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that the search for Him demands "every effort of intellect." I had never thought more deeply or more furiously than I thought in these summer months, when the entire cosmos seemed as insubstantial and pointless as a bubble floating in air, a bubble that could disappear at any moment. I read G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis and several other Christian authors. I browsed the internet, a silent follower of the shrill and never-ending God debate in cyberspace. I watched debates between apologists and skeptics on Youtube. Nothing, nothing, seemed important except this ultimate question—and how could anyone think otherwise? How could I ever have thought otherwise?
I wanted to believe so badly and yet I was so frightened of being hoodwinked by delusion—after all, look how Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the arch-skeptic Sherlock Holmes, had fooled himself with table-rapping and fairy photographs, in an effort to prove to himself that his deceased wife and his son were not lost forever. I needed something cast-iron. Prose poetry and Pascal's wager wouldn't be enough.
It would be easy for anyone to say that my powerful desire to believe in God had decided the issue before hand, and it would be impossible for me to prove that was untrue. But, in reality, quite the opposite was the case. I stress-tested every argument for God to a ridiculous extent, far beyond any standard of proof I would apply to any other claim or theory, even if my life depended on it. CS Lewis has written (I forget where) that wanting something to be true can just as well prejudice us against it as for it. This is certainly true in my case. I have a defense mechanism against wishful thinking that has gone rogue and makes everything desirable seem a priori implausible. Even as I sought God, all my prejudices were against Him, all my defenses were up.
The choice was between Catholicism and atheism. I was sure of that. No other force on earth showed the same dedication to its message, the same refusal to submit to the spirit of the age, as the Catholic Church. No other institution defended the good things of life—family, community, purity, patriotism, festival, masculinity and femininity, ritual and ceremony—so assiduously. Every other religion fudged, temporized, showed itself plainly to be "human, all-too-human". It was Rome or bust.
Two books, in the end, were decisive in bringing me peace and conviction; two books published a century apart. One was GK Chesterton's masterpiece and spiritual memoir, Orthodoxy. This book convinced me that the Christian faith was the key that fit the lock of life; not Christianity seen as a set of propositions, but as the lived faith of the saints and of the Church through the centuries. Christianity was staggeringly different from everything else in the human story; and Christianity had simply kept finding the answers to man's problems and yearnings, century after century, in a way that guaranteed its supernatural origin. But how can I summarize Orthodoxy? Those who have read it will understand, and those who haven't shouldn't waste another day before doing so.
The other book was The Last Superstition, a spirited reply to the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins and his cronies) by the American Thomist philosopher Edward Feser. It was tough going, and I had to read it twice (and slowly). But I lapped up every word. Here was someone delivering the goods-- at last! No appeal to mystery. No maiden-auntish scolding of atheist arrogance or irresponsibility. No special pleading. Simply a lucid, watertight demonstration that philosophical materialism could not possibly be true, that the existence of an all-wise, all-good, all-powerful God was logically inevitable, and that the traditional proofs of God's existence—the proofs that every tub-thumping infidel found so simple to refute—were much more subtle than their critics realized, and were in fact unanswerable when properly understood.
Not that I understood them all; but I was convinced by the argument from contingency alone. This argues that everything in the physical world is dependent upon other things, and the chain cannot go on forever but must terminate in something outside the physical world, something necessary and eternal and perfect. This seemed, and seems, rock-solid to me. It takes further development to arrive from this eternal, necessary something to God as we understand him, but the arguments are there, and convincing.
After months of submersion, I had broken the surface of the water. I could breathe again, and the world around me was newborn.
So now I make my way to Mass every Sunday, pray the Rosary almost every day, try to give myself a long-delayed religious education, and generally do my best to swim against the tide of Ireland's ever-burgeoning secularism. Do I do this to be a contrarian? No. Do I do this because the Catholic Church is the great bastion of social and cultural conservatism? No. These things might have led me to the church porch, but once I entered, I knew they could never be enough.
Christ will have us on His own terms, or not at all. After all, what were the Pharisees and the Sadducees but conservatives who tried to fit the living Christ into a mortal worldview? Conservatism and liberalism, tradition and revolution, service and freedom, self-fulfillment and self-renunciation—all of our categories break down in that ultimate Presence.
I know that my journey has only begun, and that even my own motives for making it remain impure and inadequate. But I also know there is only one way in which they can be purified, and that is through the sacraments and God's healing grace, as dispensed through the true Church that was founded in the holy fire of Pentecost.
To learn more about Maolsheachlann's work with the GK Chesterton Society of Ireland please visit their website.


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Updated January 26, 2022 at 3:48 PM ET
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring after serving more than two decades on the nation's highest court, Supreme Court and Biden administration sources tell NPR. Breyer is expected to make the announcement at the White House on Thursday.
Breyer — professorial, practical and moderately liberal — wrote many of the court's legally important but less glamorous decisions and sought, behind the scenes, to build consensus for centrist decisions on a conservative court.
Breyer's retirement gives President Biden his first opportunity to name a new justice to the court. During the 2020 campaign, he pledged to name a Black woman if he got the chance. The two leading contenders are said to be federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was on President Barack Obama's shortlist for the court in 2016, and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, who served as assistant and then deputy solicitor general in both Democratic and Republican administrations prior to her nomination to California's highest court.
Both women are young, in terms of Supreme Court appointment. Jackson is 51 and Kruger is 45. And both have stellar legal credentials.
The White House declined to comment before Breyer's official announcement. Asked whether Biden would honor his campaign pledge to nominate a Black woman to the court, press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated Biden's commitment to stand by that promise.
Breyer's decision to retire is a relief to liberal Democrats after seeing Republicans push through three nominees from President Donald Trump using some unprecedented tactics. Indeed, last year, some liberal groups publicly pressed Breyer to retire, even demonstrating in front of the Supreme Court. The justice, however demurred. In an interview with NPR, he said that the decision on when to retire "has many complex parts to it. I think I am aware of most of them and will consider them."
His decision to remain for another year was likely due in large part to the major issues the court was about to confront — abortion, guns, separation of church and state, and potentially affirmative action. These are all matters that he has strong feelings about, and he thought that his 27 years on the court might enable him to prevent a wild swing to the right. In the 2020 term, he had played just that role.
But this term, when compromise seemed to elude even his skilled hand, the 83-year-old justice decided it was time to step down. As he put it in an NPR interview in September that he does "not want to stay on the Supreme Court until I die."
The court's term ends this summer, and it's expected he'll retire then.
Hollywood's idea of a Supreme Court justice
Breyer, though not a household name, has been an important figure on the Supreme Court for more than a quarter century.
Indeed, if he hadn't been a justice, Hollywood might have made him up. Deeply intellectual — fluent in not just law, but also philosophy, art and culture — he is also absent-minded, geeky, self-deprecatingly funny, physically fit, but so preoccupied that he three times suffered serious injuries when knocked from his bicycle.
In the 2020 court term, Breyer remained an important force, authoring some of the court's most important decisions. He wrote the court's 8-1 decision expanding free speech rights for students and declaring that a school could not punish a 14-year-0ld cheerleader for her off-color, online Snapchat message disparaging her school, which she posted from off campus.
In another major case, he wrote the court's decision tossing out a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, for a third time.
Perhaps his most publicly well-known decision came in 2016 when he wrote the court's abortion decision striking down a Texas law, copied in other states, that closed nearly half the clinics in the state without any demonstrable safety justification. The decision dispassionately dissected and demolished the state's claim that its motive was to protect women's health and safety.
As Breyer observed, prior to enactment of the challenged law, abortion was among the safest medical procedures in the state. Childbirth, he pointed out, was 14 times more likely to cause death, colonoscopy 10 times more likely and liposuction 28 times more likely, and yet, none of these other procedures was similarly regulated. Instead, as he noted, the Texas law closed 20 clinics, the result being "fewer doctors, longer waiting times, increased crowding and significantly greater travel distances, all of which, when taken together burden a woman's right to choose."
The decision had no majestic language, but its effect was profound — at the time — in reaffirming the rights of people to terminate pregnancies.
Still, in many respects, Breyer's monuments were not so much the decisions that he authored as the decisions that he influenced.
Behind the scenes, Breyer pushed and prodded his fellow justices for consensus on everything from Obamacare to affirmative action in higher education.
In 2013, when the court's conservatives seemed poised to invalidate all affirmative action programs in higher education, the justices instead, by a 7-to-1 vote, sidestepped the issue, sending the case back to the lower courts for further fact-finding. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the decision, but Breyer's hidden hand was said to be behind the compromise ruling. And three years later, Kennedy would, for the first time, embrace affirmative action in higher education.
On other occasions, Breyer's compromise approach was more out front, as when the justices split in 2005 over religious displays on public property. In one case, the Ten Commandments, engraved on a stone monument, along with other monuments, were displayed in a public park; in another, the Ten Commandments were displayed in a courthouse. Four justices thought the Constitution's mandate for separation of church and state barred both. Four justices thought neither was barred. Breyer split the difference, saying that the Ten Commandments were permissible in the public park but not at the courthouse.
Breyer's dissents
Sunny in disposition and naturally optimistic, Breyer believed in persuasion and viewed a dissent as a failed opinion. But he did dissent, and sometimes passionately — for example, in 2007 when a five-justice majority struck down voluntary school desegregation plans in Louisville, Ky., where the schools had once been segregated by law, and in Seattle, where they had been segregated in practice.
In his dissent, he observed that the court had long allowed local school districts considerable leeway to prevent re-segregation. But now, he said, it was striking down the same kinds of plans that had long been permitted because of the votes of five justices, two of them new to the court.
"It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much," Breyer said in a lengthy dissent from the bench. The decision, he added, would undermine racial progress in America and would go down in history as "a decision that the court and the nation will come to regret."
It was hardly the only time that Breyer would see the court's handiwork — including his own work — undone by a new and dramatically more conservative court majority.
Breyer, for instance, was one of the three justices who wrote the Supreme Court's 2003 majority opinion upholding the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, aimed at limiting the influence of big money in politics and government. But seven years later, he would see the law gutted by a different and more conservative majority.
Although briefly dejected, Breyer returned to his optimistic ways, always hoping to persuade, and sometimes succeeding. To keep him on his chosen path, he made time for a short period of meditation each day.
A life with many different jobs
Stephen Gerald Breyer was born in San Francisco, the son of a lawyer for the city's public schools. He was so smart that his mother worried that he would be too bookish and so ensured that he was not. By age 12, Breyer had attained the rank of Eagle Scout and as a teenager held summer jobs digging ditches for the local utility and working in the kitchen of a local summer camp.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford, went to Oxford as a Marshall scholar, then went to Harvard Law School, where he was a law review editor, and then won a Supreme Court clerkship.
While in Washington, he met Joanna Hare, the daughter of a British viscount. They were married and had three children, and Mrs. Breyer went on to have a distinguished career in Boston at the Dana Farber Clinic, where she was a psychologist counseling young cancer patients and their families.
Her husband would spend decades as a professor at Harvard Law School, but with several stints in Washington — in the Justice Department's antitrust division, as assistant prosecutor in the investigation of the Watergate scandal and as chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, then chaired by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Kennedy wanted results and he taught Breyer an important lesson about forging consensus. "He'd tell us, 'Don't worry so much about credit,' " Breyer recalled. " 'Credit is something where, if you succeed, there will be plenty of credit to go around, and if you fail, who wants the credit!' "
While working for the committee, Breyer helped enact legislation that deregulated the airline industry and legislation to make federal criminal sentencing more uniform.
He was so successful that when President Jimmy Carter nominated him to the federal appeals court in Boston in 1980 just days after Ronald Reagan was elected, Republicans let the appointment go through — an act of cooperation that is simply unimaginable today.
The road to the Supreme Court
Breyer served as an appeals court judge for 14 years, eventually becoming chief judge, and serving on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, created under the sentencing law he helped shepherd through Congress.
In 1993, he was a finalist to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. He was about to come to Washington for an interview with then-President Bill Clinton when he was knocked off his bike by a car. With broken ribs and a punctured lung, he took the long train ride to Washington for the meeting. He was in considerable pain at the time, and the word was the interview didn't go particularly well. Clinton chose Ruth Bader Ginsburg instead, but a year later, when a second vacancy occurred upon the retirement of Justice Harry Blackmun, Breyer got the nod.
On the court, he proved a moderate liberal who worked well with moderate conservatives like Sandra Day O'Connor. When she retired and was replaced by the far more conservative Samuel Alito, the court, under new Chief Justice John Roberts, seemed to veer dramatically to the right. Privately, Breyer seemed puzzled by the new brand of conservative and what he perceived as a more hard-line, even aggressive, agenda. But in time, his congenial disposition returned, and as once again, he began looking for ways to achieve consensus.
Taking on originalism
At the same time, he sought to make the public case against the conservative doctrine of "originalism." He wrote two books arguing for a different interpretation of the Constitution and often debated conservative Justice Antonin Scalia in public. Scalia's often-repeated view was that the Constitution, as he put it, "is not living but dead," and it must be interpreted as the Founding Fathers would have. Breyer's view was that the founders understood perfectly well that nothing is static, citing for example, the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
"Flogging might have been fine in the 18th century," Breyer said in a 2010 interview with NPR. "That doesn't mean that it would be OK and not cruel and unusual punishment today."
What's more, he observed, even historians don't agree on what the founders meant at the time they wrote the Constitution.
"History is very often in these matters a blank slate or a confused slate, and if you want to govern the country by means of that history, then you better select nine historians and not nine judges to be on the court," Breyer told NPR. "And I'll tell you, those nine historians will very often disagree with each other."
The job of a Supreme Court justice, Breyer said, is to apply the Constitution's values to modern circumstances, using the tools of judging — precedent, text and the purpose of the constitutional provision at issue.
You can think of the Constitution as laying down certain frontiers or borders, he said. "And we're the border patrol."
"Life on the border is sometimes tough, and whether a particular matter — abortion or gerrymandering or school prayer — whether that's inside the boundary and permitted or outside the boundary and forbidden, is often a very, very difficult and close question," he said.
Breyer's approach to the border was definitely pragmatic. Thus, when a coalition of liberal and conservative justices invalidated the mandatory federal sentencing guidelines, Breyer dissented but was able to preserve the guidelines in a separate opinion by making them voluntary instead of mandatory. That gave judges more wiggle room in sentencing but preserved the guidelines as a measuring stick.
Changing his mind on the death penalty
In many criminal cases, he sided with the court's conservatives, viewing various practices as reasonable and necessary for law enforcement.
But on at least one subject, he changed his mind. In 2015, after years of trying to make the death penalty work more fairly and equitably, he basically gave up, declaring that the time had come for the court to reconsider whether capital punishment is constitutional.
As much as he sought consensus on the court, Breyer was at the same time realistic, realizing that as time went on and more conservative Republican appointees joined the court, he was often in the minority. He tried his best behind the scenes to persuade, and perhaps more often than many realized, he won major concessions, without taking any personal credit. But there was no denying that he lost more often than he liked.
"I would prefer that I was not in dissent quite so often, but it's a big country," Breyer told NPR in 2010. "And it's not such a terrible thing to have people on the Supreme Court who think very different things. And when I'm in dissent and I get discouraged, so what? I mean, I've written down what I thought and every case is a new day."
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