Pro-Life

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On days like this –

Some days it’s hard to remember that God cares about the minutiae of our lives, like our names, or how many hairs are on our heads, or the common ordinary tasks that make up our lives.

No water here at the Farm today. I went to wash up the kitchen, nothing. Cousin came out, wrangled the very heavy lid to the well up,  crawled inside (after using a stick to clean out the spiderwebs – I have black widows in there).

Bad switch. It’s just gone “poof!” He’s gone to town to pick up a new one. No idea how much it costs, which has me very much on edge. I have an interview next week to pick up another piano family, but money is tight this month, to say the absolute least of it.  A few inches gained, then knocked back a couple yards.

I keep telling myself, I’ve weathered worse! but the older I get the less resilient I find myself when meeting these challenges. I wasn’t raised to this kind of self-reliance, and it’s not my nature; I’m not one of those women who can just roll forward without timidity in these crises. Sickness, death, disappointments? I can face those and hold your hand when they come to you – but these very practical mechanical details of daily living leave me feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.

On the positive side – the weather is mild, although cold (for us) is forecast for the next few days. Sun’s peeking out a bit, which is a plus.

And I’m really, really pleased to be working on Deliberate Engagement. It’s been a bit time-consuming, but things are stabilizing, I think (?) and settling into a steadier pace. Matt’s a joy to work with. Read his page on Debate to get a glimpse of why I respect him so much and feel privileged to get to work with him. I pray that our efforts can make a concrete difference in this part of the culture wars.

Keep praying for us, please.

Update: the switch cost less than $20 – I am breathing again.

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A BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT (sort of)

I am pleased, grateful and downright awe-filled to announce the inauguration of the “Project” I’ve been so smug about the past few days.

A week ago, I got an email from my friend Matt, whom I’d bumped into at the comment board at change.gov. “We’ll brainstorm later…” was one of the things he said. I just chuckled.

A couple days later I got another email. He was analyzing FOCA and wondered if I’d be interested in helping him with a little project…

That project is this – http://deliberateengagement.wordpress.com

Please go take a look. Send us an email or post in the combox. Send us more resources! Matt’s done an amazing job of compiling, but a lot of the people who are looking at the site already (he posted a link to his “Debate” page on change.gov) are not Catholics, and in order to bridge the gap between us, we need Protestant and Protestant-friendly resources.

We can’t be divided into multiple armies over this: Catholic Army, Protestant Army, Areligious Army…  We have to be united against the common opposition and the one who orchestrates all this nasty stuff.

Keep praying for us, please. This blog site was opened during the Vigil of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. I think she gave us the name. I know she sent some other affirmations this way. Please – just remember us during your regular daily prayers.

Door’s open. Coffeepot is on. Come on over.

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I suspect I’m going to live…

Happy New Year, everyone! and a belated Greeting in the beautiful Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, too.

I’ve had the cold everyone else has been complaining of. Ever notice how we speak of having bad colds, as if there were any other kind? (Oh! I’ve been enjoying the most delightful cold this past week! – uh, no.)  Fever is down now, and so is metabolism, so my sort of crazy hyperactive buzz on 2 hours’ sleep per night has come to a crashing halt.

But it’s been an amazing week. I’ve been posting pretty frequently on the comment section at change.gov – the premature government webpage devoted to selling the President-elect and his agenda to the American people. I hope he and his staff take note of the fact that very few of the posters there are in support of FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act).

As a consequence of that involvement, a friend contacted me about collaborating on a project, and we’ve been working together for an intensive three days (today not so much so, as he is also a dad of 3 and I have sort of stared at the computer today, wondering how to spell “and.”) I’ll be posting a link here – I hope tomorrow. Still very very new and embryonic, but with potential to provide information on abortion and FOCA to people who wouldn’t be scrounging around reading things like the Senate Bill, much less Evangelium Vitae. Ya know?

I just want to share with you a couple of “God moments” I’ve had, working on this. I opened the webpage for the blog just after midnight, January 1. As I was doing the preliminary work on it, earlier in the evening, I was very, very conscious of the fact that I was working in the Vigil of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and I asked her to dedicate the project to her most dearly beloved Son.

Matt had told me to go ahead and get the site opened and ready to post in – and to do that I had to have a title. I wanted something really cool and elitist (I confess it) and super-smart-sounding, but all the elegant names I could think of were taken.

One phrase kept pushing into my conscious thoughts. I didn’t like it; it wasn’t fancy enough. The thought persisted. I thought, well, if he hates it I can pull it down and repost under another domain name. I opened the blog and threw a few teaser remarks to demonstrate what a page and a post could look like, and I threw in a few links – all this just to give him the sense of the space and the potential it holds. I planned to throw all my teaser stuff out when he sent me the first of the drafts he was working on for insertion.

He loved the title. He sent me a nice, lengthy explanation of the significance of the title as it is used as a military term. I had wanted to toss it, but the title of the blog just fits.  Was that a “coincidence?” or was “Mama Mary” giving me a special gift?

My teaser opening post, he loved. It’s been edited a bit, and made into a keeper.

The introduction to the site – he sent me notes before he actually saw the blog site. I went to delete my notes and insert his, and discovered that the two sets of text fit together as if we’d been sitting at one table working side by side to create a joint post.

Moreover, what I’m learning in this project is wonderful. I would never have dove into the actual text of the Freedom of choice act for myself, had it not been for this. I sure as heck would never have opened the agenda mess from NARAL that is now integrated as part of the Obama agenda! I needed to see this. I needed to be engaged with it. This is just getting started.

Okay – off to bed for me. Please pray for me, and for my friend, and for this project -God bless you all.

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FOCA – Engaging the Battle

Written by a friend who insists on anonymity:

If you believe the Bible to be the inerrant inspired Word of God, then you and I agree.

However, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, the Democratic National Committee, many of the policy makers in the new Congress and the new Administration and a list of folks posting here do not!  Telling them about the Bible is like quoting poetry to a pig: “It wastes your time and irritates the pig.”  Worse, that “other side” doesn’t respond positively to the Bible and arguments based on this Truth are not (immediately) effective.  Human persistence will only do so much toward defeating that resistance and will often cause people to leave the debate unchanged.

So I suggest each of you to politely and substantively state a moral case for your opposition to some part or other of FOCA and its related measures proposed here.  That will work; I promise.  It is some effort but not really.  God’s Truth is reflected in all the smaller truths of biology, relationships, justice and freedom.  If you read a claim that women will be hurt financially tell them about the real science that proves that the most effective way out of poverty – especially for a minority single mom – is marriage.  If they argue against parental notification laws because of cases of incestuous abuse, ask them if they’ve read the law and quote back to them the case law that proves how rarely that occurs.  Then ask them if the thousands of proven incest and statutory rape cases presented to Planned Parenthood somehow don’t apply.  Polite and reality based facts (not just science & figures but experience & human reality) will win this fight.

Do not censor yourself.  If you have a faith experience that’s relevant tell it.  If you know a person hurt by abortion or longing to adopt say so.  Say that your faith tells you to be compassionate.  Write that God’s word speaks truth about your experience.

Of most importance before all of this is do not surrender prayer; it will certainly do much more for this fight than our small words.  We all know this but I repeat it for my benefit and perhaps yours.  PRAYER is our first tool and web logging and dialog are only a supporting role.  Already you and I are lifting up these issues and these decision makers in prayer.  If you’re reading this and writing on the blog but haven’t spent at least 15 uninterrupted minutes (or 30 or 60 or 90!) in prayer in the last 24 hours then you are wasting your time!  Worse you’re wasting your best weapon in this fight.  You’re not preparing for this work.

Finally, do not threaten anyone with anything.   A person who sins so greatly that he will surely go to hell won’t change his ways because we tell him so.  He will change when he responds to God’s gift of Grace.  Each of us has lived that and has changed for the better.  However a threat or other words written in anger serve to make us look foolish and confirm their hardness of heart.  Worse the occasional unstable person will read it and think ‘those sinners deserve to die’ and will act on that thought.  I hold that an act of violence is a PRO-CHOICE act.  We cannot go there and must discourage others from going there.  God – who may have a plan to change their hearts – will give them what they deserve; we cannot.

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Fighting FOCA

The Freedom of Choice Act, which President-elect Obama has promised to enact as his first item of business as President, is a piece of legislation that begs the passionate opposition of every American citizen – even those among us who are pro-choice. The Senate version of the bill, introduced by Barbara Boxer (why does this come as no surprise?) is located here. Read it carefully. Note the “Findings,” which for all practical purposes set the groundwork for understanding the motivations and ambitions of the advocates and sponsors of the bill. Notice the language, word choices, definitions – the absence of definitions. Pretend it is a college text for which you are about to face an exam.

In the next few days, you’ll be seeing more here about this issue. Please pray for me, and for a friend, and for a project he is developing and I am supporting.

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The Disordered orientation of Abortion

Last night, late, I posted a Prayer Need (over in the box on the left-hand side of the blog, there) for D., a young woman who just found out she’s pregnant and who is on her way to Planned Parenthood on Monday.

She is being steered in that direction by a woman who used to be a volunteer for that organization – and is promoting it as if she’s still affiliated with them.

Ladies – it is natural for a woman to protect her children, after birth and before. It is natural for a woman to hold close to her heart the mysteries of a pregnancy, the secret glories of having new life formed in our bodies.

To deny those mysteries – to deny the humanity of our unborn – to deny the LIFE of our unborn – to call the unborn “parasites” –

This is a severely disordered behavior. It defies our womanhood. It defies the best and the noblest and the most beautiful and the most feminine of our womanly nature.

Fight. Fight against this wrong. Fight to remind women of our calling in cherishing, nurturing, and caring for the helpless and defenseless.

Fight. Pray for those who have been so deeply wounded that these disorders of denying Nature should be so openly manifested in their behavior and conduct.

Fight. Oppose these incidents of legislating from the bench that is “Roe v. Wade” and other bogus court rulings of recent years.

Fight. Protect the unborn, the weak, the helpless, the disenfranchised, the defenseless.

Fight. Remember our foremothers who opposed slavery. Abortion is a slavery to an evil master who cares not one bit about our worth as human beings, but cares only for the exploitation of our resources and our weaknesses and our fears in order to make his own profit. Remember that even the abolitionists and the suffragettes opposed abortion. Most of them even opposed contraception and activists like Margaret Sanger who only wanted to use abortion and contraception (two sides of one ugly coin) to eliminate nonwhites from her “Master Race” ideals.

Fight. Open your hearts, your purses, and if need be your homes to render the argument that women have no choice null. Open them so that women who are being pressured by selfish parents and even more selfish boyfriends and husbands can find refuge to do what is natural to them – to protect their children.

Fight. Tell the world that human life begins at conception. Tell the world that abortion profits and benefits only men. Tell the world that real women protect and love their children. Tell the world that abortion wounds women even as it kills our babies.

Fight.

UPDATE 1:42 p.m.: A prime example of the evil of utilitarianism – a hallmark of the Nazi holocaust – is reported in Lifesite News. Abortion, this radical feminist, Camille Paglia, admits, is killing – but it is a justified killing!

Ladies and gentlemen – if this doesn’t bring brilliant illumination on just how far our Enemy is prepared to go to destroy souls, I don’t know what will.