- The chimes that rang with no wind (see August 26 ’13 in the archives) are gone. I stopped on Saturday, when the owner was home, to ask him if he removed them because they were haunted. He said no, and was amused by my story. He just said that they kept him awake at night.
- I have not painted in about two months. I figured I would have some time when I stayed home after Sam’s birth; I usually take two weeks off work, and while the first is hectic, the second allows for some leisure. But becausethis birth was so intense and my bride so worn out not only did I end up taking a month off (with pay, thank God and the Union) but there was not a moment of rest. I had hoped to work on an icon I began ages ago today, my day off, but this fussy baby put a damper on that, and I ended up running the two homeschooled children up to North Canton to a classical co-op they have been attending, and hanging out in the local library….
- My recently acquired car -I hesitate to call something with 159,000 miles on it “new”- has a CD player, so I have been listening to some music I haven’t heard in years. And while I think Dylan, his voice having blown its last gasket years ago, has slipped into a rather formulaic mode -tight band, classic American music- I have a new appreciation for his early stuff, which was pretty breathtaking. And funny: there is a song on Bringing It All Back Home called “On the Road Again”, that starts out “Woke up this morning there were frogs inside my socks” and has the great line “So they gave me brown rice, seaweed and a dirty hot dog”. Which is the photo I want to send to Rod Dreher’s blog, as he has asked readers to send him pictures of their dinner (!), which so far has resulted in a lot of intimate shots of bourgeois life…
- So the Democrats are all breathless about Wendy Davis running for Texas governor? Listen, the woman made her name agitating for absolutely no restrictions on abortion at any stage. Polls show that most Americans reject that stance, feeling sympathy for babies when they start to look like babies (there is a reason that prolife groups generally show late-term fetuses). Getting all excited about someone that far from the mainstream is about as stupid as the Tea Partiers thinking that shutting down the government in a hissy fit was a good idea. Dumb Evil Party, meet Evil Dumb Party.
- Speaking of prolifers, they need to change their tone. It is safe to say that absolutely no late term abortions are performed on a whim, because the mom suddenly decided that 6 or 8 months into the thing that she doesn’t want a baby. It is always serious: birth defects, or a prognosis of a short and painful life. That does not make it right, but to not acknowledge this makes one look callous and foolish. Similarly, early abortions are not a recreational activity. Few abortions are not accompanied by the tears of the mother. Prolifers who ignore this are not going to convince anyone of anything. Again, the fact that this “choice” is a painful one, not a casual one, does not make abortion right, but I have been increasingly finding “prolifers” annoying, and not just because of their inconsistencies in endorsing GOP social and foreign policy.
Autumnal Ephemera
October 21, 2013 by Daniel Nichols
Boy that is coldly calculating. Just because a child is handicapped in some fashion and therefore aborted at 8 months, that means we need to be more sympathetic to the mother? Sympathetic to the mother is to help her before she aborts the child so she can make a decision that will not haunt her the rest of her life. If it is somehow more okay to have a late term abortion because the child is handicapped then what does that make a handicapped child? A mistake? A non human because it is not perfect? It’s even worse that a mother would kill a child because it is not perfect! My cousins almost did that to little David, now an adult. The first report came back there was something wrong so they had amniocentesis with the firm purpose of killing David if there was something wrong. Luckily he made it out of the womb alive. However, he would have been better to have been adopted as his life is very messed up and his parents are divorced. That is the fruit of sin, plotting together to kill their own child. The womb is probably the most dangerous place in America. 56 million Americans have died there by their parent’s choice. Some people do have late term abortions for frivolous reasons. I’ve read their accounts. They break up with their boyfriend, oh well. But the number of children born with Down’s Syndrome is dropping drastically. Why? because they are being deliberately killed before they are born. Yet I’m sure we all know many happy families with the most delightful Down’s Syndrome children. My friend has a daughter like that, and she said, “Susan you can’t imagine the joy this little girl has given us.” At Church on Sunday, one family has Down’s Twins and a normal baby younger than that. They have guts. However, I believe it is necessary to be sympathetic to anyone who has had an abortion, whether late term or early term. They suffer terribly, and sermons against abortion are hard on them. I don’t think we should ever give them the impression that what they did was okay, but we should look in their face and see the face of Jesus Christ. And in this fashion we may help them seek forgiveness and be healed. God bless you. Susan Fox
Listen to late Dylan a little more – the soul is more subtle but deeper, and the voice is more expressive though harsher. Even Dylan himself ackowledges that nothing touches his first eight or so albums (his autobiography is a great light read), but his last four albums are masterpieces too. It just takes time to hear through the seemingly trite Americana and the scratchiness. Love and Theft came out on 9/11/2001 and though I don’t read into coincidences I have to say that album in particular had a depth and power that rewards many listens. It was quite a consolation at the time.
Though it’s true the humor of Dylan’s early stuff is what snagged me at first. In fourth grade my dad got a cassette of Another Side of Bob Dylan and lyrics like “I set my monkey on a log and ordered him to do the dog, he wagged his tail and shook his head and went and did the cat instead” won me instantly even though I understood none of the allusions.
Susan, I don’t think Daniel said or intended that late abortion is okay. He said you have to meet people where they are, instead of trying to meet (and greet and beat) them where they aren’t.
I specifically said “this doesn’t make it right”. But it is important to note that this is something that, really, no one just goes “Lah de dah, I changed my mind.” And such cases present a challenge to those who oppose abortion. If an expectant couple are given the diagnosis that their baby is going to live one month of pain, how does one respond to that? Natural law arguments offer no help, as reason alone cannot ascribe any meaning to suffering (ditto for all mercy killing, for that matter). The challenge seems to be how to argue that this short painful life is worth living, if the couple making the decision are not Catholic or Orthodox (and I’m afraid that Protestantism has an undeveloped theology of redemptive suffering).
As for Ms Fox’s assertion that losing one’s boyfriend is “trivial”, that may not seem the case to the woman in question, facing the prospect of giving birth and raising a child, suddenly alone. Thank you, Ms Fox, for demonstrating the obliviousness I ascribed to “prolifers”…
The thing that strikes me about diehard prolifers and diehard Catholics is that they have tons of zeal and no reasoning ability. No reading ability either. I saw, Daniel, that you stated that difficult circumstances does not make it right, but diehard prolifers and diehard Catholics prefer to shoot from the hip and vilify the speaker rather than actually try to understand what the other person is saying.
Perhaps, above all, that is what has handicapped the prolife movement more than anything else: the failure to listen. And to read.
It does bring to mind something. There is a movie coming out soon about some American soldiers who had the choice to save their own lives by killing teenage civilians in Afghanistan, but chose to let them go. If they had killed the civilians, I think many prolifers would have said, “Well, it is wrong to kill unarmed civilians, but you know, they were terrified, they probably thought that they had no choice, so we shouldn’t hate on them too much, even though they committed murder.”
“Tangled Up in Blue” is one of my favorite songs in the world. We had the opportunity to see Dylan in concert a few years back. What a hoot that was! His voice was gone, and he practically hobbled onto the stage, but he still gives a good performance, and the crowd full of weed-smoking hippies my parents’ age was incredibly fun to watch.
Re: prolife movement. I have come to believe there is likely a lot of corruption at the top, as well as a tendency to exploit emotions on this highly explosive topic (see story of Fr. Euteneuer, who ran one of the largest prolife organization in the US, if not the world, and turned out to be sexually molesting psychologically ill women under the guise of exorcism–the fact he had written a book entitled “Demonic Abortion” probably should have been a clue something was off. Meanwhile, people at the top at HLI covered for him) and even a misogynistic element to some of it. The movement certainly hasn’t really gotten much of anywhere in the past 40 years, and there is a reason.
Most pro-choice people I know hardly believe abortion is a wonderful thing. Thankfully, the loonies like Wendy Davis are few and far between.
“a tendency to exploit emotions on this highly explosive topic.”
This defines the diehard prolife and the diehard Catholic (diehard Christian movement) perfectly.
Now who is not listening. Who cannot read. I also said, “However, I believe it is necessary to be sympathetic to anyone who has had an abortion, whether late term or early term. They suffer terribly, and sermons against abortion are hard on them. I don’t think we should ever give them the impression that what they did was okay, but we should look in their face and see the face of Jesus Christ. And in this fashion we may help them seek forgiveness and be healed.”
Unlike you, I don’t put you in a box, and label it “pro-what” or “anti-what” I simply am appalled that anyone could talk about being MORE sympathetic to a late term versus an early term abortion mother for the REASON that the late term mother probably killed her handicapped child out a misspent sense of mercy! I agree that we can’t expect good discernment from a non-Catholic re: having a sick child who will be in pain. It’s very true that the couples who chose to have a child they know will die shortly after birth, and to hold that child and to love it to its natural end are incredible people.
But certainly we can hope that others will observe their example and try to emulate it. I have many close friends who have had abortions, and after they converted many of them realized their reasons were flimsy and they were as appalled at their actions as I would be had I done the same thing. However, they received nothing but sympathy from me. Maybe you guys should stop judging others. Susan Fox
But I did realize you were not advocating late term abortion. I never thought you were. I apologize for jumping down your throat. I’m sorry you hit my red button.
One friend we called the one-armed bandit because she always had her baby girl on her arm. She was well beloved, a beautiful girl, a good Catholic at peace and free at last to do as she wished — have a baby. This friend had four abortions. “Why did she have four abortions?” you may ask. Well she was beautiful — she was a ballerina — and her mother felt pregnancy would mar her good looks. So when she got pregnant out of wedlock her mother got her an abortion. Trouble is she didn’t really want the abortion. She wanted the baby. So she got pregnant again, and again, and again. When I met her she was married to a really good young Catholic man and she had her first live baby. She was so happy. He absolutely adored her. But she spent so much time getting pregnant before she was married to try and undo the first abortion that she gave me some advice for the day I got married. She told me certain things I won’t mention that women can do in order to give their husbands sex without being involved in the act themselves. She really didn’t want sex. She just wanted the baby. Now I think I’m talking to men, and I hope you understand I think it’s horrible to treat a husband that way. It cheats him of what should be the greatest joy in marriage. It actually makes my heart hurt. But I do not judge my dear friend, the one-armed bandit, because she had such an awful upbringing from her mother. Yet that mother’s sin continued to haunt the daughter and the son-in-law in their marriage. The wages of sin is death.
My roommate had an abortion. She had a one-night stand with a guy in Seattle, and got pregnant. That isn’t why she had the abortion. Her mother did not want anyone to know that her daughter was pregnant out of wedlock so she insisted on the abortion. Her daughter dutifully had the abortion, but she told all her co-workers, friends and roommates what had happened and that she was having an abortion. Therefore the purpose of the abortion from her mother’s point of view was completely frustrated. I did not utter one harsh word to my roommate. I did give her material on a crisis pregnancy center. I watched in anguish as she smoked dope to try and dull the pain of the choice she was making.
My very best friend for my whole life had an abortion. It was her mother’s fault also. Her mother aborted one of her siblings (before it was legal!). My friend grew up having this dream: her parents were planning to kill her. Her father was sad about it, but her mother simply said it simply had to be done. My friend was terrified in the dream because her beloved parents were going to kill her. Years later after she had her own abortion she found out that her parents had aborted one of her siblings when she was a child. My friend was raped in an institution by her psychologist and got pregnant, so, of course, her mother talked her into an abortion. She really wasn’t in any condition to resist, but abortion only complicated an already awful emotional mess she was in. It didn’t help in any way shape or form. My friend became Catholic, struggled with guilt for that act (not because she was Catholic). I was the sounding board for some of those struggles which were quite painful to her because I was her roommate right after she converted. (By the way, I listened. I didn’t judge.) Today, she is one of those pro-lifers who march and rally against abortion. Look at those women who are pro-lifers, they are probably victims of their stupid mothers, who forced them to kill their child, and now want to save other people from the same painful experience. So really I am not the label “pro-life” — I am pro-child and pro-woman. Women suffer terribly after an abortion.
My physical therapist was working on me, and we got into a political discussion. (I can’t help it) I went through my usual spiel — 56 million Americans won’t be able to hug their moms, won’t get their first kiss, will never shop at Dillard’s, never marry, never have children because they have died in the abortion holocaust. My PT doc, a man, started shouting “rape, incest.” (My husband said I was lucky I didn’t get my neck broke because that’s where he was working when we had this discussion) Do you know that abortion benefits rapists and incest perpetuators? And that means dear sirs, it benefits men! It covers up the result of the crime, and investigative journalists going into Planned Parenthood (LifeTalk) have irrefutably found that most abortion clinics in this nation will encourage young girls under the age of 18 who are pregnant by a man over 18 not to tell them anything so the man won’t go to jail where he completely belongs — along with the poor girl’s mother! So with the crime covered up by abortion, the girl is returned to her rapist and incest perpetuator and allowed to become a victim again.
I also knew a young white woman who was raped by a black man on a train in Europe. She had her baby. She was so happy. And the baby was adorable. She was a virgin Mommie, a very innocent girl.
I had two miscarriages, and suffered emotional pain for many years after. The first one, my son came out (six weeks from conception) and you could see my husbands face and long legs. I went to the hospital for the DNC after the miscarriage, and the male nurse said, “Did you bring the tissue?” I burst into tears, and shouted, “I didn’t bring the tissue. I brought the baby.” The doctor agreed. He was a perfectly formed baby boy. (We couldn’t really see the sex of the child at that age. I simply see him as a boy) Some years later I was casually talking to a woman who worked for the Federal Reserve in San Francisco. I don’t know how the story of my miscarriage came up, but she was shocked that my son wasn’t a blob of tissue, but a real human being at six weeks from conception. Now my third pregnancy, what I think of as my daughter, she came out in pieces. The doctor failed to give me adequate progesterone to keep the pregnancy even though we knew I had a defect that required that. So at 8 weeks from conception we had an ultrasound and there was no heartbeat. My young son (my second pregnancy) was with me. He was about two or three. He was so shocked he tried to sit down, but kept falling before he could get on the stool. He said, “Mommie, you have a dead baby in your belly!” I wanted to make sure that was true. So I let her come out in pieces. The ultrasound, though (before she came out) showed she was beautifully formed, and terribly human. There are two victims in every abortion and miscarriage — the mother and the child. And I have read accounts of fathers, too, who finding out the woman in their life, was going to have an abortion tried frantically to talk her out of it. When they were unable to do so, they ended up at Rachel’s Vineyard retreat along with the broken hearted mothers. Miscarriage, abortion — it is all heartache for the people involved. Yet we have a president who says he wouldn’t punish his daughters with a baby if they got pregnant out of wedlock. In essence, he would kill his grandchildren to allow his daughters to live a “comfortable” life, a life that is comfortable until they figure out what they have done. Then it’s very uncomfortable. God bless you. Susan Fox
I do think the more militant prolifers are more apt to bend truth –
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2013/oct/22/texas-right-life/davis-says-she-opposes-late-term-abortions-certain/
Of course – this “analysis” could also be biased – but I do think it is more reasonable to think that a person does not accept the idea of absolutely no limits on abortion. And I have found most militant prolifers to be unreasonable.
I knew I would never picket or attend a march after a heartfelt conversation with a mom who had miscarried but it was incomplete. Due to her insurance situation she had to go a clinic in order to have an D&C – she had to face the so-called peaceful prolifers who had no idea of her circumstances. She did not feel loved or supported or prayed for.
I also can’t help but think about the amount of money and resources that goes into the Right to Life March in Washington D.C. – I think it is disgraceful to spend money on an event that does so little to actually help women make healthy choices. The price ticket last year in our bulletin was upwards of $120 and boasted sightseeing and a hotel stay in Washington after the March. So much for the idea of a pilgrimage – a comfy hotel, nice dinner, a bottle wine….sheesh.
I totally missed this. I utterly reject any use of abortion for the reduction of suffering. Suffering is far to valuable to our eternal life to reduce it by murder.
Of course, it naturally follows for me that that includes the attacks on the other end of life with euthanasia, and the attacks on the middle of life with war, the death penalty, and denial of the living wage.
The relevant quote from your link, Donna, is “Campaign spokesman Bo Delp told us by email it’s incorrect to say Davis opposes any limits. “Like most Texans, Sen. Davis opposes late-term abortions except when the life or health of the mother is endangered, in cases of rape or incest or in the case of severe and irreversible fetal abnormalities,” Delp said.”
I consider those exceptions to end up creating no limits. After all, it seems quite easy today to get a “severe and irreversible fetal abnormality” diagnosis in West Australia today for being a male child with an older male sibling who is autistic. Yep, they’re using sex-selective abortion to attempt to commit genocide against autistic children.
Her exceptions ARE the problem.
Just coming back to clarify that I wasn’t making a case for exceptions- just pointing out that prolife groups are more than willing to make blanket statements that may in fact be inaccurate.
Every year they have a banquet the night before the March for Life. I don’t know how much it costs, but a banquet. It always seemed to me that they should be fasting if they were serious, but then after attending for many many years I finally could no longer attend what seemed like a Republican pep rally, especially the last time, when I had to endure congressmen and senators who had just voted to go to war with Iraq talking about the “sancitity of life”….
Dinners, banquets and parties, I hate to say, are a necessary part of respecting one’s volunteers. On something like the March for Life, they are a necessary expense.
Having said that- at my State Knights of Columbus convention banquet for the two years that I’ve gone, the state council wives have rejected state expenditure on flowers in favor of a donation to Fr. Taaffe Homes for Unwed Mothers.
Sorry, but this is nonsense. A banquet is not necessary to convey respect.
Donna, it can be. Such a social event can be the entire reason some people volunteer to begin with. It’s a proven fact that some forms of volunteering are socially motivated, even among Christians.
I really can’t get your point, Donna. Are you trying to say that because of these episodes a person who expresses a pro-life opinion must be militant and lying, wasting money, and hurting women’s feelings? Because from the ranks of the pro-lifers come the white-robed army of martyrs. They are persecuted for standing up for the commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Pope John Paul II is among their ranks. He wrote the Gospel of Life, the most pro-life document I’ve ever read.
I know some people who went to Europe and met some Texans there. They told me they were rude and loud and wore big hats. They believed all Texans were like that. Are they? I don’t think so. I know Texans who are among the most genteel people I know. They are not rude and loud and they don’t wear big hats (all the time). Thank God I don’t believe what these people told me about Texans or I would be very prejudiced.
Witnessing in a pro-life march or outside an abortion clinic is a form of martyrdom. Martyr means witness. They are witnesses to life. Jesus Christ is called the “Faithful Witness” in the Book of Revelation. The Jews felt like Jesus was like one of those Texans — not part of their culture, maybe big and rude and working miracles on the Sabbath, a definite Jewish “no, no.”
Jesus forgave sins. The Jews knew only God could forgive sins. So obviously Jesus – in their minds – was a blasphemer. Jesus called God Father. They were sons of Abraham. They hadn’t understood that God is Our Father. Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites and not in polite terms either: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.” (Matt 23:27) Get that? He said you got rotten flesh and bones on the inside, but you look nice and white on the outside. Wow, that applies to almost all of us at one point or another.
And so they plotted His murder, and Jesus witnessed to the Truth through his martyrdom on the cross. He was obedient unto death.
Now probably there are some pro-life people who do not understand the Christian vocation to witness with love. Their hearts may be full of self-righteous hatred for all we know. And if that is the case, they gain no merit from their actions at all. However, I would blame their bishops for not letting them hear about the Christian vocation to love, to see and serve the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ in those we meet – abortionists, or women about to get an abortion, or prostitutes, or pro-lifers. Bishops have not done a very good job of teaching about the Christian vocation in the last few decades.
Certainly, don’t tar all pro-lifers with the image conjured by these ill-trained missionaries. A large number of them suffered abortions, worked in abortion clinics, or were abortion doctors, and they were converted. There’s a great book you should read: “Unplanned” by Abby Johnson. She ran one of Planned Parenthoods largest abortion clinics in Texas until one day she actually witnessed an abortion on an ultrasound, and she saw the child squirm away from the forceps that were about to tear her little body apart. That was the day she walked away from her job and became a pro-life marcher. She joined 40 Days for Life.
Now what about pro-lifers going to a nice banquet or the Pro-Life March in D.C. at a big cost? They do fast you know. My whole parish was asked to sign up for a day of fasting for unborn children just two weeks ago by 40 Days for Life, and we all dutifully did it.
But it’s interesting that you should be concerned about their banqueting because the Pharisees were concerned about Jesus for the same reason. Pharisees (outwardly) fasted. St. John the Baptist fasted, but Jesus banqueted. And so he was called a glutton and a drunkard.
“I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
(All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptized by John. But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)
Jesus went on to say, “To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:
“‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.’
For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by all her children.” (Luke 7:28-35)
So the moral is don’t let your hearts be troubled by seeing someone banqueting.
And with regard to volunteering yourself to pro-life march, that may not be your calling. You have to discover with God what He wants you to do. However, it won’t be anything comfortable. He always calls us to the last thing we want to do. I know a group of Texans who went through the same formation program in prayer, discernment and discipleship that I did (Disciples of Jesus and Mary, find out about it at solt.org) At the end of that program, God gives you a task. They got to work with the homeless, something I was well familiar with. I would not have minded working with the homeless, but apparently that was the last thing they wanted to do. My calling? I had to homeschool my son. Now that was difficult!
God bless you. Susan Fox http://www.christsfaithfulwitness.com
My, but you are long-winded. Please note that my own distaste for the prolife movement comes not from inculcating propaganda, but from very close contact over many years, attending the March for LIfe (and often heckling speakers!) for many years (I think I went for ten consecutive years, at least), rescuing, sidewalk counseling, etc. The early rescue movement was composed of Catholic peaceniks, and it went downhill when the evangelical Protestants joined up, and hit bottom when the insufferable Randall Terry took the reins. The other, mainline movement was always a GOP puppet…The final straw was during the Iraq War, when so few took JPII’s criticism seriously, and when they started (many of them) defending torture. Yes, I am still antiabortion, but generally put the words “prolife” in quotes….
Susan – I used the term “militant” prolife to differentiate from those people who are really trying to make a difference. And some of those people are politically “prochoice”. And I am not sure why it is valid for you to list the many examples of how abortion hurts women and yet it is invalid for me to point out an example of the prolife movement doing harm.
I am a busy mother and I just will not have the time to read your future responses here, they are long, cumbersome, and I’ve heard it all before.
The militant person is still trying to make a difference. Just not in a way that is acceptable to you.
Does God really always call us to the last thing we want to do? While that may be true sometimes, I’d also like to think that God often calls us to what we feel passionately about. I’m talking about the fire in your gut that drives you to work for a cause.
I guess I’ve just been around the block too many times, but this smacks of the kind of conservative Catholic talk I’ve been around all my life which is a huge turnoff. I remember people at my very-conservative Catholic college feeling they had to try out a vocation to the priesthood or consecrated life entirely because the idea turned them off so much. Really?
Haha, I tried to enter the diocesan seminary specifically because it turned me off so much – I really wanted to be a contemplative monk but didn’t want to be ‘selfish’. I guess it was for the best though, because they didn’t accept me and after a long winding road I’m now happily married.
Ha! All’s well that ends well–congratulations :)
Daniel regardless of your bad experience with pro-lifers, you certainly can’t tar the whole movement with the same brush. There are good people in the pro-life movement.
Others: I said God doesn’t call us to what is comfortable. If we are called and we answer we could become passionate about it. Although everyone is different. St. Teresa of Avila became a nun, hated the idea and said that God rewarded her 100 fold. It was exactly what made her most happy. But she had a very high level of discernment even at that stage in her development. And many nuns become nuns with great joy and excitement. Zeb, marriage is as difficult of a vocation as being a priest. It requires sacrifice.
Donna, I was merely explaining that I didn’t know a single person who had an abortion for a non-flimsy reason, but I have also read on the subject and it is apparently true that a lot of abortions are done for flimsy reasons. But I won’t research it for you because my answer might be long. God bless you. Susan Fox http://www.christsfaithfulwitness.com
I dunno, my marriage is extremely comfortable–it started out great, and 22 years later, it’s even better. It’s always been pretty easy, to be honest. (This is not to say we have never had problems, and we have certainly gone through our share of the kinds of travails life tends to throw at you and then some, but it’s never felt like some sort of difficult sacrifice to be married.) I do count myself among those very blessed and never take it for granted, but I also was savvy enough to marry somebody very easy (for me, anyway–he might drive some other people batty, I’ll admit, but to me he is the cat’s meow) to be married to. I credit all the miserably married people I grew up around for my savviness; the most valuable lessons I learned from many of my relatives and their friends was what NOT to do when it comes to marriage.
I have no quibble with the notion that God often calls us to stretch ourselves beyond what is “comfortable”; but I do reject the notion that God always calls us to the last thing we want to do. It seems like a pretty dim view of God, if you ask me.
It’s always been particularly irritating to me when Catholics talk about marriage as if it is some sort of vast torture chamber of suffering through which we will earn our heavenly crown. If a person’s marriage feels that way, I feel bad for them, but I certainly don’t for a second believe that’s the way God intended it to be. My marriage has been the greatest source of peace and joy in my life—it’s a shelter from all the storms life brings, and a wellspring of love and laughter.
I’m sorry if I gave the impression that all prolifers are insufferable; of course there are many principled people among them. I number among my friends a lot of the early prolife radicals – John Cavanaugh O’Keefe, Joan Andrews, Julianne Wiley, and others- but I do stand by what I said re the mainstream.
This is a short excellent article on how pro-life apologetics can help strengthen your Christian evangelism http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/how-pro-life-apologetics-helps-strengthen-your-evangelism-2/
Dear Anonymous Bad Catholic, I feel the same about my marriage of 30 years. It has been wonderful. But even so marriage does require some sacrifice. I remember my husband cleaning up our son’s vomit from the wall. That is the kind of sacrifice I was referring to. And of course, though homeschooling was not what I preferred to do, I did it, and it was the right thing to do. It was just part of my vocation as wife and mother. God bless you. Susan Fox http://www.christsfaithfulwitness.com
Heck, just getting out of bed in the morning requires “sacrifice”, if all you mean is that sometimes we need to do things we’d rather not.
I’ve just never found a need to either congratulate myself on what a sacrifice it was to crawl out of bed or to say my day was full of suffering and sacrifice simply because I had to do some tasks I would have preferred not to.
Having been really sick at some points in my life, I know what real physical suffering is, and I prefer to just be thankful I can crawl out of bed, even when it literally hurts.
This is the part I find irritating by some of the Catholics I know (and I’m not saying you are one of them–I don’t know you); they wax on about all the suffering and sacrifice they are making, when it would be far more attractive to just be grateful. In my experience these are often the same people who lament nobody wants to be religious anymore.
Ya think?
I agree we need to be grateful. God bless you. Susan Fox
Pope Francis has been very blunt as to the Christian responsibility to oppose abortion. “A society that abandons children and that marginalizes the elderly will sever its roots and darken its future,” he said.
Last month, in an address to the Associations of Catholic Doctors, Pope Francis said there is, in secular society, “a widespread mentality of profit, the ‘culture of waste,’ which now enslaves the hearts and minds of many, and has a very high cost. It requires us to eliminate human beings, especially if they are physically or socially weaker. Our response to this mentality is a decided and unhesitating ‘yes’ to life.”
“Every child who is not born, but unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ, the Lord’s face, before he was born…and every senior, …every elderly, sick person or those at the end of his days, carries the face of Christ. You cannot discard (them), (this is) the ‘culture of waste’! You cannot discard (them)!”
God bless you.