I used to think we were headed for a new Dark Age. Now, I believe we may already be there.
There is an upside, however, because in the darkness, we can better recognize the light and walk toward it.
But only if we are willing to look up from the blue screen glowing in front of us and encourage others to join us without basking in the electronic glow.
I preach to myself as well because I’m finding it more difficult to sink into a longer text and stay there until the end.
But the longer text of a classic is always worth the work.
We should be embarrassed to admit that it took so many years to realize that too many–one is too many–college students have never read an entire book. At least not since the Little Golden Book days of their toddlerhood.
And who says good books are only for the college-bound?
The Atlantic, not a conservative resource from classical Christian education, has realized this loss in our education system. Even students at our elite universities, far too many of them, have never read a book.
For the last quarter century at least, educational testing has marked students’ ability to navigate a passage, so education systems locked into teaching young ones how to do just that.
No more Bronte, Hugo, Dostoevsky, and Lee in their entirety.
No more requiring a student to follow an epic journey from beginning to end.
We have added fuel to the fire that limits our collective ability to think well. To think with clarity and critical analysis.
We have lost the personal discipline it takes to plod through Hugo’s fifty pages of Napolean’s failure at Waterloo to get to the crisis Jean Valjean must face to save Marius in Les Miserables. We’ve lost the discipline to even get to those fifty pages.
It takes discipline to get to the beauty of a great book. Therein lies the truth any great author has sweat blood to tell us: that we are more than body and mind. We are souls capable of courage, capable of seeing beauty, capable of telling truth through goodness and beauty.
Great writers create beauty to show goodness and truth. In losing our discipline to read long texts, we have lost so much more because from truth, goodness, and beauty come meaning and purpose in our lives.
Few people today see meaning and purpose in their lives. Fewer than half.
The answer may be found in the nearest library or bookstore. Wise sages tell us how to pursue the answer.
“Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance.” Stratford Caldecott
“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” C.S. Lewis
If you don’t have one on the shelf and didn’t get one for Christmas, buy a good book for yourself, a classic that contains truth about humanity, truth about who we are, beings capable of being courageous on behalf of goodness.
Buy good books as gifts. Embrace goodness in truth’s defense and promote the beautiful in the culture around us.
I used to pay my two youngest sons to read good books. (I hadn’t thought of the idea with the older three.) That was some of the best spent cash I ever spent.
Shakespeare, Tolkien, Lewis.
People grow stronger character from such books.
And we grow better from having seen tough tasks through to the end–the quest of the characters and our own in the completion of a thing of beauty.
Photo Credit: Pexels. Logo below credit Lily Hildebrand.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โWhatโs always struck me about Huxleyโs novel [Brave Newย World] is that, even amid all this license, the savvier characters still recognize that they arenโt in fact free. Bernard Marx at one point refers to himself as โenslaved by my conditioning,โ while the Savage contrasts โfreedomโ with the World Stateโs enforced โcomfort.โ This is the first thing to understand about what weโre doing to our children today: it isnโt liberty so much as the opposite. Huxleyโs point is that even liberation can become subjugating if itโs turned into ideology and inflicted upon the young,โย Matt Purple~
I remember sitting in a classroom in 1993 for parent-teacher conferences for my then-12th grade daughter. The class was health. I was the parent. The teacher was a woman whoโd grown up down the street from my childhood home. We had played with our Barbie dolls together. Now we sat on opposite sides of a desk.
My daughter had told me that this teacher had the class line up, each student holding a placard with the name of a male body part. The supposed goal was to get the students to learn the correct order of placement for male sex organs. The class was co-ed.
An unintended (or not) result of such a classroom activity would be a diminishing of natural self-consciousness among the students, a self-consciousness I would argue is God-given and protective.
Thirty-one years later, sex education in many districts occurs earlier and is often more graphic than placards with words for male body parts lettered on them.
Now we must ask why some people are working so hard to make sure children (now much younger than my daughter was then) understand all there is to understand about sex, sexuality, and sexual identity while others have ceased to ensure that said children can read, write, and calculate at a functioning level or beyond.
โโThe publication, โItโs Perfectly Normal,โ . . . is in many libraries and school libraries across the United States. [At least one state mandates CSE for classroom use.] Itโs very graphic with depictions of children engaging in . . . various sexual acts,โ said Slater.โ
Soak that inโ-children depicted in sex acts. Drawn images, we presume. Otherwise, how would it differ from the pornography explained on news sites informing us that those who possess it are now in jail?
News reports that occur with far too much regularity.
We must note the reference to โpleasure-focused.โ Be sure to dust off your copy of Huxleyโs The Brave New World, referenced above by Matt Purple. Huxley presents a culture steeped inโand controlled byโpleasure. Oppression through excess of pleasure.
As Purple points out, we have to ask how we got from #metoo to this stuff.
And again, why?
But now to the part most of us assume is the purpose of schoolsโeducation, which again, most of us assume is largely comprised of reading, writing, and math. We must be careful not to assume what has previously seemed reasonable to expect.
Newcomers to homeschooling found during COVID shutdowns that teaching their own children is positive, effective, doable, and within their control.
Many pilgrims to private schools may have just been looking for in-person learning as some public school shutdowns continued. Butย Kerry McDonaldย predicted that the โtrend [of increasing private enrollment] is likely to continueโ after the lockdowns end.
It’s fair for us to conclude that some parents moved children to new educational environments to enable them to pursue excellence instead of pleasure, to enable them to receive a traditional education of reading, writing, math, etc. Et cetera encompassing science, history, and the arts rather than the simple pursuit of pleasure. These parents know the journey to excellence is not always fun-filled. And it never happens on its own.
โExcellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives โ choice, not chance, determines your destiny,โ (Aristotle).
Some in modernity figured that out too. Even in decadent Hollywood.
Actor Robin Williams’s portrayal of an English teacher at a boysโ prep school in Dead Poetsโ Society (1989) comes to mind. Williamsโ Mr. Keating wanted his students to seize the dayโto make sure they didnโt let life slip by without pursuing great dreams.
Such dreams do not come true through hedonismโa devotion to pleasure alone.
โIn his immortal performance, Williams gave humanity a great gift of remembering two truths: that we all die, and that the humanities, far from being unserious, drive us toward the serious business of life.โ Matthew Becklo.
The serious business of life is the pursuit of full potential, the quest for purpose, the lifelong journey of service to God and peopleโthereby we find meaning in our lives.
Teaching children that pleasure is the be-all and end-all violates everything education should be.
It sets children up for bondage of all kinds of oppressionโpublic and personalโproviding passing good feelings instead of lasting fulfillment. Meaningless pleasure can never be more than a distraction from emptiness. And emptiness is compounded when grown-ups lack literacy and mathematical capability.
And the ability to think critically.
The quest for pleasure for its own sake combined with a void of capability creates enslavement as the enslaved one continually seeks more pleasure that provides only more emptiness.
True education fills minds and feeds souls. It recognizes that there is more to each child than a physical body. It reminds each student to look beyond him/herself to others in a way pleasure-oriented “education” can never accomplish.
“The whole purpose of education,” as Sidney J. Harris says, “is to turn mirrors into windows.”
Fulfillment comes through a developed character made from challenge and rigor. The work of learning bestows more than knowledge. It instills curiosity and discipline. It enables us to engage in wonder.
It teaches us how to continue to learn throughout life.
Applied thinking, through reading, wordcraft, and calculation, leads children to become people who know when and how to set pleasure aside to reach for a greater good. Only then can they know true pleasure.
Our nation is blessed with many teachers who urge their students toward excellence. Many of them hail from the classrooms of public schools. Not all states and districts have succumbed to the cultural decay of promoting empty pleasure.
Parents must not simply hope for the best. They must not assume all is well in their educational corner of the country.
To assume so is to invite a cost too great and a loss beyond measure. Too many schools ask little or nothing of their students. They promise more than their teachings can ever deliver.
โโ[W]hat good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here โ that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.’
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah, Psalm 46-1-3, ESV~
The earth shifts beneath us.
The sky pours rain for days on end.
An eclipse gives us night in the afternoon.
He is still God.
Her world shifts beneath her.
Help me to steady her, encourage her.
Help her walk in faith and confidence in you on the shaky ground of life.
Help us be still and know,
You are with us always.
Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!โ The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah, Psalm 46:10-11, ESV~
Post Photo Credit: Pexels; milicomathers logo: Lily Hildebrand
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. Isaiah 1:18, ESV
Spring blasts in a tempering wind. Warmth battles against icy crystals.ย
Eventually, warmth prevails.
I savor the beauty of pure white snow. In late winter, it melts so quickly preventing it from piling up with sooty edges reaching up the sides of blackening banks.
How quickly the pure darkens with dirt. How quickly we need to reason with Him and pursue purity once more.
It is of the Lordโs mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3: 22-23~
He asks us to reason with Him. To be honest about who we are. Who He already knows we are. But we have to own our dirt in the reckoning.
Our bloody red sins will be as white as woolโwool that never darkensโnever attracts dirtโnever soils. Someday we will be as pure as the snow appears as it falls.
Clean as a pure white day. And staying clean forever.
Easter will be here soon. And with it will come the new life of spring. Vibrant colors.
Cold and harsh windโa thing of the pastโuntil next year.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I walked through the local mall one day in 1979. I was large enough with my third child for her presence to be obvious. I wore my favorite maternity shirt, red and stating in bold letters: “Yes sir, that’s my baby!” with an arrow pointing down toward the child in utero.
I pushed a grocery cart carrying three other children, my two already born and my nephew, a few months older and larger than my son but with hair the color of my daughter’s. She was the tallest of the three.
It was conceivable for observers to assume the three children in the cart were all mine born in quick succession. The eyes of many observers told me they assumed exactly that.
And such an assumption was not a positive one.
I could almost hear them thinking: “She has too many children.”
Nineteen seventy-nine, you may recall, came eleven years after Paul (and Ann) Ehrlich published The Population Bomb assuring us that we would soon be starving because the earth would not be capable of feeding so many. Most ominously, according to the Ehrlichs, it was already too late.
โThe battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970โs and 1980โs (sic) hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.โ
By 1979 people had so embraced apocalyptic premonitions that they perceived me as immoral for seeming to have produced four children in short order.
Thomas Robert Malthus planted the seed of the fear of overpopulation in 1798. He calculated that the population would grow more quickly than food supplies. The world didn’t check his math, and didn’t seem to notice the failure of his prediction that “there would be standing room only on this earth by the Year of Our Lord, 1890.” Perhaps more than any other philosophy, Malthus’s assertions that too many babies cause disaster became assumed “truth”.
Preventing overpopulation and certain starvation became a moral imperative.
It proved to be a convenient imperative for governments wanting to blame births rather than natural disasters or government decisions for food shortages.
China was one country whose government bought into the Ehrlichs’ theories, completely, officially, and expediently. In the aftermath of a deadly famine, the government looked to shift the blame from unwise policies that caused the deaths of as many as 45 million.
The One-Child Policy China adopted in 1980 required couples to get permission to give birth. With rare exception, the government would grant permission only once.
That’s when the law of unintended consequences kicked in.
Because of the cultural preference for sons, sex-selection abortion became pervasive, and a population imbalance ensued.
โThe gender gap only started to soar in 1982, when . . . [China] started to strictly implement the birth control policy that allowed families to have only one child. The preference for boys over girls โ boys could perform hard labour and were favoured in inheritance of land in rural areas โ encouraged selective abortions that pushed the ratio of boys from 108.47 in 1982 to above 115 since 1994. It peaked nationally in 2004 with 121.2 boys born to every 100 girls, and some provinces even recorded ratios of 130. Demographers estimate that between 20 to 34 million more boys than girls were born in the past three decades.โ
The population imbalance in China ignited the exploitation of North Korean women by the tens of thousands. “Women”, by the way, includes girls as young as 12 who endure forced marriages or conscription into the prostitution or porn industries.
Throughout history, children were a blessing although, aside from Judeo-Christian and Islamic cultures, parents often rejected baby girls and the handicapped.
In mostly rural America until the late nineteenth century, children were helpers who would eventually inherit the land and work it with their own children.
During industrialization, much of America’s population transitioned from the countryside to the city.
Instead of families inhabiting tracts of land where having many children was beneficial, they occupied overcrowded tenements.
Society also responded with laws prohibiting abortion. That effort happened becausefeminists and physicians lobbied for laws to protect women and children from the exploitation of abortion. By 1900, every state in the US had outlawed abortion.
“Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should reprobate [i.e., reject] specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and restrain those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. 2“
Malthus saw people as an affliction on the world the way Hitler described some as “useless eaters.”
A root of the fear of overpopulation assumes people don’t produce; they only consume.
“You donโt need to be an economist to see it is a myth that man is a net consumer of material wealth. History proves the opposite. The world is brimming with physical and intellectual improvements made by successive generations of human inhabitants. Its so-called carrying capacity has been determined not by the width of its continents, but by the wit of man.”
We need young people to come up with ideas of how to produce more food more efficiently, how to develop medicines, and how to solve environmental challenges. We need what has happened since the 1970s regarding the development of food production, medicines, and environmental solutions to continue into the next generations.
The poisonous fruit of the fear of overpopulation is the abortion movement, a monster with a voracious and never-satisfied appetite for death.
In the US many states have few or no regulations on the procedure, allowing it until birth. Several states passed new laws guaranteeing abortion access in case SCOTUS ruled as it did in Dobbs returning the right to regulate abortion to the states.
Legislators had planned to consider a bill in the Maryland House of Representatives that would completely dehumanize the unborn child leaving abortion survivors without protection from death by neglect and/or experimentation.
In the wake of push-back for his proposal to legalize infanticide, the bill’s sponsor canceled a committee hearing so he could rewrite the proposal removing references to peri-natal children.
It’s reasonable to assume that all unborn children and abortion survivors will still be subject to a death sentence under whatever is next proposed.
Most of us don’t live on farms today. Most people limit the size of their families. Dangers reside in believing that having a certain number of children is good, and exceeding that number is bad. And that any means to prevent those children from competing for our resources is acceptable.
As medical care faces shortages, calls for assisted suicide increase.
The number of Canadians dying through that nation’s Medical Aid in Dying program has caused a shortage of doctors willing to participate in the process. The Netherlands recently enacted a law allowing euthanasia for children ages 1 to 12.
Such laws ignore our advanced and modern ability to relieve suffering.
Fear of overpopulation and limited resources for the rest of us cause us to excuse the inexcusable as people reject the inconvenient child, the surprise, the one less than perfect, or the ill. And it maximizes the hopelessness of those we actually can help.
If we will.
When modernity made it possible to control our family size, we took that control, and we didn’t look back.
We now ride on a slippery slope of expanding control. Any society that thinks it’s in control soon becomes out of control.
It’s time to look back to where we came from. To look up to the God who creates and best controls. To ask forgiveness for our blatant disregard for human life. To show love in restoring a culture of life around us.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
We are created in the image and likeness of God, and as such our nature refers us to Him. The battle begins, therefore, against human nature. Ideologies, naturalisms, materialisms, sexual revolutionsโฆ Everything is one assault after another on the very concept of the human, to deny the obvious: our transcendence, the immortality of our souls, our need for God, our masculine-female complementarity.โ (Qtd. by Rod Dreher)
It was a moment etched in memory for me when I was in graduate school. We had class that day in a local restaurantโa change of pace from our regular classroom. The topic of discussion was an article we had read about colonialism by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, โCan the Subaltern Speak.โ
Spivak is an Indian woman who took issue with the British prohibition of sati during Britainโs colonization of India. The British had outlawed the practice of a woman placing herself (or being placed) on her husbandโs funeral pyre and dying in the flames.
Spivak argued that the colonialist power was depriving women of their right to self-determination. A classmate of mine agreed with Spivak representing all the voiced opinions except my own.
โBut what if she wants to?โ she asked me when I lamented Spivakโs view.
But what if she does not? What if her culture/his family/her family have expectations that she will dieโas tradition demands? Cultural demands ooze from the word satiโthe name for women who die in the flames. Satismeans โa good woman.โ
What horrified me most was the nonchalant attitude of the instructor and the other students. How easy it is to claim โchoiceโ when the person with the most at stake may not actually have a choice and may not even have a voice.
My instructor and fellow students saw nothing wrong with a custom that would label a woman โgoodโ for wanting to die. And what would the label be for a woman who might prefer not to die? Or for one who might enter the flames in less than a fully conscious state so the family would not face the shame of her resistance?
That encounter reminds me of another one I observed years earlier. I was a volunteer in training at a pregnancy resource center. A young woman came in with an older guy. She was a teenโperhaps fifteen or sixteen. He was clearly olderโperhaps in his twenties.
He wanted to know her pregnancy test resultsโa test the center offered for freeโa test whose results we would provide only to herโalone.
When the veteran volunteer told him that we would not give him the results; we would only speak with her alone, he made clear his choice in the matter. โIโll just drive her to Pittsburgh then,โ he saidโthe city a couple hours away, where they could obtain an abortion. During the entire encounter, she did not say one word.
They left not knowing what we knew. She was pregnant.
Despite all the shouting about female autonomy and choice, she had no voice in the matter. He had already made the decision for her. And he didnโt make it with her best interestโor that of the childโin mind.
Graduate students sitting in a restaurant speaking theoretically about satis were far removed from the reality of such a situation. At the pregnancy resource center, I witnessed someone co-opting a womanโs โright to choose.โ There was no theoretical life of a child, no theoretical wound for a mother. Those were real.
Dreher: โThere is an โanthropological attackโ on the meaning of the human person. What C.S. Lewis called ‘the abolition of man’ is upon us.โ
When choice trumps meaning, we lose freedom rather than gain it. And in the process, we lose ourselves.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
For you are dust, And to dust you shall return,โ Genesis 3:19b.
Lent starts today. For many, even some Christians, it’s just another day. But it begins a season I mark every year now.
As a child, I didnโt work very hard at Lent. Iโd decide to give up potato chips until there were some potato chips around. Then Iโd switch to something else, like chocolate. And then, to something else. I was like Huck Finn deciding what not to steal today.
Then for many years, I didnโt mark Lent at all.
I donโt remember when I started again. My discipline about food hadnโt advanced far from what it was when I was a child. I ate too many potato chips when they were there. And too much of anything made of sugar any chance I could get.
I’m not overweightโor not seriously so. I bounced around within 20 pounds or so since hitting 40. But Lent isnโt about weight control. It isnโt a diet plan. Itโs a desire to work with God to get control of food. To keep food (or anything else) from having control over me.
To honor Him in what and how much I eat.
It’s about discipline and sacrificeโalbeit small sacrifice. The discipline isnโt just one of physical appetite. There is a spiritual element in all we do.
And in sacrifice, we acknowledge that we arenโt in heaven yet. Today begins a place where sometimes we partake and sometimes we abstain. Itโs a place where we do better when we donโt have it all. But itโs hard because what we want is all around us. All we want. All the time.
Everywhere we look. So we need discipline and with it comes sacrifice.
The discipline and sacrifice remind us.
Lent reminds us that others don’t have it all around them all the time.
Lent reminds us heaven is ahead of us. We are not there yet.
Lent reminds us that He carried a cross.
He sacrificed. For us.
In the meantime, we work. We struggle at times.
We can only imagine heaven. We yearn for it. We even confuse this world with it sometimes.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was an episode of a television show in the late โ70s or early โ80s. I donโt even remember the name of the series.
A married couple was battling to stay together. Or it was more like they were battling each other. Today we would say they had issues.
One issueโperhaps minor, perhaps notโwas that he hated her smoking. He often challenged her to quit. She refused to give it up.
Until they got a report from the doctor. Yes, they were expecting. (No home pregnancy test back then.)
She immediately stopped smokingโjust as heโd been begging her to do all along. She had a natural desire to protect the life within her.
But he said, repeatedly, โWe canโt bring a baby into this.โ Into the mess that was their marriage.
Finally, she succumbed to his unrelenting push for her to abort. And the video depiction of the procedureโs aftermath was subtle but raw.
She left the clinic and got into the passenger seat of the car at sunset. He sat in the driverโs seat as darkness surrounded them. Viewers saw the flick of a lighter. The flame sucked into the glow of a burning cigarette next to the passenger side window.
The smoldering cigarette signifying the snuffing out of their childโs life.
The discussion around abortion was relatively new then. The battle lines had not clearly formed. Truth was more of a possibility.
Such a television depiction would be unlikely to air today because the man pushed for the abortion. He pushed against the womanโs desire to protect new life. He gave her no room for โchoiceโ.
In the late โ70s, the news media was still objective about the issue, at least in one corner of the world. In 1978, the Chicago Sun Times did an expose on abortion โprovidersโโnot yet so named.
One of the abortion facilities the expose covered closed down as a result, and a physician lost his license to practice. A grand jury investigated.
In contrast, a few years ago in my own state of Pennsylvania, law enforcement uncovered Kermit Gosnellโs abortion house of horrors when they were investigating the illegal sale of prescription drugs.
The uncovering of abortion amid filth and broken medical equipment came about accidentally even after a woman died and Gosnell murdered a breathing, six-pound abortion survivor, among others. Yet more women carry physical reminders of their time in his โcareโ.
If not for the drug bust, would he still be killing and maiming?
The Pennsylvania Department of Health said in a later report that they had stopped inspecting abortion facilities โbecause of political reasons.โ
After an alert from a former employee, the state interviewed Gosnell off- siteโwhere they wouldnโt see the condition of his facility.
Pennsylvania also ignored an insurance company report of a post-Gosnell abortion patient who died from sepsis after he perforated her uterus.
Writing an op-ed for USA Today, Kirsten Powers said, โThis [Gosnellโs story] should be front-page news.โ
But it wasnโt on the front page because the media had completely ditched objectivity at some point after Chicagoโs expose.
Todayโs media isnโt paying attentionโon purposeโall to supposedly protect โa womanโs right to choose.โ
But the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reports that nearly 75 percent of aborting women say they experienced at least some pressure to abort. More than half said they aborted to please others.
And nearly 30 percent aborted out of fear they would lose their partners. The statistics on what happens next for relationships so affected are tough to nail down, but one counselor says his experience shows that half of post-abortion relationships break up. Heโs not alone in that way of thinking.
Itโs distressing to think that the media got it right in some obscure program that aired decades ago and will never see the light of syndication.
Itโs distressing to ponder all those babies gone. All those women pushed. All the lies told and truth withheld.
An unimaginable amount of damage done for someoneโs choiceโand not even the someone you might expect.
Today in Pennsylvania, our governor wants to roll back every regulation put in place because of Kermit Gosnell’s house of horror.
He wants to roll back protection, required inspections to ensure proper sanitation.
Kermit Gosnell sits in prison. Others are out there doing the same thing.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Serious Writer, Inc., named me a finalist for the Writer of the Year award for Wandering Swallow: A Young Girl’s Quest for Freedom, My as yet unpublished middle grade reader features Hana, a girl from North Korea, who along with her grandfather, is striving to escape the Hermit Kingdom’s oppression and famine of 1995 and survive her journey through China.
Hana doesn’t know where her parents have gone. She’s not sure when she’ll see her next meal. And she understands that police might arrest them at any moment and return them to North Korea where they’ll be executed or left to starve.
Their mysterious Chinese guide, Luke, carries a prominent scar he acquired during the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989. He has a price on his head and follows a man who died 2,000 years ago.
Hana’s stands on the Great Wall and in Tiananmen Square. She learns about the Terra Cotta Soldiers and the God whose unseen army protects his own.
Thank you, Serious Writer!
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth,” Genesis 1: 28b, ESV.
“The scriptural justification for culture building starts with Genesis. At the dawn of creation, the earth is unformed, empty, dark, and undeveloped. Then in a series of steps, God establishes the basic creational distinctives: light and dark, ‘above the expanse’ and ‘below the expanse,’ sea and land, and so on. But then God changes the strategy.
“Until the sixth day, God has done the work of creation directly. But now he creates the first human beings and orders them to carry on where he leaves off: They are to reflect his image and have dominion.” How Now Shall We Live (Colson and Pearcey, 295).
A great battle persists between the forces of nature and the forces of God. The world in nature fights to go back to the void. We are commissioned to bring order to the chaos, to produce fruit from the ground, to continue the work God began in Eden.
Our job is to sustain and progress that work.
Deep in our souls, we yearn for order. Most adults mature beyond the messy bedrooms our mothers pushed us to put in order. Our world grows through family, to our own homes, to our own jobs, to new communities.
We yearn for order and peace within these communities, within ourselves.
God put people in a garden. Man built cities where gardening is often an afterthought. God will eventually take us to a new city.
A city of cultivation?
For now, we experience inflated costs, rising crime, increasing despair.
We are captives in a world leaning into chaos.
When Israel suffered the captivity of the Babylonians, God told the people to continue following His edict from Eden:
“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease,” Jeremiah 29:5-6, ESV.
Christians all over the world have a sense of exile. Disorder and hostility abound.
God tells us to keep on. And more than that.
“Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile,” Jeremiah 29:7
ย Work for order. Build a house (or fix yours up). Plant a garden–or begin planning one now. Marry. Raise children.
Teach others the skills to carry on this edict from Eden.
Seek peace and prosperity, not just for ourselves, but also for the city of chaos around us.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Through Advent, every day gets darker until we arrive at the cusp of Christmas. Winter solsticeโDecember 21stโ is the longest night of the year. Light increases each day following.
Christmas comes during the time of year pagans marked the winter solstice, the shortest dayโbut the end of encroaching darkness. Itโs a feast to celebrate light overcoming darkness.
Christmas comes in the same month as Hanukkahโthe Jewish festival of lightsโcommemoratingย victoryย over an effort to eradicate Jewish civilization. Itโs a feast to memorialize one dayโs worth of sanctified oil fueling a lamp for eight days. Eight days to celebrate light overcoming darkness.
We Christians celebrate this season with lights and music.
The radio plays โHave Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. The line โNext year all our troubles will be far away” reminds us of last year problems we’ve overcome and this coming year’s that we’ve yet to see.
I imagine people singing that song in 1944โthe year Judy Garland first sang it in Meet Me in Saint Louis. The movie opened in November of that year.
Think of going to the theater to see a light musicalโand to watch newsreels. People got their information from newspapers, radio, and movie newsreelsโthe precursor to television news.
What you would have seen in newsreels around then may have included a race riot among US military personnel at Guam. Bandleader Glenn Millerโs plane disappearing over the English Channel. A typhoon hitting Admiral Halseyโs fleet in the South Pacific, costing America almost 800 souls. And Axis forces surrounding US troops at Bastogne.
Much of the news was grim. But Allied forces were pushing back. General Anthony McAuliffe, the American commander at Bastogne, responded to a German demand for surrender with one word:
โNuts.โ
Patton’s Third Army prevailed, relieving McAuliffe and his troops.
In dark days, light emerged.
Itโs hard to perceive the depth of darkness people felt when we know now how the story ended. Allied forces converged; McAuliffeโs rebuttal stands as a rebuke to defeat.
But itโs harder to see the light when we sit immersed in the darkness of our own days with little hint of light ahead.
Was it a dark and starless night before the angels came to the shepherds? They were shepherds whoโd been waiting for the coming of Messiah. They didnโt expect a blast of light and music with angels singing news of His coming.
The shepherds outside Bethlehem that night were Levitical shepherds. Ironically, they were ritualistically unclean. They walked through feces. They touched dead things.
The angel told them to find a baby lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling cloths. To shepherds raising sheep for Levitical sacrifice, swaddling cloths would be vastly significant. For a lamb to qualify for sacrifice it had to be perfect, without blemish.
The shepherds swaddled lambs intended for sacrificeโthey wrapped them in cloths to protect them. The angel saying that they would find the infant wrapped in swaddling cloths indicated the baby would be a sacrifice. That baby was the Messiah.
Many would have expected a Jewish king to be born in Jerusalemโthe city of the kingโnot Bethlehem. But Bethlehem was the City of Davidโa keeper of sheep.
Godโs choice of a birthplace for his son wasnโt just a fulfillment of prophecyโwhich it was. It was also a symbol that Christ the King would be the fulfillment of sacrifice on our behalf.
Christ was the sinless Son of God, the perfect Lamb to be sacrificed for the shepherdsโ sinsโfor our sinsโfor the things we walk through and touch that make us unclean.
God invited the unclean to see His Son. Those who reject Him today are among the invited.
People seek purpose and meaning today. But they cannot find it without Christ. He brings peace on earthโwithin our hearts. He is the perfect sacrifice for us.
Christmas proclaims the coming of a King who is the light who overcomes darkness.
โJesus spoke to them again, saying, โI am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,โโ John 8:12.
There is a Christmas light to light the worldโChrist Himself.
โAnd the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Fatherโs only Son, full of grace and truth,โ John 1:14.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โMary was bigger than Laura, and she had a rag doll named Nettie. Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan. It wasnโt Susanโs fault that she was only a corncob.
โSometimes Mary let Laura hold Nettie, but she only did it when Susan couldnโt see.โ Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods
I remember receiving a baby doll the Christmas I was three. She was dressed all in pink and white. And she came with her own bed.
Somewhere there exists a snapshot of me, mouth agape, delighting in the magic that Santa had come and brought me the pretense of motherhood.
When I was not much older, I received the hot new toy that yearโChatty Cathy. I donโt remember wanting her because any of my friends already had her. I wanted her because I had seen her on television. I wanted her because she was the closest thing to a real baby a doll could be.
Dolls have been universal gifts for little girls. So, it came to be that my own daughter received Mary one Christmasโa gift from a special auntโthe kind of aunt who makes the gift even betterโjust because it came from her. Mary was well beloved. She wasnโt memorable from a marketing standpoint. She was a symbol of connection to someone we loved.
A few years later, 1983 was the year of Cabbage Patch dolls. There were long lines of mothers waiting, waiting, waiting for a shot at making their daughtersโ dreams come true. I remember seeing (again, on television) the crowds standing in the dark and cold waiting for the toy of the year.
The dolls were expensive and in short supply. I had four children, ages eight and under, two boys and two girls. Child number five was on the way. To engage in the Cabbage Patch craze seemed impossible.
We waited.
My girlsโ dreams came true the next year. By then there were no lines and no craziness. I gave them dresses they had worn as infants to adorn supplement the dolls’ wardrobes.
Fast forward to 2017, two wrapped dolls waited for our family’s new little onesโone of them not yet born.ย A grand and a great-grand, the third and fourth generations from me.
This year, four dolls wait to receive love. One for the youngest granddaughter. The other three for great-grand-sisters.
What dolls did my mother hold?
And her mother?
Lifeโs highest calling is to speak love into a childโs life. We begin to practice the love of mothering while we are still small.
Others loved us when we could not love them in return.
A child with a doll loves something that cannot love her back.
Our times at play shape us.
A doll is a plaything, but so much more.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Scientists are saying that putting your Christmas decorations up early can make you feel happier.
The lights and decorations take us back to a simpler time. Even if that time wasn’t so simple, we remember the warmth of a season of celebration rather than the challenges of those times.
In dark days, through lack of sun or dimmed hope, thinking of Christmas lightens our spirits.
The lights encourage us. But God’s Word challenges us to find true light in the darkness.
A passage for every day encourages us to see God’s touch in our trials as well as our triumphs. Every day begins with scripture and ends with ample space for reader reflection.
Jessica’s anecdotes remind me of my own past Christmas seasons. Her “Have you ever … questions bring to mind common experiences that help us answer spiritual questions designed to help us grow in our faith.
Hope, peace, joy, love, the four weeks of Advent, preparing hearts to let our celebrations move beyond decorations to better understanding of, and better connection to, our sovereign Lord.
“This is the point of Advent; the full message of Christ: God loves us so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to pay our sin debt and help us follow him so we too can live in God’s kingdom for eternity.”
Get ready to get ready. Jessica’s work is a great start.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10b ESV
โThe myth sovereign in the old age was that everything means everything. The myth sovereign in the new is that nothing means anything.ย Thomas Howard~
Chance or the Dance: A Critique of Modern Secularism by Thomas Howard is a book for those searching for meaning in lifeโfor an alternative to the secular view that we are here by chance and live without lasting significance.
It is also a book for those of us who already believe in God. We know His presence. And we see His work in the world around us. We ponder His ways and see in them the meaning that infuses every moment of our lives.
Howard explains this way of looking at the world:
โIt is a way of looking at things that goes farther than saying this is like that: it says that both this and that are instances of the way things are. The sun pours energy into the earth and the man pours energy into the woman because that is how fruit beginsโby the union of one thing and the otherโ (Howardโs emphasis).
Howard points out that, in spite of the worldโs acceptance of the new myth, deep within ourselves, the old myth lives on. It is part of usโand we can only pretend to deny it.
Everything has meaning.
Howard analyzes our partiality for poetry and art, the rhythms and patterns of language and image. The new myth presents a common experience in โorder and harmony and serenity, and hence joy [as] a most rewarding fictionโ without meaning. The old myth presents the โsupreme reality: the way things are.โ And that way is full of meaning.
We act out the old myth through a ceremony of meals that we mark by setting the table and arranging the food on the plate in an orderly way.
And we embrace freedom, which is more than โmere self-determination . . . [which would be] tragically limiting.โ โYour freedom in the Dance is to be able to execute your steps with power and grace, not to decide what you feel like doing.โ
Howardโs book is a delight. It was originally published in 1969โat the height of the sexual revolution. Yet it comes to us in this second edition with a foreword by Eric Metaxas. Metaxas read the book as a new Christian in 1988 and calls it โa kind of prose symphonyโ and a โrambling yet manicured and sweeping lawnโ full of things โyou will simply never forget.โ
Itโs a book youโll want to read slowlyโto savor the ideasโsince such beauty is not to be rushedโas in fruit taken too soon from a vine.
And through your savoring, may you come to the Danceโto the idea that all we do has meaning now and into eternity.
โIn this view, there is noย hiatus between what we are given to do in life and what life is โreally about.โ There . . . a synonymity. All this commonplace stuff is what lifeย isย really about.โ
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
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But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. I Timothy 6:8, NIV
“The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they became with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier to see something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle’s eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn.โ Walter M. Miller Jr.
History moves in cycles.
Civilization moves from darkness to light.
Under good conditions, food grows, people survive, subsist, succeed. Communities grow.
Such a life brings a hunger for knowledge. With faith, comes a pursuit of truth and goodness. Truth and goodness propel us to beauty.
Knowledge with truth and goodness also lead to prosperity, which leads to pleasure, which we confuse with happiness. Happiness brings satisfaction. Pleasure provides only a desire for more, a distorted yearning for something else, something next.
Constantly seeking happiness, we pursue pleasure and perceive we’ve found it in ease. But knowledge, truth, goodness, and beauty are all hard. They demand our sweat and toil.
We prefer ease. So we trade truth for ease, and in that swap, we lose the yearning to find beauty.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“What is the goal of our technologies? What should be our goal? What is off limits and why? What is our operating definition of the good that we are pursuing through technology? Where is the uncrossable line between healing and enhancement, and what are the other proper limits of our technologies? What are people?” Maria Baer and John Stonestreet
When my father was born in 1916, the first radio broadcast was still a dim hope, still four years off. KDKA in Pittsburgh wouldn’t transmit the first radio signals ever until 1920. Home ownership of telephones was still uncommon.
Now we carry devices that contain phones, radios, televisions, cameras, clocks, calculators, flashlights, information resources, and social media outlets.
Technology has come a long way since sliced bread and the assembly line.
During the 1990s, I took a college class called Science, Technology, and Society. The professor led multiple discussions of the telos of technology by asking the question, “Will people invent a technology they won’t use?”
Along with others, I asserted that our production of nuclear warheads was fulfilling its telos as a deterrent to nuclear war. We didn’t build bombs so we could use them. We built bombs hoping no one else would feel brazen enough to use theirs against us.
We didn’t think of the self-destructive “bombs” we were developing to finish ourselves off one at a time and with no beneficial result.
Take embryonic stem cell research, for example.
From Baer and Stonestreet:
“Historically, President Bushโs position on embryo-destructive research has been thoroughly vindicated. The additional funding committed to research into adult and induced pluripotent stem cells produced amazing medical breakthroughs. But none of the promises of embryonic stem cell therapies ever materialized, even after his Oval Office successor reversed Bushโs policies, rebuilt the Council around only scientists and medical researchers, and released enormous funding for embryo-destructive research,”
Additional funding. On and off over the years. But not a single benefit.
Harvesting humans. Reaping no benefits. Continuing to take lives and money to repeat the process.
Even if there were a benefit, I would still argue against this barbarity. How can we “benefit” from the death and destruction of innocents? We hope to gain healing for a physical body but harm eternal souls. We become less than we were, less than we can be, when we engage in such practices.
Technologies have good and bad ends. Even a bread slicer can produce a more usable and uniform product or a wounded worker. It’s all in how we use it and what the telos is.
We are letting the end we hope for overcome the meaning every human life always Contains. That purpose never involves becoming spare parts for someone else, directly by transplant or indirectly through research.
God created man in his own image, ย ย ย ย in the image of God he created him; ย ย ย ย male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27, ESV
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Fatherโs care. Matthew 10:29, NIV
One of my favorite aspects of fall is watching flocks of birds dance through the sky in synchronized motion.
So I offer this from the work of a grandson and former student, Aaron Hildebrand. You or someone you know could be like the bird in this poem. Recognizing the broken-winged among us shows grace and shines the light of Christ in a darkened world.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36, ESV
โThe true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.”Einstein
The questions of our times: Do we look within and decide for ourselves who we are? Or do we look outside ourselves and rise to become more than we are?
The first question leads people to what they believe is freedom, but their lives become a new kind of bondage. The second leads to a life we could not have imagined on our own, yet a life that may at times be more challenging.
Do you decide or let God decide?
“There are two freedoms โ the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.โ Charles Kingsley
Many choose the false way. The true way is harder, at first. It is harder to do what we ought to do, but the reward comes later.
Having made the right choices makes life better.
We see the results of people choosing their own way, lives broken by irrevocable choices. You can’t restore the marred bodies of children and babies, of men and women.
In choosing the harder way, we can show others the better way.
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:35 ESV
True worship makes life better and helps us find freedom from ourselves, freedom in Christ.
Joe Carter writes for the Gospel Coalition: “Frequent churchgoers arenโt merely benefiting from a useful delusion or a sense of community. They are finding the reliefโthe psychological and spiritual reliefโthat comes from aligning oneself with the true and ultimate reality. What we find in frequent worship services is helping us fulfill the purpose of life, what we could call biblical happiness: to glorify God and enjoy him forever. “
Even so, choosing the harder way means more than loving those like ourselves.
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:44-45, ESV
Choose true freedom. Walk in the harder way. Show that way to others.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“The Bible is clear that there is only one God … yet this unity does not preclude statements that allow three persons–the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit–to be called ‘God’ or ‘Lord.'”
It’s a doctrine that’s clear from the beginning in the Hebrew words of Genesis.
“Then God said, ‘Let usย make mankindย in our image,ย in our likeness.'” Genesis 1:26a, NIV
Three persons referring to themselves as ‘us’ but called God–a singular term.
And this doctrine continues through the New Testament.
“In the beginning was the Word,ย and the Word was with God,ย and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” John 1:1-2, NI’V
Something I’d not considered before: Phillips and Brown explain that when Jesus issued the Great Commission, He commanded us to make disciples and “‘baptize’ new converts in the ‘name’ (singular)” of each member of the Trinity.
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,ย baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 28: 19, NIV
A singular “name” for the three persons of one God.
They further state: “The respective roles and relationships within the Trinity present God as a dynamic fellowship rather than a static unity. God has exercised an eternal relationship of love and communication within His own nature.”
Singular names for one God comprised of three persons so unified they can correctly be called One.
We cannot fully appreciate the sacrifice the crucifixion caused, the division of persons who had never been separated for all of eternity past–and never will be again for all of eternity to come.
Our God, so big as to contain Three in One, so loving as to separate the indivisible–for us.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God.” I John 3:1a, NIV
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader books–especially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
School libraries and classrooms used to be trusted sources of worthy reads for kids. Today, that’s not a certainty in a growing number of communities.
Parents and kids need information about safe, clean books for kids and teens.
Books that are windows to history, culture, faith, and virtue. Books that urge readers to look outward to others, not just inward to self.
Books that invite young people into adventures that call them to higher thinking and nobler living.
A soon to launch website (we’re looking at mid-September), www.milicomathersreads.com, will offer reviews of classroom and read-for-fun books. Students and parents can post short reviews or blurbs providing title, author, plot summary without giving away the end, information about the main character, and their opinion about the book including identifying an audience who would enjoy the read.
At the beginning, we plan to focus on middle reader books (ages 8 through 13). You may offer a submission at nancyehead@yahoo.com or in the comments below.
Kids, tell us about the book you just finished reading. Grown-ups, dust off that copy of your favorite youth read and offer your insights.
We reserve the right to determine the “window” (looking outward) value of reviewed books and to edit submissions for punctuation and grammar, and for conciseness and clarity.
Share a message about a book you love!
Photo Credit: Li of Milico Mathers
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It’s easy for us to feel overwhelmed in life, to feel that our struggle is unique in history, to be discouraged by the political sniping, growing violence, and shrinking dollars our times have come to.
Some of us face larger challenges of personal tragedies, illness, or other loss that convince us that there’s no coming back for us.
Our situations intimidate us.
As we look back on our childhood studies of Bible stories, the characters often seem larger than life, as though they had no fears, no questions. To us, they seem too confident to be real.
But if we step into their shoes, we might be able to see that they were much as we are. They faced difficult decisions. They knew what seemed to be impossible circumstances. But the heroes among them followed truth and faith.
We can, we must, be like them. We’re all human. We’re all the same, past and present.
The book’s author Debbie W. Wilson says:
“Loss and intimidation are not new to Godโs people. What if you had to choose betweenโ
“โ Drowning your baby or letting your worst enemy raise him? “โ Bowing before an idol or being thrown into a fiery furnace? “โ Compromising your convictions or being tossed to the lions? “โ Living in fear or leading ill-equipped volunteers against an intimidating enemy?”
Midwives who risked death to save Hebrew babies, the heroes of Daniel including the prophet himself, Gideon leading a miniscule force against a seemingly invulnerable army were real people serving the able, present Lord.
Debbie Wilson leads us to understand the mountains biblical heroes climbed, to hold the stones they threw at giants, to see the risk to themselves they endured for the sake of honoring God.
She has a message for you in retelling these stories.
God was faithful to those who trusted Him in the past.
He will be faithful to you as well.
Coming from Debbie soon: a Leader’s Guide for this study. Check out Debbie’s other studies.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so beย wise as serpents andย innocent as doves.” Matthew 10:16, ESV
The world has transformed over the last century. Incrementally, gradually, with blips of notice and adjustment, we’ve navigated our busy lives. Technological change led the way.
A few go off the grid, rejecting a life of constant change and motion.
Some of us take a while to catch on to one innovation or another but don’t know enough about traps that shift shape with the wind.
Many of us roll along with the lava rush, embracing the most recent innovations.
All too often those caught up in that flow are kids who don’t have the needed skills to protect themselves.
Children and teens haven’t experienced life before the explosion of change. Those born at the onset of this century have only a foggy recollection of life without social media, without information, entertainment, and connection at their fingertips.
To them the world seems as if it’s always been this way, constantly shifting.
Ryan Kingensmith of shapethesky.org says younger kids don’t have the skills needed to avoid internet ills. The older they are when they engage in electronic socialization, the better. Even so, he doesn’t recommend that parents prohibit screens for younger kids altogether, but rather teach children how to handle technology responsibly as they grow.
โKids have the knowledge to use technology, but sometimes lack the wisdom to use it responsibly. Adults have the wisdom to be responsible users, but sometimes lack the knowledge to use technology.”
Shape the Sky’s website says, “Thereโs a disconnect between how adults think children use social media and how they actually use it.”
The wry insight of Mark Twain tells us, “It ainโt what you donโt know that gets you into trouble. Itโs what you know for sure that just ainโt so.”
To be as wise as serpents, we must understand the magnitude of the internet creature that is such a threat to minds, souls, and bodies of the innocent. We must understand the reality kids face.
We must realize the reality that our “adversary the devilย prowls aroundย like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” I Peter 5: 8, ESV
He seeks us. He seeks our children.
Resources like Shape the Sky help us perceive the reality around us to help protect the naive, the ones caught in the lava flow of innovation that kills innocence.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:39b, ESVUK
“The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” Sydney J. Harris
The elder leader of the group smiled with the presumed wisdom of a sage. “We can’t teach old books. The world has changed.”
The seminar for teachers had been filled with the assumption that contemporary education must include reflective books for middle/high school students. Old books no longer held relevance.
According to the new authority, teachers must give students books with characters like themselves in modern situations kids face today.
The world has changed, I thought. But how will students know how it’s changed if they only read books about kids like themselves? How will they ever be able to understand situations people faced in other times and what difference those books made?
To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with students considering how someone else might face a situation similar to one they’re experiencing.
Our minds, like our stomachs, need variety. But mirror-reflecting situations are good for occasional desserts, not as a steady diet.
Young people still need models who faced situations bigger than themselves.
Let’s consider some characters from a widely read book, banned in some places in the past, and having fallen out of favor with many educators in today’s world: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
Lee’s magnum opus came at a time of disruption in America, the 1960s. It showed what life was like in the fictional community of Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s.
Atticus Finch looked through a window. If he’d looked into a mirror, he would have refused to defend Tom Robinson. He would not have wanted his children to suffer the abuse of schoolmates that led Scout into playground fistfights.
He would have shielded them from the issue of their day. He would have protected them from witnessing a quest for justice. He would have kept them from who they would become–better people for having gone through the trial of resisting racism around them.
(Spoilers ahead.) Mayella Ewell looked through a mirror and saw the disdain the community would have for her for desiring the attention of a Black man. If she’d looked through a window, she might have seen Helen and the children who would have to find their way alone without the provision and love of Tom.
Had Bob Ewell looked through a window, he could have avoided the revenge that cost him his life.
Scout, Jem, and Dill looked into a mirror and found a desire to make Boo Radley come out.
Perhaps Boo Radley had looked into a mirror long enough. When he looked through the window, he saw children in need of protection and saved them.
The book wasn’t set in contemporary times. It reflected the inward conflict that comes with outward injustice. Something beyond youthful angst and a quest for identity within a school setting.
Well educated people understand the past. They understand the conflicts of people who came before them. They understand life beyond the First World issues of our day.
They know the struggles of pioneering America from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books.
They know the hunger of famine and how watching the society around you can push you into bad decisions from Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth.
They know the pain of living through the resolve not to sell yourself short in a society that doesn’t see your value from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. They know the victory that resolve brings.
They know the dangers of not paying attention to the past and to truth from George Orwell’s 1984.
They understand that, in order to love our neighbors, we must first look through a window to see them.
To limit our viewpoint to the mirror is to propel ourselves to our own destruction.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โPeople speak with incredible contempt aboutโdepending on their viewsโthe rich, the poor, the educated, the foreign-born, the president, or the entire US government. Itโs a level of contempt that is usually reserved for enemies in wartime, except that itโs applied to our fellow citizens. Unlike criticism, contempt is particularly toxic because it assumes a moral superiority in the speaker. . . . People who speak with contempt for one another will probably not remain united long.โ (Sebastian Junger 126)
We are a divided peopleโa people in many ways at war with each other. Sebastian Junger examines the reasons inย Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging. I picked the book up because it was the common read one fall on the campus where I taught freshman composition. All incoming freshmen receive a copy of the chosen book each year.
I hadnโt participated in the common read before and never again did. Other books didnโt fit with my course plan. I refused even to bring one home to investigate beyond the cover, which featured a naked woman. (Really!?)
At times, students indicated great relief that I wasnโt making them read the books.
This one was different.
When I read the description of Jungerโs book, I couldnโt wait to get ahold of it. It deals substantively with the division of our society and with PTSDโPost-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Junger explores why PTSD is a larger problem for us today even with a military much smaller than those of the World War II, Korea, and Vietnam eras.
The book fit well into class discussions that frequently included seasoned vets, some who confided in me that they suffered from PTSD because of their combat experiences.
When the number of vets in the room dropped, I quit using the book. Now I realize it might have been better for me to have kept it.
Now retired from the college classroom, I picked the book off my shelf this summer with an eye toward making it available for one of my high school students (with parental approval) to select for an Advanced Placement rhetoric project this year.
None of the students in my high school class will have experienced combat. Some of them have acquired, or know someone who has, PTSD.
All of us witness daily the division our society inhabits.
The compelling details of Jungerโs text include discussion of factors we don’t often considerโour degree of comfort, our freedom from threat, and our lack of a shared experience. Those factors alienate us from each other.
I remember my mother telling me what it was like during World War II. Everyone knew the country was at war. Everyoneโs life changed because we were at war. Everyone sacrificed.
Nearly everyone wanted to be part of the war effortโto contribute something, volunteering, donating a bicycle tire, buying a war bond.
Throughout the first two decades of the new century, most of America did not felt the pinch of war in the least. We did without nothing. Most of our lives didnโt changedโexcept for our awareness and fear of terrorism. We made an effort when soldiers returned, unlike the one those returning from Viet Nam sometimes suffered, that of public abuse.
But even though we are no longer officially at war, our society lives out no โshared public meaning.โ
โSuch public meaning is probably not generated by the kinds of formulaic phrases such as โThank you for your service,โ that many Americans now feel compelled to offer soldiers and vets [and sometimes police and firefighters]. . . . If anything, these token acts only deepen the chasm between the military and civilian populations by highlighting the fact that some people serve their country but the vast majority donโtโ (97).
Veterans from our Middle East wars have settled back into life in the US. Many still deal with PTSD. Many are homeless. They seem to have vanished into the crowd.
But PTSD and its affects don’t just hit combat veterans. I know some of my students deal with situations, past and current, that cause them to feel divided from others.
Even without our young men and women going off to war, we are a divided country suffering from a lack of vision.
Junger presents our momentary unity after 9/11, but that cohesiveness was so short lived because of our lack of a common experience, a common vision. Instead Junger describes a moral superiority that replaced the unity of a nation attacked.
Now we have to ask ourselves: What kind of attack will unify us in a long lasting, significant way?
And is there no other way?
Note: Some Christians will find Jungerโs continual assumption of evolution to be off-putting. But itโs not a big leap for readers of faith for readers to see sin as a contributing factor in todayโs troubled society. There is rare inappropriate language in the book.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the manโs nostrils, and the man became a living person. Genesis 2:7, NLT
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4, ESV
The Bible tells us that God breathing into Adam conveyed life to him. The Bible is the Word of God. We can’t speak a word without breathing. But when we read the Bible, God breathes life into us.
The Bible is the fresh air of our reading. But to live fully we need food too.
The Bible gives us life. Other books feed our souls.
The world holds a smorgasbord of worthy literature. Some of us pick from different books at once. Some of us consume them one at a time.
Barrett melds the individuality of Homer Smith, an everyman Baptist, and the community of a convent of Catholic nuns.
Smith, an African American man, and the nuns, refugees from Eastern Europe in the 1960s, represent those society rejects and oppresses. Smith drives a station wagon with a mattress in the back, his bed for the nights he might be turned away from the hotels of the early 1960s in America.
My eighth-grade mind missed the reasoning for his innovative preparations for rest on the road. When I teach the book now, I make sure students understand that many hotels would have turned Homer away because of his race.
The nuns invite Smith to join with their community to achieve a quest–a chapel for the local community.
The community remains. Homer Smith moves on to a “settling down place.” He goes on to find his home where he can build community.
Their encounters change him and them. Us too–as all good books do.
An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. Proverbs 18:14, ESV
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5: 22-23, ESV
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions:ย You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Before Christ, โIn all of history, only one culture had prohibited [abortion and infanticide]โthat of the Jewsโย (42).ย
I remember my mother telling me where she was and what she was doing when she learned that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. She was sweeping the basement floor and listening to the radio. When the news came, she shut off the radio. Denial is our first response to unfathomable news.
Eventually the event becomes memory. But if we lose our awareness of the past, we neglect the help it offers. Few people alive today remember the horror of hearing that news.
Weโve reached the point in our nation when no school age students remember the events of September 11, 2001. They have only heard about the day 19 terrorists killed more than 3,000 Americans on US soil.
Since the fall of Roe v. Wade more than a year ago, however, we realize American’s have not come to terms with legal abortion. We still argue over it. A voice still proclaims the sanctity of human life. A voice still declares the holiness of the traditional familyโthe community designed to welcome and nurture new sacred lives.
Before Christ, aside from the Jews, every society practiced abortion, infancticide, pedophilia, and adultery without internal controversy. In their book Seven Revolutions: How Christianity Changed the World and Can Change It Again, Mike Aquilina and James L. Papandrea explain that human rights, equality, and compassion for the needy and weak have been nonexistent throughout history except for the influence of the Judeo-Christian God.
In the Roman Empire, charity was unheard of. ย โA woman had no legal existence apart from the men who controlled her.โ Roman fathers could execute their children, if they โjudged them guilty of a crime, even into adulthoodโ (69). Abortion and infanticide, especially of girls, were common. Not rare, but common.
Aquilina and Papandrea cite census reports from Delphi that show that out of 600 families, โonlyย sixย raised more than one daughterโ (authorsโ emphasis, 48).
Jewish communities treasured their children. But nobody else in the world thought twice about throwing away girls or disabled boys, any โinconvenientโ child, like trash.
Until Christ.
Christ and His messengers changed the world so that human rights and equality became norms in Western Civilization. Most families in societies the Church influenced understood the nature of their holy trust to nurture sacred lives.
Today some of us are like my mother at the moment she learned of tragedy in the South Pacific. We have turned off the radio. Voices still argue. Some children and families survive; some thrive. Many are wounded or worse.
In the decadent worldโbefore and beyond the Roman Empire, Christians spoke.
โTo affirm the universal dignity of human life requires the strong to speak up for and defend the weak, those who canโt speak for themselvesโ (29).
Christians are the voice to renew regard for human life. We hold the revolutionary ideas that changed the world once.
And those ideas can change it again.
ย Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. Psalm 139:16.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โ[T]here were times, . . . mainly during the . . . harvest, when we would all be together. The men would go early to have the benefit of the cool of the morning. The women would finish their housework and then gather, sometimes bringing dishes already cooked, to lay on a big feed at dinnertime; and then after the dishes were done, they would go out to help in the field or the barn for the rest of the day. . . . This was our membership.โ (Hannah Coulter 92)
Through most of Americaโs history, people grew up in small towns. They knew each other and helped each other. Most people were part of a community.
Modern people have accused these forebears of sexual division, relegating women to the kitchen. But women worked in the fields too. Men and women grew food and other crops.
Often the division of labor meant he worked harder than she did growing the food. And she worked harder than he did to bring to put it on the table. Children grew up learning a good measure of hard work.
It wasnโt about who did what work. It was about making sure the work got done. Everyone had a part to play, a contribution to make, a purpose to serve.
People worked hard, some just to surviveโothers, to thrive. They grew old, perhaps at a faster rate than we do. They were tired. But they were not lonely.
Today, loneliness is an American epidemic. We might expect that among the elderlyโespecially those who live aloneโbut that isnโt the case. In fact, older people have done the best job of keeping themselves from being isolated.
The loneliest among us are the young.
The situation was bad before COVID. It’s worse now.
The problem is bigger than social isolation. Loneliness is a health problemโas harmful as smokingโmaking some more prone to heart disease. Loneliness is costly in many ways.
And social loss happens in more than dollars. Lonely people are more prone to substance abuse. Loneliness has become a social crisis.
Author of Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry sums up our problem this way: โWe need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other.โ
An exodus back to the farming life doesnโt seem reasonable. Much of the available farmland has been consolidated or subdivided. But there are things we can do.
Many of these things came more easily to farm folks. Working together, eating together.
We can do those things too. But we have to be more intentional than they had to be.
We can grow some of our own food. Some of us already grow tomatoesโeven in potsโeven in apartments. What better way to show the young that food doesnโt originate in a store?
What better way to explain the concept of cultivation?
We cultivate plants. We cultivate purpose. We cultivate our souls.
When we as a society left the farm for the town or the suburbs, we thought we were moving to a better place, an easier life. Ease has shown itself to be a false promise for peace in our hearts.
With purpose, we find that peace. And that is something we can pass along.
โIt is not good for the man to be alone.โ Genesis 2:18
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“I am concerned with cases where fetuses that had been thus far welcomed and loved by their respective community are suddenly regarded as candidates for abortion simply because they may have been diagnosed with a disability. That is, I am worried about cases where disability is deemed sufficient grounds for dehumanizing a being who had been, up until that point, embraced.“
Bertha Alvarez Manninen “self-identifies as pro-choice”. Manninen has values. She does not have a standard regarding life.
A standard is a line that doesn’t move. A mile is a mile. A cup is a cup. A foot equals 12 inches. Standards don’t change.
In contrast, a value changes. We know all too well that a dollar today doesn’t buy what it did a few years ago. It’s unlikely to buy next year what it does today.
In the United States in 1973, the Supreme Court effectively legalized abortion in all 50 states without restriction. States added limitations like waiting periods and parental consent but had little say in effectively regulating the procedures.
When states did have success in limiting abortion, there were always loopholes, ways around the rules enabling the killing of children and harm to mothers, fathers, siblings, and others.
One such loophole regarding gestational age was birth defects in the unborn.
This loophole allowed people to bestow conditional acceptance to other people. Unborn children who’ve managed to survive to a certain age, birth, sometimes have permission to continue living if they can pass a health test.
For the unacceptable ones who slip through the process intended to eliminate them, nineteen states allow a doctor to deny them care until they die.
For Manninen, refusing to accept a child you don’t want because of inconvenience is acceptable. Celebrating a child’s expected arrival and then rejecting the child based on a diagnosis of disability is not.
Surely the child with disabilities would be inconvenient also.
It rubs her the wrong way to abort the disabled baby you had previously longed to hold and raise. That child, she asserts, is dehumanized and unworthy of rejection.
Unworthy of dismemberment.
Yet the child you did not long for is already, in her view, dehumanized and worthy of suffering the worst.
For Manninen, the child’s humanization emanates from the mother’s/parents’ desire for the child early on, a value she asserts should be a standard once the parents decide their baby is wanted.
If the law makes human value a moving line, we are all subject to someone else’s judgment that we are no longer worthy of life.
Life as a value is a shifting line that can take out any of us.
Life as a standard is a truss that upholds a stable society.
We can’t point to the moment society’s rules changed from standards to values. But we can point to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche as the one who substituted the shifting term for the constant one and asserted the shift from God’s authority to humans.
“The strong individual loves the earth so much he lusts for recurrence. He can smile in the face of the most terrible thought: meaningless, aimless existence recurring eternally. The second characteristic of such a man is that he has the strength to recognize – and to live with the recognition – that the world is valueless in itself and that all values are human ones. He creates himself by fashioning his own values; he has the pride to live by the values he wills.”
All values are human ones. Questions about which people are worthy of life and which do not emanate from such a worldview.
All moral standards come from God. His commandments about how we must treat innocent life don’t come with exceptions. God’s decrees are standards.
Human beings require a standard of worth–the unchangeable precept that we all have worth that does not change. The immovable line of human worth prods us to welcomes all regardless of age or degree of ability. His standard of love shows us the worth of every human being.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; ย ย ย ย my soul knows it very well.Psalm 139:14, ESV,Biblegateway.com
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โA horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. Being driven to desperation, it occurred to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. The man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at the manโs disposal. The horse was willing, and allowed the man to place bridle and saddle upon him. The man mounted, hunted down the wolf, and killed him.
โThe horse, joyful and relieved, thanked the man, and said: โNow that our enemy is dead, remove your bridle and saddle and restore my freedom.โ โWhereupon the man laughed loudly and replied, โNever!โ and applied the spurs with a will.โ Isaac Asimov~
A slow process takes us from freedom to tyranny. Identifying the influence of multiple elements helps us track the descent.
In our culture that once encouraged self-control, personal morality used to be just that, personal. No more.
Behavior shifted from publicly accepted mores to license, and on to the despotism of an imposed moral code. The culture that asked restraint of young and old became one that embraced “free” sex among the unmarried, including unlimited abortion, and no-fault divorce among the previously committed. From there emerged LGB, then T, and now to an assortment of alphabetical self-identities limited only by one’s imagination.
The new moral code arising from the “freedom” era requires us to embrace and approve of any sexual choice, and apparently now the push is on for any choice at any age.
Not until Bud Light and Target aimed at the young did a significant reaction occur–as if the frog in the slowly heating pot had suddenly awakened. The end result of that reaction remains to be seen.
Do not be mistaken: the young are the goal and have always been.
Eleven states require a positive classroom presentation of “LGBTQ+ history.” Only four of those allow students to opt out. Five others prohibit such teaching, but Florida for example, limits the prohibition to the early grades.
Some call for a return to basics in the public classroom. Gillian Richards says those making such assertions miss the mark.
“For years, some conservatives have responded to morally toxic content in schools by implying that proper education should be morally neutral. The left has a campaign to โteach the whole child.โ These critics counter by saying, ‘No, teach just a part.'”
Richards goes on to quote C.S. Lewis: “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Lewis would be shocked to find his geldings metaphor to have become so literal today.
Rochards continues, “It is a bitter irony that some Americans on the right now invoke the very thing Lewis critiqued as the cure to the ideologies that have replaced progressivismโcritical theory, gender ideology, and the like.”
An education without moral formation is, it seems, no education at all.
Richards looks back for the answer. “The Founders and early Americans saw a core part of education as cultivating virtues, morality, and religionโall of which sustain a free and prosperous society.”
Where do we find such virtues?
Primarily in history and books.
As a college instructor, I was astonished at what my students did not know. Too many didn’t know a simple timeline of America’s “big wars,” the War for Independence, the Civil War, World Wars I and II. They seemed unaware of which century, not to mention which decade important events occurred.
Here’s part of why that’s the case.
Last fall, I attended a teachers’ conference. I participated in this conference for English teachers twice before but had been absent for more than a decade. The transformation was astonishing.
I’ll paraphrase my main takeaway. “The world has changed. We can no longer teach old books.”
The world has changed indeed. But students in too many schools (not all) today are sentenced to a life of ignorance about its various transformations, both from a technological and a literary perspective.
They read books about the world today. Books focused on the issues they see, their depression, their sexual confusion, their lack of understanding mirrored back to them in a resolution of false wisdom.
We have a long way to go to get back to the basics. The journey to wisdom and virtue is further yet.
In order for our society to teach virtue, we must first embrace it ourselves. Selfishness was the seed that produced the fruit we live in today.
Asimov: The fall of Empire . . . is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosityโa hundred other factors. It has been going on, as I have said, for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to stop.โ
In order to rescue our nation, we must become the horse that can throw off its own bridle.
Difficult, yes.
Impossible?
Asimov thought so, but he did not know that only One who could stop the decline into desolation.
With God, all things are possible. Let’s look to Him.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author. Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduIce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โPoor is the nation that has no heroes. Poorer still is the nation that, having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.โ Marcus Tullius Cicero
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. Itโs a day we mark with picnics and parades. The unofficial beginning of summer, yet so much more than the chance to eat hot dogs and buy a new swimsuit.
Decoration Day, as the holiday was originally known, began after the Civil Warโour bloodiest conflict. It was a time when a divided country was trying to healโperhaps as we are today.
We mark the day on the last Monday of Mayโbut May 30 had been the selected date before three-day weekends became a priority. May 30 reminds us of no notable battles from the Civil War. The day only reminds us of those whoโve given themselves for the cause of countryโour country.
We enrich ourselves in this remembering.
Remembering those whoโve done noble things tells us we can be noble too.
Of his sailors and marines at Iwo Jima in World War II, Admiral Chester Nimitz said, โUncommon valor was a common virtue.โ Iwo Jima is famous for the flag-raising image that is now a statue.
Three of the six flag raisers died in battle.
My father was in the South Pacific as a Navy medic. He was someone who went to war to make sure others came home safely. Someone who hoped not to see battleโbut was prepared in case he did,
โCourage, G.K. Chesterton said, โis almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.โ
Today we remember those who wanted to live but fought anyway. Some came home. Some gave themselves instead.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“What sort of world might it have been if Eve had refused the Serpent’s offer and had said to him instead, ‘Let me not be like God. Let me be what I was made to be–let me be a woman,'” Elisabeth Elliot.
When I was in tenth grade, I imagined what life would be if I were someone else. I imagined myself as a girl in my class who wasn’t too tall or too plump, as I saw myself. She had the cutest layered hair cut. Not in the style of Farrah Fawcett, who had yet to achieve fame, but who would seed a crop of feathered hair across our nation.
Instead of wondering who I was, who I was supposed to become, I worried more about what people, especially boys, wanted me to be. That was who I wanted to be.
Around the time I was musing within my high school mind, many of the world’s women imagined what life would be if they could only be like men. Not actually men, mind you. Just like men.
So in the ’70s women wanted to be like men. But they couldn’t be like men because men don’t have babies. Men could have sex casually and choose to avoid the consequences.
So women wanted abortion. And now men have sex with them and push them to abortion, at least some of the time. Sometimes, it’s a girl’s or woman’s parents. Sometimes, it’s her abuser, her trafficker. No matter the situation, her choice isn’t as free as abortion supporters had promised it would be.
Women wanted to be like men and still pay a big price for behaving as men sometimes do.
Now a new possibility emerges on that same front, a vaccination to prevent pregnancy. And it seems possible that such a medication is on the horizon for women.
It sounds like a great idea. No hormones.
No side effects?
Not so fast.
Immunizations get our bodies to attack cells we don’t want.
“[W]hat comes of immunizing a woman against herself? For this is precisely what a birth control vaccine would do. Where other forms of contraceptives attack the female bodyโs natural cycles, a vaccine would deputize the work of pregnancy prevention to her own flesh, teaching her cells to become belligerents against their own. It would bring the war on womanhood right down to the cellular level, teaching her body to strip itself of the very thing that makes it female,” Carmel Richardson.
Many men and women today who are de-transitioning from trying to become the opposite sex are learning that what we want when we are young often changes later on. Some treatments are permanent. We can’t always turn back from what we decided in our youth.
Brenda Baletti quotes Brian Hooker, PhD. PE: โThe big question [about a contraceptive vaccine] that comes to mind is โreversibility.โ It is very difficult to turn off an immune response complete withย memory B-cellsย after it has been turned on. My fear is that many would be left permanently sterile from this type of vaccine.”
Imagine abusers and traffickers threatening, forcing the vaccine on their victims, not bothering to persuade, not concerned with consequences.
As Eve learned the hard way, trying to be who we want to be without regard to God’s intentions doesn’t produce the desired result. A deal with the devil never pays as it promises.
Women striving to be “like men” has led to today–when men want to become women and women want to become men. Social movements keep moving. They don’t stand still. From the ’70s to today, people seek new, self-created identities.
The recently departed Dr. Timothy Keller reminded us that “identity is received, not achieved.” We can never make ourselves into something better than who God intended for us to be, who he specifically gifted us to be.
Attempting to create ourselves anew is distorted pride.
Elisabeth Elliot quotes Isak Dinesen to define an undistorted God-centered pride, a good kind of pride, as “faith in the idea that God had when he made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards a happiness, or comfort, which may be irrelevant to God’s idea of him. His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny.”
Our attempts to recreate ourselves in mentally conjured images are Eve’s sin, distorted self-pride. Idolization of self.
Social movements move. They do not stand still. Nothing stays put. We will not reach an end that says, “I am content with the person I am,” unless we come to God’s view, who he had in mind when he made us.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Once windblown sand without direction, I am now glass, colored by life, faith, and love. ย Sand heated, tinted, shaped, and planted, Part of a larger picture. ย Cracks and fissures healed and yet healing, Whole glass within the framework, ย Supported by Spirit,
Surrounded by glass like and unlike me. ย Light shines to the world through me, through us, A piece in the picture of the Bride, ย Glass arranged just so to shine light and show the image, Glass, waiting for the Kingโs return. ย He waits to heat, shape, heal cracks, And place you just right, ย So His light and image can shine on another, Windblown sand without direction.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“The light shines in the darkness. But the darkness has not overcome the light.” John 1:5, NIV~
What’s your favorite color? It’s a simple question. But it’s one Yeonmi Park found impossible to answer.
When Park was 13, she and her mother decided to escape from North Korea. Her sister had gone ahead days earlier. The girls’ father planned to follow later.
Park and her mother, as Park’s sister had, paid a broker to get them across the Yalu River thinking they could get jobs in China and be free.
Free–even though the citizenry of North Korea has no word for the concept of freedom or justice. Or an understanding of the pronoun I. There is only we, Park says in her book In Order to Live.
When they got to China, Park and her mother learned they were to be sold as prostitutes or wives for Chinese farmers since the country’s one child policy had created a dearth of women through sex-selective abortion.
Park watched helplessly as a broker raped her mother. Exploitation continued until they met Christian missionaries.
You might think the gathering between grace and those seeking freedom would be one of joy. But the missionaries told Park and her mother that their work in a sex chat room, the only work they could find because of their illegal status, the only work they could do to eat, was sin. They were “dirty”. They must repent or risk their entire group being captured and repatriated to North Korea.
That possibility was no small threat since North Korea typically executes defectors.
Park felt as judged as she had in North Korea during the daily self-criticism sessions.
Park was 15 when they arrived in South Korea through Mongolia. The South welcomed defectors from the North. Yet the transition from oppression to freedom was not a simple one.
Imagine growing up in a society where you almost never have to make a decision, what to wear, where to go, what your job will be, even what to eat because famine meant you ate what you could get–even dragonflies and roaches.
Park had no way to answer questions like What do you think? or What is your favorite color? She even thought that, if not for the death sentence that would ensue, it might be better to go back to North Korea where there was no burden to make decisions.
We in America give no thought to such questions. We know what we think. We know we’re right, most often without listening to those who disagree with us.
And we know which colors we prefer for our clothing, houses, and cars.
We take so much for granted. Our abundant food, our electricity that is reliable for the most part, our freedom in matters large and small.
Such abundance and freedom impressed Park–even in China, not a country most in the West would point to as a bastion of liberty.
North Korea is a land of, not only spiritual darkness, but also physical darkness. The photo above is a satellite image of electrical light at night. One bright spot indicates the capital city where dictator Kim Jong Un resides.
Darkness comes in different forms. Park was surprised and pleased to learn that South Korea had a law forbidding men to beat their wives. Abuse in the North is common and accepted. It’s not that the law is unenforced. There is no law against abuse.
North Korea is a land of darkness, physical, spiritual, moral, and intellectual.
America is a land of artificial light with a sense of freedom that is sometimes deceptive.
What’s your favorite color? You need light to perceive color.
You need light to understand oppression and to navigate freedom.
Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying,ย โI am the Light of the world;ย the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.โJohn 8:12, NASB~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
A man is playing chess with the devil. It looks like the devil has won.
We don’t know how much the painter Friedrich Moritz August Retszch understood about chess. Paintings don’t usually come with written explanations.
Even so, a legend has attached itself to this one.
A chess grand master visited the Louvre and studied the painting.
Although the man in the painting appeared to be losing, although an observant, forlorn angel stood by mourning another lost soul, and although Satan was congratulating himself for a win, the chess board told another story.
The man still had a move to make, and that move could lead him to victory.
When the Israelites had their backs against the Red Sea, God had another move.
When Jesus was dead, and evil appeared to have won, God had another move.
God will always have another move.
He may appear to have lost, but God has already won.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Faithful Christians of different traditions are soldiers in the same army, but our uniforms are different colors. Itโs as if we somehow believe it is not a war we are fighting but a game we are playing. And the soldiers with different colored uniforms are players on a team we opposeโa team of bitter rivalsโrather than our fellow soldiers who hold to the same creed and battle the same enemy.
Imagine two nations, each warring against the same evil foe. The world is in peril as the evil enemy conquers more and more countries, stealing more and more hearts. The enemy troops are captives. The soldiers who fight the enemy are duty bound volunteers whose mission is to call the enemyโs troops to freedom.
Further imagine the general of one nation trying to discuss battle strategy with a general from the other. The generals do not speak the same language, and no one is present to translate. Some individual soldiers continue to engage in battleโsome effectively, some even in concert with allies in different uniforms. Their efforts are small and uncoordinated.
Other soldiers donโt know what to do, so they do nothing but fret about the war to the soldiers of their own units.
Both nations have the same goals, but they use different strategies. Some work well; others waste time, resources, and energy fighting the same battle here, but sending no soldiers there. The needs are great, but the work is lonely and calls for reinforcement.
Because the nationsโ customs and foods are different, they misunderstand each other. These misunderstandings distract both from the crucial battle against the enemy. They imagine their fellow soldiers as the enemy. The two forces end up fighting each other.
Many who have not joined either are confused. The enemy succeeds in drawing them outside the battle lines, outside the reality of the war they themselves need to win. The evil enemy takes even more ground, captures even more souls.
The army that fights the enemy has a long history. When its fight began, the army was a small corps of committed fighters; most gave their lives in battle. From the armyโs very inception, from its beginning with only twelve generals, the enemy had infiltrated the ranks.
A betrayer was within the ranks of the armyโs greatest leaders. For the first 500 years, division happened within the army.
The forces of good were the faithful who battled forces of evil, the corrupted betrayers. Infiltration continues to this day and sparks confusion among those who might otherwise become soldiers. Some people like wearing the uniform but would never actually engage in battle. They are not true soldiers.
Aside from infiltration, the enemy has two main battle strategies. The first is persecution. His intention is to kill as many soldiers as he canโthe most typical war strategy. It not only eliminates opposition, but he supposes that it deters new enlistments. This strategy is often faulty. Our army grows in the face of persecution, and our cohesiveness is at its peak when our trials are plenty. The soldiers wearing different colored uniforms work together best during times of persecution.
His second strategy is more subtle and more insidious. He lavishes our established, well-entrenched forces with wealth, comfort, and divisiveness. The divisiveness is often thinly veiled self-righteousness. We make judgments about each other based on those who wear their uniforms lightly or even deceptively, or we accept someoneโs misinterpretation of anotherโs worship language. For Satan, this second strategy has been his most effective throughout history.
The primary battlefield of this war is within peopleโs hearts. Here is the battlefield we have most neglected. Here is the front where we must win.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“What is urgently called for is a general mobilization of consciences and a united ethical effort to activate a great campaign in support of life. All together, we must build a new culture of life”โ Pope St. John Paul the Great
The above quote comes from The Vulnerable People Project’s website.
The story of VPP begins with Jason Jones who got his high school girlfriend pregnant. He joined the army to prepare to support her and his child.
As the child of a teen mother, Jones grew up with the dream that he would be a father in an intact family, and his “children would be happy and safe.”
While still in training, a phone call dashed his hopes as his girlfriend’s father explained: “I know your secret, and it’s gone.” His girlfriend wept that she had not done it. Her father had forced her to have an abortion.
At the time, Jones was an atheist. But he understood that his daughter, whom the couple had already named Jessica, had become a murder victim.
He had never been to church. He’d had no interest in politics.
From that day forward, he “committed his life ‘to protecting women and children from the violence of abortion.'”
His commitment was real. It would take years before it became a commitment of faith. As Jones worked to protect the innocent, to protect the vulnerable, he rubbed elbows with people of faith. He worked with Christian organizations and studied political philosophy.
He came to know the truth of Christ, the meaning of freedom.
Jones produced the movie Bella (and other films) and used the proceeds from DVD sales to promote the film’s prolife message in pregnancy resource centers and prisons.
His accomplishments don’t end with films, and they aren’t limited to saving the unborn. His effort begin there, and now reach far and wide.
Medical treatment for girls ISIS has displaced.
Efforts to free Catholic bishops imprisoned in China.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
There didnโt appear to be any risks or side effectsโฆor if there were, we didnโt go over them. Surely if there were risks, they would have told me about them, right?Abby Johnson
It was supposed to fix it allโwomen dying from illegal abortions, child abuse, poverty.
Abortion would end dangerous, back alley procedures that killed desperate girls and women. Child abuse would end. Lessening the burden from โunwanted childrenโ would enhance the economic stability of the poor.
Compassionate helpers would be the heroes of abortion โrightsโ.ย Thatโs what they told us in the 1960s and โ70s and into the โ80s. Many still make some claims, leaving out the one about child abuse rates going down.
The above quote from Abby Johnson explains what she thought before she had her chemical abortion. What she thought afterwards was very different.
She thought she was going to die. She bled for eight weeks.
Perhaps some who tell these tales are misguided. We can see now that many were intentionally deceiving us.
Former atheist and โabortion doctorโย Bernard Nathansonย revealed the deceptions after his conversionsโfirst to a pro-life perspective, then to a Christian one. A leading proponent of โlegal and safeโ abortion became a vocal proponent for lifeโand a voice of truth.
โRepeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200 โ 250 annually [before 1973]. The figure constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law.โ
Cracking the abortion law caused, Nathanson said, โthe annual number of abortions . . . [to increase] by 1500% since legalization.โ
The reporting of abortion complications in 24 states is voluntary, so the numbers we have are guesses. ย Even so, the CDC acknowledges thatย four-hundred and thirty-seven women died in America of legal abortion between 1972 and 2014. Legal and safe was not safe for them.
America bought the lie. And much of what abortion was supposed to fix got much worse.
Some may argue that better reporting has led to greater transparency of abuse that was going unreported before. But the rates of abuse simply do not translate into abortion access reducing child abuse. Child abuse was a problem before liberal abortion laws; today it is a bigger problem. We bought the lie that abortion would reduce, even eliminate, child abuse.
And poverty. Abortion would keep women out of poverty by ensuring that an unplanned child did not interrupt a motherโs education or require her to leave her job.
Rachel MacNairย sites Thomas J. Strahanโs assertion that abortion canย exacerbateย poverty.
โExperience suggests abortion may instead actually be a contributing factor. Through an increase in broken relationships, psychological difficulties, and substance abuse, a practice which is done exclusively on women may put them atย greaterย economic disadvantage.โ
And as compassionate as abortionists might like to present themselves, nobody does abortions for free.
From Planned Parenthood’s website: “Anย in-clinic abortionย can cost up to around $800 in the first trimester, but itโs often less. The average cost of a first trimester in-clinic abortion at Planned Parenthood is about $600. The cost of a second trimester abortion at Planned Parenthood varies depending on how many weeks pregnant you are. The average ranges from about $715 earlier in the second trimester to $1,500-2,000 later in the second trimester.ย “
And yes, third trimester abortions happen. Here are some numbers. But remember, reporting is voluntary.
They make a similar amount of money for passing out pills and sending a girl or woman home to deal with the trauma herself. With new regulations allowing telemedicine or abortion by mail, there is the increased peril of women not knowing the Rh factor of the unborn child and not receiving medicine that would enable them to have more children.
There is also no way of knowing whether the baby is an ectopic pregnancy, a serious risk to the mother.
It is all gain and not much to lose for abortion “providers”.
Like the purveyors of illegal abortion, those who engage in the legal practice of ending a pregnancy through the death of a child conduct their business on a cash upfront basis.
Abortion โprovidersโ were supposed to care deeply about women. But those who perform abortions do not provide. They sell. They earn. They prosper.
But here’s some good news:
“The Society of Family Planning, not exactly a pro-life organization, released aย studyย earlier this week indicating that there were 32,260 fewer abortions than expected between July and December after the Supreme Court’sย Dobbsย decision. That means there are more than 30,000 living, breathing babies alive today who, but forย Dobbsย [the SCOTUS case that overturned Roe] and anti-abortion laws passed at the state level, would not have been born.”
Speak truth to the lie.
Truth saves babies’ lives. It saves women’s lives.
Truth can make the difference for families, women, babies. Truth brings protection for life and against death and trauma.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โIf man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesusโ fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him.โ A.W. Tozer
We are the people of paradoxโthe apparent contradiction that is not a contradiction at all because it is truth.
We live by dying to self. His strength shows in our weakness.
We are supposed to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, and rejoice when life has us down.
We are supposed to live without fear, to live with peace in our hearts.
Sometimes, we are the people of the wrong paradox. We fear when we should hope and trust. We lack peace because we fear.
He is the God of paradox. He won by losing.
When everyone else thought He was gone for good, thought His teaching was done, He won the greatest victory ever.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
One of my very favorite passages from the Bible comes at the end of the book of Luke.
Two men are walking down the road discussing the crucifixion of their leader. Another joins them and asks what theyโre talking about. They wonder at Him not knowing.
But they donโt realize that Heโs the only one who actually does know what really happened.
He talks to them about prophesy. When they reach Emmaus, He indicates that He will keep going.
Itโs evening, they say. Stay with us. When He breaks the bread, they recognize Him. Then He vanishes.
Did our hearts not burn within us? They ask themselves.
Often thatโs where we stop reading. But what happens next?
Once they realize Christ was the One who talked with them, opened the scriptures (the prophecies he fulfilled) to them, and broke the bread, they donโt just go to sleep planning to react to their revelation the next morning.
They immediately return to the place theyโd just leftโJerusalem. Walking, tired but exhilarated, filled with the adrenalin of realization, of fulfilled understanding.
Remember, itโs evening. Perhaps itโs even dark before they begin. They already walked and are walking again.
Imagine their arrival, very late, even in the middle of the night.
โWake up! Let us in! Weโve been with Jesus! He has risen!โ
The crucifixion had destroyed any hopes they had that Jesus would lead them in victory over Roman rule. They had been confused. They had lost all hope.
His resurrection brought a better kind of hope, a hope based in the true understanding of who Christ isโa God for life and eternityโnot someone who came to get us off a hook of political oppression.
He came to free us from the consequences of being us. He came to give us this life and the next one.
Like the men who traveled to Emmaus and then returned to Jerusalem in joy, our next step cannot be to go to sleep.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Eph 4: 31-32 ESV
โSo whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7: 12 ESV
There is a strange ethic today, one of disrespect. It springs from a demand for respect. Itโs a tunnel vision respectโa one way street. Yet it goes in two directions.
Itโs a mentality that says, โI donโt have to respect you because you donโt respect me. Or my cause. Or the ax I am grinding today. Or [fill in the blank].โ It doesnโt matter if you lean left or right in your politics. If you reject faith in God or hold to it. There are two roads of discourse and only those who agree are allowed on a highway.
Itโs hard to pinpoint when it all began. Perhaps it was some time after a president advised us to, โAsk not what your country could do for you.โ That difficulty of finding a starting point would indicate a gradual slide into the morass of accusations, name calling, and violence.
We have to admit, we have done it to ourselves. As affluence rose, faithfulness fell. That includes faithfulness to grace and civility among those who name Christ as Savior.
Our children learned evolution, that we are just an animal species, not the image of God. Judeo-Christian principles became a foreign language.
Children of the left and right alike embraced the new freedomโsexual license and freedom from responsibilityโand the wounds that come with them. Such an embrace of sin leads to a stumbling into another sin snare, obnoxious self-righteousness.
Remember the conversation on social media over the US Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision? Christians and others of like conscience would not have to pay for abortion inducing โbirth control.โ The โoppositionโ was most unreasonable in its insistence that conscience should not determine what services women are โentitled to.โ
The argument heightened when Dobbs overturned Roe.
On the other side, โour side,โ David Aikman discussed the reaction of Christians to an atheist book. Believers became โself-appointed attack dogs of Christendom. They seem determined to savage not only opponents of Christianity, but also fellow believers of whose doctrinal positions they disapprove.โ
โThe attacks, moreover, are not reasoned or modestly couched criticism, but blasts of ire determined to discredit beyond redemption the targets of the criticism.โ
We’ve forgotten we are to love our enemies. We’ve lost our ability to disagree reasonably, to engage in civil discourse.
We have more than two options. Instead of caving to unbiblical demands or responding with anger and name-calling, we can speak truth calmly and with reasoned argument.
We have the truth on our side. Using venom in our response will not win over others. It simply passes the poison down to the next generation only partly by our example.
For children on both sides, we boosted their self-esteem. We encouraged unhampered self-expression without requiring effort, accomplishment, and compassion for others.
We overspent on comfort and luxury. The government overspent. When the crash of 2008 came, manyโleast of all the governmentโdid not curb spending. Personal debt is nearly as high as it was then. Our national debt has “surged” to previously unimaginable heights.
We have created monsters of entitlement. They are ourselves. There is a material sense of entitlement. But there is also a sense of entitlement to be obnoxious.
Christians are as guilty as anyone. Guiltier yet, because to be obnoxious is to be disobedient. And there is a crop to harvest from all this obnoxious, entitlement thinking.
New US Senator JD Vance correctly understands that Americans โlook to the future more with frustration and fear than with hope and optimism.โ
A Gallup poll supports that view. American’s have a “mostly gloomy outlook for the U.S. as majorities predict negative conditions in 12 of 13 economic, political, societal and international arenas.”
No wonder we’re cranky.
Perhaps our venom is inevitable. The economy aside, there had to be a point where more comfort and a higher quality of life, would be unattainable. There is a saturation point to luxury and pleasure. We’ve surpassed it and are reaping its results.
A primary result is that we stopped being grateful for what we have. We’ve grown to expect more. We expect to get and keep what we enjoy. And that it should never be threatened. We’ve convinced ourselves the party will never end.
As our personal kingdoms totter, we become bitter, angry, even afraid. Our sense of self-regard has toppled regard for our neighbor.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.” Romans 7:15~
That’s a verse that may come to mind when we’ve eaten too much of something that isn’t so good for us.
At this point in the year, most people’s New Year’s resolutions are long forgotten. Eleven days remain in Lent.
The closer we get to Easter, the more I dream and plan of the things I want to eat that I’ve done without for some time. As I begin to shop for our family’s traditional foods, I find myself yearning for foods I’m better off limiting or avoiding altogether.
As most health and wellness books do, Katherine’s calls us to eat and exercise well, get enough sleep, and manage stress.
Even so, this book is not just another health and wellness book to collect dust on your shelf while you shame yourself for eating yet another cookie (or six).
Katherine presents a spiritual road map. This book strikes at the heart of our eating, sitting, restlessness, and worrying about things we cannot control.
We’ve spent years, perhaps decades thinking we have a food problem or a job problem. Many times, though, our problems are spiritual. We have forgotten who we are and who God is. We’re focusing on the wrong things.
“Healthful living is not just about what we eat or how active we are, although those two aspects of health are very important. Achieving good health involves recognizing the many dimensions of health: physical, mental spiritual, emotional, social, and vocational. These aspects intertwine, each one affecting the others. When all aspects of health are balanced and viewed as important, we can strive for better health.”
Honoring God with My Body is organized for daily study for an individual or group.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here! Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I will give thanks to You, because am awesomely and wonderfullyย made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.Psalm 139:14
In the poem “Welcome to Holland,” Emily Perl Kingsley compares her experience as a mother of a child with disabilities to someone planning a trip to Italy but ending up in Holland.
Future parents dream of going to Italy and touring the Coliseum, which translates to having a healthy child with typical challenges such as skinned knees, struggles with algebra, and a broken heart over lost adolescent love.
Prospective parents don’t dream of going to Holland, which has tulips and Rembrandt, but represents having a child with challenges parents didn’t expect.
Kristen Groseclose takes issue with Kingsley’s portrayal of “Holland” as an initial disappointment that turns into gratitude for flowers and art. She states the poem is rather “a generic spin on a painful situation.”
In From Ignorance to Bliss, Annie Yorty shows us her journey from the diagnosis of Down syndrome in her first born daughter Alyssa, through the pain of realization and struggle, to the destination of wisdom and gratitude for what is.
Annie grew up with an inherited belief that our value is in what we can achieve, especially intellectually. Having a challenged child meant rethinking human value, understanding our sacredness without regard for capability.
“If I believed her [Alyssa’s] life had value, and I instinctively did, my understanding of what gave a person significance was flawed. If she had worth superseding what she could do or give, from where did her significance originate?”
Aside from the existential question about life’s value came the overwhelming nature of the practical issues: doctors, specialists, therapists, homework from therapy, a support group dealing with rights and responsibilities, floods of information and predictions (mostly dire) about what to expect. And medical billing.
The last one especially resonates for me. Last year at this time, my husband and I lived in the aftermath of his third heart attack. Billing issues abounded. Invoices from multiple doctors and two hospitals, and documents required by a medical sharing entity had me leaping through hoops from the moment the first bill arrived, consuming uncountable and irretrievable hours. The final resolution took 363 days.
For the new mother of a handicapped newborn, such battles must have seemed as though they would stretch endlessly. It’s a special kind of purgatory that seems it will never end.
We measure children’s advancement through life by achievement and growth. We marvel when they take their first steps, ride a bicycle without training wheels, and learn to read. We mark a wall or door post with their height and a date.
Measuring spiritual growth is a bigger challenge. Milestones include decisions to resist temptation, to exercise grace instead of malice, to sacrifice desire for good–even someone else’s, and moments of rejoicing.
As children grow physically, we grow spiritually day by day through prayer, fellowship, nourishment of the Word, and wrestling with difficult circumstances. There is no physical mark that shows our progress.
Annie Yorty has brought us her wrestling. Through this book, we watch a soul developing. In reading, we grow too.
Photo Credit: From Ignorance to Bliss cover, Lana Ziegler, Derinda Babcock
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here! Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
They thought they knew which way life would turn for the rest of their days.
There was a hope for Messiah, in their minds a political savior, to free them from the Romans. But mostly there was routine, the everydayness of work and home.
Then they met Him. Perhaps He was the one. the one who would save them from the oppression of Rome. That was their plan.
They were fishermen and a tax collector, the tax collector recruited to stop working for Rome, to find a higher cause. Surely overcoming the earthly oppression of Rome was the plan.
The disciples listened. They followed. They believed.
They still thought political freedom was the plan.
Then one betrayed Him. Another denied Him. One stayed close to the end. The rest scattered. They watched their plan end.
They watched their plan die.
The fishermen returned to their boats, back to the routine, back to the everydayness of every day.
Life would be as it had been, as if He’d never lived.
Then He arose. Rome stayed, but His followers changed.
They received fire from heaven.
They were never the same.
That was His plan.
They turned the world upside down.
His plan.
His rising, a lie?
You may say so, but who dies for a lie?
Only one disciple would not be killed for believing Him who said, โFollow Me.โ
That one would suffer exile and write his encounters with Him whom he’d followed at the cost of all elseโall else but eternal gain.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here! Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
He stopped me in the hallway at workโmy former teacher, then a colleague. Heโd been studying Greek, because, he said, teachers should always remember what it’s like to learn something difficult.
He asked me where in the Bible Jesus said, โI am the way, the truth, and the life.โ
I directed him to John 14.
He was especially interested in the word way, uncertain whether the English translation came from methodos or hodos. The conversation sparked my own investigation. Iโm glad the terms I looked up were easy to understand (always a plus when dealing with Greek).
Methodos means a way of searchingโinquiry. That meaning is secondary, but itโs the one my colleague mentioned. Methodos also means scheming, craftiness, and deceit. Strongโs Concordance finds it twice in Ephesians (4:14 and 6:11). Scriptures that warn us first of the cunning craftiness of men, then to beware the wiles of the devil.
But Jesus did not use methodos in John 14:6. He used hodos. Like methodos, hodos has different connotations. โIt can mean not only a road, a path, but also a practice.โ So it is not only the way to go, the direction we take, it is also how we walk, how we encounter God and others through our lives.
Jesus is not a means of inquiry. He is the way to God. And He gives direction for our lives.
Before His followers were called Christians (Act 11:26), they were called the people of the Way. In Acts 9:2, the people โbelonging to the Wayโโhodosโwere those Saul hoped to persecute as he made his way along the road to Damascus. Being called a follower of the Way was descriptive. Being called a Christian was an insult.
They stood out among the crowd. Some didnโt like that.
My colleague also wondered about the root of the word Methodism. Methodismโs founder John Wesley was well versed in Greek. Had Wesley intended to associate his view of the Christian life with methodosโa way of inquiry?
We were both surprised by what he discovered.
The name Methodism came in derisionโjust as the name Christian had in the early Church.
John and Charles Wesleyโs fellow students at Oxford called them Methodists because they were methodical in their spiritual discipline and their ministry efforts.
They stood out among the crowd.
John Wesley once said, โDo all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.โ
Wesley knew that to follow the Way was not the easy way.
Wesley, like Luther before him, did not set out to establish a new church. Luther wanted to reform Catholicism. Wesley wanted to reform the Church of England. In fact, Methodism did not even become its own denomination until it arrived in America.
In England and America, Methodism planted churches and encouraged moral living, literacy, and philanthropy. Wesley encouraged William Wilberforce in the fight against slavery. He advocated prison reform. He urged Christians not to simply collect and send goods to relieve the misery of the poor, but to go to the poor individually, each Christian engaging in personal ministry.
When He walked this earth, Jesus invited people to follow him. Wesley didnโt invite people to follow Methodism. He invited people to follow Christ, the Way, the Truth, the Life.
Strongโs Concordance renders truth (aletheia) in John 14:6 as reality. It translateslife (zoe) to include both the โphysical (present) and . . . spiritual (particularly future) existence.โ
The Way, Truth, and Life invites us to a path that leads to reality for eternity.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here! Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Over the last 60 years, the countercultural left has successfully changed the norms on every topic of political concern: from family formation, to the role of religion in public life, to drug use, to sex, to criminal justice, to war, to education. In short, the culture we have now is the culture that the counterculture wanted. The leftist counterculture has becomeour dominant culture, and it is supported and enforced by the most powerful institutions of our society.” Adam Ellwanger
Part of what’s happening within our civilization in decline is what Christians throughout history took for granted: that they were a minority and could only influence the surrounding society through a small circle of influence.
What was unacceptable in the “Christian” culture of the US from the First and Second Great Awakenings until the sexual revolution of the 1960s is now standard fare. We have exceeded what the wildest expectations conjured six or seven decades ago.
Struggling under the thumb of Rome, early Christians dwelled in a culture where the idea that they could widely influence belief and behavior was unimaginable.
Today, we are finding its opposite unimaginable, but we are living it out.
Every year as America “progresses” down a corridor of “tolerance” of sexualizing children and redesigning ourselves into our own creations, we move further into an amoral abyss. Yet within that morass, we see a glimmer of hope.
These relatively newfound convictions obviously haven’t always played out at the ballot box. Too many people still don’t understand what abortion is and what it does.
That it is the killing of a child. That it causes terror and agony to the unborn. That it marks mothers forever. That it wounds fathers beyond understanding. That it deprives our society of the opportunity to love the defenseless and disabled. That it means fewer of us are here to find solutions to today’s troubles.
It’s up to us to spread that word. Loving the weak is part of the Gospel news. Before we can let the little children come to Christ, we must let them come to light.
We are now the counter-culture of a darkened world.
We hold light they cannot see unless we show them.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โAs Chesterton saw, it is the search for truth that keeps us sane, because it always brings us back to reality. And why is reality so important? It is what we are made for. Reality is the food of the soul.โ Stratford Caldecott
In Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance includes a moment from his youth when he didnโt understand the difference between intelligence and knowledgeโ (59). A classmate had shown off his multiplication skills. Vance had yet to realize the concept even existed.
He felt stupid. In response to his sense of failure, Vanceโs grandfather devoted time once a week to drilling the youngster in mathematical concepts. Papaw showed patience when Vance got frustrated. Papaw crowned success with ice cream. The lessons stuck.
But Papaw wasnโt the only one to enrich Vanceโs mind. His mother introduced him to the library and encouraged reading in the home. His father introduced him to faith.
Papaw was a rock of stability for the boy. Mom? A sea of dysfunction. Dad? Absent in his early years. But what they gave was enough. Small meals of wonder.
Growing up in a community that did not value learning, Vance โreceived a different message at homeโ (60). Today, heโs a graduate of Yale Law School, a best-selling author, and a US senator from Ohio.
Some messages are brief but resonate all our lives.
Today, kids receive a message adults convey implicitly. This message has worked its way down from parents, teachers, and other adults to the next generation and the next.
The message is that the main purpose of education, at its conclusion, is the ability to engage in a particular kind of employment. And once that employment is attained, aside from any related training, education has come to an end.
Sound education translates into more earned dollars than unsound education does. High school graduation produces more dollars than dropping out. Often but not always, a college degree produces more money than just a high school diploma.
But earning money is not the be all and end all of learning.
Classical education in Europe during the Renaissance was founded in the idea that learning the truth about various subjects, math, music, history, literature, and science, would lead a student to the truth about God. The subjects were the basis for the primary topicโtheology.
Knowing the truth about God would lead to a purpose beyond oneself.
Such learning would not end. It certainly wouldnโt end when the student left school behind and entered the marketplace. It enriched and captivated the mind and spirit throughout life.
Education gave birth to the idea of a Renaissance manโsomeone who had mastered various subjects, not just six ways to make widgets. Learning wasnโt a means to a job. It was a means to a life. It showed the way to wonder. It was food for the soul.
But western culture rejected truth and modern education has shut God out. Now oneโs purpose is to find oneโs self. Now purpose is found within self not beyond ourselves.
Such an education makes the world small. It makes a life small. It reduces us to what we do and fails to recognize who we areโwho God made us to be.
But small voices still carry wonder in them. Voices in a wilderness, to be sureโvoices to convey big purposes beyond self.
Voices that point to flowers, treetops, stars. That teach children math and show them books. That open a world of opportunity.
Voices of sanity and reality. Voices to feed the soul.
The world is filled with soul hungry people. But small voices can speak a resonating language of bread.
If you own wonder, share your bread.
You never know how far someone might go on a small meal.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It’s the type of book you might read “for a friend because nothing like that would ever happen to me.”
Even so, 70 percent of men use porn. One in six women struggles with addiction to porn. Being part of the Church doesn’t exempt us when 50 percent of pastors use porn too.
Porn is everywhere. It touches all of us causing wounds, seen and unseen, but always felt even if we don’t understand their source.
Bob and Dannah Gresh have felt the hard slap of porn addiction in their marriage too.
And unlike many other Christians, they aren’t hiding their struggle. They’re showing us their journey to help us along ours.
The book specifically addresses couples who struggle with his porn addiction and her response to it. Yet the advice is applicable to a variety of challenges couples may face.
Dannah writes in a tone that makes you want to pour a cup of tea for yourself and relax as if she were right across the table from you understanding your every heartache.
Her personal story, introduced with an account from her husband Bob includes sound, step-by-step counsel.
“stop pretending everything is okay
strengthen yourself in the Lord
fight for your husband instead of with him
discover 6 essential beliefs every marriage needs to survive broken places
participate in your husbandโs redemption story”
Books like this one are important because they touch our lives right where we wrestle. Right where we feel that we can’t let anyone else know what our inner combat is all about.
Disclosure: I’ve known Bob and Dannah for more than a decade and a half. I received a free copy of this book for review as part of the launch team. That doesn’t color my conviction that years from now, because of this book, couples will be together who wouldn’t be without having heeded its message.
And if they’ve taken this book (and others Dannah recommends) to heart, their marriages just might be thriving.
Read this book. Cover to cover. Use the supplemental materials. Follow the directions. Cry. Pray. Cry. Share your burden. Cry with someone else. Heal. Forgive. Heal.
And follow God’s path on the good way forward.
Even if you’re just asking for a friend.
Photo Credit: Cover photo [of Dannah’s book] of pictures clipped to wire copyright ยฉ 2019 by martin-dm/iStock (1178573531). Cover illustration of plant pattern copyright ยฉ 2019 by Asya_mix/iStock (1186132289)
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The woman stood in front of the congregation to tell her story. She had never spoken to such a large group before. I was in the auditorium โby chanceโ that day. I had come to hear my grandchildren sing. But an extended conversation in the hallway meant I missed my intended purpose that day.
I went home knowing I had been there for a reason very different from the one I had planned.
Her story drew me in. She had been pregnant for the second time. She spent weeks in bed nurturing a baby her doctors told her would never survive. And even if the child did survive, it would never walk, never be normal.
โItโ. It is such an awful word when referring to a human being.
She should have an abortion now, they said. She fought the doctors. She finally found one who wanted to help her, to help her baby survive.
The weeks turned into months. The child arrivedโa girl. She would not survive, the doctors said. But she did.
As this mother finished her talk, the doors at the back of the church opened and a little girl did not walk down the church aisle.
She ran. Beautiful, perfect, running. She was never an it.
She is set to graduate from college this spring. She has lived what we in America consider to be the most normal of lives.
All discussions about unborn life, life limited by illness or disability, center on one question: Who are we? Are we sacred souls made in the image of a great God who loves all, weak or strong?
Or are we just a mixture of electrical synapses and chemical reactions, a useful collection of spare parts?
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“[T]hat ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9 ESV).
Satan loves to lie. He loves to help us justify our actions. He loves to convince us that his way is the only way.
Ultimately we see the truth. And that’s okay with him too. The knife of his lie is in us. Realizing the truth twists the knife.
In her forthcoming book Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage, Dannah Gresh points out the effects of our realization of truth: shame.
“The enemy of our souls is so double-minded. He convinces us that sin isnโt so bad before we do it. But afterward he tortures us with our unworthiness because our sin is so very bad.”
Some sins we can recover from. Others leave lasting consequences.
“After my abortions, I couldnโt listen to a baby cry. If I was in a store or restaurant and heard a babyโs cry, it sent a chill up my spine. Think about our nervous system and how everything that happens to us is stored there. Thereโs a reason that a baby crying did this to me,” Emily Rarick.
And that reason is truth–the realization that abortion, what seemed to be the apparent easy way out at the time, was no such thing. Emily realized that abortion kills babies. She knew it killed her babies.
Another big lie of our times debunked–that we can change who we are:
“I want to tell everyone what they took from us, what irreversible really means, and what that reality looks like for us [trans people].
“No one told me any of what Iโm going to tell you now.”
. . . Now, now I’m trapped in the wrong body” TullipR (de-transitioned man)
The lie that TullipR followed changed his life permanently and irrevocably.
That lie states that God made a mistake.
God doesn’t make mistakes. Only we can do that. He’s trying to save us from ourselves.
Sex change surgery is supposed to be an easy (or easier) way out. You think this way, and we can adjust your body to meet the hopes of your thoughts. It would be harder work to adjust your thoughts and feelings to what your chromosomes and body chemistry and structure already are. That’s the lie.
“[T]he medical evidence suggests that sex reassignment does not adequately address the psychosocial difficulties faced by people who identify as transgender. Even when the procedures are successful technically and cosmetically, and even in cultures that are relatively โtrans-friendly,โ transitioners still face poor outcomes. Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D.
Poor outcomes. And convincing the rest of us that it’s right doesn’t change the outcomes.
The lies that aborting unborn babies and changing the sex of children when they’re too young to decide and too easily manipulated eventually come to light for most.
It takes time, sometimes.
One study claims 95 percent of women have no regrets five years post-abortion. The study has a low participation rate (37.5 percent, despite paying the participants). It disregards what happens to the non-responding participants for the first five years and the responding percentage of women over the next five years.
“In 2010, at the age of 18, I had two abortions a mere six months apart. My regret was not instant, in fact, it was years before I truly realized what I had done. It crept in slowly, little by little, taking pieces of me and breaking me in ways that I never imagined possible.” Emily Rarick
“Pamela Whitehead, executive director of ProLove Ministries, said it took her a decade to identify the effects of terminating her pregnancy. Just days after her abortion in 2001, the 9/11 terrorist attack happened, and she buried her grief. In the following years, she attempted suicide, became addicted to drugs, and lived in a homosexual relationship even though she wasnโt a lesbian. It wasnโt until 2011 that Whitehead realized her abortion had been the ‘precipitating factor’ of her self-destructive decisions. ‘I could trace it back to that event,’ she said.”
“We note, mortality [death, most often from suicide] from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years. The risk for psychiatric hospitalization was 2.8 times greater than in controls even after adjustment for prior psychiatric disease. “
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden,” Matthew 5:14.
“America is and always will be a shining city on a hill,” Ronald Reagan
“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide,” Abraham Lincoln.
America has been different from any other country since her inception. Now, we’re different in different ways. Only 22 or so years ago, the US “led the world in the proportion of young people who were creating new businesses and who were either working or looking for work. ”
In The Collapse of Parenting, Leonard Sax, MD, PhD, points out that in only 11 years, “the United States had dropped from first to last” among eight developed countries with entrepreneurial and working young people.
What changed?
Sax asserts that children have lost the understanding of their own culture, which encompassed basic principles of respect that come from sources such as, in earlier times, the Bible along with the Golden Rule, and more recently, Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, which translates, in essence, to respect for others.
1. Share everything. 2. Play fair. 3. Don’t hit people. 4. Put things back where you found them. 5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS. 6. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. 7. Say you’re SORRY when you HURT somebody. 8. Wash your hands before you eat. 9. Flush. 10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. 11. Live a balanced life – learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
As I said. Basic.
Today’s American kids, Sax says, are more, much more, likely to be overweight, under-rested, and on medications to control their behavior than were their peers of a couple of decades ago.
“The proportion of obese kids more than quadrupled. . . . obese, not merely overweight. (emphasis Sax’s) . . . In every age group from 6 to 18, the average American kid is sleep deprived; and the older the child the more sleep deprived she or he is likely to be. . . . American kids are about 8.7 times more likely to be on these medications [the mind-altering kind that helps kids sit still or stay awake in school] compared with kids in Germany, 56 times more likely compared with kids in Norway . . . 93 times [more than] kids in Italy.”
What has happened to bring about such change?
Sax asserts that American society is now peer-driven, no longer parent-driven. Kids worry more about what their friends think than what their parents think.
“Without strong guidance from parents, children and teenagers turn to the marketplace for guidance about what counts. And today, the American marketplace . . . is focused narrowly and relentlessly on fame and wealth. . . . which impoverishes the soul.”
The problem largely rests in parents shifting their priorities from raising young people with character to keeping kids happy.
Sending children on a quest to attain perpetual happiness doesn’t produce disciplined, productive people who respect others.
Even though the changes Sax discusses have, for the most part, happened in the last 20 years, this transformation of our society didn’t begin recently.
Rod Dreher sites “Philip Rieff, an unbelieving Jew, [who] recognized that a massive shift happened in Western consciousness in the late 19th and early 20th century: Western man went from being ‘Religious’ (in the sense that he affirmed a set of values rooted in religion, however badly he observed them) to being ‘Psychological’ (abandoning the ideal of virtue, instead simply trying to manage the anxiety of living without ultimate meaning). But we were still Christian enough as a society back in the 1950s and 1960s such that the Civil Rights movement could use openly Christian language and concepts to shame their fellow Christians in America into repentance.”
We’ve fallen a great distance from the transition away from faith to the ’60s, and to today.
Where is the hope then?
It’s found in parents taking up their most important job, shaping their child’s character to teach humility, enjoying their children, thereby spending time leading them, and encouraging children to seek purpose and meaning. Such purpose and meaning come through the pursuit of “meaningful work,” finding (in the appropriate time) “a person to love,” and toiling on behalf of “a cause to embrace.”
Such a path toward hope begins, Sax asserts, with such a simple step as eating dinner together as a family on a regular basis and the harder step of establishing loving authority as a primary component of the role of parent.
A return to faith, the self-sacrificing sort Christianity proposes, lays the foundation for respect, discipline, and virtue through such steps. That path leads to happiness since serving others best gives our lives meaning and gives us satisfaction.
In the restoration of faith, discipline, and satisfaction through service, America can restore itself as the light of a city on a hill.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โThen God said, โLet there be lightโ; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.โ Genesis 1: 3b-5~
Evening and morningโthe first day. That was how God measured days. We flip it around. In our minds, our days begin with dawn and end with sunset.
In that change, we show our preference for daylight. And we show it in other ways as well. Our brightly lit streets are illuminated to a degree far beyond our need to have a well-lit pathway. Our cities glow and flicker as business interests compete for our attention. We are like moths, and like moths, we find artificial light more attractive than natural light. And the more light we have the more we wantโas in addiction.
In The End of Night, Paul Bogard takes a secular look at our desire for more and brighter light.
โAs our surroundings grow brighter, we grow used to that level of brightness, and so anything dimmer seems extraordinarily dim, even dark. This is exactly what happened as artificial lighting developed through the ages. The once glorious oil lamps became dim and disgusting with the advent of wonderful gas lighting, which then became smelly and awful and unbearably dim the moment we saw electric light. . . . [O]nce our eyes get used to seeing brighter lights, we must have brighter lights.โ
We favor the daylight so much that we miss out on the nightโon what God intended for us to get out of the night. Bogard asserts that our sleep problemsโinsomnia and other sleep disordersโare due to a lack of darkness. Artificial light on our streets and in our houses makes it impossible to achieve the level of darkness that promotes good rest.
But thereโs more.
We consider a day as the time we move from light into darkness. God set up a daily system that moves us from darkness into light. Thereโs a metaphor for redemption in that view.
And as we see Godโs glory through his complex and beautiful creation during the day, we see the same at nightโif we can still see it in spite of the artificial light that conceals the lights of the sky.
Bogard writes: โ[I]n the night skies under which the vast majority of us live, we can often count the stars we see on two hands (in the cities) or four (suburbs), rather than quickly losing count amid the more than twenty-five hundred stars otherwise visible on a clear night.โ
Those who stand on the observatory deck of the Empire State Building see one percent of the stars those in Manhattan could see during the 1700s.
Our world is ever-brightening 24/7 with artificial light. It obscures the natural beauty God put in place to light our way and show his work.
And sometimes the light that captures us best is the small rectangle right in front of our faces.
I want to be careful to let even the light of my screens show me His wayโHis very self.
And I want to take care to look up and remember at least that there is much more there than what my eyes perceive.
โIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. John 1: 1-5~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Each of us is born an original, but we are ever so in danger of dying as mere photocopies,” Carlo Acutis.
At some point over the last century or so, school became about, as Alberto M. Piedras says, “not the communication of knowledge but the sharing of social experience.”
True education presents nobility of character and self-sacrifice. Not a shared experience but an uncommon, often difficult one, one that challenges students to go against the flow instead of with it.
Not to show students nobility risks depriving them of a life of meaning and purpose and offers the feeble substitute of self-indulgence.
Consider this allegorical example.
Once upon our current times, there’s a community school that issues supplies to its students. Young scholars receive uniforms allowing them all to look the same, and multiple, clear plastic backpacks. The backpacks are tinted red, blue, yellow, or green, so students can choose one each day to let their peers know how they’re feeling: red for angry, yellow for triggered, blue for sad, and green for happy.
No one carries the green one.
The backpacks are not called bookbags, for they carry no books.
On their school-issued devices, students read stories about children much like themselves: kids who want to hurt others, those who want to hurt themselves, and those who just want to pull a pillow and stuffed puppy out of their bags and sit in the quiet rooms reserved for students with yellow backpacks.
In defense of the stories, no one ever gets hurt. All ends well when every character gets a new stuffed puppy at the end.
At this school, everything is equal and fair. Everyone gets the same amount at lunch–macaroni and cheese or pizza on alternating days. But students can pick a cookie or an apple for dessert.
There are always lots of leftover apples.
At the end of every day, each student gets a gold star sticker to take home. And the greeters at the door say, “Please think about bringing your green backpack tomorrow. It’s good to be happy.”
Even so, no one carries a green one.
Until the day someone does.
Joe is a new kid. He doesn’t carry a pillow or a stuffed puppy in his backpack. He carries an old-fashioned book, The Horse and His Boy. He doesn’t stomp or shuffle his feet. He smiles.
He’s very weird.
Upon his arrival, more students than usual visit the quiet rooms with their pillows and stuffed puppies.
Day after day, Joe eats his lunch alone as do most of the others. He picks an empty table away from the red backpack kids, near the blue ones who spread out and don’t take much notice that he is there.
One day, he recognizes Ann, a girl who rides on the same school bus he does. She has dark hair, wears glasses with turquoise frames, and carries a blue backpack. Joe senses all eyes on him as he walks to her table and offers her his cookie.
She pauses before replying, pondering his breach of the unspoken rule that students in different emotional states don’t intermix. “Th-thank you.” She glances up at him as she accepts the cookie. Then looks away as she nibbles at its edges.
He gives her his cookie every day for a week and receives the same response in return. On Friday, he lingers.
He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Want to read my book?”
She nods but whispers, “Not now. On the bus.”
On the ride home, she deftly stuffs the book behind her pillow so no one can see it.
Another week passes. Every day, he gives her his cookie, and she thanks him. But on Friday, she doesn’t eat it. She puts it in her pocket.
When she leaves the cafeteria, Joe sees Ann give the cookie to another student, a younger boy carrying a blue backpack.
A red-backpack boy also notices the exchange. He maneuvers himself in front of them and shoves her and the younger boy onto the floor before moving past them and down the hallway. Before Joe can get there, she helps the fallen boy up, pulls another cookie, her own, out of her pocket, and offers it to him.
The next day, she carries her green backpack to school, sits with Joe at lunch, and thanks him for all the cookies.
“Oh, I hope you don’t mind that I gave your book to my little brother, David. He’s reading it now too.”
“I don’t mind. Would you like to read another one?”
“Yes.”
They look up wondering whether their whispered conversation has quieted the cafeteria. They see the smaller boy Ann gave her cookies to and helped before walking to the red backpack side of the room. Seeing the look on Ann’s face, Joe realizes that the boy is Ann’s brother, David.
David approaches the boy who pushed him the week before. The boy stands and looks down at David. All is still as the room waits to see what will happen next.
David looks up and extends his hand offering a cookie. “Would you like my cookie?”
“No,” barks the bully shoving David to the floor again. That side of the room explodes in laughter. The blue-backpack kids look away. Three yellow-backpack students scurry out of the cafeteria to find quiet rooms.
David, wearing more bruises each day, repeats his question at lunchtime every day for the rest of the week and receives the same response.
Except on Friday, the red-backpack boy looks down on David once more but stops short of pushing him.
The room is pin-drop silent in anticipation.
“Sure.” The boy smiles, drops his red backpack, and crosses over to the other side of the cafeteria with David.
And so change slowly comes to the community school with the use of a great many cookies.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โWe are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.โ G.K. Chesterton~
One year betweenChristmas and New Yearโs Day,ย I had the blessing of being sick. Good timing. After Christmas. When thereโs time for not doing much.
One day: A granddaughter was sick along with me. Two bad cases of winter yuck: coughing and head stuff. We each claimed a couch and a blanket. Since she is the other Rod Serling fan in the family, I put in a DVD ofย Twilight Zoneย episodes. Black and white images flickered in the glow of a wood fire and a lit Christmas tree.
We found a twilight of wonder with Serling voicing over our dreams.
The next day: Still sick, but in solitude, I wanted to stitch away some time. To finish restoring a quilt. If I finished it (and applied some Lysol), two granddaughters could dream underneath it for our then-annual New Yearโs overnight.
As I sewed, I searched for some background diversion. Flipping channels, I found two-inch deep television. I settled on Netflix and discovered The Little Prince.
Itโs a story within a story. An eccentric neighbor relates the story ofย The Little Princeย to a young girl. Her life is consumed with the essentials of preparing for adulthood, her mother having mapped out every waking moment. No time for dreaming. No time for wonder. Only enterprise, but without the vision of wonder.
โWhere there is no vision, the people perish,โ Proverbs 29:18.
The neighbor shows the girl the stars. Beyond them, she sees what is truly essentialโwhat the neighbor himself has already learned from the little prince.
โAnd now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.โ
When we find wonderโthe invisible that shapes our soulsโwe learn the essence of who we are. And that essence speaks in everything we do.
We learn that the world can be full of patient wonder. And patience is not found in a thirty-minute sitcom that resolves a superficial crisis.
Wonder takes us deeper than two inches. It teaches us to endure. And endurance pays off with a prize.
The prince: โWell, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.โ
Patience is, of course, a virtue. And wonder will always teach us virtue. C.S. Lewis shows us what happens when we lack vision and thereby lack wonder: โWe make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise.โ
Without wonder, we have only empty enterprise. We have no virtue and no vision.
On the first night of the New Year, two young girls and I settled down with a bowl of popcorn andย The Little Prince. Then they dreamed under the completed quilt.
Soon enough they will be grown-ups, at times consumed with the essentials of everyday living, but the prince reminds us that,
โAll grown-ups were once childrenโฆ but onlyย fewย of them remember it.โ
May we count ourselves among the few who rememberโbecause only those who remember that wonder comes from God can participate in it with Him.
โThen Joshua said to the people, โConsecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.โโ Joshua 3:5
Photo Credit: Nancy E. Head
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โOur God who breathes stars in the darkโHe breathes Bethlehemโs Star, then takes on lungs and breathes in stable air. We are saved from hopelessness because God came with infant fists and opened wide His hand to take the iron-sharp edge of our sins.โ Ann Voskamp (138).
First, there was the oppression of Egypt, then the captivity of Babylon, and finally the occupation of Rome.
For quite some time, Israel had been imagining a conquering Messiah. Perhaps on that silent night before the angelsโ announcement, the shepherds were dreaming of the day when they would be free from Roman rule.
The magiโscholars debate where they came fromโwere religious. They came to worship. But they may have also had a political motive. They came seeking the new King. They brought gifts befitting a king who may someday want to conquer.
They did find the One to worship. They gave their gifts. Returned home. And we never heard from them again.
I wonder. Did they expect to meet a humble king in a humble home?
How could they know what to expect of His Kingdom?
The song asks โMary, Did You Know?โ Were there moments when she wondered when she would wake up from this strange dream? But it wasnโt a dream.
He would turn water into wine at her request. He would, as the song says, walk on water, give sight to the blind, still a storm, and raise the dead.
How could she know what to expect from His life?
Reverberating in the back of her mind through His growing up years rang the prophecy of Simeon the priest: โ[A]nd a sword will pierce even your own soul.โ
Simeon had a glimpse at least of what was ahead. But perhaps even he did not fully understand that Christโs incarnation was not to be political.
From Voskamp: โThe Light never comes how you expect it. It comes as the unlikely and unexpectedโ (139).
Ace Collins writes, โChrist was the king who came not to take, but to giveโ (101). In the ancient world, that concept may have been the most unexpected of all. A King who would utterly give Himself rather than extracting tribute. A King who would suffer on behalf of His servants. He takes us beyond expectation.
We bring our expectations to our daily lives. We bring them to our churches every week. Reaching beyond expectation to ministry with other Christ followers opens doors of fellowship.
Reaching beyond the expectation of the manger takes us to the love of the cross.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.
And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.
And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.” Luke 2:1-18, KJV.
It happened just like that. I’m a shepherd. I was there.
We aren’t just shepherds, you know. It’s true, we aren’t wealthy. Our sheep are smelly. But they aren’t just sheep either. Our sheep are sheep for the sacrifice–the means to ask God to overlook our sins, take them away, forgive them.
The sheep have to be perfect, not a blemish anywhere on them, and not older than a year. Only males qualify for sacrifice. And they have to be born within five miles of Jerusalem. That’s how far Bethlehem is from our great city of worship.
The Roman historian Josephus figures that more than 265,000 sheep go to sacrifice every Passover at the Jerusalem temple. That doesn’t count Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, or wealthier people sacrificing a lamb upon the birth of a child.
Aside from the excitement of seeing the sky light up and the angels proclaiming the message we’ve waited hundreds of years to hear, what really caught our attention was the swaddling cloths.
You see, when a perfect lamb is born, we wrap him in swaddling cloths to keep him from hurting himself, getting a scar, and barring him for use as a sacrifice.
Another part of the message that was amazing was that the baby would be lying in a manger. A food trough for animals?
That’s not a common place to put a baby.
We didn’t have to wander around Bethlehem asking where a baby had been born that night. We just went back to the sheep tower, the Migdal Eder, the place where we inspect the sheep to make sure they’re worthy of sacrifice.
His parents must have been frustrated to find no room at the inn. But His heavenly father knew where he should be born–in Migdal Eder.
That’s where we found him. And that’s when we knew WHO He is. He didn’t come as a king in Jerusalem. He didn’t come to a rich family or a famous general of the army.
He came as a lamb.
The perfect Lamb who has come to take away the sins of the world.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13, NASB).
In Romans 15:13, Paul references joy, peace, and hope in the reverse order of the Advent calendar. He states that joy and peace come from God and make possible His provision of hope. Advent begins with hope and progresses to peace, then joy.
We cannot produce our own joy, the exultation within us that does not depend upon our circumstances. Sam Storms says, “Joy is not necessarily the absence of suffering, it is the presence of God.”
With Him, we have joy. With Him, we have peace.
Like joy, peace also comes from God. The peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:7) comes to us in our worst, not our best times. Peace remains only when we keep our eyes on Him and don’t focus on our circumstances.
When we look back to see His provision and care for us, we can look ahead with faith and trust that He will continue to be good even if times become harder. That’s hope.
Advent is a time to draw near to God. We ponder the hope of His coming at Christmas as we look toward His coming again. We find peace and joy even in the turmoil of a world darkened because it has turned from Him.
The world is dark now. It was dark then too.
Christ is the light shining through the darkness.
The darkness will not overcome His light.
In that knowledge, we find joy and peace and hope.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace,” Isaiah 9:6.
“He, Who had made humanity, became man. He, Who created His mother, was born to her. He formed the hands that carried Him. He filled the breasts that fed Him. The Word, without eloquence[,] is rendered mute–an infant, wordless, in a manger.” Augustine, trans. S. Watts, from God Above All.
Two or three weeks before Christmas is often not a time of peace for many who celebrate a modern Christmas, especially in America.
Peace sometimes comes through pleasant circumstances when we feel like we’re in control and things are going our way.
Yet the promise of Christmas does not come from us being in control, quite the opposite. And it doesn’t come from things going our way.
The wordless infant in the manger had crafted the world He came to. Those He made would care for Him and later look to Him for help and healing. Some would seek His death; they would watch Him die.
Old and new followers would marvel at His resurrection.
Many would follow so closely as to give their lives for the One who made them and died on their behalf.
He brought inner peace to people living in outward turmoil. He still brings that peace today.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,” John 1:1-5.
“He, through Whom time was made, loved us so much He was made in time for us.” Augustine, qtd. in God Above All.
Christ came from outside time to experience its limitations–days that were too short–nights, too long. He suffered in time without relief or reprieve.
It’s hard for us to imagine being outside time. How often every day do we check the clock or wonder how to get to the next task or place on time? We vacillate between wishing for more time and hoping minutes would pass more quickly.
We understand that He placed us in time but did not intend for us to remain in it always.
“. . . He has also set eternity in the human heart . . .” Ecclesiastes 3:11.
Since eternity is in our hearts, we squirm under the pressures of time–too much or not enough during our earthly lives.
Even so, Christ calls us contemplate the true meaning of His birth, life, and death. He invites us to respond to His call and so find hope.
“He came to this poor earth of ours to carry on an exchange; to say to us, as only the Good God could say: ‘you give me your humanity, and I will give you my Divinity; you give me your time, and I will give you My eternity; you give me your broken heart, and I will give you Love; you give me your nothingness, and I will give you My all,” Fulton J. Sheen
This exchange requires our time and devotion. In our humanity, in time, with broken hearts, and in our nothingness, we find hope in Him.
This first week of Advent when we ponder hope, hush your waiting heart. Hush your hurrying heart. His all awaits. Welcome, Christmas. Welcome Christ.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, . . . and he said, โWhen you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.โBut the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live.So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, โWhy have you done this thing, and let the boys live?โThe midwives said to Pharaoh, โBecause the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.โSo God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty.Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them, Exodus 1:15-20, (NASB).
It hadn’t always been like that for the Hebrews in Egypt. Joseph had risen in influence and authority. In a time of famine, he brought his father, his brothers, and their families to the land where food was available. Over time, the famine subsided, but Joseph died, and a new Pharoah ascended. Life for the Hebrews in Egypt changed.
Did they notice small changes, little limitations, and growing oppression? Or did life change all at once in one day?
Do we notice the changes around us?
Throughout our lives, era blends into era almost without our noticing. Social mores take on different hues and shades and before we know it, society has taken itself to a new place.
Jake Meador: “In a hedonistic world [during the 1990s to 2010s], hostility to Christianity . . . was mostly centered around Christians being a moral buzzkill. But in our new moralistic world [from the 2010s to today], itโs not simply that Christianity isย boringย orย not fun, but that Christianity is actively harmful because it suggests that there are some types of authentic selves [identities] that are actually bad and should not be privately accepted or publicly expressed.”
This change from a hedonistic era to a moralistic one happened gradually yet arrived more suddenly than we imagined it could.
Our times never stand still. We move forward and backward as a culture, not in a linear fashion. We’ve moved forward, for example, by establishing fairness in workplace laws regarding ethnicity and gender, but backward in other ways, embracing sin, then celebrating it, then insisting on approval for it.
Leonard Sax, MD, PhD, and Louise Perry in their respective books agree that Americans assume societal movement is always progress and always good. As Sax says, in this viewpoint, progress “has a smooth, upward trajectory albeit with a few hiccups.” Such a viewpoint, Perry points out, “encourages us to ignore both the ways in which things may have become worse over time and the advice offered by older generations.
That so many see our faith as not only passe but also “bad” for society is not something Christians can simply ignore. The crucial question becomes: How do we maintain our faith and faith communities in such an environment?
More from Meador: “What will primarily sustain the church in this moment is plain to any student of church history, for it is what has always sustained the church: the grace of God offered to us through the preaching of the Word and the Sacraments, which equip us to live lives of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. What sustained the church then was a quiet confidence in the providence of God, a patient resilience amidst suffering, and a humble reliance on God to give what is needed, in life and death. If we would lean upon those resources, they could sustain us today as well.”
The Hebrew midwives in Egypt knew honoring God was more important than obeying a wrong decree. God blessed them by placing them within families, perhaps providing a measure of safety not otherwise available. For many Hebrews, life got harder–until God sent a rescuer.
Today we wait for our promised rescuer.
And like the midwives of long ago, we must remain faithful until the day.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Those are the chapter titles in Louise Perry’s book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century. It’s the kind of information and advice a mother (one who is wise or became so the hard way) would give her daughter to help her understand how to navigate youth and early adulthood with minimal wounds of body and soul.
I write often about the consequences of abortion on all involved. Yet abortion isn’t an isolated wound. It’s one in a series of injuries that often begins with the idea that we need not take sex seriously, that sex is not about commitment, reproduction, and raising the next generation, but that it’s about amusement and recreation and can be devoid of negative consequences.
Perry asserts that women have been deceived into believing that sexual freedom benefits them even while “it so obviously serves male interests.”
Society has further convinced us that men and women are the same, which has led to the idea that women can take care of themselves without extra precautions. Such an approach. Perry argues, often places women in “the perfect environment for the would-be rapist.” There is “cultural pressure,” she says, to reject messages encouraging women to “stick together on nights out, to keep their friends safe.” Cultural pressure doesn’t end there.
Our society has fallen victim to a belief that there are no “bad desires.” This modern tenet presses us to suppress our natural and protective “moral intuition. And not just “disregarding [our inclinations against that which is unnatural] but actively resisting moral intuition” (emphasis Perry’s), such as the need to protect not only ourselves but also our children. We shouldn’t be surprised to see, she says, that after the breakdown of “sexual taboos,” all taboos would be “considered fair game.” Hence we see the assertion that children are capable of sexual desire and consent and the efforts to sexualize children and instill in them the foundational premise that “loveless sex” is harmless.
Not only is “loveless sex” not empowering, but it’s also not all that enjoyable. Perry provides solutions to help us avoid falling victim to a “sexual culture that is fundamentally not geared toward protecting your safety or wellbeing.”
Further, she does an expert job explaining inconsistencies in the jargon and results of the sexual revolution. For example, laws draw arbitrary lines between statutory rape and consensual sex because a girl has reached a particular birthday of consent.
The same girl is abused and assaulted one day and the legal prize of desire the next.
Acknowledging that there “is no other way the law could function,” Perry states that “consent has more layers to it.” That a female has said yes “may do as a legal defence, it is not a convincing moral defence” (sic) (Perry’s emphasis) because consent can be urged, manipulated, or even coerced.
Consent to sex, manipulated or otherwise, can lead to a twisted notion of consent to violence. Women who are “inexperienced or overly trusting” can “confuse jealousy for fidelity and so be drawn to” those who would have them believe that violence is love.”
Sexual manipulation extends itself to prostitution as well. When Perry explains that people are not products, she highlights contradictory, even schizophrenic, efforts in England, on one hand, to legalize prostitution, and on the other, to legally forbid sex for rent, exchanges that have emerged in college towns within the UK.
“The whole point of paid sex is that it must be paid for. It is not mutually desired by both parties — one party is there unwillingly, in exchange for money, or sometimes other goods such as drugs, food or shelter.” Perry argues, among other assertions, that sexi should be done “with” someone else, not “to” someone else (emphasis Perry’s). “Once you permit the idea that people can be products, everything is corroded.”
This book culminates in a final full chapter with a surprising chapter title considering its writer holds an evolutionary viewpoint. “Marriage Is Good” illustrates that we live in “a natural human life cycle,” either dependent on someone else or “giving away some portion of your freedom, which runs counter to what we’re all supposed to want” for the sake of someone else.
Marriage is protection for women and children, not just a ball and chain of patriarchy as many feminists have claimed for decades.
Perry’s Conclusion “Listen to Your Mother” offers advice “I would offer my own daughter” urging readers to trust their moral intuition, learn how to recognize sexually aggressive men, and protect themselves by only having “sex with a man if you think he would make a good father to your children.”
She ends with optimism that women are wising up to the harm the sexual revolution has foisted upon them.
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution is well-researched, well-documented, well-argued, and easy to read. Perry stumbles across biblical principles through study and science although not completely as she supports same-sex marriage.
She avoided any argument of abortion except to say this: “And whatever you think about the ethical status of the foetus, we should all be able to agree that an abortion is not a good thing for a woman to go through, given such medical risks as uterine damage or sepsis, not to mention the emotional consequences, which are not trivial.”
I recommend this book for the evidence she provides in support of much that Christians have argued all along with a minor caveat about a smattering of unsavory language.
The sexual revolution was a lie. Perhaps you knew that from your youth. Perhaps you, as many of us did, learned it the hard way. When an evolutionary-feminist like Louise Perry writes a scholarly book backing up that claim, liberals and conservatives alike would be wise to consult it.
The sexual revolution was a lie.
“It was a lie all along. It’s time, at last, to say so.”
And may her message be heard and heeded far and wide to the healing and wholeness of many.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Know that theย Lordย is God. ย ย ย ย It is he who made us,ย and we are his; ย ย ย ย we are his people,ย the sheep of his pasture,” Psalm 100: 3 (NIV).
“Know ye that theย Lordย he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture,” (KJV).
Two different versions of the same verse provide different but not contradictory messages. Some scholars favor the first version; others the second.
“He . . . made us, and we are His”–or–“He . . . made us, and not we ourselves.” The Bibles I most often use for study provide these different versions, but each includes the other in a footnote.
Both provide insight and wisdom. We are His. We do not make ourselves.
A distinctive quality of our times is that people insist on creating versions of themselves, remaking their own identities in the likeness of an image they’ve conceived and propose to give life to.
Proponents of self-creation assert that sexuality is fluid, yet they argue for permanent alterations for those too young to truly know themselves or be able to separate their own desires from those of others.
The more young people hear about transgenderism, the more it grows in popularity–a previously unheard-of phenomenon before it became a topic of pop conversation.
Chantel Hoyt writes, “The cultural phenomenon of transgenderism is growing at an astonishing rate. The number of gender reassignment clinics in the United States has increased from one in 2007 to 50 today. In her book, Irreversible Damage, Abigail Shrier reports that most Western countries have seen a 1,000-5,000 percent increase in teenage females seeking treatment from gender clinics and psychologistsโmany of whom recommend that these girls socially and physically transition through hormones and sometimes surgery.”
The change in numbers reflects a change in sociology rather than scientific breakthrough.
Who of us would like to be held to an irrevocable decision we made in our teen years–or even earlier? Now many are stuck with the ramifications of such decisions for the rest of their lives.
Years ago, Europe leapt ahead of the US in allowing transgender treatments for the young. Now several countries have wised up and back-pedaled. We should take heed.
“The United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, and France have all taken steps recently to pull back on transgender medical treatments for seemingly gender-dysphoric children.
“Sweden has been one of the most progressive nations on transgender health care for decades. Back in 1972, Sweden became the first country to allow transgender people to change their legal gender.
“Last year though, Swedish hospitals halted the use of puberty blockers in five of the countryโs six clinics for minors with gender dysphoria. The last clinic only uses puberty blockers in clinical trials. The country now emphasizes psychotherapy for minors with gender dysphoria instead.”
America needs to push on the brakes too.
Attempting to “make ourselves” rejects God’s image within us. Making ourselves rejects the person whom He made us to be–who we authentically are.
The young will not find themselves by looking in the mirror and imaging someone else looking back.
Human beings can only truly find themselves in God–the one who made the image they see in the mirror and knows them completely.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
What appealed to me about his story is that he picked the hard thing to do.
It wasnโt that he had played football at the University of Georgia. Not my team.
It wasnโt that he later played for the New England Patriots. Not my team either.
It was that he found something hard and decided to work at it anyway. And then he did something to encourage others who also find it hard.
Malcolm Mitchell has a Super Bowl ring. But he told CBS News that getting to the big game isnโt his biggest accomplishment. Reading well is. He found reading hard. But he didnโt give up. He just worked harder.
And he didnโt let his image as a star athlete get in his way.
A chance meeting in a Barnes and Noble bookstore enhanced his literary journey. A woman invited him to her book club. It was a club of readers, and he had become a reader.
Nevermind that everyone else in the group was an over forty woman. Malcolm joined anyway.
Malcolm realized when he got to college that his reading skills werenโt what they needed to be for him to succeed as a student. He decided he wouldnโt rest on the laurels of his athletic prowess.
He picked up a book whenever he could.
Then he wrote one. He was still a college student when it was published. The Magicianโs Hat encourages young readers to open themselves up to the magic of reading. Magic?
Malcolm Mitchell would say, yes, reading is magical. Hard too? Yes, sometimes it is.
But maybe thatโs how we find magic. We decide to do the hard thing. And the world opens up to us.
Malcolm Mitchell established the Childrenโs Literacy Foundation to โintroduce book ownership to students in households where reading is not a priority and to improve literacy in schools with below grade-level reading skills.โ He still writes books.
He didn’t play on any of my football teams, but go, Malcolm. I’m on your team now. Dust may settle on his Super Bowl ring. But magic will be with him for the rest of his days.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I like to get an early start on holiday preparations, and I’ve been saving these pictures of my husband Paul and our dog Bindi since last Christmas.
The above picture is for the front of the card. The one below is for the back.
Provide a caption (for both if you like) in the comments below.
Photo Credit: Nancy E. Head
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Flannery O’Connor published The Violent Bear It Away in 1960. I read a short story or two by her when I was in college and recently decided to give one of her two novels a try.
O’Connor provides much to ponder in this book that becomes a page-turner the closer you get to the end.
Her characters in this book are among the best devised I’ve ever read.
An old man who is a self-proclaimed prophet is raising his nephew Tarwater to follow in his footsteps.
A worldly-wise cousin wants to draw Tarwater into the “reasonable”, “modern” world of faithlessness.
Tarwater himself is torn between two worlds, wanting to be his own master but having to choose between what he believes his destiny is and a life of self-determination.
O’Connor was a one-of-a-kind author whose texts are satire filled with irony. You won’t read another like it.
This book has dark, but not graphic moments. So dark I couldn’t see how she would redeem them.
But she did.
A fascinating, faith-affirming book–but only if you read to the end.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
To heal my wounds, I worshiped myself. I found the wrong path to healing and only stumbled on my way. Self-worship became wounds wrapped in chains. Scars lingered. Birthmarks for my children, Who received their own wounds.
We seek our heading on life’s path, To heal wounds, To break chains. Christ is that Way, The Rock on which chains break, To make us free.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
There’s a scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally in which the curtain comes back for a moment on the ideology of the sexual revolution.
Harry and Sally met upon graduating from college and later became friends. Their challenge became maintaining their male/female relationship without letting it become sexual.
Ultimately, they faltered in that quest. The pair had come to a crossroad, and they couldn’t turn the clock back and pretend it hadn’t happened. At their best friends’ wedding, they had this exchange.
Her: “You want to act like what happened didn’t mean anything.”
Him: “I’m not saying it didn’t mean anything. I’m saying, why does it have to mean everything?”
Her; “Because it does.”
I remember being shocked at that acknowledgment the first time I viewed the movie. Here was Hollywood, the purveyors of free love, explicitly pointing out that sexual encounters are not insignificant.
“[We] pretend that this particular act is neither uniquely wonderful nor uniquely violating, . . . [and] there is another kind of cost. . . [which] falls disproportionately on women.”
Perry stakes the ground of her argument somewhere between that of conservatives and liberals, yet her “complaint is focused more against liberals than against conservatives for a very personal reason: I used to believe the liberal narrative.”
She asks why “so many women desire a kind of sexual freedom that so obviously serves male interests? What if our bodies and minds aren’t as malleable as we might like to thinK? What do we lose when we prioritize freedom above all else?”
I first learned about this book from a somewhat negative review. Despite the reviewer’s input, this “feminist” author intrigued me with her willingness to buck the accepted way of thinking in a culture so eager to cancel dissent.
His view of her book (which I’ve not finished yet) reminds me of my reading of Aborting America by Dr. Bernard Nathanson when it was newly published in 1979. Nathanson was an atheist whose acquaintance with abortion began with him acquiring an illegal abortion for his girlfriend when he was a student on his way to becoming an OB/Gynecologist.
Nathanson went on to become part of the effort to legalize abortion via his efforts as a member of the NARAL (the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, later the National Abortion Rights Action League). He claimed to have presided over 60,000 abortions as the attending physician (one including his own child) or through his position managing abortion facilities.
He knew how abortion worked.
Aborting America is Nathanson’s account of his journey from urging abortion deregulation to advocating for the unborn. New to a movement accused of wanting to impose religious views on others, Nathanson had come to his pro-life convictions solely on humanitarian grounds. He showed that one could hold such beliefs without a reliance on faith.
The reference to life in the title is a bit of a play on words. Nathanson had come to the pro-life view first through the technology of ultrasound where he saw the humanity of the unborn.
He became aware that others were praying for him. He began to research Christianity and so realized he carried all the sins of his life.
Through his pro-life journey, Bernard Nathanson gave himself to Christ and thus found new life.
Louise Perry enters the discussion of “sexual freedom” from an atheist perspective with great reliance on evolutionary arguments and more reliance on Christian morality than she realizes.
Like many Christians, Perry doesn’t understand that God’s prohibitions on pre- and extra-marital sex are protective, not just prohibitive.
Perry changed her mind about the “liberal narrative” about sex by working with rape victims. Like Nathanson, she arrived at her new beliefs through humanitarian convictions.
The pro-life movement welcomed Nathanson and prayed for him.
Rather than criticize her work because it stops short of embracing our full convictions, we can congratulate her about her new realizations.
We can welcome her to the discussion and pray her journey leads her to faith.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Christianity has ebbed in flowed in America since the pilgrims landed. There was ebb; then Awakening. Another ebb, another Awakening. In that second waking time, America freed slaves, prohibited abortion, introduced mandatory education, and enacted child labor laws.ย We regulated medical care to protect people from untrained quacks. We required employers to take steps to protect employees, steps that often required businesses to lose money.
We werenโt perfect. But we were better than we had been.
World War I came, an ebbing, the Roaring โ20s, more ebbing. Then the Great Depression, a flat line, followed by World War II, a resurgence of faith.
Then the โ60s came with the sexual revolution. And even with the ups and downs of the economy over the years, comfort and ease increased. In the 1980s, Christianity, especially the Christian Right, enjoyed an influence unparalleled since the Second Great Awakening.
Yet another ebbing followed with continued comfort for many and a discouraged malaise for others.
Through the last few decades the sexual revolution escalated. It became the Culture War. It gained intensity, declining into a shouting match. Angry people spewed hate from both sides.
Itโs a delicate balance to speak truth and show love. Shouting, name calling, and snarky social media posts are not loving. They donโt make people yearn to have what we have or to be what we are.
If we show love and speak truth and suffer persecution, then we get what Jesus promised us. โIf the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you,โ John 15: 18.
If we show love and speak truth and peopleโs lives are transformedโif there is another awakening, where will we go from there?
Back to our comfort? Or beyond to a new mission?
In his travels to places where Christians arenโt as comfortable as America, pastor and author Francis Chan sees a contrast between the comfortable but angry Christians here and the persecuted but joyful ones in countries hostile to the Gospel.
โ[I]n China, believers in the underground church told Chan about the persecution they endure from the government. But what surprised the American pastor was that they had so much joy and were laughing when they told stories of being chased by police and authorities shooting guns to scare them. They thought it was normal to be persecuted and that Christians everywhere suffered like them, explained Chan. The underground Christians in China pointed to Philippians 1:29, which states, โFor it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him.โ
โChan shared that in America, Christians change churches over better worship music, service time, or daycare programs. The Chinese Christians laughed at him thinking he was telling a joke because it did not make sense.โ
We cannot be a church that is fearful. Fearful that our freedom will dissolve. Fearful we will suffer persecution. Fearful that America will stop being America.
To not live in fear, we must ask ourselves this question: Do we really fear the loss of our freedom or simply the loss of our comfort?
Photo Credit: Pexels
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” Romans 15:4
In the Disney Pixar short film La Luna, a grandfather and father initiate their grandson/son about their employment. The viewer realizes that the boy is “going to work” for the first time to follow in the footsteps of his forebears.
The task ahead fills the boy with wonder. The men disagree about the best way to proceed and seem to have arrived at a place of tedium in their duty.
The boy reminds them to marvel at their work.
I taught with a fellow instructor who was learning Ancient Greek. The university’s Latin teacher was fluent in Ancient Greek. The two spent time in lessons every week.
My colleague told me, “I wanted to remember what it’s like to have to learn something hard.” And Ancient Greek is hard. A character in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar explains something he doesn’t understand by saying, “It’s Greek to me.”
Sometimes we have to work at learning. Sometimes it’s hard. Still, it’s in our nature to want to know.
In his Inferno, Dante Alighieri relegates the world’s great non-Christian thinkers to Limbo. In an endnote in Dante’s Purgatorio, Anthony Esolen points out that new knowledge is something unattainable for the souls in this first circle of hell.
Those who sought knowledge in life have no ability to find new ideas in death. In Dante’s view, all that is the wonder of eternity will be lost to those who inhabit the dark and colorless regions.
It’s a challenge to bring wonder into a classroom of young ones today. More than a century ago, education largely stopped being about who students would grow up to become and instead became about what they would grow up to do.
Wonder seeped out of the classroom. Schools became larger, more uniform. Education became about, as Alberto M. Piedras says, “not the communication of knowledge but the sharing of social experience.”
Some students overcome the tedium of colorless education. The vibrant colors of learning for its own sake, wonder, are within them. Too many shuffle through their days feeling like the walls are all gray as is the world around them.
It’s up to us to show them the colors of the real world. The desire to know is within each of us, but someone must feed it or it will die.
“Our job is not to direct the imagination but to raise it from the dead.” Anthony Esolen
True education calls students to be better people, dutiful citizens, faithful family members.
Wonder plants seeds to pursue truth and excellence. A well educated populace is the living fruit of such pursuit.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
When a man and woman become one in marriage, each life meld’s with the other one’s baggage, even when neither fully understands his or her own past.
Shellie Arnold’s The Spindle Chair delves into this dynamic after Pierce, a pastor taking over his father’s ministry, and his wife Laurie suffer a miscarriage.
Both of them yearn for a child. Laurie is gleeful when she learns she is pregnant again. Pierce, however, withdraws, full of fear that he will lose Laurie because of the miscarriage–and because of trauma and rejection of his past which he has yet to resolve within himself.
Throughout that journey, both characters develop well in this nicely drawn and realistic community of faith.
Arnold weaves a well-researched tale that helps us understand her characters–and perhaps ourselves as well.
Shellie Arnold is a speaker and writer dealing with family and marriage concerns.
Shellie Arnold’s You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5IjrabLL7FnbWV7IZt4wsA
Photo Credit: Spindle Chair cover
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” Ephesians 4:12 (NIV)~
“For three decades, maybe more, churches have been stripping themselves of compassion, community and commitment in favour of butts in the seats, bucks in the bank and broadening their sphere of influence. Once you feel like a number on an attendance sheet, a source of revenue or just one of many in a target group you are forced to ask yourself, why attend?” J. David Peever
The Western Church faces many challenges today not the least of which is a reduced number of “butts in the seats.”
Peever provides a harsh answer–but one we’d be wise to heed.
“At some point people just get bored. The entertainment loses its luster and the desire to leave the comfortable surroundings of the house disappears. For some this marks the end of regular attendance, while others continue to show up out of some sense of duty or tradition. Entertainment can inspire us, influence us, make us laugh or make us cry, make us feel good or make us feel guilty but the one thing it cannot do is make a permanent change in who we are.”
Church leadership, Peever asserts, sees the service “as a way to connect with people and with God but . . . [don’t] value people or God.”
It’s a simple diagnosis: The Church has been trying to connect without realizing that connecting occurs in truly valuing others. We don’t value others by entertaining them. We value them by serving them and calling them to service.
An example I read long ago: When you move into a new place, don’t offer to do a favor for your new neighbors. Ask them for a favor–even if it’s just the proverbial borrowing a cup of sugar.
When you do something for people, they feel beholden to you. That makes them feel uncomfortable. When they do something for you, they feel good about themselves.
That’s not to say we don’t fill needs as we see them. But part of filling someone’s need is helping him to see his own possibility and purpose.
The “butts in the seats”–all of us–need purpose in our faith. We need to feel useful, not just encouraged that God loves us. That’s important, but it’s far from all there is to living the Christian life.
The all-wise God knew that His love for us would require great sacrifice on His part.
He invites us, not to comfort and entertainment, but to sacrifice. To service.
If we issue that same invitation to fill the seats, we do better than inviting people into a fabulous showtime that lacks true connection, meaning, or purpose.
Our invitation is for others to live beyond themselves. We take our eyes off the comforts of this world, look to eternity, and invite others to do the same.
That’s how we value them. That’s how we value God.
Sarah Orne Jewett tells a story in which a community of women serve an outsider and learn this lesson:
โYou know plain enough thereโs somethinโ beyond this world; the doors stand wide open. Thereโs somethinโ of us that must still live on; weโve got to join both worlds together anโ live in one but for the other.”
Living in this world for our own sake is comfortable. Living for the other world isn’t always comfortable.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3~
Based on a true story, Pearls of Innocence: Shattered and Restored, by Karen Ciccarone, helps us understand the methods abusers use to capture their victims and shows us how God can heal the wounds of those who’ve suffered such abuse.
Protagonist Kiersten MacKenna’s first-person account begins with her childhood wounds as she witnesses the results of her father’s alcoholism–estrangement from the neighbors and beatings for her mother.
Abusers prey on children who endure such circumstances, often distorting scripture to add credence to the power they hold over their victims. Kiersten’s experience follows that path to a place where she believes suicide is her best option.
Yet, that’s not where her journey ends.
From the Introduction: “Tangled knots on the chain are what keep a necklace from being seen for its real beauty and purpose. A jeweler who crafts a beautiful necklace never intends for it to become tangled, yet he possesses the right tools and expertise to fix it if it ever does. Our Creator God did not intend for our priceless souls to become ensnared by the trauma of abuse, yet he can provide what’s needed for our healing.”
Kiersten’s story will stay with you long after you close the book. And you will be changed for having opened it.
Photo Credit: Pearls of Innocence; cover by Andy Mylin
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Theย Lordย is closeย to the brokenhearted ย ย ย ย and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”Psalm 34:18 (NIV)
I wanted to entertain a bored grandson when I thought of the movie. The boy was intrigued because I said the football scenes were actual footage from Penn Stateโs games in the early 1970s.
Before long the story grabbed him. The movie, like all sports movies, wasnโt about a game as much as it was about something much larger. Character, sacrifice, love, family, and even suffering.
The movie was Something for Joey, the story of John Cappellettiโs quest to be the first Penn State football player to win the Heisman Trophy. But, as I said, itโs more than that.
The crux of the story is an internal conflict John and Joeyโs parents felt. Joey’s mom and dad had signed him up for experimental treatment for leukemia. Of course, they wanted their son to live.
But he suffered.
At one point, their mother lost hope. She decided to pray for Joey to die โbecause if Joey has to die, Iโm going to ask God to let him die now so he wonโt suffer anymore.โ
But Joey didnโt die. Joeyโs journey through illness continued. It had ups and downs. But every time John had a game, Joey was up. Their mother encouraged John to devote himself to playing well because it meant so much to Joey.
In his Heisman Trophy acceptance speech, John gave his trophy to Joey since โitโs more his than it is mine because heโs always been such an inspiration to me.โ
It seemed like the film had reached its highest point. But when the actor portraying Archbishop Fulton Sheen stepped forward to give the benediction, it went higher yet. Sheen did something Iโve never heard of anyone else in his position ever doing. Instead of praying, he made a brief statement that is probably more memorable than a prayer would have been.
He told the audience that perhaps for the first time in their lives they had โheard a speech from the heart rather than from the lips.
โYou have heard that triumph is made from sorrow. That John was made in part by Joseph. I was supposed to pronounce the blessing at this point, but you do not need a blessing tonight. God has blessed you in the person of John Cappelletti.โ
I love this story partly because I remember it unfolding. I remember the hubbub when Cappelletti won the Heisman. I remember the news coverage the day after he gave his acceptance speech. A speech that brought a roomful of celebrities and big league athletes to tears. I remember the radio relaying Sheenโs statement.
And later I remember hearing that Joey had died.
His young life and his suffering had not been meaningless. He had blessed his family. And through his suffering, he helped shape their love and their souls. And now through book and film, the story lives on to inspire us.
Photo Credit: Heisman.com
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Christopher S. Swan, the author of Amos–a story/dramatization of the biblical book of the minor prophet, has published a very different kind of text, an action-adventure with Christian influence.
Sangre de Cristo (translated as the Blood of Christ) presents a metaphorical “shepherd”, a marshal on the hunt for a prison escapee. What Rawlings, the marshal, doesn’t know is that a gang of anarchist “wolves” seek the same escapee intending to kill him to protect their operations.
Caught between the two sides is Clay the convict escapee who realizes he’s better off with Rawlings than he is with his former friends who are willing to pay any price to bring about his death. Rawlings relies on the Holy Spirit and shows Clay how to do the same.
The bulk of the book contains various battles as this newly formed team of Rawlings and Clay strive to fight off the anarchists.
The text is filled with compelling descriptions, vivid conflict (sometimes with explicit violence), and occasional humor. Swan narrates in the present tense giving a sense of urgency to the action.
Full disclosure, I helped Swan edit the text.
At times, I couldn’t stop reading.
If you love action-packed adventure: Sangre de Cristo just may fill the bill for you.
Photo Credit: Sangre de Cristo cover
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Sometimes life takes an unexpected turn. Something bad happens. And the landscape of our story changes completely. We have a new perspective, a new direction. A bad thing works for good that we did not foresee.
I have a friend who worked in an ice cream truck when he was 17 years old. That seems like a job that would have few challenges. But one day, he was robbed and beaten. The event changed the trajectory of his life.
He became a career prosecutor. He devotes his lifeโs work to pursuing justice for those who are robbed, beaten, cheated, or worse.
A neighborโs grandchild was born with serious handicaps. He and his parents faced challenges most of us cannot imagine. But two of his aunts found inspiration and, because of him, became occupational therapists.
A former studentโs younger sibling was born with a genetic disorder. This student graduated from a prestigious Ph.D. program after studying genetics for years. She may change the life trajectory of others who suffer from similar conditions.
We Christians love to quote Romans 8:28โโAnd we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.โ NASB
But we sometimes neglect the following verse: โFor those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.โ We are creations still in the shaping processโbeing conformed to the image of Christ.
Most of us can look back and clearly see our turning points.
We can realize now that we found our path because life changed one day. Unexpectedly. Unpredictably. Even unpleasantly and painfully.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โLook among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.” Hab. 1:5, ESV~
Dannah Gresh’s Habakkuk: Remembering God’s Faithfulness When He Seems Silent is a six-week study that immerses us in the minor prophet’s three chapters with side journeys to the writings of a major prophet, Daniel, and other passages, Old and New Testament. Related weekly podcast episodes enhance the study. Videos are available for group study.
Habakkuk presents questions we often ask in our time of cultural disintegration and moral decline:
“Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? “Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. “So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. “For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.” Hab 1:3-4, ESV~
Habakkuk provides context for our own times.
Providing the means to deep study and meaningful meditation. Dannah leads us on a journey from wrestling with God when we live in unsettled times, to watching for God to work, asking questions embedded with truth, watching for God’s answers, fearing God, and singing praise to Him.
It’s discouraging to watch the news or even go to the grocery store today, yet we can trust that God is doing a work in our days that we cannot imagine.
Dannah Gresh reminds us of that truth through her study of Habakkuk. Do the study. Reap encouragement.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โMy prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17:20-21, NIV~
I once had a conversation with a Chinese dissident, a man who had been a leader at the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, who was arrested and imprisoned, and who later made a dramatic escape to America.
In the course of our conversation, he mentioned that he was a Buddhist, nominally, and that Christianity, โbecause there are so many kinds,โ was confusing.
That’s a difficult criticism to answer. There are real differences among our traditions. Take, for example, communion, confession of sins, and the role of Mary and other saints in our lives. Christians from different traditions view these issues differently.
Many of us have some view of why other traditions teach what they do. Sometimes, these views are accurate; many times, what we think we know about each otherโs beliefs is actually a distortion, an out-of-focus picture that keeps us from understanding where we might actually agree.
Our Eastern brothers were working hard to explain that Christโs two natures were inseparable, that He was ALWAYS God and ALWAYS man.
The biggest obstacle in the discussion was language. The two sides did not speak the same language. In such a situation, comprehension is only as good as the best translator in the room at the time.
For much of the last 1,500 years, most Christians in the West have known very little about the doctrines of Eastern believers. Those who knew even a little operated largely under the misunderstanding that those in the East believed that Christ had two natures but never had them both at the same time. We in the West thought that those in the East believed that Christ was God only sometimes and man only sometimes.
We were wrong.
The translator, perhaps tired and overworked, gave us a distorted view of Eastern faith. This distortion led many in the West to decree that Christians in the East, with their supposed view of the dual natures of Christ, were not true believers. Our distortion of their faith separated them from our faith communities. We became distinct groups, not because we actually disagreed about the nature of Christ, but because of a bad translation in an area of agreement. How creatively the evil one employs confusion.
And our misunderstanding was not the end of his creativity. Because of our misunderstandings, we have spent these last 1,500 years splitting into smaller and smaller communities, each presuming to be more right than all the others, many of us pointing to each other with disdain rather than showing the love Christ commanded us to pour out for each other.
A unified Church can seek genuine understanding and show love within herself even in the face of real differences. A discerning Church seeks to determine the foundation for our differences and to overcome our misunderstandings. Letโs be that Church today.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
To see my own sinโmy own failings and imperfectionsโ
To overlook yours.
Joy:
To have His grace wash over me and splash onto you,
To have His grace soak us both through,
And stain us forever with His love.
Jesus stood up and said to her, โWoman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?โShe said, โNo one, Lord.โ And Jesus said, โNeither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.โJohn 8: 10-11, ESV~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here! “Paradox” excerpted from the book.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonies.โ
They say, โThe Lord does not see; the God of Jacob takes no notice.โ Psalm 94:7~
In 2016, the National Health Service (the socialized medicine bureaucracy of the UK) was accused of encouraging women whose unborn children had terminal illnesses not to abort their babies. Instead, they could carry the children to term and then donate their organs.
Later reports denied that anyone would ever encourage or pressure a mother not to abort for the sake of finding harvestable organs. Even so, 11 newborn babies between 2014 and 2016 became โorgan donors.โ
Formerly, British law banned the harvesting of newborns’ organs. But that prohibition came into question when someone discovered that โeven for adults,โ a newbornโs organs can be useful.
Not just people but countries can be of two minds–not realizing an inherent contradiction in their pursuits.
Currently, Canada’s government is considering bills designed to prohibit transplant tourism and protect citizens and foreign nationals from exploitation.
The primary legislative goal is to stop China from harvesting organs from oppressed people due to their status as outsiders, the Falun Gong, Uighurs,Tibetans, Christians, and political detainees. Organ harvesting is a big business in China garnering $1 billion in profits for the government.
“Chinaโs organ transplant industry began to increase dramatically in 2000. Hundreds of hospitals offered transplants, thousands of transplant surgeons were trained, transplant research was conducted by the military, and the immunosuppressant industry was subsidized by the state.
“While transplant patients in most western countries wait months or even years for an organ transplant, the wait times for a procedure in China have been as short as weeks, days, or even hours.”
So Canada harvests organs from the euthanized while trying to protect the oppressed of another nation from being euthanized to harvest their organs.
“It’s a lot cheaper for the government to offer medical aid and dying than to offer the services people with disabilities need to live full lives,” Jewelles Smith, Chairperson of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, said in an interview from B.C.
“John Maher, a psychiatrist from Barrie, Ont., called expanding access to MAID (Medical Aid in Dying) ‘the moral scandal of the century.'”
“He told CTV National News that the upcoming rules that could allow medical assistance in dying solely because of a mental illness don’t take into account that those suffering from severe illness may not be capable of making the best decision for themselves.”
Those who assist people deciding to die would surely encourage them to donate their organs.
A minor distinction exists between encouraging “donation” and taking advantage of someone who’s finding it hard to understand other possibilities.
While the possibilities may seem limited for someone with emotional and mental challenges, the possibilities to take advantage of people are many.
Back in the UK, researchers have discovered that they can safely harvest organs from those who’ve died of COVID. Organ recipients do not contract COVID from the transplanted part if the virus is absent in that organ (as is common in organs unrelated to the illness). Donor parts qualify if the deceased patient tested positive for COVID more than 20 days earlier.
How nice that, if someone dies in a pandemic, their organs can still be useful. That’s true only if medical was uniformly good and not based on a premise that people considered limited receive limited care.
From the UK: “more than twice as many individuals with learning disabilities died during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic than in the same period last year. “
“‘Do not attempt resuscitation’ (DNAR) notices were added en masse to the medical records of elderly and disabled people in care homes, without proper consultation with either the individuals or their families:
“* At the end of March, three care facilities for adults with learning disabilities in Somerset, Derbyshire and East Sussex were contacted by General Practitioners (GPs) to inform them that all the adults they support should be deemed DNAR.”
Sadly, care rationing is not limited to the UK. Several states in the US also set up rationing plans during COVID that proposed to deny care to those with disabilities.
It’s not a giant leap from determining who doesn’t deserve good care to seeing people who have challenges as spare parts.
One UK analyst proposes that the “normalisation of health care rationing and the wholesale abandonment of the most vulnerable in society is only possible because the NHS has been systematically starved of funds for decades.”
We miss the most important point if we blame a lack of money rather than a lack of respect for human life for the deaths of the defenseless and dependent.
All discussions about unborn life and life limited by illness or disability center on one questionโWho are we? Are we sacred souls made in the image of a great God who loves all, weak or strong?
Or are we just a mixture of electrical synapses and chemical reactions, a sometimes useful collection of spare parts?
Answering the last question in the affirmative means there won’t be a stopping point along the way to the continually increasing exploitation of people as human products.
More questions to lead us forward:
Does the one who shaped the ear not hear? The one who formed the eye not see? Does the one who guides nations not rebuke? The one who teaches man not have knowledge? Psalm 94:9-10~
We will all stand before the one who shapes, forms, guides, rebukes, and teaches.
A rebuke stands at the gates. And one more question will follow.
What did you do when you knew this atrocity was happening?
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.” I Thessalonians 5:15 KJV~
On February 14, 2018, Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Now he awaits news of his fate: Will he will serve life in prison or receive the death penalty?
Before his murder spree, Cruz published a post about another mass killer stating, “Elliot Rodger will not be forgotten.”
On May 23, 2014, Rodger killed his two housemates and a friendโthen went on a shooting spree near the UC Santa Barbara campus. At the end of the day, he had wounded 14 and killed six. He then killed himself.
In a YouTube video recorded between killings, Rodger said, โYou denied me a happy life. And in return, I will deny all of you life. Itโs only fair.โ
Rodger and Cruz described themselves as incels–involuntarily celibate. Rodger was 22 at his death. Cruz was 19 when he committed his crimes. Cruz’s father died when Cruz was six. Rodger’s parents divorced when he was seven. Both killers had suffered the “injustice” of female rejection.
Amia Srinivasan points out that in 2017 Redditโan online discussion forum websiteโshut down a 40,000-member โincelโ support group (Incel means involuntarily celibate)โ โfor people who lack romantic relationships and sex.โ Reddit also banned a second such group for calling for, among other proposals, reduced penalties for the crime of rape.
Incels are an unexpected consequence of the sexual revolution. The marginalized. The lonely. The excluded. The Elliot Rodgers and the Nikolas Cruzes. And others.
Itโs a situation Aldous Huxley avoided in his futuristic masterpiece Brave New World. Huxleyโs โcivilized societyโ encouraged sex and conditioned children to understand that โeveryone belongs to everyone.โ
Huxley even created an alpha male character who was less than perfect. Bernard Marx was smaller and less attractive than other men of his social rankโas was Elliot Rodger.
Yet unlike Elliot, Bernard still had his share of the actionโso to speak. Conditioned to always say yes, women accommodated even Bernard. There was no rejection. Therefore in Huxley’s book, there were no Elliot Rodgers or Nikolas Cruzes feeling that they had to kill in order to even the tilted score of life.
Some say, โJust take away the guns.โ But that would not have saved three of Rodgerโs victims. He stabbed his housemates and friend. He could have continued to wreak havoc with a knifeโbut he chose to attack his other victims with a gun.
Draconian gun laws may have reduced his casualty list. But they do nothing to heal the heart that tells itself everyone else is getting something I canโt have. They do nothing to keep that heart from determining to find revenge through some kind of violence.
Weโve taught more than one generation that their desires and inclinations trump all else. We have reached a shocking place, but we cannot claim to be surprised.
We have simply reached the logical conclusion of the sexual revolution.
If sex is freeโall are entitled to participate.
Perhaps it would be a simple thing to teach young children to respect others first and themselves next. To teach them that respecting yourself means not giving yourself away casually. To fill them with enough compassion and respect for others that the idea of forcing themselves on another might become unthinkableโat least less thinkable.
There is much discussion over whether schools do enough to end bullying. Some say no, those administrations look the other way. Another argument says they do all they can. Both are true depending on where you look.
Indeed, schools have to do more than put up posters and hold anti-bullying assemblies, as they avert their gaze from reality. They have to teach that social responsibility is more important than self.
They have to be willing to suffer the discomfort of a difficult public relations scenario. They have to admit that their school isnโt as safe as they pretend it is.
Moms and dads, especially those who parent bullying children, must accept responsibility also. If children hear a message at school and home (and church) as was the case in America in the past, the message has a better chance of sinking in.
We will never be able to take away enough guns and knives to stop all violence. Ending violence requires us to change hearts. Itโs a simpler matter than confiscating property. A simple matterโbut a harder task. It requires us to face the truth about “free” sex.
Sexual freedom is a lie. It doesnโt give. It only takes. It does not free. It only binds. And its chains forge one scar upon another.
Winston Churchill once said, โAmericans can be trusted to do the right thingโonce other possibilities have been exhausted.โ
How many more will die before we finally admit to that right thing?
Nikolas Cruz faces judgment here and now. He will face judgment again, as we all will sooner or later, in eternity.
He alone holds responsibility for the crimes he committed. He will pay with his life–either in prison or via a lethal needle.
We can hold him accountable.
But nothing will change until we hold ourselves accountable for the culture we have cultivated that seeks to disarm the wounded but never heal their wounds.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
We think it canโt happen to us. Itโs something that happens to other people or in the movies or on television.
Jennifer Christie was on a business trip. After a long day of work, she headed back to her hotel room, unaware that someone followed her.
She saw him after she had opened the door to her room and stepped inside. He hit her in the face. He broke her fingers. He broke her ribs. He violated her.
She told herself he could touch her body but not her soul. She awoke in below-freezing temperatures in the outdoor stairwell of her motel.
Today she suffers from a seizure disorder because of the assault. Sheโs endured six major surgeries to repair the damage he caused.
โI couldnโt wrap my head around the evil we can do to each other,โ she told a central Pennsylvania audience gathered to hear her a couple of years ago. Her story held us spellbound.
Weeks went by after the assault. Her body healed, but sudden noises made her jump. Her husband was supportive, but she could hear him rage in the shower, shouting, sobbing, punching the wall. He would emerge and tell her: โEverythingโs going to be okay,โ only to rage and sob and punch again the next day.
At the end of six weeks, he suggested she go back to workโto go do what she loved as a sign language interpreter for the deaf. He stayed behind with their four children.
Work in this instance was a previously scheduled cruise. What could be a better way to find healing and restoration?
Unless you get dysentery on day two of the cruise.
When she didnโt bounce back as expected, the shipโs doctor suggested a pregnancy test.
That possibility had not occurred to her. Her youngest child was eight years old. Her husband had had a vasectomy years earlier.
โI was raped,โ she told the doctor, having only used the word assaulted until that moment.
Yes, she was pregnant.
Others urged her to have an abortionโto get rid of the reminder sure to haunt the rest of her days.
Imagine the physical pain along with the realization that you lost the sense of security most of us carry within us. Imagine the sense of lost control over your life.
The argument for abortion in the case of rape is supposed to be one of compassion. How can we ask a woman so violated to carry the reminder of her attacker, to bring this reminder to life, to look him or her in the face every day (as we disregard the possibility of adoption)?
Now imagine people telling you what you have to do. What you canโt do. You have to abort. You canโt keep what came from rape. Imagine many people telling you what you MUST do. So many voices saying the same thing.
But she felt protective of the life within her.
โI couldnโt protect myself. Him I could protect. . . . The more I heard how easy it would be [to have an abortion], the more I felt protective.
Her husbandโs reaction?
โThis is a gift. This is something beautiful that came from something horrible.โ
What a gift is such a man.
She says, โMy son is a reminder that every day we can rise above our circumstances. . . . He came into our lives when we were hurting and broken and he healed our family.โ
Jennifer Christie has lived that reality. She looks into her reminderโs face every day.
But years later, she does not see โsome rapistโs child.โ She sees โGodโs child.โ His name is Joshua. And he is beautiful.
The voices that would have snuffed out his life were many. And Jennifer says, โThose voices were loud.
โBut little boy, we loved you louder.โ
Only a loud love can drown out the voices that would tell us that an innocent life must end because of the evil of someone else.
See beauty. See that there are no rapistsโ children. There are only Godโs children.
Love loud.
Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward.Psalm 127:3, NASB
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Nancy E. Head, is featured in the Leadership Training Track on the topic, Prep for Discomfort Zones.
Airing live on Thursday, July 14 at 1 PM ET, Nancyโs session will help women everywhere embraceย unprecedented times of uncertainty while finding peace in Godโs Word, Godโs workings, and Godโs ways. Prepare for the coming unknown as you discover:
How trials draw us close to God
How to walk with someone else going through trials
How to build a community of support to lift others
Summit Director, Marnie Swedberg, is excited to welcome Nancy to the speaker platform because she is the author of Restoring the Shattered, Nancy E. Head was a single mother of five for eleven years. Nancy now teaches, writes, and speaks about Godโs providence and grace.
โMentoring women for 20 years led up to these amazing online programs,โ said Summit Director, Marnie Swedberg. โBeing able to host them live, on YouTube, and 100% free for attendees, is like a dream come true.โ
Swedberg will kick off the summit with a โ7-Day Praise Challengeโ at 11 AM ET on Thursday, July 14.
In addition to Nancyโs session entitled Prep for Discomfort Zones, attendees are next invited to select from simultaneous sessions all afternoon, at no cost, including:
Supersize Your Hope with Maribeth Ditmars of Sarasota, FL
Self-Care Secrets with Shayla Hilton of Jamestown, NC
Overcoming Giants with Tammy Kennington of Colorado Springs, CO
Master Money Mindset with Laney Houser of Bend, OR
Marketing Not Mania with Hannah Conway of Clarksville, TN
Break Free of Anxiety with Chikeitha Owens of Dallas, TX
Declutter Your Soul with Carla Gasser of Hudson, OH
I Dare You to Jump with Georgina Verzal of Tustin, CA
Why God Allows Suffering with Darci Steiner of Parker, CO
Reframe Your Thoughts with Sara Im of Largo, FL
Step Out of Your Doubt with Doris Swift of Edgewater, FL
Attendees are also welcome to request any of the $1500+ of free swag gifts now available, plus listen to any previous summit sessions at your convenience. No limit.
This summit is open to the public with attendees hailing from around the world. Many international participants use the post-summit videos (also free) to host watch parties where interpreters translate the training for local womenโs ministry groups.
Our esteemed panel of presenters each provide a 30-minute training session followed by 15-minutes of Q&A for live attendees. Every program is hosted on the trainerโs own YouTube Channel and is available for replay indefinitely. So, if you miss a session or want to share it, or review it, it will be there for you, at no charge.
The Best You 2022 Virtual Womenโs Summit has had over 70 speakers and over 2000 attendees so far and the hosts are excited to invite you to join the Summer Summit, Thursday, July 14. After you request your free ticket, you’ll receive a downloadable session schedule in PDF file format. Use it to explore your options, then click to attend the sessions of your choice.
Request your free ticket at http://www.BestYou2022.com.
===
ABOUT LOCAL SPEAKER, NANCY E. HEAD & THE BEST YOU 2022 VIRTUAL WOMENโS SUMMIT
Local speaker, Nancy E. Head, is one of twelve featured speakers at the Best You 2022 Virtual Womenโs Summit on Thursday, July 14. This international online conference is 100% online, free and open to the public with sessions on Spiritual Growth, Self-Care, Bold Living, Leadership and Expanding Your Reach. Nancyโs session isย Prep for Discomfort Zones, airing live atย 1 PM ETย on July 14th. Learn more and grab your free tickets now at http://www.BestYou2022.com
For youย formed my inward parts; ย ย ย ย youย knitted me together in my mother’s womb. Psalm 139:13~
It was a flashpoint in the argument to legalize abortion in America during the 1970s: rape. How could anyone be so cruel as to suggest that woman whoโs been raped has to carry the child of the rapist to term?
The surprising answer is that abortion is frequently pushed onto these rape victims, and abortion victimizes them further.
We are half a century removed from the complete eradication of abortion laws thatย Roe v Wadeย andย Doe v. Boltonย enacted and in the midst of states reacting to the overturning of those cases along with Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992).
Surprising is the scant discussion of the compelling subject of abortion because of rape or incest aside from an emotionally charged but “dubious” account of a 10-year-old victim who allegedly had to go out of state to be relieved of the child a rapist implanted.
And there seems to be little interest in finding facts to support what was and still is assumed: That women/girls who suffer rape and girls who suffer incest are better off having abortions than they are delivering babies.
We have barely looked beneath the surface of this assumption.
One study ofย 37 womenย pregnant from rape showed that a large majority optedย againstย abortion.ย โDr. Sandra Mahkorn found that 75 to 85 percent chose against abortion.[1]ย This evidence alone should cause people to pause and reflect on the presumption that abortion is wanted or even best for sexual assault victims.โ (Also, see here and here.)
Multiple factors play into the discussion: the womanโs view of abortion before she was assaulted and the conviction that something redeemable can result from something horrible.
Itโs interesting that few have replicated such studies. As if impressions that abortion is best, even necessary, in cases of rape are universally valid, further testing is superfluous.
More likely, it seems researchers fear results that would overturn the public’s impression that abortion after rape is beneficial or even benign.
Those impressions carry the same conclusion into the discussion of incest. But in cases of incest, abortion erases the evidence of a crime and allows abuse to continue.
David C. Reardon, Ph.D.:
โStudies show that incest victims rarely ever voluntarily agree to an abortion.[4]Instead of viewing the pregnancy as unwanted, the incest victim is more likely to see the pregnancy as a way out of the incestuous relationship because the birth of her child will expose the sexual activity. She is also likely to see in her pregnancy the hope of bearing a child with whom she can establish a true, loving relationship, one far different than the exploitive relationship in which she has been trapped.โ
So it isnโt the way we thought it was. No matter which study we consider, assault victims are not lining up in great majorities to abort their pregnancies. They are not claiming that abortion saved them from something more horrible.
Aย more recent surveyย of sexual assault victimsโone that includes a much larger sample (192 women) than the studies cited aboveโstates that 80 percent of women who aborted children conceived from assault regretted their abortions. No woman who gave birth expressed regret.
Missing in much of this discussion is the voice of the children. Rebecca Kiessling is one such voice. Conceived as a result of rape and later adopted, she speaks for the tiniest persons involved.
โMost importantly, Iโve learned, Iโll be able to teach my children, and I teach others that your value is not based on the circumstances of your conception, your parents, your siblings, your mate, your house, your clothes, your looks, your IQ, your grades, your scores, your money, your occupation, your successes or failures, or your abilities or disabilities โ these are the lies that are perpetuated in our society.โ
Our worth comes from our Creator. He values the littlest ones no matter how they came to be. We can value them too by helping their mothers. Those who have suffered such abuse need not suffer more.
Itโs time to tell the truth about rape and abortion. Abortion harms women. Abortion kills childrenโno matter how they came to be.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertisement.
โSin is the failure to live freedom excellently.โ George Weigel
When we were children, we told ourselves that, when we grew up, we would do what we want. We would stay up late, drive a car, and watch whatever we want on television.
But then we grew up and wished we could go to bed earlier. We wondered how weโd pay for car repairs. And we wanted to find some time to watch TV. Or when we did have the time, we wished thereโd be something on worth watching.
We didnโt realize as children that our extra sleep helped us function and learn. Our parents chauffeured us around while bearing the burdens of car ownership and maintenance. And we enjoyed an innocence about how the world workedโor failed to work well.
We still donโt realizeโand often donโt like to admitโrules are good for us.
The Ten Commandments are not just a list of what not to doโthe โThou shalt notโsโโnot idolizing, misusing Godโs name, stealing, lying, murdering, coveting, and adulteringโor something like that.
They also list what to do. The โThou shaltโsโโhonor God, the Sabbath, our parents.
Those three seem less obvious to us. They donโt seem to carry the weight of immediate consequence, at least when weโre older. But they are perhaps even more important than the others. They keep us from the others. The โThou shaltโsโ help us avoid the โThou shalt notโs.โ
Yet every day, we are free to choose. In fact, our ability to choose our actions, according to George Weigel โis what distinguishes the human person from the rest of the natural world[;] freedom is the great organizing principle of a life lived in a truly human way.โ
Life is hard. But when we live our freedom excellently we are most free.
Someone pointed out to me that God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites after they left the bondage of Egypt.
I had never thought of that before. I had never pondered why God didnโt give a set of rules written in stone to Adam and Eve upon their departure from the Garden. Or to Noah 120 years before the flood. Or to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob.
God waited until His own people would be setting up their own societyโa newfound society of free people coming out of bondage. He gave them guideposts, like road signs. Go this way. Donโt go that way. Avoid the bondage of sin.
They arenโt rules to limit us. Theyโre rules to free us.
โHad your law not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.โ Psalm 119:92.
Itโs something every generation must learn on its own. I confess that I learned many life lessons the hard way. When we learn that way, we come to see the rules as protective. God wrote those rules in stone. They serve or are disregarded by everyone throughout history.
As children, we resented our parentsโ rules while they formed a hedge of protection around us.
The wise delight in the rules and in the One who gave them to us as a gift.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonies.”
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5~
“In former times, the most thoughtful people valued the old or the new only insofar as they gave a clue to the eternal and transcendent. In seeking the transcendent, they believed that old things did have a certain dignity on their face: they have the advantage of persistence, which is one part of virtue. Things that have been thought good for a long time are worthy of attention, respect, and study. New things are harder to judge. Nonetheless, both old and new things must meet the test of permanence and transcendence.
“To the modern ear, that sounds antiquated. Today the theme is not permanence, but change; not transcendence, but presence. Change is the master key to everything. Change can be eternal only in the sense that everything changes. But if everything changes, nothing is permanent, and nothing is transcendent. Today we are trying to make a transcendent good out of the one thing that cannot transcend.” Larry P. Arnn
One of my sons was ten or eleven when I asked his teacher whether he taught sentence diagramming.
“I sneak it in whenever I can,” was his reply.
Even during my youth, teaching elementary and middle school children the structured grammar of the English language had to happen through mutiny. My son’s teacher knew diagrams would help his students better understand their own language, but he had to be sneaky to avoid the wrath of an administration that thought it knew better.
During my years as a college composition instructor, I saw the results of grammar poorly taught or not taught at all.
Many of my college students could not identify the parts of speech in a sentence. Too many did not know how to craft a sentence. They wrote in run-ons or fragments. Beyond their inability to construct a sentence, many had no idea how to craft an argument and defend it.
College students.
Why the continuing animus against teaching English in a way proven over the years to work when the lack of teaching has produced such dismal results? Why the failure to teach the pieces of language to students, no matter their major, who presumably are working to learn to communicate in professional and public settings?
I remember an article I read years ago that I’m unable to source and cite today. The writer proposed that teaching grammar had fallen by the wayside because of an evolutionary mindset.
If we had evolved, so had our ability to speak and so had our development of language. From such a view, it would seem imprudent to teach grammar. After all, evolution means change, and if language evolved, ways of constructing language would evolve too.
This new way of thinking dismissed the idea of “correct” grammar and embraced the idea of an individual, self-created “voice”. Educators could no longer interfere with a student’s voice.
Grammar, in such a view, is a social construct, and social constructs are always to be rejected without consideration of what we lose in dismissing them.
Conversely, the author of the article explained, if we are created beings, we received language. God gave words to us along with the capacity to convey complex ideas in thoughtful, developed, structured, and civil ways.
God the Word Himself, the Logos, (John 1) ordained language.
Yes, language changes over time. Old English, the language people on the British Isle spoke around 700 AD, is unrecognizable to English speakers today.
Old words fall out of favor. New ones come on the scene. Few of us would recognizecrumpetas a person’s head. If we used the word nithingin writing, we’d be accused of typographical error rather than insult.
Even so, the changing of language supports rather than refutes the need for grammar. A structure of grammar helps us understand new terms through context. Grammar helps us decipher old texts and more easily navigate complex ones.
Language changes, but we don’t invent it from scratch and expect to communicate well with others. Human interaction in any language is made worse when communicators lack vocabulary and reasoning skills as well as the ability to put words in an understandable arrangement.
Today, only a few understand the grammar of, not only English, but also history (what happened where and when and why certain events matter), math (the basics without calculators), literature (revealing the events and beliefs of people in other times), and science (what is verifiable and what is not).
During the Renaissance, people who believed God had created man melded the views and ways of Judeo-Christianity with elements from pagan cultures like logic and mathematics. Learning flowed from, not only Jerusalem, but also Egypt, Athens, and Rome.
The goal of education was (and should be now) to help students discern truth. To understand the first tenet of logic: that a statement cannot be true and false at the same time. To be able to weigh and argue reasons, facts, and ideas and come to logical, supportable arguments. To be able to explain those arguments in a coherent, persuasive way and to do so in with civility.
Such an education enables students to develop a sense of morality based on objective truth and to understand which actions lead to which consequences.
A language that evolved for a people who evolved is ever-changing and never settled in meaning. Not only in meaning by definitive definition but also meaning in having a lasting purpose. There is no room to claim an objective truth. There is no purpose in trying to convey it. There is only one’s lone voice speaking a foundationless language of self.
A created and bestowed language provides the means to use ministry to convey truth. From truth flows morality, purpose, and meaning.
All that from English grammar? Well, no.
All that results from the idea that learning looks back. Learning looks for structure. It seeks meaning. Learning has meaning because life has meaning.
The ultimate outcome of learning is far more than getting a job that pays well, the best we can hope for in the atomized life in which nothing is definitive. Learning builds a citizen, a spouse, a parent for life.
Arnn refers to higher education in the following quote, but his statement resonates no matter the age of the learner:
“Students [today] are not invited to step outside themselves, to step outside their own time, and to look at things as they have been understood by the best over time. If they did that, they would find that the great books are not a parade of agreements but attempts to approximate truth that frequently differ from one another. They would see that some [books] are more successful than others, and they would then learn and grow not by invention but by discovery.”
Not by invention but by discovery.
Modernity and post-modernity have erased the past from many of today’s classrooms. They’ve removed the wonder that comes from discovering ideas that mattered in the past, that still matter today.
Every generation must write old learning on new slates.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings,” J.R.R. Tolkien.
After nearly 50 years, Roe has fallen. The dragon is slain.
The decision overturns the 1973 ruling of seven men who eradicated every law in America that prevented or restricted the destruction of preborn children.
Now states can decide whether and how to limit abortion. Sixteen states have already taken up the mantle of protection for the unborn.
Mississippi’s case, the one SCOTUS ruled on, limits abortion after 15 weeks–more than a third of the way through pregnancy.
Oklahoma passed a law protecting the unborn from fertilization (with exceptions, reported rape or assault, medical emergency, Plan B). Texas’s law restricts abortion after six weeks and provides no exceptions for rape or incest. (See here also)
Arkansas’s law is also quite restrictive, allowing abortion only when the mother’s life is endangered. Aside from cases like a tubal pregnancy in which the non-viable child’s death is assured, ending a pregnancy prematurely because of a mother’s health issue does not require the death of a viable child. That’s an idea pro-abortion advocates have ignored since before Roe. There’s a big difference between seeking the outcome of a dead child and ending a pregnancy early to care for both mother and child.
In anticipation of today, eight states promised legal access to abortion until birth as per Roe. At least New York expanded abortion access so as not to require a licensed physician to perform the procedure.
These incidents rightly remind us of abortion clinic bombings in the late ’70s through the ’80s and into the ’90s. Media outlets widely publicized the bombings and arson of abortion facilities. Pro-life advocates decried the violence.
Further, legislative leaders (see here and here) have ignored or have gone so far as to support illegal protests outside the homes of SCOTUS Justices. The White House encouraged such demonstrations supporting a clear violation of the law prohibiting citizens from attempting to intimidate the judiciary to achieve a desired decision.
Not prosecuting illegal protesters may have contributed to a more serious form of protest also muted in the media.
The New York Times buried the attempt to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh on page 20.
Did the media tell themselves that one “crazy” person showing up with a knife, gun and other paraphernalia didn’t deserve a prominent headline. We must ask whether there is only one or a crowd of people willing to allow (or perpetrate) assassination for the sake of a political end?
On the side of life, there are the children, parents, and other family members who become walking wounded after the trauma of abortion.
On the other side, Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion entity recorded its fifth-highest profits in 2017 at $98.5 million. Profits for 2020 were a mere $69.7 million. The University of Pittsburgh garnered millions in federal tax dollars for its companion industry of fetal experimentation.
The entities who make money from the deaths of children won’t give up easily.
Radicals willing to bomb and threaten those who oppose them won’t either.
Those of us on the side of life must continue to advocate peacefully for the innocent. Aside from the Dobbs decision, we have made progress.
As with many other issues, Americans are very divided over abortion although 70 percent of us favor some limitations, and growing numbers now call themselves pro-life.
We see courage in those willing to stand their ground in crisis pregnancy ministries–especially in states where the balance is tipped in abortion’s favor.
A decision has come down. But the argument is not over. Today is a day to proclaim repentance for our nation’s sins.
It’s a day to celebrate.
It’s a day to commit to courage come what may.
“Courage comes from the deepest recesses of our soul, where belief, hope, conviction, and grounded optimism, tempered by life experience, reside. It is seldom needed; when courage is called for, we either have it or not. those who know how to rally, in heart and deed, carry the day. Those who fold to fear slide away,” Robert B. Charles.
Let us not slide away.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.โ Joshua 1:9~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
You pick up the stone on a Friday. At some time over the weekend, youโre supposed to put it down.
The stone can represent many thingsโyour sin, your bitterness toward yourself, toward someone else. Itโs the burden youโve been carrying. Itโs been the rock in the pocket of your heart for years.
But over the next few days, youโll finally be able to put it down. And youโll finally find healing you didnโt know was possible.
Such is the experience of many men attending a retreat to heal from abortion.
A typical situation begins with two people who come together in passing or in loveโbut always in passion.
She becomes pregnant.
He doesnโt resist when she says sheโll have an abortionโeven though she may be hoping he will take a stand on behalf of their childโthat he will choose to stand by her.
Or perhaps he pushes her to abort the baby.
Or perhaps he will learn of the abortion only after itโs already happened.
Heโs often the neglected one in such situations.
Since before Roe v. Wade, weโve heard that abortion is between a woman and her doctor. Itโs nobody elseโs business.
Except it doesnโt work that wayโeven though it may take him years to understand that the wound from abortion is the stone that has been weighing him down.
โ[Many men] do not associate the symptoms they are suffering [depression, addiction, inability to maintain relationships] with that abortion event in their past. Even if a man is aware that he is hurting from participating in the death of his unborn child, there is no safe place to share that burden.โ
He has no place to goโeither because no one else knows about the abortion or because those who do know donโt want to discuss it.
Burke explains why healing is so important:
โWhen you went through that abortion experience the natural need for you to grieve the loss of your child and your parental relationship with your son or daughter was also aborted. For some men and women, forgiving self and letting go of the burden of self-condemnation feels like letting go of the only real connection with their unborn child or children.โ
Yet there is hopeโfor both men and women. Hope comes, not in forgetting, but in honoring and remembering. Healing ministries provide the opportunity to remember, to name the child, to repent, to find forgiveness.
Burkeโs book lists the following:
Abortionforgiveness.com is part of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.
Menandabortion.net helps men find healing and works to raise awareness of menโs abortion pain in counselors, pro-life workers, and society at large.
House of Esau offers weekend retreats for men seeking healing from abortion.
And Rachelโs Vineyard is a ministry for married couples, parents, and grandparents. This ministry provides the stone that symbolizes the burden of abortion.
Burke quotes an attendee of a Rachelโs Vineyard Weekend Retreat: โAfter I picked up my rock, I was inspired to share with the group. โIโve been carrying this rock for 14 years. Iโve been emotionally dead for that long.’โ
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertisement.
“When my mother’s father died of a heart attack–she was sixteen at the time–it was my father, only seventeen, who stepped in and took control of the household. Although they’d been dating less than a year, he cooked breakfast for my mother’s family, did chores in the afternoons, and became a dad to her young brother. . . . He was from my earliest memories, the person others came to. . . . [H]e never complained.” Mitch Albom
Mitch Albom included this account in the book he wrote about a dying Haitian orphan he and his wife cared for during the child’s final days. Chika was a resident in the orphanage Albom sponsors and helps lead. He and his wife provided love, comfort, and care Chika would not otherwise have received.
Albom’s father’s life changed when his girlfriend’s father died. The elder Albom’s sacrifice of time and effort manifests itself today in Mitch’s love and sacrifice, emotional and financial for Chika.
As we might imagine, the emotional and financial toll would be enormous. Yet, Albom says, โChika gave us the blessing of having a family, even late in life. Her courage was an inspiration and continues to motivate us to take care of all the other kids [at the Haitian orphanage].โ
By example, Albom’s father planted the seed of sacrifice in his son. Now, Albom has visited the orphanage more than 130 times, going monthly and staying for days at a time planting seeds into many more lives.
All fathers plant seeds. Some plant loneliness and pain through abuse or absence. Some cultivate crops reaping strength of character and heart.
When I was a small child, I discovered that the house was warm because my father loaded the furnace every winter morning before I got out of bed.
When I was nearly grown, I discovered that my father was the kind of man who stuck by his wife even if she was, as he said, no longer “herself” because of the emotional challenges and trauma she had suffered in her youth.
Our world is imperfect. That makes some people question God’s existence. A perfect God, they reason, would make a perfect world.
Yet this kind of world is the only place where we can learn about strength of character and heart. It’s the only kind of world that can shape heroes.
It’s what a perfect God would realize we need. Not all heroes are dads. Not all dads are heroes.
If your dad has been a hero, thank him. If he’s gone, thank God for him.
“Whoever fears the LORD has a secure fortress, and for their children it will be a refuge.โ Proverbs 14:26~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have placed before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,” Deuteronomy 30:19, ESV~
“For too many of us, freedom no longer means the ability to know, to choose, and to do what’s morally right; rather, it means what the scholar D. C. Schindler described as ‘freedom from reality. . . . As a result, we relentlessly try to reimagine the world to suit our desires, and then coerce others into believing our delusions.” Charles J. Chaput
In 1974 along with some fellow students, I toured a residential facility for the mentally disabled in a nearby county. Patients’ conditions ranged from functional to bedridden.
In those years, seeing someone with challenges was more common. Aborting those with limited capacities or physical challenges had been neither legal nor acceptable when these patients resided in the womb.
A few years later, the center made news. A male employee had raped incapacitated female patients, two of whom had become pregnant as a result.
The parents of the two women took different paths as I recall from news reports of the day.
One family decided on abortion. Their daughter had a genetic disorder they feared would damage the fetus.
The other family’s daughter had been injured in an accident. Her “disorder” couldn’t be passed on. Her baby would be born. Her baby had a mother.
The newspaper reporter further distinguished between the two children. The fetus had tissue, but the baby had blood. Medical personnel would test both to solve the crime.
There was one language for death and another for life.
The language of death is designed to disguise its subject. Fetus is a Latin word meaning young one. Tissue isn’t as graphic as blood–the substance that sustains life. Fetuses don’t have mothers. Only babies do.
Unstated in the reporter’s account, one family would be relieved of a potential new burden the state was already carrying for their daughter since her child would die. The other family claimed an unexpected grandchild. That child got to have a birthday.
Law enforcement used the acquired tissue and blood to identify the perpetrator who paid the price of a prison sentence.
Nearly five decades have passed since SCOTUS handed down Roe v. Wade and companion case Doe v. Bolton eliminating every law limiting abortion (effectively allowing abortion until birth for any reason) across the US. The language regarding the subject continues to distinguish between fetuses to be aborted and children to be born.
Think of hospitals doing late abortions while medical personnel down the hall work around the clock in the NICU to save babies of the same gestational age.
Think of those working where life and death depend on human decisions.
Think of the people making these decisions–irrevocable moments that will resound in eternity.
And think of the babies, as all whose lives hang in the balance are.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
“Blessed are the people whose God is theย Lord!” Psalm 144:15b~
I had the great privilege once to meetย Harry Wu,ย a Chinese dissident who spent 19 years in a laogai, a โre-education camp.โ Wu was eventually exiled to America. He worked nights in a doughnut shop until he could learn English to become a voice for freedom until his death in 2016.
Something he said still resonates with me. โA barefoot peasant can be happy if he is free.โ Happiness and freedom go hand in hand.ย
In โThe Grand Inquisitor,โ Fyodor Dostoevsky presents what at first seems like a different view.
Alyosha, a priest, is generous and loving. His brother Ivan is an atheist who plans to live until he is thirty, then commit suicide. The two discuss a parable Ivan has written. The conversation, a chapter inย The Brothers Karamozov,ย is more of a political statement than a religious one. But sometimes, people substitute politics for religion.
In Ivanโs parable, a 16th-century Cardinal/inquisitor talks to a silent Christ who has returned to earth for the day.ย Christ sits silently while the inquisitor tells how he and others in power have replaced God, having improved upon His plan. They have convinced the populace to willingly relinquish their freedom.
Christ had brought freedom with the promise of heavenly bread. He had brought no guarantees of earthly bread or even of happiness. The inquisitor offers people earthly bread at the cost of freedom. Not having to pursue their own bread, the people will be happy, the inquisitor claims.
Speaking to Christ, the inquisitor sums up our times:
โDost Thou know that the ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger? โFeed men, and then ask of them virtue!โ thatโs what theyโll write on the banner, which they will raise against Thee, and with which they will destroy Thy temple.โ
Published in 1880, Dostoevsky was prophetic. Much of the world has turned to the bread of socialism. They donโt, however, seem any happier for having done so.
Satan’s promises never pay off.
In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson promised America freedomย andย happiness. He admitted he did not have the โfull answerโ to Americaโs woes. But he determined to find โthe best thought and the broadest knowledge from all over the world to find those answers for America.โ It’s unlikely that he realized his point mirrored the words of the inquisitor.
Johnson’s speech marks a turning in America, not the first nor the last, away from the wisdom of God to the wisdom of man.
โThe purpose of protecting the life of our nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a nation.โ The governmentโs new goal became to effect personal happiness in its citizens. Without it, the nation would be a failure.
Johnsonโs Great Society would result in โabundance and liberty for allโ and require โan end to poverty and racial injustice.โ
After having spent more than $22 trillion over 50 years,ย rates of povertyย first dropped from 17 percent to about 12 percent, rose again to hover at 15 percent, then ticked back up to almost 17 percent in 2020.ย
More than half a century since LBJ promised that programs could produce a heyday of peace and prosperity, a heaven on earth utopia has not come to pass.
It cannot be on earth.
The pursuit of happiness is not something that anyoneโincluding the governmentโcan chase on someone elseโs behalf. Certainly, no one can pursue happiness without freedom.
In response to the inquisitor, Dostoevskyโs Christ remains silent. His only response: kissing the inquisitor before He departs.
Ivan thought he figured out how to fix the world. But Ivan still wasnโt happy. Before they part, Alyosha kisses him.
Alyosha knows happiness does not come in the form of government-provided bread. It comes in the form of love.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already comeย for you to wake up from your slumber,ย because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.ย The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.ย So let us put aside the deeds of darknessย and put on the armorย of light.ย Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness,ย not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.ย Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ,ย and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. Romans 13:11-14 (NIV)~
โToday the individual has become the highest form . . . The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The individualists stare into each other’s eyes and yet deny each other’s existence. We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster’s whim and the purest ideal.โ Ingmar Bergman~
Two religions prevail in America today. Christianity provides community. Modernity imposes isolation.
I had occasion this week to peek at life in a small liturgical church whose traditions I’d not witnessed before. Beauty dwells in that place. A beauty different from the magnificence of grand cathedrals. Natural light pours through clear windows; from within, lit candles stand tall around the altar area and above on a chandelier.
The natural forms of light bring opportunity for contemplation and an appreciation for the preparation before we arrive. Someone lights all those candles. That’s not our usual way today as we expect modern amenities along with efficiency to accompany our worship.
And we expect comfort as well. At this church, while a few benches line the wall, most people stand. Families worship on their feet. Parents carry babes in backpacks or belly slings.
Older children stand, sometimes moving around to light a candle or use the bathroom. No special children’s program separates them. No clenched teeth shushes and admonitions to SIT STILL dampen their affinity for the place and the rites.
Mothers stand holding babies within themselves.
I remember an old British literary work (but I can’t remember which one) in which a character commented that Christianity was for old women and the vulgar.
Yet in this candlelit place, the ratio of men to women is pretty even. The age demographic is nowhere near old. This church is young and burgeoning with life.
As SCOTUS continues to ponder Dobbs and Roe, we see the contrast between an encouraging community and our outer society of atomized individualists walking in circles and denying each other’s existence.
Even to the point of denying each other’s right to exist.
“Abortion long ago became a natural symbol for the loss of a spiritual center. Not divine law, but individual will is the measure, and rejecting the child within the body becomes its expression. Challenging Roe v. Wade is not a matter of standing in judgment against women, but of changing a culture of death.”Glenn Arbery~
By example, the young men and women in this small community of faith challenge this culture of death. As they accept the children they bear, as they take Communion, they renounce modernity’s cry for me, myself, and I.
โAbortion is the Antichristโs demonic parody of the Eucharist. That is why it uses the same holy words, โThis is my body,โ with the blasphemously opposite meaning.โ โ Dr. Peter Kreeft~
This small church is not an ideal community. There aren’t any. God doesn’t expect any church to be perfect, just humble.
There is a way to overcome the darkness of atomization and present the light of Christ’s community to the world.
Such a way begins in small communities loving each other and shining light to the rest.
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. II Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
โand blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me!” Matthew 11:6 NET~
In the 1960s, Pope Benedict XVI, then Joseph Ratzinger predicted the following:
“The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.”
“She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . .”–from Faith and the Future ([published online]).
Christianity is in decline in America. Fewer than half of us belong to a church now with attendance having dropped 20 percent over the past two decades.
What might be the social privileges Benedict referred to? Tax-exempt status for religious entities in America comes to mind since most churches couldn’t maintain ministries in their current state and support missions while carrying a heavy tax burden.
In our communities as well as our nation, Christian social influence is ebbing even as we see results from years of toil. On what looks like the eve of the end for Roe v Wade, some states like Texas have already passed effective limitations to protect the unborn. More than half of US states are set to restrict abortion if or when the Supreme Court overturns Roe as many expect, giving the power to regulate abortion back to the states. That would seem like a supreme victory for the Judeo-Christian ethic.
At recent March for Life events, however, we’ve seen tremendous Christian presence accompanied by a growing portion of the crowd representing a Secular Pro-Life position–the stance that all human life deserves civil rights including the right to life, even in the womb, but without the idea that human life is sacred because God created us and endowed us as His image.
If America sees a rebirth of protection for the unborn, will we be able to keep it with a shrinking Church and even with secular allies for life?
We can, but only if we become and remain the Church of old.
Mike Aquilina and James Papandrea write about “Seven Revolutions” Christianity produced causing “radical change in the way human society thought of the individual, the family, work, religion, community, attitudes toward life and death, and even government.”
“For example, in the ancient world, a person’s worth was based on what he or she might produce, or how he or she might be a burden to others. It was Christianity that would give the world a sense of the intrinsic value of every human being. In other words, in the worldview of ancient cultures, some people were expendable, and some people were property. Furthermore, in the Roman Empire the enjoyment of quality of life (along with the freedoms and free time that make that possible) was a luxury afforded to the rich. Both religion and government existed to serve the ruling classes, which created a hopelessness in the lower classes and a tendency toward selfish hedonism in the upper classes.”
Nearly 50 years of unrestricted abortion (abortion throughout pregnancy for any reason) has done much to affirm the view that some people are expendable based on their limitations, lack of abilities, or inconvenient timing.
Now, more than ever before in America’s history, we see selfish hedonism among the elite and hopelessness growing in every population sector.
With Roe gone, it will be up to the Church to reach out to minister to families, women, and children in need. If we claim victory and celebrate that the fight is over and go home to rest from the conflict, the door will be wide for Roe to be reinstated–and even expanded.
Even with shrinking churches, ministry will have to grow. Christians will have to do more to reach out to those in need of loving service rather than the exploitation abortion offers.
Ministry will be more difficult but perhaps more accessible, more real. We may look at the coworker next to us and find he is a pastor.
That sounds harder. More work to provide effective ministry.
Harder sounds bad. But harder isn’t always bad.
More from Benedict:
“It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification [of essential doctrine] will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek.”
And the Church becoming meek will be the seed of awakening in the culture around us.
“. . . . Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.”
Today in the West, authentic churches of all denominations are seeing Benedict’s words come true.
Can we know and explain what it means to be Christian in a way that holds to truth and shows love and grace? Are we willing to let our churches become materially poor in order to stand in truth, love, and grace?
“The real crisis has scarcely begun,” Benedict continued. “We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as manโs home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”
We already see loneliness manifesting itself in the totally planned world Benedict spoke of.
We know the source of life and hope.
As the Church grew through the centuries, stained glass windows and beautiful artwork told the story of Christ to the literate and illiterate alike.
We must now be those story-telling windows letting light shine into lives dwelling in the darkness of their loneliness.
We can ask God to use us to bring about a fresh blossoming of His love in our world.
We can be the seed of that blossoming.
“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. Isaiah 35:1-2a~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It started with the ancients honoring mothers even though ancient cultures did not regard women as equal citizens. Lauding Mother has rung throughout the ages.
Americaโs celebration of mothers began on a dark note more than a century ago. It was a day for mothers to mourn sons lost in World War One and work toward peace. As wars came and went, the day became a time to honor all mothers. It became a happy day.
The dayโs original crafters would want you to know that itโs not Mothersโ Dayโin celebration of all mothers. Itโs Motherโs Dayโwhen youโre supposed to visit and thank your own.
Some still hold the babes, wipe the noses, and change the diapers. Others joust with school-borne illnesses, sibling rivalries, and picking up Legos after stepping on one in bare feet. Itโs the little ones that hurt the most.
For some of us, the babes grew up and had their own–may still have more. And some of those babes have grown and had their own now too.
Life is a sacred passage. Being a child turns into becoming a parent. The seasons pass too quickly from sleepless nights to piles of laundry on college weekends. Then weddings, then childrenโwe hope.
Over the years, we forget the exhaustion that comes with fussy babies and sick children. We remember ourย lack of patience and wonder whether what we gave was enough. But even our mistakes donโt have to beย wasted.
โGood parents use the mistakes they did in the past when they were young to advise the children God gave to them to prevent them from repeating those mistakes againโ (Israelmore Ayivor).
But the next generation will stumble also. And so the seasons unfold. Imperfect humans pass on the stamp of imperfection. Yet we stamp each other with love and understanding tooโand the eventual realization that our mothers did their bestโand in spite of our exhaustion or fear or life circumstance, we did too.
We have to forgive ourselves and each other for our stumblings.
The stamp of imago Deiโthe image we bearโmakes it all sacred.
Celebrate your motherโin life or in memory. Celebrate those you hold, those youโve held, and, if youโre a mom, those who hold you in their hearts for all youโve done. Celebrate your part in the seasons of bringing others through to their grown-up time.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. Psalm 139:13-16~
“Born and preborn.” That’s how my friend ended the Pledge of Allegiance every time she said it.
In January of 1979, she answered the phone when I called to reserve my seat on the bus for my first March for Life. We’ve been dear friends ever since.
She resides in a home now. I hope she is aware of the news of the day.
It’s sad that someone leaked the decision draft for Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. I hope SCOTUS moves quickly to officially release the decision. If it is as it appears, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth from the other side.
Yet the abortion business will continue in states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and others who prepared for this day by codifying Roe and Doe (Roe‘s companion case)–enacting unlimited abortion until birth for any reason.
Other states have prepared in the opposite way for Roe‘s fall. Pro-abortion entity the Guttmacher Institute says 26 states are ready to “ban” abortion (with limitations).
Our Pennsylvania governor takes pride in his previous service as an abortion escort. He walked pregnant women from their cars and talked to them so they couldn’t hear pro-life people offering alternatives to death for their children.
He is a guaranteed veto on any pro-life bill our majority conservative legislature will pass. His successor must be pro-life if we are to provide any measure of protection for unborn children who are still suffering across our state and at the hands of experimenters at the University of Pittsburgh.
We have marched and talked and prayed and marched some more since Roe and Doe came down in 1973. We felt devastation in 1992 when Casey (a very different Pennsylvania governor) v Planned Parenthood came down too. But now this day has arrived.
Even so, the fight for life goes on. While it appears that the generation calling itself the pro-life generation may finally have succeeded, every generation must stand to protect life.
Dred Scott, Roe, Doe, and Casey were bad decisions. Justice demanded they be overturned. Justice is late for 62 million children, the inconvenient, the imperfect, the wrong gender.
Perhaps today, justice is at the door. For born and preborn.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“And he willย turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come andย strike the land with a decree of utter destruction,โ Malachi 4:6 (ESV).
“A society based on ‘agape’ [sacrificial love] alone is all very well, but it will not reproduce itself: nor will it produce the crucial relation–that between parent and child–which is the basis on which we can begin to understand our relation to God. Hence, the redemption of the erotic lies at the heart of every viable social order.” Roger Scruton~
Charles J. Chaput includes the above Scruton quote in his book Things Worth Dying For: Thoughts on a Life Worth Living. Earlier in the book, Chaput explains that the word sacrifice “derives from the Latin sacrum facere–to make sacred; to set aside as holy.”
In his chapter on the family, “The Ties that Bind,” Chaput provides four factors that work against the process of strong families forming a strong society.
The first is political: The Christian view of what a family is–mom, dad, and the kids–is “a magnet for ill will” in a society informed by a “pervasive and permissive mass media–permissive toward some causes; bigoted toward others.” Chaput asserts that the independent-mindedness that democratic government fosters ultimately leads to this ill will since the “biblical authority of the Christian family is, finally, undemocratic.”
A family that functions with father and mother, equal in status, wielding authority, and filling different roles, is anathema to today’s liberal thinkers. Even so, the institution of the family is the primary factor in societal stability.
The second factor is economic: “Globalism has served America’s wealthy top tier quite well. But as lower-skilled jobs disappear, middle- and working-class wages have stagnated–or worse, declined . . . [forcing] both parents out of the home . . . [and keeping] many families from saving even for emergencies.” In such an environment, “the liberty and power of most individuals has declined.” We are now “free to make very few significant choices.”
The shift from local production to worldwide manufacturing has made the American Dream, family-sustaining independence, a memory for many.
The third factor is technological advances: “[C]oncern for electronic diversions and their impact on the mental health and development of children is now widespread.” Addiction to screens, addiction to porn, and mental passivity result from our devotion to daily screen time.
Even more concerning are “family-related technology issues” such as “mitochondrial replacement therapy–i.e., in vitro fertilization (IVF) with genetic material from three different adults.”
Chaput quotes Brendan Fohr: “The willingness of the fertility industry to use experimental technologies like three-parent IVF to satisfy the kinship desire of prospective parents, even when it means putting the health of the child at risk, bodes ill for how they will use the even more powerful technologies of genetic engineering now on the horizon.”
We have embarked into a Brave New World in which sex and reproduction continue to lose connection. That connection is the primary tie that binds, the “crucial relation” Scruton cited as a foundation for our understanding of God. The melding agape to eros (romantic, physical love) in families is how God created us to reproduce–physically and spiritually.
Finally, the fourth factor circles back to the first and echoes the third–hostility toward the family and pursuit of increased distance between sex and reproduction. Nineteenth-century “revolutionaries, like Marx and Engels, wanted their economic policies to dissolve the need for traditional families. Where they failed, feminists like Shulasmith Firestone (1945-2012) have not.
She explains: “The end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege, but the sex distinction itself.” She proposes artificial reproduction–“Children born to both sexes equally, or independently of either,” eliminating “the dependence of the child on the mother,” and thereby breaking “the tyranny of the biological family.”
Over the last few decades, society has deprived innumerable children of their fathers. Firestone would remove the influence of mothers as well leaving children to an institutional parent or a set of parents distorting the family model designed to point us to God.
Chaput: “Eros produces the family. Agape sustains it.” Western culture wants to sweep married eros under the carpet, telling us that only our desires matter. Our responsibilities to each other are secondary–perhaps not even worthy of consideration.
Firestone’s radical ideas have become more deeply entrenched as we find ourselves battling public entities over sex education, especially for young children. We’re watching this battle play out as politicians and “educators” sometimes demand the power to overrule the influence of parents.
Roger Scruton tells us that “a society based on ‘agape’ alone” is not enough to turn things around. His statement implies that agape is necessary, but more is needed. Chaput provides this answer:
“Renewing family life will require a healthy skepticism toward the secular culture that surrounds us, an appropriate caution regarding its tools, and an active, convicted Christian witness of courage, intelligence, and love. And that demands a faith rooted in one thing that finally matters: a living relationship with Jesus Christ.”
That relationship often requires sacrifice–something many of us with our independent-mindedness, economic struggles or standing, technological comforts, and aversion to necessary conflict with those who hold “ill will” against our faith would prefer to avoid.
Committed marital physical love forms families. Sacrificial love builds and sustains families. Both sanctify families.
Each generation builds or destroys the foundation of society. We build by committing to pure eros and sacrificial love. We destroy with a sledgehammer of selfishness.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โTherefore,ย go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.โ (Matthew 28: 19-20 NIV)
On Thursday, He blessed and broke the bread. On Friday, the Bread of Life let Himself be broken for us. On Sunday, He defied death, sin, and oppression. He rose. Rise and stand for Him. Bread of Life. Living Water. Messiah, Lion of Judah. Lamb of God. Savior. Returning King.
The King of kings is coming again. The King of kings is with us yet. Remember. Worship. Celebrate. Easter is here.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3~
โI remember too how spring came, just when I thought it might stay winter forever, at first in little touches and strokes of green lighting up the bare mud like candle flames, and then it covered the whole place with a pelt of shadowing green blades and leaves. And I remember how, as the days and the winds passed over, the foliage shifted and sang.โ (Wendell Berry)
The last part of winter brings Lent, which can be a harsh seasonโeven if you donโt choose to sacrifice something. This March brought us a medical emergency for my husband. Yesterday, not unusual for the first half of April in central Pennsylvania, it snowed.
The chill seems even worse since warmย temperatures weeks ago fooled us into thinking spring was already here.ย Winter lingered. It seemed entrenched. We continue to feed the woodstove, but the time of piling blankets on the bed at night will soon end.
Inย a few days, the lavender-blue hills will reappearย awaitingย springย green soon toย follow.
Life is a series of seasons. Some are beautiful, warm, and easy. Some are cold and trying. All hold the purpose of drawing us to God and shaping us for eternity, shaping us to live in a beautiful place outside time without sacrifice, without pain.
Shaping us for eternal spring.ย The Lenten season is short.ย Warmth and new growth lie ahead.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my motherโs womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139: 13-14 (ESV)~
I remember the wonderful feeling on my bellyโthe squirming child who was recently inside me was now wiggling on me.
That happened four out of five times. One of my babies came so quickly I didnโt have a sterile drape on me to receive the child. (I warned them, but did they listen?)
None of my five were premature. But a preemie (and sometimes a full-term baby) born today is likely to receive โKangaroo Careโโtheir parents will hold them skin to skin. This practice provides warmth and connection for the babe. Motherโs (or Fatherโs) body heat, voice, heartbeat are all conduits to connection.
The practice began in Bogota, Columbia, when incubators were scarce and babies in distress were in great supply. After implementing the skin to skin care, the mortality rate plunged from 70 to 30 percent. Since then, Kangaroo Care has become more widespreadโeven when incubators are readily available.
The most interesting aspect of the ensuing research Iโve found is that, during skin to skin time with the baby on or between the motherโs breasts, the breasts change temperature to accommodate the babyโs needsโeven going so far that, with preemie twins, one on each breast, the breasts achieve different temperatures to accommodate each babyโs thermal need.
How amazing!
One mother reports using Kangaroo Care with her adopted newborn daughterโallowing the baby to get used to the motherโs body rhythmsโto feel and smell her new motherโto get used to the sound of this previously unheard voice.
But the benefits arenโt just for the babies.
One study discusses the effects of Kangaroo Care (KC) for adopting parents. โDuring KC the motherโs perception of her infant changes: She feels more competent as a care provider, more responsible for her infant, and more in control of her situation.โ
Now I think back nearly 38 years to the last time I felt my youngest one on my abdomenโwarm and wet through the drape.
These were the days when it was still okay to dispense aspirin even to infants and put them to sleep on their bellies. In spite of all weโve learned, perhaps there is more yet to learn.
We may just be on our way to discovering how healthy human connections begin at the beginning.
One of those waysโKangaroo Careโhighlights the deft hand of a loving Creator. The Creator who installed a heating and cooling system in the breasts of mothersโthe motherโs miracle touch.
We are indeed wonderfully made.
Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his โPsalm 100:3a~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:28~
Some of us get more of it than others. None of us knows exactly when it will end for us. We complain that there is not enough of it. Or that there is too much between where we are and what we want.
Some people even say itโs an illusion. But illusory or real, it binds us all.
Time never seems to do what we want it to do. But how to use it is up to usโeven in the worst of circumstances.
Natan Sharansky spent nine years in Soviet prisons and camps. He experienced many days in a punishment cellโwith little food or warmth. He underwent hunger strikes that weakened his heart.
He endured.
Sharansky filled his solitary time thinking. He devised chess strategies. He filled his mind with memories of loved ones. He resisted the urge to trust those who had taken his freedom.
Consistently, doggedly, he refused to cooperate with the KGB. He did nothing that would ease or shorten his time in captivity. He understood that cooperation was a snare that would never end.
Sharansky watched others. One worked to shorten his time but worked too well. He did not receive his promised release. He had bought a lie and kept doing time.
โDuring these years, I have met people who have been weakened from constant disappointments. They continually created new hopes for themselves, and as a result, they betray themselves. Others live in the world of illusions . . . in order to prevent real life from ultimately destroying it.โ
Sharansky came to a conclusion:
โItโs best if you are left with only one hopeโthe hope of remaining yourself no matter what happensโ (Sharansky 370-71).
Sharansky realized early on in his experiences with the KGB that โnothing they did could humiliate me. I could only humiliate myselfโby doing something I might later be ashamed ofโ (8).
Later on, in freedom, Sharansky realized a great irony:
โIn the punishment cell, life was much simpler. Every day brought only one choice: good or evil, white or black, saying yes or no to the KGB. I had all the time I needed to think about these choices, to concentrate on the most fundamental problems of existence, to test myself in fear, in hope, in belief, in love. And now, lost in thousands of mundane choices, I suddenly realize that thereโs no time to reflect on the bigger questionsโ (418).
Each of us today will make a thousand mundane choices.
For the most part, we have spent our lives distracted by a world filled with such choicesโvoices drowning out the important.
What will we choose today?
Today, ponder the big things. Test yourself in fear, hope, belief, love.
Jesus tells us not to fear those who can kill our bodies. To find our hope and belief in Him. To follow Him, loving Him and all around us.
He holds time. He knows how long our time is. He knows what is real, what is illusion.
In our allotted time, we face challenges and sacrifice. With our trust in Him, we can find purpose and peace.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โYou walk into this room at your own riskโbecause it leads to the future. Not a future that will be, but one that might be. This is not a new world. It is simply an extension of what began in the old one.
โIt has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. . . . It has one iron rule. Logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.โ Rod Serling, The Obsolete Man
Itโs one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes.
The story centers around a librarian (Burgess Meredith) named Wordsworth. Since books and religious faith have been outlawed, the librarian faces execution. According to his society, he has become obsolete.
In this situation, he finds a way to teach the world. He shows them that humans cannot violate each other without violating themselves.
He reads his illegal Bible. He asserts that there is a God. He has peace even in the face of death. The one who condemned him dies pleading and begging. It is the second man who has become obsolete.
Itโs fascinating to consider how much the world and network television have changed since that episode first aired in 1961.
The episode was a reaction to, not only the war of those days, the Cold War, but also the previous war, World War II.
The reverberations of Hitlerโs institutionalized, horrific, and unjustifiable atrocity still rocked the world. They remained fresh in the minds of those who had lived through that war and its aftermath. Those who knew of the testimonies at Nuremberg.
The world was wide awake to the dangers of those who would overrule logic and truth in favor of oppression and death.
Even in the face of terrorism and todayโs political rancor, weย have comfort. We have little fear. We sleep.
Ministries offer cruise packages, and families can book Christian vacations. Everyone needs a break. But a vacation isnโt usually ministry minded.
Ministry looks more like sacrifice. People who sacrifice for a greater good are not asleep.
Once, Germanyโs peopleโand the countries Germany occupiedโwoke up to learn that they had much to fear.
Germany came to oppression by believing the world had oppressed them. The unfair treaty from the previous war had cheated them. They would show the world. They would rise and be a great people once more.
But they trusted a liar who gave them a twisted sense of justice. He defied logic and denied truth. He seemed great, this author of great horror.
In the meantime, others would rise to greatness. Not other countries. But individuals who lay under the โripping imprint of a bootโ Serling references.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Maximillian Kolbe, Corrie ten Boom. Examples. They were awake.
Bonhoeffer and Kolbe died standing for truth. Corrie ten Boom lived to write and speak the truth of that time.
They endured great suffering and loved their enemies. In simple essence, they lived for Christ.
Meeting at the intersection of justice and truth, they pursued holiness.
And prevailed over evil.
Ego sum via veritas et vita. ~I am the way, the truth, and the life. John 14:6a~
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author. Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
When World War II ended and the world realized all the Nazis had done, Western Civilization determined never again to go back to what happened at Auschwitz or Buchenwald. Never again would the world see mass genocide based on race or human experimentation without regard for the wellbeing of human subjects.
The Nuremberg Code states in part:
“The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent . . . .
“The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.”
Many today have forgotten Nuremberg, or never heard of it. In our ignoring or ignorance, we have slid back to a dark day.
Late-term whole manual abortion (extraction of the child without ripping or crushing) produces living subjects for experiments. It happens more often than you might realize.
The CDC estimates that in 2018, 50,000 abortions happened after the baby had reached the gestational age of 14 weeks; 6,200 of those were after 21 weeks.
If their mothers “donated tissue” for research, these children were subject to experimentation. Babies are not capable of consent, and the supposed “fruitful results” of such experiments have proven to be elusive.
Melanie Israel writing for The Heritage Foundation in 2019:
“Proponents of fetal tissue research claim that it has led to advancements such as creating the polio vaccine, while omitting important details about the difference between historic fetal cell lines (which do not require ongoing abortions) and fresh fetal tissue (which does require ongoing abortions).
“The original polio vaccines used monkey tissue and fetal cell lines. No current vaccines are made with fresh fetal tissue.”
[That includes COVID vaccines.]
Israel points out that fetal research is a $100 million โindustry . . . with little to no oversight.โ
The gains are big, but they donโt land in the realm of improving public health. They land in the wallets of the perpetrators.
Societies are not comprised of wallets alone. We are hearts and souls as well as stomachs. When those with deadened souls hold power, society will only increase the level of horror.
Kyle Christopher McKenna writes:
“Without careful oversight, the fetus could become, like fetal tissue cell lines, merely cells, cultured within the uterus for scientific exploration. All people of good conscience have the responsibility to voice opposition to the use of fetal tissue from elective abortions in order to promote development of alternatives, affirm the value of all human life, and limit scandal.โ
The scandal is the deadening of our souls to the kinds of practices the Nuremberg Code was supposed to prevent. In promoting alternatives that respect the humanity of the born and unborn, we can be people of good conscience.
Where to begin?
We follow the money.
There is recently acquired government funding from the Biden Administration. Without a new Congress and a new president, it appears that will continue. And there is funding from NIH, credited with paying for a horrific “experiment” in which infants of the gestational age of five-months (23 weeks) are scalped. A mouse or rat receives the new skin with hair.
We are left to wonder what โfruitful resultsโ for humanity could possibly follow.
The scalp transplant experiment happened at the University of Pittsburgh, which ranks fifth among the top recipients of federal dollars.
But cutting the the skin and hair off the heads of late-term abortion victims to see what happens when you attach them to rats and mice is not an aberration.
Newsweek, which does not have a conservative, pro-life leaning, published David Daleidenโs account of a “scientist who developed a nightmarish “protocol” for harvesting the freshest, most pristine livers from five-month-old aborted babies in order to isolate massive numbers of stem cells for experimental transplants [none of which has worked].
This technique calls for aborting late-term fetuses alive via labor induction, rushing them to a sterile laboratory, washing them and then cutting them open to harvest the liver.”
The majority of those babies were minority children. Intentionally.
That also happened at the University of Pittsburgh.
โPennsylvania law makes experimentation on a living fetus and failure to provide immediate medical care to a born-alive infant third-degree felonies.โBefore we ask where law enforcement is, we must wonder where the outrage is from our legislators who market themselves with pro-life slogans every election year. Pennsylvania pays Pitt $151 million currently with our governor asking for a $7.7 million increase in the next fiscal year. Itโs ostensibly not money that goes to the labs for fetal experimentation. Perhaps it pays for instructors, secretaries, and janitors.
Withholding $151 or $158.7 million would stop the vivisection of those legislators promised to protect. Yet a majority of legislators voted to fund Pitt even after the uncovering of this illegal experimentation.
Pitt is among the four state related (as opposed to state owned universities) in Pennsylvania. Legislators fund these institutions with four separate bills. Refusing to fund one, until the killing stops, will not deter the flow of cash to the others.
Perhaps Pennsylvanians will convince ourselves that what the right hand does (live fetal experimentation) has no effect on what the left hand does (college classes in English, sociology, chemistry, and sadly misguided ethics).
If we do, nearly three-quarters of a century after the Nuremberg Trials, we will relegate civilizationโs call for โNever again!โ to an unmarked grave.
Instead, we can remember that right and left hands wash each other. Some hands marinate in blood.
And coming clean only happens when we refuse to continue the horror and cleanse our souls in repentance.
Wherever you live, find out what’s happening around you.
Call your representatives. Ask how they voted. Act accordingly on Election Day.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
In 1989, Shengde Lian was a college student studying computer science when Hu Yaobang died. Yaobang had been one of China’s highest-ranking officials, having lost his power and influence for supporting reforms like free press and assembly.
After Hu died in April, Lian headed to Beijing as thousands of students gathered to memorialize Hu and ask for the reforms he’d supported.
When the tanks came in on June 4, thousands died. Eventually, Lian was arrested. He served six months before learning his charges, at least one of which was a capital offense. After 18 months, he was released only to learn later that his rearrest was imminent.
At that time there was a covert action in China called Operation Yellowbird, “an underground railroad [to get the Tiananmen dissidents to safety] run by an odd alliance of human-rights advocates, Western diplomats, businessmen, professional smugglers and the kings of the Hong Kong underworld.”
Having escaped through that railroad, Lian now lives in northern Virginia with his wife and children.
In 1998, I was a local reporter for a small town newspaper. Because President Bill Clinton was about to visit China, my editor was interested in stories about China.
Watching CSPAN one afternoon, I came across Lian speaking on behalf of an umbrella organization for Chinese dissidents in the US.
During our interview Lian explained that Tiananmen Square wasn’t the only location for protests in the wake of Hu’s death. That no one knew the fate of the man who provided the most famous image of the protests by blocking a row of tanks.
And that the government had negotiated with the protesters in Beijing–for a time–before moving the military in to take the lives of thousands.
Agree or disagree with the protesters in Ottawa, but realize that their government never talked with the protesters. They just sent in their equivalent of the tanks of June 4, 1989.
The death toll won’t reach that of Tiananmen’s proportions. Machiavellian leaders in the West know that it’s unpopular to use violence beyond its need. But the injustices of Ottawa otherwise reflect that of the Chinese Communist government.
Like the Chinese government of then, Canada will hunt down the truckers who peacefully left Ottawa. Our neighbor to the north has confiscated finances and even threatens to euthanize the pets of those who participated.
For many in the West, Canada’s response to the protests is a surprise. First, that Canadians would rise up in such numbers. Next, that the government would come down with such force.
Before Tiananmen Square, young Chinese revered their leaders as a Confuscian culture had taught them to do. When China turned its army against its own people, the young looked elsewhere for leadership causing Christianity to flourish in China. One protester explains:
โI was raised to believe in our government, but the government shot me in my legs,โ [Qi Zhiyong] says. After June 4, โa lot of people lost confidence in the education, policy and ideology of the Communist Party. People no longer had any beliefs.
The Canadian government has exerted its own power against a people, who like the Chinese students of 1989, wanted to begin a conversation that would lead to reasonable conditions and freedoms.
It remains to be seen whether Canadians will encounter Christ as the Chinese did.
I don’t expect a covert plan to help truckers escape Canada. We can be certain, however, that many Canadians won’t trust their government the same way they did a month ago.
Canadian leadership might benefit from remembering a motto, an old Chinese saying, the leaders of Operation Yellowbird embraced: โThe mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the yellow bird behind.โ
When a predator stalks prey, another watches.
May the One who watched over Chinese dissidents and brought them to truth, prevail in Canada as well.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โManhood must be demonstrated. It is largely an action. Womanhood is an essence. Manhood does. Womanhood is.” (Qtd by Stanton)
Thatโs a statement many would challenge today. That there is a differenceโand that the difference is significant.
Some might challenge the statement as religious. After all, it is largely in the orthodox corners of Christianity that such discussion happens at all today.
But this statement comes from a secular personโone who did not advocate biblical marriage and sexual purity.
Margaret Mead was a cultural anthropologist and an advocate of โloosening social strictures on sexuality . . . [which] could lead to more pleasure, and less pain and suffering.โ Hardly a puritanical perspective. Even so, according to Mead, the differences between men and women are innateโborn into us; they matter in our daily lives, and they are universal.
โIn every known human society, everywhere in the world, the young male learns that when he grows up, one of the things which he must do in order to be a full member of society is to provide food [and protection] for some female and her young. . . .
โ[E]very known human society rests firmly on the learned nurturing behavior of men. . . It is the precise opposite for women. They must be ideologically and politically pressured, with great potency, to abandon and ignore their children.โ
There is no lack of ideological and political pressure on women to pursue lives that contain minimal involvement with childrenโespecially their own. Our society has few structures in place to support the essence of women and pass on the model of manliness. This passing on of manliness is not religious pablum.
More from Mead:
โ[T]his behavior [manliness], being learned, is fragile and can disappear rather easily under social conditions that no longer teach it effectively.โ
And no society that works as hard as ours to ignore the differences between men and women can effectively teach manhood.
Teaching manhood requires a traditional view that effectively works in various cultures. We see it in primitive cultures. In the postmodern West, the Christian perspective is a lone voice in a technological wilderness.
The orthodox corners of the Church are where manhood mentoring can and must still occur. Solid families headed by fathers and mothers can pass manhoodโs tasks and womanhoodโs essence to their ownโand perhaps to others around them.
Neither public education nor industry has the impetus nor the freedom to launch such an effort. We in the Church can pass along the truth science now ignores.
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For as Christโs sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow. If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer. II Corinthians 1: 5-6 (NABRE)
Earthquakes, wildfires, floods, mudslides, blizzardsโand war, poverty, abuse, and hunger. If there were a God, atheists claim, such bad events would never happen. Because bad things happen, there cannot be a good Godโthey claim.
But how good would people be if no one ever had to be a hero? If everyone escaped tragedy, there would be no heroes to celebrate. Without bad things happeningโhow could we be good?
When bad things happen to us, they help us sympathize with other people who suffer the same fate. No one understands a mother who has lost a child better than another mother who has been through the same experience.
That doesnโt mean, of course, that only survivors of floods can help those facing the duress of rising waters. It does mean that bad events can have meaning. It means a good God can use bad things to turn us into helpers and heroes.
While she was battling the disease, Zach saw the hardship other patients suffered just trying to get a ride to the hospital.
โMy family was shocked by how many cancer patients had difficulty getting to their chemotherapy treatments. We soon realized what a huge financial and family burden transportation during cancer treatments can be. Some patients resorted to riding the bus, others, unfortunately, missed their treatment altogether.โ
So Zach and his then-fiancee (now wife) founded ChemoCars to help those in need get to the hospital for their treatment. In only eight months, they had provided 2,000 rides. The ministry continues today.
Cancer is an awful disease. And Zach would prefer his mother had never gotten sick. But his work pays tribute to her. His hardship and hers make other lives better today. His work brings something good out of something bad.
God once took a bad dayโGood Fridayโand turned it into redemption for us. The Cross was the bad thing for Christ that became the ultimate good thing for His followers. Heroes who walk around on earth remind us of the greatest heroโthe One who gave Himself to a bad thing to bring us to the best thingโHimself.
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I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:14.
One cell. And no one knows you are here yet. No one except God.
Eternity has shifted because you are.
All that you will be is within this one cell, youโyour cocoa brown hair, your sea green eyes. Your stubborn temperament that will eventually mellow but never become too passive, too gullible.
You will love dancing, playing the piano, and writing stories you think are silly for the brothers who will come after you.
You will not like peas.
In this early part of your life, you are tuned to your motherโs heart as you never will be again.
You reside within her rhythm, the sound of her song, the silence of her musing and her sleep.
You are wonderful.
You are small.
But the world needs you.
Pieces of this life will try to convince you that you are only the dust of your form, an imbalance of chemicals. A misplaced cog in a machine that chugs, spurts, and smokes ugliness and purposelessness.
You are not ugly. You are beautiful.
And you have a purpose.
And just as God is the only one now who knows you exist, He is the only one who can see your purpose.
You are small.
But the world needs you.
In forming you, God has crafted. He has created. He formed you so you could create too. We all have the capacity to reflect that aspect of Him, even if we only teach others to see it in themselves.
You are ideas and smiles, memories yet to be made and lessons to teach. The memories and lessons are for you to carry and bestow to others as a gift.
You are part of the eternal tapestry. Crimson, azure, and golden threadsโthat is what your life looks like from above. No one else can see the rich colors of your life yet.
You have power to bring balance and beauty as you live out His plan for you.
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In January of 1979, I had two children, a husband and a house, and cable television. The cable company ran scrolling public service announcements, and for the first couple of weeks of that New Year, one announcement, in particular, kept catching my eye.
The message declared that buses would be heading toward Washington, DC, to mark the sixth anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the US Supreme Court decisions that eradicated every abortion regulation in every state.
Two phone numbers ran along the bottom. I called one or the other at different times, finding out what was involved, what Iโd need to arrange for my children for the day, what Iโd need to wear and bring with me, and how much it would cost. I learned that the two numbers led me to sisters with multiple children, (They would have 14 between them, one or two not yet born).
On January 22, I got on the bus while it was still dark. I had a sandwich and most of a large bag of M&Ms in a brown paper bag. I had on my new boots and coat and thought I looked great.
When we arrived, we walked from the Ellipse to the Capitol where we heard many inspiring speakers. It was a balmy 50-something degree day. I carried one or two of the layers Iโd piled on to protect me from the expected cold.
We visited our legislators and walked back to meet our busโlate, even though, or more likely because, one of the organizing sisters Anne was leading our way.
We sat down on the bus physically exhausted. Remember the new boots? I wanted to chop my own feet off.
But we were internally energized.
Over the years, Anne became a mentor to me. My own mother had passed away in 1975. This woman was a wise sage who walked with me through my adventures of young motherhood, held my hand through my years as a single mom, and celebrated with me as I married again.
Her house was a must-stop for me and my kids on trick-or-treat nights. Halloween came before Election Day, which made for enlightening conversation and the chance for me to gather poll working materials.
But Anne was not one-dimensional. She was a fully engaged mother who made amazing homemade pierogis and, with her children, designed elaborately painted (not just dyed) eggs for Easter. She was a Registered Nurse.
And she was our communityโs spokeswoman for life. Despite the plates she kept spinning at all times, she was humble.
When I would ask her: How do you do it allโeight kids, a husband, a house, a job, along with volunteer work? She would say, โSometimes, not very well.โ
For anyone who knew her, she led the way by example, sponsoring refugees from Vietnam and housing unmarried pregnant girls.
On January 22, 1980, I stayed home with a new baby. Iranian radicals had invaded the US embassy in Tehran capturing the diplomatic staff. Like today, inflation was high, in double-digits. That winter brought the Miracle on Iceโthe 1980 Olympic hockey victories that garnered the gold medal for the US team. I adjusted to having three children, attended the March again in 1981 with my baby, missed 1982 caring for another new baby, attended in โ83, and carried my unborn son, my youngest, there in 1984.
Most of the following years, we attended, various children and I. One year when I had to work, Anne took my younger daughter with her.
When my kids went along, they knew the trip involved a long walk followed by hot chocolate in a legislatorโs office. They learned about peaceful protest. They learned about life.
As my children grew up and got busy with school, jobs, and their own families, I began to take students to Washington for the March. In 2002, that meant a few phone calls from parents wanting reassurance of safety in the wake of 9/11 the previous September. The trip came off without incident.
I write as we plan another trip to DC, this year on January 21โthe Friday closest to the anniversaryโa change from the vision of Nellie Gray, the Marchโs founder who insisted the event be held on the 22nd every year. This alteration allows for an extended program, helps those who travel from afar (and many do), and more easily facilitates visiting legislators.
Except this year.
Because of COVID, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has forbidden Marchers from entering legislative offices. We are to be allowed inside public buildings only to use the restrooms.
So be it. We go anyway.
Itโs been a few years since Anne has gone. Her years of activism were a flaming torch she has passed to those of us still able to make the trip. May we carry it well.
From our private school, weโre to be a small group, my husband and me, several students, a parent, and grandparent or so.
COVID and perhaps the aftermath of January 6 cancelled the March last year.
Pro-lifers head to DC this year with renewed hope, unprecedented hope of seeing Roe and Doe turned into their own grave. Anticipating this turn of events, 15 states are said to have โcodifiedโ Roe. Three have absolutely no restrictions โthroughout pregnancy.โ That means a woman could be in labor, change her mind, and have her baby killed before birth. Others allow abortion until viability, a slippery definition reliant on guesswork and subject to โexceptionsโ that allow the killing of the allegedly less than perfect.
Further, nineteen states allow โcaregiversโ to refuse treatment to newborn abortion survivors. Living, breathing little ones, left to die.
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Blessed is theย nation whose God is theย Lord, The people He hasย chosen for His own inheritance (Psalm 33:12 NASB).
On January 7, 2021, I was leading eight 10th graders in the Pledge of Allegiance. Not only could I not finish, I had begun to weep. I felt awful for crying in front of my students and upsetting them.
“What happened?” one of them asked.
I composed myself and explained as best I could. A few of them were aware of what happened the day before, what some call insurrection and others called a large protest, a portion of which became a riot.
I’m not here to argue the terms of that day (and won’t approve argumentative comments about it). I write to propose a way to say the Pledge without hesitation in these days of division.
Over the summer, I mentioned my difficulty to a friend. I told her I was having trouble saying, among other phrases, “One nation, under God, indivisible.”
She gave a simple reply. “Say it as a prayer.”
Oh.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United State of America,
and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation, under God,
indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
I add a phrase inspired by a friend. For her, it was a statement, spoken from her heart, from conviction. For me, it’s a tribute to her, still a prayer, spoken softly, not for the ears of those around me.
Born and preborn.
As January 6, 2021, showed us, the United States has divisions that go deeper than issues like abortion. But abortion is part of our bleeding wound of strife and separation.
Say the pledge. Say it as a prayer. Silently pray about the divisions God lays on your heart.
Pray for our nation to honor God and be indivisible in that quest. Pray for the babies, their parents, their families whom we will remember this week as we mark the 49th anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decisions that legalized abortion in all 50 states until birth.
Pray those decisions will be overturned soon. Pray America will indivisibly turn to the Creator who blessed us to be here in this time.
Pray for liberty. For justice. For all. For America.
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It’s been my New Years’ resolution for the past several rotations around the sun. Every year I build a stack of books in no particular order. Some fall by the wayside displaced by new texts that call my name.
This year’s stack seems a bit more solid. Most I waited to obtain. One was a surprise.
It may help that our television rendered itself useless last summer, and we’ve committed to adding more seating in its place for conversation, including the silent kind that moves from writer to reader.
At the top of the pile sits Dante, an ambitious–perhaps even a bit afflictive commitment. A grandson and I began last summer with his youth version and my noteless translation. In the previous school year, we had read middle school versions of Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid in the classroom.
Dante seemed like the next place to go for a youthful foundation in the classics, but I struggled to keep up while googling the confusing parts. So much for a noteless rendering. As the weeks of summer passed, we remained in the infernal regions. I want to climb higher this summer.
For Christmas, his mother found me versions of Inferno and Purgatorio with notes by Anthony Esolen. (His annotated but difficult-to-find Paradisio arrived yesterday. Apparently, it’s an elusive text on the more well-traveled sites of book vendors showing that everybody really does want to go to heaven.
I plan to walk further into Dante’s vision with this grandson when the school year ends. Perhaps we can find Paradise before the start of another academic year.
In the meantime, I rang in the New Year finishing A Canticle for Leibowitz. Sci-fi, post-apocalyptic–even post-post (far after) the flame deluge otherwise known as nuclear war. Dry in spots, hilarious in others, vastly profound overall, Canticle is worth your time. I punctuated my reading of Walter M. Miller Jr.’s final few pages of the text with frequent exclamations of “Wow!”
Toward the bottom of the pile sits my first foray into the works of Isaac Asimov. I’m not quite halfway through Foundation, the first in a series. Both Asimov and Miller emphasize the importance of recording and remembering history.
The men’s divergent worldviews are apparent. Miller’s text presents a secular world in which a Christian remnant champions the effort to rescue literacy and preserve the past in the hopes of preventing humanity’s self-destruction. Miller invites us to remember what the world is, and is not.
Asimov’s text makes no allusion (so far) to faith. His depiction of the political is apt, some may say accurate, others, cynical. Asimov is the easier read. Miller is worth the work.
The rest of the stack is non-fiction. Ross Douthat presents our society, The Decadent Society: America Before and After the Pandemic. He offers us two possibilities for COVID’s ultimate outcome: catastrophe or renaissance. We are truly at a crossroads.
The Final Pagan Generation: Rome’s Unexpected Path to Christianity by Edward J. Watts provides insight into what the world was like as the power structure of an empire was turning upside down, from pagan to officially Christian. That seems pertinent in our world as a form of paganism, at least in the West, displaces Christianity.
I remember the local communities of my youth, neighborhoods within our city. The second and third generations removed from immigrants felt a connection to the motherland and to our locale. The grandparents and great-grandparents came here but kept close ties through the fellowships of the Sons of Italy social hall or the Unter Uns (German) Society.
Some of those ties still bind smaller communities together. Many have scattered. Olmstead calls them home, truly and virtually.
The cover jacket calls the book “part memoir, part journalistic investigation.” It promises Olmstead will help us cultivate “rootedness.”
In a similar vein, Sohrab Ahmari’s work The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos proposes a way to find happiness, not in a self-crafted identity, but in pursuing virtue and accepting limits. Ahmari emigrated to the US from Iran and, among other job titles he holds, is a contributing editor for the Catholic Herald. He calls himself a “radically assimilated immigrant” and invites us to examine our lives to “live more humanely in a world that has lost its way.”
Ahmari’s book is the surprise in the pile, a gift from a son who often finds gems I’ve not stumbled over yet.
As I write, I realize that, including the bugs, these books are about the importance of remembering history, understanding our own culture, and urging society toward renaissance instead of catastrophe.
Reading can be easy or hard depending on the text. The remembering, understanding, and urging are hard work. But important work, work with eternal purpose.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain (I Corinthians 15:58 ESV).
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“Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,โSpeak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, and that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God.” Numbers 15:37-41~
At the end of the twentieth century, novelist Tom Wolfe recalled efforts to start at zero, to go back to a time before we knew what we now know and try again–and do better. The hippies of the sixties, he pointed out, decided to relearn rules about personal hygiene. What they learned was what non-experimenters already accepted. Wash your hands often, and don’t share someone else’s toothbrush.
It’s a defiance of the common definition of insanity–repeating an activity and expecting a different result. The result in the laboratory communes of San Francisco was a resurgence of long-dead diseases.
In the age of COVID, we wash our hands more often than ever. But we still lean toward this idea that we can begin anew without looking back. Perhaps history is a cycle of such experiments punctuated by remembering, a recurrent remembering that we are not yet in Eden.
Wolfe wrote:
“[T]he painful dawn began with the publication of the Gulag Archipelago in 1973. [Soviet dissident Alexander] Solzhenitsyn insisted that the villain behind the Soviet concentration camp network was not Stalin or Lenin (who invented the term concentration camp) or even Marxism. It was instead the Sovietsโ peculiarly twentieth-century notion that they could sweep aside not only the old social order but also its religious ethic, which had been millennia in the making (‘common decency,’ Orwell called it) and reinvent morality . . . here . . . now .”
Modern society continues through a cycle of trying to recreate culture, to turn it into something new. The West won the Cold War in the late ’80s and early ’90s. But we didn’t turn back. Our train of civil movement continued on the same track.
The battle between decency and its opposite has been ongoing. We now tilt toward a social order that is not order but rather its opposite. From newscasts to our personal interactions we see a culture that lacks memory–and manners. History has returned to a day when everyone is doing “what is right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6, 21:25).
In the 1950s, another novelist Walter M. Miller Jr. reminded us that it’s hard to get back what we once knew but now ignore. He wrote about civilization beginning again after apocalypse, starting from zero.
“In the beginning . . . it had been hoped–and even anticipated as probable–that the fourth or fifth generation would begin to want its heritage back. But the monks [preservers of history] of the earliest days had not counted on the human ability to generate a new cultural inheritance in a couple of generations if an old one is utterly destroyed, to generate it by virtue of lawmakers and prophets, geniuses or maniacs; through a Moses, or a Hitler, or an ignorant but tyrannical grandfather. . . . But the new ‘culture’ was an inheritance of darkness,” A Canticle for Leibowitz.
In urban or rural American communities, we see crime, drugs, and lagging education. Mark R. Schneider points out that American literacy rates are lower than those of our 1840s counterparts, “well before the imposition of compulsory public education.” (Note: the figures Schneider sites are pre-COVID.)
Literacy in the America of 1840 included classical and biblical texts that conveyed more than an ability to decode the letters into words and thereby discern meaning. Literacy, faith, and freedom are a three-fold cord, not easily broken. Contemporary culture has undermined all three.
Around 1900 we began education anew. The goals of learning were no longer those of John Adams for his son: “to make you a good Man and a useful Citizen.” Today, school is largely the means to a job, preparation for a career leading to personal fulfillment and material enrichment. It is no longer the formation of character.
I sat in a classroom for a parent-teacher conference not yet 20 years ago when a teacher told me the purpose of his course was that the students would know their rights. I asked if he might tell them their duties.
We will relearn what we have lost. We will learn it by choosing the wisdom of those who came before us or by continuing to reject it and experiencing the consequences of that rejection.
โOver a half century ago [under communism in the USSR], while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” . . . [I]f I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.’โ
From Miller’s Canticle:
“What did you do for them . . . ? Teach them to read and write? Help them rebuild, give them Christ, help them restore a culture? Did you remember to warn them that it could never be Eden?”
Solzhenitsyn, Wolfe, Miller, and we who remember hold a key to the future. We hold the wine of truth from the past. Chaos offers a sweet purple Kool-Aid reminiscent of another failed experiment.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
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Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (I Timothy 1:17, ESV)
It was a work of Providence I might have missed. I have no idea how long the book sat on the shelf waiting for me to buy it. But I do know it was there just for me, for us, just for the moment we would need it.
That moment would be one every mother who has watched her son go to war knows. Itโs an indescribable emptiness. But an almighty God can reach down to fill a heartโs void. And He can use any little nook or cranny to do so.
My daughter and I were in an antique store passing time as we waited to see my son off. He was deploying to Iraq.
While we shopped, his unit was on base packing equipment. Families would see our soldiers later that evening for a short time before they left for their departure point.
A yearlong deployment lay ahead.
But there on the shelf sat his favorite book. It cost only a couple of dollars. The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck. How good it would be to give him a book he loved.
But there was more.
As we were helping him pack later and preparing to say farewell, my daughter picked the book up and read the back cover flap.
โThis book can be sent to a serviceman anywhere in the world for the price of a postage stamp.โ
The book was copyrighted in 1942. Published for soldiers during World War IIโwhen my father servedโit landed in the hands of my soldier son decades later.
I wondered where it had traveled and who had already read it.
Buckโs masterpiece is about a man who battles hunger and injustice. Not quite warโrather wars of a different sort. He had moments of glory, times he didnโt do the right thing.
He was, in short, like all of us.
Even before my son read it, it was a book I had come to love. Iโd read it because it was my husbandโs favorite book. Paper ideas about important things in life. Paper becomes glue connecting those whoโve read a book and discussed its meaning.
When my son left for war, he carried a piece of home and history with him.
I still had moments of emptiness, moments of worry during that year. But a great God had put a book on a shelf for us to find that dayโto remind us that He sees. He cares. He loves.
This time of year is when we celebrate His coming.
He came to give us more than โchanceโ literature on a shelf. He came to give Himself to us and for us.
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Last year, I didn’t bake cookies for Christmas. I came down with COVID just before mid-December.
Since neither my husband (He had it too.) nor I could taste our food, and other family members were concerned about contagions, I didn’t have much reason to make treats.
Paul and I found it odd that we could imagine flavors based on the texture of the foods we put in our mouths.
The buttery saltiness of creamy mashed potatoes was a mental conception, an abstraction of memory. As the New Year dawned, our sense of taste began to return.
Twelve months later, I’ve returned to cookie baking mode.
Baking cookies and I go way back.
When I was ten, my mother let me lose on my own in the kitchen. In the cooler weather of fall, I’d bake on Saturday afternoons. She watched football. I have the sense she considered cookie production a chore and was glad to have me step into the role.
When I became a mother, my own little ones took their responsibility to taste-test seriously. As they grew, they developed favorites, and traditions took shape.
What hadn’t improved much over the years was the kitchen.
After my children had grown, one of my daughters realized a local home improvement company was sponsoring an “ugly kitchen” contest. She photographed the room where she had taste tested cookies hoping we could win some free renovations. (Some other poor soul won, apparently having endured a kitchen worse than mine.)
Even so, I remember the wonderful feeling I got entering the “ugly”, poorly equipped heart-of-home to bake cookies one holiday season. I thought, “It feels good to be here.” Good memories overcame limited resources.
In years since, my husband has made significant improvements. Counter space is now sufficient. The children gifted us with a larger mixer to replace my hand-held device. The room is still a pleasant place in which to bake, now convenient and not in danger of qualifying for an “ugly” contest.
After last year without baking, I was eager to get back to it. First out of the oven were cookies to go to the troops through our local Armed Forces Mothers chapter, an event COVID cancelled last year. The Monday after Thanksgiving, packed boxes winged their way to those serving our country. Last week, my great-niece notified me that her box had arrived much to her delight.
Next, I moved to the eight cookie trays for Christmas Day. One for each family household, one for the Christmas gathering, and one for our own table.
Certain recipes are the norm, but this year I added chocolate chip oatmeal at the request of a granddaughter. Something different mixed in with our traditions.
Traditions call us to memory and wonder. The flavors and aromas of Christmas remind us of our early realization of what Christ’s birth means. I go back to the Christmas Eve service of a particular year, to the manger scene under the trees of my childhood, back to the home where I first bowed my head in prayer, when I first began to seek Him.
We wonder at this holiday, part of history now for more than 2,000 years, transformed, to be sure, from its early days to a commercialized version of gadgets and trinkets.
But only if we let it become so.
Every Christmas reminds us that our Savior came as a baby to grow into a Man who would save us from our sins. Christmas calls us to remember all Christ has done for us.
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My mother would often tell me the story. It was a Sunday morning. She was sweeping the basement floor and listening to the radio when the announcement came that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.
She shut the radio off as if that would make the news go away.
I’m sad to realize I never got Dad’s story–where he was when he heard.
My parents hadn’t married yet. He joined the navy. She joined the Coast Guard. Dad shipped out as a corpsman to the South Pacific. Mom, ironically, served in Oklahoma, a state that has no coast to guard.
Today, one of my great-nieces is in Texas training to become a navy corpsman.
Eighty years of history have come and gone. There are so few today alive to tell us where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor.
And we are now at the point where students only know of 9/11 because of their elders explaining where they were when they heard.
It’s an effective way to pass history along. When the young hear our stories, those of our own or those passed down to us, they remember. History becomes real to them.
We must pass along history, for “History is a story written by the finger of God.” (Lewis)
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“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20~
In Boston, the revised benefits plan amends one that provides paid leave for parents who will parent their children and couples who’ve suffered “loss of pregnancy” through miscarriage.
Imagine private companies trying to compete with public entities for employees. A business could enhance the benefits package by adding paid abortion leave and beefing up company IRA contributions.
Remember that supporters of โchoiceโ marketed legal abortion as the way women would be on equal footing with men. Apparently, thatโs why men get leave for abortion too.
Also remember, the choice movement promised legal abortion would be safe and not a big deal. If abortion is so safe and simple, why would anyone need 12 weeks to recover?
Planned Parenthood assures readers that surgical abortions are โsafe, simple,โ and โcommon.โ Such assurances regarding chemical abortion are harder to find. Chemical abortion appears to be a do-it-yourself-in-the-privacy-of-your-home kind of procedure. Just take a few pills as directed, and after some bleeding and cramping, your โproblemโ is gone.
Simple, right?
Many women are learning the hard way that chemical abortion is far from simple.
“Ten minutes later [after taking Mifeprex, an abortion inducing chemical] I started to feel pain in my abdomen unlike anything I had ever experienced. Then the blood came. It was gushing out of me. I couldnโt wear a padโฆnothing was able to absorb the amount of blood I was losing. The only thing I could do was sit on the toiletโฆ.
“After several hours on the toilet, I desperately wanted to soak in the bathtub. I was hoping that would make me feel better. Maybe the warm water would help the cramping. Certainly it would make me smell better. I had vomit all in my hair and on my legs, not to mention how sweaty I was. I filled the tub and climbed in. It actually did feel pretty good. I remember closing my eyes and leaning my head back. I felt exhausted. The cramps kept coming, but the water helped soothe them somewhat. I opened my eyes after 15 minutes and was horrified. My bathwater was bright red.”
But more and greater pain was ahead. Johnson wasn’t having just the “heavy bleeding and period like cramping” her Planned Parenthood counselor had assured her would be the case. After passing a “lemon-size blood clot” then several more clots of similar size, she believed her experience must not be normal.
She had spent 12 hours in the bathroom and decided to sleep on the tile floor rather than bleed in her bed. The next morning, she would call PP and report her extraordinary experience–if she survived the night.
She did survive to call the PP nurse who assured her that her experience was not at all uncommon.
She was astonished that what the abortion counselor had told her would happen was so different from what came about.
Mary Szoch of the Family Research Council reports: “Disturbingly, the physical trauma that happens to a womanโs body as a result of a chemical abortion is a sign that the ‘treatment is working.’ According to the Mifeprex medication guide:
‘Cramping and vaginal bleeding are expected with this treatment. Usually, these symptoms mean that the treatment is workingโฆBleeding or spotting can be expected for an average of 9 to 16 days and may last for up to 30 days [For Johnson, it was eight weeks.] โฆYou may see blood clots and tissue. This is an expected part of passing the pregnancy.'” [Szoch’s text includes endnotes for this information and what follows.]
According to one study Szoch sites, in one out of 10 chemical procedures, incomplete abortion occurs, requiring surgery to finish the process and prevent infection in the mother. These numbers are bad enough until we remember that they include only statistics “voluntarily reported” to the FDA.
In 2019, Nancy Flanders reported that nearly half of US states donโt require reporting of complications. Yet complications happen for both surgical and chemical abortions.
โLakisha Wilson, 22, died after her abortion at Preterm abortion facility in Cleveland when she suffered uterine atony and hemorrhaged. Tia Parks, 26, died after a first-trimester abortion at the same abortion facility. A 21-year-old woman in Rhode Island suffered a perforated uterus during an abortion at the Providence Health Center this year. Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood in New York City recently hospitalized nine patients within just eight months. And the abortion pill [chemical abortion], which is hailed by the industry as the safest way to kill a preborn child, has also killed at least 24 women. The true number, however, may never be known since abortion groups advise women who suffer complications from the abortion pill to tell ER doctors that they are having a miscarriage.โ
Even voluntary reporting indicates that complications from chemical abortion are “four times” higher than those of surgical abortion. And thatโs what the abortion industry calls the โsafest way.โ
Maybe the โperkโ of leave after abortion isnโt such a perk. Maybe itโs a necessity for a procedure that really isnโt so simple after all.
Remember the pro-abortion mantra of the 1990s? Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare?
Those who support abortion have thrown their motto of safe, legal, and rare out with the bathwater and, of course, the baby. The Heritage Foundation reports that the percentage of chemical abortions goes up every year, having risen 120 percent over the last ten years.
Along with the new employment perk of paid leave after an abortion, it seems the powers that be are promoting abortion as it becomes less safe for women.
Safe? Legal? Rare?
Legal is all that matters. And the casualties are just collateral damage.
About the Author
Author Nancy E. Head was a single mother with five children under the age of 14 when many in the Church came to her aid. Her story illustrates common problems in our society such as the fracturing of families and communities, reflecting a splintering Church.
Alienated families and a riven Church cannot minister as effectively to their own members or others until they find accord. Nancy is the author of Restoring the Shattered: Illustrating Christ’s Love Through the Church in One Accord. She leads a small group ministering to the needy in her community.
Photo Credit:Ewelina Karezona Karbowiak in Unsplash.com
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
When I moved into my home in 1977, I salvaged an old table my father was discarding. Our family grew from four to seven around that table.
Then we shrank. When their father departed, we were six.
The years began to show on the table. One of its legs began to wobble. Without warning, it would collapse to the floor leaving all the work for the other three legs. We would laugh. But after a while, one of us found the falling leg not so funny.
When my youngest son was eight years old, he found a hammer and some very long nails and played carpenter. He reattached the errant piece, permanently joining it to the table. The repair was effective, but not pretty.
A few years later, I got a โnewโ dining room tableโalso recycled. This table was better. It expanded. And our family was expanding. I had remarried. Some of the children had grown and married and had children of their own.
So the table could be small for everyday dinners, and it could be large for family celebrations. Plus, it was reliableโfor a time. Then one of its legs turned mutinous too.
This time, my husband Paul played carpenter, and unless you peeked underneath, you didnโt know the difference.
But our family continued to expand. Eventually, even our stretched out table was too small. Our range of motion became cramped. From fork to plate, to mouth and back. We yearned for extra room for side dishes and elbows.
So last year, Paul and I bought a new table. An Amish carpenter constructed it.
This table is even more expandable than the last one. And itโs rectangular rather than oval. Now we have room for baked corn, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, and a host of elbows.
The table was ready just in time for Thanksgiving.
But in order to use your furniture, you first must get it into the house.
Paul heaved and I pushed. But even in its smallest state, the table was too wide for our front door. It would have to come in through the back door. To accomplish that, we would have to hoist the table over the back rail deck. And that seemed impossible unless we could get someone else to help.
The best candidate seemed like the young man who had just moved in next door. He seemed strong and he was home.
As Providence would have it, he is a mover by trade. God had placed the perfect workman right next to us.
Moreover, there are many workmen with you, stonecutters and masons of stone and carpenters, and all men who are skillful in every kind of work. (1 Chronicles 22:15 NASB95)
All we had to do was ask.
The old table went out the back door and the new table came in.
We had planned to put the old table on the sidewalk with a โFreeโ sign on it. But Paul found out that this very neighbor and his wife had no table. Now they do. We would never have known their need if we had not asked for his help.
So Iโm thankful for my new table. Iโm thankful for the craftsman who made a table with legs unlikely to wobble in my lifetime. Iโm thankful for the help of a neighbor and that we could help him in return.
Iโm thankful for all the elbows to occupy our table this holiday and those we hope will arrive in coming years.
Most of all, Iโm thankful for the Master Carpenter who places us in each otherโs lives and gives us opportunities to help each other.
Give thanks to the God of heaven,โจ For His lovingkindness is everlasting. (Psalm 136:26 NASB95)
Copyright ยฉ 2017 Nancy E. Head. Used by permission. [CBN]
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
You shall not give any of your children to offer them toMolech,nor shall you profane the name of your God; I am the Lord. Leviticus 18:21~
The proscription in Western Civilization against sexual activities outside God-ordained marriage goes back to the Old Testament. Leviticus, the primary book containing Jewish law, includes in chapter 18 God’s admonition against sex acts with close relatives, within homosexual relationships, and with animals.
Within the 30 verses of that chapter resides verse 21: “Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.”
A portion of scripture about sexual behavior contains this decree forbidding child sacrifice. And this admonition comes, not at the beginning or the end ,where we might relegate it to a different section. Sandwiched between proscriptions against incest and adultery in the early part of the chapter and homosexuality and bestiality at the end is this law forbidding child sacrifice.
It’s important to remember that, at this point, the Jews were the only culture with rules limiting sex to husband-wife relationships. Only Jews and later Christians held to the ideas of sexual exclusivity between husband and wife and of heterosexual marriage as God’s ideal.
For other cultures–those in the Middle East, Greece, and Rome–sex was a free for all. Women had little to say about what happened to them sexually. Children had no voice at all.
Writing for Crisis magazine, Dennis Prager explains:
“When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torahโs prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity.
“This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of love and eroticism within marriage), and began the arduous task of elevating the status of women.”
Along with elevating women came the protection of children.
It’s surprising to those of us who grew up during the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s, to consider this idea of an ancient “revolution” of morality.
The 1960s didn’t ring in a new way of living never before seen. The revolution marked the return to pagan idolatry–without statues and flames. The general acceptance of such practices is nearly complete. Aside from bestiality, the last moral pillar to remain standing holds proscriptions against sex with children.
How long can it stand nearly all by itself?
The American Conservative commentator Rod Dreher quotes Allyn Walker, a “non-binary assistant professor at Old Dominion University,” who writes that “there is evidence to show that attractions to minors can be considered a sexual orientation. . . . MAPs [minor attracted people] often report becoming aware of their attraction to children during adolescence, a trend that is typical of other sexual minorities.”
Notice the change of term from pedophile to MAP and the language that presents the attraction to children as something akin to an awakening rather than a disorder and the notion that pedophiles are part of a “sexual minority.”
We might be tempted to dismiss this view. But seeds planted at the university level often take fruit in our neighborhoods over time.
Dreher comments:
“Surely there must be some way to get these suffering people the help they need without moving towards considering pedophilia just one more ‘sexual orientation.’ Because if it ever should become that, we are halfway to legalizing it, following the same path that standard homosexuality took. If sexual desire is the equivalent of identity, and if to sexually desire minors is at the core of oneโs identity, then how can we stigmatize or otherwise suppress pedophiles if we recognize that other kinds of sexual minorities have civil rights?”
The sexual revolution of the 1960s has been a runaway freight train tearing through the years since, leaving pain and trauma in its wake.
It’s time to ask ourselves how we can stop the train. It’s time to get the suffering people help instead of enabling them to harm others. It’s time to stop profaning the name of God by allowing children to be victimized in the name of self-idolatry.
It’s time we stopped the destruction of our very culture through acceptance of sexual sin.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โTo the Old Testament belongs more fear, just as to the New Testament more delight; nevertheless in the Old Testament the New lies hid, and in the New Testament the Old is exposed.โ Augustine
The history of man is that God created him, formed a woman-companion from him and for him, and provided a way for the man and the woman to return to God when they rejected Him in sin.
God was clear from the beginning that He would send a Way–the Messiah–to allow rebellious people to return to Him. And the Messiah’s kingdom would last forever.
The scepter will not depart from Judah, ย ย ย ย nor the rulerโs staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongsย shall come ย ย ย ย and the obedience of the nations shall be his. Genesis 49:10, NIV
Israel had big ideas about what that kingdom would look like and what kind of king would garner the obedience of the nations.
Christ was born into a world of darkness and oppression. Israel’s big ideas at this time included a king who would free them from Rome. In their thinking, such a king would not be of humble birth. But prophecy said otherwise.
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. Micah 5:2, NIV
Seven hundred years before Christ was born, Micah prophesied that the King would be born in Bethlehem.
But which Bethlehem? There were two towns of that name in Christ’s time. The Old Testament foretold Bethlehem, Ephrathah, the Bethlehem that was King David’s home town. The smaller, more obscure town.
The Creator-God came in the most humble of ways–born, not only in a small town, but in a dwelling place for animals.
Throughout Christ’s earthly life, some would reject Him because of his modest beginning. Many wrote Him off as “just the carpenter’s son” (Matthew 13:55).
A question for us today: How often do we expect Him to be who He is not?
He is the same as He was in Micah’s day. The same since Creation. But not always what we expect.
He came through a humble birth, grew with a small-town upbringing, died on a tortuous cross, and walked with His followers outside an empty tomb. Nothing like what Israel expected.
Today, we find Him where we look for Him in spirit and in truth. We find Him when we are willing to let Him surprise us. We find Him in the New Testament and the Old.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I remember an assignment in a graduate English class for which I purposely did not follow the directions. The teacher had called upon us to analyze a portion of Alice in Wonderland in light of Sigmund Freud’s thinking. It was to be a short paper–just a page or two–the kind of assignment that was due once a week in that class on literary theory.
Most of my graduate classes provided intriguing challenges that engaged my mind and sparked new ideas. More often than not, this work resulted in theory-driven writing assignments, presumably intelligently argued, but inevitably dry.
I wanted to exercise some creativity.
So I wrote a diary entry in Alice’s voice. Alice expressed her frustration at being too big to play in the pretty garden but then too small to reach the key to unlock the door to get to the garden. When the cake she ate made her too large, she expressed her frustration that every calorie she consumed attached itself to the wrong place on her body while her sister could freely eat all she cared to without consequence on the scale. She wondered at the white rabbit whose presence reminded her that she had to grow up.
I enjoyed completing the assignment. Throughout the writing process, I repeatedly reminded myself that I was taking a risk, but I was having too much fun to stop.
I determined not to regret my creativity even if it cost me points.
When the time came to get our graded papers back, the instructor mentioned mine. “I was going to make you do it over, but then I read it again and realized everything you needed was there.”
Life can feel like we’re tumbling down a rabbit hole. We don’t know where we’ll land or how long until we hit the bottom. And we’re often wondering why it’s hard to go back to the small places and, no matter our age, when we’ll grow enough to reach the keys to doors we want to open.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โI cannot help feeling that Tocqueville hit the nail on the head, as he often did, when he wrote that the type of despotism democratic people have to fear will in no way look like the despotism and tyranny our ancestors endured: ‘It would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them,’ he wrote in 1840. And, in a way, the fact that it happens more gradually is what makes it arguably even more dangerous. After all, a people that do not realize they are losing their freedom will not fight for it. They will simply let it slip through their fingers.โ Eva Vlaardingerbroek~
Freedom is like a plant we hold in our hands. We must be diligent to care for it, or it will fall through our fingers and be gone forever.
The battle for the heart and soul of America challenges every generation. Sometimes, the enemies are readily identifiedโWorld War II’s fascism and genocide, the Cold War’s communistic atheism, nuclear threat, and genocide.
In Vietnam, we had trouble identifying the enemy. Those loyal to the North did not have โViet Congโ tattooed across their foreheads. We faced the same challenge in Afghanistan and anywhere else war plays out in terrorism.
Weโve spent the last 20 years at war, never losing, but never quite winning either. The final act of our tragedy included no semblance of victory. Only capitulation and betrayal.
For those at home, the war remained far away. It required no material sacrifice. Some families saw sons and daughters go who never returned. But for most of us, life went on as usual. We never really felt warโs threat, its reality.
Our prosperity and comfort lulled us to sleep.
As we stew like frogs in our proverbial pot of water that is coming to a full boil, inflation akin to that of the 1970s abounds. A new push to raise taxes comes as we already feel the pincers of higher costs and less availability of goods.
Our country is roiling in fury over COVID regulations and vaccine mandates, which have contributed to empty store shelves and an uneasiness that Soviet-style shortages loom ahead.
The government suggests a cure-all that will work as all others always have and always will. The cure will spread, not COVID, but emptier shelves and more suffocating costs.
Government intervention has crippled our world-class healthcare system. Bureaucratic vaccine mandates now threaten to finish it off altogether with personnel shortages. Top-notch medical care will be a thing of the past as we come to understand experientially what it’s like to live in a third-world country with Venezuelan inflation, food shortages, and insufficient healthcare.
Following outcries at local school board meetings (note, local), the National Association of School Boards has asked the US Department of Justice to intervene. The DOJ readily agreed to step in and determine โhow to use federal resources to prosecute offending parents.โ
Notice that the organization representing local school boards didnโt suggest climbing a chain of authority starting with citiesโ mayors or even the governors of states. They didnโt ask for increased security in the face of what they perceive to be threats, but what reasonable people would define as caring, concerned, albeit angry parents.
An organization representing local school officials went straight to the feds.
And the feds were quick to sign on to the task at handโshutting down speech that disagrees with the already configured program.
In the meantime, Citizens are fleeing the high taxes and over-regulation of California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Illinois and are voting with moving vans on their way to Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio, and Arizona.
How will events unfold when entities like the DOJ and FBI crackdown on protesting parents? (Note the application of the phrase crackdown to the US, not, as is more typical, China.)
We wonโt like the answer to the previous question if we ask Retired Navy Lieutenant Commander Tom Caldwell. Caldwell went to Washington, DC, on January 6 to hear President Trump speak. Caldwell did not enter the Capitol. He did not engage in destructive or violent behavior. He led no group of insurrection-minded agitators.
DOJ now concedes that they were wrong in accusing Caldwell of the crimes listed above, imprisoning him (including solitary confinement for 49 days) and depriving him of life-sustaining medications during his incarceration.
He is “free” (for now) but on the edge of bankruptcy.
We cannot trust those who promised to uphold the Constitution and are supposed to protect us and our God-given freedoms. They betray us at every turn.
When Rod Serling wrote the script to โThe Obsolete Manโ for The Twilight Zone series in 1961, he may have been looking back to Nazi Germany or around the world to the Soviet Union. Instead, perhaps, he was looking into a crystal ball and seeing usโthe boiling frogs who fell asleep.
The speaker quoted below from โThe Obsolete Manโ episode is a government official sentencing a โuselessโ librarian to death.
โBut their [the oppressors of the past] error was not one of excess it was simply not going far enough! Too many undesirables left around and undesirables eventually create a corps of resistance. Old people for example, clutch at the past and won’t accept the new. The sick, the maimed, the deformed, they fasten onto the healthy body and damage it. So WE eliminate them! And people like yourself, they can perform no useful function for The State, so…we put an end to them.โ Rod Serling.
We now know that there are more ways than one to eliminate someone and silence others. How many like Tom Caldwell will the government push toward or into bankruptcy? We may never know since corporate media will not give them a voice.
Those who work to end freedom will not stop while we still sleep.
We must wake up and speak up now, or freedom will slip through our fingers and be gone forever.
Photo Credit: Pexels on pixabay.com
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The Christmas season comes earlier every year. But this year, a panic seems to be setting in. Will there be toys under the tree? Will we still have Christmas?
Or will all our presents remain in ships off the coast of California?
Our lives have been abnormal for the last two years. Is there a new abnormal coming that we fear even more than a virus? Has America ever seen a time like this one?
Few people are still alive who remember the Great Depression and the joy of getting an orange for Christmas. Just an orange.
In the years since the Depression and World War II, the expectations of many Americans have grown for that one day a year when we know very good things are sure to come. Lots of them.
But we don’t always appreciate the good things in front of us.
I remember the Christmas when I was nine, and it didn’t snow. The weather was unseasonably warm. And Mother baked a ham instead of a turkey.
I didn’t handle it graciously. “It’s like there just wasn’t any Christmas at all this year.”
At least one of my brothers also complained. The other, the eldest at 19, may have had the maturity to show a bit of grace even though turkey was his absolute favorite.
She couldn’t do anything about the weather, but Mother never served ham again on December 25.
I was a young mother when the year of the the Cabbage Patch Doll Christmas occurred. The toys were a big hit, but I’d never stood in line in the dark and cold at 4:00 am, and there was no guarantee that braving the Black Friday ordeal would get me two, one for each daughter.
Well before Christmas, we told the girls that having to wait a year for their Cabbage Patch dreams to come true was likely. With their expectations reduced, they weathered the trauma of waiting until the next year when the dolls were plentiful. They seemed to suffer no harm from the trial of delayed hopes.
Christmases come and go. We’ve had quite a few with turkey but without snow. One recent year, the temperature reached into the 60s. I wore my open-toed red shoes to the Christmas Eve service. Neighbors sat on their front porch as they do during warmer seasons. The unprecedented conditions during that holiday season offered new options, possibilities for making Christmas memorable in a way unlikely to happen again–at least for a long time.
Christmas dinner now includes both ham and turkey. I do the turkey. One of my sons-in-law cooks the ham.
We work together to fulfill expectations that have grown through our varied traditions.
For this year, I’ve already begun to shop, but not any earlier or with more vigor than other years.
Maybe we’ll see more than the usual Black Friday craziness of crowds lining up early and trampling others to get to a hot deal.
Maybe we won’t. Perhaps some will adjust their expectations.
Maybe this year, some will tell kids they might have to wait. With adjusted expectations maybe they’ll see Christmas in a new light.
Maybe we’ll still do the things we usually do. Decorate the tree, play music, hang the lights we already have if we can’t find new ones, wrap the presents we’re able to acquire, cook special foods even if they don’t match our traditional menus, and celebrate with our families.
Maybe we’ll watch Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas and sing along to “Welcome Christmas . . . dahoo dores.” Perhaps our hearts will grow larger.
Maybe we’ll watch George Bailey and realize our lives really are wonderful, despite the trials going on around us.
Maybe we’ll watch Little Women (I recommend the Winona Rider version) and remember that there are Hummel families in our communities too. Maybe we’ll put more in the red kettle this year because we know times are harder for some folks than they are for us.
Maybe we’ll ponder the Babe in the manger whose birth in humble Bethlehem rather than kingly Jerusalem, discovered only by shepherds and foreigners, didn’t meet expectations.
His life disappointed many by ending, not in an earthly kingdom, but in tragedy on a Friday afternoon.
The disappointed and despairing did not expect a Sunday morning unlike any other in history before or since.
But that’s what came to be.
This Christmas will be one to remember for good or for bad. It’s up to us to decide. We can work to remember and honor Christmas as a day much greater than our expectations can dream.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
One evening during the mid-1970s, I was a young homemaker cleaning the kitchen in my mobile home as the television buzzed along airing Soylent Green (1973). The movie, based on the book Make Room Make! Room!by Harry Harrison, is set in 2022 in New York City. Charlton Heston plays Detective Thorn. Crime and unemployment are rampant.
Apartments come with โfurnitureโ (a woman) if you think she goes with your decor. In this society, women serve no other function but providing pleasure for men. In the 1970s, women were protesting their objectified status as housewives and sexual subservients.
Today, women are the working and sexual equals of men. But do our lives have more purpose and meaning than they once did?
And what is Soylent Green?
Starving masses riot in the streets to get their share of itโa form of food.
That evening, the movie was background noiseโa sense of company in the otherwise quiet trailer with my child sleeping and her father at work. Then Thorn began to yell. The volume came up on the background noise. (Spoiler alert.)
โItโs people! Soylent Green is made of people!โ
The moment froze for me. Was human life truly to become commodified?
Since my late-night encounter with cinematic dystopia, Iโve become somewhat of a connoisseur of the written form. Some of my middle-school students will delve into Lois Lowry’s The Giver soon. My high school students are getting ready to read Orwellโsย 1984ย and Huxleyโsย Brave New World. They’ve already read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. ย
I teach the high school course every other year. Each time as I approach back to school in an odd-numbered year, I’m astonished at how much more relevant the course material is than the last time I taught it. How much closer we’ve come to some feature in each of the societies these authors have depicted.
Each writer saw humanity’s future lack of meaning and purpose in a different light.
In 1966, Harrison saw the idleness of unemployment (voluntary or otherwise) and how it can lead to rampant crime.
Most of the people he depicted strive to find food to live, but in another way, they’re just waiting to die. They have survival instincts but no purpose.
In 1993, Lowry saw our disregard for life. Jonas’s father dispatches an infant who doesn’t fit in. This “caregiver” doesn’t even realize he’s committing murder. Life in Jonas’s world is about overcoming individuality, filling a role, doing a job. There is an outwardly imposed purpose, but no intrinsic meaning.
Today, we identify people largely by what they do. And we “send away” the children who don’t fit in via handicap or inconvenience to their deaths.
Writing in 1947, Orwell depicted Winston Smith, an everyman whose job is to revise history. He fills a role and is allowed to remain alive as long as he stays in his life lane. Winston experiences the ultimate in cancel culture by going his own way.
Culture-shapers cancel many today; the truth is hard to determine.
Bradbury wrote in the 1950s, imagining a time when no one reads. People view stories on their walls.
We don’t have rooms with television walls that surround us as Mildred Montag yearned to own. But we have televisions and screens in multiple rooms, separating ourselves from those closest to us.
We no longer talk about how much time children watch TV. We talk about their screen time as various devices engage their minds endlessly.
Huxley, writing in the 1930s, best depicts the role of women in a falsely egalitarian society. Sex is for fun as women work side by side with men. Forming families is outdated, even profane. Children are not born, only hatched in assembly-line factories. They are commodities, specially designed to fulfill a predetermined function. Citizens riot to get more Soma, a drug that deadens their sense of worthlessness.
Huxley’s work is an exaggeration of what occurs today. Surrogates produce children as we discard others in abortion. Production is not on a mass scale. The family unit is fading fast. The opioid crisis plagues our communities.
We live 37 years afterย 1984, mere months before the setting ofย Soylent Green, 32 years before Fahrenheit 451, and 429 years beforeย Brave New World. Lowry didn’t specify a time when we would all be the same.
These writers were only off on their timing.
Today’s students will grow to be the citizens of tomorrow–a tomorrow fast approaching.
They will live, understanding their immense value, pursuing their purpose, or disregarding both. Seeing themselves as distinct, unique creations or as commodities, trading their time and bodies for paycheck and pleasure.
Comprehending the uniqueness of the children entrusted to them–or failing to do so.
Pursuing truth, or manipulating it to suit their own ends or the goals of others.
Finding their purpose. Or seeking Soma to deaden their hearts and minds.
Demanding equality of their own pleasure and thereby missing out on life’s meaning altogether.
Perhaps without choosing, they will live in a world of constant surveillance, a world where oppressors observe every act.
In each book, characters decided whether to live lies and fit in or to pursue truth and find their own purpose.
No matter the conditions of the world around us, we all choose how we will live this life.
The lesson of dystopia is to choose wisely and well.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Early in the pro-life movement, I attended a rally for a Pennsylvania bill. A reporter asked one of the bill’s authors if he thought his proposal was discriminatory. The question implied that such a law would make abortion more difficult for low-income women since wealthy women have always been able to travel freely–to go wherever abortion is readily available.
The legislator’s response still rings in my mind.
“Yes, it’s discriminatory. It’s highly discriminatory. It discriminates against the children of the rich whose slaughter will continue unabated.”
That bill eventually ended up before the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
While SCOTUS gutted much of the bill, some of the provisions stood.
Now Texas is trying to nearly eradicate abortion. And SB 8 has been largely successful–so far, saving an estimated 100 babies every day since September 1.
Roland Warren is the President of Care Net, a pro-life umbrella organization comprised of 1,200 affiliate pregnancy centers, 82 in Texas. Warren says in Texas, “The call volumes are up 30% or so.” Pregnant women are seeking help from those who can provide it for mother and child.
SB 8 is the recently passed legislation that allows someone to sue the physician and anyone who aids and abets in an abortion after six weeks’ gestation. That includes Uber and Lyft drivers (whose companies have promised to cover legal expenses for employees involved in an abortion situation).
The minimum cost of a judgment against an abortion purveyor or abettor is $10,000.
In The American Spectator, Ellie Gardey cites a source who says 20 of 23 Texas abortion clinics are still open despite the new law but doing fewer abortion procedures. Planned Parenthood’s open clinics are concentrating on “other missions . . . providing birth control, STD testing, and transgender hormone treatments.”
Even so, some clinics struggle to keep the doors open. Gardey explains that one of the largest Texas clinics saw a staff reduction of more than half when nine of 17 staff members quit the day before the law took effect.
The effort to protect the unborn is not new to Texas.
“In 2010, Texas had more than 40 abortion clinics, but more than half closed altogether during the legal battle over a 2013 Texas law that required doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and for clinics to qualify as ambulatory surgical centers. The Supreme Court struck down the law in a 5-3 decision in 2016.”
The composition of SCOTUS has since changed. The court’s new conservative leaning has resulted in the current Texas law going into effect despite an “emergency” plea from abortion advocates in late August. The high court did not pass judgment on the law itself. They merely allowed it to go into effect while the arguments make their way through the appellate system.
In the meantime, Gardey says, abortion appointments in nearby Oklahoma have seen a big jump as Texan women travel out of state to get around the law.
Sometimes discrimination works geographically rather than just economically.
Yet, the vast size of Texas does make it more difficult to obtain abortions for those who don’t live in the vicinity of Oklahoma. SB 8 is indeed saving unborn children from death and their mothers from trauma.
The saving of some unborn, and the travel out of state, may only last for Texas until a federal judge (an Obama appointee) hears the first appeal sometime this month. We can expect the Texas case to go back and forth until it reaches SCOTUS for a final determination.
Again in the meantime, before the Texas case can reach the high court, SCOTUS will meet in person to hear the dispute over Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act that has been working its way through appeals since 2018. That law prohibits abortions after 15 weeks except for medical emergencies and severe fetal deformities.
At some point, perhaps in December, the court may choose to make clear the degree of severity fetal deformities must attain to warrant abortion.
In these situations, discrimination isn’t just geographical and economic. It’s based in an ideal of human perfection. An ideal that operates on a sliding scale, condemning some and protecting no one.
At last in the meantime, the US House of Representatives last week fueled the flames of debate by passing the misnamed “Women’s Health Protection Act.” The vote came mostly along party lines with one Democrat lining up with every Republican in opposition to the bill that “codifies Roe” and Doe, the primary and companion 1973 cases that effectively allowed abortion for any reason at any time in pregnancy. Now the bill goes to the Senate.
“It is not expected to pass the evenly divided Senate, where Democrats would need at least 10 Republicans to support it. Republican Senator Susan Collins, [R-Me] a moderate who supports abortion rights, has said she opposes it. She said the House bill would weaken exceptions provided to healthcare providers who refused to perform abortions on moral or religious grounds.”
If the bill dies in the Senate, we may consider America to have dodged a bullet. Not only would children continue to die and mothers continue to be traumatized, but already over-extended medical professionals would be forced to decide between their conscience and their paychecks.
Abounding discrimination would expand to a new population.
If SCOTUS overturns Roe, the chatter about bloating the high court with an unprecedented number of new appointees will become a roar from a minority that is merely loud, not vastly populated.
No matter how many children have died, how many abortion purveyors repent and turn from killing, no matter how many women regret their abortions, this radical, minority voice that calls for unlimited abortion keep singing their song of death.
Even if they have to twist the nation’s arm by forcing medical personnel to participate or get out. Even if they need to add justices to the court that has remained at nine members since 1869.
Imagine new presidents stacking the court every four or eight years.
Those in support of life do not have the ear of the media as do those who sing death. We must raise our voice. We must sing the song of life.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
We say farewell to Boomer with tears in our eyes today. Thirteen years as part of our family.
He waited faithfully for his master through two deployments.
Here is a tribute post dedicated to Boomer in his “voice” during one of the deployments.
———-
They say heโs coming back soonโmy master. Itโs that word soon. They keep saying it.
Iโve been here for a long time. Time. Itโs a word like soon. Time seems always to be just ahead of us. But we never catch it. Soon never seems to arrive.
Itโs been a long time for the humans too.
Since the last time I addressed you, itโs been good. The humans and I get along fine. Iโve made a second home here. I have beds all over the place. The people here think a couple of them are for me. What they call a dog bed sits beside their bed, and a blanket sprawls on the floor in the office. I make do with them when I must.
There are couches downstairs and beds upstairs. When no one else is aroundโall is mine.
But someone new has moved in upstairs to a bed that had been there just for me. They say he came from far away. He is an exchange student. But he doesnโt seem to exchange anything. They say he is here to study. Arenโt we all? He says he has two homes. That I understand.
My favorite part of any day happens outside. They take me on walks. Sometimes just him or just her. Sometimes both. And now that new kid comes along in the evenings.
When we walk, she carries this big stick. I was afraid of it at first. Sheโs pretty klutzy. Every so often she drops it when Iโm not looking. Itโs alarming. So far, no oneโs gotten hurt.
She uses the stick to help push herself up the hills. But once when we were strolling down an otherwise quiet street, this big beast of my own species yelled and screamedโyou call it barkingโand ran at me. I tried to scurry awayโbut that darn leash!
Get this! She wasnโt running. She just stood there. I tried to sayโโUh, letโs go.โ But she stood there and held the stick outโkind of like Charlton Heston pretending to be Moses. Then she yelled back at the beastโโNO!โ
And the beast stopped! His master came out and got him. They both looked ashamed. I was dumbfounded. I felt as though the Red Sea had indeed parted.
The rest of our walk was unremarkable.
Iโm not afraid of the stick anymore. Well ok, unless she surprises me, dropping it when Iโm not looking (as I saidโsheโs a klutz). But now, I see its purpose. I had been afraid it was there to hurt me. But itโs really there to protect meโand push her up the hill, of course.
So my very own human is expected home soon. Maybe heโs at a second home. Maybe he is pondering time and soon and all that is life.
Maybe he knows that sometimes people drop sticks when you donโt expect them to. Youโre afraid, but nothing happens. And when you actually see something to be afraid of, your Protector stands His ground. Stands between you and the big ugly thing trying to scare you.
And you canโt run away because then you wouldnโt understand how the Protector works.
Soon youโll be home where itโs supposed to be safe. Even if youโre with people who drop a big stick and make loud noises but really take care of you.
Soon.
———
Boomer’s master safely returned to spend years with his faithful companion.
Farewell, Boomer.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โThe [Benedictine] monks went into barbarian areas to evangelize, and if the barbarians killed them off, the mother house would send more brothers out. Slowly, these men laid the ground for the rebirth of Christian civilization in the West,โ Rod Dreher.
Iโm waiting for cold weather. Summer hangs on. But the birds are gathering. Earlier this week, my husband pointed out the first foliage he saw that has begun its transformation from green to glory.
Cold is coming, but there is a warm feeling in the frosty cold. Oxymoronic, I know. A chill allows me to wrap a blanket around myself or warm the kitchen with sweets from the oven. Warm cookies and hot tea and maybe a movie or a book. Peace and comfort. Sounds nice.
The world swirls around us in chaos and violence. We find peace when we shut it all out.
God calls us to peace. But He doesnโt call us to dwell in silence and solitude. He calls us to the barbarian world.
To the world of people who are hungry, lonely, or cold in a way that is unpleasant and seemingly unending. He calls us to take our peace to the chaos. To take Him to the lost. To light a candle in the darkness.
There is a time to go to the world and speak truth. And sometimes the world comes to us. Once, part of the world came to my friend.
Years ago, Anne was working in her office, a storefront pro-life presence near her home, when a young couple walked in and asked for help. They had spent the last of their resources to come to our city for a promised job that fell through. They found themselves without the means to obtain a place to live. Anne let the couple stay in her office while she worked on finding housing for them.
She paid the security deposit and first monthโs rent on an apartment and gave them some provisions until assistance benefits began. Eventually, the couple moved to a new area and found solid financial footing. Their problem was temporary, and Anneโs companionship carried them through it. Her investment of some household supplies and two monthsโ rent got this couple back into the mainstream of society.
Anne had long since grown from taking in lost puppies to housing unwed pregnant girls and sponsoring Vietnamese refugees. Over the years, she welcomed many road-weary travelers into her home. When my husband Paul first came to Altoona to meet me, he was a guest at Anneโs house.
Anne was the face of the Church extending her hand to those in need. She didnโt just look for people to help. They came to her. She served the ones God placed in her path.
One afternoon, my phone rang. Another friend of mine Cindy had encountered a homeless couple who had come to her office seeking help. Cindy and her husband, and my husband and I split the cost of a hotel for a week for the couple.
It had been 19 degrees Fahrenheit the night before they came to see Cindy. They had been out in that all night. I thought of how easily I could escape the cold and how awful it would be to be trapped outside in it.
AlexanderSolzhenitsyn asked: โCan a man whoโs warm understand one who is freezing?โ
We wanted to be among those who understand.
We helped them a few more times before they disappeared. I donโt know what happened to them. But I do know that, for parts of a harsh fall and winter, they could feel warmth.
When we go to bed tonight, 17 more (on average) Americans will be homeless than were yesterday. And 17 more will become homeless tomorrow. And on it goes.
Long-term homeless people have a life expectancy of 50 years.
And today, tens of thousands of college students are homeless.
A few years ago, I learned that one of the students sitting in my classroom was living in her car. She disappeared before I could offer help.
Many people around us are homeless. Some will escape from the poverty they experience. Some will disappear to the streets for the long-term, to a shorter lifespan, to a prison of the elementsโtoo cold, too hot, too wet.
We may not single-handedly be able to help them out of homelessness the way Anne helped the couple she encountered. But we can bring them encouragement. We can be a light along their way.
Every homeless person is a prodigal or a wounded traveler. Each one is our neighbor. Individuals can help. The church, acting as a local congregation and in union with others, can offer the companionship and community the homeless need to give them a chance to escape the net of poverty.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“[T]his is the great Western idea: the proper route forward for the redemption of the individual and for mankind as a whole is as a consequence of the redemption of each individual.” Jordan Peterson
In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn writes that, in classical works, villains “recognize themselves as evildoers, and they know their souls are black.”
Real people aren’t that honest, even within ourselves. We work to convince the innermost part of our being that, even if we’re doing something others would consider wrong, we’re doing it for a good reason, so that makes it right.
“[T]o do evil,” Solzhenitsyn says, “a human being must first of all believe that what he is doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law.”
Solzhenitsyn dates himself with his mention of natural law–a concept now lost to America–to most of the West. (See Robert Bork.) But Solzhenitsyn was writing in the 1950s about great and obvious evil–the oppression of millions in the Soviet gulag system. And in that day, most still embraced the concept of natural law–of an innate human understanding of right and wrong.
We can credit the existence of natural law with producing the classical villains, the Iagos of Shakespeare, the Bill Sykeses of Dickens, and the Jokers and Riddlers of more modern times. Their authors/creators couldn’t conceive of them not acknowledging their evil.
In reality, clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson asserts, as we prepare to do wrong, we either heed or ignore an inner sense that what we are conceiving is wrong.
Peterson has evaluated why we ignore that small voice inside ourselves and has come to a conclusion he believes is universal: We know what’s right, what’s wrong. But we have the capability to convince ourselves that what is wrong can become right.
He warns that we engage in a “very, very dangerous supposition” when we assume that we would choose differently from the way others have in the past. When we assume we wouldn’t kill millions, that we could handle power correctly. That we can do evil but avoid replicating results the past produced when others decided to do evil.
Peterson says, “I came to believe that the problem was as Solzhenitsyn said . . . that the line between good and evil runs down every human heart.”
Any one of us can and will choose wrong–grave evil–unless we guard against it.
Peterson: “[T]he way to stop such things from happening, to remember [them] properly, is to understand that you could do it, that you could do those terrible things because the people who did them were like you.”
In order to avoid doing the evil we are all capable of we must stop telling “yourself lies you don’t believe in.”
Redemption, for Peterson, occurs through “adherence to the truth and courage in the face of being.”
Peterson won’t talk publicly about his beliefs about God. Perhaps those beliefs are still fluid, still taking shape.
Sometimes people come to a moral code for good through God. Sometimes they come to God by recognizing a moral code and our propensity to violate it.
Redemption comes through truth. Christ is truth.
But we can never come to truth by lying to ourselves about who we are and what is good. We can only come to truth by acknowledging the truth about ourselves.
We need to listen to the still small voice that only speaks truth.
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” II Chronicles 7:14~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“‘The West’ . . . was born from the telling of one sacred story โ a garden, an apple, a fall, a redemption โ which shaped every aspect of life: the organisation of the working week; the cycle of annual feast and rest days; the payment of taxes; the moral duties of individuals; the attitude to neighbours and strangers; the obligations of charity; the structure of families; and most of all, the wide picture of the universe โ its structure and meaning, and our place within it.
The West, in short, was Christendom. But Christendom died. If you live in the West now, you are living among its ruins. Many of them are still beautiful โ intact cathedrals, Bach concertos โ but they are ruins nonetheless. And when an old culture built around a sacred order dies, there will be lasting upheaval at every level of society, from the level of politics to the level of the soul. The shape of everything โ family, work, moral attitudes, the very existence of morals at all, notions of good and evil, sexual mores, perspectives on everything from money to rest to work to nature to the body to kin to duty โ all of it will be up for grabs. Welcome to 2021.” Paul Kingsnorth~
It might be hard to find a portion of work that better sums up our part of the world at this place in time than the above two paragraphs. Kingsnorth hits a bullseye as he sums up what the West was, and what we are today.
We wonder how we got here, how we got here so fast, but the decline was subtle and slow. From my childhood, I remember dressing a certain way for church or school, having no trouble finding movies that reinforced the ideas of good and evil, watching evening newscasts that rejected ugly, slanted, or illogical discourse, hearing political commentary capable of reaching an audience of broad perspectives. Our milk cartons advised us to attend our church or synagogue this weekend.
We point to moments. It was that election. It was this event. But the starting point of decline is impossible to pinpoint. History moves from moment to moment as we plan what’s for dinner, what to do on Saturday evening, and where to go on vacation next summer.
Yet, here we are among the ruins of our previously Christian culture.
Where to begin to rebuild?
We begin by feeding souls.
The Gospel is the obvious place to start. But the foundations that once helped Americans easily comprehend God’s truth have crumbled away. That bridge needs rebuilding, restoring.
To begin that rebuilding, churches and individuals can help families, single parents, kids struggling to find their way, perhaps with no one showing them a functional way forward.
That way requires some training–us showing others how to do things. I don’t mean an education that leads to specific employment later on. But learning leading to a satisfying life of doing, of action.
Cultivating relationships, developing skills like cooking, playing a sport or a musical instrument–work of a sort that someone can point to and say: “I can do that.”
Some people can’t say that very often today. Being able to say that is important.
And what can we do to enhance literacy around us? And why does literacy matter?
John Wesley opined that “A reading people will always be a knowing people.” Henry Peter Brougham said, “Education makes people easy to lead but difficult to drive.”
Knowing where we’ve come from helps us understand where our place and time will lead us. The past shows us how we got to our place today and how to get to a new place, a better one.
What can we do?
We can ask God to show us whom we can help, who wants to learn, who is searching for help. His answer may call me to help a neighbor and you to volunteer. He may call us both to donate books to a ministry that reaches out to those in need of soul-feeding–to donate food–to feed soul and body.
It’s up to us to show people “the wide picture of the universe โ its structure and meaning, and our place within it.”
Civilizations build bridges–and rebuild them–one stone at a time.
Where will you place your piece of rock to rebuild the ruins around us?
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โWhen love is shallow, all it takes is something as trivial as a disagreement to divide us.โ Francis Chan, Until Unity~
Christian accord–another word for unity–is something my heart has pursued for years. Now Francis Chan writes from his heart about the necessity for Christians to set aside our differences and move forward as the one Church Christ prayed we would be in John 17.
“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me,”John 17: 22-23.
But that hasn’t happened. Instead, over the years, centuries even, we have continued to divide ourselves over our interpretations of scripture.
Too often, we point to others as the problem. Maybe, Chan points out in his new book, the problem is us.
โIn many ways, we have lost a sense of the true holiness of God, and that has caused pride to grow and fester in the church. Everyone seems to start out with the assumption that his or her opinion of God is right, rather than recognizing that all of us have an incomplete, flawed knowledge of God.โ
Scripture permeates Chan’s text. He supports his assertions with God’s Word at every turn.
And Chan is stalwart in his devotion to essential Christian doctrine. He does not promote a false, Kumbaya awakening where we discard the basic tenets of faith for a superficial connection to nominal “believers”.
I recommend a great many books in this space. But this book presents, more than an intriguing read. As Chan points out unity is crucial to the future of the Church–and the eternity of many currently outside the Church.
Christ prays for us to be one “so the world may know.”
For us, unity is “not optional.”
Read this book.
Pray for unity among Christians. Love other Christians who are faithful followers even if they aren’t of your tradition.
Turning our corner of the world around may just be that simple.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Covenant: โa formal agreement or contract, between God and humans or between two human parties to do or refrain from doing something. Sometimes only one party was responsible to carry out the terms (a unilateral covenant, which was essentially a promise). At other times both parties had terms to carry out (a bilateral covenant).โ
Commodify: โto turn (something, such as an intrinsic value or a work of art) into a commodityโa good interchangeable with other goods.โ
We were unhappy with our cell phone carrier. The pricing was erratic, sometimes shocking. โCustomer serviceโ was a frustrating, time-sucking vortex.
When our contract was up, we jumped.
Weโd ended the relationship with a business that didnโt seem so interested in serving our needs. We found a business that would serve us better. Much better.
So we begin and end business relationships.
And so, as Dr. Tim Keller explains, do we often treat our romantic interactions today, making them more accurate reflections of business dealings rather than lifetime commitments.
In his sermon/podcast โLove and Lust,โ he draws a distinction between the virtue of love as seen in covenant relationships, and the vice of lust, manifested in a business-like approach to romance.
Committed love is a covenant relationship. โSex is supposed to be a symbol of what youโve done with your life,โ Keller says, that you have fully committed to another person, way beyond a physical relationship.
โYou must not do with your body what youโre not willing to do with your whole life.โ The language sounds limiting, binding. It is. Yet living love this way provides amazing benefits.
โIn a covenant, when you have made a promise, sex becomes like a sacrament . . . . an external, visible sign of an invisible reality. . . . Thatโs why itโs so meaningful. โ
In this way, sex reflects the intimate love God has for our souls.
โWhen I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.โ (Ezekiel 16:8, ESV).
Covenant, Keller says, provides a โzone of safety where you can be yourself.โ
Covenant produces deeper feelings. โWhen you are committed to a person in spite of your feelings, deeper feelings grow,โ Keller says. As in parenthood, covenant marriage requires giving without regard to receiving, thereby producing โa deeper, richer kind of feeling.โ
โCovenantal relationships bring freedom.โ He references Kierkegaard who claimed non-covenantal relationships make us slaves. Commitment brings freedom. Freedom from commitment is oppressive. That can seem counter-intuitive in these days, but itโs true.
Lust, however, is a transaction. Sex outside of marriage is โmarketing.โ Marketing is anything but meaningful.
Keller says couples who live together outside of marriage are trying to figure out โwhether this person is good enough to marry or whether I can do better . . . Itโs not trusting. Itโs not resting. Itโs not giving.โ
People who live together before marriage are learning how to live together as consumers.
As weโve moved further down the highway of consumer/transactional sex, we see the results of sexual self-seeking instead of sexual (and otherwise) self-giving.
Our culture has almost completely abandoned any sign of covenantal love. We are becoming a strictly commodified society. Therefore, fewer are buying into marriage.
Edward Davies in โForget Race or Class, Marriage is the Big Social Divide,โ writes that marriage rates in the UK have โbeen steadily collapsing since the 1970s. Not just declining but falling off a cliff. Even at the height of the second world war, (sic) one of its previous lowest points, the male marriage rate was almost triple what it is today.โ
As my mother so aptly put it many years ago: โWhy buy the cow when youโre getting the milk for free?โ
Especially when the metaphorical cow youโre renting is trying harder to close the deal.
Many of us have been that metaphor. We sold ourselves short.
In the meantime, many have turned to pornography, primarily men, but women too. Porn is an enormous form of commodification, second only to prostitution.
Keller says pornography is โso focused on yourself, you donโt even have another person. . . . [It] is everything the Bible says is not what sex is supposed to be.โ He says porn affects all our relationships, porn influences social aspects from fashion choices to marriage rates, asserting that the drop in American marriage rates is largely due to porn.
โPeople who use pornography have crushingly unrealistic expectations regarding physical appearance and sexual performance. . . .
โA significant number of male porn users experience a diminished tolerance for the difficulties of real relationships . . . shrink[ing] the marriage pool for women. . . .โ
Pornography is โwhy the number of people getting married is going down.โ
Thatโs easy to see. But fashion trends?
Regnerus and Uecker assert that โAll women . . . are increasingly being forced to accommodate sexual behaviors and their appearances to the images and style of pornography.โ
The fashion industry influenced by porn? That seems far-fetched.
But Andi Zeisler agrees with Keller, and Regnerus and Uecker. โPorn is now not only represented in, but an indelible part of, everything from high culture to fashion magazines to college curricula,โ she writes.
The discussion comes full circle when Zeisler references Naomi Wolf who predicted nearly two decades ago that โfar from turning men into the raving, sex-mad predators that anti-porn crusaders . . . once warned against, [porn] is turning them off of regular, nondigital women.โ
Marriage rates support Wolfโs thesis. But not all porn watchers are rejecting sex with a partner altogether.
Ponder this: Rod Dreherโs citation of The Telegraph: โA GP [general practitioner physician] letโs call her Sue, said: โIโm afraid things are much worse than people suspect.โ In recent years, Sue had treated growing numbers of teenage girls with internal injuries [caused by frequent deviant sex] . . . not, as Sue found out, because she wanted to, or because she enjoyed it โ on the contrary โ but because a boy expected her to. โIโll spare you the gruesome details,โ said Sue, [I will too.] โbut these girls are very young and slight and their bodies are simply not designed for that.โ
What else is porn doing to women and girls?
We imagine the stereotypical porn user as a man sitting in his basement (perhaps his motherโs) in the dark in front of a flickering screen (his phone or computer). He is glassy-eyed and probably unemployed.
But Zeisler cites Adella OโNeal, publicist for Digital Playground, pointing out that โin 2000 roughly 9 percent of the companyโs consumers were women; four years later, that figure . . . bloomed to 53 percent.โ
Fox News reports: โWomen arenโt excluded from this heavy porn-watching either. Pornhub released information in 2017 that revealed women spending more time watching porn than men, reports anti-porn advocacy group Fight the New Drug. Women were also more likely to search for harder versions of porn than men.โ
That may be how we moved from the idea that porn exploits and victimizes women to the emerging notion that sex work empowers them.
Sadly many in the Church have been drinking the poison too.
Fox News continues: Covenant Eyes [a porn addiction recovery organization]โ reports that โ64 percent of Christian men and 15 percent of Christian women report watching porn at least once a month.โ Take note: Christians.
Porn gives us a distorted view of ourselves and others. And this distorted vision is downloaded into the minds of a majority of Christian men and a significant percentage of Christian womenโat least monthlyโoften daily.
Also this from Dreher: โAt a conservative Christian college not long ago, a campus minister told me that every single young man he works with, helping them to prepare for seminary after graduation, is addicted to pornography (meaning that they use it compulsively, and find it impossible to stop, even though they want to). Sixteen young men โ conservative, churchgoing men who want to serve God and others as pastors โ caught in that trap.โ
Hereโs an ironic reality. Psychology Today quotes a scholarly study that shows porn use actually lessens sexual satisfaction rather than enhancing it.
โNotably, under no circumstances was pornography use associated with greater sexual satisfaction. These findings, while correlational, suggest that even infrequent use of pornography has negative effects on sexual satisfaction.โ
Satanโs counterfeits never match up to what God intended in giving humans the gift of sex.
Where is hope for us?
As mentioned above, Covenant Eyes is a good place to start.
But first, we must recognize the problem. And itโs much more pervasive than we want to think it is.
Itโs a heart issue.
We want what we want. Weโve bought so far into materialism and pleasure that we have lost sight of who we are. Of who every other person is.
Each one, imago Dei, the image of God. Each one, His poiema, Godโs masterpiece.
Every one.
The child in the womb. The person on the street, homeless, alone, and hungry. The woman on the screen.
And everyone who sits on the other side of the screen.
No one is ever a commodity.
From Ted Roberts: โNumerous authors have written books concerning the clinical aspects of sexual addictions, and even more books call for believers to seek holiness. But our [ministryโs] ultimate focus is more specific . . . . [We want to] persuade the Church to become a place of hope and healing rather than of shame for those fighting sexual battles. .
โWe need ruthless honesty that exceeds our comfort zones and pursues Godโs heart, no matter the cost.โ
Individuals and ministries need to pursue Godโs heart. Such pursuit comes with a great cost.
The cost of ignoring this issue is much greater.
โFlee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body,โ I Corinthians 6: 18-20.
Photo Credit: Ben White, Unsplash
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โWhatever talents I have, I almost squandered until a handful of loving people rescued me.โ J.D. Vance~
He has become the voice of an unheard America. A part of America that has lost the American Dream. The dream that, if you work hard, you can make a good life.
J.D. Vance grew up in Rust Belt, USA. His grandparents had migrated from Kentucky to Ohioโbut never escaped their hillbilly rootsโuntil Vance graduated from Yale Law School.
Yet he doesnโt seek toย disassociate himself from his forebears. He carries with him lessons they taught.
His journey to Yale is remarkable. But many of his peers remain in Appalachia living unremarkable lives. Their dreams are not remarkable. They have lost hope.
Many analysts blame the economic downturn for this lack of hope. But as with every sociological phenomenon, there are many factors.
The economic downturn coincided with the sexual revolution, which coincided with a freer availability of drugsโmarijuana, heroin, crack, then opioids.
The Soma of Huxley’s The Brave New World became reality for too many.
There are not only few good jobs, there are also few fathersโfewer male influences to pass down a concept of hard work and traditional manhood. And since the military draft ended, few young men enlist. Few learn, as Vance did in the Marines, what their true capabilities are.
Vance points out that there is โa lack of agencyโโโtoo many young men immune to hard work.โ
Small-town America changed too. Gone are the locally-owned mom-and-pop stores. Those places where everyone knew your name.
But there is always someone who does know your nameโor at least someone who can find it out.
What made the difference for Vance? A handful of loving peopleโa few who cared. There were his grandparents; one was an alcoholic. They divorced, but never severed themselves from each other or the rest of the family. While Vance had a series of father figures, his own father was largely absent.
But his father took him to churchโat least briefly. And his grandparents pushed him to work hard.
And the Marines made sure he knew how to balance a checkbook. How to buy a car. How to choose healthy food. How he could go to college. Basically, they taught him how to function in life. How to move beyond his limited background.
He navigated the Marines; he accelerated through college; he realized low-income people get a tuition break at Yale Law. He dreamed big; he applied.
And he worked hard. Teachers encouraged him. He met a girl.
She was the one he called once when he needed an answer fast. He was attending a high-stakes dinner where prestigious law firms sorted through prospective associates at Yale.
From the menโs room, he asked her what to do with so many forks beside his dinner plate. She gave him a quick lesson on how to work through his place setting.
Thatโs something you donโt learn in a typical household in Appalachia.
But in other ways, he was smarter than his Yale peers.
He and some friends went out to dinner. He and another student from a modest background were appalled at how their group had left the table. Vance knew what it was like to clean up after people who were careless and sloppy. Some never fathom what itโs like to do a dirty job.
The elite students grew up knowing they would go to college. They assumed success in the world. They learned how to fit in with other elite crowds. They knew which fork to use. They had table manners.
Vance and his friend helped clean up the table. They had courtesy.
Now Vance is a latecomer to a crowded Ohio US Senate Republican primary race for 2022. It remains to be seen whether his quest to bring the American Dream back to Appalachia will bear electoral fruit.
Ohio may or may not elect Vance. Our nation’s future doesn’t hang in the balance of primary election results. Perhaps it doesn’t depend as much on those who will choose between a life of dependence on feel-good life-numbing strategies or rising above these standstill ways to reach to fulfill their potential.
J.D. Vance blazed a trail of success and kindness.
But let’s remember that loving people helped him along that trail. Perhaps our nation’s future depends on them.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Whatโs always struck me about Huxleyโs novel [TheBrave NewWorld] is that, even amid all this license, the savvier characters still recognize that they arenโt in fact free. Bernard Marx at one point refers to himself as โenslaved by my conditioning,โ while the Savage contrasts โfreedomโ with the World Stateโs enforced โcomfort.โ This is the first thing to understand about what weโre doing to our children today: it isnโt liberty so much as the opposite. Huxleyโs point is that even liberation can become subjugating if itโs turned into ideology and inflicted upon the young,” Matt Purple~
I remember sitting in a classroom in 1993 for parent-teacher conferences for my then-12th grade daughter. The class was health. I was the parent. The teacher was a woman who’d grown up down the street from my childhood home. We had played with our Barbie dolls together. Now we sat on opposite sides of a desk.
My daughter had told me that this teacher had the class line up, each student holding a placard with the name of a male body part. The supposed goal was to get the students to learn the correct order of placement for male sex organs. The class was co-ed.
An unintended (or not) result of such a classroom activity would be a diminishing of natural self-consciousness among the students, a self-consciousness I would argue is God-given and protective.
Twenty-eight years later, sex education in many districts occurs earlier and is often more graphic than placards with words for male body parts lettered on them.
Now we must ask why some people are working so hard to make sure children (now much younger than my daughter was then) understand all there is to understand about sex, sexuality, and sexual identity while others have ceased to ensure that said children can read, write, and calculate at a functioning level or beyond.
โ’The publication, ‘Itโs Perfectly Normal,’ . . . is in many libraries and school libraries across the United States. [At least one state mandates CSE for classroom use.] Itโs very graphic with depictions of children engaging in . . . various sexual acts,’ said Slater.”
Soak that in–children depicted in sex acts. Drawn images, we presume. Otherwise, how would it differ from the kind of pornography explained on our newspaper’s front page last week informing us that the guy who possessed it is now in jail?
And we must note the reference to “pleasure-focused.” Be sure to dust off your copy of Huxley’s The Brave New World, referenced above by Matt Purple. Huxley presents a culture steeped in–and controlled by–pleasure. Oppression through excess of pleasure.
As Purple points out, we have to ask how we got from #metoo to this stuff.
And again, why?
But now to the part most of us assume is the purpose of schools–education, which again, most of us assume is largely comprised of reading, writing, and math. We must be careful not to assume what has previously seemed reasonable to assume.
The state of Oregon is suspending reading, writing, and mathematics requirements for graduating students for at least the next three years.
Perhaps some sort of pleasure indicator will replace the academic requirements.
Maybe other states will follow Oregon’s lead. Even as America continues our decades’ long inquiry into why Johnny still can’t read.
Newcomers to homeschooling have perhaps found during COVID shutdowns that teaching their own children is positive, effective, doable, and within their control.
Many pilgrims to private schools may just be looking for in-person learning as some shutdowns continue. But Kerry McDonald writes that the “trend [of increasing private enrollment] is likely to continue” when (and if) the COVID crisis abates.
It might be fair for us to conclude that some parents are moving children to new educational environments to enable them to pursue excellence instead of pleasure, to enable them to receive a traditional education of reading, writing, math, etc. Et cetera encompassing science, history, and the arts rather than the simple pursuit of pleasure. These parents know the journey to excellence is not always fun-filled. And it doesn’t happen by accident.
“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives โ choice, not chance, determines your destiny,โ (Aristotle).
Some in modernity have figured that out too. Even in decadent Hollywood.
The recent anniversary of the death of actor Robin Williams brings to mind his portrayal of an English teacher at a boys’ prep school in Dead Poets’ Society (1989). Williams’ Mr. Keating wanted his students to seize the day–to make sure they didn’t let life slip by without pursuing great dreams.
Such dreams do not come true through hedonism–a devotion to pleasure alone.
“In his immortal performance, Williams gave humanity a great gift of remembering two truths: that we all die, and that the humanities, far from being unserious, drive us toward the serious business of life.” Matthew Becklo.
The serious business of life is the pursuit of full potential, the quest for purpose, the lifelong journey of service to God and people–thereby we find meaning in our lives.
Teaching children that pleasure is the be-all and end-all violates everything education should be.
It sets children up for bondage of all kinds of oppression–public and personal–providing passing good feelings instead of lasting fulfillment. Meaningless pleasure can never be more than a distraction from emptiness. And emptiness is compounded when grown-ups lack literacy and mathematical capability.
The quest for pleasure for its own sake combined with a void of capability creates enslavement as the enslaved one continually seeks more pleasure that provides only more emptiness.
True education fills minds and feeds souls. It recognizes that there is more to each child than a physical body.
Fulfillment comes through a developed character made from challenge and rigor. The work of learning bestows more than knowledge. It instills curiosity and discipline. It enables us to engage in wonder.
Applied thinking, through reading, wordcraft, and calculation, leads children to become people who know when and how to set pleasure aside to reach for a greater good. Only then can they know true pleasure.
Our nation is blessed with many teachers who urge their students toward excellence. Many of them hail from the classrooms of public schools. Not all states and districts have succumbed to the cultural decay of promoting empty pleasure.
Parents must not simply hope for the best. They must not assume all is well in their educational corner of the country.
To assume so is to invite a cost too great and a loss beyond measure. Too many schools ask little or nothing of their students. They promise more than their teachings can ever deliver.
“‘[W]hat good amid these, O me, O life?’ Answer. That you are here โ that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
This article, guest-authored by Boomer, appeared in Honeyguidemag.com. Boomer is enjoying life with his master once again. This post is a look back.
Iโve been in this house for a few seasons now. Iโm here temporarily, until my master comes home. They say he is deployed. I donโt know what that means. I pass the time until he returns.
Iโve gotten to know themโhe and sheโthe two humans, parents of my master, who live here with me. They take care of me. And I take care of them.
For example, there was this BIG adventure. It seemed so to them, at least. He said he had plugged up that pipe sticking up out of the basement floor so nothing could crawl into the house. This particular creature of the rodent variety pushed its way in. I found the creature under the stove. And when the man lifted the front of the stove for me, that thing jumped right into my mouth. It surprised me so much I dropped it. I was quicker than it was and made short work of it.
It was all over before she realized what the horrible racket was all about. Good thing, too. She was afraid of the rodent thing. I didnโt understand why, but I was glad to do my job. He figured out which pipe was the problem pretty quickly, and he told her what he would need to buy the next day to fix the problem. She told him Loweโs wasnโt closing for 15 more minutes. He had plenty of time to fix that problem that day. And that is exactly what happened.
I thought it was a bit silly that she was afraid of something that I could quickly dispatch. He didnโt want her to be afraid either.
I felt good earning my keep and soaking up their admiration for the work Iโd done. He said, โGood job, Boomer.โ They arenโt just doing my master a favor. They like having me here.
We donโt always understand each other. Theyโve caught on to my cues for when I need to go out. We have a nice routine. We are flexible about it when we need to be. Theyโve learned where I like to walkโto sniff and to leave my own scent around the territory. They see that my territory goes beyond what they consider theirs. Yet, they set boundaries. I canโt pee on these light up devices some of the neighbors have in their yards. These devices seem fine for depositing my scent, but they say, no. I comply, reluctantly.
For some time, they didnโt understand why I would get up on their bed and lie on his spot right before he got in at night. He was away again last night. So I crawled onto her spot. I waited there for a while as she got ready to sleep. (Takes them forever! Three circles and Iโm set!). Thatโs when she understood. She saw I was warming it up for her, welcoming her to her own place, to her rest time on a cold night. She understands that I am not here just for the food, water, and occasional pats on the head. I want to give back, too. Itโs good that I am hereโfor them and for me. I donโt know how long Iโll stay.
It seems like itโs been a long time since my master put me here. Time. Itโs a word like soon. And wait. They keep saying those words. Time seems always to be just ahead of us, but we never catch it. Soon never seems to arrive. Wait never seems to end. Itโs been a long time for the humans as well. They want my master to come home, too.
In the meantime, the humans and I get along fine. Iโve made a second home here. I have beds all over the place. The people here think a couple of them are for me. What they call a dog bed sits beside their bed, and thereโs a blanket spread out on the floor in the office. I make do with them when I must. There are couches downstairs and beds upstairs. When no one else is aroundโall of them are mine. But someone new has moved in upstairs to a bed that had been there just for me. They say he is an exchange student. He doesnโt seem to exchange anything. They say he is here to study. Arenโt we all? He says he has two homes. That I understand. My favorite part of any day happens outside. They take me on walks. Sometimes just him or just her. Sometimes both. And now, the new kid comes along in the evenings.
When I walk with her, she carries this big stick. She calls it her walking stick. She uses it to help push herself up the hills. I was afraid of it at first. Sheโs pretty klutzy โ every so often, it slips out of her hand. She doesnโt do it on purpose; she usually does it when Iโm not looking. Itโs alarming. So far, no oneโs gotten hurt. Once, when we were strolling down an otherwise quiet street, this big beast of my own species yelled and screamedโyou call it barkingโand ran at me. I tried to scurry away, but that darn leash held me back!
Get this! She wasnโt running. She who feared a rodent. She just stood there. I tried to say, โUh, letโs go,โ but she held the stick outโkind of like Charlton Heston pretending to be Moses. Then she yelled back at the beast, โNO!โ And the beast stopped! His master came out and got him. They both looked ashamed. I was dumbfounded. I felt as though the Red Sea had, indeed, parted. The rest of that walk was unremarkable.
Iโm not afraid of the stick anymore. Well, ok, unless she surprises me, dropping it when Iโm not looking (as I saidโsheโs a klutz). Now, I see its purpose. I had been afraid it was there to hurt me. Itโs really there to protect meโand push her up the hill, of course. My human is expected home soon. Maybe heโs at a second home. Maybe he is pondering time and soon and wait and all that is life. Maybe he knows that sometimes people drop sticks when you donโt expect it. Youโre afraid, but nothing happens. And when you actually see something worthy of your fear, your Protector stands His ground. Stands between you and the big ugly thing trying to scare you.
You canโt run away, because you wouldnโt understand how the Protector works. Soon youโll be home where itโs supposed to be safe. Even if youโre with people who drop big sticks and make loud noises, but really take care of you. Soon.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Christopher S. Swan’s dramatic manuscript of Amosis a wonderful opportunity to dive into a fictionalized version of an often overlooked Old Testament book.
As I read, I envisioned what the staging could look like–a dark stage at times, a well-lit one as workers harvest olives on Amos’ farmland.
The play would be well served with a multi-media approach as some scenes would work better with a closer view for the audience than the stage can allow.
Even so, an apt narrator could provide the details and still allow a stage dramatization to bring Amos’ story to life.
Yet, a play isn’t always a work that requires actors, sets, and a stage. This work is a great read too. Swan does a terrific job helping you imagine the action–which at times is very suspenseful.
Amos and God’s angels do battle against bandits and pagan forces determined to keep the newly commissioned prophet from his sacred mission–presenting God’s message to His rebellious people.
But along with literary tension come moments of peace and the simple work that defined most of Amos’ life. Swan provides cultural insights and historical detail in many of these quieter vignettes.
“Next to Amos is Tab, his youngest son at 7-years-old. He watches his fatherโs every move in silence. Listens to his father breathe as he works.
“Amos reaches down into a shallow wood box next to Tabโs sandaled feet. Pulls out a long cube of animal fat. Sets it on top of the baking powder. The cube of fat melts within seconds, seeping into the ochre powder, thickening it.
“Tabโs eyes widen. He looks back at his father, who lays four more long fat cubes down across the mound of rust-red powder. Tab watches the cubes melt in succession. He smiles at the satisfying sight.”
Swan has crafted engaging characters in Amos, his family, those who help him in his quest to deliver the message God has given him, and those representing evil forces seeking to kill Amos and end his mission.
Whether you’re looking for a good summer read–or an anytime read–or seeking out a drama for your church or group to enact, this work brings scripture alive, often tying New Testament grace to Old Testament storytelling and prophecy.
Amos, by Christopher S. Swan is worth your time and attention.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โEven biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism.โ Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Imagine being in a terrible place. The food is beyond bad. The clothing is inadequate. The weather is unbearably hot in the summer and way below what we in the continental United States consider cold in the winter. The work is hard, menial, and endless.
Then imagine you get to go to a better place. The food is better. You can be warm in the winter. Youโre not afraid youโll die from the bad treatment.
But you find out that, in order to stay there, you have to do things you donโt want to do. You have to help your oppressors spy on your fellow citizens. You have to help them send others to the place that is so bad.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn did not have to imagine this scenario.
After spending years in a Siberian gulag, he went where the Soviet government was doing research. In the 1940s, they wanted Solzhenitsyn to help them develop voice recognition technology. If he didnโt cooperate, they would send him back.
So send me back, he told them.
โEven in the camps, human dignity matters,โ says Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Alexanderโs son who tells the story of his fatherโs choosing discomfort over betrayal of his fellows. โWe always have choices. Even in the camps. Even where everything is decided for you. What clothes you wear, what food โฆ youโre given, and everything is regimented. There is always the choice to behave with freedom and a sense of dignity.โ
Freedom in a gulag? Always. Freedom and dignity everywhere? All the time. Solzhenitsyn is proof that Soviet tyrants overplayed their hand.
โYou only have power over people as long as you donโt take everything away from them. But when youโve robbed a man of everything, heโs no longer in your powerโheโs free again.โ
And that statement can apply even more deeply to Christians.
Rod Dreher writes: โThe Christian life, properly understood, cannot be merely a set of propositions agreed to, but must also be a way of life. And that requires a culture, which is to say, the realization in a material wayโin deeds, in language, in song, in drama, in practices, etc.โof the propositions taught by Christianity. To be perfectly clear, at the core of all this is a living spiritual relationship with God, one that cannot be reduced to words, deeds, or beliefs, (emphasis his).
With little fanfare from the mainstream media, the Washington Supreme Court [in 2017] . . . unanimously sided against Barronelle Stutzman, a 71-year-old florist who refused to provide flower arrangements for a same-sex wedding.
Stutzman battled the legal challenge, which threatened to relieve her of her lifeโs work and earnings, including her home.
She appealed to the US Supreme Court. A ruling favorable to religious freedom seemed unlikely since the court had already refused to hear an appeal from a New Mexico photographer, also sued for refusing service for a same-sex wedding. These cases are a harbinger of things to come.
Dreher: โTraditional Christians ought to see Barronnelle Stutzman as one canary in the coal mine (and there are many). The State of Washington, the ACLU, and two gay plaintiffs are trying to crush her, financially and otherwise. They may succeed in taking away her livelihood and then bankrupting her. . . . Whatever happens to her, they will not take away her faith and her dignity. She is a rock.โ
And Stutzmanโs faith has been rock-like. She has consistently reached out to those who oppose her with Christian grace and love.
Itโs naive to think that this issue will never land at the doorstep of our churches and private schools.
The SCOTUS ruling legalizing same-sex marriage would seem to reassure churches that in the pulpit religious freedom is secure. But the devil may be found in the details of the local laws that made a florist a civil defendant.
America has reached a point where the primary social imperative is the personal impression of the individual. This impression now trumps all. And it didnโt just begin with same-sex marriage. Itโs been going on for quite some time. We have largely looked the other way as moral foundations of life and marriage cracked then crumbled.
Along the way, the Church or at least pieces of it have twisted themselves into pretzel-like contortions trying toโas many might put itโstay relevant.
โ50 or 100 years ago, [conservative Christians] were convinced to broaden verses like โthere is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female in Christโ (Galatians 3, Colossians 4) to justify our support of progressive agendas like feminism, while passing over other verses about sexual roles in the church, family, and society (1 Peter 3, Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Timothy 3, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 11โฆ). This led us down a road that converged with the Enlightenmentโs view of the individual.โ David Goodwin
We stopped asking God what He wants for us and began to ask ourselves what we want. And that became our priority.
We have reached a line we cannot cross and still remain the Church because crossing that line would mean we have become something else, no longer the Church. Crossing the line means becoming a false church with a false gospel. The one that tells you itโs okay to worship yourself.
The one that tells you that you are not here to serve God; He is here to serve you.
Baronnelle Stutzman is here to serve Him. Even if it costs her everything. And perhaps it already has.
On July 6, 2021, the US Supreme Court declined to hear her case.
Stutzmanโs lawyer Kristen Waggoner says, โThis denial paves the way for Washington State and the ACLU to financially ruin Baronnelle.โ
The picture is not optimistic. But we are not without hope.
The world rushes in with its noise and threats of coming persecution. We can set ourselves apartโeven in the midst of chaos and decadence. We can be the people of hope who shine light in darkness. But only if we stand in the light against the darkness. And we can know we do not stand alone.
And if we do stand, we may see that the American left has overplayed its hand.
In prison, Solzhenitsyn found he could speak freely. He was already in trouble. What else could they do?
Even later in exile, he spoke. His iron will was forged behind the iron curtain. He was a man whose heart was full and whose character was steel.
He said, โYou can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.โ
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
My husband and I visited China for the first time in 2005 as English teachers. We would return to teach again in 2011.
During our first visit, I had occasion to watch some afternoon television. As you might find on some channels in America, old movies were the fare of the day.
More than once I’d turn on the television and find the storyline of a Chinese village being invaded by Japanese aggressors during World War II.
A visit to an amusement park provided a similar form of entertainment. Along with rides and fast food, actors depicted the Chinese villagers overcoming Japanese invaders. Stuffed dummies with red paint on them represented the killed Japanese troops.
Little children and accompanying parents took it all in.
Most American schoolchildren don’t learn about Japan’s occupation of China or about the Nanking Massacre in which the Japanese military murdered hundreds of thousands, raping and pillaging along their way.
Japan has never apologized. And China has never forgotten.
America fits into the picture this way. China and America were allies during World War II. China had been in the midst of a civil war between Communists and the Kuomintang when the Japanese invaded. After Japan surrendered, those who were able of the Kuomintang, America’s ally, escaped to Taiwan and claimed Chinese sovereignty there.
After the Communists won the mainland, America became the ally of both Japan and Taiwan. But history made no standstill there.
In southern China, I saw a memorial to the Chinese soldiers who fought Americans in Korea.
America and China have been on opposite sides for most of a century.
Even so, sixteen years ago in 2005, the countryside welcomed us. People knew we were there to help their children succeed in the world. We’d often receive smiles and hear, “Hello, Meguaren” or “Hello American.”
Six years later we returned. While our students and hosts were beyond gracious, we no longer heard, “Hello Meguaren” on the streets.
What had changed?
A new American Administration was spending money in such a way that it devalued the dollar. The money our government had borrowed from China was coming back to them in dollars worth less than the ones we had received. Our dollars bought half as much as they had six years earlier. The Chinese yuan bought less than it had six years before too.
The Chinese people felt America had cheated them.
And long-festering wounds continue to fester.
In my interactions with Chinese students–there and in the US–I was surprised to understand how deeply many Mainland Chinese young people want to reclaim Taiwan.
In the same way they learned to view Japan as an enemy, they learned and embraced the belief that Taiwan must come home–one way or another.
Curt Mills quotes Gordon Chang who asserts that the Olympics could be part of what spurs war–not the current Olympics in Japan, but the games slated for China next year.
โThe risk of a Chinese invasionโIndia, Taiwan, Japan, whateverโincreases after the Beijing Olympics next year,โ said Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute. โThe fear of a boycott of the Februaryโs Games, it appears, is one of the few things keeping Xi Jinping in check at the moment. This, of course, is not to say he wonโt do something awful before then as he calculates his interests and views the world differently than the rest of us.โ
Since China’s new administration took over in 2013, China has turned up the volume on its claim to Taiwan as well as some parts of Japan.
In a recent media broadcast, the CCP government announced that its promise not to employ “first-use” nuclear weapons was off the table if Japan were to join the US in defending Taiwan, implying the Chinese military intends to play its hand soon.
The Senkaku Islands are close to Okinawa. One Senkaku island is a mere 250 miles from Okinawa, the US base in Japan, and the islands were previously considered part of the Okinawa Prefecture, clearly recognized as Japan’s according to international law.
War drums are beating on that side of the world. The crackdown in Hong Kong was only the beginning.
“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.Matthew 24:6~
This rattling of sabers might be the beginning of the end. Or maybe not. No matter. When we hear of wars and rumors of wars, we are not to fear.
We are to pray. To watch. To keep faith.
Lord, keep us faithful to truth and what is right.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“โI know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth,'” (Revelation 3:15-17, ESV).
In his epic poem The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri placed the lukewarm at the gateway to hell, neither in hell nor in heaven. They are “melancholy souls . . ./Who lived withouten infamy or praise,” (Canto III, 35-36). They, in fact, “never were alive,” (64).
They were, Stephen Smith asserts, “souls who have lost truth, have lost God.” The lukewarm “would not exercise their liberty,” and missed out on life and eternity.
Not following God or Satan, Dante explains, they looked out for themselves alone.
Being outside hell sounds better than being inside, but Dante says such souls “envious are of every other fate,” (III, 48). Their end is worse than all others.
Of course, Dante’s poem is literature, not theology.
For theology, we can look to Francis Chan whose discussion of the lukewarm supports Dante’s placement of the lukewarm to either good or evil outside of heaven.
In Chan’s analysis, the lukewarm act like Christians. They go to church. They give money to good causes. But when what is right conflicts with what is popular, the lukewarm “care more about what people think of their actions (like church attendance and giving) than what God thinks of their hearts and lives.”
Chan says such lukewarm churchgoers don’t want to be saved from their sin, only from its penalty.
Their “faith” is emotional; they do not live it out with action. Jesus is part of their lives, but not in control of their lives. They structure their lives so they don’t have to live by faith.
In his typical fashion, Chan, as does Dante from seven centuries ago, convicts and calls us to overcome too much comfort, to be real in our faith.
Francis Chan’s new book Until Unity ties our embrace of authentic faith over a lukewarm counterfeit to Christian unity. Steeped in biblical evidence, Chan says “the unsurrendered will always be at odds with the Christ followers, lobbying for their sins to be overlooked and fighting for their own desires in ungodly ways. . . .
“[The lukewarm] find common ground [among themselves] in judging the radicals who dare think Christ calls everyone to deny themselves and pick up crosses. . . . They can even rally together against those who still believe that the commands of Scripture are still valid today.”
We watch this conflict within the Church. It goes on around us daily. It occurs both at high levels and in small congregations.
“[T]here are many people in churches who do not truly follow Jesus, and with them, there can be no unity. It is our responsibility to lovingly confront them and call them higher. But if they remain unchanged, it is never our responsibility to lower the bar in the name of unity,” (emphasis Chan’s).
The lukewarm live among us. Many sleep.
We will not win them by being like them. We must show them Christ. We must love them, but only in truth.
We can be the hot cup of reality in a community drowsy from the lure of the unreal.
And what must overflow from our hot cups are love and truth.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โ(Live births) are little known because organized medicine, from fear of public clamor and legal action, treats them more as an embarrassment to be hushed up than a problem to be solved. Itโs like turning yourself in to the IRS for an audit. . . .What is there to gain? The tendency is not to report because there are only negative incentives.โ~
Willard Cates, M.D., former head of the Centers for Disease Control of the U.S. Public Health Service as quoted in”Abortion: The Dreaded Complication,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 2, 1981~
My son had received THE phone call. As a member of the US Army Reserves in 2003, he was to report for deployment to Iraq.
We scrambled around the next day packing and letting family and friends know. Then my husband, my daughter, and I headed with my son to Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he would report.
After a meeting for the troops and family members, we headed to a restaurant where we stood in line waiting to be seated. A man in front of my son turned around to ask him whether he would deploy soon. Upon my son’s “Yes,” the man reached out to shake his hand. As he did so, he placed $20 in my son’s hand and said, “Let me buy your dinner.”
I told my son, “You just joined the biggest fraternity in the world.”
We feel a kinship with people who share, or are about to share, our experiences. We understand how they feel in a way others without that experience cannot.
When Melissa Ohden was born she joined a club of abortion survivors.
They (the media and those in the abortion industry) called such situations the “dreaded complication”–a baby born alive who was supposed to be dead.
Like Melissa, Gianna Jessen was also a survivor. She emerged alive at seven months gestation from a saline abortion–the now outdated procedure in which an abortion doctor injects a salt solution into the amniotic fluid to burn and poison an unborn child to death.
Gianna was born in 1977, the same year Melissa also survived a saline abortion at 31 weeks gestation.
They wouldn’t meet for decades. But Gianna’s story helped Melissa heal from hers.
In her book You Carried Me, Melissa recounts the pain she suffered at learning at age 14 that someone who should have cared for her had intended her death.
Melissa had been “flipping channels on the television” and “stumbled across” an interview Gianna had done. She writes, “I’ll never forget her words: ‘It’s not that I’m mad at my birth mother at all. I forgive her totally for what she did.'”
And Melissa began to understand “If she could feel that way, maybe I could too.”
Melissa’s book tells the story of her quest to find her birth mother. She found great healing in finally learning that the woman who bore her really did want her. Melissa’s grandmother had coerced her 19-year-old daughter Ruth that fateful day in 1977.
Ruth had not desired Melissa’s death. Melissa had been wanted.
Ruth had believed for more than three decades that her child had not survived that day. She had spent the interim “with tremendous guilt and self-loathing because I thought my child had died in the abortion.”
There is much more to Melissa’s story. But such happy-ending accounts may not happen much in the future.
Saline abortions are outdated today because they had a high “failure rate.”
Willard Cates estimated that, in 1981, “400 to 500 abortion live births occur[red] every year in the United Statesโฆ literally an everyday occurrence.”
Partial birth abortion largely replaced saline abortions. The success rate was 100 percent. When PBA became illegal, fetal dismemberment became the go to procedure.
New York’s and Illinois’s expansive abortion laws of 2019 removed protections for born alive infants. Many states have no protections in place.
We understand there are medical emergencies. Sometimes a pregnancy must end early. But late-term babies who need to come early don’t have to be born dead–unless someone wants them dead.
“OB/GYN Anthony Levatino, a reformed abortionist, recently testified before a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives: ‘During my time at Albany Medical Center, I managed hundreds of such cases [life of the mother at risk] by โterminatingโ pregnancies [via live delivery by C-section] to save mothersโ lives. In all those hundreds of cases, the number of unborn children that I had to deliberately kill was zero.’โ
Gianna and Melissa are part of a very special club. Both speak out for life–as does Ruth.
According to the CDC, a few children still manage to survive abortion. But “the number is still likely underreported.” Unreported living babies are often left to die–or worse.
“According to research conducted by Family Research Council, only fifteen states provide strong protections for born-alive abortion survivors, and only eight require reporting on infants who survive abortion.” (For a map showing protections or their lack in US states, click here.)
At the federal level, bills protecting babies born alive after abortion failed three years in a row from 2019 to 2021.
Babies who survive abortions and receive care join Melissa and Gianna’s small club.
For many women in situations like the 19-year-old Ruth once experienced, the club is not big enough.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Pornography is โso focused on yourself, you donโt even have another person. . . . [It] is everything the Bible says is not what sex is supposed to be.โ Dr. Tim Keller
I remember a college class called science, technology, and society, actually a philosophy class, in which the professor posited that the images we watch on television become more real to us than the reality around us.
He gave as his example the first (the second hadn’t happened yet) Challenger disaster. He talked about how the tragedies we watch on television can affect us more deeply than local events we don’t see.
What we watch on screens affects us more than we know. And what others see influences the world around us more than we realize.
In his sermon/podcast “Love and Lust,” Dr. Timothy Keller explains that porn affects all our relationships. That porn influences social aspects from fashion choices to marriage rates, asserting that the drop in American marriage rates is largely due to porn.
โPeople who use pornography have crushingly unrealistic expectations regarding physical appearance and sexual performance. . . .
โA significant number of male porn users experience a diminished tolerance for the difficulties of real relationships, . . . shrink[ing] the marriage pool for women. . . .โ
Pornography is โwhy the number of people getting married is going down.โ
That’s easy to see. But fashion trends?
โAll women . . . are increasingly being forced to accommodate sexual behaviors and their appearances to the images and style of pornography.”
The fashion industry influenced by porn? That seems far-fetched.
But Andi Zeisler agrees with Keller, and Regnerus and Uecker. “Porn is now not only represented in, but an indelible part of, everything from high culture toย fashionย magazines toย collegeย curricula,” she writes.
The discussion comes full circle when Zeisler references Naomi Wolf who predicted nearly two decades ago that “far from turning men into the raving, sex-mad predators that anti-porn crusaders . . . once warned against, [porn] is turning them off of regular, nondigital women.”
Marriage rates support Wolf’s thesis. But not all porn watchers are rejecting sex with a partner altogether.
Ponder this: Rod Dreher’s citation of The Telegraph: “A GP [general practitioner physician] letโs call her Sue, said: ‘Iโm afraid things are much worse than people suspect.’ In recent years, Sue had treated growing numbers of teenage girls with internal injuries [caused by frequent deviant sex] . . . not, as Sue found out, because she wanted to, or because she enjoyed it โ on the contrary โ but because a boy expected her to. โIโll spare you the gruesome details,โ said Sue, โbut these girls are very young and slight and their bodies are simply not designed for that.โ
What else is porn doing to women and girls?
We imagine the stereotypical porn user as a man sitting in his basement (perhaps his mother’s) in the dark in front of a flickering screen (his phone or computer). He is glassy-eyed and probably unemployed.
But Zeisler cites Adella O’Neal, publicist for Digital Playground, pointing out that “in 2000 roughly 9 percent of the company’s consumers were women; four years later, that figure . . . bloomed to 53 percent.”
Fox News reports: “Women arenโt excluded from this heavy porn-watching either. Pornhub released information in 2017 that revealed women spending more time watching porn than men, reports anti-porn advocacy group Fight the New Drug. Women were also more likely to search for harder versions of porn than men.”
That may be how we moved from the idea that porn exploits and victimizes women to the emerging notion that sex work empowers them.
Sadly many in the Church have been drinking the poison too.
Fox News continues: Covenant Eyes [a porn addiction recovery organization]” reports that “64 percent of Christian men and 15 percent of Christian women report watching porn at least once a month.”
Porn gives us a distorted view of ourselves and others. And this distorted vision is downloaded into the minds of a majority of Christian men and a significant percentage of Christian women–at least monthly–often daily.
Also this from Dreher: “At a conservative Christian college not long ago, a campus minister told me that every single young man he works with, helping them to prepare for seminary after graduation, is addicted to pornography (meaning that they use it compulsively, and find it impossible to stop, even though they want to). Sixteen young men โ conservative, churchgoing men who want to serve God and others as pastors โ caught in that trap.”
Here’s an ironic reality. Psychology Today quotes a scholarly study that shows porn use actually lessens sexual satisfaction rather than enhancing it.
“Notably, under no circumstances was pornography use associated with greater sexual satisfaction. These findings, while correlational, suggest that even infrequent use of pornography has negative effects on sexual satisfaction.”
Satan’s counterfeits never match up to what God intended in giving humans the gift of sex.
Where is hope for us?
As mentioned above, Covenant Eyes is a good place to start.
But first, we must recognize the problem. And it’s much more pervasive than we want to think it is.
It’s a heart issue.
We want what we want. We’ve bought so far into materialism and pleasure that we have lost sight of who we are. Of who every other person is.
Each one, imago Dei, the image of God. Each one, His poiema, God’s masterpiece.
Every one.
The child in the womb. The person on the street, homeless, alone, and hungry. The woman on the screen.
And everyone who sits on the other side of the screen.
From Ted Roberts: “Numerous authors have written books concerning the clinical aspects of sexual addictions, and even more books call for believers to seek holiness. But our [ministry’s] ultimate focus is more specific . . . . [We want to] persuade the Church to become a place of hope and healing rather than of shame for those fighting sexual battles. . . .
We need ruthless honesty that exceeds our comfort zones and pursues God’s heart, no matter the cost.”
Individuals and ministries need to pursue God’s heart. Such pursuit comes with a great cost.
The cost of ignoring this issue is much greater.
“Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body,” I Corinthians 6: 18-20.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
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The post presented the real-life situations of three families–parents whose doctors encouraged abortion, one whose “caregiver” even demanded it.
Yet, life happened instead.
Mike and Rachael Andrews became Daddy and Mommy to Olenna and Vesper Andrews despite the pleadings of medical personnel to abort Vesper. The pleas of the medical personnel were persistent and presented only bleak possibilities.
The couple decided to exercise faith, not fear, and welcomed two healthy girls who are now 21 months old. The family welcomed a younger sister almost four weeks ago.
Rachael reports that the girls “are doing great!”
Craig and Hannah Sudlow’s pregnancy story is similar–but involved only one child. A doctor demanded the Sudlows abort Evelyn, diagnosed with Trisomy 18–a genetic disorder.
The doctor went so far as to schedule Evelyn’s abortion.
The Sudlows did not comply.
The doctor dropped Hannah from the practice. She spent five weeks seeking medical care.
Evelyn was born with fewer medical disorders than the doctors had predicted–yet still with Trisomy 18.
Nancy Flanders writes for Live Action: “Thanks to doctors who valued Evelynโs life, she thrived. She became a big sister twice over, she met milestones her parents were told she never would, and she laughed and loved. Though no one could predict how long Evelyn would live or what her future would look like, it was clear that she was happy and that she was well-loved.
Happy and well-loved for three and a half years, Evelyn passed away in April of 2020.
Evelyn’s mother remembers her life, “not for the struggles and challenges, but for the joy and beauty.”
Evelyn Sudlow’s life brought joy and beauty to those who loved her.
A short-sighted person saw himself as an authority to decide life or death. He would have thought the world a better place without Evelyn.
Bella Santorum–like Evelyn Sudlow–has Trisomy 18. Her parents Rick and Karen also received pressure to abort. They know what it’s like to have a doctor tell you that you HAVE TO have an abortion. Like the Sudlow’s, they refused.
On May 13, 2021, Bella Santorum celebrated her 13th birthday.
Her father tweeted: “Our Bella is a miracle, a blessing, a joy, but like all children at times a trial. She is the heart of our family because in her simplicity, fragility and disability she reveals the gift God plants in all his children, His pure love.”
Doctors predicted the deaths of three of these children. They did not expect Vesper Andrews to live to be born.
They did not expect Evelyn or Bella to live beyond a few days after birth.
They did not know what they presumed to know.
Saddest of all is that they could not know the love and joy that comes from loving a child, no matter her state.
Photo: (Olenna and Vesper Andrews), Lakeside Portraits
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Covenant: “a formal agreement or contract, between God and humans or between two human parties to do or refrain from doing something. Sometimes only one party was responsible to carry out the terms (a unilateral covenant, which was essentially a promise). At other times both parties had terms to carry out (a bilateral covenant).”
Commodify: “to turn (something, such as an intrinsic value or a work of art) into a commodity–a good interchangeable with other goods.”
We were unhappy with our cell phone carrier. The pricing was erratic, sometimes shocking. “Customer service” was a frustrating, time-sucking vortex.
When our contract was up, we jumped.
We’d ended the relationship with a business that didn’t seem so interested in serving our needs. We found a business that would serve us better. Much better.
So we begin and end business relationships.
And so, as Dr. Tim Keller explains, do we often treat our romantic interactions today, making them more accurate reflections of business dealings rather than lifetime commitments.
In his sermon/podcast “Love and Lust,” he draws a distinction between the virtue of love as seen in covenant relationships, and the vice of lust–manifested in a business-like approach to romance.
Committed love is a covenant relationship. “Sex is supposed to be a symbol of what you’ve done with your life,” Keller says–that you have fully committed to another person, way beyond a physical relationship.
“You must not do with your body what you’re not willing to do with your whole life.” The language sounds limiting, binding. It is. Yet living love this way provides amazing benefits.
“In a covenant, when you have made a promise, sex becomes like a sacrament . . . . an external, visible sign of an invisible reality. . . . That’s why it’s so meaningful. “
In this way, sex reflects the intimate love God has for our souls.
โWhen I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.” (Ezekiel 16:8, ESV).
Covenant, Keller says, provides a “zone of safety where you can be yourself.”
Covenant produces deeper feelings. “When you are committed to a person in spite of your feelings, deeper feelings grow,” Keller says. As in parenthood, covenant marriage requires giving without regard to receiving, thereby producing “a deeper, richer kind of feeling.”
“Covenantal relationships bring freedom.” He references Kierkegaard who claimed non-covenantal relationships make us slaves. Commitment brings freedom. Freedom from commitment is oppressive. That can seem counter-intuitive in these days, but it’s true.
Lust, however, is a transaction. Sex outside of marriage is “marketing.” Marketing is anything but meaningful.
Keller says couples who live together outside of marriage are trying to figure out “whether this person is good enough to marry or whether I can do better . . . It’s not trusting. It’s not resting. It’s not giving.”
People who live together before marriage are learning how to live together as consumers.
As we’ve moved further down the highway of consumer/transactional sex, we see the results of sexual self-seeking instead of sexual (and otherwise) self-giving.
Our culture has almost completely abandoned any sign of covenantal love. We are becoming a strictly commodified society. Therefore, fewer are buying into marriage.
Edward Davies in “Forget Race or Class, Marriage is the Big Social Divide,” writes that marriage rates in the UK have “been steadily collapsing since the 1970s. Not just declining but falling off a cliff. Even at the height of the second world war, one of its previous lowest points, the male marriage rate was almost triple what it is today.”
America’s rates show a big drop too.
As my mother so aptly put it many years ago: “Why buy the cow when you’re getting the milk for free?”
Especially when the metaphorical cow you’re renting is trying harder to close the deal.
Many of us have been that metaphor. We sold ourselves short.
In Western society, we’ve commoditized human beings in more ways than one. Fewer Americans of marriage age are buying. Too many relationships are more like mine was with our cell phone company.
And sadly, more often than not, just as unfulfilling.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The Center for Medical Progress has released a new video. When abortion doctors discuss abortions without dig, they mean digitalis, a drug that, if injected into the heart, stops it.
So when they discuss not using dig, they are doing procedures on living children. Note that in many of these cases, they are talking about unborn children at the age of 22 weeks and six days.
And dismemberment means what you think it means. They are dismembering living children.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Recently, the Food and Drug Administration cleared the way for abortion medications to be available via telemedicine.
The new rule is intended to allow girls and women to end a pregnancy of 56 or fewer days from the comfort and privacy of their own homes without having to see a doctor in person.
However, with this new rule, there is no way to ensureโas an in-person physical examination wouldโthat the unborn child is younger than 57 daysโor even that the pregnancy is not ectopic (that the child is not stuck in the fallopian tube rather than residing in the uterusโa condition that is potentially deadly for the mother).
Before last month, an estimated 40 percent of American abortions, according to the AP, occurred through the chemical method. Yet the requirement that patients seeking chemical abortions meet with a doctor before obtaining abortion medications ensured that deadly complications (like ectopic pregnancies) and attempts at dangerous, late-term abortions (after 56 days) would be minimized.
Now, they can be maximized.
The rule change will be a boon to the abortion industry in several ways. For every surgical abortion, someone has to remove the child, through suction or manual dismemberment, or stab the childโs heart with a sonogram-guided injection and induce labor so the mother can deliver her dead child.
After a dismemberment abortion, someone must reconstruct the child to ensure that the abortion was completeโthat there will be no parts left behind to fuel infection.
Mail order abortion meds prevent trauma to a worker having to deal with the actual killing or disposal of the bodies of dead children. Mailing pills to faceless women is much less traumatic than piercing a heart or reconstructing human body parts. And the industry will need employees with much less training. How hard is it to mail pills? Not very.
Less complex. And less costly for those in the abortion business.
Now girls and women who are aborting at home will perceive that they can escape a problemโand no one else has to know. Theyโll perceive this notion because the telemarketer/abortion advisor they spoke with via phone or internet told them so, that the process will be simple, โlike a heavy period,โ that it wonโt be so bad.
One โpro-choiceโ woman says her experience was โunimaginable,โ โindescribable,โ โthe worst pain I have ever felt. . . . With every cramp I felt my heart race and my blood pressure plummet.โ . . . . [She was] โnauseated, dizzy and lightheaded.โ She thought she was dying.
After reading these accounts and understanding that so many abortions happen this way now, we might conclude that these womenโs experiences were outside the norm. Yet, the complication rate for chemical abortion is four times that of surgical abortion.
Four times.
And remember, the girl or woman at home will at some point expel a baby. She is likely to see that baby and understand what she perhaps did not fully grasp at the beginning of the process: a baby who was alive and growing within her is now dead.
โAnd I would just caution people โฆ especially if the abortion lobby has their way and abortion pills are available through telemedicine, getting it through mail order, available in retail pharmacies, or even over the counter. Thatโs what some abortion advocates want, just abortion pills over the counter, no prescription required, no questions asked. Imagine what that would mean in the hands of an abusive partner, a coercive partner, a trafficker.โ
Ms. Israel reports that 19 states prohibit telemedicine abortions. But that the restrictions can be โwiped out at any momentโ by an edict from the current administration.
In the historic discussion leading to legal abortion in America from conception to birthโthe 1973 Roe v. Wade decisionโabortion advocates pleaded that abortion be safe, that desperate girls and women gain protection from the butchers of โback alleys.โ
Now the back alley is the very homes of these desperate girls and women. The butcher comes as a specter in the form of pills invited in by their unwary victim.
This new rule provides nothing but benefits for the abortion industry. It shifts all of the burdens from the industry to its victims. The babies and the mothers bear all the trauma, all the risk, all the cost.
Itโs a cost we will never be able to count. But the cost continues to mount.
With 40 percent of abortions happening chemically, 60 percent still happen surgically. Many of those are late-term abortions. And many late-term abortions involve children born alive. Organs from aborted children, living and dead provide the means for medical โresearchโ.
With the Biden Administration removing limits on experimentation involving unborn children, taxpayers will now be paying for atrocities many of us would call unimaginable.
Those doing the research say itโs good.
Theyโve usurped the place of Godโdeciding the functions and fates of people whose lives should be beyond their reach.
Whatโs happening today in America is reminiscent of H.G. Wellsโs The Island of Dr. Moreau, the fictional account of a man who washes up on the shore of an island where a mad scientist is creating human/animal hybridsโcreatures who are part-human, part-animal.
Wells illustrates how animalistic humans can be, how we can be as savage, perhaps more savage than the beasts of the forest.
In todayโs reality, researchers are injecting monkey embryos with hESC (human embryonic stem cells) harvested from late-term unborn children, abortion victims. Fully developed, capable of feeling pain. The goal is to produce human organs within the monkeys for transplant.
Such evil, albeit with good intentions, goes deeper than we realize. Petra Wallenmeyer provides some insight:
โPeople on one side of this issue [favoring such research] argue this practice is necessary for scientific advancement, will benefit vast numbers of people by developing treatments for various diseases, and is ethical because no valuable human is being harmed in this research (emphasis mine). Therefore, federal and/or state funds should be allocated for such research (i.e., through grants or awards).โ
Because of the rules change, funds are now available.
But notice the ethical gymnastics involved in justifying this practice. The end result may (or may not) be something goodโโa scientific advancementโโto โbenefit vast numbers of people.โ This assessment dictates that some humans are deserving of beneficial treatment, i.e. the receipt of transplantable organs to be gathered from animal hosts. But for that to happen, others must be deemed not valuable, therefore deserving of dissection and distribution into vials so animal hosts can produce organs for transplant.
While it goes on around us, few are discussing the ramifications of such โworkโ.
One of the few, Kristen Matthews of Rice University, explains the ethical questions that may arise from this research.
โShould it (the resulting human/animal living being) be regulated as human because it has a significant proportion of human cells in it? Or should it be regulated just as an animal? Or something else?โ Matthews said. โAt what point are you taking something and using it for organs when it actually is starting to think and have logic?โ
Or at what point will it matter if science deems โitโ to be a life void of valueโwhether human or otherwise? And the questions press us to further ask whether any creature labeled an animal might be entitled to greater protection than one labeled humanโbut considered to be of no โvalueโ.
Science has derailed when some humans are valuable to save and others are only good for spare parts.
In such a world, every person potentially can become someone not of value, available to be sacrificed for the sake of another, more highly esteemed person.
Yet there remain many who will tell us it is all good.
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitutes bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โEvil is ancient, unchanging, and with us always. The more postmodern the West becomes โ affluent, leisured, nursed on moral equivalence, utopian pacifism, and multicultural relativism โ the more premodern the evil among us seems to arise in nihilistic response.โ Victor Davis Hanson
Conservative commentator Hanson explains that ancient Greek city-states Athens and Sparta were “antithetical powers.”
Their cultures were very different. Athens was a seaport, dependent on trade. Sparta was landlocked, relying on agriculture. Athens’ government was an aristocratic democracy. Sparta’s, more egalitarian.
America is a country with two vastly different cultures. Vying for influence, the liberal cosmopolitan perspective, more concentrated in our cities, stands in contrast to the traditional way of the countryside.
The Athenses of America today wrestle with unrest, high taxes, exploding costs, or to sum it all up, urban decay.
But many in the country still pursue traditional values and standards–life, liberty, gun ownership for hunting and self-defense–and don’t want to add the problems of the cities to their list of local challenges.
Among the awake (not woke) in the US are rural Oregonians who recently voted on the county level to ask their state government to move the Oregon border so they may become part of Idaho.
Idaho stands ready to welcome them. Seven Oregon counties, so far, stand ready to go. The Greater Idaho petitioners hope some northern California counties will jump on board also.
This effort proposes to move state lines rather than people.
The rural Oregonian effort requires approval from legislators in both states and Congress.
Approval from Oregon’s governing bodies seems unlikely because city cosmopolitans hold control there. They will be reluctant to allow tax dollars to move to another state.
They also hold to an aristocratic view that rejects local rule. This aristocratic view is not a local phenomenon.
For example, the White House recently announced its commitment to “codify Roe“–that is, to legalize abortion from conception through birth everywhere in the US.
To codify will make it a law rather than a court precedent. Roe v. Wade and companion case Doe v. Bolton were the 1973 SCOTUS decisions that eradicated all state laws restricting abortion. States have been codifying Roe as cosmopolitans fear SCOTUS will overturn the cases that established unlimited abortion.
The cosmopolitan goal is to take more laws such as Roe/Doe–those involving other life issues like assisted suicide (legal in places like Oregon, the state of Washington, and DC among others), for example–and pass laws that will uniformly apply across the country.
The Oregon effort pushes back at such uniformity.
America is supposed to operate by the “consent of the governed.” The non-consenting of Oregon have officially called on their leaders to let the people go.
Other regions will follow, regions with less cosmopolitan legislatures, places of the non-consenting.
Southern Virginia is in a similar strait as the Oregonians–with rumblings of readiness to become part of West Virginia but also under cosmopolitan rule.
Pennsylvania, however, whose rural legislative control has only increased in recent elections, has no such departure effort.
Yet.
Many, I would dare to say a majority, of central Pennsylvanians deeply resent the liberalism of Harrisburg and Philadelphia.
Will a domino fall and begin a map-redrawing process of departure for rural areas looking to escape city influence?
A version of this piece appeared in the Altoona Mirror on June 3, 2021.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
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Because the measure of any ministry is the lives it has changed.
This week marks a milestone for a local effort working to influence young people growing up in dysfunction.
This organization began as an after school outreach to youth.
But some of the kids had no place to go once they turned 18. A case in point:
A boy participated in the after-school ministry The Door. He found food and mentoring there. Because of the encouragement he received, he finished high school and got a job.
When he came home one day, he found his clothes in plastic bags on the front porch.
His success threatened the household where heโd grown up. If he stayed, the family would lose benefits.
He returned to the place that had fed and mentored him into success. The ministry leader Dave Taylor was frustrated to see that no program offered help to someone without addiction or mental health issues.
Dave spent the next few years working to open Lionheart, a home for young men who โage outโ of their own families and find themselves with no place to go. Now they have a place.
Lionheart is an 18- to 24-month long program that provides a home, food, training, transportation, and mentoring. High school graduation is required, so kids in the youth ministry can see that they can have independenceโif they work for it.
Lionheart teaches young men how to make basic electrical, plumbing, and carpentry repairsโso when they get their own places, they can take care of them.
Lionheart teaches wise use of money through Financial Peace University.
Lionheart teaches interview skills so these men can find work.
And Lionheart helps them save money, shop for cars, find apartments. The ministry gives them the beds theyโve been sleeping on when they go to their new places. They can leave not only with a bed, but also with a dresser, a desk, a toolbox, and up to $7,500 theyโve saved from working.
Now, Lioness, a similar program for young women has two participants. They graduated from high school this week. They go to work next week.
During their 18-24 month stay in the Lioness home, they will learn basic home repair and maintenance just as their Lionheart counterparts do, so, as Taylor puts it, “no one will have to be dependent on a bad relationship.”
HEFT represents the goals of both Lionheart and Lioness ministries. Housing, Employment, Finances, Transportation.
The ministries support the residents with mentoring and transportation to and from work until they can support themselves and provide their own transportation.
Taylor points out that the program costs the ministries $18,000 per year per participant. He compares that to $1.5 million the government pays over the lifetime of a dependent person.
Government welfare programs are designed to support and provide needs for today. But they do little to prepare recipients for tomorrow. There is no government bridge between dependence and independence.
The Door, Lionheart, and now Lioness provide that bridge to self-sufficiency.
The measure of any ministry is the lives it has changed.
Dave Taylor, a lionheart opening doors of opportunity through life-changing service.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
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When I visited the town of Derry (Londonderry to UK proponents) in Northern Ireland in 2019, I took note of Queen Victoria’s statue in the town’s guildhall.
She was missing her hands and had shrapnel marks all over her.
cruisethroughhistory.com
The tour guide told us that the bomber, an IRA member, got elected to public office upon his release from prison.
In 1998, the UK and Irish leaders signed a deal dividing Ireland and Northern Ireland. Ireland would be its own country. Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK but would have the powers of home rule.
Abortion proponents knew they could not win a referendum in Northern Ireland.
So in 2019, the UK took advantage of the breakdown of home rule when Northern Ireland was unable to establish its own government through the parliamentary process.
Despite the agreement allowing Northern Ireland independent rule, the UK Parliament voted to establish legal abortion (and same-sex marriage) in Northern Ireland.
Death won the day when the UK forced abortion upon Northern Ireland, not through a democratic process, but through opportunism.
It is upon such issues that otherwise divided people can unite. Northern Ireland is divided by doctrine and politics but has raised a pro-life effort that calls itself “non-denominational and non-party political.”
And pro-life activists there are pushing back legislatively. Recently, a bill to restrict late-term abortions was successful through two stages of the legislative process in the re-established home rule government. Supporters call it a “first step” toward restoring protections for the unborn.
Should Ireland ever reunite, increasing pro-life activism in Ireland and already established advocacy in Northern Ireland may be enough to end the atrocity of baby-killing throughout the island.
The British over the course of centuries have prevailed in Ireland, but they have not killed the spirit of independence in the Irish.
Forcing undemocratic laws in the North ultimately may weaken British power throughout Ireland to more accurately reflect the handless queen who stands in the Derry guildhall.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Two brownstone church buildings once stood in our downtown, a few blocks from each other.
They had once been vibrant communities.
Both sat empty for years.
Last Sunday, we drove past one as it was in the process of being torn down. Piles of rubble surrounded the facade.
We were on our way to the other–about to reopen, refurbished, restored.
I’d driven past both many times over the years. Sometimes I prayed for the second one. One of my sons-in-law had led renovations of the building’s kitchen when he was earning his Eagle Scout award years before.
More than two decades ago I worked in a nearby town writing for the local newspaper, editing the weekly religion page. I got to know a neighborhood pastor. His heart is one of pure ministry. Four years ago, he founded Center City Church. But the church wasn’t in the center of our city.
Now it is.
This past Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, the brownstone was alive with prayer, praise, and worship. It was the fourth anniversary of the founding of Center City Church. And the celebration of the first Sunday at its new location.
A guest pastor preached. His wife had grown up attending the brownstone. At age 95, he was celebrating 82 years of faith and a lifetime of ministry.
We sat under electric lights another son-in-law installed.
History ambles along. Cities’ skylines shift.
But sometimes history reaches back to grab a thread and hang onto a piece of the past.
Resurrection comes for places too.
Welcome to your new/old place, Center City Church.
Photo Credit: Nancy E. Head, Center City Church, May 23, 2021
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means. Oscar Wilde~
I often show the movie The Natural in the classroom. And unlike what you might predict a teacher would do, I warn students against reading the book.
Spoiler alert for both: The movie ends happily; the book does not.
Bernard Malamud, author of the book The Natural, was born in Brooklyn, the son of Russian Jewish immigrant parents. He grew up to be an acclaimed American writer. When he attended a premiere of the movie based on his book, he exclaimed, โAt last, Iโm an American writer.โ
His book was the type of fiction Russians, over the ages, had come to expect. In Russia and later the Soviet Union, people, Jews especially, lived under oppression. Those who live under such conditions donโt come to expect a happy ending in their literature or in their lives.
The movie, which revised Roy Hobbsโs story without Malamudโs input, has a happy, even joyful, ending. The bookโs pessimism marks Malamud as a Russian writer. The movieโs optimism transformed him into an American one.
โItโs the only movie thatโs better than the book,โ Iโve told my students.
We all like a happy ending. That, perhaps, explains why Iโve discouraged students from the book. I hold the optimism of America in my heart. America has always been the better placeโthe place others come to escape oppression, famine, and trials.
But I also live in the real world, so I must accept that I have no guarantee of a happy ending just because of geography.
Some might call me a realist. Others could say Iโm a pessimist.
In his new book Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, Rod Dreher advises that we need to โthrow away the crippling nostalgia for the future, especially the habit we Americans, a naturally optimistic people, have of assuming that everything will ultimately work out for the best.โ
Many name Rod Dreher among the pessimists of the world, the Eeyores who cannot see good. These critics reject his arguments, claiming โheโs too negative.โ
They assume an optimism about Americaโs future as if itโs a guarantee from God.
Even so, Dreher presents an optimism that begins with the resolve that โChristians must not surrender hope.โ The harbingers that testify to coming oppression on the horizon could be delayed, even blocked.
Something positive could turn events around.
Yet, the focus on the book is on what must we do to prepare in case the best-case scenario doesnโt happen?
We can soak in the stories of those whoโve been through persecution and oppression behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. Dreher lets them tell their stories throughout his text.
While he assures us that Christians are not obligated to pursue persecution, we are obligated to honor God through it should it come to us.
And his conclusion? Optimism. But of a sort we didnโt expect,
Itโs a great irony of history that Christianity thrives best in persecution and seems to die on the vine of comfort and ease.
He presents the family of Vaclav Benda who embraced discomfortโto the point of Vaclavโs imprisonment. The simple refusal to go along, to deny truth, was all it took.
The mother of the family together with her children pursued truth and worked to undermine the oppressors. The poverty resulting from the absence of the family breadwinner, and his inability to work in his field upon his release meant the children wore clothes that werenโt cool.
While the kids didnโt fit in at school, they were part of an effort, one they understood to be important.
โVaclav Benda taught that the family does not exist for its own purpose but for the service of something beyond itself.โ
Today, in freedom, after the passing of their patriarch, the grown Benda children live in faith.
They know what many today do not. Community with purpose gives life meaning. The isolation and purposelessness our society foists upon us are missing in the lives of dissidents. Dissidents share purpose and meaning. They live in community.
And while living in community is often dangerous, it also lends itself toward ministry in a way isolation cannot.
Dreher quotes Pawel Keska who tells the story of one man who โwas constantly observed by the secret police, parked right in front of his home. During the severely cold winters, he would bring them hot tea to warm them up. Because they were people . . .โ
Dreherโs primary mandate for readers is that we have our spiritual lives in order.
โA time of painful testing, even persecution, is coming. Lukewarm or shallow Christians will not come through with their faith intact. Christians today must dig deep into the Bible and church tradition and teach themselves how and why todayโs post-Christian world, with its self-centeredness , its quest for happiness and rejection of sacred order and transcendent values, is a rival religion to authentic Christianity.โ
And the book presents an authentic Christianity unlike what we in the comfortable West have lived. He shows us a picture of what our comfort has taken from us.
Joy is not something Christians can conjure. We often experience pleasure and equate it with joy.
And we donโt imagine having joy in a smelly prison where we and those around us regularly undergo tortureโeven execution.
Dreher quotes George Calciu: โWe were in a cell without windows, without air, humid, filthyโyet we had moments of happiness [joy] that we never reached in freedom. I cannot explain it.โ
The book is supremely optimistic in revealing Godโs faithfulness to his people who remain faithful in Him, sometimes even unto death.
Dreherโs primary call to action for us: We must put our spiritual lives in order. We must resolve to live not by lies.
We begin with ourselves and our families.
โChristians should stop taking family life for granted, instead approaching it in a more thoughtful, disciplined way. We cannot simply live as all other families live, except that we go to church on Sunday.โ
We can hold to the truth that God promises His best to those who remain faithful to him no matter what.
We must reject the lie that He has promised us a happy ending in the here and now without any sacrifice on our part.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Imagine being a post-secondary student for 10 years and accruing a debt of $200,000. Then imagine having to decide whether to continue in the profession you’ve dedicated your life to or leaving it behind to save your conscience.
That is the dilemma many face who are part of the medical profession today.
Some history: In May of 2019, the US Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule stating that health care workers could not be “compelled to participate in abortion, sterilization, or assisted suicide procedures.” But the rule was “vague about other services — such as hormonal and surgical treatments for transgender individuals — that some health professionals may also find objectionable on moral grounds.”
Peter Sullivan quotes Roger Severino, senior fellow and director of HHS Accountability Project at the Ethics & Public Policy Center at the time: โThis rule ensures that healthcare entities and professionals wonโt be bullied out of the health care field because they decline to participate in actions that violate their conscience, including the taking of human life.โ
The rule affected not only doctors, nurses, and other medical staff, but also pharmacists who didn’t want to dispense contraceptives (many of which are abortifacients) and morning-after pills (also abortifacients).
Now the conflict has expanded from abortion and euthanasia (in the states where it’s legal) to transgender treatments and surgeries.
Severino again, “[HHS Secretary Xavier] Becerra is threatening to put doctors and hospitals that disagree with current transgender ideology out of business, including those with medical, religious, or moral objections to conducting sex-reassignment surgeries on minors.โ
So if you believe that it’s wrong to surgically alter someone, a child in this discussion, with an operation from which there is no return, the government wants to put you “out of business.”
As things stand today, many medical professionals of faith, including those we’ve praised and lauded during the COVID pandemic, are employed in a hostile workplace.
When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden apple, they had no idea how bad their fall would turn out.
Our government has bitten a poison apple, rejecting Hippocrates’ admonition that medical professionals “first, do no harm,” and placing people of conscience between two bad options.
Damaged career or damaged patients? That’s their choice.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It’s something my mother quoted to me more than once while I was growing up:
“The hand that rocks the cradle/ Is the hand that rules the world.” William Ross Wallace
Maybe not the world, but definitely the nation. And the battle is ongoing for power over who will wield that hand.
Because now the US government wants to gain more control sooner over the cradle.
Mary Szoch of the Family Research Council explains what the current administration’s proposal (which the FRC says will cost $2.5 trillion over the next seven years) will do. The American Families’ Plan, would be “the replacement of parents by a government-approved agency.”
โ[The plan is] trying to fix a problem America has with fatherlessness by creating a culture that promotes motherless as well,” Szoch says.
The president’s plan would provide free preschool for 3- to 4-year-olds and lower-cost daycare through “approved” agencies. The plan makes no mention of faith-based organizations.
And while it offers tax credits for most parents putting their children in daycare, it offers no such break for mothers giving up income to care for their own children–thereby saving the government money.
ย Being required to pay such wages in order to continue to offer subsidized care might put most churches already participating in the current program out of the daycare business.
I went back to work in the late 1980s when my two youngest children were of pre-school age. The daycare was subsidized. I paid $5.00 per week for the care of both children. That included their meals.
Even with a pro-rated increase to account for inflation and the passage of time, such care would still qualify as affordable for any employed person–even the single mother I once was.
When government officials propose plans like the current one, they must assume most people aren’t aware that there is already a service in place to address the problem.
And if that program is underfunded, as some assert, why not increase funding instead of creating a new bureaucracy?
What could be the motivation for making a new program where one already exists? And why exclude faith agencies where some workers might even choose to work on a volunteer basis?
The primary question is not so much whether mothers of young children should work. Many have to. It’s a question about how much say these mothers should have over whether the care their children receive while they work will reflect their own values and beliefs.
Ministries offer the best opportunity for parents to seek childcare that will match the message they work to instill in their children.
While our national government proposes to provide care for low- and middle-income families, many headed by single parents, legislators in one state propose to roll back legislation that has resulted in more single-parent families–liberalized divorce laws.
State Representative Matt Krause says, โThere needs to be some type of due process. There needs to be some kind of mechanism to where that other spouse has a defense.”
“Instead of a liberating cure-all the feminists of that day presented, divorce has wreaked havoc on our society. Throughout the decade of the 1970s, no-fault divorce laws swept across most of the country. In their aftermath, divorce rates nearly doubled. . . .
“[In 2006] NOWโwhich had led the vanguard in promoting lenient divorce legislation and unrestricted abortion for decadesโwas protesting the liberalization of New Yorkโs divorce statute. At that time, New York was the lone holdout on no-fault divorce. The proposed divorce bill provided a unique opportunity for NOW to partner with the Catholic Church against allowing one spouse to dissolve a marriage unilaterally. Unfortunately, in 2010, New York finally became the fiftieth state to enact a no-fault divorce law.[ii]
“We donโt have to think hard to understand why the Catholic Church opposed no-fault divorce. But for liberal feminists to turn on a foundational plank of their platform is astonishing. Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, a catalyst for the womenโs movement, had called marriage a โcomfortable concentration camp.โ She cheered the passage of the first no-fault law in California in 1970. Twenty-seven years later, Friedanโand NOWโrealized that the new laws had harmed women instead of helping them.
“Often, men can use custody of the children as a weapon against women. In a perverse game of mental manipulation, the man will agree to forgo a custody battle if the woman agrees to a smaller financial settlement, leaving the woman torn between seeing her children or supporting her children.
“One study found that only 37 percent of women retained ownership of the family home under no-fault divorce, versus 82 percent under fault divorce. . . .
“Under no-fault divorce laws, women tend to come up short in battles over finances and property, and they are more likely to lose their health insurance coverage. Today, divorce places 22 percent of divorced women in poverty as opposed to 11 percent of divorced men.
“Friedan now admits that feminists ‘made a mistake with no-fault divorce.’โ[iii]
We often can’t see the results of public decisions until years later. The results of turning young children over to state-controlled daycare won’t manifest themselves for years.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
[i]New York Times editors, โIs New York Ready for No-Fault Divorce?,โ June 15, 2010, https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/is-new-york-ready-for-no-fault-divorce.
[ii] Ashley McGuire, โThe Feminist, Pro-Father, and Pro-Child Case against No-Fault Divorce,โ Public Discourse, May 7, 2013, http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/05/10031.
[iii] Nicholas Wolfinger, Understanding the Divorce Cycle: The Children of Divorce in Their Own Marriages, as cited by Stephanie Chen, โChildren of Divorce Vow to Break Cycle, Create Enduring Marriages,โ CNN, September 22, 2010, http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/09/22/divorced.parents.children.marriage/index.html.
With the Biden Administration removing limits on experimentation involving unborn children, taxpayers will now be paying for atrocities many of us would call unimaginable.
Those doing the research say it’s good.
They’ve usurped the place of God–deciding the functions and fates of people whose lives should be beyond their reach.
What’s happening today in America is reminiscent of H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, the fictional account of a man who washes up on the shore of an island where a mad scientist is creating human/animal hybrids–creatures who are part-human, part-animal.
Wells illustrates how animalistic humans can be, how we can be as savage, perhaps more savage than the beasts of the forest.
In today’s reality, researchers are injecting monkey embryos with hESC (human embryonic stem cells) harvested from late-term unborn children, abortion victims. Fully developed, capable of feeling pain. The goal is to produce human organs within the monkeys for transplant.
Such evil, albeit with good intentions, goes deeper than we realize. Petra Wallenmeyer provides some insight:
“People on one side of this issue [favoring such research] argue this practice is necessary for scientific advancement, will benefit vast numbers of people by developing treatments for various diseases, and is ethical because no valuable human is being harmed in this research (emphasis mine). Therefore, federal and/or state funds should be allocated for such research (i.e., through grants or awards).”
Because of the rules change, funds are now available.
But notice the ethical gymnastics involved in justifying this practice. The end result may (or may not) be something good–“a scientific advancement”–to “benefit vast numbers of people.” This assessment dictates that some humans are deserving of beneficial treatment, i.e. the receipt of transplantable organs to be gathered from animal hosts. But for that to happen, others must be deemed not valuable, therefore deserving of dissection and distribution into vials so animal hosts can produce organs for transplant.
While it goes on around us, few are discussing the ramifications of such “work”.
One of the few, Kristen Matthews of Rice University, explains the ethical questions that may arise from this research.
“Should it (the resulting human/animal living being) be regulated as human because it has a significant proportion of human cells in it? Or should it be regulated just as an animal? Or something else?” Matthews said. “At what point are you taking something and using it for organs when it actually is starting to think and have logic?”
Or at what point will it matter if science deems “it” to be a life void of value–whether human or otherwise? And the questions press us to further ask whether any creature labeled an animal might be entitled to greater protection than one labeled human–but considered to be of no “value”.
Science has derailed when some humans are valuable to save and others are only good for spare parts.
In such a world, every person potentially can become someone not of value, available to be sacrificed for the sake of another, more highly esteemed person.
Yet there remain many who will tell us it is all good.
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
[T]here were times . . . mainly during the . . . harvest, when we would all be together. The men would go early to have the benefit of the cool of the morning. The women would finish their housework and then gather, sometimes bringing dishes already cooked, to lay on a big feed at dinnertime; and then after the dishes were done, they would go out to help in the field or the barn for the rest of the day. . . . This was our membership.โ (Hannah Coulter)
Through most of Americaโs history, people grew up in small towns. They knew each other and helped each other. Most people were part of a community.
Modern people have accused these forebears of sexual division, relegating women to the kitchen. But women worked in the fields too. Men and women grew food and other crops. Often the division of labor meant he worked harder than she did growing the food. And she worked harder than he did to bring to put it on the table. Children grew up learning a good measure of hard work.
It wasnโt about who did what work. It was about making sure the work got done. Everyone had a part to play, a contribution to make, a purpose to serve.
People worked hard, some just to surviveโothers, to thrive. They grew old, perhaps at a faster rate than we do. They were tired. But they were not lonely.
That was then. This is now.
A teenage girl stands on her back porch breaking glass jars and cutting her own skin. Trying to cut her way โthrough the hurt down to the core of things.โ Trying to end the pain of her heart.
A man sits alone in a cold cell, isolated from those he loves, those who love him.
Ann Voskamp was the girl on the porch suffering the death of her younger sister, which devastated their family.
She was traumatized. Trauma comes different ways.
Natan Sharansky was a man in a cell. He was a Jew in the Soviet Union, a refusenik, a prisoner of the KGB. His jailers hoped to cultivate Stockholm syndrome within him. That happens when a victim connects with his captors. Trust grows. Secrets spill. Injustice finds new prey.
Voskamp had no one to trust with the pain within her. Sharansky fought to stay connected to those he loved and trusted, if only in his heart and mind. He worked hard not to trust the untrustworthy KGB.
Thereโs an odd irony in saying that Voskamp and Sharansky are not alone.
In 1985, ten percent of Americans were completely alone in their livesโno confidants, no one to count on. By 2009, that number had grown to 25 percent. Stephen Ilardi calls this nation โperilously isolated.โ Isolation numbers continued to grow until COVID only made isolation worse.
And itโs not a problem confined to America. In 2014, an EU survey deemed Britain โthe loneliness capital of Europe.โ And it isnโt a problem just for those who live alone.
Rebecca Harris: โSo why are we getting lonelier? Changes in modern society are . . . the cause.
We live in nuclear family units, often living large distances away from our extended family and friends, and our growing reliance on social technology rather than face-to-face interaction is thought to be making us feel more isolated. It means we feel less connected to others and our relationships are becoming more superficial and less rewarding.โ
More superficial. Less rewarding. Virtual reality gives us virtual connections and produces virtual lives. A virtual life does not contain relationships that can heal our hurts.
We are less real on social media. But sometimes we are too real. We say things to our screens we would never say to someoneโs face.
The venom we exuded in the recent election makes us unapproachable to someone smarting from defeat.
If we won, we donโt care. Itโs our turn. We build walls against the pain of others. We prove ourselves unworthy of their trust.
If we lost, bitterness can grow inside us. And with it, we build a wall to keep others out. But the wall keeps hurt inside, and we look for ways to let it out.
Voskamp: โWho doesnโt know what itโs like to smile thinly and say youโre fine when youโre not, when youโre almost faint with pain?โ
Today, loneliness is an American epidemic. Cigna released a study indicating that most Americans are lonely. We might expect that among the elderlyโespecially those who live aloneโbut that isnโt the case. In fact, older people have done the best job of keeping themselves from being isolated.
The loneliest among us are the young.
Cigna says the problem is bigger than social isolation. Cigna is an insurance company. Loneliness is a health problemโas harmful as smokingโmaking some more prone to heart disease. Loneliness is costly to insurance companies and costly to our society.
And social loss happens in more than dollars. Lonely people are more prone to substance abuse. Loneliness has become a social crisis.
Author of Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry sums up our problem this way: โWe need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other.โ
An exodus back to the farming life, the farming community, doesnโt seem reasonable. Much of the available farmland has been consolidated or subdivided. But there are things we can do.
Many of these things came more easily to farm folks. Working together, eating together. We can do those things too. But we have to be more intentional than they had to be.
We can grow some of our own food. Some of us already grow tomatoesโeven in potsโeven in apartments. What better way to show the young that food doesnโt originate in a store? What better way to explain the concept of cultivation?
In cultivating plants, we cultivate purpose.
And we can cultivate relationships. A local faith-based organization developed a program where volunteers talk with nursing home residents once or twice a week. The caregivers found that their residents were happier. I would not be surprised to find that the volunteers were too.
For investing in others cultivates our souls.
When we give ourselves, we find meaning and purposeโelements we lost when we changed our way of living.
When we as a society left the farm for the town or the suburbs, we thought we were moving to a better place, an easier life. Ease has shown itself to be a false promise for peace in our hearts.
With purpose and giving, we find that peace. And that is something we can pass along.
โIt is not good for the man to be alone.โ Genesis 2:18
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Just last week, the Food and Drug Administration cleared the way for abortion medications to be available via telemedicine.
The new rule is intended to allow girls and women to end a pregnancy up to the 56th day from the comfort and privacy of their own homes without having to see a doctor in person.
However, with this new rule, there is no way to ensure–as an in-person physical examination would–that the unborn child is younger than 57 days–or even that the pregnancy is not ectopic (that the child is not stuck in the fallopian tube rather than residing in the uterus–a condition that is potentially deadly for the mother).
Before last week, an estimated 40 percent of American abortions, according to the AP, occurred through the chemical method. Yet the requirement that patients seeking drug-induced abortions meet with a doctor before obtaining such medications ensured that deadly complications (like ectopic pregnancies) and attempts at dangerous abortions later in pregnancy (after 56 days) would be minimized.
Now, they can be maximized.
The rule change will be a boon to the abortion industry in several ways. For every surgical abortion, someone has to remove the child, through suction or manual dismemberment, or stab the child’s heart with a sonogram-guided injection and induce labor so the mother can deliver her dead child.
After a dismemberment abortion, someone must reconstruct the child to ensure that the abortion was complete–that there will be no parts left behind to fuel infection.
Mail order abortion meds prevent trauma to a worker having to deal with the actual killing or disposal of the bodies of dead children. Mailing pills to faceless women is much less traumatic than piercing a heart or reconstructing body parts. And the industry will need employees with much less training. How hard is it to mail pills? Not very.
Less complex. And less costly for those in the abortion business.
Now girls and women who are aborting at home will perceive that they can escape a problem–and no one else has to know. They’ll perceive this notion because the telemarketer/abortion advisor they spoke with via phone or internet told them so, that the process will be simple, “like a heavy period,” that it won’t be so bad.
One “pro-choice” woman says her experience was โunimaginable,โ โindescribable,โ โthe worst pain I have ever felt. . . . With every cramp I felt my heart race and my blood pressure plummet.โ . . . . She was โnauseated, dizzy and lightheaded.โ She thought she was dying.
After reading these accounts and understanding that so many abortions happen this way now, we might conclude that these women’s experiences were outside the norm. Yet, the complication rate for chemical abortion is four times that of surgical abortion.
Four times.
And remember, the girl or woman at home will at some point expel a baby. She is likely to see that baby and understand what she perhaps did not fully grasp at the beginning of the process: a baby who was alive and growing within her is now dead.
“And I would just caution people โฆ especially if the abortion lobby has their way and abortion pills are available through telemedicine, getting it through mail order, available in retail pharmacies, or even over the counter. Thatโs what some abortion advocates want, just abortion pills over the counter, no prescription required, no questions asked. Imagine what that would mean in the hands of an abusive partner, a coercive partner, a trafficker.”
Ms. Israel reports that 19 states prohibit telemedicine abortions. But that the restrictions can be “wiped out at any moment” by an edict from the current administration.
In the historic discussion leading to legal abortion in America from conception to birth–the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision–abortion advocates pleaded that abortion be safe, that desperate girls and women gain protection from the butchers of “back alleys.”
Now the back alley is the very homes of these desperate girls and women. The butcher comes as a specter in the form of pills invited in by their unwary victim.
This new rule provides nothing but benefits for the abortion industry. It shifts all of the burdens from the industry to its victims. The babies and the mothers bear all the trauma, all the risk, all the cost.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It’s a book I read when I was about 16. I decided to reread it when I was in my 30s. And at the end of 2020, I determined to make my way through the 700 pages a third time.
Taylor Caldwell’s A Pillar of Iron depicts the life of Cicero–who saved Rome once but was unable to protect the republic from its eventual fall. Cicero wavered between hopelessness for his nation and wonder about the Jewish prophesy of the coming Messiah.
Caldwell presents a pessimistic prediction of the inevitable descent of all republics into democracy, more accurately, mobocracy, the oppressive manipulation of the crowd to garner power for the greedy.
Her views are consistently conservative, a bit less compassionate than those of G.W. Bush in 2000, with Cicero’s acknowledgment that some within the mobs had reason to protest. And, as with many predictors of history, (see also Francis Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto) Caldwell’s accounting of Cicero’s Rome comes more closely to resemble our nation as time goes by.
A blurb on the cover of the 1965 edition (first edition) states, “Were Cicero alive in the America of today, he would be aghast and appalled.”
That’s what she thought in 1965. At the time, we had yet to go through the sexual revolution. JFK had already been assassinated, but we had not yet suffered the riots and other violence, including more assassinations, of the late ’60s. And remember the hyper-inflation and terrorism of the ’70s?
Caldwell’s Cicero is a complex character torn between his love for his childhood friend Julius Caesar and his disdain for Caesar’s quest to be the absolute power broker of Rome. Current readers will find parallels in her mentions of Caesar expanding the courts to ensure rulings would go his way as well as the cancel culture Cicero endured before, during, and after his exile.
An important feature of the book is that Caldwell flew from America to Rome and translated Cicero’s letters (to and from others) and his speeches herself. What she includes from Cicero’s own words is the result of her own work.
Despite her pessimism about our nation’s future, she finishes the work on an optimistic note.
Rome fell into tyranny. But before she shattered, the Messiah would come.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
[I]f my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. II Chronicles 7:14~
Another admired Christian leader has fallen. He wasn’t the first. He won’t be the last–unless the Church makes some big changes soon.
Among those who’ve gone before are abusers accused and proven in the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal that resounded around the world shortly after our new century began. Every few months, the remains of scandal resurface with fresh accusations.
What happened in the twentieth century, when we were less prone to speak of such things, as well as less apt to be believed, was unparalleled in its magnitude but it was not exclusive to one denomination.
In the 1980s Jim Bakker went to jail for misuse of donated funds. Amid a sex scandal. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison. He served less than five.
He was, perhaps, an aberration. Not many pastors who start out on a small local television station ever see the material success Bakker saw. Not many get the chance to sin at such a level.
The ministry grew too large too fast, and Bakker forgot that he was to minister, not be ministered to.
Yet there were those we knew we could trust. Billy Graham at the top of the list. In heaven now, he did not topple into scandal, financial or sexual, on earth.
We knew there must be others. Charles Stanley suffered a divorce–apparently not because of impropriety. He continues in the ministry.
Over the years, we would occasionally hear of the pastor who “ran off with” a church secretary or a congregant. They were shameful, but singular incidents. And as far as we could tell, were consensual–except of course, for those left behind.
The Zacharias scandal is especially insidious. Ravi was said to never travel alone. He boasted about the care he took to protect his marriage vows. About his efforts to be pure.
The RZIM ministry had dismissed the “misconduct” allegations until his death and the discovery of photos on various devices of his. Now they’re apologizing.
I remember a story Zacharias told. A Christian and an atheist were conversing. The atheist could not believe in God since so many Christians misrepresent Christ. The Christian posited a situation in which a good man is robbed of his coat. Someone commits a crime wearing the coat. The good man receives the blame. The atheist admits that the Christian telling the story “wears [Christ’s] coat well.”
Pretending he wore the coat rightly, Zacharias wore it badly. All our sin tarnishes others’ view of Christianity. The “sexual misconduct” in leaders like Hybels and Zacharias tramples the name of Christ itself.
If my people . . . called by my name . . . will . . . turn . . .
We must never again look away when a wolf wears a sheepskin or worse a shepherd’s cloak. And we must do a better job distinguishing wolf from sheep.
We need to ask hard questions.
Is there such a thing as a ministry too big? Too rich? Too influential? A minister too trusted? Or tenured too long?
Is anyone beyond the reach of sin?
Christ founded a small church. Persecution kept the church humble.
Now some are big, famous, and rich.
We are covered in tarnish and worse.
Christ’s name trampled.
As the lost point to and jeer at the man wearing the wrong coat.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
T.S. Eliot tells us that April is the cruelest month. But how can a month with lilacs, forsythia, and a fun holiday be mean?
This day always reminds me of one I lived through during a very rough patch. I was a newly single mother who’d sent my oldest children off to school and didn’t give the silliness of the day a second thought. That is until my phone rang that evening with my breathless friend on the other end.
“Is it true?” she gasped.
“What?”
“Are you having another baby?”
“WHAT?”
Mind you, the youngest of my five children was nine months old. Where in the world did my friend ever get that idea?
It turns out that my ten-year-old daughter told her school friend this bit of news. And the friend reported the shocking news to her mother.
It took us a few more minutes to figure out that the day was April 1.
My daughter, whose world had turned upside down in the previous few months rallied her heart for a bit of humor. She told a story that, because of history, her friends would believe.
And she let the rest of the day pass without saying, “April Fools!”
A heart baptized by fire found a way to make us all laugh.
Seek humor today. You just may brighten someone’s day in a most memorable way.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was interesting to observe. A sociological experiment of sorts. We were at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. Our busload of people and several hundred others.
And just two bathrooms.
The driver explained that, because there were so many people and such little in the way of facilities, we were to just get in line togetherโmen and womenโand take care of natureโs callings as such.
It was a practical matterโhow to move so many people faster. It wasnโt about ideology.
Yes, I was uncomfortable and found the experience unpleasant. But what surprised me most was that the most vocal complaints came from the younger women in our group.
They, of the generation who grew up with the most open views on gender and sexuality since Rome, were beyond uncomfortable. Horrified might be the word they would use. They werenโt prepared for such a change in their social practices.
That happens, he says, when one side wins a battleโbut the war continues.
โOur public life is now dense with people desperate to man the barricades long after the revolution is over,โ Murray writes.
For example, America and much of Europe have instituted same-sex marriage. Where else can the new social line go? Yet it keeps moving.
It shifts to a Big Brother effort to get everyone on board. To make us all believe the same thing about same-sex marriage, about white privilege, about the evils of the patriarchy that wields power unjustly, holding women down. Justice never happens because the line to fairness keeps moving.
In such times, itโs rare to find a book that, to mix my metaphors, puts a finger on the pulse of the constantly moving line in a way no other author has. We see the โgreat crowd derangement,โ Douglas Murray describes, but โwe do not see the causes.โ He shows us the causes.
Murrayโs book contains a message that is cogent, urgentโand surprising, considering its source.
The perspective in The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity is distinctly liberal but at the same time very conservative. Douglas Murray is gay. He believes the line has gone too far. And there may not be a way to pull it back.
He is honest about his fear that โWe face not just a future of ever-greater atomization, rage and violence, but a future in which the possibility of backlash against all rights advancesโincluding the good onesโgrows more likely.โ
Murray says, โOur public life is now dense with people desperate to man the barricades long after the revolution is over.โ
When the ObergefellSupreme Court decision came down legalizing same-sex marriage, I thoughtโalbeit brieflyโthey have what they want now. We will stay in this place. We did not. Instead, we saw lawsuits over wedding cakes, photos, and flowers.
What we saw and continue to see, as Murray puts it, is that once the โboot is on the other footโ the victors treat the losers the way the losers once treated the now victors. Murray implicitly makes a case for the Golden Rule and pulls back the curtain on the โgobbledygookโ that has filtered into society from liberal academia.
Iโm not sure Iโve ever read a secular book with more wisdom from someone whose worldview is so vastly different from my own.
In his section on Transgenderismโentitled โTransโโMurray tells three stories.
One is about a man who had felt uncomfortable in his body since childhood. After serving in the military, marrying, and fathering five children, he divorced his wife and became a woman. Once same-sex marriage became legal in the UK, the now trans woman remarried the former wife.
Formerly James, now Jan, felt โeuphoriaโ post-surgery, and was convinced โI had done the right thing.โ
Murray writes that the โfour surviving children . . . obviously did not have the easiest time adapting to the change in circumstances, though they seem to have been as adaptive as anyone could be.โ
Thatโs Murrayโs best case scenario.
The story he opens the chapter with doesnโt end happily.
Murray tells the story of Nathan, born Nancy. As a young girl, Nancy felt the family favored her brothers. Nancyโs mother admitted she found her infant daughter to be โso uglyโ that she never bonded with her.
Nancy eventually underwent surgery to become Nathan. But one year later, disappointment in the results drove the trans man to ask the state for euthanasia. The state complied.
Nathanโs mother said, โHer death does not bother me.โ
The story prompts Murraysโ questions: โAre we sure that [trans] exists as a category? And if so, are we certain that attempting to turn somebody physically from one sex to another is always possible? Or even the best way to deal with the conundrum this presents?โ
Some may say that Nancy/Nathanโs story is a straw man. A terrible example of family rejection and a striving to do anything to find acceptanceโwhich apparently was not to be had.
Yet Murray has other stories. Iโll summarize one that best supports his thesis that todayโs culture is moving too fast on this issue.
โJamesโ was a teen when he discovered the gay/drag queen scene. He shared his sense that he was โin the wrong bodyโ with his doctor at age 18. After three and a half hoursโyes, hoursโof therapy at age 19, James heard the clinicianโs conclusion: โYouโre trans.โ
He then entered the NHS (British health care system) that would accommodate all his needs, beginning with hormones and culminating in surgeryโevery need except one that would question the diagnosis of trans.
It was a process that began with James living as a woman for two years. Then came the hormones, next, would come the surgery that would finalize the transformation.
Jamesโno female name provided in Murrayโs retellingโwould see NHS folks once every six months. During that time, no one questionedโor asked him to questionโthe diagnosis of trans.
Yet, James himself began to ask questions as a point of no return approached.
One can take opposite-sex hormones only so long before an important effect becomes permanent. If he continued to take these medications, James would be irrevocably infertile.
โ[The NHS] had treated him as someone with a condition that needed fixing. But online James soughtโand foundโcontrary points of view. Through alternative media he discovered YouTube stars and others who were questioning the wisdom of his decision, including younger and hipper people than he had expected.โ
James also had questions about his faith as a liberal ChristianโโQuestions of God and design.โ
He began to ask, โWhat I need to do to be content with my body, not change my body.โ No one at NHS had encouraged such thought.
The governmentโs philosophy about transgenderism had moved too fastโin only one directionโfor James.
Murrayโs voice is an important one for our day. It is a voice of reason calling us to the manned barricades that want to move us to a place of no returnโwithout much consideration of the consequences as we go.
Murray calls us to hear what the changes are doing, not just for the โJanโโs who are happy with the results of social changeโbut for the Jameses who looked beyond the NHSโs quest for a one-size-fits-all solutionโfor the Nancy/Nathans who found that solution insufficient to fulfill a lifelong search for love and acceptance.
Can we hear Murray in time?
Can we hear the truth of who we are as created humans?
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I was a high school junior in 1972 when she sat on the stage of our local high school. She wasn’t the speaker for the assembly that day. But she had arranged for the speaker to come.
The speaker was a woman who’d survived the Holocaust. She spoke about how it all began with abortion. It was abortion that devalued human life enough that other ways of killing the perceived-to-be-less-than-us became thinkable, then doable.
Remember, that was 1972. That was before Roe v. Wade (and Doe v. Bolton) legalized abortion in the US until birth.
I don’t remember the name of the speaker on stage. But several years later I would meet the woman who’d recruited the speaker and arranged for the assembly.
And she would become a lifelong friend and mentor.
In 1979, as the mother of two toddlers, I decided to go to the March for Life. I called a phone number within an announcement scrolling across my television screen about buses for the event.
It was the woman who’d sat on that stage when I was a schoolgirl who answered the phone.
She was the mother of eight–the oldest were teens. Her youngest a bit older than my firstborn. She became a kindly sort of aunt to my children.
I still quote her to people. As I was having a minorly uncomfortable medical test recently, I told the technician something my friend first said to me decades ago: “If you eat a frog for breakfast, nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
Yes, it’s a silly saying. But silly sayings are sometimes a good way to put discomforts and inconveniences into perspective. The best way to discern the inconveniences from actual life problems. The best way to discipline yourself to put the unpleasant task first.
And in such ways, friends give their wisdom to us for us to pass on to others. I’ve repeated the saying to students many times.
When I struggled with my growing family, she encouraged me with her humility. I asked her once how she managed her family, her job as a nurse, and her ministry for life.
She replied, “Well, sometimes not very well.”
As I write, I’ve just come home from a fundraising dinner for our local crisis pregnancy center. My friend was always among the last to leave this yearly event. She was the first to receive an award from the organization for being a champion for life. But I like to think of her as a pioneer. For few trumpeted warnings about what would follow 1972. She was one of the few.
She can no longer attend such gatherings. She’s now widowed and in a home. Because of COVID, I am unable to visit her.
She didn’t live a perfect life. None of us ever does. But I remember the kind spirit, the love, the devotion to truth and right.
Pioneers blaze the trail for those who follow after them. It’s up to us who follow to carry on.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Steven Stayner was seven years old in 1972 when he was kidnapped and held for seven years before escaping with another victim.
The kidnapper had convinced Steven that his parents couldn’t afford to keep him. They didn’t want him anymore. Nobody would be looking for him, the man told the child.
Steven’s kidnapper sexually abused him over the years he held him captive–until Steven entered puberty and became too old to be attractive to the abuser who then sought out and snatched a new child, Timothy White, to fulfill his lusts.
Finally, after years of abuse and the arrival of his presumed replacement, Steven took off with Timothy to save him from the horrors Steven had endured.
The two boys could then be physically safe, but left to deal with the trauma they’d suffered.
How many Stevens and Timothys are out there now?
The National Center for Victims of Crime reports that 20 percent of girls (one out of five) and five percent of boys (one out of 20) are sexually abused in the US. And, like Steven and Timothy, children are most vulnerable between the ages of seven and 14.
So when we consider what happened to those two boys, that there are others suffering today as they did then, and that Steven essentially “aged out” of the abuse he suffered when puberty began, we should pause before we as a country decide to allow medical personnel to prescribe puberty-blocking drugs to children who are confused about their gender. We should more than pause. We should stop fast.
There are children with gender confusion. And there are children who may be convinced into confusion. That these are children should be enough for us to say no to puberty-blockers before adulthood. Young people will not truly know their own minds for some time. And puberty-blocking drugs eventually destroy fertility.
A decision that may be temporary at a younger age produces irreversible effects.
Many children endure Steven’s situation today. Abusers and exploiters can groom, indoctrinate, and intimidate these children into delaying or preventing their own growth and development. We cannot discern between children whose confusion begins within themselves and those whose abusers foist confusion upon them.
Steven’s kidnapper may not have stolen another child if he could have gotten the drugs for Steven that would have kept him physically in childhood–perhaps forever.
If you think that couldn’t happen, that wouldn’t happen, that doesn’t happen, you need to entertain the idea that it IS happening–and right within our own communities.
“The [recently released] Planned Parenthood annual report also showed that in 2019, there were over 200 Planned Parenthood facilities in 31 states providing services for patients who identify as transgender. As it turns out, Planned Parenthood is the second largest provider of cross-sex hormones. In an interview with Abigail Shrier, a former Planned Parenthood employee described Planned Parenthood prescribing hormones to young clients with almost no examination of their underlying problems and practically no medical oversight.
“Planned Parenthood’s foray into providing cross-sex hormones is not shocking. For years, this organization has rejected basic truths about human beings, putting profits over people daily. During the 100 years of their existence, Planned Parenthood has denied the humanity and the right to life of the unborn child. Now, Planned Parenthood is denying the reality that XX chromosomes make a person a girl and XY chromosomes make a person a boy.”
This is the same Planned Parenthood that has been accused of not reporting child sex abuse and statutory rape–of ignoring the truth about abuse and exploitation–with a great deal of regularity.
Planned Parenthood meets people every day who suffer brokenness. But the huge corporate entity that PP has become is content to sweep the pieces of brokenness under a carpet of pretense. They pretend they are helping. But they enable abuse and exploitation. They help horror continue.
Steven Stayner was a broken young man when he escaped the clutches of his abuser. But before dying in an accident as a young adult, he married and had two children.
Steven Stayner tried to put broken pieces back together.
The Steven Stayners of today will lose a large chunk of their lives–and stay physically broken forever if we don’t stop fast about puberty-blocking hormones for children.
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed.” Proverbs 31:8, NLT
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โWe came from Caladanโa paradise world for our form of life. There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or paradise of the mindโwe could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this lifeโwe went soft, we lost our edge.โ Frank Herbert, Dune~
Imagine spending your daylight hoursโmost of them in an eighteen-inch tunnel shoveling coal out of your space by hand. Your son stands ready to fill a large bin on wheels just outside the small tunnel. You both get paid for productionโnot time invested.
You also provide the fuel to warm the homes in your community and beyond.
Boys go to school until itโs time to go to the mines. They grow up and raise families. Sons in the mines, daughters in the kitchensโall working to make life better for the next ones coming. That is the story of the Arigna Coal Mineโnow a tourist siteโin Ireland.
I grew up in a railroad town near the heart of Americaโs coal country. I remember the strip mines dotting our rolling mountains. Now restored, the mountains appear never to have been mined.
Yet, mining still happens around us. As my husband and I drove across a bridge in town the other day, we saw a long line of rail cars all filled to the brim with coal.
Mining still happens, but itโs no longer a lone man picking and shoveling out a tiny tunnel.
When machines came to Arigna, they had the opposite effect of what we might expect. Today when we consider robotics and technology in the workplace, we calculate how many jobs will go by the wayside as machines replace workers.
When mining found technology, the industry needed more workers to haul the greater bounty out of the mountain. And since production increased, and since the workers earned through production, both jobs and earnings grew.
Yet in Arigna, one thing remained. And it resonates in my heart every time I ponder it.
When we entered the mineโnow a large, reinforced tunnel to accommodate tourists rather than minersโthere was a picture of Christ. The tour guideโat a government-funded site, mind youโexplained that workers prayed as they began their shiftsโprayed for safetyโand God answered and blessed.
Our guide credited Christ as the โsafety officerโ of the mine that produced, first iron, then coal for more than 400 years. In 400 years of miningโwith no safety agency overseeing operations until the 1980sโonly one man died.*
Iโve pondered the faith and devotion of those miners since my visit to Arigna. And Iโve pondered the life of unimaginable (to me) work!
Like us, they were imperfect. They had conflicts with neighbors and petty jealousies.
They had unmet dreams. In the 1960s, they staged a strike that lasted several months.
Yet overall, they seemed to have a kind of satisfaction we lack today. Life was hard but good.
Thatโs an idea that seems so foreign to us. We do all we can to resist it. We work with the expectation that life will get better and better. And that must also mean easier and more prosperous.
Easier and more prosperous came to the miners of Arigna through technology. But they never took the picture down of the One they believed kept them safe.
Life is hard. Itโs easier and more prosperous for some. But there is meaning in difficulty. And the One who watched over the Arigna miners is faithful.
*One website asserts that โfive or six diedโ over the years. Another says, โAccidents were few and far between.โ
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
People of the past โunderstood history. Oral history, but history nonetheless. They revered their past and used it to educate and inspire themselves. In many ways, despite high levels of illiteracy, they were more โeducatedโ than we are today. They knew their world intimately and understood the value of what was before their eyes.โ Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish
In Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Readerโs Guide to a More Tranquil Mind, Alan Jacobs tells us about Horaceโa political dissident in exile. A friend bestows the gift of a farm on Horace, who, separated from the engagement he enjoyed in Rome, begins to write letters, poetry actually, to advise othersโand us.
โHorace exhorts [his reader], exhorts himself, exhorts us, to shift our attention from those compulsions [our fears] toward questions that really and always matterโโWhere is it virtue comes from?โโbecause even by just exploring those questions, . . . weโre pushing back against the tyranny of everyday anxieties.โ
Itโs the everyday anxieties, the sense of the urgent, that remove us from the important. The important, virtue, often gets lost in the shuffle of where we need to go. We have tunnel vision as we focus on how to get to the goal, the finished project or the diffused crisis. The tyranny that keeps us plodding ahead as we sense we are standing still.
And when we think of virtue, it strikes us as something else to doโsomething that canโt fit into our already crammed schedules.
But there is an answer to this tyranny of the urgent that keeps us from the important. Heughan, McTavish, and Jacobs would point us to the past to find answers to the present, to inspire ourselves.
We find answers and inspiration in the writings of the dead.
Many, Jacobs asserts, refuse to look to the past because of a way of thinking thatโs emerged in recent times.
โThere is an increasing sense not just that the past is sadly in error, is superannuated and irrelevant and full of foul ideas that weโre well rid of, but that it actually defiles usโits presence makes us unclean.โ
Jacobs asserts that this sense of defilement results from information overload and the sense that the โworld is not only changing but changing faster and faster.โ And the solution to our overload is exactly what many perceive is defiling us.
Jacobs is pushing against what the Wall Street Journal calls a โsustained effortโ to eliminate Homer and a vast array of rich literature from the past. This from the Journal:
โTheir ethos holds that children shouldnโt have to read stories written in anything other than the present-day vernacularโespecially those โin which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,โ as young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman writes in School Library Journal. No author is valuable enough to spare, Ms. Venkatraman instructs: โAbsolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.โโ
It also sends the message that young minds canโt develop to think for themselves, to discern how and why things have changedโor even that they ever changed at all. For if we eliminate the past, and make no mistake, thatโs the proposal here, children will grow up only in the now.
Many children are growing up in this now that refuses to look back. Jacobs quotes Tony Tost:
โAnd at home, the kids only watched kid-centric YouTube channels or superhero or Pixar movies instead of suffering through dadโs weird favorite old movies. So when the kids hit elementary school, they only have ears and eyes for whatever was being marketed to their age group that year. . . Every step of their development theyโve been trapped in the pre-packaged bubble of the new.โ
Imagine having little to no context for history, music, film, economics, or politics. And no one to inspire us but ourselves.
As a thirty-something English major in college in the late โ80s and early โ90s, I sometimes found it difficult to navigate texts like โThe Wastelandโ by T.S. Eliot. Footnotes provided biographical information about Eliotโs allusions, but not context to enlighten me about his discussion.
I left Penn State with a diploma in hand but feeling that my education had been incomplete because I lacked the classical foundation that would have made references to older and ancient works transparent.
In less than a decade, I would become a teacher in a classical Christian school where Homer was required and history revered. I wished my own children had had that education. I wished I had had it. Yet now, when I stand before middle-schoolers and high school students, I still sometimes feel like Iโm showing them puzzle pieces of a picture I havenโt quite fit together myself.
For mine was the generation that began to lose the past. I got a smattering of the classical when I sat in a Catholic parochial classroom for three years between fourth and sixth grades. And I picked up bits and pieces of music, literature, and historyโas silly as this soundsโfrom Looney Toons cartoons and Sunday evenings watching The Wonderful World of Disney.
Disney gave me a foundational understanding about what happened at the Alamo in 1836, who Daniel Boone was, and what the legend of King Arthur was all about.
Bugs Bunny introduced me to classical music like โThe Barber of Seville,โ and works of literature from Romeo and Juliet to Danteโs Divine Comedy to the genre of 1940s crime movies. Television networks in the 1960s provided old cartoons with public domain music to entertain us and let our parents sleep in on Saturday mornings. We got part of our education eating cold cereal in our pjโs.
And we got a great deal from our parentsโboth of them having lived through the Great Depression and having been World War II era veterans. My brother got more of the classical from our father who must have found the classical heroes of the past too coarse for a young girl for I have no memory of him telling me the tales.
โThey were my bedtime stories,โ my brother told me once of Homerโs Iliad and Odyssey.
I imagine our Dad retelling the passage when Achilles dragged Hectorโs body around the city of Troy for seven days and then saying, โGood night. Sleep well.โ
Of course, there is much more to Homerโs works. For Western Civilization, Homer helped define what it means to be a hero.
But my favorite part of this remembrance is how Dad got the stories, to begin with.
Dad was 13 and one of 11 children recently orphaned. Some of the children were already grown. Others went to live with their grandmother. Dad found a home with two women who needed someone to do the man jobs around the house.
Division of labor by gender was big in the past.
One day he discovered his hostesses taking down curtains and washing windows. He asked what he could do to help and received this reply.
โThis is womenโs work, George. Go outside and play.โ
But playmates were no longer around. He wandered off to the local library and inquired of the librarian for โsome good books.โ
She gave him Homerโs classics.
From Alan Jacobs: โTo see the art of our ancestors can be an incredibly powerful thing; but we want also, we canโt help but want also, the human voice, to hear those who came before us speak to us.โ
Jacobs points out that we hear those who speak our hearts, but we also learn from those who are different from us. People who came before us are the same in some ways. But we see what is different from us in the writings of the past.
Even the story of dadโs guardians sending him outside to play rather than inviting him into โwomenโs workโ teaches us something of what the past was.
Learning about the past can lead us to ask how we got from there to here.
Iโm finishing The Black Ships Before Troy, based on Homerโs Iliad, with two groups of sixth- through eighth-graders. I tell them that the Greeks didnโt marry the women they carried off after sacking a city. They didnโt settle into a life of domestic partnership.
And marriage wasnโt the primary life relationship for the ancients. The friendship between men was their top relational concernโas we see in the story of Achilles and Patroclus, whose ashes were mixed together after their deaths.
In class, I get to explain what the world was like before Christโand how it changed for the better because He walked here on earth.
I explain that social groups become civilizations when they become writers. When oral traditions, stories, laws, and in the case of the Bible, divine inspiration take a written form.
In these readings we can learn what was, better understand what is, and determine what should be. We can look back for that wisdom. In fact, there is wisdom we can only find by looking back.
Jacobs: โThe dead, being dead, speak only at our invitation: they will not come uninvited to our table. They are at our mercy, like the flock of shades who gather around Odysseus when he comes as a living man to the land of Hades.โ
And remember what Odysseus learned from the dead Tiresiasโhow to navigate the perils of the seas and find his way home.
Despite the calls to eliminate the past, many devote themselves to passing it down.
My great-niece in Texas is teaching Homerโs works to her students. She is four generations removed from Dad.
One of my own students, a seventh-grader, couldnโt contain his enjoyment as we discussed Homerโs tales.
โThis is a really good weird story,โ he said.
Good enough to pass on to his own children someday? And then heโll tell them to sleep well.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
[M]ale and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created, Genesis 2:4 (ESV).
If some in Congress have their way this week (The House is set to vote Thursday 2/25), the terms male and female will soon disappear. First, from the realm of bureaucracy that will continually push itself into our private lives, And second, from the hearts and minds of young people who will grow up learning a language, a way of life, that is blind to biology, scripture, and
In Newsweek magazine, Mary Rice Hasson describes the “Equality Bill.”
“The Equality Act is 31 pages long, and devotes thousands of painstakingly drafted words to prohibiting “sex discrimination.” In all those pages, however, the word “female” never appears.”
. . . .
“Under the Equality Act, ‘gender identity’ determines access to “public accommodations,” a category the act redefines to include just about everywhere. It mandates access to ‘a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room’ among other gathering places on the basis of ‘gender identity.’ Translation: There will be no safe spaces left for females. Support groups for mothers or sexual assault survivors would be forced to accept any male who feels entitled to join (based on ‘gender identity’).”
You may wonder: Can that really happen? It can. And without urging some Democrats to vote no in both the House and Senate, it will.
“Religious institutions fare no better [than public ones]. Religious schools, adoption agencies, and other charities would face federal sanction for operating according to basic biology and mainstream Biblical teaching on sex and marriage. Outrageously, this act exempts itself from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
We might well imagine that the act would end up in court within hours of passage. But there is oppression in that too. Litigation takes time and costs money. Just ask the Little Sisters of the Poor.
In the meantime, the doors of ministries would close. Many forever even if there is relief from the courts.
And that might be a big if.
I have a friend who was involved in the pro-life cause before 1973. I was still in high school
She battled against abortion before the Supreme Court issued the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions. Decisions that legalized abortion until birth for any reason.
Until birth for any reason.
The decisions went far beyond what the pro-abortion side considered to be their wildest dreams.
“We thought we could count on the courts,” she told me shortly after I began my own pro-life efforts in 1979. I’ve never forgotten.
Around the same time I was reading a book whose title and author I’ve lost–but whose opening example has stayed with me all these years.
The author presented an expectant mother determining to never allow society’s gender preconceptions to affect her child. She would raise her child in an environment that would laud feminist ideals.
This child would not wear dresses, would play with both dolls and toy trucks alike. She would give the child a name that did not assume a gender.
She planned. She prepared.
Labor. Delivery. Birth.
The mother’s first words upon the arrival of the child?
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
Why, the author pondered, did she ask so eagerly and so quickly after denying the importance of gender for so long?
Because it matters. Our gender makes us who we are more than this mother had been willing to admit.
People are free today to be openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.
But people must also be free, if they are to remain free, to live out religious convictions, to run ministries accordingly, and raise children with biblical principles in mind.
These freedoms are at risk.
And we may soon have to ask ourselves how to manage in a new dark night of oppression based on our conviction that men are men and women are women.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โWhat is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.โ โ Marcus Tullius Cicero
In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Fantine is a single mother who loses her job for having a child out of wedlock. That’s the pretext her supervisor uses to fire her for rejecting his advances.
Fantine falls on terrible times. Those who are caring for her child are extorting all her income, lying to her that the child is ill and her medicine is expensive.
Fantine sells her hair and teeth before succumbing to the demand for her body.
She dies destitute but not before extracting a promise from her supervisor’s boss to be a savior to her child.
Today, Fantine’s story repeats itself with more than one twist. Both men and women are selling their bodies virtually on OnlyFans, a social media site on which members pay to view pictures and videos of those they follow.
OnlyFans has processed $1.2 billion since it began, making founder Timothy Stokely worth $120 million.
The ABC piece reads like a commercial. No other voice gets the chance to present a different perspective. ABC provides no discussion of sexual exploitation. And not a peep about porn addiction.
Instead, ABC calls such “sex work” empowering.
The report shows viewers a creative way to make money during the pandemic. Sex work is a ticket to “financial freedom.”
One interviewee says the work requires self-promotion, “which is really difficult when you have a ready, saturated landscape of people who have those large, large followings they’re bringing to OnlyFans.”
It’s an ironic celebration of the free market as an OnlyFan member asserts that he got involved because he was comfortable with his sexuality, and there was “a need”–in other words, a market.
ABC is streaming the story, “‘OnlyFans: Selling Sexy’ on Hulu.”
Now a major television network has told millions more where to find porn, how to participate in it, and how to turn a buck by being part of it.
All without allowing a word of protest or a hint that there might be regrettable effects later. The reporter and a participant admitted and disdained that a “stigma” sometimes goes along with such work.
OnlyFans and ABC’s coverage prompt the question of what can come next.
What follows is a logical result. More people buy into a lie that selling their bodies won’t damage their psyches or their souls. It will only build their bank accounts.
And more people will carry their wounds, addictions, and a perpetual online presence into future relationships and eventual physical decline.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“They were my bedtime stories,” my brother told me once of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
I imagine our Dad retelling the passage when Achilles dragged Hector’s body around the city of Troy for seven days and then saying, “Good night. Sleep well.”
Of course, there is much more to Homer’s works. For Western Civilization, Homer helped define what it means to be a hero.
But my favorite part of this remembrance is how Dad got the stories, to begin with.
Dad was 13 and one of 11 children recently orphaned. Some of the children were already grown. Others went to live with their grandmother. Dad found a home with two women who needed someone to do the man jobs around the house.
Division of labor by gender was big in the past.
One day he discovered his hostesses taking down curtains and washing windows. He asked what he could do to help and received this reply.
“This is women’s work, George. Go outside and play.”
But playmates were no longer around. He wandered off to the local library and inquired of the librarian for “some good books.”
She gave him Homer’s classics.
From Alan Jacobs: “To see the art of our ancestors can be an incredibly powerful thing; but we want also, we can’t help but want also, the human voice, to hear those who came before us speak to us.”
Jacobs points out that we hear those who speak our hearts, but we also learn from those who are different from us. The same in some ways but different from us is what we find in the writings of the past.
Even the story of dad’s guardians sending him away rather than inviting him into “women’s work” teaches us something of what the past was.
Learning about the past can lead us to ask how we got from there to here.
I tell them that the Greeks didn’t marry the women they carried off after sacking a city. They didn’t settle into a life of domestic partnership.
And marriage wasn’t the primary life relationship for the ancients. The friendship between men was their top relational concern–as we see in the story of Achilles and Patroclus.
In class, I get to explain what the world was like before Christ–and how it changed for the better because He walked here on earth.
I explain that social groups become civilizations when they become writers. When oral traditions, stories, laws, and in the case of the Bible, inspiration take a written form.
Even so, we continue to pass stories down both orally and through writing.
My great-niece in Texas is teaching Homer’s works to her students. She is four generations removed from Dad.
And the story goes on from thousands of years ago.
But it won’t end here.
A seventh-grader last week couldn’t contain his enjoyment as we discussed Homer’s tales.
“This is a really good weird story,” he said.
Good enough to pass on to his own children someday?
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It’s snowing outside. And it’s cold. And television viewing options are, well, less than desirable. What to do?
Many subscribe to Netflix and find some worthwhile viewing there. During our family’s Covid and Christmas break, we re-subscribed for a time to watch Hillbilly Elegy, which did not disappoint.
The acting, directing, and storytelling were superb. J.D. Vance’s story is the American story, and this movie alone makes the subscription fee worthwhile.
Another great find on Netflix was Wish Man. The biopic tells the inspiring story of the founding of the Make A Wish Foundation.
Jacob Engels’ review of Wish Man points out that it’s “become increasingly rare, if not impossible to find films like ‘Wish Man’ that can get their message across without being vulgar or unnecessarily graphic.”ย
Pureflix is a movie-membership site that endeavors to provide just that kind of entertainment. The company came to notoriety through the blockbuster God’s Not Dead film series.
Pureflix is a movie site that you can let your kids watch without worry.
Some of the fare, honestly, is so-so. But enough of it is good that subscription is worthwhile.
Late last year, AFFIRM, a subsidiary of Sony, bought Pureflix. It’s reasonable to expect an uptick in quality–with the hope that the high standards of storytelling without vulgarity or graphic violence will remain.
So put an extra log in the woodstove or fireplace, grab a hot chocolate, and happy viewing.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
But many students today are waking up to yet another virtual school day. Logging on. Doing their work. Missing interaction with friends and mentoring adults.
It’s the opposite of what used to be. What seems so long ago. Sledding, snowman building, hot chocolate, and digging out.
I think back to last year in March when the governor announced that schools would close “for two weeks.”
I was in the grocery store later that day with a large number of my town’s fellow citizens. Shelves of canned and paper goods, nearly cleared. Yet the mood was like a holiday but even lighter. We hadn’t had a snow day that year. Not even a delay. And now we were getting a spring break.
A break from which some have not yet returned.
I talked with a class of high school students last week (our small school is in-person) about human purpose–about our need to engage others and do work.
They agreed that even playing video games gets old without human fellowship.
They understand something perhaps only experience can teach. They have a new appreciation for the everyday routine they had before COVID.
I think, every so often, of Dawid Sierakowiak, a Jewish teen in Lodz, Poland, during the Holocaust. Dawid (pronounced David) kept journals a la Anne Frank. When the Nazi occupation came, Jews were no longer allowed to go to school.
I remember Dawid’s torment at not being permitted to learn. It was the opposite of what I witnessed in the grocery store last year. But Dawid understood that his “school vacation” was not to be just two weeks.
He was right.
Had students understood last year that many of them would be away from their friends for nearly a year, the mood in the store would have been somber.
Humans yearn for fellowship. We need each other. We need something to do besides games.
Many young people understand now that having to go to school–getting to go–is a gift.
It’s a gift I hope our town soon experiences after so long.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Worthy are You, O Lord; worthy are You, O God, to receive glory and honor and power. You alone created all things, and through Your will and by Your design, they exist and were created,”Revelation 4:11, The Voice.
Through God’s will and by His design, we exist. All of us. In all conditions. With seemingly much to offer. And with seemingly nothing.
God wills. He designs. He creates. And He loves what He creates–especially the ones He made in His own image–human beings.
“Then God surveyed everything He had made, savoring its beauty and appreciating its goodness,” Genesis 1:31, IBID.
Justin Hawkins retells the story of a mother who denied her child a safe, uncomplicated surgery that would save his life.
She could not see the beauty within nor savor the goodness of a child she considered imperfect. One with an extra chromosome. One with Down syndrome.
It took eleven days for the child to die. He starved to death for lack of a procedure any “normal” child would have received without question.
You might be surprised to learn that the account Hawkins gives is from 1963–ten years before Roe v. Wade legalized the killing of such children in the womb.
This child’s killing wasn’t in the womb. His death happened in a small room in a sanitized hospital. In America.
Legal justice came to no one for the crime. No justice on this side of eternity.
The 1973 accounting that Hawkins quotes, written by James Gustafson, quotes a doctor who explains that, even in 1963, “a different standard” applied to the disabled.
“That is, there is a different standard. . . . There is this tendency to value life on the basis of intelligence. . . . [Itโs] a part of the American ethic.”
A great irony is that many medical personnel, who excel through their intelligence, seem unable to empathize with those who will lack academic abilities in life.
On the other hand, as Hawkins explains, “researchers found that when placed into an experiment in which a researcher feigned pain to study the responses of children, children with Down Syndrome were more likely than other children to attend and attempt to comfort the researcher than did typically-developing children.”
It seems these children have something to offer after all. Kindness and compassion, so often missing today. In rejecting them, we have missed what they can show us and give us.
But Hawkins has seen what so many of us haven’t. He peppers his article with anecdotes from the life of his sister Jenna who has Down syndrome. Jenna came to be after the capability to diagnose disorders such as hers before birth.
He notes, ” [I]t would likely come as little surprise to any family that has decided to carry a child with Down Syndrome to term that the BBC reported in October 2020 that women were offered abortions up to fifteen times over the course of their pregnancies, even after repeatedly signaling that they did not want the procedure (my own mother [Hawkins and Jenna’s mother] recalls being asked five times over the course of fifteen minutes).”
Entrenched in the minds of medical overseers is the conviction that the death of the imperfect is necessary for the lives of the rest of us to contain beauty and goodness.
Through that way of thinking, we have lost so much goodness and beauty.
America is now 48 years since Roe and Doe, the SCOTUS decisions that decreed such deaths legal.
If we gave a moment of silence to every child (62.5 million) who has died in the womb since those decisions, we would stand silent for nearly twelve years.
How much longer would we have to stand for the many innocents who have died outside the womb for the crime of imperfection?
God wills. He designs. He creates children. All of us imperfect in some way.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“The trouble with socialism,” said Oscar Wilde, “is that it would take up too many evenings.”
Some might argue whether what we are dealing with, what is ahead for us, is socialism. But we can’t dispute that our thinking and conversations (and social media interactions) about the state of America are consuming our evenings (and much of the rest of the day, as well).
In Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind, Alan Jacobs tells us about Horace–a political dissident in exile. A friend bestows the gift of a farm on Horace, who, separated from the engagement he enjoyed in Rome, begins to write letters, poetry actually, to advise others–and us.
Jacobs writes, “It is useful to see that these anxieties have plagued people who lived so long ago, even if we feel [these same anxieties] with particular intensity today. . . .
“Horace exhorts [his reader], exhorts himself, exhorts us, to shift our attention from those compulsions [our fears] toward questions that really and always matter–‘Where is it virtue comes from?’–because even by just exploring those questions, . . . we’re pushing back against the tyranny of everyday anxieties.”
I’m not suggesting–and I don’t believe Jacobs is either–that we stick our heads in the sands of old books and disregard what’s going on around us.
Instead, we can use older texts. He’s thinking ancient. I’m currently reading a 1960s text about a great ancient–Cicero.
To each his own form of processing.
But many, Jacobs asserts, won’t look to the past because of a way of thinking that’s emerged in recent times.
“There is an increasing sense not just that the past is sadly in error, is superannuated and irrelevant and full of foul ideas that we’re well rid of, but that it actually defiles us–its presence makes us unclean.
Jacobs asserts that this sense of defilement results from information overload and the sense that the “world is not only changing but changing faster and faster.”
As we yearn to slow down, the world moves at a faster pace. That pace and the direction of the change that’s unfolding seem daunting.
Part of that slowing down, Jacobs asserts, is to feed our minds the bread of the past, of the dead, and to feed it to children as well.
“The dead, being dead, speak only at our invitation: they will not come uninvited to our table. They are at our mercy, like the flock of shades who gather around Odysseus when he comes as a living man to the land of Hades.”
And let’s remember what Odysseus received during his visit to Hades: wisdom telling him how to go forward into an uncertain future filled with all kinds of perils.
We can look back for that same kind of wisdom.
It awaits our attention. And it withholds its benefits until we sit with it and partake.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Imagine that you’re walking home as twilight descends. You’re tired after spending a day caring for a sick neighbor. And you’ve made the mistake of staying too late. The walk home is three miles long. Darkness descends.
You’ve walked through a stand of trees and are about to cross a meadow and enter a forest. The gray sky lifts your gaze to a supernatural vision. Four hands hold a sheet over a corpse. You hear a voice saying, “The Lord have mercy on the people. The Lord have mercy on the people. The Lord have mercy on the people.”
That is the situation Harriet Prescott Spofford sets up in her 1860 short story “Circumstance.” Spofford based her work on an incident that happened to her great-grandmother during America’s pioneer days.
The story is worth a look in these days of turmoil.
Spofford’s story features an unnamed protagonist–an everywoman walking metaphorically through life where she faces the challenges of ministry, peril, and darkness to emerge into a new day.
The woman in the story shakes off her vision. She is not prone to fear. But fear soon overcomes her when a panther–an Indian Devil, in Spofford’s words–grabs her, hoists her into a tree, and makes clear his intentions to enjoy her as a meal.
Instinctively, she yells. The animal pauses. She calls to her husband realizing he is too far away to help. But she notices that her vocalizing has caused the panther to stop chewing on her.
She begins to sing, regaling the panther with a range of songs through the night. The songs begin close to home. She thinks of her husband, her infant in the cradle, starting with nursery and dance tunes.
But soon the music shifts to that of a Methodist hymnal. That’s significant because John Wesley organized his song collection differently from other hymnals.
Most church songbooks follow the Church calendar. Wesley’s follows the structure of The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan’s account of an everyman’s journey from conviction to confession to Christian journey, ultimately to the Celestial City–Heaven.
The woman sings through the night. She’s exhausted. She’s in pain. As morning dawns, her voice begins to fail. She hears noises she at first thinks an animal is making. But she comes to realize they are human steps.
Her husband, having become concerned about her extended absence, arrives carrying their child and his musket. She continues to sing with a raspy voice.
He takes aim at the cat but can’t get a clear shot. Her voice continues to falter.
It’s only when she stops, when she can longer connect words and melody, that the animal pauses. He’s enjoying the music and wants it to continue.
The cat shifts his position. The man shoots. She is saved.
Spofford brings a clear picture of salvation–not by our own work. The woman’s own work only delays inevitable death. His work after hers ends rescues her.
It’s a wonderful story, and the man and woman think it’s ended. It has not. (Full spoiler ahead.)
The man carries the child and the weapon. He carries the future and the means of protection.
His wife follows as they head home. He reaches the top of a hill as she notices a footprint on the ground. As she rises to stand next to him, they survey the results of an attack that annihilated their community.
All who stayed behind in what they thought was a safe place are dead. All that remains are smoldering cabins.
The attack of the devil animal in the dark was hard and horrible. But the attack was a gift that saved their lives.
We live in a time where things look bleak. It’s dark outside. Many of us feel under attack.
A new day will come on this shore or on the other. We can have hope. Perhaps the panther that wants to eat us is, in reality, a means of protection.
We don’t know what is happening on the other side of a hill where we thought it was safe.
We can trust the providential God who leads us into the woods. And back out again.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It’s become a tradition for me to select a stack of books I propose to read in the new year. I adjust the list as the year progresses. New titles find a place there. Others fall away.
Last year’s list altered when, in the spring, I committed to teaching middle school classrooms in the fall of 2020. I sought out versions of The Iliadand TheOdysseyfor that age group.
So far, I’ve found Rosemary Sutcliff’s versions to be accessible and complete, including much of the back story and details from The Aeneid to round out her version of The Iliad. The Wanderings of Odysseusis proving to be just as satisfying. Sutcliff’s books form a fine foundation for middle-schoolers and for adults wanting to brush up on classical literature.
The image above is of a book I’ve read twice already–first in my teen years, later as a thirty-something. It becomes more profound each time I pick it up.
Taylor Caldwell’s novel about the Roman Senator Marcus Tullius Cicero, A Pillar of Iron, depicts the dismantling of Rome’s republic on the cusp of Christ’s birth. (Cicero died in 43 BC, and according to Caldwell, was awaiting the Messiah’s birth.)
Caldwell saw parallels between Rome’s fall and the state of America circa 1965. So far, my reading indicates that the parallels have only deepened.
Caldwell dedicated the book to the late President John F. Kennedy (D), Senator Barry Goldwater (R), and Senator Thomas Dodd (D)–whose philosophies were probably more in line with each other’s than their party affiliations might lead us to assume.
I’m finding much history and wisdom within the pages.
History and wisdom–themes I’ll pursue this year.
The Power of the Powerless is a paperback (but the link takes you to a pdf version) containing an essay by Vaclav Havel, who, in 1989, became the first democratically elected president of Czechoslavakia, and later the Czech Republic.
I expect a big difference between Cicero and Havel–one whose culture is descending into totalitarianism, and the other whose culture is escaping it.
A novel I may propose for my older students in the next school year is A Canticle for Leibowitz. From what I gather, it’s post-apocalyptic satire. And according to Goodreads, it’s an account of “the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes.”
History repeating itself, another emerging theme.
I’ve thrown an eclectic collection into this year’s stack: The Ickabog–by J.K. Rowling. I’m one of the few on the planet who hasn’t delved into Harry Potter. In this new book, Rowling weaves a mythical tale–a morality play. I’m eager to see where it goes.
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien–because I haven’t already read it. And I’m eager to see where Bilbo Baggins goes.
And another by Caldwell–Testimony of Two Men (1968) is set at the turn of the twentieth century. It tells the story of a controversial doctor pushing medicine into a modern era–beginning with the concept of handwashing. I’ve read this one before too. It’s worth another go too.
And I’m planning to do Dannah Gresh’s Bible study, Habakkuk: Remembering God’s Faithfulness When He Seems Silent. Habakkuk is a three-chapter, Old Testament book of prophesy. And the circumstances swirling around us today make this study an appropriate way to remember that God is with us–even when He seems silent.
So happy reading. Please let me know what you plan to read this year, and if you’ve read anything on my list, what you think about it.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Through Advent, every day gets darker until we arrive at the cusp of Christmas. Winter solsticeโDecember 21stโ is the longest night of the year. Light increases each day following.
Christmas comes during the time of year pagans marked the winter solstice, the shortest dayโbut the end of encroaching darkness. Itโs a feast to celebrate light overcoming darkness.
Christmas comes near Hanukkahโthe Jewish festival of lightsโcommemorating victory over an effort to eradicate Jewish civilization. Itโs a feast to memorialize one dayโs worth of sanctified oil fueling a lamp for eight days. Eight days to celebrate light overcoming darkness.
Twenty-twenty has been a year of darkness and separation. My husband and I stood in our kitchen a couple of weeks ago, both of us steeped in a COVID fog of fever and cough. The radio played โHave Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.โ I pointed out the lyricโโNext year all our troubles will be far away,โ commenting that this yearโs troubles were unimagined last year.
I imagined people singing that song in 1944โthe year Judy Garland first sang it in Meet Me in Saint Louis. The movie opened in November of that year.
Imagine going to the theater to see a light musicalโand to watch newsreels. People got their information from newspapers, radio, and movie newsreelsโthe precursor to television news.
What youโd see in newsreels around then might have included a race riot among US military personnel at Guam. Bandleader Glenn Millerโs plane disappearing over the English Channel. A typhoon hitting Admiral Halseyโs fleet in the South Pacific, costing America almost 800 souls. And Axis forces surrounding US troops at Bastogne.
Much of the news was grim. But Allied forces were pushing back. General Anthony McAuliffe, the American commander at Bastogne, responded to a German demand for surrender with one word: โNuts.โ
In dark days, light emerged.
Itโs hard to perceive the depth of darkness people felt when we know now how the story ended. Allied forces converged; McAuliffeโs rebuttal stands as a rebuke to defeat.
But itโs harder to see the light when we sit immersed in the darkness of our own days with little hint of light ahead.
Was it a dark and starless night before the angels came to the shepherds? They were shepherds whoโd been waiting for the coming of Messiah. They didnโt expect a blast of light and music with angels singing news of His coming.
The shepherds outside Bethlehem that night were Levitical shepherds. Ironically, they were ritualistically unclean. They walked through feces. They touched dead things.
The angel told them to find a baby lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling cloths. To shepherds raising sheep for Levitical sacrifice, swaddling cloths would be vastly significant. For a lamb to qualify for sacrifice it had to be perfect, without blemish.
The shepherds swaddled lambs intended for sacrificeโthey wrapped them in cloths to protect them. The angel saying that they would find the infant wrapped in swaddling cloths indicated the baby would be a sacrifice. That baby was the Messiah.
Many would have expected a Jewish king to be born in Jerusalemโthe city of the kingโnot Bethlehem. But Bethlehem was the City of Davidโa keeper of sheep.
Godโs choice of a birthplace for his son wasnโt just a fulfillment of prophecyโwhich it was. It was also a symbol that Christ the King would be the fulfillment of sacrifice on our behalf.
Christ was the sinless Son of God, the perfect Lamb to be sacrificed for the shepherdsโ sinsโfor our sinsโfor the things we walk through and touch that make us unclean.
God invited the unclean to see His Son. Those who reject Him today are yet among the invited.
People seek purpose and meaning today. But they cannot find it without Christ. He brings peace on earthโwithin our hearts. He is the perfect sacrifice for us.
Christmas proclaims the coming of a King who is the light who overcomes darkness.
โJesus spoke to them again, saying, โI am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,โโ John 8:12.
There is a Christmas light to light the worldโChrist Himself.
โAnd the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Fatherโs only Son, full of grace and truth,โ John 1:14.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โThe way my family anticipates Christmas feels different from the way we look forward to almost anything else. For other things, weโre excited about learning, seeing, or exploring something new. But Christmas is different. We look forward to it all year. We count down the days, just to experience it nearly exactly as we always have.โ Joanna Gaines, Magnolia Journal, Issue 9~
Twenty-twenty has been a year very much unlike any other year. For many of us, this Christmas will be unlike any other as well. The dream of experiencing the holiday season exactly as we have in the past seems impossible.
In many ways, though, this time is much like any other. Christmas decorations are up in every kind of store. The mall has had the tree up with the lights on for weeks. Grocery stores feature similar decorations and music. Cranberries, turkeys, hams, and cookie ingredients line the shelves–all to evoke our memories of holidays of the past.
I doubt we’ll see long lines of children waiting to see Santa this year. Something that would have tortured me had it happened in the ’70s and ’80s–that period of time when my children posed 16 years in a row for Santa pics (toward the end, much to the chagrin of the first- and second-born).
And I don’t expect the kids’ choir will entertain a crowd in the center of the mall this year either.
Much will be different this year. But much will be the same. We can still enjoy the music, lights, and food. We can wish each other blessings in person or virtually. We can work to remember that it’s the love that matters more than whether we are in person or online.
As we search for finding that sameness in the holidays this year, may we remember those who’ve had it worse than we have. Even if we feel we are at our lowest, it often isn’t difficult to find someone who’s feeling lower than we are.
Even though this year won’t be exactly the same (no year ever is), we are drawn to the season of peaceโa respite from the world of bitter politics and bad news.
We will find the joy of the season as we proclaim Godโs goodness to others–those we love–those in need around us–those driving by our houses whose lives we don’t know.
We are the people of light. And the darkness around us can never overcome the light.
That is the great promise of Emmanuel–the Light of the world with us.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Iโve been making them for more than five decades. I began when I was ten. And Iโve probably eaten more than my own weight in raw dough. Ever since my mother first let me loose in the kitchen.
Itโs what she did when I was young. Itโs what I did as a tween, then teen. What I did when my children were young. What I still do now.
Baking cookies.
My repertoire has expanded and contracted over the years to include peanut butter blossoms (chocolate kiss cookies), anise pizzelles, nut puffs (a harkening back to my childrenโs Italian heritage), buckeyes, haystacks, cocoa cookies with peanut butter chips, and just added a few years ago, a gingerbread cookie with peanut butter chips (a personal inventionโwith an option for butterscotch chips too).
Primarily, though, there is the chocolate chip cookie. It is the one where I began. It is my mainstay recipe.
In the hard days of single-motherhood, I clung to tradition. I refused to settle for less than real vanilla extract.
I tweaked the recipe over the years. Switching from half margarine and half butter to all butter. From half granulated, half brown sugar to all dark brown sugar. Some extra chips thrown in. The recipe is now my own. Itโs been years since I checked a recipe to determine the next step.
As baseball was for Terence Mann in Field of Dreams, so the cookie has been a constant throughout my life. Cookie baking threads the quilt of my years together. It connects seasons of anticipation, yearning, trial, fulfillment, and joy.
When I was a novice baker, my older brother was in the navy, out to sea in the Mediterranean. I sent him some cinnamon coated cut-out cookies. He wrote back that, if I ever shipped that recipe again, I should be sure to include a spoon.
Another year, I baked and baked and baked. And my other brother and his crowd of friends ate and ate and ate. My mother frowned at noon on Christmas Day as someone ate the last cookie.
Then I was a young wife experimenting with cookie recipes. Some fell off the list; others remained. The children grew to love lemon sugar cookies, sometimes a gift for my father.
The year I had a new baby, my third, I learned that baking early and storing everything in the same container just makes all the cookies taste the sameโnone of which was good.
As a single mother, there was a year I hardly baked at all because money was so tight and time too pinched. A demanding job provided little money and ate my time. I still baked peanut butter blossoms.
Then there were years when Christmas cookies were on our table and in the mail to a son deployed overseas. None were of the cinnamon crumbly type.
My mind can still return to the kitchen of my youth. Motherโs old cabinets that went from floor to ceiling. An old porcelain sink with its own drain board in the pantry. My Easy Bake Ovenโminiature pies and cakes. The cinnamon cookies in a box of hope to please the recipient. My eventual graduation to the oven.
Mental snapshots of toddlers milling around my own tiny kitchen waiting to taste. It was their task, their responsibility to testโto make sure all was good enough for us. Few concoctions failed. Some did, however, burn, the result of me forgetting to set the timer. Years flash through my mind in Technicolor. Handfuls of hope and pleased chocolate-smeared faces.
What were once Tupperware containers in the freezer are now individual cookie trays for each household. A taste of memory from Mom to grace their tables, evoke their memories, and form new ones.
This weekend has marked a tradition of more than a decade and a half. The day after Thanksgiving has been the day I baked cookies and made an easy fudge recipe for our local Armed Forces Mothers unit to ship off to domestic and overseas deployed troops.
Each member contributed a serving of cookies and fudge for each container to be packed into the larger boxes containing donated items and purchased gifts to be shipped to those serving our country. Our organization has packed between 60 and 100 or so boxes every year. I joined in 2003 after my middle son joined the reserves and departed for Iraq. His younger brother has since deployed twice. We packed enough homemade treats to satisfy a number of troops, many miles from home.
Tradition.
For the last several years, two granddaughters have assisted with box packing. Weโve packed a box or two followed by a trip to a local Wendyโs afterward. A few years ago, one of the girls remarked: โI know itโs Christmas when we do this.โ
Because of COVID this year and an uptick of cases locally, box packing is limited to our group president and her family gathering supplies and sending fewer boxes themselves.
My tradition loving heart hurt to hear the news of a tradition broken.
Yet as long as we stay well, these two oldest grand-girls and I plan to celebrate a modified version of another tradition. Every year for the last dozen years, we have attended a performance of The Nutcracker ballet preceded or followed by Asian cuisine. We had hoped to include younger girls this year. But since COVID cancelled live performances this year, I bought a DVD featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov.
The theater wonโt be fancy like some weโve haunted over the years. Just my living room, as we watch a world-class performance.
And cookies. There will have to be cookies.
Perhaps cookie baking for the troops will return next year. Perhaps weโll see that missing tradition restored for 2021.
But this year with the Baryshnikov DVD, I expect weโre marking the end of one tradition and the beginning of a new oneโwith a constant of Christmas cookies stirred in. Old and new mixed together to make memories.
May you make your own sweet memories as you anticipate the celebration of Christโs birth in 2020!
About the Author
Author Nancy E. Head was a single mother with five children under the age of 14 when many in the Church came to her aid. Her story illustrates common problems in our society such as the fracturing of families and communities, reflecting a splintering Church.
Alienated families and a riven Church cannot minister as effectively to their own members or others until they find accord. Nancy is the author of Restoring the Shattered: Illustrating Christ’s Love Through the Church in One Accord. She leads a small group ministering to the needy in her community.
You can read Nancyโs HEADlines column on the 4th Saturday each month at Mustard Seed Sentinel.
Photo Credits: Family Collection
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โThe madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.โ (Chesterton, Orthodoxy 34)
In the effort to end the slave trade in Great Britain, William Wilberforce and his allies โlooked to the heavensโ for help because in the late 1700s and early 1800s, โscience was not as advanced as it is today.โ Thatโs what I read in a student paper once.
This student saw faith in God as outdated. He resided within the realm of reason and excluded the possibility of a non-material world having found faith in the โheavensโ unreasonable.
What he missed was how Wilberforce, outside the context of his Christian faith, could have come up with the idea that slavery and many other ills of his time were evil.
The notion that slavery, or any other social woe, could end through a secular perspective is a much more unreasonable idea than searching the โheavensโ for moral leading. The theme of faith as unreasoned is not new, but it is now a dominant voice instead of being a secondary one as it was years ago.
In 1962, William E. Barrett published The Lilies of the Field, a novella about Homer Smith, a nomad Baptist handyman who builds a chapel for a group of Catholic Eastern European nuns in the barrenness of the southwestern U.S. after World War II. The chapel becomes Homer Smithโs life dream, what he believes will be his legacy. But the task seems so big. The needs loom so large.
The book captivated my adolescent mind. At the time, most Americans overwhelmingly found Christianity a perfectly reasonable place to put their faith. Yet faithless reason had gained a foothold.
Barrett included a character who, aligning himself with the modern student/author would say, โFaith. It is a word for what is unreasonable. If a man believes in an unreasonable thing, that is faithโ (96).
This man, so sure of himself, is a foil to Homer who has his doubts. At one point, Homer leaves the nuns and the community, some who also doubt the church building can become reality.
But once Homer has left his dream, the dream does not leave Homer. The vision of the nuns and the unfinished chapel calls him back.
When he returns, the community surprises him with donations of bricks, the literal building blocks of his dream. Everyone in the community contributes, that is, except, at first, the โreasonableโ man without faith. Clinging to faithless reason, that man arrives one day to see Homerโs project.
Homerโs reaction: โThis man probably did not believe in bricks. It was not reasonable that all of these bricks were here, so they were notโ (99).
Faith is a step beyond reason. The Church is real. Over the centuries, God has built His Church. But God does not build with bricks man has made. He builds with stones He has formed.
โYou also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christโ (I Peter: 2:5).
What then should we make of our understanding of science? Letโs begin with the scientific method.
A Franciscan monk developed it. Our modern concept of seeking to understand the world came from people who were seeking to better understand the works of the Creator God.
According to Pew, today scientists are less likely to believe in God than the rest of society. Given the pervasive teaching that science trumps faith, that is no surprise.
Even so, more than half of all scientists do believe in God or at least some higher power. That more than half believe there is more to the universe than what we can see is surprising.
Those scientists realize that faith is not devoid of reason. Reason without faith makes man a god, an idea that has led us to genocide and licentiousness.
Yet, the question of faith cannot be one of numbers. It is not more reasonable to have faith because many others don’t believe. A majority is capable of being misled.
C.S. Lewis understood that there was no war between faith and reason. โThe battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the otherโ (139).
Wilberforce and those standing with him in faith knew it too. It was their faith and their reason, their looking to the heavens, that so changed the world.
This year I watched as Barrett’s book captivated a group of seventh and eighth-graders. I plan to introduce the book soon to another group of students.
The light of reasoned faith still finds hearts and minds to illuminate–young hearts and minds whose faith is working through reason.
We are living in days of darkness and division. But there is light in childlike faith.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
@nancyehead is a truth-telling #writer who pens facts that reveal the dark side of issues about which we may have covered our eyes. Her writing is candid, bracing, intellectual & informative, both blogging and published work.โฆ https://melindainman.com/?p=27847 via @MelindaVInman
NANCY E. HEAD
Nancy E. Head is an author, teacher, and activist who has also run for political office. She is staunchly pro-life and often writes on this topic as well as the moral condition of America and how we are losing many of the values that were common in the past.
Nancy blogs weekly. Over several years of reading her work, Iโve found her to be one of the most candid authors Iโve ever encountered. Her wealth of experiences give her a candor and yet kindness toward those in difficult situations, and her strength of character produces writing directed at those difficulties in ways that are straightforward and frank. I learn much from her weekly blog about where our nation is headed morally and ethically.
โIn the 1950s kids lost their innocence . . . In the 1960s, kids lost their authority [the means of direction]. . . In the 1970s, kids lost their love. It was the decade of me-ism dominated by hyphenated words beginning with self. . . Self-image, Self-esteem, Self-assertionโฆ It made for a lonely world. . . In the 1980s, kids lost their hope. . . In the 1990s, kids lost their power to reason. . . In the new millennium, kids woke up and found out that in the midst of all this change, they had lost their imagination,โ Ravi Zacharias.
Innocence, authority, love, hope, reason, imagination, all are necessary elements of a functioning people in a functioning society.
Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in 1950โback when there was still innocence, hope, and imagination. The book is about a society that can no longer find itself. The people have no books, no imagination, and no sense of purpose and meaning.
Bradbury depicts these losses in one of the most chilling moments in literature. A man comes home from work to find his wife passed outโoverdosed on sleeping pills. He calls for help assuming the 1950s practice that a doctor will actually come to the house to set her right.
Instead, help comes in the form of two cigarette smoking technicians with a snakelike vacuum cleaner of sorts. They sweep out the womanโs system. Sheโll be fine in the morning. Itโs no big deal, they say; itโs common. So common, in fact, that they get nine or ten calls a night. Every night. . . .
Nancy is the author of Restoring the Shattered: Illustrating Christโs Love Through the Church in One Accord. Currently, she is working on a middle reader childrenโs book, Jude and the Magic Birds (Working title).
Written in an easy-to-understand, conversational style, Restoring the Shattered is an account of Nancy E. Headโs journey through single-motherhood and poverty. The permanent divide between her and her husband led to a shattering of their family as the children settled into separate camps.
The story begins when Nancy and her children have little to eat. Through a miraculous intervention, God providesโand leads them along their way. Other interventions and more guidance came from people of different denominations, illustrating Christโs love through the larger Church.
When one of Nancyโs grown children became Catholic, she became more aware of the ways her own evangelical tradition often dismisses Catholic believers and misinterprets many of their doctrines. While doctrines may differ, so many essential beliefs are the same. Restoring the Shattered looks at the causes of the Reformation and other schisms, and how the original schism in Christianity happened because of a mistranslation.
Misunderstanding othersโ faith languages feeds so much separation today. Nancy encourages pursuing accord among evangelical, Catholic, and Christian Orthodox communities in order to lead the Church to the kind of ministry that helped Nancyโs family so much and rebuild the ruins of society through obedience to Christโs call for Christian accord.
During our years of need, Christians encouraged her as she earned a bachelorโs degree in English at Penn State and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Encouragement continued as she embarked on a career in journalism and later turned to a career in teaching, which has included two summers in China. She earned my masterโs degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Currently, Nancy is an instructor at Penn State Altoona and Great Commission Schools. When not teaching or writing, she restores antique quilts, craft projects for her grandchildren, and helps her husband lead a small group at their church devoted to ministering to the needy in their community.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was 2017. Donald Trump had just been inaugurated. The presidentโs bad behavior of the past frustrated many women. They decided to march on Washington in protest. But pro-life women were not welcome.
This event was exclusive to a particular mindsetโone that viewed the sanctity of human life stance with hostility.
But not all the women shared hostility for all things pro-life.
And that some women learned more about the pro-life perspective that day may simply be due to an aversion to the porta-potty.
If youโve ever marched in Washington, you are either acquainted with the porta-potty, aka porta-john, or you strategically plan your bathroom breaks. If you are marching in the cold of January, you work harder at the strategic plan of finding bathroom facilities.
In Building the Benedict Option, Leah Libresco tells the story of the Dominican friars of Washington, DC, who welcomed pro-choice protesters to use their bathroom facilities in 2017. The men opened their doors to women protesting the election of Donald Trumpโprotesting the rise toย officeย of a president whose past behavior had been unsavory to put it mildlyโa president who claimed to be pro-life.
At first, it was only 12 women seeking to use the facilities; then it became more than 100. Libresco quotes the account of Brother Martin Davis:
โThe peculiar situation of some people wearing โGet your rosaries off my ovariesโ next to men wearing rosaries on their belts did not stop many [of the women] from inquiring into what brings us to live lives dedicated to Christโ (105-06).
Libresco explains that the friars answered the womenโs questions about their work and their beliefs about abortion and unborn life, among other topics. The grateful women then passed a hat collecting over $100 for the church.
They warned Brother Martin to avoid reading the text on the hat they passed.
It was an unlikely encounter and yet a profound one. The friars may have found the march discouraging. They might have withdrawn and stayed behind closed doors. They might have lost hope.
Libresco: โTo be a Christian means to believe that hopelessness is always a misapprehension at best, and, at worst, a form of spiritual attackโ (158).
More than 100 women saw the beauty of Christ that day and heard the message of life. The marchโs organizers tried to shut out that message. But a simple act of hospitality on a cold day shut the door against hostility. And it didnโt take much.
From Libresco: โ[T]he friars werenโt engaging in traditional witness. They werenโt preaching or participating in a street prayer vigilโ (106-07).
They were just being hospitable Christians. They obeyed a calling from God and opened a door where minds and hearts had been closed.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โThis day is called the feast of Saint Crispin,โ So said Shakespeareโs Henry V in his inspirational speech to his troops at Agincourt on October 25 in 1415.
French troops outnumbered Henryโs five to one. But the British had a secret weaponโthe armor-piercing long bow. Warfare would never be the same.
After the English victory, Henry proclaimed death to anyone who would take the glory from God for the day.
October 25 about 1100 years earlier was the day Crispin and his brother Crispinian became martyrs for their faith. They spread the Gospel and gave their lives for it.
And those events are not all that happened on that famous date.
October 25 is also the day of the infamous โCharge of the Light Brigadeโ in 1854. A day of much less success for the Brits who suffered severe losses in a desperate, misguided charge against Russian artillery at Balaklava during the Crimean War.
The incident inspired Alfred Lord Tennyson to record the brave effort in his famous aptly titled poem: โThe Charge of the Light Brigade.โ A portion follows:
โWhen can their glory fade? /Oh, the wild charge they made! /All the world wondered /Honor the charge they made.โ
In late October 1944, US Naval Admiral William โBullโ Halsey was in Leyte Gulf maintaining radio silence. But the rest of the American forces wanted to know where Halsey was.
An ensign crafting radio messages had studied literature at Harvard before the war and knew his Saint Crispinโs Day history. Asking Halseyโs location, he then tacked on padding words designed to confuse enemy decoders. His padding? โThe world wonders.โ
Halsey thought his disappearance was known to the world. Legend has it that he dispatched the ensign to an obscure island to sit out the rest of the war.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the biggest naval battle of the war. It lasted three days and ended on October 25. The Japanese fleet would never again see the effectiveness of its earlier days.
King Henry promised his men โthe greater share of glory.โ And that their names would be โhousehold words.โ But wars are won by anonymous heroes. Only students of literature remember some of the names of Henryโs โhappy few.โ
And few can name any of โNoble six hundredโ who charged the artillery this day so long ago. The anonymous message encoding ensign remains as anonymous as most who fought and died at Normandy and Bastogne, at Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima.
My father served as a chief petty officer in the South Pacific during World War II. He loved to tell the stories of the heroes of Agincourt and Balaklava and the unfortunate coding anti-hero of Leyte Gulf. He told my brothers and me about General Anthony McAuliffe who, when the German Army surrounded his forces in Bastogne in 1944 demanding his surrender, replied only โNuts!โ And the Allies prevailed.
Dad never thought of himself as a hero. The heroes, to him, were the ones who didnโt get to come home.
Dad did come home, married the woman heโd left behind, and raised three children.
And so we all grew up and married. After Mother died in 1975, Dad decided to sell the house and move into a small apartment. As we were helping him prepare for his move, my brother and I were cleaning the attic and musing over some of our finds. I still have twoโa silver sugar bowl and a veneered dresser that sits in my living room. But our most fascinating treasure was inside the top drawer of the otherwise empty dresserโa letter Dad had written to his future mother-in-law, Mother Miller, as he called her.
Heโd been waiting to deploy to the uncertainty of the South Pacific and wrote of his sense of โblank thrillโโa combination of โthe feeling of the unknown and also adventure.โ He discussed how much he enjoyed the navy and how glad he was to be with the men beside him. He expressed his eagerness to return to those he loved after the war. โBack home, I have a wonderful collection of friends; good ones. You and your family come first, Nan of this group being first. She means everything in life for meโand to think about her and the two of us together after the war makes all this worthwhile.โ
Dad wrote of three things that gave him a sense of security. First was his assurance in the men he was with: โin our commanders and the reason we are going, also we will be successful in our detail.โ The second was his friends at home and โthe strength my love for Nan gives me and hers for me.โ His third source of strength was his โfaith and trust in God.โ The first two addressed โmy worldly cares, the last, my spiritual โฆ I can leave tomorrow satisfied completely in everything I live for. Not a question in my mind of a thing left undone, or a word unkindly said, not righted, not a care.โ The letter was dated August 10, 1942, eight months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Years later I mentioned the letter to him. โI was saying goodbyeโ was his response, โjust in case.โ
The part of the letter that has always stuck with me is that he left โno word unkindly said, not righted.โ He had done all he could to make everything right with everyone he was leaving behind. He might have been able to convince himself that he didnโt have time to fix things with everyone or that whatever he had done wrong was not a big deal. Instead, โjust in case,โ he had made things right.
For thousands of men, โjust in caseโ came to be.
On June 6, 1944, Allied forces landed on Normandy beaches. By the time Paris was liberated more than two months later, nearly 73,000 allies had become Dadโs version of heroes.
June 6, 1994, marked fifty years since D-Day. Two of my sons were in elementary school then. Their teachers neglected to note the day. But both grew up to be soldiers. Both have served in war zones. One of them has gone twice. We will mark the days between October 25 and November 11 with pumpkins, corn stalks, and children dressed as super-heroes. On one of those days in between, our family will mark 104 years since our hero was born.
Most of the anonymous warriors of Europe and the South Pacific are gone now. Those who came home and those who did not are the heroes of history who endured the Great Depression and won World War II. They knew what it was to sacrifice for a great cause.
If we are wise enough to remember them well, they can still teach us.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
From Amanda Davison: “This is what we know: Women are being attacked, because as women, we hold influence. And . . . we know that when God gets a hold of a wifeโs heart, her marriage changes. Her family transforms, and generations are impacted.
Our first step as a ministry was a resource responding to wivesโ biggest need, which is to have intentional and meaningful time together as husband and wife โ to connect.”
The book offers letters from seventeen women who teach us how to make connecting in marriage a way of life, not just an occasional nod between two people as they come and go.
Marriage is hard. We get too busy, and the one we’ve pledged to love all our lives may be the person we neglect the most.
The problem compounds itself when we feel unloved because our husbands are stuck in their own roadways of busyness.
Davison knew just that situation. She wanted to fix her own marriage. And she wanted to develop a ministry that would help other wives fix theirs.
The seventeen contributors crafted short letters to readers as invitations to connect through scriptural principles.
There are questions at the end of each letter to allow the reader to personalize the text and help form a connection with God first and husband second.
One contributor is Karen Friday whose work is always worth a read–and a share.
This from her offering:
“[Jesus] didn’t give in to the temptation to defend. Instead he withdrew. He offered grace instead of the gratification proving them wrong would have provided. When we belong to Jesus, He defends us. And Christ defends marriage with the best interests of husband and wife in mind.
Dear Wife is a wonderful, encouraging read. I highly recommend it.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
One of my favorite aspects of fall is watching flocks of birds dance through the sky in synchronized motion.
So I offer this from the work of a grandson and former student, Aaron Hildebrand. You or someone you know could be like the bird in this poem. Let’s work to recognize the broken-winged among us and show grace.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Two teens stood across from my book table at a national event. They werenโt yet old enough to vote. But perhaps when they are, theyโll cast their ballots to excise their part of Virginia to make it part of West Virginiaโa harkening back to our Civil War. (Or our first Civil War?)
Imagine what these effortsโif successfulโmight lead to.
Political pundits speak of the conservative part of my own Pennsylvania in terms of the T across the north and through the center with Philadelphia in the east and Pittsburgh in the westโalthough Pittsburgh sometimes joins the T.
The T carried our Keystone State for Trump in 2016โeven in heavily Democratic Cambria Countyโcoal country.
If voters in the T decided to follow suit with southern Virginia voters, the bulk of Pennsylvania might also join West Virginia.
While proposals for state-splitting are still in their infancyโor perhaps in their early childhoodโit seems a good time to consider some of the ramifications.
For example, would Philadelphia decide to become part of New Jersey? Could Jersey support the costs of the City of Brotherly Love that rural PA taxpayers have helped to bear for decades?
What if the rural/conservative voters of every state thought it best to cut themselves free from every city that wanted to limit guns and fund abortions throughout gestation?
Would citiesโ leaders moderate some of their views to stem the tide of departure (and lost revenues)? Would rural folks bend? Can both sides occupy a middle ground for long?
Rural voters want to keep their guns. On farms or in nearby forests, guns have practical purposes completely unrelated to crime and unfathomable to many city-dwellers.
Conservative and liberal voters can only remain at an impasse over abortion. Room for compromise on this issue is scant because the unborn one either lives or dies. There is no state of in-between.
And there seems to be no room to bend among those who insist our abortion laws continue to go far beyond those of European countries that limit the procedure. The US is one of only seven countries that allows abortion after 20 weeks.
Secession and state-splitting sound far-fetched. But perhaps we are closer to making such dividing lines than we realize.
In American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Breakup, F.H. Buckley writes:
“[W]e are now facing another constitutional crisis, as we did in the 1850s, when Congress was unable to compromise on slavery or avert the impending civil war. Today again, changes that must be made seemingly can’t be made because of our divisions and failure to compromise. The Constitution was designed for another country, one in which people agreed on fundamental principles, and that’s not today’s America. We are divided on things that used to unite us, and we don’t like politicians who compromise on things we care about.”
Explaining that the framers assumed secession was permissible (“by the consent of the governed“), Buckley lays out the arguments the Constitution’s crafters made as they shaped the document different factions today see either as pliable or etched in stone. It cannot be both.
He makes the case that California, for example, if it seceded, would save “$103 billion … [paid] in federal taxes [more] than it receive[s] back from Washington” and, therefore, should be able to pay for its plethora of social programs. He notes later that California has never had a majority wanting to secede.
But that may change as the middle class continues to flee the Golden State. It also remains to be seen whether $103 billion in extra revenues could truly create the entitlement utopia its leaders seek to create.
Even with such efforts and proposals on the table in multiple places, it may still be hard to imagine the fracturing of states or an actual secession attempt. But hereโs part of what goodreads.com says about Buckleyโs discussion:
โAcross the world, large countries are staring down secession movements. Many have already split apart. Do we imagine that we, almost alone in the world, are immune? We had a civil war to prevent a secession, and weโre tempted to see that terrible precedent as proof against another effort. This book explodes that comforting belief and shows just how easy it would be for a state to exit the Union if thatโs what its voters wanted.
โBut if that isnโt what we really want, Buckley proposes another option, a kind of Secession Lite, that could heal our divisions while allowing us to keep our identity as Americans.โ
Secession Lite would require a live and let live mentality. And just that option is under consideration in the state of New York. Conservatives in that state have introduced bills in the state house and senate that would divide the Empire State into three regionsโNew Amsterdam, upstate New York; New York; Manhattan and the five boroughs; and the Montauk Region, Long Island, Westchester, and Rockland.
Chris Enloe writes:
โโNew Amsterdam & Montauk regional governments would have the power to repeal these unnecessary NYS regulations and bad laws that are killing jobs,โ Divide New York State Caucus explains, [Gannett journalist Julie] Sherwood reported. โWhile the New York regional government could enact those changes it wants for NYC only that upstate currently blocks.โโ
The bill remains in committee. But if it passes, it wonโt need approval from the US Congress as it would if it were proposing splitting New York into separate states.
Perhaps Buckley has found a philosophical mean that could ensure freedom of conscience. For example, freedom for children to openly pray in schools governed locally. Freedom for municipalities to respect life, if they choose. Freedom for pharmacists to refuse to provide the means for chemical abortion. And that could only happen if the Supreme Courtโwhose membership is a new battleground for our dayโwill refrain from dictating what must be for the whole country.
The unprecedented is what weโre experiencing in 2020. Our divided house hovers over a chasm of chaos. And chaos will continue unless we find a Golden Mean of citizenship we can agree onโor navigate how to go our separate ways.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“[W]e are now facing another constitutional crisis, as we did in the 1850s, when Congress was unable to compromise on slavery or avert the impending civil war. Today again, changes that must be made seemingly can’t be made because of our divisions and failure to compromise. The Constitution was designed for another country, one in which people agreed on fundamental principles, and that’s not today’s America. We are divided on things that used to unite us, and we don’t like politicians who compromise on things we care about.” F.H. Buckley~
Every school day, I stand with a handful of high school students to say the Pledge of Allegiance. But I’ve begun to stumble over the word “indivisible”. I’m no longer certain that the United States will remain united.
We are more divided than ever, without being at war. And some places across the country, some of our cities, really are war zones.
Buckley divides the book into three sections: “Part I: A Cure for a Divided People?” “Part II: A Cure for Bigness?” “Part III: Lesser Cures.”
It’s our bigness, he argues, that has caused unhappiness, division, and corruption. But our bigness has made us wealthy too.
Buckley presents the discussion our founders had as they strived to determine which form of government would work for these United States.
Explaining that the framers assumed secession was permissible (“by the consent of the governed“), Buckley lays out the arguments the Constitution’s crafters made as they shaped the document various factions today see either as pliable or etched in stone. It cannot be both.
He makes the case that California, for example, if it seceded, would save “$103 billion …[paid] in federal taxes than it receive[s] back from Washington” and, therefore, should be able to pay for the plethora of social programs its government embraces.
While he notes later that California has never had a majority wanting to secede, that may change as the middle class continues to flee the Golden State.
It also remains to be seen whether $103 billion in extra revenues could stem the flow of departures or truly develop the entitlement utopia its leaders seek to create.
Buckley points readers to other recent secession movements such as Brexit, the UK’s secession from the European Union, and Quebec’s near self-extraction from Canada, arguing that the prospect of official division will affect America too.
As you begin the book, you might expect, as I did, that Buckley will advocate for secession. But the book comes to a different, (and maybe I’m being a bit cynical) less likely, proposal–a live-and-let-live cohabitation.
Is such a compromise possible?
The quick read (135 pages, plus a few charts) is a compilation of keen analysis that aptly shows America’s melting pot is at the boiling point.
Buckley presents more than one solution.
Questions remain: Will we boil over or find a way to dwell beside each other in peace?
And will “peace” include freedom or an enforced perspective that once lay behind an iron curtain?
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Nearly 300 years ago, Jonathan Swift satirically proposed that the sale of Irish children for human consumption would solve economic distress on the Emerald Isle.
Buried within his satire were his actual proposals that few heeded.
Today, various versions of one sentiment reappear as America discusses the abortion issue on social media. It’s not satire, and it goes something like this:
“If you end legal abortion, who’s going to pay for all those children?” Or: “Are YOU willing to pay for those children?”
So I offer this proposal which could be replicated as needed across the nation:
Instead of aborting, say, 50 children, give me custody so that I might find good homes for them. Many people want to adopt today and would love to have a newborn.
Let’s say I find homes for 40 of them. We can applaud ourselves for having matched up homeless children and yearning parents.
We will have saved 40 lives and passed the expense of their care on to others more than willing to carry it.
But what shall we do with those whom we might call the leftovers?
We could (hypothetically) offer to our commenters the opportunity to potentially save themselves some tax dollars by dispatching the children themselves.
I’m fairly certain, however, that they’d find this act distasteful. The ‘beauty’ of abortion from their perspective is that it’s quick, cheaper (than care), and, to them, unseen.
Yet I would ask them to hear me out about other possibilities and advantages that could be available. After all, why just save tax dollars when you could actually gain income too?
For many research entities, the older the better–because the larger the child, the more tissue to be used in research. Alive and usable, rather than dead and chemically polluted or torn to bits, is quite advantageous.
We may, through such a practice, find a cure for a cruel disease. Look at all we garnered from the work of that German guy in the 1940s.
And as time passes, other opportunities will certainly show up.
We might work something out that would lessen the occurrence of wanted children being snatched off our streets–of traffickers grooming wanted children to become the “willing”. In their place, these “unwanted” children could serve.
Part of the deal could include a stipend plus reimbursement of taxes paid to support those our commenters consider disposable.
After all the bottom line is the bottom line.
Commenters divert attention from the humanity of children awaiting execution to the expenses children already born incur–costs they seem to deeply resent.
But the commenters are correct about one thing. More Christians could do more to foster already born children, mentor children on the precipice, and give to those in need.
In the end, we will all give an accounting for our compassion or lack of it.
For how much time, effort, and money we provided to help children in distress.
Or how we resented these innocents to the point of death.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
As a child, I watched The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday evenings.
I have a vague memory of a mime named Marcel Marceau performing on the program.
As a high-schooler, I knew a boy who owned a vinyl LP titled The Best of Marcel Marceau. It began with applause and proceeded in silence to the end of Side Two, culminating in a final round of applause.
Few people knew Marceau beyond his artistic genius. But as a youth, Marceau performed great feats of heroism.
Marceau was a Jew in France. He moved from Northern France to the south when the Nazis invaded. But eventually, the Nazis too arrived in Marceau’s new home.
Also arriving were Jewish orphans in search of safe homes. It was up to Marceau to accompany the children across France’s border to the safety of Switzerland.
I learned of this story through the movie Resistance, now out on DVD.
A good deal of the story is fictionalized. Marceau’s romantic interest is part of the moviemaker’s creativity. Another piece is the representation of the Nazis in the person of Klaus Barbie.
The depiction of Barbie, otherwise known as the Butcher of Lyon, garners the movie an R rating despite the lack of graphic violence.
The accurate explanation of Barbie’s torture tactics is enough to justify the rating.
Not every reviewer gives this movie a 10-star IMDb rating as I did. One especially disagrees with the latitude the filmmakers took with the story.
I’m not so sure Marceau would agree. He was an artist. And this movie is art.
Many today haven’t heard of him. Many also don’t know about Barbie. A quick trip to Wikipedia can illuminate both stories for those who need such clarity.
This film tells a tightly woven story with fabulous performances.
And we get to see a young man doing all he can to save others. A young man, at first concerned only for himself, who grew to fame and fortune and apparently didn’t feel the need to let everyone know what he had done.
That’s true heroism. And we would do well to know the story–even with a bit of fiction added in.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
When the Roman Empire collapsed, the loss of basic knowledge of how to do ordinary things was immense. The Oxford historian Bryan Ward-Perkins [says] that it took western Europeans something like 700 years to relearn how to build a roof as solid as the Romans knew how to build.โ Rod Dreher~
When my husband retired from his office job, he leaped into a full-time vocation that he was already doing part-timeโroof and chimney repair. And he added a ministry aspect.
When he needs a crew, he goes to a local drug rehab program and recruits workers for the day. A couple of them turned into long-term employees. They arrived with a new outlook and got a new set of skills.
But most of them donโt. After all, not everyone belongs on a roof. Not everyone can traverse a housetop in even a mild degree of comfort. And not everyone is willing to do the hot sweaty work required to finish the task at hand.
Some move on to other work. Others go back to the old way of life.
My husband sees two ways of thinking. One accepts responsibility for the past and doesnโt want to return to the old life. Those workers show promise and are willing to learn. They revel in a sense of accomplishment. They find success in fixing something that had been broken as they watch the broken pieces of their own lives mend also.
The other perspective shifts blame for the past. The shifting means they donโt move forward. They realize no great moments of accomplishment. Without accomplishment, there is nothing to celebrate, to pass on. There is no once-broken-now-fixed thing to see, to point to. And no set of skills attained to pass to others. They can only blame.
That is how we forget.
Decades ago, I was among an inaugural class of girls taking woodshop. I still have the finished cedar box I made complete with a crack across the top because I (apparently) hit the hammer too hard nailing the lid on.
Iโm certain it was for reasons other than my cracked lidโor in addition to itโthat the teacher swore he would never teach girls again. I assume he retired shortly thereafter. From then on, girls would work with wood and boys would navigate the formerly female-only domain of the kitchen.
Our more modern outlook did well to invite boys to pursue competence in the kitchen and girls to use tools. We taught skills and children accomplished meals and boxesโeven those with cracks.
And I remember the sense I felt a few years ago at seeing a sack lunch for sale in a grocery store. Itโs hard to give that feeling a word. But โlossโ comes the closest. Are some of us no longer willing to pass along the small accomplishment of packing oneโs own lunch?
Think about the exchange so many of us have made. Weโve traded the ability to prepare our own food (let alone grow it ourselves) for going to the store or restaurant, or now to have it delivered.
We have to realize that we are teaching the young how to do things. We are showing them how to accomplish tasks themselvesโor how to get others to do things for them. We are always teaching something.
We are missing important components of ourselves in these deficits of basic competencies. With such seemingly small losses come even bigger ones hidden under our radar.
Dreher writes about a conversation he had with someone who works with victims of sex trafficking. He calls the conversation โdeeply shocking.โ
โHe said that in his line of work, he hears from fertility doctors โ not one fertility doctor, but several โ that they are having to teach married couples how to have normal sex . . . if they want to conceive. These young people have been so saturated in pornography, and have had their imaginations so thoroughly formed by it, that the idea of normal reproductive sex acts are bizarre to them.โ
Bizarre. Can it really be that bad?
Yes. It can.
Porn use in America is pervasive. And more harmful than we may realize.
At the Thrive Summit Conference (warning, some images are suggestive), Don Brewster said that, depending on the survey, somewhere between 51 and 86 percent of American men aged 25 and older use porn at least occasionally.
Forty-six percent use it regularly. Males ages 13-24 use porn at a rate of 67 percent.
Younger people (females use it too) using porn affects brains, shapes brains that are still developing. Porn makes physical changes, objectifies others, and effectively makes sex only about self, never a sacred, exclusive, mutual connection.
These effects wire the brain in a way that is very difficult, but not impossible, to undo.
Using porn affects our view of the morality of porn. In The Porn Phenomenon, Barna says, โThe more you use porn, the less you think itโs wrong.โ For example, 97 percent of monthly porn users believe that porn involving children under 12 is wrong. Only 90 percent of daily users believe child porn is wrong.
Moreover, only 45 percent of monthly users believe porn that depicts someone in a demeaning way is wrong. The number drops to 28 percent of daily users. Thatโs a large number of people who think children participating in porn is morally neutral and putting someone else in a demeaning situation, not for their own pleasure, is just fine.
While 54 percent of those surveyed said using porn at all is wrong, 58 percent agreed that eating too much is always wrong. Stealing something is always wrong for 95 percent.
Our society is sexually off the rails when married couples donโt understand how to act in order to conceive a child, when young people lack moral discomfort about 11 year olds (or younger) having careers in porn, and when the perception that itโs okay to make others uncomfortable for your own pleasure is just fine.
For many, porn use isnโt just a series of unrelated acts strung together. Itโs an addiction. Addicts feel shame. Wives (usually the partner) feel betrayed. There seems to be no way out of a cycle of triggering, failure, and shame resulting in the partner feeling betrayed and the user feeling rejectedโusually prompting a new trigger, perhaps with periodic episodes of successful avoidance punctuating the in-between.
There will be those who blame others and perhaps dabble in solutions the way some of my husbandโs short-term employees do. But there will be those who seek a way out of addiction.
Some will search for a way and never find it. A young man went to a local social service office seeking help in my town. โLooking at porn is normalโ was the reply he got to his request.
I hope he kept looking. But it takes a great deal of work to overcome an addiction, and few people can do it by themselves.
The Church is where people should be able to find the help they need to escape the snares of addiction and loss of understanding. Because of the shame involved, addicts donโt want to admit their problem to a pastor or church leader while many church leaders seem averse to addressing the issue (perhaps because of their own issues with porn).
So itโs up to those who understand the problems and the solutions to step up and create safe, non-judgmental places where people feel they can bring this burden and find assistance.
There is no substitute for walking through tough times with someone whoโs walking through or has already walked through such challenges themselves.
Imagine a world where the idea of having your leaky roof fixed is the stuff of fantasy. Where the idea of fixing your own sandwich is passรฉ.
Now imagine a world where Godโs intentions for sex, exclusive marital connection and procreation, are completely lost. Where the idea of the normal way to make babies happen is bizarre.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was forty years ago this week when I turned on the television to see a somber President Carter explain the failed military effort to rescue Americans held hostage in Iran.
Two years ago, I met one of the survivors.
He was helping me carry my packages to my car when I was buying items for a church group donation. We were collecting for a menโs group home in a nearby town. Most of the men there are homeless veterans making their way back into their communities.
This manย said he was a veteran of Iran and explained that he’d been part of that hostage rescue attempt.
We talked about the 1979 hostage crisis when radical Iranian students invaded the US embassy and captured 52 US citizens. They remained in captivity for 444 days.
In 1979, I was a young mother with two young children and a newborn. My younger daughter was one week old when the embassy fell. She was nearly 15 months old when they were freed.
This man helping me with packages said theย failed rescue mission was his โBenghaziโ.
I could tell he had an edge to him. Couldnโt be bothered with small talk. Had seen too many big things in life to talk small.
He mentioned PTSD and some other disorders in quick succession.
Until he got this job at the department store where heโd worked for five years, he had trouble staying employed. This company understood him. Perhaps what they understood was what heโd given for us. Perhaps they understood what we often don’t realize:
There is more than one way to give your life for your country.
We say it. We tell them thank you for serving. Sometimes we are talking to the walking wounded who truly have given their lives for us. They are not the same people we sent off to fix a crisis.
He left part of himself over there.
We canโt thank him enough.
We canโt thank them enough.
———-
For more on the rescue effort, see Desert One. The movie Argo is a fair portrayal of the rescue of several of the diplomats who hid in the Canadian embassy for about six months. (Discretion advised)
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside,” Lon Watters.
This fall when students return to the classroom, I will be going back full-time as well.
I’ve been on a bit of a break for the last several years. Teaching part-time has allowed me time to write two books, one of which is published. I haven’t given up on the other one. And don’t plan to.
But now it’s time to get back behind a different desk.
Last week, my husband and two of our granddaughters painted the four walls of my new classroom, a different color on each wall. Blue, green, orange, yellow.
I’m excited about books we plan to talk about and even sentences we’ll diagram. (Yes, some teachers still teach that. And I’m glad to teach where grammar is considered important.)
I’m excited about the lives I’ll get to know.
I plan to still continue speaking in this community, but it looks like once a week going forward is a more reasonable expectation for myself.
Many thanks to my faithful readers. Prayers for those in the classrooms of America in this year of COVID will be much appreciated.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Sweeney begins as one who is skeptical of the miraculous.
“Where others see divine intervention, I see only coincidence. . . .
“I don’t believe in UFO’s, ET’s, or any other assorted acronymed alien invaders. I always look for the simplest and most rational explanation for any phenomena.
“This is especially true of Jesus’ resurrection.”
Sweeney’s book is divided into three sections. The first, “Virtual Certainty–The Historical Evidence,” discusses various alternative theories about the resurrection. Sweeney takes a scholarly approach but with a light tone. The text is serious and thorough, not dry.
Part II, “An Uncanny Fit–The Resurrection and the Historical Jesus,” is my favorite part. This section discusses how beliefs the early Church embraced did not jive with Jewish expectations of the day. Christ’s disciples did not expect a Messiah to come who would suffer, die, and physically come back.
Jews who believed in a resurrection did not expect a bodily rising until the end times. That explains why early Christians thought the end was near.
One of Sweeney’s conclusions: If Christ’s followers were inventing the resurrection, they would have made it up in a much different form–in line with their own expectations.
God surprising us with His own plan, rather than fulfilling human expectation, further confirms the truth of Christ’s sacrificial death and victory over death.
Sweeney aptly presents and refutes arguments from those who dismiss Christ’s deity and paint His life as an attempted earthly revolution.
Instead, Sweeney shows us how “Jesus went willingly and non-violently to his death (Sweeney’s emphasis). And . . . he didn’t die as a rebel leader, but rather, somehow saw his death as the climactic sacrifice that would establish the New Covenant, the restored relationship between God and humans, and thereby defeat the real enemy which is sin and death.”
After laying out a solid case, Sweeney finishes with Part III: “Life is Hard . . . Then You Die!–The Philosophical Question.”
In this section, Sweeney presents an “absolutely unique correspondence between . . . historical facts and the logic of the universe: Jesus completely embodies a God who made us for his perfect love; Christian faith matches the logic of the universe perfectly.”
Sweeney concludes that the only reasonable response to the historical evidence and the distinctions between the Gospel accounts, supported by history, and Jewish expectations is to accept the reality of what seems, at first glance, to be unreasonable. Christ is God’s Son. Christ sacrificed His life for our sins. Christ rose bodily, overcoming death.
I didn’t agree with everything Sweeney asserted. I’m not that skeptical. Yet I do recommend this book for skeptics and believers alike.
For believers, sitting down with this book clarify much about the understanding Jesus’ followers carried into His ministry–and how that changed because of the resurrection and Christ’s well-documented appearances afterward.
For skeptics, the book lays out a case that you will have to refute only by turning your own logic on its head.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Patti Thor is my guest writer today. Patti’s message calls Christians to pray in unity. That’s a hard thing to ask sometimes–unless the times are like those of World War II–or those of today ~
Unify or die. That was the choice facing Winston Churchill, the unwanted, newly appointed Prime Minister of Great Britain, in May 1940. Political factions, an ailing economy and a failing military front in Europe were career-ending challenges for the ousted Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Churchill inherited these problems plus had to navigate Britainโs imminent defeat or surrender at the hands of a cruel and oppressive Nazi Germany. Knowing that over 300,000 British troops were being overrun by the Nazis with no other option than certain death and that the fate of Great Britain and the free world were at stake, Churchill informed the king.On May 24, King George VI addressed the nation: โLet us with one heart and soul, humbly but confidently, commit our cause to God and ask his aid, that we may valiantly defend the right as it is given to us to see it.โ
This National Day of Prayer (the first of seven) was to be held two days later, on Sunday May 26th. Millions responded. The Daily Sketch claimed, โNothing like it has ever happened before.โ
Much happened during the years to follow. Victory was not easy, but the resolve of the nation shifted from being defeated to defeating this foe of tyranny. Stories of Divine Intervention circulated, such as the many miracles at the Battle of Dunkirk (May 26 to June 4, 1940). Each story of miraculous intervention served to boost the faith of the prayer warriors in the homeland.
Major Wellesley Tudor Pole realized that if people were asked to devote one minute to a Prayer for Freedom and if enough people joined in this gesture of dedicated intent, the tide would turn and the invasion of England would be diverted. Tudor Pole took his request to the king and Churchill and won the support of both. During The Blitz on the UK (fall 1940), the prayer initiative was started.
At 9:00 p.m. each night, the chimes of Big Ben rang out signaling The Silent Minute. An anecdote emphasizes the profound power of the unity of The Silent Minute.
In 1945, a British intelligence officer was interrogating a high Nazi official. The British officer asked the Nazi official why he thought Germany lost the war. His reply was, โDuring the war, you had a secret weapon for which we could find no countermeasure, which we did not understand, but it was very powerful. It was associated with the striking of the Big Ben each evening. I believe you called it the โSilent Minute.โ
Nearly five grueling years of battle, six National Days of Prayer and many more miracles later, the terrorists of Nazi Germany were defeated, and the country and world were safe from the hands of Hitlerโs regime and ideology.
Today we give thanks to Almighty God for a great deliverance. Speaking from our Empireโs oldest capital city, war-battered but never for one moment daunted or dismayed โ speaking from London, I ask you to join with me in that act of thanksgiving. Germany, the enemy who drove all Europe into war, has been finally overcome.
โฆ
There is great comfort in the thought that the years of darkness and danger in which the children of our country have grown up are over and, please God, forever. We shall have failed, and the blood of our dearest will have flowed in vain, if the victory which they died to win does not lead to a lasting peace, founded on justice and established in good will. To that, then, let us turn our thoughts on this day of just triumph and proud sorrow; and then take up our work again, resolved as a people to do nothing unworthy of those who died for us and to make the world such a world as they would have desired, for their children and for ours. This is the task to which now honour binds us. In the hour of danger, we humbly committed our cause into the Hand of God, and He has been our Strength and Shield. Let us thank Him for His mercies, and in this hour of Victory commit ourselves and our new task to the guidance of that same strong Hand.
(Credit: Florian Olivio on Unsplash.com)
Todayโs enemy is not so straightforward, but the effects are similar. Terror and destruction are on the rise. Murder, rape, and violence are escalating in our cities, in and around otherwise peaceful protests. Parts of our cities are being hijacked and the locals are subjected to the rule of unknown dictators. Stories of systemic oppression are emerging. Each side claims to be acting in the name of all that is good, and that they are fighting for the America of the future.
Jesus told us that a house divided against itself will not stand. To this sentiment, Abraham Lincoln added: โI do not expect the Union to be dissolved โ I do not expect the house to fall โ but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.โ [House Divided speech]
At this moment, the Body of Christ is more divided than ever, and this nation is more fractured than during Lincolnโs time. We fight and judge each other for having differing views on issues such as immigration, school choice, schools re-opening, taxes and tax breaks, centralized vs decentralized government, and multitudes more. I ask, is Christ schizophrenic? Does he want his kids fighting? Jesus instructs his disciples to, โLove one another. As I have loved you, so also you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.โ John 13:35 (NIV)
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV)
What if we could come into complete agreement in prayer? What if we acknowledge Godโs Will as higher priority than each of ours? What if we each lay our personal agendas down and yield to Godโs?
What could happen if each of us would use The Silent Minute to come into unity. Unity is imperative to defeating this pervasive foe, who is using guerilla warfare tactics. We canโt even agree on who the enemy is.
Winston Churchill recognized:
[The] enemy is crafty and cunning and full of novel treacheries and stratagems โฆ and there is no dirty trick he will not do. [Their Finest Hour speech]
Ephesians 6:12 shows us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Can we agree that the enemy in our war is not a person?
Bishop Albert Jamison described to Fox News that the July 15th NYC Jericho March was about praying for unity. He said, โIn my opinion, the Republicans are not the problem and the Democrats are not the answer.โ He reminded the viewers of 2 Chronicles 7:14:
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (NIV)
Are there long-lasting effects of this WW II prayer of unity? In August 1944, American cargo ship SS Richard Montgomery sank east of London near the mouth of the Thames Estuary. It went down with over 1,500 tons of munitions. Some argue that a resulting explosion could potentially send a tidal wave up the Thames and devastate London. Could the fact that these explosives have never detonated to this day, be a direct result of a nationโs unified prayers for Godโs protection?
Remember that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds. 2 Corinthians 10:4 (KJV)
I propose that we all use a prayer like this during The Silent Minute:
Father God, I humbly come before You and ask You to search my heart for any wicked way. I ask You to forgive me where I have judged others. I ask You to forgive me for not praying fervently for our current and past presidents and government officials as You have directed us to do. (1 Timothy 2:1-2)
We come together in unity to ask You to cover the President and all the leaders of my country with Your Presence. We ask that Your Presence would convict them of any sins of commission and sins of omission. Also convict them of the fact that they are created in Your image and likeness. We ask that You bless and strengthen all current leaders who will bow to Your will and govern in love. We ask that You remove from office any leader who chooses to not do Your will.
During these upcoming elections, we ask that You remove and/or expose all cases of voter fraud and silence all false arguments of the same. We cover all illegal ballots in prayer to the end that they would not be counted.
We ask You to move on the hearts of Your people to vote for those candidates who will choose to do Your will and who will govern in righteousness and love. We ask that any candidate who will not do Your will would not be elected.
We pray for the health of the people in our nation and our world. We ask that You sovereignly destroy the COVID-19 disease around the world and that the SARS-CoV-2 (novel coronavirus) would never again bring harm.
We ask that You bless our humility and repentance with Your Grace and Mercy.
We ask that You give us Your heart for the poor, disadvantaged, disabled, persecuted, forgotten and oppressed members of our society. We repent for having neglected our duties in this area and for relying on the government to be their keeper. We ask You to give us Your eyes to see how we can help them.
We ask that You restore our economy in such a way that we, your people, would use these finances to share the gospel and help the needy in our nation and beyond. We ask that You convict us to release into Your Kingdom our excess stores which are not currently being used for Your purposes. (Luke 12:16-21)
We ask that America would again be one nation under God. AMEN
About the Author
Patti Thor is a Speaker, Best-Selling Author, Entrepreneur, Mother and Giver. Patti volunteers in a District Leadership role for Toastmasters International, an organization that grows the confidence of adult learners by teaching/practicing communication and leadership skills.
Iโve learned that great parenting is not about being a perfect parent. It is about being real, being passionate and being creative in the midst of being flawed.
These simple steps will empower your parenting skills to give you confidence in interacting with your child and to give you the skills to recover from mistakes you will make as a parent. Not to worry, your kids will still be amazing.
Contributing author to:
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Quotes from Patti Thor have been used around the world to help increase volunteerism and donations. They appear in numerous books and articles including:
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Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions:ย You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author–today, Patti Thor.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย Nancy E. Head has not received any compensation for publishing this post. She has no material connection to the entities mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom Nancy E. Head does share a material connection. She is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Aristotle wrote his Nicomachean Ethics 340 years before Christ was born. Within that text, we find the Golden Mean–a call to virtue, the mean between two extremes, a deficiency of a virtuous quality, and an excess of the quality.
For example, if courage is the mean, rashness would be the excess, and cowardice would be the deficiency.
Today in America, we struggle to find a mean between Galt–a reference to Ayn Rand’s objectivism–and Gone–absolute rejection of American tradition.
Galt refers to a character in Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. John Galt attended Patrick Henry University, a fictional institution of higher learning.
Galt’s philosophy, the mirror of Rand’s, exalts the human spirit, capitalism, and atheism.
In alluding to Patrick Henry, Rand lauds his revolutionary quest for independence but rejects his faith.
And she wasn’t neutral in her renunciation of faith. She was virulently atheistic.
Not so Patrick Henry. When he arguedthat the colonists must go to war against the British, he declared that “An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!”ย Henry built his argument on a foundation of faith.
Many in the Galt camp today are gearing up for arms without God. A 2013 study claimed that 30 percent of those surveyed believed an armed revolution may be necessary to secure our constitutional rights.
We are no less divided now than we were then.
The Galt faction professes an excess of American bravado, absent the balancing influence of faith. It has moved beyond deficiency in faith to hostility.
The Galt excesses of bravado and hostility to faith eliminate the effects of faith: “Objectivism rejects the altruistic premise of self-sacrifice”–a pillar principle of Christianity.
The Gone faction in America is also hostile toward Christianity. But unlike the Galt perspective, this deficiency (of faith) and excess (of hatred for it) includes a rejection of American values. It equates Christianity, a conservative moral code, and a capitalist economy, with all the evils of slavery.
Gone urges deficiencies in order and faith and an excess of chaos. It preaches the message of critical theory–that society is comprised only of oppressed and oppressors. Every person is one or the other. There is none else.
Neither of these extremes can ever bring us to a peaceful, virtuous mean.
“Across the world, large countries are staring down secession movements. Many have already split apart. Do we imagine that we, almost alone in the world, are immune? We had a civil war to prevent a secession, and weโre tempted to see that terrible precedent as proof against another effort. This book explodes that comforting belief and shows just how easy it would be for a state to exit the Union if thatโs what its voters wanted.
“But if that isnโt what we really want, Buckley proposes another option, a kind of Secession Lite, that could heal our divisions while allowing us to keep our identity as Americans.”
Secession Lite would require a live and let live mentality. I’ve written before about the divide between city and country–the demarcation of much of our disagreement over faith, economics, and morality.
Perhaps Buckley has found a philosophical mean that could ensure freedom of conscience. For example, freedom for municipalities to respect life, if they choose. Freedom for pharmacists to refuse to provide the means for abortion. Freedom for children to openly pray in government-run schools.
Localities could be free to democratically decide what to do about crime, immigration, and education.
Crazy is what we’re experiencing in 2020. Our divided house hovers over a chasm of chaos. And crazy will continue until we find a Golden Mean of citizenship we can agree on.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Simply put, the very essence of our sin nature causes us to want to do things our way–not God’s way or anybody else’s way. . . . But think about the ultimate outcome of that approach to life. Any society that would function according to that principle would quickly descend into chaos because humans have a sin nature.” Jimmy Evans~
What we see happening around us is exactly the world that Jimmy Evans points to in his book, I Am David: 10 Lessons in Greatness from Israel’s Most Famous King.
Large segments of America have fallen into chaos, and we wonder how we can–if we can, turn it around.
Certainly, if America is to turn around, this turning away from chaos must begin in the Church.
And Jimmy Evans leads us to a place we can begin.
Evans invites us into the struggle. But the way to first incite change is for each of us to look into the story of King David–the man after God’s heart.
David killed a giant, spent years eluding an enemy who wanted to kill him, became king, sinned, repented, and dealt with the aftermath of sin and his failings as a father.
My favorite part of the book is when Evans discusses the shortcomings of David’s upbringing and how his failure to deal with the pain of his past led to agony later in life.
We, just like David, carry the wounds of our past. Those wounds affect our relationships, our desires, our thoughts and fears, and how susceptible we are to addiction and other sins.
This book is suitable for individuals and groups and contains a study guide and leader guide.
We turn America from chaos to God one person at a time. And the turning begins with each one of us.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Last week, in a 7-2 decision the United States Supreme Court upheld the right of the Little Sisters of the Poor to avoid paying for contraceptives and abortifacients for their employees.
The Little Sisters in America are 300 women running 27 homes for indigent elderly.
The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled just four years ago that the nuns would not have to pay a $70 million fine for refusing to obey the Obamacare mandates on birth control and abortionโeven though corporate giants like Exxon and Visa and others are exempt from the regulations.
Despite the Supreme Court having already upheld their freedom of conscience, Josh Shapiro, Attorney General of Pennsylvania followed along after Xavier Becerra, Californiaโs AG, sued to force the nuns to provide contraceptivesโ those preventing conception and those abortive in nature. These men sued in an attempt to get the court to say states can force the nuns to do what the federal government cannot force them to do.
The nuns have spent nearly a decade in court.
Life Site News reports that “[Justice Clarence] Thomas wrote in his majority opinion[,] ‘We hold that the [federal government’s] Departments had the authority to provide exemptions from the regulatory contraceptive requirements for employers with religious and conscientious objections.'”
But having the authority to exempt the nuns isn’t the same as having an obligation to exempt them. It leaves the question hanging like a door swinging in the wind with the change of administrations.
Lifesite points out that two justices made the argument for an obligation on the government’s part:
“In a concurring opinion, Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch went a step further and argued that not only were the Departments allowed to exempt the Little Sisters, but the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) actually ‘compels an exemption for the Little Sisters and any other employer with a similar objection to what has been called theย accommodation to the contraceptive mandate.'” (emphasis mine)
That view is commendable (and constitutional) and shows why SCOTUS appointments are crucial. If the winds of a new administration blow in a different direction, we will see new appointments and the door will swing again in the direction of oppression over freedom of conscience.
“While ultimately voting with the majority, [Justice Elena] Kagan explained in a concurring opinion that while she believed the relevant departments did have ‘statutory authority to exempt certain employers from the mandate,’ she also believes the accommodation made for the Little Sisters was broad enough that it could still be invalidated under the federal Administrative Procedure Act. So while the ruling is a major victory the Little Sisters and other opponents of compulsory birth control coverage, Kaganโs opinion also provides ammo to a potential future challenge.”
Sadly, we can expect to see the sisters in court yet again.
And last week’s decision affects more than a small sect of nuns, their employees, and their homesโ residents. These cases mark, not a turning point, but another stepping stone on our nation’s pathway (perhaps a circular one) between freedom and religious suppression.
Abolitionist Wendell Phillips said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. . . . The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten,”
Gather fresh manna daily.ย Be vigilant.
And in this season of turmoil and uncertainty, be especially vigilant in prayer.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copyย here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“We mistakenly look for permanent victories, political and cultural, and when they do not come, we despair. We seem not to realize that it is not permanent victories that we should seek but rather the preservation of ‘the permanent things,’ which is victory enough.” Stephen M. Klugewicz
It was a movie I watched with my children again and again. Glory (1989) told the story of the 54th Massachusetts, a regiment, the first Union unit comprised of African-American troops.
White officers led the unit, the government believing it must be so.
Maybe it was the supervision of white officers that sparked the vandalism of the regiment’s monument recently. Perhaps it was that the memorial depicts white officers mounted on horses and men of color walking. Nevermind that white enlisted men also walked while officers rode.
I thought the movie was valuable to show history and virtue to my children. Robert Gould Shaw was the commanding officer. His parents were notable abolitionists in Massachusetts.
Shaw was 25 years old when he took command of the regiment.
He told the men that the Confederacy had promised to execute any black man who took up arms against them.
They fought on anyway.
When they learned that black soldiers would be paid less than white ones, “the entire regimentโsoldiers and officers alikeโrefused to accept their wages until black and white soldiers earned equal pay for equal work. This did not happen until the war was almost over.”
Yet they fought on anyway.
That is only some of the truth the movie presented.
One scene depicts a probably fictionalized conversation between Shaw and an enlisted man, Trip, (played by Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington, respectively. Washington would earn an Oscar for his role.)
Trip refuses to carry the company flag asserting that things won’t change for his people after the war.
“Aint’ nobody clean. It’d be nice to get clean.” He thought, maybe, fighting would wash him.
That scene always made me feel a bit uncomfortable. But Trip was right. All was not fixed and clean once the war ended–even though the Union won.
My favorite scene comes the night before the movie’s culminating battle. The black troops hold a prayer meeting. A sergeant played by Morgan Freeman asks God that, if their fate is to die in battle, to let their “folks” left behind in bondage “know that we died facin’ the enemy. We want ’em to know that we went down standin’ up among those who are standin’ up fightin’ our oppression.”
Shaw led his men into battle. He died alongside them. He was buried in a mass grave with them.
There was no distinction between white and black in death. The Confederate commander thought he was insulting Shaw by having him buried that way.
But “Shawโs parents replied that there could be ‘no holier place’ to be buried than ‘surrounded byโฆbrave and devoted soldiers.’โ
I wanted my children to carry lessons from this piece of history with them into adulthood.
I wanted them to learn about virtue in action. About justice. About love for humanity that pushes us to sacrifice. About the idea that such sacrifice for a great cause is heroic.
For those are the permanent things. Living out virtue to inspire more of it.
No matter how many Hitlers, Stalins, or Maos, there will always be those who live fighting evil, who die standing up to it. There will be heroic acts that leave permanent marks, if we don’t lose them, erase them, forget to tell those who come after us about them.
Today the words ring loudly, “Ain’t nobody clean.”
A question remains: Will we wipe out the past and erase our memory of heroes, those who fought to become clean by freeing others?
Eliminating the past won’t make us clean.
It will only mean we’ve lost the permanent things–the history that shows us truth, justice, and self-sacrifice for a greater cause.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โEvery record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.โ George Orwell~
When I was probably six years old, I went to a neighbor’s house to play. It was my first time at her house. I wanted her to like me.
When she told me her favorite color was blue, I told her it was my favorite color too.
Until that moment, my favorite color had been purple. But sitting at her kitchen table a few minutes later, I made it a point to use the blue crayon.
And in order to form what I thought was a truer picture of myself, I told myself and anyone else who asked for years after that blue was the color I most preferred.
It would take a long time until I realized I needed to be my honest self. And even longer to realize I couldn’t know myself on my own.
It seems easy to find women in media today who are being true to themselves. In Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (2010), Alice and Baynard the hound have a conversation about what Alice should do next.
Alice wants to go to the castle of the Red Queen to rescue the Hatter. Baynard says, “That is not foretold.”
Alice replies, “From the moment I fell down that rabbit hole, I’ve been told what I must do and who I must be. . . . This is my dream. I’ll decide where it goes from here. . . . I make the path.”
This Alice is strong and knows her own mind. But perhaps what such movies, such a philosophy, created is a new way to push people onto a path they wouldn’t otherwise choose.
The pressure to choose a certain way remains in childhood, But it has moved far beyond favorite colors to the true essence of who we are.
Unlike the path parents of the 1950s, say, might have chosen for their daughters–marriage to a man of means and staying home to care for the children–the path much of society urges women toward today is to reject marriage.
It’s extra powerful to embrace a career previously limited to men.
And it’s even more powerful yet for a woman to become a man. Or for a man to become a woman.
There can be no constraints about what someone can decide for themselves. To propose constraint is to engage in what some define as evil. A primary form of evil. One worthy of punishment, of cancellation.
“For people who donโt know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist whoโd lost her job for what were deemed โtransphobicโ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasnโt.”
Rowling had been researching the issue of sexual identity for a book she was writing when she stepped into the mud puddle of support for Forstater.
But she stepped again, knowing what could, and would, follow.
“Months later, I compounded my . . . crime by following Magdalen Berns on Twitter. Magdalen was an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian who was dying of an aggressive brain tumour. . . . However, as Magdalen was a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didnโt believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women . . . the level of social media abuse [against Rowling] increased.”
For her crimes, Rowling is to be canceled. In 1984, Orwell called the same process erasing.
When I chose the blue crayon over the purple one, I had begun the process of erasing myself. According to Rowling (and others), many of today’s young girls are erasing so much more.
“Iโm concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. . . .
“Most people probably arenโt aware โ I certainly wasnโt, until I started researching this issue properly โ that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.”
I hope you didn’t skim over that number too quickly. That was a forty-four hundred percent increase in girls wanting to become boys. Many of them are dealing with social challenges far beyond which crayon to choose.
How many of those girls opt to color their lives with a crayon they think will lead them to social acceptance? They tell themselves for years that it was the right color for them, only to realize later on, they colored their lives in a way they cannot erase.
I wish I’d had the social stamina as a child to choose the purple crayon. Choosing the blue one didn’t make that girl my friend. It did plant the seed in my heart that my choices depended on what others, no matter their level of wisdom, thought. It was the opposite of self-determination.
Society preaches–no, shouts–that self-determination and self-actualization are the be-all and end-all of human existence. They are far from that. Too many factors pull us in directions we would not choose if left to ourselves. And even when left to ourselves, can we truly trust our choices?
For our choices will always appear through the lens of faulty humanity–our own as well as that of others.
Rachel Jankovic points out that our pursuit of self-actualization has served us poorly. In You Who? Why You Matter and How to Deal with It, she makes a distinction between the Christian view of human life as sacred in its essence and the secular view that we form our own essence by what we do. Too often even Christians have bought into this second view, embracing self-actualization.
When we self-actualize, we neglect–or reject–what God has for us. In so doing, we lose ourselves. We color our lives with the wrong crayon.
Jankovic writes, “When we become more like Christ, we are becoming more truly ourselves. The most obedient you is the most truly you you (Jankovic’s emphasis). Complete submission to God is complete fulfillment.”
For God knows who we really are.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Why is a question we often ask God when we don’t understand our struggles. We know he allows everything for a purpose. We often don’t know the purpose.
In a beautifully written and illustrated Bible study, Emily Saxe dives into the book of Haggai. Mundane Obedience is a three-week study. And that makes the dive deep because Haggai is only two chapters, 37 verses in all.
Emily takes you on a couple of short side trips into Ezra, Zechariah, and Matthew as well to deepen your understanding of the chunk of history that we find in Haggai.
The Hebrews had rebuilt the temple’s foundation. But during Haggai’s time, they walked past the groundwork as they enjoyed their own nice homes.
Yet they struggled. Their crops were bad. They worked harder than they ever had. But “when you brought your harvest home, I blew it away,” God told them through the prophet.
The Israelites had a bad habit of not following the directions that came through the prophets, but this time was different.
They followed through–even in the face of discouraging circumstances. They worked and saw God work and provide. And they heard the promise of greater glory coming to the temple.
We often forget God’s glory as we grind out tasks that seem endless and pointless. But Emily, and the Holy Spirit through Haggai, reminds us that no act of obedience is pointless.
“I love remembering God doesnโt care so much about the big, lofty acts of obedience. Itโs not about how much we serve in church, how many mission trips weโve gone on, how much money we place in the offering. God cares about any and all acts of obedience done with a heart set on showering Him with love, adoration and respect. Even the small moments of obedience. Even the stuck-in-routine moments. He sees each moment of genuine obedience and receives them all with joy.”
This Bible study requires small amounts of time for five weekdays over three weeks. The study is deep but not time-intensive.
And it just may help you see where God has been blowing away your harvest. And in so seeing, you may recover a crop of his glory in your life.
Photo Credit: Emily Saxe
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
โIn the 1950s kids lost their innocence . . . In the 1960s, kids lost their authority [the means of direction]. . . In the 1970s, kids lost their love. It was the decade of me-ism dominated by hyphenated words beginning with self. . . Self-image, Self-esteem, Self-assertion… It made for a lonely world. . . In the 1980s, kids lost their hope. . . In the 1990s, kids lost their power to reason. . . In the new millennium, kids woke up and found out that in the midst of all this change, they had lost their imagination,” Ravi Zacharias
Innocence, authority, love, hope, reason, imagination, all are necessary elements of a functioning people in a functioning society.
Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451in 1950โback when there was still innocence, hope, and imagination. The book is about a society that can no longer find itself. The people have no books, no imagination, and no sense of purpose and meaning.
Bradbury depicts these losses in one of the most chilling moments in literature. A man comes home from work to find his wife passed outโoverdosed on sleeping pills. He calls for help assuming the 1950s practice that a doctor will actually come to the house to set her right.
Instead, help comes in the form of two cigarette smoking technicians with a snakelike vacuum cleaner of sorts. They sweep out the woman’s system. She’ll be fine in the morning. It’s no big deal, they say; it’s common. So common, in fact, that they get nine or ten calls a night. Every night.
They pack up their snake device and move on to work on the next person who โjust jumped off the cap of a pillboxโ (15-16).
The technicians don’t perceive that they’re saving lives. Their act is mundane. It lacks significance, perhaps, because life itself has lost significance.
Bradbury saw that without a vision the people perish. He saw that this lack of vision would continue in a downward spiral until the futuristic time we call today. He knew that, even if bodies come back from the edge of death, souls who can’t find meaning will flounder.
The idea that a doctor might come to your house evaporated shortly after F451 was published. And health care professionals smoking as they work? That was unheard of then and still is now. Yet the cigarettes are symbolic of the casual, cavalier nature of technicians doing something they consider insignificant.
The idea that modern medicine could revive the overdosed shows that Bradbury had remarkable foresight in 1950. He saw then what we now, along with Ravi Zacharias, recognize: Our loss of innocence has produced more losses. These losses have left a void.
To fill the voids, people look for…something. Many try to fill the void with heroin and opioids, whose use has become an epidemic. And with the epidemic comes increasing numbers of overdose deaths.
And as in Bradburyโs fictional setting, we now have a way to revive the overdosed. Today, there is Naloxone.
Also, as in Bradburyโs book, the delivery method for Naloxone is not a physician. Nor is it two jaded, cigarette toting technicians. It’s a wide variety of people. Just about anyone can rescue someone endangered by an overdose.
As we might expect, first respondersโEMTs, police, and firefightersโare stocking up on the medication. But so are a growing number of schools. In Rhode Island, the law requires schools to keep the drug on handโmiddle school through high school. Middle school starts with fifth graders. Ten-year-olds.
Opioid overdoses skyrocketedsince the late 1990s, becoming the worst drug epidemic in modern American history. In 2017, there were over 47,000 opioid overdose deaths in the United Statesโmore than from automobile accidents or firearm-related homicides. Overdose cases declined in 2019, perhaps because of lowered unemployment. But the numbers went back up in the shadow of Covid-19.
Perhaps economic recovery continues and the numbers go down again, but whatโs ahead looks like a roller coaster journey that leads only to the end of the ride.
The roller coaster, of course, is not the sickness, but a symptom of the sickness. The sickness is the seeking and not finding what we lost.
When the world had imagination, reason, hope, love, authority, and innocence, the world had meaning. It was by no means a perfect world. But we had purpose. Our lives meant something.
Our innocence let us enjoy life. Our authority gave us direction. Love gave us purpose. Hope gave us optimism. Reason helped us understand ourselves. And imagination gave us wonder.
Innocence, authority, love, hope, reason, imagination, and I would add, memoryโmemory of our history from the ancients to today.
Achilles, Hector, and Odysseus teach us about virtues such as honor and humility, courage and valor, persistence and patriotism. And every person had a fate. To fulfill that destiny meant something.
The Greatest Generation that won the Second World War had endured the Great Depression. They knew what hardship and sacrifice were. Their character grew tall on a diet of deprivation and devotion to a higher cause. They pursued destiny and found meaning in it.
As weโve lost history, weโve lost understanding of overcoming hardship too.
College students show up knowing little about when wars happened, what caused them, how they unfolded, and what difference who won makes to us today. Yet most students believe college is a necessary component to their future happiness.
According to Aristotle, the only kind of life that leads to happiness is the contemplative life. Itโs the life we lead when we have innocence, respect authority, express love, use reason, create with imagination, and remember those whoโve failed and prevailed before us. We see meaning in the lives of those who came before us because we see the results of their actions and decisions. That seeing of results tells us meaning can exist for us too.
Rod Dreher writes, โInside each of us is an emptiness that only meaning can fulfill. When we lose everything from our innocence to a sense of wonder, we try to shove pleasure into that empty space.โ
People who seek pleasure as a substitute for happiness understand their lives lack meaning. Aristotle called that kind of life vulgar.
True happiness seekers know the best hyphenated concept associated with self is self-sacrifice. Meaning comes in giving oneself to God, spouse, children, community, and country.
Pleasure seekers canโt love. They can only use. They canโt give. They can only take. They lack imagination. And they cannot realize or remember that legitimate authority has a place in establishing a society that provides the opportunity for happiness.
They will not regard an authority that may cause them to miss out on pleasure.
They often cannot see their way to filling their inner void with meaningโmoving beyond pleasure to happiness.
From Ravi Zacharias again: โI am absolutely convinced that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain; meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure. And that is why we find ourselves emptied of meaning with our pantries still full.โ
People seek pleasure but find it wearisome. Yet society has failed to convey the importance of meaning to them. Only people whoโve found meaning can deliver this message. Christians stand in stark contrast to those who find no meaning in life.
We can walk beside peopleโas families, couples, or individuals, in our churches, in some schools, in our neighborhoods to present our message of meaning. And the message must come line upon line, precept upon precept. Itโs a marathon, not a sprint.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
“If the point of allowing suicide by doctor is to eliminate suffering โ and if eliminating suffering can include eliminating theย suffererย โ how can facilitated death be forbidden to patients, such as those with dementia and mental illness, who may suffer far more extremely and for a much longer time than the already dying?”
That might sound reasonable. After all, who wants anyone to suffer? Who wants someone else to suffer?
Or is there an alternative–like treatment and compassionate care? Is death the only option?
Deniers of unborn pain deny because they understand that only a cruel person doesn’t care whether others suffer.
So before we embrace an idea intended to alleviate suffering, let’s consider what follows.
And what follows is what’s happening now in Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and perhaps soon, in Canada. The first three nations allow euthanasia for mental illness, and, Smith tells us, “Such procedures are not rare.”
The Swiss high court determined “several years ago that the mentally ill have a constitutional right to access death.” Switzerland has assisted suicide clinics. (See Soylent Green.)
Canada is considering expanding the “right to die,” now available only to the terminally ill, to include the mentally ill as well.
But a right implies choice. And Smith provides two accounts of euthanasia implemented involuntarily. In one case, over the objections of the patient, and in the other case, when the patient’s death was not “foreseeable” (a requirement of the law) andover the objections of the family.
You might expect that the respective governments would intervene or prosecute, but ultimately in these cases, the physician’s decisions were lauded.
And lest you think those cases are aberrations, 20 percent of “assisted suicides” in the Netherlands happen without “explicit consent.”
Nancy Pearcey: “โIt is a tragedy to see the medical profession move from suicide prevention to suicide facilitation. The right-to-die movement presents euthanasia as compassionate. But disparaging human life as expendable is not compassionate. The term ‘compassion’ literally means ‘to suffer with’ (com=with, passion=suffer). True compassion means being willing to suffer on behalf of others, loving them enough to bear the burden of caring for them.โ
Those who make money from abortion say they support choice, but are quick to find only one “solution” for a crisis pregnancy.
And those who make money from euthanasia–and thus save the expense of caring for those in crisis–are quick to present the same “solution”.
Seldom today does anyone suffer without an available form of treatment or help. We can do more than death promoters acknowledge.
They present euthanasia, as they did abortion, as an easy out. But like abortion, euthanasia will prove to be not so easy and just as harmful to the cultures it touches.
As these proponents love and court death, they wrong and injure themselves.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I remember the dream I sometimes had when I was in college. I had to take a test. But I couldn’t get there. Something kept happening to keep me from leaving home.
We dream about what is important or challenging. Through our dreams, we see our fears.
It’s a vast understatement to say she didn’t know what she was getting into when she went to work for Planned Parenthood.
But among her fellow new employees that first day, she was the most qualified to work at a clinic. She was a certified medical assistant. The other two had no related experience or training.
She had to trained these other employees to do basic medical tasks she already knew. “Unprofessional” is a minimal way to describe that.
Her job involved “secrecy and dishonesty” and distrust. Security personnel searched her as she entered work to make sure she wasn’t carrying a recording device.
Supervisors told her those on the other side wanted to harm her. She would never get another job because no one else wants anyone who comes from this industry. She was part of this group, and there could never be another group for her.
That’s what cults do.
But the worst part of her job entailed “putting the puzzle pieces together–reconstructing the pulled apart body parts of unborn children.” It’s a necessary step to ensure the person performing the abortion got it all.
That’s what gave her nightmares. And depression.
“Some babies that had been destroyed had fingernails, eyelashes and genitals. They were the loveless, discarded, tiny parts of a human that I had to gather and make into a babyโsomething that should be reserved for God.”
And that wasn’t all there was to her job. The person doing sonograms trained Sarita to do them too.
Sarita found out that the person training her only received two weeks of training herself. After two weeks, Sarita’s supervisors gave her a certificate for completing her training. Sarita knew that certification from a university required two years of training. Her certificate, she says, was “bogus”.
Finally, she became physically ill, and “walked out the back” of the clinic after someone in middle management chastised her for coughing too much. She spent more than a month in the hospital with pneumonia.
While still in the hospital, she learned that the police were looking for her. Upon discharge, she presented herself to clear up what she knew must be a mistake. Police arrested her for the theft of a sonogram machine.
Sonogram machines are not portable. But just as cults often do, PP accused the departing Sarita of wrongdoing. Any background check for a new job would show her arrest record.
Leaving PP restored her health, but cost her $1500 for a lawyer to clear up the invalid charges (eventually dropped) and four years of job searching.
The PP folks were right about it being hard to find a new job after leaving the abortion business, but not for the reasons we might assume.
They were wrong about the intentions of those on the other side. The pro-life community was there to walk with Sarita toward a productive life that would not include nightmares.
Sarita’s story is incredible. You can find it and others like it on the Abortion Industry Quitter page by And Then There Were None–the non-profit group that helps former abortion industry workers sustain themselves and prepare for new employment.
Pray that the name will come true soon–that the day will come when there will be none willing to work in abortion.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The measure of any ministry is the lives it has changed.
A young man attended a local ministry for youth. He found food and mentoring there. Because of the encouragement he received, he finished high school and got a job.
But when he came home one day, he found his clothes in plastic bags on the front porch. A life door had closed to him.
His success threatened the household where he’d grown up. If he stayed, the family would lose benefits.
He turned to the ministry that had fed and mentored him into success. The ministry leader Dave Taylor was frustrated to see that no program offered help to someone without addiction or mental health issues.
Dave spent the next few years working to open Lionheart, a home for young men who “age out” of their own families and find themselves with no place to go. Now they have a place.
Lionheart is an 18- to 24-month long program that provides a home, food, training, transportation, and mentoring. High school graduation is required, so kids in the youth ministry can see that they can have independence–if they work for it.
Lionheart teaches young men how to make electrical, plumbing, and carpentry repairs–so when they get their own places, they can take care of them.
Lionheart teaches wise use of money through Financial Peace University.
Lionheart teaches interview skills so these men can find work.
And Lionheart helps them save money, shop for cars, find apartments. Lionheart gives them the beds they’ve been sleeping on when they go to their new places. They can leave with a bed, a dresser, a desk, a toolbox, and up to $7,500 they’ve saved from working.
Lioness, for young women, is set to open in a few weeks.
And the young man who found his clothes on the porch in front of a closed door?
He works at Lionheart. He stands before the open door to help other young men in a bad situation move to a better place.
The measure of any ministry is the lives it has changed.
That young man is one life changed through the ministry of The Door. Dave Taylor leads that ministry. He conducted the wedding ceremony when that young man married his life’s love.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
When I held my second child, my first son, a thought struck me: When he grows up, there could be a war.
This innocent life in my arms and the horror of war were ideas that did not go together. I would hold two more infant sons, but the idea of war would not pass through my mind at those early moments of getting to know each other.
My oldest son never went to war. The other two, in varying capacities, did.
We seldom see ahead of time how things will work out. I’m glad I didn’t spend 20 plus years of each soldier son’s life wondering about their deployments. My assumptions would likely have been for naught.
A very good book leads us to a similar place. And Wolf Hollow is that very good book.
Placing the opening lines on the front cover was a masterful marketing touch by the publisher because the words draw us in. The proof is in the book’s status as a New York Times bestseller.
Here’s a portion of those first lines: “The year I turned twelve, I learned how to lie. The year I turned twelve, I learned what I said and did mattered.”
Annabelle is the soon-to-be-twelve-year-old who lies to protect someone from a false accusation. She tells lies to produce truth. She also learns enough about war to fear someday becoming the mother of sons.
I waited for one character to change, but she didn’t. I thought another character would not change, but she did.
We have to be careful about our assumptions when we read fiction.
The society looked upon one character with regard. They shouldn’t have. They looked at another character with disdain. They should not have.
We have to be careful about our assumptions in real life too.
But the lesson about assumptions is not the only reason to read the book–even if you are usually not inclined to read in the young adult genre.
Author Lauren Wolk is a masterful character builder, and she exemplifies storytelling at its best. I stayed up later than I wanted to a couple of nights because I couldn’t put the book down.
Few books have engaged me that well. Others that come to mind include John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and Leif Enger’s Peace like a River.
Both books carried me to the very last word and left me with a sense of satisfaction. This book does the same.
All three books satisfy readers without sugar coating life or their imperfect characters.
Today we find ourselves in a world stamped with injustice. Annabelle inhabited such a world.
This book invites us into her world. The world of small community America during a big war, World War II. But the wounds of World War I still resonate.
Annabelle is a farm girl with two younger brothers who all live with their parents, grandparents, and a cranky aunt.
She meets bullies at school. She meets a strange man in the woods. She should fear one but not the other.
The book covers a matter of days. But by the end, Annabelle is a young woman. (She was a character I expected to change who did.)
Like us as we grow older, Annabelle learns things she wishes she could forget. She never will.
She will carry those things with her into her later years.
We will carry them with us too and be the better for it.
Photo Credit: Wolf Hollow Cover
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
As a college junior, she was a latecomer to my freshman English class. The subject of our discussion was the 2001 book Peace like a River by Leif Enger. Filled with allusions to the Bible, historic events, and Zane Grey westerns, the book has plenty of fodder for discussion in a college-level composition course.
What caught this particular studentโs eye was a line that repeats throughout the text as the narrator/main character, an 11 year old boy, advises the reader to โmake of it what you will.โ The it he refers to is Christian faith, faith in the miraculous works that come only from God. The narrator isnโt pushy about faith. He simply unfolds the miracles and invites the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.
My student found that very appealing. She explained that she had rejected faith because it had always been a source of contention in her home. Her father had come from one denomination, her mother from another. They had never been able to find the peace that Christ offers and Enger depicts.
As the product of a โmixed marriageโ myself, I encountered no such conflict growing up. Dad was Catholic; Mom was Methodist. They taught us the difference between right and wrong. They encouraged us to believe in God.
We prayed together before dinner every evening, and they taught us to pray before we went to sleep at night. Mother read us Bible stories. Like any married couple, they had conflicts, but never over faith matters, at least never in front of us. Their marriage was a model of faithfulness โfor better or for worse.โ And there was enough โworseโ to make it real.
But when I was in high school, one of my brothers and I introduced a new dynamic into the mix when we became evangelical Christians.
The beginning of my faith journey has some features in common with that of John Riccardo. His father was Catholic and his mother was Methodist too. His three older sisters became evangelicals. Two of them eventually returned to their Catholic roots where John and his brother had remained. After 26 years of marriage, his mother converted to Catholicism.
In college, John met a group of guys who were enthusiastic evangelistsโCatholics and evangelical Protestants. Catholics and evangelicals working together to evangelize for Christ.
โCatholics and Protestants together,โ he says. โThatโs been my whole life, really, working together.โ
Today, John Riccardo is Father John Riccardo, a Catholic priest.
In a recorded conversation entitled โCommon Ground: What Protestants and Catholics Can Learn from Each Other,โ Father John, as his parishioners call him, and Pastor Steve Andrews, of Kensington Community Church, discuss the โtremendous mistrustโ and โunbelievable chasmโ that existed between evangelicals and Catholics in their fathersโ generation.
That generation was also my fatherโsโand my motherโs. But my parents, like Father Johnโs, didnโt foster that mistrust and expand that chasm. For the Riccardo children, my brother, and me, the marriages of these Catholic men and Methodist women cultivated the soil of our hearts and planted the seeds of faith in that soil.
But the mistrust and the chasm are still present in our generation; they also inhabit the generations that follow. There is no expiration date on misunderstanding. When we stand our separate grounds, the ground of our childrenโs hearts becomes hardened. Thatโs what happened to my student. When we find common ground, faith grows and faith communities grow.
โWeโre saved by grace,โ Father John tells his evangelical colleague. โBy faith alone, so long as we know what weโre talking about,โ so long as our faith is real.
That is the ground where the younger John and his Catholic and evangelical college friends stood. It is the ground where Father John and Pastor Steve stand today.
But there is another example of ground sharing that perhaps is less famous than it should be. In 1978, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope in 456 years. Not only was he not Italian; he was from Poland, a country where the government despised the Church. This new pope was different. Younger than any other pope in the previous century, he had survived the Nazi occupation only to endure Soviet oppression. He knew the suffering that is oppression, and it infused his ministry with vivid colors.
When Wojtyla was in Rome becoming the new pope, Billy Graham was in Poland preaching from Wojtylaโs pulpit, having come at Wojtylaโs invitation. No other Polish Catholic leader would agree to invite Graham, and he couldnโt go without an invitation. Graham would later preach in Orthodox and Reformed churches, a Jewish synagogue, and an Orthodox monastery during his European travels.
Wojtyla and Graham had planned to get together during Grahamโs visit, but Wojtylaโs call to Rome for the papal election delayed their meeting. Before Grahamโs arrival, Wojtyla had been overseeing a โradical partnershipโ between a Catholic youth renewal movement and Campus Crusade for Christ. His work to light local flames of faith in the young kindled a global bonfire he could never have imagined.
In 1979, the new pope returned to his homeland where more than one million Poles lined the streets to welcome him and millions more came to hear him. Lech Walesa, firebrand of the Solidarity movement in Poland, told Peggy Noonan in 2002 that โwe knew the minute [John Paul] touched the foundations of communism, it would collapse.โ Walesa credited โheaven and the Holy Fatherโ as most responsible for destroying communism in Poland.
The popeโs visit to Poland was a tiny pebble dropped into a steaming pond. The resulting ripples turned into a tidal wave. When Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet premier, he saw the handwriting on the wall in Poland and began to implement reforms across the Soviet Union. He hoped to save communism by reforming it.
But by then, the cracks in the foundation of communism were too deep. Ten years after the popeโs return to his homeland in 1979, the Berlin Wall fell along with the Iron Curtain. The ripples of reform and freedom in Eastern Europe would reverberate across the globe.
Nineteen-eighty-nine was also the year Hu Yaobang died in China. Hu was a high-ranking communist official in the Peopleโs Republic. He had fallen out of favor with party power brokers because he supported reforms, loosening controls on the press and the people. Inspired by student protests in America and South Korea they had seen on television, Chinese college students gathered in Beijing at Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu, their advocate for democratic reform.
The marathon sit-in lasted seven weeks. Demonstrations werenโt unheard of in China, but the international broadcast of such demonstrations was. The international press was in town to cover Gorbachevโs visit to Beijing. Because of his attempts to reform communism, the protesting Chinese students considered him a champion of democracy. The presence of the international press made possible our knowledge of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In front of the international media, the Chinese government, having lost face in the weeksโ long standoff, sent the army into the square, killing thousands and capturing surviving protesters.
Eastern European Christians would ultimately see freedom. The Chinese students, on the other hand, did not get the change they had hoped for, but change is what China would see. The Beijing massacre and imprisonment of surviving demonstrators prompted Chinese youth, especially students, to look for a new form of freedom. Many found that freedom in Christ.
Why did young Chinese college students suddenly develop a passionate interest in the Christian faith? David Aikman writes that one โsuggestion was that Chinaโs traditional Confucian view of man as inherently good was shattered under the tanks that rolled onto the center of Beijing.โ The Chinese students had put their faith in their government, and their government turned on them and attacked them. Now they would look elsewhere for someone to trust. Today, China is on track to become the most Christian nation in the world.
The new wave of freedom that started in Catholic Poland ultimately sparked an explosion of evangelical Christianity halfway around the world. Pope John Paul II helped ignite that spark.
The pope would later visit with Graham in Rome multiple times, and the two corresponded through letters. When John Paul died, Graham said this pope had been the โmost influential voice for morality and peace in the world in the last 100 years.โ
Graham and now Saint Pope John Paul II are both in eternity. May 2020 marks 100 years since the birth of John Paul. If he were still living, Graham would be 101 years old.
A century of influence. Two men who stood on the common ground of the cross an unfathomable difference for the fate of countless human beings. We can still pursue common ground today.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was Pentecost Sunday–the day Christians remember the Holy Spirit coming to Christ’s followers. The advocate Christ had promised to send arrived in the sound of wind and in tongues of fire.
The disciples had seen Christ ascend into Heaven. More than a week later, Holy Spirit came.
I wonder whether the days between were a time of uncertainty.
Long before, the Israelites questioned God’s faithfulness even after they crossed a dry seabed to escape their oppressors. They saw; they walked to the other side. In the unknown of the wilderness, they still doubted.
How like them we are. Human nature resists the unknown. We yearn for the predictable.
However, Robert Barron writes: “One of the principal Biblical metaphors for the Spirit is the wind, and indeed, on Pentecost morning, the Apostles heard what sounded like a strong driving wind as the Spirit arrived. But the wind, elusive and unpredictable, is never really known in itself, but only through its effects.”
Pentecost brings promise in unpredictability.
On the Day of Pentecost, the disciples gathered, perhaps in anticipation of the prophesied advocate, but definitely in celebration of the Jewish Feast of Weeks.
It’s a celebration of the early harvest. Harvest in the spring? Not typically what we think of as the time to gather crops.
But spring is when farmers harvest winter wheat that held the ground in place through rains and snows. It’s a harvest to plant new seed for the summer crops to be gathered in fall.
The God-Creator who formed us from dust became one of us. Christ, the Bread of Life, holds our ground in place during storms. He prepares the ground of our hearts for new planting in due season.
We are coming out of a strange winter. We had so little snow–no days off school, not even a delay to clear roads. Then came Covid-19.
Isolation, grim news, and fear followed. That was our in-between time. Between harvests. A cold spring after a warm winter. Not at all what we expected as season followed season.
Season: a time that begins and ends.
Now it’s June and the country is coming outside once more. We are coming out of the time for holding ground. But the season did more than keep our plot in place. It prepared us for the next season, the next planting, the next harvest.
In one way or another, we are always waiting, anticipating what we believe to be the predictable. But it’s the unpredictable that works in and through us.
Yesterday, we raised the Hallelujah that we weren’t able to express together at Easter.
The sense of celebration was palpable.
Even without elements, the communion meditation yesterday reminded us to cast our cares upon the Lord, for He cares for us. The message called us to be grateful. To ponder the true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.
We go forward from here. To a new unknown season for eventual harvest.
We can’t control what follows. We can carry seed. We can ask the holy wind to disperse it. The holy wind we cannot see.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Leah Libresco Sargeant was an atheist who found the arguments for God too strong to resist.
Since 2012, she has been one of us–a believer.
The question that moved her from disbelief to faith was this one: “How is it weย come to know truth?” She couldn’t reconcile the notion of no God with the idea of man-made morality, moral laws originating within people.
Moral law transcends people. It comes from outside them, not from within them.
For where did moral law come from if not from God?
Her acknowledgment of truth as something that transcends humanity emerged from the study of C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and Augustine.
It was a process–one that took time–of reconciling what she grew up with–an assumed atheism–with truth, what she came to understand through study. Eventually, the truth of God became obvious toย her. ย Libresco Sargeant’s journey was an intellectual one. Not everyone who believes takes such a path to faith.
My own journey wasn’t nearly as intellectual as Libresco Sargeant’s was. My path certainly had nothing to do with mathematics as hers did.
But I assumed truth. Not that I knew all of it, just that I knew it existed.
I didn’t realize until later that I had begun by presuming truth.
When we come to faith, we arrive at truth–and perhaps we’ve reached the center, the bull’s eye circle. We’re standing in it, but there is always more to know, more to seek. There is always a journey toward a better understanding of God.
We spend the rest of our lives trying to find and inhabit that center. Every day, we move closer to truth–or of our own wills–further away.
Others who aren’t standing near us are on their own journeys to the truth. How quickly they arrive at the big circle of faith may depend on us.
And how close we are to the center of the bull’s eye may depend on how well we treat those not standing right next to us.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โPoor is the nation that has no heroes. Poorer still is the nation that, having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.โ Marcus Tullius Cicero
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. Itโs a day we mark with picnics and parades. The unofficial beginning of summer, yet so much more than the chance to eat hot dogs and buy a new swimsuit.
Decoration Day, as the holiday was originally known, began after the Civil Warโour bloodiest conflict. It was a time when a divided country was trying to healโperhaps as we are today.
We mark the day on the last Monday of Mayโbut May 30 had been the selected date before three-day weekends became a priority.ย May 30 reminds usย of no notable battles from the Civil War. The day only reminds us of those who’ve given themselves for the cause of country–our country.
We enrich ourselves in this remembering.
Remembering those whoโve done noble things tells us we can be noble too.
Of his sailors and marines at Iwo Jima in World War II, Admiral Chester Nimitz said, โUncommon valor was a common virtue.โ Iwo Jima is famous for the flag-raising image that is now a statue.
Three of the six flag raisers died in battle.
My father was in the South Pacific as a Navy medic. He was someone who went to war to make sure others came home safely. Someone who hoped not to see battleโbut was prepared in case he did,
โCourage, G.K. Chesterton said, “is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.โ
Today we remember those who wanted to live but gave themselves instead.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men.” G.K. Chesterton
I remember a comparison of two short stories I read for a literature class in college. My liberal colleagues were horrified when an older man lost his job and found himself on the streets–likely to starve. The man was a native-American whom his white supervisor had disregarded–perhaps because of his age and his race.
In the other story, a tribe practiced geronticide (killing the elderly) by throwing an older member out of the boat and chopping off her fingers as she attempted to reenter said boat.
My fellow students were horrified at the first story but didn’t even blink at the second one. The first story represented oppression of one group against another. The second story was “just their culture.”
And they were entitled to “their culture.”
I still don’t understand how they could so clearly see one injustice and not see the other.
Jankovic compares the idea that all human life is sacred with the idea that people who can make choices matter more than people who cannot.
Since the second idea prevails, we have abortion throughout pregnancy, and sometimes even later. But young children aren’t the only ones who are incapable of making choices.
In my own Pennsylvania, we recently learned that Secretary of Health Rachel Levine’s mother miraculously found a safe haven away from the nursing home where she resided until just before an order came from above that could have jeopardized her life.
The order from Dr. Levine required nursing homes to accept Covid-19 positive patients to ensure that the hospital beds they had been occupying would be empty when others, perhaps more valuable to society, needed them.
Dr. Levine says Mother made the request herself. She was capable of choosing, not because of her race or age, but because of a different sort of tribal connection. The elder Mrs. Levine somehow knew when to get out.
I’m guessing my college peers who could so easily divide their logic between the ousted man and the fingerless grandmother nearly three decades ago might find it more difficult to reconcile the deaths of their own grandmothers at the hands of a state official who figured out how to dodge personal tragedy.
Pagan societies sacrifice humans to false gods. They eliminate the weak who might deprive the strong of sustenance or shelter.
Civilized nations protect the young, the weak, the elderly, those incapable of making their own choices, those without the kind of connection Mrs. Levine has.
Pagan or civilized? I know which one we used to be.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?โ Esther 4:14.
Times looked dark for Esther and her people. She had become queen, but all Jews were marked to die. And she was a Jew.
Our days seem dark too. In America, Christians’ freedom to speak truth is under attack. In other places, Christians, as well as Jews, are marked to die as Esther and her people were. Many die for their faith.
“For such a time as this” is a phrase that’s been repeating itself. Why are we here? And why now?
It’s a question that perhaps a Nazi’s brother also once asked himself.
In Germany of the 1930s and ’40s, Hermann Goering was a terror. As Hitler’s right-hand man, he held the power of life and death in his hands. For Jews, his word meant death.
Albert Goering was in his place for such a time as those days. He was once arrested for helping a Jewish woman whom SA soldiers taunted and beat before a jeering crowd. Upon learning his identity, the arresting officers immediately released him.
So Albert wrote letters and demanded that prisoners be freed. He used family stationery and signed his missives simply “Goering”. The singular name alone held the power of freedom. He became bolder. He saved many.
But he died in poverty. Allied forces didn’t believe he acted honorably. Just recently, a documentary filmmaker learned about Albert’s work to save Jews and tells his story.
Many Christians in America are downhearted. Our culture’s decline continues. But we can ask ourselves. Why are we here and why now?
We are here because we are meant for “such a time as this.” We are here for this day to work in our time. In this day. In this place. And, like Albert Goering, our work may not provide a result we see on this side of heaven.
Such a possibility occurred to Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer during the same period. The Gestapo had hounded Bonhoefferโs ministry into virtual oblivion, so he got a job with the Abwehr, a rival Nazi organization that dissenters had infiltrated. (Eric Metaxas compares the rivalry to what we might see in the United States today between the CIA and the FBI (369).)
Undercover as an Abwehr agent, Bonhoeffer had the freedom to travel and conduct ministry, albeit much more privately than he would prefer. In the meantime, he continued his work as a member of the conspiracy that would twice attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler.
But also in the meantime, the circle where he could share his true views and the work he was doing (that would not fully manifest itself until after his death) had shrunk to very few people.
Many of Bonhoefferโs faithful associates could only infer that he had sold out to the Nazis (377). Metaxas says the situation โrepresented [a] โdeathโ to self for [Bonhoeffer] because he had to surrender his reputation in the church (376).
Imagine that. We Christians pride ourselves on our testimonies. We consider it crucial that others perceive us as faithful Christians.
Perhaps we might admit we do so to a wrongful degree of pride. Bonhoeffer sacrificed what other people thought of him for the sake of how God (and history) would ultimately view his work.
He gave up his place in community to secure a right conscience toward eternity.
The early Church had the same view toward maintaining a right conscience. Roman society knew Christians by their love and trampled them in persecution because they spoke truth without compromise. But it was those very Christians who turned the world upside down.
How would we act if we found ourselves in the throes of persecution? What if our world suddenly became dangerous for us and even for those we argue with–over culture, over politics, over faith?
Whom would we be willing to sign our names to save? Whom would we love enough to help? How much would we care what others think about us?
We work in this world. But the work we do is for another one.
“You know plain enough there’s somethin’ beyond this world; the doors stand wide open. ‘There’s somethin’ of us that must still live on; we’ve got to join both worlds together an’ live in one but for the other.'” Sarah Orne Jewett, from “The Foreigner“
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was a post I saw on social media. It went something like this: Conservatives favor states’ rights–until now.
The commentator pointed out what seemed to be an inconsistency between the view that decisions made about reopening America’s economy should happen on a smaller scale rather than a larger one.
A states’ rights argument would make the case for allowing decisions about opening up our economy at the state level, rather than from Washington.
In the meantime, residents, usually conservative, of numerous states protest stay-at-home mandates these governors have maintained, even as some states like Washington and California (also governed by Democrats) begin to open up. .
This conflict touches upon the disputes that are flashpoints across our country and go beyond shutting down tiny communities with minuscule coronavirus rates.
The conflict is already there. The coronavirus is highlighting, without, we hope, regard to party loyalty, the inability (or refusal) to consider that governing a diverse population may require a conciliatory or at least diversified approach.
The term “states’ rights” came about during a time when America was largely rural. We think immediately of the issue of slavery and its inherent injustice. Ironically, the states looking to claim their rights found an injustice in having Washington tell them what to do.
Now our disputes are largely about education, gun rights, abortion, and social engineering.
Russell Kirk points to local governance as a pillar of conservativism: “[C]onservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily.”ย
And more from Kirk: “[T]he conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of oneโs fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic.”
That is the basis for the conservative call to make decisions at a local level. Perhaps “states’ rights” is a misnomer for an even bigger idea.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love; The fellowship our spirit finds Is like to that above.”John Fawcett
One of my favorite moments of the past year is one only I will remember.
I swept my toddling granddaughter up into my arms at a family gathering. I talked fast, to say my heart before she could wiggle down and waddle back to Mommy.
“I held you when you were tiny,” I began.
She smiled and stayed still. She listened. I sensed she understood that I was telling her the beginning of our story–the moment she and I first met and the words I told her then.
“Jesus loves you. Grandma loves you. You have a wonderful mommy and daddy.”
I added that we’d been waiting for her.
It’s a tiny moment I may, if God wills, repeat to her over the years. Something I hope and pray will tie a new string between our hearts each time I say it. A string that is a piece of a cord of love.
This Mothers Day was a time of separation–a time that stretched our cords of connection. Not in the certainty of our connections. Just in the yearning for each other’s presence once more.
We never would have imagined we would suffer this separation.
“Before our Father’s throne, We pour our ardent prayers; Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one– Our comforts and our cares.“
Our fears as one is an idea that is more universal in light of the coronavirus crisis. In our separation, we have opportunity to bear one another’s burdens. To strengthen the cords of connection in a unity of distance. We all miss each other.
“When we asunder part It gives us inward pain; But we shall still be joined in heart, And hope to meet again.“
It’s a Mothers’ Day we will all remember. We hope next year’s will be different, more like others in the past, yet its own. A day of meeting and connecting.
Each meeting makes a thread to strengthen our cords of connection. Every story told, every memory, every moment of interaction build bonds between us.
There can be a strengthened bond in the anticipation of those moments–our desire laying its own fibers of connection.
God bless the ties that bind our hearts in His love.
Photo Credit: Family Photo
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Wednesday, May 6, 2020–the Little Sisters of the Poor found themselves in court once more.
The Little Sisters in America are 300 women running 27 homes for indigent elderly.
And remember, these nuns are women who commit themselves to lives of poverty and are now front-line workers in the coronavirus pandemic.
The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled just four years ago that the nuns would not have to pay a $70 million fine for refusing to obey the Obamacare mandates on birth control and abortion–even though corporate giants like Exxon and Visa and others are exempt from the regulations.
Despite the Supreme Court having already upheld their freedom of conscience, Josh Shapiro, Attorney General of Pennsylvania followed along after Xavier Becerra, California’s AG, sued to force the nuns to provide contraceptives– those preventing conception and those abortive in nature. These men sued in an attempt to get the court to say states can force the nuns to do what the federal government cannot force them to do.
As the cases have run through the pipeline leading them once more to SCOTUS, the sisters lost on appeal against both states. At some point, New Jersey got into the action. And the New Jersey and Pennsylvania cases are the focus of the court’s current discussion.
“Come hell or high water, they [the suing attorneys general] will rope the nuns into complicity with things like abortion drugs in their healthcare plans [emphasis McGuire’s]. Their future political campaigns depend on it, doggone it! Never mind that the Supreme Court already told the federal government it must settle with the Little Sisters in such a way that their conscience rights are not compromised — and despite the fact that [President Trump] issued a subsequent executive order clarifying that under no circumstances can employers be forced to violate their religious or moral beliefs in their healthcare plans.”
McGuire is right that these attorneys general are harassing the nuns to score political points. There is more than a buzz that Shapiro is planning a run for governor in Pennsylvania. Even loftier goals may abound in the minds of these opportunists.
The nuns have spent years in court–nearly a decade. That’s time they could have better spent caring for the neediest of the needy. A constituency (the poor) those in the pro-abortion camp claim as their own.
The lives of those very people are at stake because the nuns stand between the homeless poor and a death of isolation on the streets.
The court’s decision will affect more than a small sect of nuns and their homes’ residents. These cases (there are more) mark a turning point for our nation between freedom of conscience and religious suppression.
Thomas Ascik: “Unavoidably at issue [before the court] are the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, theย Hobby Lobbyย precedent, and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment itself. In [other]ย cases, the Court already avoided substantive conclusions. The Court cannot continue to do so, and [this] ruling is sure to be historic.”
May 7, 2020, is the National Day of Prayer. Extend your day into a season of prayer, a season of pleading. Plead for the babies and mothers, the fathers and siblings, the grandparents.
Plead for caregivers, pharmacists, and all who exercise their consciences to honor God.
Plead for our nation and for our freedoms.
And plead for those who pursue ambition and in that course bring harm to the nuns, the poor they serve, and our future consciences under a guise of guaranteeing access to otherwise accessible birth control.
For we have an obligation to lift up those in authority over us–whether they follow God or defy him.
Our country is in great conflict. We must pray, and we must resist such injustice–such oppression.
One great military leader knew the praying we do on our knees is more powerful than the fighting an army does standing up.
“Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight; and if the world goes from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers,” General George S. Patton~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
This Thursday is the 68th National Day of Prayer in the US. ย The roots of the observance go back to post World War II America.ย
In 1952, Conrad Hilton (of Hilton Hotels) and Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, both veterans of World War I, initiated a bill to direct the president to name a day of prayer yearly.
Stephen White explains that “Hilton came to view prayer as no less a necessity and no less a sanctuary than work. ‘Some men jump out windows, some quit,’ his mother told him during the Great Depression. ‘Some go to church. Pray Connie. Itโs the best investment youโll ever make.’ Even at the darkest, most difficult moments of his life, Hilton always found strength and consolation in his faith.”
Hilton saw prayer as necessity and sanctuary. As did Carlson.
Along with his efforts to establish a day dedicated to prayer, Carlson also initiated the yearly Annual National Prayer Breakfast. At the event in 1986, President Ronald Reagan told this story.
“One night in 1952 during the Presidential campaign, Dwight Eisenhower confided something to one of his advisers, a close friend, Senator Frank Carlson. And Eisenhower told him that during the war when he was commanding the allied forces in Europe, he’d had a startling and vivid spiritual experience — he had actually felt the hand of God guiding him, felt the presence of God.
“And the general told the Senator that this experience and the support of his friends had given him real spiritual strength in the hard days before D-day. Senator Carlson said he understood. He, himself, was getting spiritual help from the members of a little prayer group in the Senate. And a few months later, the general, who was now the President, asked Frank Carlson over to the White House.
“And he told him, ‘Frank, this is the loneliest house I’ve ever been in.’ Carlson said, ‘Mr. President, I think this may be the right time for you to come and meet with our prayer group.’ And Eisenhower did just that.
“In 1953 he attended the first combined prayer breakfast.”
And so a new tradition was born.
It’s a tradition born out of necessity and sanctuary–as prayer to our sovereign God has always been. As we have necessity now to find sanctuary.
When Eisenhower led the Allied efforts in Europe during World War II, he also found sanctuary in the necessity of prayer. On the eve of D-Day in 1944, he broadcast a message to the troops about to invade Europe, including these words:
“The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”
Many died on the beaches of Normandy and in fighting that pushed through western Europe to secure victory. Eisenhower had known that many would give their lives.
He knew heavy, dark days lightened and illuminated through prayer, lightened and illuminated through God’s presence and guidance.
Let’s not wait until Thursday to begin to seek His presence, His leading for us.
Let us pursue justice, mercy, and humility. Let us pursue the lightening of burdens and the Light of the world. Let us find the sanctuary of His presence.
Let us pray.
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.ย Raise your voice like a trumpet,” Isaiah 58:1a.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โYou only have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your powerโhe’s free again.โ Alexander Solzhenitsyn~
In Brooklyn, New York, this week. 2,500 people crowded together to pay tribute to a beloved rabbi who passed away.
Some wore face masks; some did not. New York’s infuriated mayor came in person to tell the people to go home. Then he issued a statement:
โMy message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period.โ
Fair enough, if that’s so–and if those consequences are fairly applied. But is it really just about stopping the disease and saving lives? Or is it, perhaps, also about power and authority? Is it even about disdain for a particular faith or group?
One councilmember, Chaim Deutsch, chided DeBlasio for not applying the rule of law evenly.
“Did the Mayor of NYC really just single out one specific ethnic community (a community that has been the target of increasing hate crimes in HIS city) as being noncompliant?? Has he been to a park lately?”
All of America–especially those of us who are working at staying home–could discuss whether deBlasio overreacted in showing up and calling on police.
We could wonder whether–if other New Yorkers are defying the rules as Deutsch claims and evidence shows they are–why this gathering got the mayor’s personal attention the way it did. We could also ask why the mayor and the media picked this incident to highlight and not another one earlier that day.
I would argue that, sad as they were over the loss of their beloved rabbi, the people should not have gathered for his funeral. But I would also argue that deBlasio crossed the line when he threatened places of worship with permanent closure if they do not comply.
Permanent, that is.
I might also argue that perhaps many of those 2,500 people watched coverage of the Blue Angels’ flyover earlier in the day and didn’t realize a double standard was in place.
They didn’t realize that ordinary folks could come out to watch a tribute. The rules don’t apply to them. But faithful people may not gather. The rules are especially for them.
And violating the rules will bring about retribution for those singled out. And that retribution could be permanent.
Joel M. Petlin is the superintendent of the Kiryus Joel School District, a Hasidic Jewish school system in New York. He summed the situation up on Twitter: “Two wrongs don’t make a right, but only one wrong makes the news and the condemnation of politicians.”
Mayor de Blasio is an educated man. He can’t possibly believe that the coronavirus passes from person to person in certain groups and not in others. He can’t possibly believe that letting people gather for an event he approves of won’t spread the virus. But events he disapproves of will.
He can’t possibly believe that the actions of some should forever close the doors of worship for many, even those yet unborn.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โThroughout modern history, society has been eaten away by a series of internal maladies, man turning against man and class against class: all societies have been characterized by the warfare of opposing interests, by competition, by the isolation and dereliction of each individual man.โ Rod Dreher
It was an episode of a television show in the late โ70s or early โ80s. I donโt even remember the name of the series.
A married couple was battling to stay together. Or it was more like they were battling each other. Today we would say they had issues.
One issueโperhaps minor, perhaps notโwas that he hated her smoking. He often challenged her to quit. She refused to give it up.
Until they got a report from the doctor. Yes, they were expecting. (No home pregnancy test back then.)
She immediately stopped smokingโjust as heโd been begging her to do all along. She had a natural desire to protect the life within her.
But he said, repeatedly, โWe canโt bring a baby into this.โ Into the mess that was their marriage.
Finally, she succumbed to his unrelenting push for her to abort. And the video depiction of the procedureโs aftermath was subtle but raw.
She left the clinic and got into the passenger seat of the car at sunset. He sat in the driverโs seat as darkness surrounded them. Viewers saw the flick of a lighter. The flame sucked into the glow of a burning cigarette next to the passenger side window.
The smoldering cigarette signifying the snuffing out of their childโs life.
Her natural desire to protect the young one battled his desire toโ? Have control? Minimize the potential complications of divorce? We can only wonder at the โinternal maladiesโ he suffered that put him in warfare with the opposing interests of his own child.
He would say they made the choice togetherโhe and his wife. He would deny that the child was capable of having any interests at all.
Roland C. Warren, president and CEO of Carenet, sees a disturbing trend in the argument over human life. Early in the abortion discussion, during the time that television show aired, advocates for abortion (and euthanasia) made a distinction between โhuman lifeโ (with regard to abortion: the mother; with regard to euthanasia: the healthy) and โnot yet lifeโ (the unborn), and even โno longer lifeโ (the sick or infirm).
So we had life and non-life. And then ultrasound technology let us peer into the womb where we clearly seeโlife!
Now, advocates for โfreedom of choiceโ are acknowledging that life is presentโand even human.
But there is a structure of hierarchy. Some lives supersede others.
Warren cites Mary Elizabeth Williams who penned an article titled โSo What If Abortion Ends a Life?โ Williams acknowledges that life begins at conception. And acknowledges that the admission can weaken her own argument.
Butโฆ
โAll life is not equal. Thatโs a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. Sheโs the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.โ
Note that Williams defaults to the essential red herrings of the pro-choice set. โHer lifeโ and โher healthโ as if her life is enhanced and her health restored because a baby she removed from her womb is dead. The hard casesโlife, health, and rape/incestโadd up to 1.23 percent of all abortions. But she isnโt even pushing a โhard-caseโ agenda. Sheโs pushing an โany-caseโ agenda.
Sandwiched between life and health is โher circumstancesโโthe situations that motivate 98.7 percent of abortions in the US. Difficult circumstances mean the childโhe or sheโmust step aside.
Take further note that the criterion for getting to decide is autonomy. The shift in thinking has taken us from thinking โItโs not a lifeโ to โItโs a lifeโa child evenโbut a โnon-autonomousโ life.
In Williamsโs estimation, the ability to be independent determines the value of life.
Such a notion fuels the so-called โright to dieโ movement. In her article, Williams mentions โgrandmaโ before she mentions โbabyโ. Grandma may herself decide to live no longerโor someone else may decide for her. Killing with consent leads quickly to killing without it. Always.
Itโs not a big step from Grandma is in pain to Grandma is a painโand an expensive one at that. When we arrive at that determination, we have made Grandma subhuman. Then, every one of us becomes subject to the same devaluing. No one is exempt.
But Warren argues: that is not who we are.
He paints a hypothetical situation. You are crossing the street and you see two people carrying their groceries. One is a healthy 25-year-old man. The other is an 85-year-old woman. Both of them drop their groceries at the same time. Who do you help?
We help the woman, Warren says. The one we perceive needs help more. โItโs wired into us,โ Warren says. โItโs what makes us humanโhow we apportion compassion.โ He adds that animalsโcreatures less than humanโoperate in the opposite manner. Strong animals eat weak ones.
Humans, at their best, help the weak. When we live otherwise, we live like animals. And then we have all become less.
My opening example of the father who didnโt want to be a father married to a woman he just couldnโt get along with paints this picture accurately. He had autonomy. The baby? None at all.
But the mother? She was following her natural inclinations to protect and nurture what she knew was her child. But she lacked the autonomy to make the decision independently. The choice was not just her own.
Such a television depiction would be unlikely to air today because the man pushed against the womanโs desire for her baby. He gave no room for the โchoiceโ that Williams argues is โAlwaysโ hers to make.
In the late โ70s, the discussion around abortion was relatively new. The battle lines had not clearly formed. Truth was more of a possibility. The news media was still objective about the issue, at least in one corner of the world. In 1978, the Chicago Sun Times did an expose on abortion โprovidersโโnot yet so named because euphemism had not yet overtaken the issue.
As a result of the Sun Timesโs reporting, one of the abortion facilities the expose covered closed down, and a physician lost his license to practice. A grand jury investigated.
In contrast, a few years ago in my own state of Pennsylvania, law enforcement uncovered Kermit Gosnellโs abortion house of horrors when they were investigating the illegal sale of prescription drugs.
The uncovering of abortion amid filth and broken medical equipment came about accidentally even after a woman died and Gosnell murdered a breathing, six-pound abortion survivor, among others. Still others carry physical reminders of their time in his โcareโ.
If not for the drug bust, would he still be injuring and killing? Of course he would.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health said in a later report that they had stopped inspecting abortion facilities โbecause of political reasons.โ
After a previous alert from a former employee, the state interviewed Gosnell off- siteโwhere they wouldnโt see the condition of his facility. Pennsylvania officials also ignored an insurance company report of a post-Gosnell abortion patient who died from sepsis after he perforated her uterus.
Writing an op-ed for USA Today, Kirsten Powers said, โThis [Gosnellโs story] should be front-page news.โ But it wasnโt on the front page because the media had completely ditched objectivity at some point after Chicagoโs expose.
Todayโs media isnโt paying attentionโon purposeโall to supposedly protect โa womanโs right to choose.โ
But the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeonsreports that nearly 75 percent of aborting women say they experienced at least some pressure to abort. More than half said they aborted to please others.
And nearly 30 percent aborted out of fear they would lose their partners. The statistics on what happens next for relationships so affected are tough to nail down, but one counselor says his experience shows that half of post-abortion relationships break up. Heโs not alone in that way of thinking.
Itโs distressing to think that the media got it right in some obscure program that aired decades ago and will never see the light of syndication.
Itโs beyond distressing to ponder all those babies gone. All those women pushed. All the lies told and truth withheld in the name of a choice an โautonomousโ woman doesnโt always get to exercise.
An unimaginable amount of damage done for someoneโs choiceโand not even the someone you might expect.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name give glory because of your mercy and faithfulness. Psalm 115: 1 (NABRE)~
Regarding the number of coronavirus cases declining in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, โThe number is down because we brought the number down. God did not do that. Faith did not do that.โ
Wow.
Michael W. Chapman reports that “Gov. Andrew Cuomo is a Catholic who supports abortion on demand, even up to the moment of birth.'”
To that and the governor I would say, “I know Catholics. I have family and friends who are Catholics. And you, sir, are no Catholic.”
No Catholic. No Christian of any sort.
So it came to be that, on January 22, 2019, this “Catholic” governor celebrated his signing of New York’s new abortion law–set in place just in case the US Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade–which effectively established abortion through all nine months of pregnancy–for any reason.
The National Review says, “In New York state, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law that makes abortion legal, even after the unborn child is viable, so long as the abortionist makes a ‘reasonable and good-faith judgment’ that abortion will protect the pregnant womanโs health.”
Further, New York’s legislation would also allow medical “caregivers” to deny care to infants after birth. To let them die.
You might ask how killing a child through neglect after she or he is already born protects a mother’s health.
In Virginia, which passed similar legislation, Governor Ralph Northam explained that withholding medical care from born children who have deformities should be up to the mother.
Which still doesn’t get us to improved health of the mother. We find the foundation for this fallacious argument only when we look back at Roe.
More from the National Review: “Roe v. Wade held that states could prohibit abortion late in pregnancy only if they made an exception for abortions meant to protect the pregnant womanโs health. Justice Harry Blackmunโs majority opinion in that case mentioned several health harms that unwanted parenthood could cause. Roeโs companion case, Doe v. Bolton โ written by the same justice and handed down the same day โ also suggested that health should be read broadly. As Blackmun put it, ‘the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors โ physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the womanโs age โ relevant to the well-being of the patient.’โ
The patient, of course, is the mother, never the child–whose relative health, good or poor, is irrelevant.
So we have arrived at today.
New York’s coronavirus numbers are down. And, according to the governor, God had nothing to do with it.
Robert Barron responds to Cuomo’s unGod viewpoint by acknowledging that it’s appropriate to thank those in the medical community for the sacrifices they’ve made. It’s also valuable to ask, “Why ultimately were they willing to do what they did?”
The answer may be the same as the one we come up with when we ask why anyone ever makes a sacrifice for someone else. It may also be the same when we ask where such desire and heroism begins.
It’s sad that Governor Cuomo, his counterpart in Virginia, a handful of other governors, and hundreds sitting in legislatures that have passed horrific death bills don’t understand the nature of sacrificial love and aren’t willing to call us to it.
The love that put Jesus Christ on his cross is the same love that cherishes a less than perfect child–as they all are–as we all are.
It’s the same love that stays up late or gets up early to care for someone who can’t care for himself or herself, no matter how old, how young, how much in need.
It’s the same love that gives to someone who can’t give back.
For their love, we say thanks to the workers.
For the one who plants the possibility of that love in us, we say, “Non nobis, Domine.” Not to us be the glory.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“I stand with Livy, who at the final hardening of Rome’s republican arteries, wrote that the study of his land’s history was the study of the rise and fall of moral strength, with duty and severity giving way to ambition, avarice, and license, till his fellow Romans ‘sank lower and lower, and finally began the downward plunge which has brought us to the present time, when we can endure neither our vices nor their cure'” (1).
In his book Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, Anthony Esolen shows us a nation at a crossroads. He shows us a better way, a way up. He wrote before the pandemic. Before the time when we may have begun to consider what our lives have been, what we are making them now, and what we hope they will be when the coronavirus lockdown finally ends.
Many of us are just waiting for normalcy to return. If that’s what we do, we are missing an opportunity.
Perhaps this moment is just the time to hear Esolen’s message to pursue truth and beauty. The call to see the truly important and to disregard the superficial.
We are learning a great deal as individuals and as a people through this crisis. Some of us are learning how to be with family 24/7.
Remember? For better or for worse? For some, it’s better.
People are spending time with their children. If you weren’t already homeschooling, you have a new appreciation for those who’ve done so for years. And if you were busy and distracted with your job before, you’re now getting a better picture of who these young ones are becoming, who they’ve already become when you weren’t looking quite as closely.
Perhaps our move toward producing our own food has come partly in a panic that we’ll suffer a food shortage. But perhaps it’s also to have something productive to do.
Apparently, we can only watch so many things on a streaming service. We realize that we want something we can point to for how we’re spending our time.
Americans are also baking bread. My husband and I had to order flour online because our local stores are cleaned out and one stocker told him, “There isn’t any in the pipeline.” That means it won’t be on store shelves any time soon.
A loaf of fresh bread is something to savor. (But I’m still far from mastery.)
With planting and baking, children see that food isn’t something that originates in a plastic bag from a store or on a plate a server puts in front of them.
Food takes time and patience. Good food does, anyway. Food with fewer chemicals, food with more flavor, food infused with our own time and labor.
That’s truth. That’s beauty. That’s better.
Sadly, many of us our drowning our inactivity with alcohol. That’s worse. But pain and the struggle of feeling trapped in isolation are real for many.
So here we stand at the crossroads.
Esolen reminds us of Keats’s words to “‘load every rift with ore’ . . . . What Keats did with poems, we ought to do with our minds, claiming for our own the gold that poets give us” (30).
And to the gold of poets, I would add the silver of gardening, baking, crafting, storytelling, and encouraging–the filling of these days with truth, beauty, and goodness.
With admiration for those among us who care for the sick and stock store shelves with available foods and other necessities.
And with mercy and grace for those among us who struggle with isolation.
These days will end. The heroes among us will remember a blur of work, more challenging than they’ve seen before.
Still others, most of us I hope, will have days of creativity and craft to look back on. Days of discovering new ways to do things. Days perhaps, of passing old ways on to young ones who otherwise may not have considered what goes into food growth and production and other kinds of crafting.
Just as with any time of life, this time provides us with choices. To sit, to create, to encourage one another. Now is a good time for a good message–like the one Esolen provides.
To care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, Messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. (From Isaiah 61, MSG)
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Indeed, a woman of strength is priceless, worth more than precious jewels” (10).
Crews tells us that the “Hebrew word translated as ‘jewels’ is paniyn. Many commentaries agree the word means a small round object that has a red tint, usually defined as a coral or a pearl. The first time I read that definition of the word paniyn, I was immediately struck by how the description of small, round, red, and priceless objects resembled drops of blood, the precious red blood our Savior shed. As a woman of strength, you hold great value. You are so valuable to God He was willing to shed His precious blood for you. He paid this price for you; your worth is now above rubies, pearls, or other jewels.”
Crews’ text promises “redemptive stories of the most unlikely Proverbs 31 Woman.”
Reviewer Linda Evans Shepherd says the book explains that “the passage was not designed to make women feel overwhelmed by an impossible to-do list but rather serves to promote a warrior woman you can emulate as you love, work, build, and overcome your own life’s challenges.”
Perhaps we who’ve felt that intimidation while reading Proverbs 31 can find ourselves on these pages. We can see glimpses of ourselves in the stories Crews tells of the unlikely Proverbs 31 woman.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
One of my very favorite passages from the Bible comes at the end of the book of Luke.
Two men are walking down the road discussing the crucifixion of their leader. Another joins them and asks what they’re talking about. They wonder at him not knowing.
But they don’t realize that He’s the only one who actually does know what really happened.
He talks to them about prophesy. When they reach Emmaus, he indicates that he will keep going.
It’s evening, they say. Stay with us. When he breaks the bread, they recognize him. Then he vanishes.
Did our hearts not burn within us? They ask themselves.
Often that’s where we stop reading. But what happens next?
Once they realize Christ was the one who talked with them, opened the scriptures (the prophecies he fulfilled) to them, and broke the bread, they don’t just go to sleep planning to react to their revelation the next morning.
They immediately return to the place they’d just left–Jerusalem. Walking, tired but exhilarated, filled with the adrenalin of realization, of fulfilled understanding.
Remember, it’s evening. Perhaps it’s even dark before they begin. They already walked and are walking again.
Imagine their arrival, very late, even in the middle of the night.
“Wake up! Let us in! We’ve been with Jesus! He has risen!”
The crucifixion had destroyed any hopes they had that Jesus would lead them in victory over Roman rule. They had been confused. They had lost all hope.
His resurrection brought a better kind of hope, a hope based in the true understanding of who Christ is–a God for life and eternity–not someone who came to get us off a hook of political oppression.
He came to free us from the consequences of being us. He came to give us this life and the next one.
We’ve come through an Easter unlike any other in our lifetimes, but it was probably an Easter not very different for many worshiping in hostile countries.
Like the men who traveled to Emmaus and then returned to Jerusalem in joy, our next step cannot be to go to sleep.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
So this year, my husband and I won’t make two kinds of soup, and homemade cannoli.
And even though I almost have five dresses done, three little girls and two bigger ones won’t be wearing them to church on Sunday. There will be no photo recollection of grandchildren on my front porch swing from Easter Sunday.
At dinner time, I’ll miss my kids, and their kids, and their kids.
And I’ll hope the six packages of Peeps I bought don’t get too stale before I can bestow the baskets–even though one daughter will end up with all of the Peeps since no one else likes them.
Appropriate to the year, she likes them to be a bit stale.
For the most part, this Easter will be different from any other we’ve ever experienced.
It takes me back to a Christmas moment. The Whos of Whoville wake to discover that Christmas has arrived. But they don’t even seem to notice that what signifies Christmas is missing.
They sing to welcome Christmas. They sing with joy. And when the Grinch’s heart grows, they welcome him to the feast he tried to steal from them.
So this year, we will welcome Easter. My husband and I alone will bake bread and color eggs and drink grape juice at Communion time as we watch church online.
This Easter I will pursue joy.
I will work to latch onto a wonderful moment to remember from the day. The Easter unlike every other of our lifetimes.
The Easter that, like all the others, calls us to remember that first one. When there were no colorful dresses, no marshmallow chicks, no chocolate bunnies, no colored eggs, no special foods.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โWe can simplify our societyโthat is, make ourselves freeโonly by undertaking tasks of great mental and cultural complexity.โ (Wendell Berry 49)
Itโs a paradox, of courseโa truth that seems counter-intuitive, even contradictory. But itโs neither. Itโs just true. We are free when our lives are complex. And when we live lives of complexity, we obtain simple freedom.
Berry points out that, during simpler times (when most of us inhabited rural communities), our work was complex. We built our own houses, grew our own food, and made our own clothes. We navigated the world using a variety of skills.
A farmerโif youโll forgive the clicheโseldom put his eggs in one basket. He had chickens for eggs and meat, cows for milk, and pigs for meat. He grew corn to feed the animals and himself. But he also grew alfalfa and cotton and wheat. He had a series of enterprises requiring various ways of working. He was not a specialist.
He rotated the crops to take care of the land. He knew that without the land there was no way to sustain life. His complex way of living brought simplicity that was freeing. He produced all or most of what he needed. He lived independently, but in community.
Berry writes:
โ[T]here were times, . . . mainly during the . . . harvest, when we would all be together. The men would go early to have the benefit of the cool of the morning. The women would finish their housework and then gather, sometimes bringing dishes already cooked, to lay on a big feed at dinnertime; and then after the dishes were done, they would go out to help in the field or the barn for the rest of the day. . . . This was our membership.โ (Hannah Coulter 92)
Modern people have accused our forebears of sexual division, relegating women to the kitchen. But women worked in the fields too. Men and women grew food and other crops. Often the division of labor meant he worked harder than she did growing the food. And she worked harder than he did to put it on the table. Children grew up learning a good measure of hard work.
It wasnโt about who did what work. It was about making sure the work got done. Everyone had a part to play, a contribution to make, a purpose to serve.
People worked hard, some just to surviveโothers, to thrive. They grew old, perhaps at a faster rate than we do. They were tired. But they were not lonely.
Today, loneliness is an American epidemic. Cigna released a study indicating that most Americans are lonely. We might expect that among the elderlyโespecially those who live aloneโbut that isnโt the case. In fact, older people have done the best job of keeping themselves from being isolated.
The loneliest among us are the young. Cigna says the problem is bigger than social isolation. Cigna is an insurance company. Loneliness is a health problemโas harmful as smokingโmaking some more prone to heart disease. Loneliness is costly to insurance companies and costly to our society.
And social loss happens in more than dollars. Lonely people are more prone to substance abuse. Loneliness has become a social crisis.
In the nineteenth century, moving from the country to the city marked a huge shift in how we saw children, for example. On the farm, children had been blessings from heaven. Once they reached a certain age, they became helpful hands on the farm. One day they would become heirs of the land. Life in that place would go on as it had beforeโwhere people lived complex lives of contribution.
In the complex life on a farm, everyone who was able worked. Children jumped in to help with chores as soon as they were old enough. And they somehow became older sooner out in the country.
In the city, men worked. Women stayed home with children whose contributions to sustaining the family were non-existent or small. If the manโs work provided a good living, the woman and children did not need employment. If the reward of his work was meager, his wife and children made their way into sweat-shops.
It was difficult to carry oneโs own weight. Yet many found meaning even in such city places because, even as children, they contributed to the family.
My father rose early as a child and stood on a street corner selling newspapers every day. He never kept the reward of his work. He gave his earnings to help support the household as his list of acquired skills grew.
In becoming specialists in the city, our list of skills shrank as our dependence on others grew. We stopped being producers and became consumers of goods others produced. And ironically, in the midst of city crowds and in our dependent interconnectedness, we lost our sense of community.
In the city, the essence of freedom changed and became something less responsible, more self-focused. The change is something we attribute to advanced technology, to modernity. But itโs more than that. In consumption rather than production, we lost meaning in our lives.
Loss of meaning changes our core beliefs as a people, a nationโhence our red and blue selves. The nature of our beliefs relies largely on where we come from. Two sets of beliefs spring from our different worlds, the countryside and the cityscape. And we will find great difficulty in reconciling the two into a single way of thinking.
In the countryside, fathers still teach youngsters how to shoot a rifle and/or shotgun. Pre-teens hunt and fish, supplementing the familyโs store of food. And these children are also prepared to defend the homestead and the livestock against wild animals or someone with evil intentions.
In the city, guns could have only two purposesโthreat or protection. Today in cities where specialization reigns, only the police are supposed to protect. There is no place for gun ownership in the minds of many city dwellers.
Issues like that one define our differences. There seems to be no solution in sight.
The American Dream entails the pursuit of a better life. Now, weโve reached a point where itโs hard to imagine a better life for our children. Is there a better place than the comfortable one weโve made for ourselves? Seeking more comfortโor for those in a world of pain because of abuse or neglect, some comfortโhas brought us the drug crisis and school shootings. Young people lack responsibility and self-control largely because they are more concerned about comfort than meaning. Yet they seek meaning. And they can never quite find enough comfort.
The prize of comfort has revealed itself to be like a plastic trinketโeasily broken, the next one to be constantly sought after. Perhaps itโs time to build lives that are a bit more uncomfortable, lives with purpose beyond comfort.
Yet an exodus back to the farming life doesnโt seem reasonable. Much of the available farmland has been consolidated or subdivided. Even so, there are things we can do to regain community, complexity, and simple freedomโthat of independence.
Many of these things come more easily to farm folks. Working together, eating together. That can be the primary place we begin during this coronavirus crisis when we find ourselves compelled to stay home. The next step may be not to move back to normal too much or too fast once the crisis passes.
We can grow some of our own food. Some of us already grow tomatoesโeven in potsโeven in apartments. What better way to show the young that food doesnโt originate in a store? What better way to explain the concept of cultivation?
We cultivate plants. We cultivate purpose. We cultivate our souls. We can produce more. We can consume less. We can show others the difference and pass along responsibility, self-sufficiency, and meaning to them. We can find a new way to go back to a better way of doing things.
When we as a society left the farm for the town or the suburbs, we thought we were moving to a better place, an easier life. Ease has shown itself to be a poor trade for peace in our hearts.
With purpose, we find that peace. And that is something worthwhile to pass along.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
As little girls we practiced motherhood clutching our baby dolls. But we never dreamed about the years that would come beyond. Years that can be enormously productive.
Grateful to have been a guest on Gina Ferrar’s The Feminine Roadmap.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Today I observe my children when they think nothing is happening: bored to tears, imprisoned in themselves, almost desperate. Like my mother [did when I was young] I feel it would be best if they could experience that more often.” Erling Kagge, Silence in the Age of Noise.
I’ve often heard that people fear public speaking more than they fear death. That those are our two biggest fears. But there’s something else we work very hard to avoid. Boredom.
Because we work so hard to avoid it, it may be that boredom is our most unacknowledged, perhaps our biggest, fear.
Covid 19 is blocking our social outlets leaving technology to feed our efforts to engage our minds.
But there is another option: we can tempt boredom and embrace silence with time to just think. We can find company with our inner selves. We can see whether silence will lead us beyond itself to a new, better place.
In his book, Kagge quotes Norwegian author Jon Fosse: “[S]ilence goes together with wonder, but it also has a kind of majesty to it . . . . And whoever does not stand in wonder at this majesty fears it.”
This fear, Kagge says, “causes me to all too easily avoid being present in my own life. Instead, I busy myself with this or that, avoiding the silence, living through the new task at hand.”
Kagge’s perspective is largely secular. Robert Cardinal Sarah‘s is not: “Sounds and emotions detach us from ourselves, whereas silence always forces man to reflect upon his own life.”
And consider this from G.K. Chesterton: “Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.”
It’s interesting that Chesterton doesn’t stop at saying we have forgotten who we are. He goes on to say, “We have all forgotten what we really are” (emphasis mine).
That’s a more universal distinction. It’s one true thing to say we don’t know ourselves well enough. It’s another true thing to say we have little understanding of what God made us to be. We can’t have the second without the first. We’ve missed much of what we are–what He intends for us.
This time of social isolation offers us time to pursue the company of God who knows who we truly are (and loves us anyway) and knows what we truly are (His with a purpose).
Dwight Longenecker offers this: “Perhaps in lockdown mode we can all take more time to listen attentively not to another podcast, audio book, or whatever is streaming on our screen gadgets, but learn to listen to the voice of the Lord. Just as God moves slowly, so he speaks quietly. The prophet hears the Lord not in the earthquake, wind, and fire but in the still, small voice of calm.”
These are lessons I’m not done working through. With the coronavirus shutdown, I found the abrupt end to my well-established routine–my everyday program of distractions–to be very unsettling. And I miss the necessary and valid fellowship of others. God did not make us for solitude.
Yet our everyday (pre-coronavirus) lives had an imbalance leaving necessary solitude abandoned and stuck at the top of the teeter-totter of life as we weighed ourselves down with much that did not matter. Now is a good time to learn how to balance the need for interaction that we’re missing with the need for silent solitude that we may have ignored for too long.
Silence feeds our souls. Silence tells us who we are–for better or for worse. (Yet how else might we improve ourselves?)
And silence lets us hear God’s still small voice telling us what we are–what He made us to do.
There are fewer than two weeks until Easter. And this Easter may be very much unlike any other we’ve ever known. Many of us feel like we’re standing still as we move through this Lenten season. And even those of us who do not mark a liturgical calendar are finding ourselves in a state of sacrifice, of having given up much, albeit not willingly.
Every great social challenge is a time of decision. Will we merely endure this time, or use it to seek our better selves and pursue God’s intended purpose for us?
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โAt a point later in theย yearย I observed a paddock with two mature ewes with rather thick necklaces of twisted hay. These stubborn ewes, I was told, had taken a disliking to one another in the field and were almost incessantly butting and harassing each other. These edible Elizabethan-style ruffs of hay were the only source of food in the pen, so if the battling ewes wanted to feed they had to get up close and nuzzle, ultimately developing a bond of familiarityโ (Craeft, Alexander Langlands 73).
Itโs happened more than we care to admit. We decide we donโt like someone. Then Providence pushes us together in a way that we have to rely on each other.
We come to see the โadversaryโ in a new light. A bond forms.
In the church, thatโs community. Imperfect, sometimes ugly. Yet a community, ideally, that feeds its members.
Sheep crave community. Even if it means building a bond with an adversary. The wise shepherd puts the unruly sheep in a situation where they must feed each other so they can both return to the flock.
Craig Rogers says, โAlthough many think of their flocking instinct to be a sign of โdumbness,โ it is in fact a community-based survival mechanism where they have learned that their strength is much greater in numbers and their comfort and survival is enhanced as a group rather than as an individual. Not a bad lesson for all of us.โ
Two are better than one: They get a good wage for their toil. If the one falls, the other will help the fallen one. But woe to the solitary person! If that one should fall, there is no other to help. So also, if two sleep together, they keep each other warm. How can one alone keep warm? Where one alone may be overcome, two together can resist. A three-ply cord[ais not easily broken. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (NABRE).
Remember that Christian who irritates you? Offer some foodโfigurative or realโand try to get comfortable as an ally in faith. And how about that neighbor whoโs a non-believer? Thatโs someone outside the flock, perhaps a wounded spirit just waiting for an invitation.
Like sheep wearing food around our necks, we carry the Bread of Life with us.
The lost sheep live among and around us. And we are the only ones who can invite them to come home.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
In the grocery store on Friday afternoon. It was Friday the 13th. The day local children found out they would have 10 “snow days” without snow. It was 62 degrees outside. A lucky day?
It was unlike any other trip to the grocery store in my memory, even at Christmas, even before an actual big snowstorm.
Not a roll of toilet paper to be seen. A lone, dented can of green beans sat on a shelf whose contents had been reduced to peas, corn, and some Lima beans. I was not surprised to see the canned peas remained. My husband was not surprised to see Lima beans left behind.
This event–the pandemic of 2020–is bigger than Y2K was because we knew Y2K was coming. We had months to load up on canned goods and toilet paper then. But Y2K never played out.
The coronavirus sneaked up on us in the last few weeks. And while Y2K could have meant global disruption, this one still seemed far away even as it makes its way closer and closer to home.
What surprised me the most at the store was the mood. It was like a holiday. I know it hasn’t been that way everywhere else. This store had no more toilet paper to fight over. But no one seemed to be in a fighting mood.
The checkout lady was in a chipper mood–even as she told me, “It’s been like this for three days.” She must have been exhausted–yet she seemed energized.
The kids–it was late afternoon–already knew they would have no school for two whole weeks. We haven’t had a snow day this year, not even a delay. And now a two-week break. It’s one we won’t have to make up because it’s an emergency. For kids, it’s like an extremely late, very nice Christmas gift.
The attitude within the store smacked of joy. People laughed. They seemed to be getting in one more party–one big community social event–before solitude descends upon us–but somehow not a solitude to regret or begrudge.
There have been no cases of coronavirus confirmed in our area. Yet.
Yet we know it’s coming. It’s just a matter of time. So how do we handle this time?
My own class of high school students received no holiday from me. I assigned work for them to do at home–just in case. And now just in case has come to pass. Most of them are preparing for a high-stakes test–the Advanced Placement test.
The test won’t care that they missed school for two weeks. The test won’t care that they lived a piece of history that won’t require them to make up the days–make-up days that ironically would happen after the test.
There’s a moment in the movie A Quiet Place that comes back to me. Invading monsters kill anything that makes noise. Yet a mother silently teaches her son math. She prepares him for the future even while death looms on the doorstep.
We don’t teach for diversion as impending disaster awaits. We teach to prepare for what will come. For whatever will come.
So extended spring vacation or no, my students will face this test. Success or failure on test day will not significantly affect their lives. Success is encouraging and there are perks–like perhaps getting college credit. Not getting the score you hoped for is disappointing. But either way, we move on to the next test life will provide.
And they will face bigger tests. Real-life trials that may affect them deeply.
When they face those trials, I hope they will find the spirit I saw in a crowd of people in a grocery store getting ready for a challenge that has slowly surrounded us and seems destined to invade our smaller world.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
So much of life is, Like a footprint in the sand. We work so hard, But our marks wash away to nothing On a road that seems to lead to nowhere.
But One marks each step, Notes its direction, Its influence, Its intention, Its imprint.
If we let Him, He will direct our steps, And lead us to a way, Of no sand, of no lost meaning, A road of His purpose.
Over hills, through valleys and storms, Dark nights and new days; We stumble; He leads on, He lights the path, the road to somewhere, And guides us in the way everlasting.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โWe can simplify our societyโthat is, make ourselves freeโonly by undertaking tasks of great mental and cultural complexity.โ (Wendell Berry 49)
Itโs a paradox, of courseโa truth that seems counter-intuitive, even contradictory. But itโs neither. Itโs just true. We are free when our lives are complex. And when we live lives of complexity, we obtain simple freedom.
Berry points out that, during simpler times (when most of us inhabited rural communities), our work was complex. We built our own houses, grew our own food, and made our own clothes. We navigated the world using a variety of skills.
A farmerโif youโll forgive the clicheโseldom put his eggs in one basket. He had chickens for eggs and meat, cows for milk, and pigs for meat. He grew corn to feed the animals and himself. But he also grew alfalfa and cotton and wheat. He had a series of enterprises requiring various ways of working. He was not a specialist.
He rotated the crops to take care of the land. He knew that, without the land, there was no way to sustain life. His complex way of living brought simplicity that was freeing. He produced all or most of what he needed. He lived in community but independently.
When we moved to the city, we became specialists.
Our list of skills shrank. Our dependence on others grew. We stopped being producers and became consumers of goods others produced.
In the city, the essence of freedom changed and became something less responsible, more self-focused.
The change is something we attribute to advanced technology, to modernity. But itโs more than that. In our consumption, we lost meaning in our lives.
Loss of meaning changes our core beliefs as a people, a nation. The nature of our beliefs relies largely on where we come from. Two sets of beliefs spring from our different worlds, the countryside and the cityscape, and will not reconcile into a single way of thinking.
We can trace the differences in our core beliefs back to people moving from farmland to city.
In the nineteenth century, moving from the country to the city marked a huge shift in how we saw children.
On the farm, children had been blessings from heaven. Once they reached a certain age, they became helpful hands on the farm. One day they would become heirs of the land. Life in that place would go on as it had before.
In the complex life on a farm, everyone who was able worked. Children jumped in to help with chores as soon as they were old enough. And they somehow became older sooner out in the country.
At the dawn of the urban explosion in the city, men worked. Women stayed home with children whose contributions to sustaining the family were non-existent or small. If the manโs work provided a good living, the woman and children did not need employment. If the reward of his work was meager, his wife and children made their way into sweat-shops.
It was difficult to carry oneโs own weight. Yet many found meaning even in such a place. They worked to make sure their own children would not bear a similar burden.
As a child, my father rose early and stood on a street corner selling newspapers every day. He never kept the reward of his work. He contributed his earnings to the household.
He made a better life for his children.
Now, weโve reached a point where itโs hard to imagine a better life for our children. Is there a better place than the comfortable one weโve made for ourselves?
Seeking more comfortโor for those in a world of pain because of abuse or neglect, some comfortโhas brought us the drug crisis and school shootings.
Young people lack responsibility and self-control largely because they are more concerned about comfort than meaning. Yet they seek meaning. And they can never quite find enough comfort.
The long-yearned-for-prize of comfort revealed itself to be a plastic trinket.
In the countryside, fathers taught (and still teach) youngsters how to shoot a rifle and/or shotgun. Pre-teens hunted and fished (some still do), supplementing the familyโs store of food. And these children were also prepared to defend the homestead and the livestock against wild animals or someone with evil intentions. Many still are so prepared without danger to their peers.
In the city, guns could have only two purposesโthreat or protection. Today in cities where specialization reigns, only the police are supposed to protect. There is no place for private gun ownership in the minds of many city dwellers.
Such issues define our differences. There seems to be no solution in sight.
But perhaps a solution comes in making our lives more complex.
We are a long way from building our own houses, growing our own food, and making our own clothes.
But learning how to do some of the things that make us more independent can make us more responsible, more independent people. We can produce again rather than simply consume.
And by learning production ourselves, we pass along production, and with it responsibility, self-sufficiency, and meaning to the young.
Doing so can help us understand each other. Doing so can help us help each other. Doing so may make all the difference for someone disenchanted with a plastic trinket of meaningless comfort.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
ย For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid,ย but gives us power,ย love and self-discipline. II Timothy 1:7~
“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness . . .” Aldous Huxley~
Lent started last week for most Christians. Many pay little heed to the season. But it begins a season I mark every year now.
As a child, I didnโt work very hard at Lent. Iโd decide to give up potato chips until there were some potato chips around. Then Iโd switch to something else, like chocolate. And then, to something else. I was like Huck Finn deciding what not to steal today.
Then for many years, I didnโt mark Lent at all.
I donโt remember when I started againโmaybe a decade ago. My discipline about food hadnโt advanced far from what it was when I was a child. I ate too many potato chips when they were there. And too much of anything made of sugar any chance I could get.
I wasnโt overweightโor not seriously so. I bounced around within 20 pounds or so since hitting 40. But Lent isnโt about weight control. It isnโt a diet plan. Itโs a desire to work with God to get control of food. To keep food from controlling me. To honor Him in what and how I eat.
It was about discipline and sacrificeโalbeit small sacrifice. The discipline isnโt just one of physical appetite. There is a spiritual element in all we do.
In sacrifice, we acknowledge that we arenโt in heaven yet. Here is a place where sometimes we partake and sometimes we abstain. Itโs a place where we do better when we donโt have it all. But itโs hard because what we want is all around us. All we want. All the time.
Everywhere we look. So we need discipline and with it comes sacrifice–a denial of comfort for a higher cause.
The discipline, denial, and sacrifice remind us. Lent reminds us heaven is ahead of us. We are not there yet.
Lent reminds us that He carried a cross.
He sacrificed. He walked that way. He is the wayโfor us.
We remember that our essence was not made for this world.
We can only imagine heaven. We yearn for it. We even confuse this world with it sometimes. Discomfort and sacrifice remind us that only one dwelled there and then came here.
He did not have to imagine. He knew. Yet He came and sacrificed Himself for us.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The second one of the next generation. A great-grand.
At the hospital the evening after her birth, I receive her into my arms from her father. He is the first one I received of his generation. Firstborn of my firstborn.
She squirms as if to acknowledge I am neither mother nor father. So begin my efforts to erase the unfamiliarity.
I speak the words I’ve spoken to all new ones after her father–since I realized these first conversations are important. They set the tone for all that follows.
“Jesus loves you. Grandma loves you. You have a wonderful mommy and daddy.”
Her face is that of her grandmother–her Mimi–my daughter. This new one’s hair is darker than her sister’s–like an uncle’s–her father’s brother–like her Mimi’s. There is no other feeling to rival touching that soft hair.
I look around the room where she will stay for the next few days with her parents. The clear bassinet holds a pink knitted hat. My mind works to recall details from those days when I was a new mother–pieces that come in snapshots I’ve carried in my mind over the years.
This one’s parents are making their own mental snapshots.
We worried about her coming. A potential complication required close monitoring. We prayed. Others joined us in prayer.
But the coming was simple. Fast. She would come on her own, not via surgery as we had thought would happen. It seems she has her own mind already.
Mark Twain said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.โ
But there is no one moment on one day that holds our purpose. We carry purpose with us every day. Why she has come to us will unfold over the years in multiple ways–in ways we can’t pin down to one moment. In ways we will never fully fathom.
Today she is here for us to hold and celebrate. To remind us that time passes quickly between that first moment holding a newborn and the others that follow.
The before and after and the moments between each new coming contain their own purposes. Their own wonder. Their own great times of struggle and triumph, fear and wonder. Prayers of pleading and prayers of gratitude and joy.
Welcome to this journey we call life, little one. We are so happy to have you on the path with us.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“We aren’t all called to be school crossing guards and tell people where to cross the street. We’re all supposed to cross the street.” Pastor Kevin Brown~
What if we in our churches learned our own strengths and each other’s strengths and supported each other in ministry using those areas where we already succeed? What if, instead of asking people to volunteer at church, we looked at their skills, their gifts, and helped them find ways to help others using those skills and gifts?
What if we stopped seeing our churches as places we go to participate in programs and started to see them as places we go to organize, to educate, to prepare–to teach, to train, and to release people into our communities?
The nearby Bible Society offered training for trauma counseling certification. There was a great need to counsel people arriving from Rwanda who had suffered great trauma.
But it isn’t only people from Rwanda who suffer the ill effects of trauma. Trauma happens in our own communities–probably much more than we realize.
Imagine seeing trauma around you, knowing it’s there, and feeling helpless to comfort those who are hurting.
Having been certified by the Bible Society training, members of Kevin’s church now lead three groups in their community helping people deal with trauma. These groups formed within the community, not within the church.
Kevin invites us to take what we know and can do and then lift Christ up in the part of the world where he calls us to work.
Jesus said, “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.โ John 12:32~
For too long, I sat in a pew and waited for the world to come to church.
When we only look at the world through church windows, we only see the darkness that’s out there. But people are out there in that darkness.
We defeat ourselves when we focus only on the darkness–only on how bad things are. We feel helpless when we perceive that our tiny glow of light cannot pierce the immense darkness in which we swim daily.
Kevin’s teachings remind us that Christ in us is bright. We can make a difference. That difference comes as we take His light outside to our neighborhoods and communities–even to hostile communities around the world.
This is our task: We can lift Jesus up in our communities in a way programs just don’t. We can find out how to help others with what God has already put into us. We can help those within our own neighborhoods and cities. We can change lives in other places–places where it’s hard to speak of Christ.
Our first step is to cross the street.
It’s dark on the other side of the street.
It’s up to us to go into the darkness and spread the light.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
There you are, Ivan Denisovich, your soul is begging to pray. Why donโt you give it its freedom?โ (161)
In One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, author and Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn presents Ivan, a man yearning to be released from the Soviet gulag. Near the end of the one day the book depicts, Ivan has a conversation with Alyosha, a Christian whose joy defies the prison atmosphere. In their exchange, Ivan acknowledges the existence of God but heโs seen corruption in the church. Alyosha replies, โItโs because their faith is unstable that theyโre not in prison.โ Only those with steadfast faith go to jail.
Only the faithful pay a price.
As the conversation continues, Ivan questions the power of prayer. โHowever much you pray it doesnโt shorten your stretch. Youโll sit it out from beginning to end anyhow.โ
What Alyosha says in response is surprising. Stunning, in fact.
โWhy do you want freedom? In freedom your last grain of faith will be choked with weedsโ (163).
Now thereโs a thought that seldom creeps into the minds of American Christians. For two centuries, America has been the land where faith is free. There is little if any cost. We only see advantages to our freedom, never disadvantages.
But in Russia, where Solzhenitsyn hailed from, itโs been a different story for a long time. And Solzhenitsyn wasnโt the only Russian writer to understand that story. And he wasnโt the only Russian author to name a faithful character Alyosha.
In โThe Grand Inquisitor,โ Fyodor Dostoevsky presents Alyosha, a priest, who is generous and loving. His brother Ivan is an atheist who plans to live until he is thirty and then commit suicide.
The two discuss a parable Ivan has written. The conversation is a chapter in The Brothers KaramozovโโThe Grand Inquisitor.โ
In Ivanโs parable, a 16th century Cardinal/inquisitor talks to a silent Christ who has returned to earth for the day. Christ sits silently while the inquisitor tells how he and others in power have replaced God and improved upon His plan. They have convinced the populace to willingly relinquish their freedom.
Christ had brought freedom with the promise of heavenly bread. But He did not bring guarantees of earthly bread or even happinessโsomething we American Christians tend to think should naturally proceed from freedom. The inquisitor instead offers people earthly bread at the cost of their freedom. Not having to pursue their own bread, the people will be happy, the inquisitor claims:
โDost Thou know that the ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim by the lips of their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only hunger? โFeed men, and then ask of them virtue!โ thatโs what theyโll write on the banner, which they will raise against Thee, and with which they will destroy Thy temple.โ
Published in 1880, Dostoevsky was prophetic. Much of the world has turned to the bread of socialism. They donโt, however, seem any happier for having done so.
In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson promised America freedom and happiness. He admitted he did not have the โfull answerโ to Americaโs woes. But he determined to find โthe best thought and the broadest knowledge from all over the world to find those answers for America.โ His speech marks a turning in America, certainly not the firstโor the lastโfrom the wisdom of God to the wisdom of man.
โThe purpose of protecting the life of our nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a nation.โ The governmentโs new goal was to effect personal happiness in its citizens. Without it, according to this administration, the nation was a failure.
Johnsonโs Great Society would result in โabundance and liberty for allโ and require โan end to poverty and racial injustice.โ
Itโs been more than half a century since LBJ promised that programs could produce a heyday of peace and prosperity, a heaven on earth utopia. But it was not to be.
It cannot be.
The pursuit of happiness is not something that anyoneโincluding the governmentโcan chase on someone elseโs behalf. It comes, not in bread, but in purposeโa specific purpose.
In response to the inquisitor, Dostoevskyโs Christ remains silent. His only response is kissing the inquisitor before He departs.
Ivan thinks he has figured out how to fix the world. But Ivan still isnโt happy. Before they part, Alyosha kisses him.
Alyosha knows happiness does not come in the form of bread. It comes in the form of love. And that kind of love comes only through Christโnot through personal comfort. Solzhenitsyn agreed.
He said, โEven biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism.โ Alexander Solzhenitsyn
At Harvardโs commencement in 1978, Solzhenitsyn spoke to the graduating class, the future academic, business, and political leaders of America. He told them that โintense sufferingโ had produced spiritual development in the East, and that our comfortable lifestyle in the West had produced in us a state of โspiritual exhaustion.โ
Solzhenitsyn said that Americans had โlost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility.โ He said we needed โvoluntary, inspired self-restraintโ to โraise man above the world stream of materialism.โ
We needed to step away from our comfort because our comfort had made us numb. Comfort had put us to sleep. Self-imposed discomfort would awaken our spiritual senses and take us back to God.
The Harvard students booed him off the stage.
Itโs difficult to accept discomfort intentionally, difficult to convince ourselves we need to pursue less comfort, difficult to see happiness in giving instead of in receiving.
And comfort is always a relative term. In 1978, Americans werenโt nearly as comfortable as they had been in through the fifties and sixties, nor as comfortable as they would be in the eighties.
But through those years, we were always more comfortable than much of the world. Comfort softens us. Discomfort stretches us to new purpose.
Discomfort makes us look up. Peggy Noonantells us to โembraceโ crisis โas a blessingโ and that, if we have not been so blessed, to โpray for oneโ (82).
Itโs always my natural bent to claim that my blessings in that department have been more than adequately fulfilled, thanks anyway.
We always want to avoid the pain of trials. And for the most part, we donโt get to choose. But even after suffering some involuntary (but largely self-inflicted) discomfort in life, I still have to work to enter someone elseโs grief and see their need.
Fighting the numbness of our comfort is a constant battle. Many Christians of the East today choose discomfort simply by choosing faith. At the least they realize that they are at risk of suffering for the sake of the Gospel.
Along with Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn was a prophet. America didnโt listen to him in 1978. But we can listen now. If we can shake off our numbness and embrace the discomfort of giving, of purpose, of love.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The two teens stood across from me at the March for Life Expo in January. They weren’t yet old enough to vote. But perhaps when they are, they’ll cast their ballots to excise their part of Virginia to make it part of West Virginia–a harkening back to our Civil War. (Or our first Civil War?)
They are not alone in that way of thinking. Those hoping for Southern Virginia’s secession to West Virginia have company in Oregon, some of whose voters want to become part of Idaho. California also has its own initiative brewing. But that effort isn’t pushing to become part of an existing state. The plan calls for the establishment of the 51st state–New California.
Imagine what these efforts–if successful–might lead to.
Political pundits speak of the conservative part of my own Pennsylvania in terms of the T across the north and through the center with Philadelphia in the east and Pittsburgh in the west–although Pittsburgh sometimes joins the T.
The T carried our Keystone State for Trump in 2016–even the heavily Democratic Cambria County–coal country.
If voters in the T decided to follow suit with southern Virginia voters, the bulk of Pennsylvania might also join West Virginia–or ally with rural voters in New York to form a 52nd state.
It sounds far-fetched. But perhaps we are closer to making such dividing lines than we realize.
Rural voters want to keep their guns. On farms or in nearby forests, guns have practical purposes completely unrelated to crime and unfathomable to many city-dwellers.
Conservative and liberal voters can only remain at an impasse over abortion. Room for compromise on this issue is scant because the unborn one either lives or dies. There is no state of in-between.
While these proposals for state-splitting are still in their infancy–or perhaps in their early childhood–it seems a good time to consider some of the ramifications.
For example, would Philadelphia decide to become part of New Jersey? Could Jersey support the costs of the City of Brotherly Love that rural PA taxpayers have helped to bear for decades?
What if the rural/conservative voters of every state thought it best to cut themselves free from every city that wanted to limit guns and fund abortions at any time during gestation?
Would cities’ leaders moderate some of their views to stem the traffic moving to a new place? Would rural folks bend? Can both sides occupy a middle ground for long?
Beyond the disputes over abortion, gun control, and other divisive pursuits, both city and countryside struggle with opioid addiction, isolation, loss of purpose.
The answer is the same whether in unity or division. Shining light into the darkness. The darker the night, the easier it is to perceive the light.
Shine your light while you can. Where you can. All you can.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
“When the Roman Empire collapsed, the loss of basic knowledge of how to do ordinary things was immense. The Oxford historian Bryan Ward-Perkins told me that it took western Europeans something like 700 years to relearn how to build a roof as solid as the Romans knew how to build.” Rod Dreher~
When my husband retired from his office job, he leaped into a full-time vocation that he was already doing part-time–roof and chimney repair. And he added a ministry aspect.
When he needs a crew, he goes to a local drug rehab program and recruits workers for the day. A couple of them turned into long-term employees. They arrived with a new outlook and got a new set of skills.
But most of them don’t. After all, not everyone belongs on a roof. Not everyone can traverse a housetop in a mild degree of comfort. And not everyone is willing to do the hot sweaty work required to finish the task at hand.
Some move on to other work. Others go back to the old way of life.
My husband sees two ways of thinking. One accepts responsibility for the past and doesn’t want to return to the old life. Those workers show promise and are willing to learn. They revel in a sense of accomplishment. They find success in fixing something that had been broken.
The other perspective shifts blame for the past. The shifting means they don’t move forward. They realize no great moments of accomplishment. Without accomplishment, there is nothing to pass on. There is no once-broken-now-fixed thing to see, to point to. And no set of skills attained to pass to others. They can only pass along blame.
That is how we forget.
Decades ago, I was among an inaugural class of girls taking woodshop. I still have the finished cedar box I made complete with a crack across the top because I (apparently) hit the hammer too hard nailing the lid on.
The teacher swore he would never teach girls again. I assume he retired shortly thereafter. From then on, girls would work with wood and boys would navigate the formerly female-only domain of the kitchen.
Our more modern outlook did well to invite boys to pursue competence in the kitchen and girls to use tools. We taught skills and children accomplished meals and boxes–even those with cracks.
I read this week of schools eliminating home-economics classes–now named Family and Consumer Science.
And I remember the sense I felt a few years ago at seeing a sack lunch for sale in a grocery store. It’s hard to give that feeling a word. But “loss” comes the closest. Can we no longer even pass along the small accomplishment of packing one’s own lunch?
Think about the exchange so many of us have made. We’ve traded the ability to prepare our own food (let alone grow it ourselves) for going to the store or restaurant, or now to have it delivered.
We have to realize that we are passing along ways to do things. We are showing others how to do things themselves–or how to get others to do things for them. We are always teaching something.
We have to ask if we are losing ourselves in our loss of basic competencies. With such seemingly small losses come even bigger ones hidden under our radar.
Rod Dreher writes about a conversation he had with someone who works with victims of sex trafficking. He calls the conversation “deeply shocking.”
“He said that in his line of work, he hears from fertility doctors โ not one fertility doctor, but several โ that they are having to teach married couples how to have normal sex. . . . if they want to conceive. These young people have been so saturated in pornography, and have had their imaginations so thoroughly formed by it, that the idea of normal reproductive sex acts are bizarre to them.”
Imagine a world where the idea of having your leaky roof fixed is bizarre. Where the idea of fixing your own sandwich is bizarre. Now imagine the world where the idea of the normal way to make babies happen is bizarre.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have a material connection to the entity I have mentioned–my husband’s roof repair business. I have no material connection to any other entity mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“We fed the public a line of deceit, dishonesty, a fabrication of statistics and figures. We succeeded because the time was right and the news media cooperated. We sensationalized the effects of illegal abortions, and fabricated polls which indicated that 85 percent of the public favored unrestricted abortion, when we knew it was only five percent. We unashamedly lied, and yet our statements were quoted [by the media] as though they had been written in law.” ~ Bernard Nathanson
Dr. Bernard Nathanson had been a leader in the movement to liberalize Americaโs abortion laws. After he became, first, pro-life, and later, a Christian, he admitted that the pro-abortion side had lied.ย He and his colleagues had claimed, โthat the number of illegal abortions wasย more than ten times higherย than it actually was.โ
After Nathansonโs transition to a pro-life perspective, Robert P. George had the opportunity to hear the former abortion doctor (Nathansonโs term) speak.
George asked Nathanson a pertinent question: since he had been willing to lie in order to produce what he had thought was a good thingโlegal abortionโwould he now be willing to lie โto save babiesโ?
The question stunned Nathansonโbut he answered no. When the two met privately later, Nathanson expanded upon his answer.
โYou [George] said that I was converted to the cause of life; and thatโs true. But you must remember that I was converted to the cause of life only because I was converted to the cause of truth. Thatโs why I wouldnโt lie, even in a good cause.โ
When he was a champion for legal abortion, he used any means at his disposal to achieve his end. As a champion for the cause of Christ and, therefore, the cause of life, his list of potential strategies came down to one: the truth.
Five years into the aftermath of Roe v. Wade, the Chicago Sun-Times did an expose on abortion facilities in the Windy City. Reporters Pamela Zeckman and Pamela Warrick titled their work โThe Abortion Profiteers.โ
At several facilities, they found an assembly line process that harkened to the back-alley butchery a newly pro-life Nathanson warned us about.
One of the women took a urine sample from one of her male co-workers into the clinic. Clinic personnel told her she was pregnant. When would she like to schedule her abortion?
Doctors held competitions with each other to see who could do more abortions in a day.
But after all these years, the truth about abortion can be hard to find. Much of the media has since decided they are no longer in the truth business.
We only hear the stories of horrific abuse when they go beyond the pale.
Stories about the likes ofย Nareshkumar Patelย tend to remain localized. It didnโt hit the national news that he, a licensed physician, had prescribed abortion drugs for women who were not pregnant. His fee? $250 for a few pills.
What would happen to the abortion โindustryโ if we knew how it really worked? If reporters like those at the Sun-Times still objectively conducted investigations?
We would know the truth. And the truth could set a multitude of mothers, fathers, and children free. It could also free those stuck in the abortion lie industry.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copyย here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was an episode of a television show in the late ’70s or early ’80s. I don’t even remember the name of the series.
A married couple was battling to stay together. Or it was more like they were battling each other. Today we would say they had issues.
One issue–perhaps minor, perhaps not–was that he hated her smoking. He often challenged her to quit. She refused to give it up.
Until they got a report from the doctor. Yes, they were expecting. (No home pregnancy test back then.)
She immediately stopped smoking–just as he’d been begging her to do all along. She had a natural desire to protect the life within her.
But he said, repeatedly, “We can’t bring a baby into this.” Into the mess that was their marriage.
Finally, she succumbed to his unrelenting push for her to abort. And the video depiction of the procedure’s aftermath was subtle but raw.
She left the clinic and got into the passenger seat of the car at sunset. He sat in the driver’s seat as darkness surrounded them. Viewers saw the flick of a lighter. The flame sucked into the glow of a burning cigarette next to the passenger side window.
The smoldering cigarette signifying the snuffing out of their child’s life.
The discussion around abortion was relatively new then. The battle lines had not clearly formed. Truth was more of a possibility.
Such a television depiction would be unlikely to air today because the man pushed for the abortion. He pushed against the woman’s desire to protect new life. He gave her no room for “choice”.
In the late ’70s, the news media was still objective about the issue, at least in one corner of the world. In 1978, the Chicago Sun Times did an expose on abortion “providers”–not yet so named.
One of the abortion facilities the expose covered closed down as a result, and a physician lost his license to practice. A grand jury investigated.
In contrast, a few years ago in my own state of Pennsylvania, law enforcement uncovered Kermit Gosnell’s abortion house of horrors when they were investigating the illegal sale of prescription drugs.
The uncovering of abortion amid filth and broken medical equipment came about accidentally even after a woman died and Gosnell murdered a breathing, six-pound abortion survivor, among others. Yet others carry physical reminders of their time in his “care”.
If not for the drug bust, would he still be injuring and killing?
The Pennsylvania Department of Health said in a later report that they had stopped inspecting abortion facilities “because of political reasons.”
After an alert from a former employee, the state interviewed Gosnell off- site–where they wouldn’t see the condition of his facility.
Pennsylvania also ignored an insurance company report of a post-Gosnell abortion patient who died from sepsis after he perforated her uterus.
Writing an op-ed for USA Today, Kirsten Powers said, “This [Gosnell’s story] should be front-page news.”
But it wasn’t on the front page because the media had completely ditched objectivity at some point after Chicago’s expose.
Today’s media isn’t paying attention–on purpose–all to supposedly protect “a woman’s right to choose.”
But the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reports that nearly 75 percent of aborting women say they experienced at least some pressure to abort. More than half said they aborted to please others.
And nearly 30 percent aborted out of fear they would lose their partners. The statistics on what happens next for relationships so affected are tough to nail down, but one counselor says his experience shows that half of post-abortion relationships break up. He’s not alone in that way of thinking.
It’s distressing to think that the media got it right in some obscure program that aired decades ago and will never see the light of syndication.
It’s distressing to ponder all those babies gone. All those women pushed. All the lies told and truth withheld.
An unimaginable amount of damage done for someone’s choice–and not even the someone you might expect.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I remember sitting in a college classroom, a criminology class, and hearing the instructor discuss โvictimlessโ crimes, the encounters society frowned upon (more then, less now) but that โdidnโt hurt anyone.โ
The instructor suffered from the disillusionment that โconsenting adultsโ could engage each other, agree to exploit each other, walk away, and remain unchanged, unharmed, perhaps even happier or better off for having had the experience.
Somehow when one eternal soul encounters another, both change. Loving choices produce good–satisfaction in our purpose fulfilled.
Exploiting choices, unrepented and left to themselves, never produce happiness or anything else we can call โbetterโ.
We human beings shape and reshape ourselves and each otherโall through the power of our choices.
We cannot, of course, ignore the work God does in shaping us. Our circumstancesโnot all resulting from our choicesโshape us. But always, always, we choose how we react to every situation.
There is a calling, a mandate, on our lives. That calling demands a response. A false response refuses to acknowledge the harm sin causes. A true response resists evil, evil that has power to do great harm.
In his discussion of J.R.R. Tolkienโs Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewisโs various works, Joseph Loconte presents this universal calling:
โOne may answer the Callโor refuse it, turn away, and walk into Darkness. But indifference to the Call to struggle against evil is not an option; one must take sides. Thus, set before our imagination in the works of Tolkien and Lewis is one of the great paradoxes of our mortal lives: the mysterious intersection of providence and free willโ (152).
Every day, we choose to answer the call or neglect it. We choose the good way or our own way.
As our choices shape us, so do they shape our society.
And the shifts in society manifest themselves in changed language. Unborn humans have not just become fetuses. Clinic workers must never say the word baby. They call the child tissue, a blob.
Prostitutes are sex workers now. Thatโs a very clinical sounding term for something that sounds like an innocuous business. That innocuous business has grown into sex trafficking, even of children, even in America.
Porn is not victimless. It turns its viewers into addicts.
And letโs not neglect the harm done to those within the abortion industry. Many within pro-life ranks today left clinic work to stand for life. They have answered the call. But healing is a long road.
Many wounded remain behind and cause more harm.
Loconte: โIt is through their own decisions . . . that they invite a spiritual crisis into their lives. The result is not the freedom they imagined, but the deepest slavery of heart and mindโ (163).
God bids us to answer His callโto be instruments of healingโto make choices that will shape us, others, and our society for good.
He calls us to speak the truth in love. Our refusal to do so can only bring more hurt.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Young people are the heart of the March for Life. And itโs your generation that is making America the pro-family, pro-life nation.” President Donald Trump
Young people truly were the heart of this year’s March. And there is a great strength of character to be found among the crowd.
Notably this year, Nick Sandmann came back with fellow students from Covington Catholic. You may remember that last year a radical liberal accosted Sandmann trying to engage him. But he stood silently, working to appear pleasant, working not to provide a negative reaction.
Yet the media lambasted the teen. Remember that; he was a teen, a high-schooler. Sandmann and his family received death threats because of broadcast media assumptions about his “smirk”.
Just days before this year’s March, CNN settled with him over their misrepresentation of his reaction to the opposing protester. Other media outlets have yet to settle or be called to Sandmann’s day in court.
Darlene Pawlik was one of them who manned a booth at the EXPO, one of the pre-March events. She had been conceived in rape–which sounds like enough of a story for anyone. But then she spent years being trafficked across several states in the Northeast.
Darlene’s website explains her ministry of loving the traumatized. “[V]ictims and survivors of abuse have trouble with trust, itโs hard for us to develop relationships. Recidivism happens when trauma bonds with abusers are stronger than healthy, nurturing ones.”
Darlene helps us understand how to help the traumatized. She speaks up on behalf of the one percent–those conceived in rape who are subject to a death sentence in the womb because of the circumstances of their conception. Circumstances beyond their control.
She spent hours on her feet baring her soul to help others avoid the torture she endured for years. Young girls often surrounded her.
This year’s March for Life was historic because it’s the first one a president attended in 47 years. But the legacy of the event will emanate from the Nick Sandmanns and the Darlene Pawliks.
Perhaps someday there will still be a March for Life that only reminds us of the days of legalized killing.
If that day comes to pass, we will owe praise to God–and to the Sandmanns and Pawliks who came and spoke their hearts in action.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“There you are, Ivan Denisovich, your soul is begging to pray. Why donโt you give it its freedom?โ (161)
In One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, author and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn presents Ivan, a man yearning to be released from the Soviet gulag. Near the end of the one day the book depicts, Ivan has a conversation with Alyosha, a Christian whose joy defies the prison atmosphere.
In their exchange, Ivan acknowledges the existence of God but heโs seen corruption in the church. Alyosha replies, โItโs because their faith is unstable that theyโre not in prison.โ Only those with steadfast faith go to jail.
Only the faithful pay a price.
As the conversation continues, Ivan questions the power of prayer. โHowever much you pray it doesnโt shorten your stretch. Youโll sit it out from beginning to end anyhow.โ
What Alyosha says in response is surprising. Stunning, in fact.
โWhy do you want freedom? In freedom your last grain of faith will be choked with weedsโ (163).
Now thereโs a thought that seldom creeps into the minds of American Christians. For more than two centuries, America has been the land where faith is free. There is little if any cost. We only see advantages to our freedom, never disadvantages.
Right now religious freedom in America hangs in the balance between two ways of thinking.
We are not quite one vote away from the gulag. But we may be closer than we realize to losing our freedom to speak and write, to proclaim Christ without cost. The threat that stands in the shadows now is our right to stand on the moral ground shaped through the blood and tears of martyrs, missionaries, visionaries, and great heroes who came before us.
One was William Wilberforce, who devoted his life to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor who resisted the Nazis in Germany. One of his co-conspirators was Claus von Stauffenberg, who planned the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. Maximilian Kolbe gave his life to save a prisoner he never met before. Mother Teresa cared for the poorest of the poor. The list goes on and dates back to the earliest days of the Church.
These heroes lived in different times; they faced different challenges. All of them made great sacrifices for their faith. Those who lived with less freedom than we know still spoke, still acted.
Someday, religious freedom may be no more in America. But make no mistake, we will still be free. We will still be able to speak, write, petition, proclaim. The only difference is that, then, doing so will cost us.
I remember something a friend quoted to me by Allen Boesak many years ago: โWhen we go before Him, God will ask, โWhere are your wounds?โ And we will say, โI have no wounds.โ And God will ask, โWas there nothing worth fighting for?โ
Our times are troubled. There are reasons to worry. But there are more reasons not to worry.
Alyosha said, โOf all earthly and mortal things Our Lord commanded us to pray only for our daily breadโ (162).
Ask for daily bread. Thank Him when it comes. And leave the rest to Him.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copyย here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I donโt know who she sat next to in church that weekโor if she even went to church then. And for a long time after I met her, I had no idea what had happened in her life.
It all looked great from my viewpoint.
Then we went on a bus trip to the March for Life. Thatโs the annual Washington, DC, commemoration of the 1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion in all 50 states. I donโt know the moment that made a difference for her. I just know that she lived that moment and her life changed. She made a connection with someone she felt she could trust with her secret. And when she did, she found healing.
And I might not have ever known but for a chance meeting.
One Sunday morning, we were visiting a church in a neighboring community. And when we got out of our car, she got out of hers.
She was the guest speaker. She had come to tell us the secret she had carried for years. She had had an abortion.
And she told us about the someone who helped her. And the God who healed her.
Now she helps others. And those others are all around us. We just donโt know who they are or what they are living.
Perhaps one such person sat next to you last Sunday.
One in five women who reported that theyโve had an abortion were attending church weekly at the time. Four in ten said they attended church regularly when they aborted. Seven in ten aborting women identify themselves as Christians.
Only seven of 100 such women said they discussed their decision to abort with someone at their church.
Roland C. Warren of CareNet says, because the issue of abortion has been politicized, many pastors shy away from addressing it. So many women sit in the pews feeling that they cannot speak of their crisis pregnancies.
โ[A]s a result of pastorsโ withdrawal, there have not been broad-scale ministry on-ramps built around helping women and men make pregnancy decisions,โ he writes.
Itโs not about politicizing our churches. Itโs about providing compassion to people who may hold pro-life convictions in their hearts even when they perceive that their desperate situation has no solution other than abortion. So we also must offer compassion for men who have made abortion decisions. Consider this story:
There is a Planned Parenthood facility in Montgomery County, Texas, that was the special focus of prisoners in the local jail during a 40 Days for Life campaign.
Forty Days for Life was meeting outside the PP at that location from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm daily during those 40 days. One of the participants also volunteered in the chaplaincy program at the local jail. He went to see whether the inmates of faith would be willing to cover the other 12 hours of each day in prayer.
A few days later he โreturned to the Wynne unit and the offender heading up the unit prayer vigil gave me the sign-up list. It turned out to be 12 pages full of names. As I examined the list in semi-shock and asked several questions, I realized that each man on the list had agreed to pray for one hour each day for the whole 40 days. For example, 16 men are praying every day from 7 PM โ 8 PM for the whole 40 days. Again, 16 different men from 8 PM โ 9 PM. 15 men signed up for 3 AM โ 4 AM and so it goes. Every hour is covered with at least 10 men who signed up to pray.โ
I donโt know how abortion touched the lives of each of these inmates.
โThe inmate was feeling haunted because he had pressured three different women he had gotten pregnant into having abortions. Surprised that a man was talking about abortions, Lawlor invited Gardner to speak at the annual prison ministry meeting in 2011.โ
Gardner believed many prisoners suffered from PTSD because of their involvement in abortions. Her research and instincts found support when โan anonymous survey issued to the inmates at both of the prisons [Martin and Okeechobee in Florida] indicated that 90 percent had been involved in an abortion experience that hurt them.โ
She says, โItโs not what you think about men in prison. They longed for their children and somehow recognized that life went wrong after their abortion experience.โ
It doesnโt seem like a natural progression of logic that men would find themselves in prison as a result of abortions in their lives. After all, these men had histories before and after their abortion experiences that may also have contributed to their incarceration.
It didnโt seem like a logical connection to the men eitherโat first. โMany men are unaware that their emotions are the direct result of an abortion experience,โ according to Gardner.
Emotional wounding comes from all sorts of trauma. But with nearly 62 million abortions happening in the US since Roe, itโs time to acknowledge that the wounding is widespread.
Gardnerโs program includes multiple classes. Men learn how to deal with the pain of the past. They find healing. They experience, she says, โthe healing power of God.โ
The men are building โthis beautiful brotherhood of life . . . behind the wall.โ
Credit: Tim Marshall
Only God can form such a brotherhood. And only God can place a healing helper in our path after weโve wounded ourselves in a way that seems insurmountable.
Whether the place of ministry is a prison or a church, it must be a place of transparent compassion that says, โWe will love you no matter what you face, no matter what youโve done because there is a great God who loved us and you too,โ Gardner says.
Thatโs the same love that my friend found. And the love she now offers. Thatโs the love the men suffering after abortion offer.
That love is the Gospel.
And the Gospel is the message of Christ. The message of the Churchโif we can be bold enough to share it.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was interesting to observe. A sociological experiment of sorts. We were at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. Our busload of people and several hundred others.
And just two bathrooms.
The driver explained to us that, because there were so many people and such little in the line of facilities, we were to just get in line together–men and women–and take care of nature’s callings as such.
It was a practical matter–how to move so many people faster. It wasn’t about ideology.
Yes, I was uncomfortable and found the experience unpleasant. But what surprised me most was that the most vocal complaints came from the younger women in our group.
They, of the generation who grew up with the most open views on gender and sexuality since Rome, were beyond uncomfortable. Horrified might be the word they would use. They weren’t prepared for such a change in their social practices.
In his book, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity, Douglas Murray–an openly gay liberal–puts forth his thesis that, just perhaps, Western Civilization is shifting too quickly, too sharply.
That happens, he says, when one side wins a battle–but the war continues.
“Our public life is now dense with people desperate to man the barricades long after the revolution is over,” Murray writes.
In his section on Transgenderism–entitled “Trans”–Murray tells three stories.
One is about a man who had felt uncomfortable in his body since childhood. After serving in the military, marrying, and fathering five children, he divorced his wife and became a woman. Once same-sex marriage became legal in the UK, the now trans woman remarried the former wife.
Formerly James, now Jan, felt “euphoria” post-surgery, and was convinced “I had done the right thing.”
Murray writes that the “four surviving children . . . obviously did not have the easiest time adapting to the change in circumstances, though they seem to have been as adaptive as anyone could be.”
That’s Murray’s best case scenario.
The story he opens the chapter with doesn’t end happily.
Murray tells the story of Nathan, born Nancy. As a young girl, Nancy felt the family favored her brothers. Nancy’s mother admitted she found her infant daughter to be “so ugly” that she never bonded with her.
Nancy eventually underwent surgery to become Nathan. But one year later, disappointment in the results drove the trans man to ask the state for euthanasia. The state complied.
Nathan’s mother said, “Her death does not bother me.”
The story prompts Murrays’ questions: “Are we sure that [trans] exists as a category? And if so, are we certain that attempting to turn somebody physically from one sex to another is always possible? Or even the best way to deal with the conundrum this presents?”
Some may say that Nancy/Nathan’s story is a straw man. A terrible example of family rejection and a striving to do anything to find acceptance–which apparently was not to be had.
Yet Murray has other stories. I’ll summarize one that best supports his thesis that today’s culture is moving too fast on this issue.
“James” was a teen when he discovered the gay/drag queen scene. He shared his sense that he was “in the wrong body” with his doctor at age 18. After three and a half hours–yes, hours–of therapy at age 19, James heard the clinician’s conclusion: “You’re trans.”
He then entered the NHS (British health care system) that would accommodate all his needs, beginning with hormones and culminating in surgery–every need except one that would question the diagnosis of trans.
It was a process that began with James living as a woman for two years. Then came the hormones, Next, would come the surgery that would finalize the transformation.
James–no female name provided in Murray’s retelling–would see NHS folks once every six months. During that time, no one questioned–or asked him to question–the diagnosis of trans.
Yet, James himself began to question as a point of no return approached.
One can take opposite-sex hormones only so long before an important effect becomes permanent. James would be irrevocably infertile.
“[The NHS] had treated him as someone with a condition that needed fixing. But online James sought–and found–contrary points of view. Through alternative media he discovered YouTube stars and others who were questioning the wisdom of his decision, including younger and hipper people than he had expected.”
James also had questions about his faith as a liberal Christian–“questions of God and design.”
He began to ask “what I need to do to be content with my body, not change my body.” No one at NHS had encouraged such thought.
The government’s philosophy about transgenderism had moved too fast–in only one direction–for James.
Murray’s voice is an important one for our day. It is a voice of reason calling us to the manned barricades that want to move us to a place of no return–without much consideration of the consequences as we go.
Murray calls us to hear what the changes are doing, not just for the “Jan”‘s who are happy with the results of social change–but for the Jameses who did not look beyond the NHS’s quest for one solution in time–for the Nancy/Nathans who found that solution insufficient to fulfill a lifelong search for love and acceptance.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I didn’t know it would make any difference when I wrote it on the board that day. When I was a new teacher, I wrote (and still write) a quote on the board every school day for my high school students.
I got the idea from a college professor who did the same. But he used bits of alternative songs–unknown to me as a thirty-something student. I asked that he might, at some point, perhaps, provide a quote by someone I would recognize. Marx, maybe?
At the next class, I sensed him watching me for a reaction. I checked the board. The quote he used that day was this one: “Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.” G. Marx~
Not the Marx I expected, but a name I recognized.
In my own classroom a few years later, the quote I wrote wasn’t from Groucho Marx. It was by Cervantes.
“The road is better than the inn.”
I’d had it in my notebook for some time. When that day came, I felt compelled to use it. The teacher across the hall peeked in to see what I’d written. She did that sometimes. I thought nothing of it.
Years later, she told me that the Cervantes quote that day was part of the confirmation she was seeking about whether she should quit her job and take a position as a teacher overseas in a country hostile to Christian faith.
The next year, I was still writing quotes on the board. She was in Northern Africa. My co-worker understood the Great Commission.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Matthew 28: 19-20a (ESV)~
What I also didn’t realize that day was that within a few years, my husband and I would also travel abroad to a country not so friendly to Christianity.
We don’t know where the road will turn–or what it holds beyond what we see in front of us.
Some missionaries travel to exotic lands and stay there all their lives. Some go for days or weeks and come back. Some speak to a neighbor–or a stranger–right in their own home towns.
The inn lies ahead of us. Until we arrive there, we are always on the road. We will turn the right way when we listen to God’s leading–when we heed the voice of direction.
Jesus said to them again, โPeace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.โ John 20:21 (ESV)
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? Amos 3:3 NKJV~
The United Methodist Church will become two. Except that it has been two entities within one for a long time.
It was easy to see it coming. There have been two sides within United Methodism for many years. But as one side continued to move away from scripture and the other side stood true, a break was inevitable and is now on the horizon.
Cheryl K. Chumley of The Washington Times says the split comes as the denomination’s “administrators were poised to enact punishments on those ministers within the ranks who gave the thumbs-up to gay marriages. The punishments wouldโve taken the form of year-long bans without pay โ leading to outright removal from the ministry ranks for repeat offenses.”
The majority of elected delegates within the denomination (many from Africa and fewer in America) want to follow orthodox, biblical teaching that homosexual behavior is sin.
The minority denies that the sexual union between two people of the same sex is sin.
There can be no compromise.
Yet the two sides have been dwelling under the umbrella of John Wesley for a very long time. It would seem that the side of tradition will take Wesley with them.
And the other side: whose are they?
They can point back to no Christian hero of the ages. This new perspective on sexual sin–or its existence only as bigotry–is, well, new. That is to say unparalleled in Church history.
The Methodists are not the first to split. Two years ago, the Mennonites split over the same issue.
Perhaps future splits will be less dramatic–less newsworthy. But liberals within denominations are drawing a new line in history and the line is about LGBT issues.
Many conservative Christians are not missing the point. Greg Coles leads worship at his church. He refers to himself as “gay” but is committed to living a celibate life.
He writes: “Adopting the word gay was not, for me, an attempt to declare a totalizing new identity which superseded my identity as a follower of Christ. It was simply an attempt to communicate as honestly as I could to as many people as possible. Along with many other same-sex-oriented Christians, I have found that words like gay, lesbian and bisexualโwords collectively known as sexual identity labelsโcan facilitate important conversations about vocation and obedience to Jesus for those of us with non-normative experiences of sexuality.”
If they haven’t already, conservative churches need to have that conversation.
This controversy is out of the closet–so to speak–where it has been brewing for decades.
Just published a year ago, my book Restoring the Shattered presented the divide within the denominations–not between them. “Itโs a schism thatโs hidden within the folds of denominations. Many misconceptions we have about each otherโs traditions reside within this divide between orthodox and liberal thinking.”
The schism that was hidden within the folds is hidden no more.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Last year, I resolved to read more and included a photo of the books I intended to read in 2019.
Someone commented on that post that he need not finish every book he starts. He resolved “to free [him]self from boring books by freely abandoning them.”
Without realizing it, he gave me permission to do the same. And I did, more than once. Yet here I invoke a paraphrase of Reagan’s eleventh commandment that no writer say anything bad about another. And my cup of tea may just not suit you.
As is always the case, the list of books I finished is quite different from those I wrote about a year ago. Other books just shouted to go to the head of the line. And I brought them forward.
So this year, my list still contains a few books from last year. I still resolve to read more by managing television and internet time better than I did in 2018 and then in 2019.
Two books that jumped to the front of the line immediately upon my acquiring them were both by Abby Johnson. Unplanned (the basis for the film of last year) and The Walls are Talking are Johnson’s accounts of having worked in the abortion industry and now working to help others escape employment therein.
I read them out of order, reading The Walls first and following up with Unplanned. In her Preface to The Walls, she states, “This will not be an enjoyable read. It is a necessary one[.]”
She is correct on both counts.
Also jumping to the front of the line last year was My Father Left Me Ireland by Michael Brendan Dougherty. My son gave me this book for Mothers’ Day ahead of my journey with my husband to the land of my heritage. The book provided a solid context about Ireland’s history of the Easter Rising and the Troubles. As an American who grew up in a single-parent family, Dougherty also provides a clear diagnosis of the crisis America faces today.
I read one and a half other books on Ireland–but neither matches Dougherty poetic and profound account.
Among the books on last year’s list that I finished is Everything Happens for a Reason–Kate Bowler’s stellar, sometimes humorous, discussion of what it’s like to live with a terminal diagnosis–emphasis on live.
I also consumed A Pope and A President by Paul Kengor. This book allowed me to relive some of the history I’d seen on the evening news over the decades and to get a behind the scenes, in-depth understanding of God’s working in that historic news. There’s always so much more to the story–and Kengor provides it.
I’m still working through Bridge of Clayby Markus Zusak–an amazing piece of literature. I get the sense Zusak may have been trying to stay off the Young Adult shelf in America where The Book Thiefhad landed from his native Australia. However, some of the language he uses in the book’s dialogue does seem to accurately reflect the way teen boys would talk without an authority figure directing them otherwise.
An off-list book I continue to work through is Raising Jesus: The Skeptic’s Guide to Faith in the Resurrection. E.J. Sweeney’s book offers an amazing discussion of the reasons we can trust the veracity of Christ rising from the dead–from a viewpoint skeptical of the miraculous. I frequently underline and make notations as I read.
Even if you’re not a skeptic, this book is still a great apologetic tool for any discussion you may have with someone resistant to faith. I don’t agree with all Sweeney writes (I’m not that skeptical), yet his scholarship is dead on, and his arguments sound.
Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life is one I had planned to read in 2019 but didn’t get to. It’s on my list for 2020. I was gratified to see a student reading it on campus last semester. He assured me that it’s a worthy read.
Sonia Pernell’s A Woman of No Importance is on my list for the new year upon the recommendation of a trusted friend.
Also in my pile of books are Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments. You might think that watching a couple of episodes of the Tale on Hulu would discourage such a goal in me, but articles like this one and this one push me the other way.
On my list but not pictured is Out of the Ashes by Anthony Esolen, a book about what we should do when we find the civilization around us crumbling. Sounds timely.
And I couldn’t resist John Zmirak’s title The Bad Catholic’s Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins. I’ve thumbed through the book and read most of the introduction. Zmirak seems orthodox in his faith and hilarious in his outlook.
Blessings to you this New Year. What do you plan to read?
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Youโre excited to be pregnant. Then the news hits you like a rock. Your child is โincompatible with life. You should terminate.โ Or โYou have to terminate.โ It happens more often than you might think.
But not every unborn child so labeled actually dies.
What follows is a post by Rachael, a friend who knows all too well what hearing those words means since she and her husband Mike found out a year ago that they were expecting identical twin girlsโand that the babies were at risk.
โโSIUGR stands for selective intrauterine growth restriction and occurs only in monochorionic (identical) twin pregnancies.
โAbout 10% of monochorionic pregnancies will develop SIUGR. Many doctors do not know enough about this condition, and as a result, many are still recommending that parents terminate the smaller identical twin.
โWe were given the option to terminate [the smaller baby] Vesper. We faced the options of terminating or relying on faith. We were told, if Vesper passes away, you are going to cause her sister (Olenna) to either pass or have severe brain damage. And you need to prepare for a life with a severely disabled child if that happens. As I watched them dancing on the ultrasound screen, we determined then and there that termination was not an option for us. Vesper was growing and fighting to survive. She was just smaller than Olenna.
โSo we went to the doctor every two weeks. The anxiety that filled each appointment until we heard both of their heartbeats is something I hope I never have to relive. But every week our girls fought and grew. After 24 weeks the medical staff stopped asking us every appointment if we were going to terminate.
โFinally, at 34 weeks, the longest they would allow our pregnancy to go, we delivered two beautiful baby girls.
โI am raising awareness for every fighter-survivor and angel out there. Olenna and Vesper want you to know that SIUGR does not automatically mean a death sentence. There is always hope. My girls are six months old and the Joy for our days. I thank God for them.
โโThis happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.โ John 9:3โ
Thatโs Rachaelโs testimony of life for both her babies.
โShe is incompatible with life. She wonโt survive. I donโt think you understand how serious this is.โ
But Hannah and her husband Craig insisted on giving life to Evelynโand committed to enjoying her as long as God allowed her to live. The medical practice treating Hannah did not take the news well.
โI was immediately dropped from the practice after calling through screams and sobs to ask where in the world that information came from and that I would continue my pregnancy. I went five weeks without a provider. Tragically, it was a thousand times easier to schedule an abortion for my child than it was to find proper care for myself and my pregnancy.โ
Five weeks with no overseeing physician during a high-risk pregnancy. Easy to abort. Hard to find care. Yet, in this case, Hannah averted tragedy.
Because Evelyn is now 2-1/2 years old.
โThe only tragedy here would be never meeting Evelyn. All of our days are limited. Not just a child with a chronic illness. None of us are promised tomorrow. I remind myself daily that on my best day or worst day caring for Evelyn, I never have the power to add or subtract a day from her life. โ
Doctors advising Hannah and her husband were operating under the notion that all babies with Trisomy 18 die. But thatโs not the case.
Former US Senator Rick Santorum and his wife Karen also have a daughter with Trisomy 18. They too received the terrible new that they HAD TO abort their child who was incompatible with life. They refused.
Doctors are not the authors of life and death. God gives us people to love for as long as they and we are here to give love and receive love.
If only we will be as brave as Rachael and Mike, Hannah and Craig, and Rick and Karen.
If only we too will be so brave.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Photo Credit: Mike and Rachael Andrews Family Collection by Lakeside Portraits
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Humans, history says, emerged from a cave. We drew pictures of animals on the walls around us.
A great thinker, Plato, told a story about a man in a cave. This man is bound. Unable to see anything except the shadows cast upon the wall in front of him. He perceives these shadows to be the sum total of reality.
As Platoโs story goes, the man one day escapes his bonds, leaves his cave, and goes out in broad daylight for the first time in his memory. The bright sunlight blinds him. He needs a guide to discern this place, this reality.
The manโs eyes adjust to the sunlight. He finds his way. And he decides to reenter the cave and tell the others still in bondage there what he has discovered: They are only looking at shadows.
They are missing all that is real.
But they are content. They call him a lunatic. They know what is real. Itโs right in front of them. Plain as day.
They stew in the darkness of the cave.
Emerging from the cave makes a difference. We move from darkness into light. Into a blinding light to which the eyes of our souls must adjust.
British writer G.K. Chesterton pointed out that one man who was born in a cave grew up to an unjust death. Then He emerged from his cave tomb. At no point did his eyes need to acclimate to the light. He had created it. He spoke it real and it became reality.
People still inhabit the cave. They have their own โrealityโ. And their view of reality affects their view of Christmas.
When I was a radio news reporter, I wanted to do a special Christmas feature for the morning drive program.
I wrote a poem to record to music, but I wanted another voice along with my own on the piece. So I went to my kidsโ elementary school and interviewed six first graders. I asked them, โWhat is Christmas?โ
Three of them talked about Jesus. But the other three made no mention of Him. To them, Christmas was all about Santa and presents. Nothing more.
My sample was small and young. Hardly a statistical representation of first graders, let alone Americans in general.
Many of us bemoan such news. But our complaining about the de-sacralization of the holiday hasnโt changed the minds of those enjoying a holiday they deem secular. All our griping has not turned a tide toward keeping the day holy.
The Pew study investigates belief (or disbelief) in the details of the Christmas story: Jesusโ virgin birth, the shepherds, and angels.
Belief in those details, of course, reflects faith in who Christ is. Those details hold great meaning. Christ is sinless because he had no human father. God as his Father means he is perfect God as well.
When Christ was born, God the Father sent angels to the socially lowest of peopleโthe disregarded, the outcastsโthe shepherds. The presence of shepherds within walking distance of Bethlehem indicates that Christ was not born in December. Shepherds typically did not keep their flocks near villages because of the odor they caused. They would be nowhere near Bethlehem except during a 30 day period before Passoverโa period of preparation for the yearly sacrifice.
The shepherds outside Bethlehem were Levitical shepherds. Ironically, they were ritualistically unclean. They walked through feces. They touched dead things.
The angel told them to find a baby lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling cloths. To shepherds raising sheep for Levitical sacrifice, swaddling cloths would be vastly significant. For a lamb to qualify for sacrifice it had to be perfect, without blemish.
The shepherds swaddled lambs intended for sacrificeโthey wrapped them in cloths to protect them. The angel saying that they would find the infant wrapped in swaddling cloths indicated that the baby would be a sacrifice. That baby was the Messiah they had long awaited.
Many would have expected a Jewish king to be born in Jerusalemโthe city of the kingโnot Bethlehem. But Bethlehem was the City of Davidโa keeper of sheep.
Godโs choice of a birthplace for his son wasnโt just a fulfillment of prophecyโwhich it was. It was also a symbol that Christ the King would be the fulfillment of sacrifice on our behalf.
Christ was the sinless Son of God, the perfect Lamb to be sacrificed for the shepherdsโ sinsโfor our sins. Those are details many today disregard.
If we find the cultural embrace of a secular Christmas disturbing, we can still keep the true Christmas in our hearts. We can heed the angelsโ message of โFear not.โ
โDonโt take this sobering news [of the Pew study] as a reason to rend your garments and wail. Use it as reason to make your familyโs celebration of Advent and Christmas more religious.โ Rod Dreher.
As we do, we remember that, on that first Christmas, God invited the unclean to see His Son.
Those who reject him todayโor ignore himโare yet among the invited. The invited who refuse to come out of the cave.
The babyโs birth in one cave, and the manโs emergence from another, marks a division in the history of humanity. G.K. Chesterton writes,
โThere is even a shadow of such a fancy in the fact that animals were again present [for Christโs birth]; for it was a cave used as a stable. . . . It was here that a homeless couple had crept underground with the cattle when the doors . . . had been shut in their faces; and it was here beneath the very feet of the passers-by, in a cellar under the very floor of the world, that Jesus Christ was born. . . . God also was a Cave-Man, and had also traced strange shapes of creatures, curiously coloured, upon the wall of the world; but the pictures that he made had come to life.โ
We are all creatures of a caveโa cave in which we hide from truth or an empty cave from which we have emerged. Every person we encounter is someone who has discovered reality, or is still in a cave, or has come out but cannot yet fully discern through blinding light.
Chesterton again: โMan is the microcosm; man is the measure of all things; man is the image of God. These are the only real lessons to be learnt in the cave, and it is time to leave it for the open road.โ
Christ brings peace on earthโwithin our hearts. He is the perfect sacrifice for us. When we celebrate him, our silence can overwhelm the noise and darkness.
Embrace His peace. Celebrate him. Shine the true light. Keep faith in dark days and steep in his peace. Speak the glory of God to each person you meet. Celebrate his birthday throughout the year in awe of our great God.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.โย G.K. Chesterton~
One year between Christmas and New Yearโs Day,ย I had the blessing of being sick. Good timing. After Christmas. When thereโs time for not doing much.
One day: A granddaughter was sick along with me. Two bad cases of winter yuck: coughing and head stuff. We each claimed a couch and a blanket. Since she is the other Rod Serling fan in the family, I put in a DVD ofย Twilight Zoneย episodes. Black and white images flickered in the glow of a wood fire and a lit tree.
We found a twilight of wonder with Serling voicing over our dreams.
The next day: Still sick, but in solitude, I wanted to stitch away some time. To finish restoring a quilt. If I finished it (and applied some Lysol), two granddaughters could dream underneath it for our then annual New Yearโs overnight.
As I sewed, I searchedย for some background diversion.ย Flipping channels, I found two-inch deep television. I settled on Netflix and discoveredย The Little Prince.
Itโs a story within a story. An eccentric neighbor relatesย The Little Princeย to a young girl. Her life is consumed with the essentials of preparing for adulthood, her mother having mapped out every waking moment. No time for dreaming. No time for wonder. Only enterprise, but without the vision of wonder.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.โ Proverbs 29:18
The neighbor shows the girl the stars. Beyond them, she sees what is truly essentialโwhat the neighbor himself has already learned from the little prince.
โAnd now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.โ
When we find wonderโthe invisible that shapes our soulsโwe learn the essence of who we are. And that essence speaks in everything we do.
We learn that the world can be full of patient wonder. And patience is not found in a thirty-minute sitcom that resolves a superficial crisis.
Wonder takes us deeper than two inches. It teaches us to endure. And endurance pays off with a prize.
The prince: โWell, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.โ
Patience is, of course, a virtue. And wonder will always teach us virtue. C.S. Lewis shows us what happens when we lack vision and thereby lack wonder: โWe make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise.โ
Without wonder, we have only empty enterprise. We have no virtue and no vision.
On the first night of the New Year, two girls and I settled down with a bowl of popcorn andย The Little Prince. Then they dreamed under the completed quilt.
One day they will be grown-ups, at times consumed with the essentials of everyday living, but the prince reminds us that, โAll grown-ups were once childrenโฆ but onlyย fewย of them remember it.โ
May we count ourselves among the few who rememberโbecause only those who remember that wonder comes from God can participate in it with Him.
โThen Joshua said to the people, โConsecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.โโ Joshua 3:5
Photo Credit: Nancy E. Head
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copyย here!
Permissions:ย You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Before we have finished wrapping the presents, Baking the cookies and stuffing the pheasant, Before we have finished decking the heights, With shiny adornments and twinkling lights, Before we have finished all of the chores, Like cleaning the house and clearing out stores,
Before we have finished all that we do, To make every Christmas special and new, Let us look back to the Christmas of yore, When a Baby King brought us new life and more.
Let us look back to the Shepherds in awe, To the star and the angels, and all that they saw, Let us look back to that first silent night, When just for a moment, all seemed just right.
For peace was not present; oppression abounded. Harshness encompassed and darkness surrounded. But under the starlight lay the Babe in a manger, A message of hope in the words of this Stranger.
Let us look back to the way that He walked, To the works that He did and the words that He taught.
And so in the season as Christmas approaches, Let us refrain from all that encroaches.
Let us take pause from the hassle and noise, The trinkets and toys.
Let us look to find promised joy. To look to the Savior and King, To sing of His life, His love, His death and His rising.
Keep faith in dark days and steep in His peace. Speak the glory of God to each person you meet.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
And it seems that’s a trend that may continue–at least in Kentucky.
The US Supreme Court recently refused to hear an appeal of Kentucky’s law requiring women seeking an abortion to undergo sonography and view the resulting image of their unborn children.
The law also requires physicians to play the audio of a fetal heartbeat for mothers considering abortion.
There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or maternal health–which has been so broadly interpreted to include financial need.
No longer will Planned Parenthood and its ilk be able to (legally) lie to women that their children are mere blobs of tissue.
Women who see sonogram images of their own unborn children are vastly more likely to choose life. That’s why PP works so hard to hide the reality of unborn life from desperate women.
That’s why so many women who later learn the truth suffer trauma.
Only nine other countries in the world have a higher rate of abortion than the US has. Overall in the US, the rate was 18 percent in 2017–nearly one of five. But in New York City the rate is 35 percent of all pregnancies–more than one in three.
There is much work to do.
This month, we celebrate the birth of a little boy born of a surprise pregnancy. We also remember the innocents killed as a ruler tried to eliminate his perceived competition.
Rachel–the women of Bethlehem–cried at the loss of her beloved children.
Rachels are among us today–the women who sought out a desperate solution only to find their desperation carries on within themselves.
They are the victims of false kings who offer the false solution of death–and collect a fee for it.
Next month we mark 47 years of legalized abortion in America–nearly half a century.
It seems much of America has decided enough is enough.
It seems our nation’s highest court has decided to let the states that want to draw a line draw it without pause.
The genocide continues in our nation’s largest cities. But the tide is turning.
And, Lord, may it rise to overcome this holocaust of the unborn.
Please bring the Good News Gospel of your birth–and the good news of all births–to our countryside–and our cities.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author. Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Seventy percent of women who’ve aged out of foster care become pregnant before they are 21.
Aged-out kids are seven times more likely to develop substance abuse disorders and five times more likely to suffer from PTSD.
But for seven young men who used to be in foster care, that’s not the story.
That’s because Joe Toles adopted them.
When he was younger, Toles found mentors. He got a college scholarship. After graduation, he returned to his community and became a high school counselor.
He adopted his sons through the Dave Thomas Foundation–a charity arm of the fast-food chain known as Wendy’s.
But Toles’s story isn’t just an anecdote about a big charity that isn’t otherwise making a big difference.
Children in the Dave Thomas Foundation’s program are 300 percent more likely to find a forever home.
This foundation is effective.
If you can, consider adoption. If you cannot, go buy a Frosty. Buy some chili. Buy a Baconator or a burger or just a salad.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Bread, so that this house may never know hunger. Salt, that life may always have flavor. . .ย Wineย that joy and prosperity may reign forever.โ
In the movie,ย Itโs a Wonderful Life, George and Mary Bailey offer the housewarming gifts of bread, salt, and wine to the Martini family. A large family, the Martinis are able to purchase their own home because of the friendly business dealings of George Bailey.
George is the reluctant head of a wobbly savings and loan and spends his days in a โshabby little officeโย thinking his life has had no value. Those who have been the recipients of Georgeโs generosity know better. In the end, George comes to see the magnitude of his wonderful life.
As a single mother of five, I was frequently the recipient of bread that came from the generous hands of others. A few decades ago, we were on our own. Some of our days were lean. Some of them, even dreadful. But many of our memories from those days reflect the bread, salt, and wine of well-flavored life.
One Thanksgiving, a Sunday school class provided an entire feast. It came in a laundry basket. And I was grateful even for a new receptacle for dirty clothes.
And one year, a fellow churchgoer signed our family up for her companyโs Christmas program. The employees provided my children with age and gender appropriate gifts and even remembered me with a set of pink-flowered flannel PJโs.
Sometimes, we would find a box of food sitting on the front porch.
But it wasnโt just that they gave us food. They gave us the opportunity to sit together and enjoy bounty. There was joy in knowing others cared. There was joy in enjoying each other and the blessings we had.
The Great Provider gave us our very own George Baileys who helped make our lives richer.
After I remarried, life was more financially secure. I am no longer a recipient of the generosity of others. I can, on occasion, be a giver too. I can be a George Bailey to someone and offer them bread, flavor, and joy.
When we give someone bread, we feed the hungry. As we do that, our own lives gain flavor. We receive joy too.
โAnd do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased,โย Heb 13:16.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copyย here!
Permissions:ย You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author. Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Ryan Reeve: “In Jewish tradition . . . it became very common to pray after the meal. . . not before the meal. The idea there is give thanks when you’re full, not when you’re hungry. Give thanks when you’ve enjoyed all these things. . . .
“I think that is a fully biblical concept of creation in the way that we ought to entice the world out of their sort of stifling rationalism.”
The harvest is in. Our refrigerators are full as we spend the next few weeks filling up on gifts and more food. It’s a season of anticipation. A season of fullness. Of sometimes too much fullness. Of demands on time, money, self.
At the end of that season of fullness, we impose a new time to empty ourselves on purpose. We make resolutions most of us don’t keep–or don’t keep for long.
Somewhere between, gratitude gets lost. In our busy-ness, we strive forward, having put thankfulness behind us.
The meal began; the prayer ended. But this reminder:
Give thanks to the LORD for his is good, his mercy endures forever! Let that be the prayer of the LORD’s redeemed, those redeemed from the land of the foe, those gathered from foreign lands, from east and west, from north and south. Psalm 107:1-3~
If we belong to him, we are among the redeemed. He has rescued us from the foe. He has gathered us to our place in his Church.
Gratitude is how we shine light in the darkness of winter. We woo the friend, those who see themselves as the foe, those still afar. We woo them to come to the light.
Gratitude is contentment in a world seeking more and more. Gratitude is satisfaction and peace.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โWhat do you need?โ my husband Paul asked the director of a local food pantry during the holidays one year. The two had just met โby chanceโ.
A big smile spread across โBobโsโ face. โNothing.โ
Then he outlined a story about a great need the pantry staff had faced the week before. For years, a local company had donated $2,000 worth of turkeys every Christmas. But the company was now gone, replaced by a larger corporate entity.
No more turkeys.
Someone had made a donation that would have put a tiny dent in this need. But the holidays were coming fast.
Then Bobโs phone rang. A local grocer was in a panic. Someone had accidentally frozen dozens of turkeys labeled โfreshโ. The company could write off the turkeys. But they could not sell them.
โWhen would you like us to pick them up?โ Bob asked.
He has regarded the prayer of the destitute and has not despised their prayer. Psalm 102: 17.
The holiday season is filled with stories of kindness. But only God could have โaccidentallyโ provided so many turkeys, the exact need for the pantryโs patrons.
As miracles go, this one is small. But tiny miracles are sometimes the ones with the most power to encourage.
My friend was ringing a bell beside a red kettle. Passersby impressed her with their generous donations to the kettle and a gift of hot chocolate for her.
On social media, I read of a worn out mother trying to get her weary little ones through a restaurant lunch. A fellow diner paid for her familyโs meals and helped her herd her flock to her car.
Two men in line at a busy store began to argueโeach encouraging the other to go first.
Paul and I were at the post office waiting to mail packages that were not quite ready to go. A stranger waiting with us helped me wrap. Paul held our places in line. She folded. I taped. The process was fun and not frustrating as it might have been.
Sometimes, little miracles happen right in our own neighborhoodsโright in the heart of our homesโthe dining room.
When I moved into my house in 1977, I salvaged an old table my father was discarding. Our family grew from four to seven around that table.
Then we shrank. When the childrenโs father departed, we were six.
The years began to show on the table. One of its legs began to wobble. Without warning, it would collapse to the floor leaving all the work for the other three legs. We would laugh. But after a while, one of us found the falling leg not so funny.
When my youngest son was eight years old, he found a hammer and some very long nails and played carpenter. He reattached the errant piece, permanently joining it to the table. The repair was effective, but not pretty.
A few years later, I got a โnewโ dining room tableโalso recycled. This table was better. It expanded as our family was expanding. I had remarried. Some of the children had grown and married and had children of their own.
So the table could be small for everyday dinners, and it could be large for family celebrations.
Plus, it was reliableโfor a time. Then one of its legs turned mutinous too.
This time, Paul played carpenter, and unless you peeked underneath, you didnโt know the difference.
But our family continued to expand. Eventually, even our stretched out table was too small. Our range of motion became cramped. From fork to plate, to mouth and back. We yearned for extra room for side dishes and elbows.
So we bought a new table. An Amish carpenter constructed it.
This table is even more expandable than the last one. And itโs rectangular rather than oval. Now we have room for baked corn, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, and a host of elbows.
The table was ready just in time for Thanksgiving.
But in order to use your furniture, you first must get it into the house.
Paul heaved and I pushed. But even in its smallest state, the table was too wide for our front door. It would have to come in through the back door. To accomplish that, we would have to hoist the table over the back deck rail. And that seemed impossible unless we could find someone else to help.
The best candidate seemed to be the young man who had just moved in next door. He was strong and he was home.
As only Providence would have it, we learned that he is a mover by trade. God had placed the perfect workman right next to us.
Moreover, there are many workmen with you, stonecutters and masons of stone and carpenters, and all men who are skillful in every kind of work. 1 Chronicles 22:15
All we had to do was ask.
The old table went out the back door and the new table came in.
We had planned to put the old table on the sidewalk with a โFreeโ sign on it. But Paul found out that this very neighbor and his wife had no table. Now they do. We would never have known their need if we had not asked for his help.
So Iโm thankful for my new table. Iโm thankful for the craftsman who made a table with legs unlikely to wobble in my lifetime. Iโm thankful for the help of a neighbor and that we could help him in return.
Someone might argue that these encounters are nothing like real miracles. The laws of nature stood intact through each story.
Each encounter, though, reflects regard for neighbor over self. Each person who reached out touched others and those who stood by as witnesses.
Wonderful little miracles to give hope to those in need, to a weary traveler, to a busy shopper, to a neighbor with no table.
Iโm thankful for all the elbows to occupy our table this holiday season. Iโm thankful that we expect another set of elbows next spring.
Most of all, Iโm thankful for the Master Carpenter who places us in each otherโs lives and gives us opportunities to help each other.
We can be imago Dei and give the miracle of us to others.
Give thanks to the God of heaven,For His lovingkindness is everlasting. Psalm 136: 26
Photo Credit: Sandra Chile, Mayur Gala
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copyย here!
Permissions:ย You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โAbortion thwarts the most basic of paternal impulses โ a manโs instinct to protect his children.โ Thomas W. Strahan
There is a Planned Parenthood facility in Montgomery County, Texas, that was the special focus of prisoners in the local jail during a recent 40 Days for Life campaign.
Forty Days for Life was meeting outside the PP at that location from 7 am to 7 pm daily during these 40 days.
But one of the participants also volunteered in the chaplaincy program at the local jail. He went to see whether the inmates of faith would be willing to cover the other 12 hours of each day in prayer.
A few days later he “returned to the Wynne unit and the offender heading up the unit prayer vigil gave me the sign-up list.ย ย It turned out to be 12 pages full of names.ย ย As I examined the list in semi-shock and asked several questions, I realized that each man on the list had agreed to pray for one hour each day for the whole 40 days. For example, 16 men are praying every day from 7 PM โ 8 PM for the whole 40 days. Again, 16 different men from 8 PM โ 9 PM.ย ย 15 men signed up for 3 AM โ 4 AM and so it goes. Every hour is covered with at least 10 men who signed up to pray.”
I don’t know how abortion touched the lives of each of these inmates.
“The inmate was feeling haunted because he had pressured three different women he had gotten pregnant into having abortions. Surprised that a man was talking about abortions, Lawlor invited Gardner to speak at the annual prison ministry meeting in 2011.”
Gardner believed many prisoners suffered from PTSD because of their involvement in abortions. Her research and instincts found support when “an anonymous survey issued to the inmates at both of the prisons [Martin and Okeechobee in Florida] indicated that 90 percent had been involved in an abortion experience that hurt them. . . .”
She says, ” โItโs not what you think about men in prison. They longed for their children and somehow recognized that life went wrong after their abortion experience.โย
It doesn’t seem like a natural progression of logic that men would find themselves in prison as a result of abortions in their lives.
After all, these men had histories before and after their abortion experiences that may also have contributed to their incarceration.
It didn’t seem like a logical connection to the men either–at first. “Many men are unaware that their emotions are the direct result of an abortion experience,” according to Gardner.
Emotional wounding comes from all sorts of trauma. But with nearly 62 million abortions happening in the US since Roe v. Wade in 1973, it’s time to acknowledge that the wounding is widespread.
Gardner’s program includes multiple classes. Men learn how to deal with the pain of the past. They find healing. They experience, she says, the healing power of God.”
The men are building “this beautiful brotherhood of life . . . behind the wall.”
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“This is a case of shooting the proverbial messenger who had the courage to document the business model of the nation’s number one abortion vendor. It was clear during the hearing that Planned Parenthood did harvest and sell infant body parts. What a miscarriage of justice to punish those who documented the disgusting practices.” Kristen Hawkins~
A San Francisco jury has found that undercover journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt are liable for damages to Planned Parenthood. The two went undercover to show the world that PP was selling unborn children’s body parts for profit.
โUnfortunately, we couldnโt get Judge Orrick to back off from his insistence that the jury be instructed that the First Amendment โฆ does not state any kind of defense to the charges in this case,โ said Thomas Brejcha, founder of theย Thomas More Society, in an update on the case last week.
But perhaps the judge wasn’t the unbiased authority our judicial system calls for. After the trial, Daleiden said Judge Orrick โis actually the founder of a Planned Parenthood of Northern California clinic in San Francisco. . . .ย
โWe tried to get him recused from this case several times a couple of years ago, and each time he or his peers in the federal judicial system looked the other way and kept him on, and Judge Orrick basically predetermined the outcome of this case from the very beginning of the trial.โ
The Daleiden/Merritt case is about punishing those who would speak the truth about what Planned Parenthood’s henchmen and women did (and may still do) to turn a few extra bucks. It’s about silencing any others who may dare to speak truth about what happens behind the doors of PP.
For Planned Parenthood, it’s also about trying to reverse a public relations disaster–the truth.
And it’s about money.
Of course, Daleiden and Merritt’s attorneys plan an appeal.
That despite an HHS rule that exempts them from the Obamacare mandate.
Yet Obamacare excluded some corporations and government entities (the United States military, VISA, Chevron, and Pepsi, and Exxon). Will those entities provide those services out of their own surpluses–or will the employees pay them out of pocket?
This fight is clearly not about universal coverage.
Maybe these fights over the filming of truth and the sanctity of life are not just about money.
Maybe they’re not just about abortion. Maybe they’re also about power.
J.D. Mullane says it’s not the first time Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Josh Shapiro (one of only two AG’s pursuing the Little Sisters) has gone after a “little guy.”
” The AG seems to like picking on little guys like the Little Sisters. Recall how he used the full force of the state to go after a mom-and-pop lawnmower repair biz in Lower Southampton in May, alerting the media with a full-blown press conference with state police, state consumer protection officials, and ‘victims’ who, frankly, should have sought relief at a small claims hearing in district court.”
The Little Sisters of the Poor run nursing homes for abandoned elderly in poverty. They care for those with no one else to care for them at the end of their lives. At the same time, they stand up for the smallest humans at the beginning of life.
In these court cases, religious and journalistic freedom sit in the crosshairs of a weapon aimed at the champions of life–to eradicate their voices and silent witness–to take away their freedom to speak and our freedom to know.
The stakes are high. Get into the game. It’s the only way to overcome a stacked deck.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Martin Niemoller’s famous quote listing the Nazi victims comes to mind today.
This week the Little Sisters of the Poor are back in court–before the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS)–defending their right to follow their religious convictions against abortion and contraception.
This might sound like a rerun of the evening news, but it’s not.
It was just in 2016 that the Little Sisters successfully defended themselves against an Obamacare mandate requiring them to provide abortions, abortifacients (contraception that works after conception–i.e. medication or device abortion), and contraception as part of their employee medical insurance coverage.
The sisters faced the option of shutting down all their facilities or paying millions in fines.
Then they won.
But that’s not the end of the story.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro–presumed by many to be the next governor–wouldn’t let the issue die–despite a Health and Human Services (HHS) rule (at the federal level) that says otherwise. (California’s AG is also pursuing the case.)
“HHS issued a new rule that protects religious non-profits likeโฏthe Little Sisters of the Poor from providing services like the week-after pill in their healthcare plans in violation of their faith. This meant their four-year legal ordeal was close to an end. But shortly after, the state of Pennsylvania suedโฏto take away the Little Sistersโ religious exemption.”
According to Becket, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to believe Shapiro has it in for the sisters:
“Pennsylvania admits that it already has and already uses many government programs to provide contraceptives to women who need them. Pennsylvania never challenged the Obama Administration for creating much larger exceptions for secular corporationsโexceptions that covered tens of millions more people than the religious exemption. Pennsylvania does not even have its own contraceptive mandate at all.”
We of the Keystone Commonwealth should be asking how many of our tax dollars Shapiro has wasted on his persecution of the sisters.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It’s someone around you. Someone you sit next to at work or school or church. Your neighbor. The person in front of you in the store.
Or the homeless guy you see every day as you go to work. PTSD can happen to anyone. But it happens to veterans returning from combat in higher numbers than we may realize.
Only 50 percent of those vets and others with associated mental health issues get treatment.
What can we do to help? Hire and mentor a vet if you can. Joblessness is a huge problem for many veterans.
And donate to any of the various worthy programs that assist veterans.
Will You See One Vet? is a program you may not have heard of yet. It’s a program to help veterans in need get the dental care they can’t get from the Veterans Administration.
Dental care isn’t high on the priority list for a troubled and/or homeless veteran. But dental care affects our general health in bigger ways than we might think.
In 2016, two million people visited emergency rooms across America for dental related issues.
If you’re a dentist, you can volunteer at the website linked above. If you’re not, you can donate.
Veterans give so much for us. Here’s a way to give something back this Veterans Day.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I don’t know who she sat next to in church that week–or if she even went to church then. And for a long time after I met her, I had no idea what had happened in her life.
It all looked great from my viewpoint.
Then we went on a bus trip to the March for Life. I don’t know the moment that made a difference for her. I just know that she lived that moment and her life changed. She made a connection with someone she felt she could trust with her secret. And when she did, she found healing.
And I might not have ever known but for a chance meeting.
One Sunday morning, we were visiting a church in a neighboring community. And when we got out of our car, she got out of hers.
She was the guest speaker. She had come to tell us the secret she had carried for years. She had had an abortion.
And she told us about the someone who helped her. And the God who healed her.
Now she helps others. And those others are all around us. We just don’t know what they are living.
Perhaps one such person sat next to you last Sunday.
One in five women who reported that they’ve had an abortion were attending church weekly at the time.
Four in ten said they attended church regularly when they aborted.
Seven in ten aborting women identify themselves as Christians.
Only seven of 100 such women said they discussed their decision to abort with someone at their church.
Roland C. Warren of NetCare says, because the issue of abortion has been politicized, many pastors shy away from addressing it. So many women sit in the pews feeling that they cannot speak of their crisis pregnancies.
“[A]s a result of pastorsโ withdrawal, there have not been broad-scale ministry on-ramps built around helping women and men make pregnancy decisions,” he writes.
It’s not about politicizing our churches. It’s about providing compassion to women who may hold pro-life convictions in their hearts even when they perceive that their desperate situation has no solution other than abortion.
It’s also about being the place of transparent compassion that says, “We will love you no matter what you face, no matter what you’ve done because there is a great God who loved us and you too.”
That’s the love that my friend found. And the love she offers.
That love is the Gospel.
And the Gospel is the message of Christ. The message of the Church–if we can be bold enough to share it.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โI am my belovedโs and my beloved is mine,
He who pastures his flock among the lilies.โ
โSong of Solomon 6:3
Husband and wife did not need to speak words to one another, not just from the old habit of living together but because in that one long-ago instant … they had touched and become as God when they voluntarily and in advance forgave one another for all that each knew the other could never be.
โWilliam Faulkner
A few years ago, I attended a Russian Baptist wedding. The bride had been a student of mine, one I had mentored in a small group. A remarkable student with a deep and intelligent faith, she worked hard and read voraciously.
She made a big impression on me one day during her sophomore year when our group was having lunch. She asked that we pray for her friendโs mother. The woman had been helping with our school lunch that day but had become ill. After prayer, my student asked permission to go outside to sit with the sick woman who was waiting for her husband to pick her up.
Sometimes the student disciples the teacher.
During another of our gatherings when she was a senior, she told me about her fiancรฉ. โHeโs already talked with my father,โ she glowed. She continued in animated excitement. Her father had told the young man that they would have to wait two years before marrying. Young men in this small community usually do not wait two years for a bride, but this young man would.
At the end of two years, the brideโs father, a pastor, conducted the ceremony. The service was in Russian, but the church provided electronic translators for the English speakers among us. What unfolded was a beautiful ceremony much like other weddingsโuntil after the bride and groom said their vows. At that point, they both got down on their knees and prayed aloud. Each asked God to โhelp me keep the vow I just madeโโan extra step to reinforce the seriousness of the day.
A fellow teacher and I were among a group of individuals who would speak on behalf of the bride at the receptionโanother departure from typical weddings. After an amazing meal, I followed along in the program as several others took their turns speaking to the bride and groom. Much of that was in Russian (no translators here). Aunts, uncles, and grandparents, one by one, came forward to give the bride and groom words of wisdom for their life together. Then came my turn to speak.
When I began, the bride stood up. I talked about how impressed I had been with the character of this young woman and related the story of her care for the sick woman in our school cafeteria. I mentioned the radiance I saw in her eyes when she was with her fiancรฉ. When I mentioned the groom, he stood up.
The couple had been up and down throughout the reception. At no point did either of them heave a sigh or roll their eyes. The seriousness they exhibited at the church carried over to the celebration afterward.
They would carry it into their lives where they now parent two children.
As we left the reception, I thought of how this joining of two lives had differed from so many others I had witnessed. The mood was just as celebratoryโjust as joyful. The couple listened respectfully to every speaker. That looked like work to me, and I thought that, at the end of the day, they must have been very tired.
Considering the factors that contribute to divorce, this couple seemed to be at risk. They were young. He did not plan to go to college. She was taking online classes mainly because she wanted to homeschool her children capably, not to enhance her earning capability or empower herself. But consider what they have going for them. They had waited two years as she studied, and he honed and applied his skills as an electrician, increasing his value in the workplace. In the interim, their relationship with each other and extended family continued to develop. Surrounded by family who cared enough to encourage them, whose approval they sought, and whose guidelines they followed, they were part of a close-knit community who witnessed their vows. And they have deep and abiding faith in God.
The more we live out our commitment to Christ, the more stable our families are. The less our society follows him, the less stable our lives are. And in America today, family stability continues to unwind.
Godโs original plan for the family was stability in traditional marriage.
Adam was in the garden, and God said, โIt is not good for the man to be alone, so I will create a companion for him, a perfectly suited partner.โ
And God made woman.
Christian marriage is a reflection of the image of the window. The husband represents Christ; the wife represents Christโs brideโthe church.
Within Christian orthodoxy, marriage is the union of one man and one woman. All of Christian orthodoxy affirms that God intends the husband and wife to remain faithful to each other for life.
Modern society has been bashing these ideas for several decades now.
But most people aspire to be married. And itโs reasonable to assume that they hope, at least at the onset, that their marriages will last a lifetime.
To some, however, marriage seems outdated. But we forget that in the first century, the idea of Christian marriage was revolutionary.
Changing the nature of marriage was a big part of how Christianity turned the Roman world upside down. โIn pagan times, a family was a manโthe paterfamilias, or father of the familyโand his propertyโ (Aquilina). The mere existence of everyone else in the family depended on the whim of the father. He ruled his personal realm. Wife and children were there for his benefit. If they were not a benefit, they were not there.
Abortion was common. And female infanticide was pervasive, claiming the lives of โmostโ girls. Adultery, especially on the part of men, was customary and assumed.
In contrast, God had established marriage and declared that the man and the woman โshall become one flesh.โ In the New Testament, Jesus reiterated that โthe two shall become one flesh.โ Christian marriage presented everyone in the family as a sacred, immortal soul. It wasnโt just the father who mattered. The wife mattered. The children mattered.
Baby girls mattered. To pagan Romans, such thoughts seemed crazy.
Just as crazy was the idea that marriage would be more than an economic arrangement for the man, who in Roman culture was free to engage in sex with anyone (of any age and either gender) at any time (Aquilina).
The Christian view of marriage was an exclusive one for both parties.
Saint Pope John Paul II explained that marriage is a gift from the Holy Spirit that helps a couple โprogress towards an ever richer union with each other on all levels โฆ [T]he plan of God which was revealed from the beginning โฆ [supports] the equal personal dignity of men and women who in matrimony give themselves with a love that is total and therefore unique and exclusiveโ (Saint Pope). Equal personal dignity. Unique and exclusive.
These ideas had never been considered before outside of Judaism. Today all of Christian orthodoxy views marriage this way. Christian marriage is designed to help both parties in the marriage, and by extension, the children. The Orthodox view states: โBecoming โone fleshโ in a blessed marriage is an act of โฆ selfless giving of one to the other; a self-emptying โฆ in a manner like Christ when He took on human flesh and assumed human natureโ (Morelli).
Excerpted from Restoring the Shattered. Photo Credit: Morgan James Publishing–updated cover image.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Notes:
William Faulkner, โThe Fire and the Hearth,โ Go Down, Moses (New York: Vintage, 1942,
1994), 104.
Genesis 2:18, The Voice.
Frank Newport and Joy Wilke, โMost in U.S. Want Marriage, but Its Importance Has Dropped,โ Gallup, August 2, 2013, http://news.gallup.com/poll/163802/marriage-importance-dropped.aspx.
Mike Aquilina and James L. Papandrea, Seven Revolutions: How Christianity Changed the World and Can Change It Again (New York: Image, 2015), 55, 60, 61.
Ibid., 61.
Saint Pope John Paul II, โThe Indivisible Unity of Conjugal Communion,โ excerpted from Familiaris Consortio, 1981, accessed August 2, 2016, http://www.fathersforgood.org/ffg/en/month/archive/dec08/unity.html.
Fr. George Morelli, โGood Marriage XIII: The Theology of Sexuality and Marriage,โ Antiochian Christian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, 2014, accessed August 2, 2016, http://ww1.antiochian.org/node/17964.
We think it can’t happen to us. It’s something that happens to other people or in the movies or on television.
Jennifer Christie was on a business trip. After a long day of work, she headed back to her hotel room, unaware that someone followed her.
She saw him after she had opened the door to her room and stepped inside. He hit her in the face. He broke her fingers. He broke her ribs. He violated her.
She told herself he could touch her body but not her soul. She awoke in below-freezing temperatures in the outdoor stairwell of her motel.
Today she suffers from a seizure disorder because of the assault. She’s endured six major surgeries to repair the damage he caused.
“I couldn’t wrap my head around the evil we can do to each other,” she told a central Pennsylvania audience gathered last Saturday for breakfast. Her story held us spellbound.
Weeks went by after the assault. Her body healed, but sudden noises made her jump. Her husband was supportive, but she could hear him rage in the shower, shouting, sobbing, punching the wall. He would emerge and tell her: “Everything’s going to be okay,” only to rage and sob and punch again the next day.
At the end of six weeks, he suggested she go back to work–to go do what she loved. He stayed behind with their four children.
Work in this instance was a previously scheduled cruise. What could be a better way to find healing and restoration?
Unless you get dysentery on day two of the cruise.
When she didn’t bounce back as expected, the ship’s doctor suggested a pregnancy test.
That possibility had not occurred to her. Her youngest child was eight years old. Her husband had had a vasectomy years earlier.
“I was raped,” she told the doctor, having only used the word assaulted until that moment.
Yes, she was pregnant.
Others urged her to have an abortion–to get rid of the reminder sure to haunt the rest of her days.
Imagine the physical pain on top of the sense of having lost the sense of security most of us carry within us. Imagine the sense of lost control over your life.
The argument for abortion in the case of rape is supposed to be one of compassion. How can we ask a woman so violated to carry the reminder of her attacker, to bring this reminder to life, to look him or her in the face every day (as we disregard the possibility of adoption)?
Now imagine people telling you what you have to do. What you can’t do. You have to abort. You can’t keep what came from rape. Imagine many people telling you what you MUST do. So many voices saying the same thing.
But she felt protective of the life within her.
“I couldn’t protect myself. Him I could protect. . . . The more I heard how easy it would be [to have an abortion], the more I felt protective.
Her husband’s reaction? “This is a gift. This is something beautiful that came from something horrible.”
She says, “My son is a reminder that every day we can rise above our circumstances. . . . He came into our lives when we were hurting and broken and he healed our family.”
Jennifer Christie has lived that reality. She looks into her reminder’s face every day.
But five years later, she does not see “some rapist’s child.” She sees “God’s child.” His name is Joshua. And he is beautiful.
The voices that would have snuffed out his life were many. And Jennifer says, “Those voices were loud.
“But little boy, we loved you louder.”
Only a loud love can drown out the voices that would tell us that an innocent life must end because of the evil of someone else.
See beauty. See that there are no rapists’ children. There are only God’s children.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I remember watching a segment CBS journalist Harry Reasoner didโperhaps for one of those television news magazinesโin the early or mid-1970s. It was about our changing perspective of sex. The most powerful words Reasoner said came at the end of his piece. They went something like this:
It may be that the head cheerleader would give in and have sex with the quarterback. But she knew she was giving away something important. And he knew he was getting something very valuable.
Reasoner bemoaned the shift in Americaโs thinking that told the young woman she was giving away something trivial. And the young man was not receiving something precious and irreplaceable.
That perspective shift turned into big changes in our culture. The cheerleader and the quarterback who had sex in the back seat of the car would likely marry and likely stay married.
In that back seat, he knew he wanted to. She knew she wasnโt supposed to. Often, they both understood the risks were graveโupset parents, loss of reputation, untimely pregnancy, disappointed hopes for the future.
Today, he still wants to. But she believes sheโs supposed to want to also. And neither has any fear of consequences.
The key today is whether she wants to. Whether she consents. In theory, it sounds fair, sensible, progressive. But it doesnโt play out quite so simply in reality.
David French: โYou can sum up the sexual ethic of the sexual revolutionary in one sentence: Except in the most extreme circumstances (such as incest), consenting adults define their own moral norms. . . . Desire is elevated over fidelity and certainly over propriety, so bosses bully, spouses stray, hearts break, and families fracture.โ
Nearly 60 years after the birth control pill and 46 years of legal abortion in America, we may be waking up to the idea that casual sex has opened the door to exploitation on a level unseen since the dawn of Christianity.
Jennifer Joyner is one who has awakened. She had thought casual sex would be pleasurable and empowering. But it wasnโt. She calls it a โrigged game.โ
โWhether we like it or not, sex is intrinsically biased against the woman: biological reality dictates that she carries the brunt of sexual risks while he wields the majority of sexual power.โ
But women arenโt the only ones to lose at the rigged game. A male reader provides this insight into his post-abortion world.
As a man who found myself an un-knowing and un-willing participant in an abortion almost 25 years ago, my life became a very dark place. It was 20 years before I ever allowed myself to say the word and then God, somehow opened the floodgates of denial. The last 5 years or so have been a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs (mostly downs), as I have tried to come to grips with the loss alone. There have been a few close friends that kept watch over me when I was in the deepest pits, and I am grateful they were there. . . . [Two] days before the anniversary) I found myself back in one of my pits. I walked to my closet and retrieved my 45 handgun, and stood there for a moment crying. I honestly couldnโt tell you if I was trying to decide whether to pull the trigger, or trying to talk myself out of it.
His situation began with human connectionโperhaps a deep emotional connection. He still has a deep connection to his child. But he finds it difficult to work through his grief.
A typical situation begins with two people who come together in passing or in loveโbut always in passion.
She becomes pregnant.
He doesnโt resist when she says sheโll have an abortionโeven though she may be hoping he will take a stand on behalf of their childโthat he will choose to stand by her.
Or perhaps he pushes her to abort the baby. Or perhaps, like our reader, he will learn of the abortion only after itโs already happened.
Since before Roe v. Wade, weโve heard that abortion is between a woman and her doctor. Itโs nobody elseโs business.
Except it doesnโt work that wayโeven though it may take some men years to understand that the wound from abortion is like a stone that has been weighing them down.
โ[Many men] do not associate the symptoms they are suffering [depression, addiction, inability to maintain relationships] with that abortion event in their past. Even if a man is aware that he is hurting from participating in the death of his unborn child, there is no safe place to share that burden.โ
He has no place to goโeither because no one else knows about the abortion or because those who do know donโt want to discuss it. The reader quoted above was blessed to have people encouraging him to work through his pain to a better place of healing.
Burke explains why healing is so important:
โWhen you went through that abortion experience the natural need for you to grieve the loss of your child and your parental relationship with your son or daughter was also aborted. For some men and women, forgiving self and letting go of the burden of self-condemnation feels like letting go of the only real connection with their unborn child or children.โ
Yet there is hopeโfor both women and men.
A pregnancy scare at 19 turned Jennifer Joynerโs thinking around. She realized that her sex partners were gaining all the pleasure of the act (which she often found painful) and she was carrying all the risk. Instead of playing a rigged game, she could change her behavior. She could play a โlong game.โ She writes:
Whatโs attractive to me today is the sort of romance that lasts a lifetime. Men who seek this know it requires patience, wisdom, and a firm grip on their own reins. Because heโs responsible, he restrains his sexuality until heโs ready to share her sexual risksโincluding that of parenthood. . . . Until then, heโs researching the contours of her character rather than those of her anatomy; heโs focused on the long game.
And more from our post-abortion male reader:
When I started this walk, I was completely alone, with no idea where to turn. I have friends who have supported me once I broke my silence, and I love them to death. But through no fault of their own, I really didnโt trust anyone with the storms that were constantly raging inside me.
I knew there were programs out there, but for a variety of reasons, (pride mostly, but I have to confess to a degree of distrust as well) I wouldnโt reach out. . . . I guess I was waiting on something to just fall in my lap. Once I took a few small steps that is exactly what happened.
There are other men like me out there, many of them probably less informed than I was. Still, it took a lot of searching before I knew what was out there. Anything, and anyone who helps get that message out is a tremendous blessing.
Women can play the long game instead of the rigged one. And men can find healing after the tragedy of abortion.
But that requires a supportive community and the right resources.
A woman seeking to pursue sexual purity (with or without an abortion in her past) will find a wonderful resource in Dannah Greshโs And the Bride Wore White.
A helpful community comes in the form of Pregnancy Resource Centers and Clinics. CareNet is a network of such organizations who help with crisis pregnancy, STD diagnosis, post-abortion recovery, and wise counsel.
For post-abortion men and women, hope comes, not in forgetting, but in honoring and remembering. Healing ministries provide the opportunity to remember, to name the child, to repent, to find forgiveness. Burkeโs book lists the following resources:
Menandabortion.net helps men find healing and works to raise awareness of menโs abortion pain in counselors, pro-life workers, and society at large.
And Rachelโs Vineyard is a ministry for married couples, parents, and grandparents. This ministry provides the stone that symbolizes the burden of abortion.
The rigged game is a lie too many of us have bought into and lost. The foundational lie behind the game is that we belong to ourselves. We think our bodies are ours to do with as we pleaseโand we seek only to please ourselves.
What happens to the other is not our concern.
Yet the gameโs prize for all players is emptiness and a devaluing of our very souls. Every selfish act brings an eventual negative return. Every selfish act is a refusal to let God own us.
Young people convince themselvesโor our culture has convinced themโthat their sexual purity is of little value. And even our nationโs laws have told them that the result of their casual unions is inconsequential.
In the forty-six years since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion from conception until birth, uncommitted sex has destroyed the lives of 60 million unborn and countless adults.
David French once more: โAn ethic that indulges [the sex] drive while also denying the emotional significance of sex will inevitably wreck lives. The wise person understands that desire โ even mutual desire โ can be dangerous. How many happily married men and women look back on the momentary temptations of the past and wish theyโd indulged? How many are grateful that they had the self-discipline and moral character to refuse to do what โ at that moment โ they wanted to do?โ
And how many still carry the burden of an unwise choice during a moment of temptation?
Itโs time for society to admit that the sexual revolution is over and our ownership of self has been only destructive.
Itโs time for us to give up the lie of the rigged game, to give ourselves back to God.
Itโs time for us stop living for ourselvesโand in so doingโto make our lives even better than we thought they could be.
Photo Credit: Jared Sluyter and Aaron Burden, respectively
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
This weekend, my family will gather to celebrate my daughterโs birthday. Earlier this week, I pulled out the little cookbook, the one nearly as old as she is, with that pumpkin cupcake recipe that has come to mark her special day. The book fell open to that page. Stains from other years mark decades of use.
I thought of times I had made these cupcakes for school parties, church events, and these family gatherings.
I tweaked the recipe to include butter instead of margarine and with chocolate chips to make it my own. When theyโre done, I coat them in store-bought icing with added red and yellow food coloring to make orange.
The children and some of the grandchildren are convinced that the color somehow adds flavor. “It tastes different,” they say.
Perhaps it is the savor of tradition and memory.
A series of autumns, seasons of life spinning past. Snapshots march through my mind of babies in high chairs, then booster seats. Time waltzed us through their teen years, their weddings, the births of their own young ones. And we wait with one of the young ones waiting for his second child.
Now there are new birthdays with new recipes and new traditions.
I think of my childrenโs laughter, how it is the most resplendent music to a parentโs ear, and the passage of time does not diminish its beauty. How it doesnโt matter how old your children are, you still feel joy when they laugh.
We get a picture of heaven as we sit around a table with our children, with their children (and their children) nearby. We listen to the laughter, the chatter, even the arguments. There are vignettes that exist in our memories, our conversations, those snapshots of our minds unfolding as we march toward eternity.
It occurs to me that God feels joy when His children laugh. When my friends and I were young mothers, older, wiser ones would warn us that as our children grew, so would their troubles. As we feel joy when they laugh, we also hurt when they hurt. And so does God. When we hurt, He hurts for us.
I cannot make heaven on earth because earthโs purpose is to prepare me for heaven.
The next season coming up is the one when we remember that God came to dwell with us. He was a stranger to earth. So are we.
In his book Heaven, Randy Alcorn quotes C.S. Lewis; โI must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the sameโ (456).
We are not there yet, but for His followers, there is joy in laughter and redemption of all our pains.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
A civil trial is underway in California in federal court although you’d never know that from watching network news sources.
Imagine you are the plaintiff. You are suing someone for $16 million. They filmed you without your permission. You go to court.
When one of your employees testifies that the videos harmed her and her family, the defense attorney points out that she has contradicted sworn statements she made in a deposition earlier that the videos had done her no harm since she had said nothing wrong.
The employee is Deborah Nucatola an “abortion provider” who spoke openly on the video recorded by David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt–the defendants in the case–about how she would alter her abortion methods in order to obtain baby body parts to sell.
Nucatola’s contradiction pried open the door to finally let the jurors see what all the furor was about. Until then, the judge had refused to let the jury members see any of the videos in question.
The video shows Nucatola munching on a salad as she cavalierly describes managing the abortion process for maximum profit. She describes how abortion site staff would meet every morning to discuss which parts were on order for that day.
A court observer provided analysis of the jury’s reaction to the film.
“The jury was stunned. It was the first time during the three-week trial that they had seen any of the debated video. It was a game changer and a huge victory for the pro-life defendants. Planned Parenthood’s star witness [Nucatola] turned into a star witness for the defense.”
One court observer said, “tears could [be] seen on the faces of some members of the jury as they watched Nucatola speaking on video ‘about liver, lungs, hearts, muscle, and calvarium (baby heads) that were harvested from the bodies of aborted babies.'”
Daleiden and Merritt have asserted that their recorded conversations always occurred in public places where others would be able to overhear. Therefore, the expectation of privacy was low, and so the recordings do not violate California law.
Further, Daleiden had earlier testified in a preliminary hearing that, before releasing the videos on the internet, he had interacted with police and public officials ten times over a one year period.
David Daleiden had not intended to release the videos to the public. He went to law enforcement. Ten times.
But Planned Parenthood, Nucatola’s employer has circled the wagons and is shooting back. They had hoped the jury would not see the truth the videos reveal.
The truth that they were picking apart the bodies of the most innocent humans for profit.
Now the fate of Daleiden and Merritt is up to twelve people. Twelve people looking through their own tears.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
In the wake of every modern social movement comes a moment when we think that movement has found its end.
For example, America and much of Europe have instituted same-sex marriage. Where else can the new social line go? Yet it keeps moving.
It shifts to a Big Brother effort to get everyone on board. To make us all believe the same thing about same-sex marriage, about white privilege, about the evils of the patriarchy that wields power unjustly, holding women down. Justice never happens because the line to fairness keeps moving.
In such times, it’s rare to find a book that, to mix my metaphors, puts a finger on the pulse of the constantly moving line in a way no other author has. We see the “great crowd derangement,” Douglas Murray describes, but “we do not see the causes.” He shows us the causes.
I usually wait to comment on books until I’ve finished reading them. But Murray’s book contains a message that is cogent, urgent–and surprising, considering its source.
Douglas Murray is gay. He believes the line has gone too far. And there may not be a way to pull it back.
He is honest about his fear that “We face not just a future of ever-greater atomization, rage and violence, but a future in which the possibility of backlash against all rights advances–including the good ones–grows more likely.”
Murray says, “Our public life is now dense with people desperate to man the barricades long after the revolution is over.”
When Obergefellcame down, I thought–albeit briefly–They have what they want now. We will stay in this place. We did not.
Instead, we see lawsuits over wedding cakes, photos, and flowers.
We see, as Murray puts it, that once the “boot is on the other foot” the victors treat the losers the way the losers once treated the now victors.
Murray implicitly makes a case for the Golden Rule and pulls back the curtain on the “gobbledygook” that has filtered into society from liberal academia.
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a secular book with more wisdom from someone whose worldview is so vastly different from my own.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โPeople
use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or
dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are
estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something
that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional,
whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs,
apparently, because we have lost each other.โ
I saw a commercial recently that showed people making bets on their phones. Not just on which team will win the game–but on whether the quarterback will complete his next pass–which team will score next.
You can bet on anything. And you can’t lose the first bet. Risk-free! But many people will find it difficult to stop after just one try. The commercial’s sponsor is counting on it.
Some drugs are more than chemicals we take into our bodies.
Some are experiences that release chemicals in our brains–chemicals we want to feel again.
The desire becomes a compulsion that is addiction.
For some, it’s food. For others, the images of pornography. Or that thrill of winning a bet. Or an actual chemical teeming through our lungs or veins into our brain.
We act alone. We can’t let others know our secret shame–what we consume, bodily or visually. What we do with the rent money.
And even if we act with others, the result is the same. We find ourselves alone in our satisfaction–and then in our dissatisfaction and shame.
We believe we can find satisfaction by rearranging the chemicals inside ourselves.
What’s changed is that society more than ever allows us to embrace whoever we decide we are or want to be–without moral limitations.
Opportunities to be whatever we want are both growing and shrinking.
They are shrinking in that it is more difficult to find work that we find meaningful. Part of that is that we have lost the sense that honorable work is meaningful even if we don’t enjoy it.
On the other hand, the notion grows that our opportunities to act on our impulses should be limitless. We can be who we want to be in our desires. Opportunities to choose any form of expression–especially sexually– abound.
But that free expression doesn’t provide the meaning and significance we seek. It backfires.
Someone in my area went to a local agency to ask for help with his pornography obsession.
He heard this response: “It’s normal to look at porn.”
He knew he had a problem. He acknowledged the problem. He was asking for help with his problem.
Imagine going to an AA meeting and hearing, “But it’s normal to drink. Go ahead.”
More of us find our lives “intolerably painful or dull” today.
More of us seek a life beyond pain and dullness and manipulations of our brain that further remove us from reality.
Social agencies that buy into the lies of unreality as a balm for the soul are not the solution.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โThen the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being,โ Gen 2:7.
God took dust and made a man. We are the descendants of dust. Eternal souls housed in soil.
We are more than these houses. We begin and go on. and have no ending.
God has no beginning. Yet He became like usโof dust.
Glory to dust to glory againโresurrected, perfected. He walked a dusty way. And on the cross, climbed, then stood atop the massย of all our wrong steps and falls. Glory on a pile of mud and muck.
We are dust to dust. Walking a dirt road with peaks to climb. Later, we travel a new one. But it is one of our choosing. Glory or empty darkness.
People sometimes want to believe we are more than dust yet less than eternal. God remembers how He made us.
โFor He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust,โ Psalm 103:14.
Sometimes as I stumble on the path, I remember I am dust. I cry out as dust to the glorified One. This piece of dust has fallen again.
Again.
The best part of life is realizing I am dust that glory forgives. And I am dust other dust forgives. They see my falls and hug me anyway.
I held too long my parentsโ stumbles, blaming them for my own. Then I became a mother. I reached the age they were when I saw or felt their missteps.
I understood their confusion, impatience, exhaustion.
How steep were the great mountains they traversed. My own dusty hill road showed me how hard theirs had been.
How easy it is to be irritable. To watch my patch of dirt and not be mindful of othersโ undeveloped trails.
My children walk their own craggy hills. Do they blame me for a jutting rock or glaring crevice?
I am dust who helped set their paths in place. I helped to shape or misshape them. They walk their own paths now, most of them leading others onto their paths.
We cannot alter the path of the past. Dusty moments become cement the instant we step past them.
But love is dust forgiving dust. Our own paths in the world make us bitter or happy. Our path, our climb, lies before us. Like our ultimate destiny, every day is a choice.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
She was 24 years old carrying a baby of 22 weeks gestation. She was looking forward to having her baby. But she sat before a court that would decide what would happen to both of them.
The judge understood that the woman was happy to know a baby was growing inside her. That the baby would need care. That she, the woman, would need help caring for the child.
The woman’s mother testified that it would be bad for the woman to lose this child.
The woman’s social worker agreed with the testifying mother.
The judge said that “if [the woman] was making the choice, . . . she would not want a termination. . . . she probably will suffer some trauma or upset from the termination,” and “that I do not underestimate the harm from this course [abortion].”
The judge said the mother’s “best interests lies in her having the termination.”
How did this woman end up before a judge who dared to decide death for a baby and harm for a mother whose supposed best interests dictated that she be childless through trauma?
The woman’s diagnosis of “moderate learning disability and challenging behavior” seems inadequate to answer the question.
But apparently the United Kingdom has a “Court of Protection” that makes such decrees.
I look forward to teaching George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four later this school year. Orwell set his story in England, the UK, where the Court of Protection presides today.
Orwell depicted a Ministry of Peace that oversaw the empire’s war efforts. The Ministry of Truth made up lies. And the Ministry of Love tortured the citizens.
Now the UK’s Court of Protection deems a little child must die so as not to become an inconvenience–to whom?
“Praise be to God, the Author of Life, that the Court of Appeals quickly overruled this abomination and this young lady is well on her way to having the happy, healthy baby she wants.”
So one baby, one mother, one grandmother, and one social worker have escaped the horror of forced abortion.
But the UK sits on a slope that becomes more slippery.
Power slips from people into the hands of those who believe they know best what is best for all.
Not even George Orwell could have dreamed up such a world.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โ[G]hosts of dead men . . . have bequeathed a trust to us living men.โ Patrick Pearse
Patrick Pearse was an Irish Republican (one who sought independence from the British) during the Easter Risingโthe failed insurrection in 1916 that preceded eventual independence for Ireland.
His full nameโPatrick Henry Pearseโmight lead us to assume that he is the namesake solely of the great American orator who called the Virginia Assembly in America to liberty or death. Americaโs Henry survived our rebellion. Pearse did not survive the Rising. He gave his all to it.
But there is an older Patrick of Ireland whom Pearseโs parents may also have had in mind as they named their new babe.
It was Saint Patrick who chased the snakes out of Ireland, the Irish say. But the Irish admit that serpents didnโt inhabit the Emerald Isle in Patrickโs day. The snakes in Patrickโs metaphor refer to pagan practices of ancient, pre-Christian days.
Among those pagan practices was human sacrifice.
Today, Ireland is a beautiful paradise for tourists. Small farms and large ones dot the countryside between a few big citiesโgrowing cities as the young begin to abandon the rural for the urban and urbaneโas the country reaches perceived new heights of sophistication.
Ireland has come a long way from its pagan days and from its hungry days since the potato famine of 1845 and following. Itโs now a land with a solid economy and a growing population.
However, population growth is from immigration not from the births of Irish babes.
In 2017, the Republic of Ireland had the highest birthrate in the European Unionโyet it was still below replacement levels. That was before abortion became legal at the beginning of this yearโan occurrence that seemed impossible to many even as it unfolded.
Even though Ireland has voted down its restrictive abortion laws, it seems unlikely that the Emerald Isle will become as lenient regarding โpregnancy terminationโ as England already is or America, which goes even further than both countries, further than most countries.
Yet perhaps someday, weโll realize the UK and Ireland just took longer to get to the same place America inhabits today.
In most of the United Kingdom, including England, abortion regulations require two doctors to sign off before the procedure can happen. But the law grants doctors a conscience clause. They may refuse to sign on moral grounds. And the law prohibits abortion after 24 weeksโwith later exceptions for health of the mother or when the unborn child may have โserious disabilities.โ
So getting an abortion in the UK is more difficult than it is in the USโwhich requires no doctorsโ signatures and has no gestational time limit. In America, a woman can get an abortion for no reason until โviabilityโโ24 weeksโand for any reason after thatโif she can find a willing doctor.
By comparison, France allows abortion for any reason for only 12 weeksโand later only in extreme cases.
The Irish vote last year did not affect the laws of its neighborโNorthern Ireland, which is part of the UK but has the right to self-government. Northern Irelandโs demographics are much different from the rest of the UK.
โIn the 2011 Census, some 82.3% of [Northern Irelandโs] residents described themselves as Christian compared with 59.4% in England, 53.8% in Scotland and 57.6% in Wales. Despite the peace process, the fact that Northern Ireland remains a โdivided societyโ along sectarian lines has deepened the influence of the churches . . . all the main denominations of which oppose abortion. โAlthough church attendance is dropping, itโs still the highest in the UK.’โ
Northern Ireland is still a very divided nationโdivided over religious tradition. But abortion may become a flashpointโespecially in light of the UK cases of Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard. They were children who were British citizensโallowed to die due to lack of care from Englandโs National Health Service (NHS).
There isnโt a very big leap from killing children at one age and killing older people at another. Britainโs commitment to controlling the deaths of expensive patients already seems to know no bounds.
For example, there is the case of Simon Fitzmauriceโan Irish victim of ALS who continued to live after losing his ability to breathe without assistance. Yet he lived in violation of the will of the NHS. Fitzmauriceโs medical attendants did not know the rules when they placed him on life support.
Once they realized their mistake, he refused their urging to have himself removed from his breathing apparatus. A non-government agency provides such tools at no cost to patients or British taxpayers. Yet they urged him to let himself die. Fitzmaurice eventually died, sparing the UK further expense.
Rest assured there will be other Alfies, Charlies, and Simons. Unless we see Awakening.
From Irish Catholic journalist John Rodgers: โUnless we begin to awaken, this is the future: a place where the state alone will decide how long the human person will live, and in what circumstances his or her life will be deemed worth living. The courts and the medical profession will assume the place of God.โ
โThe notion of Catholicism as indivisible from Irish nationalism and even from Irish identity might be counted as one of the casualties of the last thirty yearsโ cultural upheaval,โ he writes.
โ[T]here is a point at which a la carte Catholicism becomes a kind of Protestantism.โ Itโs the same point at which any Christian decides he or she knows best. Whatever our denomination, itโs when we follow our own way.
Hence, legal abortion comes to Ireland and the rest of the West. And so we abandon some children to death and others to a different kind of desertion.
Michael Brendan Dougherty is an American-born man who grew up hardly knowing his father who eventually married and built a family in Ireland. Doughertyโs mother instilled in her son a deep understanding of his Irish roots. The boy grew into a man who would relish his Irishness and seek a deeper bond with his father.
In My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Sonโs Search for Home, Dougherty explains the shift of heart thatโs happened in the West. In the past, we revered and appreciated those who came before us. Our humility in light of sacrifices they made on our behalf would lead โto self-sacrifice in the present and new life and regeneration in the future. . .
[But now] when we do have children, we so often have them as consumable objects, as part of our lifestyle choices. We do not receive them as gifts, as living things, inviolate and inviolable. We calculate about them, not worried over what we might give them, but what they take from us. . .
We are great consumers. We are useless as conservators. Useless in this way, we deepen the pattern, failing to have children, or failing the ones we have.โ
Legal abortion for Irelandโfor us allโwas another step on the path to today. A form of human sacrifice to convenience, to cost-effectivenessโultimately to self.
Dougherty, however, has found humility and respect for those in the past. He is breaking the pattern in which he grew up. He and his wife together are raising two young children. He intends to pass Ireland onto them. But he will pass along more than that.
He is chasing away the snake of selfishness and embracing self-sacrifice.
The ghost of Irelandโs Patrick Pearse speaks through Dougherty. โ[T]he past reproaches the present on behalf of the future. . . The ghosts of a nation reproach the living on behalf of posterityโ (204).
Those same ghosts of Ireland speak to us todayโeven those of us an ocean away in Doughertyโs America. They call to us to chase away the snakes of selfishness once moreโto cleanse our land by washing ourselves in humility and self-sacrifice.
Dougherty again quoting Pearse: โThere is only one way to appease a ghost. You must do the thing that it asks you.โ
About the Author
Author Nancy E. Head was a single mother with five children under the age of 14 when many in the Church came to her aid. Her story illustrates common problems in our society such as the fracturing of families and communities, reflecting a splintering Church.
Alienated families and a riven Church cannot minister as effectively to their own members or others until they find accord.
Nancy is the author of Restoring the Shattered: Illustrating Christ’s Love Through the Church in One Accord. She leads a small group ministering to the needy in her community.
You can read Nancyโs HEADlines column on the 4th Saturday each month here at Mustard Seed Sentinel.
Jaime Casap, Unsplash
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
You pick up the stone on a Friday. At some time over the weekend, you’re supposed to put it down.
The stone can represent many things–your sin, your bitterness toward yourself, toward someone else. It’s the burden you’ve been carrying. It’s been the rock in the pocket of your heart for years.
But over the next few days, you’ll finally be able to put it down. And you’ll finally find healing you didn’t know was possible.
Such is the experience of many men attending a retreat to heal from abortion.
A typical situation begins with two people who come together in passing or in love–but always in passion.
She becomes pregnant.
He doesn’t resist when she says she’ll have an abortion–even though she may be hoping he will take a stand on behalf of their child–that he will choose to stand by her.
Or perhaps he pushes her to abort the baby.
Or perhaps he will learn of the abortion only after it’s already happened.
He’s often the neglected one in such situations.
Since before Roe v. Wade, we’ve heard that abortion is between a woman and her doctor. It’s nobody else’s business.
Except it doesn’t work that way–even though it may take him years to understand that the wound from abortion is the stone that has been weighing him down.
“[Many men] do not associate the symptoms they are suffering [depression, addiction, inability to maintain relationships] with that abortion event in their past. Even if a man is aware that he is hurting from participating in the death of his unborn child, there is no safe place to share that burden.”
He has no place to go–either because no one else knows about the abortion or because those who do know don’t want to discuss it.
Burke explains why healing is so important:
“When you went through that abortion experience the natural need for you to grieve the loss of your child and your parental relationship with your son or daughter was also aborted. For some men and women, forgiving self and letting go of the burden of self-condemnation feels like letting go of the only real connection with their unborn child or children.”
Yet there is hope–for both men and women. Hope comes, not in forgetting, but in honoring and remembering. Healing ministries provide the opportunity to remember, to name the child, to repent, to find forgiveness.
Burke’s book lists the following:
Abortionforgiveness.com is part of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.
Menandabortion.net helps men find healing and works to raise awareness of men’s abortion pain in counselors, pro-life workers, and society at large.
House of Esau offers weekend retreats for men seeking healing from abortion.
And Rachel’s Vineyard is a ministry for married couples, parents, and grandparents. This ministry provides the stone that symbolizes the burden of abortion.
Burke quotes an attendee of a Rachel’s Vineyard Weekend Retreat: “After I picked up my rock, I was inspired to share with the group. ‘I’ve been carrying this rock for 14 years. I’ve been emotionally dead for that long.'”
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Does the one who shaped the ear not hear? The one who formed the eye not see? Does the one who guides nations not rebuke? The one who teaches man not have knowledge? Psalm 94: 9-10~
If they lose, it will cost them 10 more years. It’s already consumed much of their past three years.
David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt are enduring a preliminary hearing to precede their trial on 15 counts of illegally recording individuals who worked for or with Planned Parenthood (and perhaps still do).
Daleiden and Merritt, you may recall, went undercover, assumed false identities, and recorded conversations with people in the abortion industry.
Several people referred to as numbered “Doe”s (the court requires the concealment of their names) admitted to Daleiden that they were harvesting organs and manipulating the abortion process to preserve desired organs–including intact brains and hearts.
That means they were adjusting the process for their own gain rather than for the mothers’ safety. It also means that some of those abortions were illegal partial-birth abortions.
One person even admitted to Daleiden that, for their work, hearts couldn’t come from babies who died during the abortion process.
“Itโs disturbingly aggressive for [California Attorney General] Becerra to apply this criminal statute to people who were trying to influence a contested issue of public policy.” (Emphasis the Times)
And the Times makes an astonishing parallel.
“In similar cases, we have denounced moves to criminalize such behavior, especially in the case of animal welfare investigators who have gone undercover at slaughterhouses and other agricultural businesses to secretly record horrific and illegal abuses of animals. That work, too, is aimed at revealing wrongdoing and changing public policy.”
How can two people go on trial for “behavior” that is not yet “criminalize[d]”?
And while the Times didn’t agree with Daleiden and Merritt–and while they refuse to recognize the obvious wrongdoing of Planned Parenthood–the Times recognizes that seeking out wrongdoing and pursuing the change of public policy is part of what makes us and keeps us free.
Further, in this early op-ed, the Times referred to Daleiden’s videos as “edited”–Planned Parenthood’s assertion from the beginning.
Yet one Planned Parenthood “Doe”, while at first claiming that the videos had been altered “to make her say things she didn’t say,” last week in the preliminary hearing, admitted the videos had not been edited. (The Fifth Circuit Court had ruled earlier that the tapes were unaltered.)
So now we know that it’s all really as horrible as the videos show it to be.
Daleiden and Merritt are doing our nation a great service. They have put their lives on the line to reveal the truth.
It’s sad though that the Times can’t recognize the parallel between “horrific and illegal abuses of animals” and the same kind of abuse happening to the weakest and most innocent of human beings.
It’s sad that most of the mainstream media keep the volume turned way down on this story.
It’s sad that so many Americans just don’t know what goes on behind the closed doors of Planned Parenthood.
America needs to put a stop to this abuse of the unborn.
The One who formed the ears and eyes of these innocents will hear and see. The One who teaches us knows.
And now we know the truth. That makes us responsible to protect the innocents. That means we need to stop the horror.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The prosecution argued that Ms. Richardson had searched Google for “how to get rid of a baby” before giving birth.
In her own back yard, Richardson buried the newborn girl, whom officials didn’t find for two months, ensuring that evidence of any violence against the child would be beyond reach.
A doctor, whom Richardson saw only once, testified that at her only prenatal appointment–when the doctor confirmed the pregnancy and determined she was in the eighth month–Richardson made it clear that she didn’t want a baby. The doctor urged her to tell her mother–to tell someone.
But she didn’t–not even while she was in labor.
Not even as she was delivering the little girl on the floor of her bathroom in the middle of the night.
Not even, supposedly, when the child was born not breathing.
And not even after she dug a hole in the yard and covered the baby in two inches of dirt.
Ultimately, the jury found her guilty of abuse of a corpse. She will serve no jail time.
As I watched part of the proceedings against Richardson on Courttv last week, I couldn’t help but wonder how much our liberal abortion laws have affected such cases. Did it go through the minds of jurors that, but for a few days, the child could have been disposed of without dragging a teen through a trial?
In many places in this nation, it would have been legal for Richardson to abort her daughter–even when she found out she was pregnant at eight months–even right before birth. And she would never have to tell her mother.
A.E. Samaan: โHumanity has overcome the food chain, and having surpassed all other predators, has now turned to a strange form of cannibalism: humanity preys upon itself. We cull our own herd. We murder our own children. This is what we call ‘progress’.โ
In Ohio, a young woman thinks she has her life back. She won’t be going to jail for murder.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Do notย fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surelyย I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteousย right hand. Isaiah 41:10
There is a church in New York City. It’s been there since the days of George Washington.
And He stands with us when we stand in unexpected ministry.
Unexpected ministry shines light in the dark.
[A]nd He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4 NASB)
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Hospitality conjures up a scene of Victorian tea, with crocheted doilies and China-inspired blue and white paisley-patterned teacups. Radical means “change from the root” and conjures up political and social upheaval and the kind of change that normally scares the pants off conservative Christians. Ordinary means “everyday,” “commonplace” . . . . Only in the Jesus paradox do these incongruous ideas come together. And come together they must.” Rosaria Butterfield~
The days were dark because the age was dark. But a small light was shining to preserve and pass along once more the vestiges of civilization.
Thomas E. Woods writes about men who lived selfless lives and strived to teach people how to live in community–how to best live out the scriptures.
Woods sums up their life goals in this passage: โSeek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you.โ That’s what the Benedictine monks did during the Dark Ages, and Western Civilization resulted.
Our first step, Woods tells us, is to establish a place of peace. “During a period of great turmoil, the Benedictine tradition endured, and its houses remained oases of order and peace.”
Some of the most effective ministries in my community are places of peace for young people–after school or on Friday evenings.
Our homes can be places of peace and welcome. But that’s harder today. We come home from work hoping for solitude. Hoping for our own singular moments of peace.
And sometimes when we reach out to others, they are too busy to come to our home or to open their own homes.
Rosaria Butterfield opens her house every day. She cooks a big but simple meal. Every. Day.
Her neighbors and fellow church members come. Her husband, a pastor, teaches.
She reaches neighbors. She makes a difference.
I’d like to say I can’t do that. Certainly not every day. No one can.
Even Butterfield took time off from her daily neighborhood meal preparation when her mother was dying. Ministry to family comes first.
But life gives us seasons of different ministries. And that season of time off from neighborly meal making made a difference in her mother’s life–changing her mother’s eternity.
Hospitality might be opening your home to neighbors in a radical but ordinary way. But most of the time, hospitality has more to do with availability.
We can carry our places of peace to others. We can be a place of peace wherever we are.
Some of us can pick up Butterfield’s model and become a beacon of light, providing food and hope to a community of neighbors daily.
Some of us can shine a light to a neighboring family less often yet still regularly. To a newcomer just arriving in town. To a child after school.
Butterfield and others living out a season of radical ministry cast a long shadow. Their commitment is large.
But we should not shy away from hospitality because the task seems too big.
We just need to be willing to take on our own task–no matter how big–no matter how small.
As Butterfield tells us: “Start somewhere. Start today.”
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
They woke up to find the table set with the best dishes, the girls’ tea sets, and a chocolate kiss on each plate.
When one of my sons saw the table, he asked, “Mommy! Who’s coming?”
“Nobody. This is for us.”
I’d set the table the night before–after they’d gone to bed. And so a new tradition for the first day of school was born. A fancy table with fancy food on a day I wanted to feel like a holiday.
Images come to me of those early days. A lone girl dressed in a uniform jumper and Peter Pan blouse and standing in the driveway. Then the yearly photos on the living room landing as their number increased.
They grew from one to five. Then not as many.
At last, two almost men chided each other through what they deemed a childish ritual.
Then the last one smiling–a sister came for the French toast and last picture–which she took of him and me together. My teaching career in its fourth year. His schoolboy days coming to a close.
There were other first days with exchange students. Those who made long journeys to have a first day of school here.
Now we are only two and the celebration of first days happens in other houses. But this year, my husband and I had a new first that I hope carries on.
Our city has seen the beginning of a Sunday morning prayer effort. Local pastors getting up extra early to meet and pray before greeting their Sunday morning congregations.
This year on the day before the first day of school, they met near the bronze mascot of our public high school and invited the community to join them.
It was cold for August. But about 100 people came out to pray for the administrators, teachers, and young people of our county and surrounding counties.
No fancy plates, no chocolate kisses, no French toast.
Community fellowship to lift up the young–including the young of my children. All the young of our towns and boroughs who will touch each other’s lives as they go along.
We start traditions hoping those who come after us will carry something good with them to a new time and place.
This year’s new tradition brings the best for all to carry.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
America is split todayโnearly rivaling the separation of our Civil War. In fact, famous journalist Carl Bernstein describes the American state of discord as a โcold civil war.โ Figurative battle lines are drawn. Americaโs conversation with herself has become a shouting matchโmuch like a nasty divorce. Two ideologies vie for hearts and minds. We seem to be a far cry from the days of our founding. But those days were marked with shouting too.
Developing a Constitution unlike anything the world had ever seen before involved shouting, a lot of shouting. It was a battle that Eric Metaxas calls โviciousโ. But ultimately, the Constitution came to be because the founders shared the common ground of โfaith, virtue, and liberty.โ
Before the Constitution, settlers arrived on these shores looking for the liberty to practice faith and virtue. America was where exiles came to escape persecution for rejecting established doctrines. Yet the country was a picture of separation.
Pennsylvaniaโs founder was a Quaker. Marylandโs congregations were Catholic. Georgia hosted Brethren communities. This nation was founded upon religious freedom, but that meant freedom in specific places for specific denominations. It was freedom for some but not for all.
The first Christian Orthodox convert in Colonial America was Philip Ludwell III, a grandson of the first governor of the Carolinas and a cousin to Martha Washington. Ludwell received permission from the Holy Synod in Russia to worship with Anglicans in Virginia since there was no Orthodox priest on the continent and because at the time โapart from the Province of Pennsylvania, all religions but Protestantism [were] banned.โChristians of various traditions came, seeking refuge, opportunity, and freedom. Some, especially Catholics, found yet more persecution.
Even so, the large continent favored diverse belief within Christendom. And as Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said, โWe must hang together; else we shall most assuredly hang separately.โ A clear understanding of a greater enemyโthe tyranny of Great Britainโunified these men.
Most were Protestant; Charles Carroll, delegate from Maryland, was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence.
The signers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. And signing the document proved very costly for most of them. Carroll, the richest of the signers, had much material wealth to lose, but in a different sense, he had more to gain.
The mix of men who fashioned the moral foundation for the most exceptional nation in history ensured true freedom of religion. Foundational to the city on a hill America would becomeโthe haven that still draws the โhuddled masses, yearning to be freeโโthe Great Awakening produced a flood of social movements such as William Wilberforceโs anti-slavery efforts in England and later endeavors in America.
In the late 1700s, Wilberforce was a young, ambitious member of the British Parliament when he committed his life to Christ. Because of him, โEven though slavery continues to exist here and there, the idea that it is good is deadโ (Metaxas, Amazing Grace). We cannot adequately appreciate how much the anti-slavery effort in England altered the mindset of the world.
In Amazing Grace, his biography of Wilberforce, Metaxas reminds us not to romanticize the past and view slavery in that time as some sort of aberrationโthat the times were โparticularly brutal, decadent, violent, and vulgar. Slavery was the worst of a host of societal evils that included epidemic alcoholism, child prostitution, [and] child labor,โ among others.
It sounds a bit like our world today.
In Wilberforceโs time, slavery provided jobs and income to port cities. Much of the British economy relied on the trade. Uprooting this ingrained evil would be arduous and take years.
Other reforms from that period produced in both England and America included many causes that Wilberforce and his contemporaries in Great Britain and America championed: child labor laws, workplace protections for employees, prison reform, and laws to prohibit abortion.
It was the Second Great Awakening that prompted America to outlaw abortion in the first place.
Efforts to end slavery in England and America were interdenominational. These social revolutions werenโt the result of savvy political strategy. They came from the living Christian faith of these awakened people.
Their love for their neighbors spawned the laws they produced. The laws reflected their culture.
Two hundred and forty years ago, a Congress of men assembled, yelled at each other, and crafted a Constitution unimaginable through history.
America is divided today, but in a different way from the way we were divided when we began.
Our law reflects our culture too. In some places, like Alabama, legislators and governors pull out all stops to protect the unborn. In other states like New York, the unborn (and sometimes the already born) are inconveniences to be disregarded and discarded.
Supreme Court decisions like Roe v. Wade (and Doe v. Bolton, Roeโs companion case) did not take into account any regional disagreements over the sanctity of unborn life. Just as Obergefell v. Hodges disregarded the views of those who hold that marriage by definition must involve one man and one woman.
Western Civilization has rounded the bend toward decline before. Awakening came and the people returned to God. Reprieves come. But faithlessness returns. And we have no guarantees that reprieve will come again. How to pray?
That people would return to God.
That our faithfulness would manifest itself in love for each other, love for our enemies, and love for our perceived enemiesโthose who disagree with us, those who are different from us. That we would reject presumption, assumption, and pride.
That we would embrace gratitude and reject entitlement.
That believers would dismiss our petty differences and come together in accord and love for Christ, His Church, and those in need.
That we would be people of integrity, seeking peace, justice, and freedom for all.
That we would deserve leaders with integrity who pursue peace, justice, and freedom for all.
That we would seek God and find our purpose in serving Him. That we would reject pleasure for pleasureโs sake. And seek the kind of happiness that comes from showing kindness and generosity.
That family members would each seek good for the other and not just themselves. And that through seeking good for others, they might find a truer good themselves. A better good.
That neighbors would love neighbors. Overlook faults. Meet needs. Encourage each other.
Rejoice with those who rejoice. And mourn with those who mourn.
That communities would remember history. That they would mourn the bad and celebrate the good. Yet remember it all. For in forgetting, the bad comes once again.
And that nations would honor God. That they would care for their weakest members and call the strong to duty and responsibility.
Letโs pray that we shine light. That we honor God in all our dealings. That we do what he asked.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Kengor’s research is impeccable and deep. The book takes details that seem disconnected and draws lines between dots that no one else had yet connected.
Kengor ties those details together throughout to make a tapestry of key events that changed the world in the twentieth century.
I remember the day Ronald Reagan was shot on the way to his car after a speaking engagement. For the rest of the day, I was in front of the television.
I remember Secretary of State Alexander Haig saying, “I am in control here.”
Reagan was in the hospital and the nation wasn’t sure whether he would survive. And the vice-president–George H. W. Bush–was out of town. After the shooting and until we fully understood that John Hinckley acted alone, our military was on high alert.
Haig knew the Soviet Union. He wanted America not to look weak at a moment when we felt weakened.
The press lambasted Haig that day and beyond. How dare he assert his own authority?
What the press didn’t put together, but in this book Kengor does, is that Haig’s statement very likely was a solution to a problem he didn’t know he could affect.
That solution likely helped to prevent the Soviet Army from invading Poland.
Solidarity had disrupted Poland to the point that the puppet government had declared martial law. The Soviet military was lined up at the border much as the Chinese army today stands at the ready to invade Hong Kong.
While Haig knew the Soviet Union’s mindset, the Soviets also knew Haig’s since he had been a NATO commander in Europe.
Kengor’s research outlines interviews with a US agent who had been monitoring Soviet communications, anticipating the possibility of a USSR invasion of Poland.
After the shooting and after Haig’s statement, the communications went silent. The Soviets never invaded.
Six weeks later, Reagan was recovering from the attempt on his life when he learned that Pope John Paul II was shot in Vatican City. Their friendship grew on a foundation of shared experience.
The two men, however, shared more than similar childhood experiences, more than the experience of having been shot without deadly result.
Kengor writes that they “shared an understanding of the reinforcing relationship of faith and freedom, the importance of ordered liberty, and the evil of atheistic, totalitarian communism.”
The Haig incident is a small piece of an engaging book. Kengor shows how a Protestant President and a Catholic Pope worked together and separately to defeat what President Reagan called the “evil empire.”
Kengor shows us what Reagan called the DP–the Divine Plan–which saved two lives evil had marked for death–two lives destined to meet and change the world.
There is a divine plan still today. Perhaps you and I play a bigger part in that plan than we realize. Perhaps no one will write a book that lets people know how the dots of your life and mine connected to change the world.
But if we have hope and faith and never quit, the world will change for the good.
“I plead with you–never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.” Saint Pope John Paul II~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was a highlight of my career as a news reporter, interviewing Shengde Lian, one of the organizers of the Tiananmen Square protests. Now it seems that piece of history from 1989 is repeating itself in Hong Kong today.
Inspired by student protests in America and South Korea they had seen on television, Chinese college students gathered in Beijing at Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu [Yaobang], their advocate for democratic reform. The marathon sit-in lasted seven weeks.
[In Tiananmen Square, protesters crafted a goddess of liberty akin to our statue in New York’s Harbor. ]
Demonstrations werenโt unheard of in China, but the international broadcast of such demonstrations was. The international press was in town to cover [Mikhail] Gorbachevโs visit to Beijing. Because of his attempts to reform communism, the protesting Chinese students considered him a champion of democracy.[i]
The presence of the international press made possible our knowledge of the Tiananmen Square massacre. [There were other crackdowns at the same time across the country.] In front of the international media, the Chinese government, having lost face in the weeksโ long standoff, sent the army into the square, killing thousands and capturing surviving protesters. [Lian served 18 months in a laogai–the Chinese equivalent of a Soviet gulag.]
. . . The Chinese students . . . did not get the change they had hoped for, but change is what China would see. The Beijing massacre and imprisonment of surviving demonstrators prompted Chinese youth, especially students, to look for a new form of freedom. Many found that freedom in Christ.
Why did young Chinese college students suddenly develop a passionate interest in the Christian faith? David Aikman writes that one โsuggestion was that Chinaโs traditional Confucian view of man as inherently good was shattered under the tanks that rolled onto the center of Beijing.โ[ii]
The Chinese students had put their faith in their government, and their government turned on them and attacked them. Now they would look elsewhere for someone to trust. Within the next ten to fifteen years, China is on track to become the most Christian nation in the world.[iii]
Hong Kong is very different from Beijing. Crosses hang on the exteriors of hospitals to signify their connection to churches. When the British left Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997, they left behind the stamp of a Christianized culture. They left behind an understanding of basic freedom.
After the 1997 takeover, China discovered in Hong Kong what free enterprise could do. The “communist” government adopted capitalistic practices–with the military owning some companies.
The Mainland economy grew in leaps and bounds. China was building a middle class (without a minimum wage and with a flat tax, by the way, a graduated income tax having been foundational to Marxism.)
In 1997, the communist government in Beijing promised Hong Kong citizens “one country, two systems.”
Kayla Wong and Emily Lo provide an account of a Chinese woman waving the British Union Jack. This woman is not calling for a return to British colonialism but to the practices that helped Hong Kong prosper under the British.
She says Hong Kong has a 20-year history of government’s unkept promises.
Protesters also dare to wave the US flag. And while we are divided over gun control, they are asking for a Second Amendment.
Will Christianity see a resurgence in Hong Kong as is happening in the mainland? That remains to be seen.
China has not sent troops and tanks into Hong Kong–yet–although the military is amassing on the border and engaging in exercises designed to intimidate. All the while, the Hong Kong police show no mercy to the protesters.
Oppression suppresses free speech. An already eroded promise threatens the freedom that remains.
Perhaps China and Hong Kong are at a crossroads. Perhaps the events that unfold in Hong Kong in the coming days will determine whether there is freedom or continued oppression.
Only one King is faithful to His word. Pray for Hong Kongers and Chinese to find that King. Pray for peace and freedom found only in Him.
[i]Nicholas D. Kristof and Special to the New York Times, โChinaโs Hero of Democracy: Gorbachev,โ archives 1989, accessed May 14, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/14/world/china-s-hero-of-democracy-gorbachev.html.
[ii] David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2003), 171.
[iii] Tom Phillips, โChina on Course to Become โWorldโs Most Christian Nationโ within 15 Years,โ London Telegraph, April 19, 2014, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10776023/China-on-course-to-become-worlds-most-Christian-nation-within-15-years.html.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It’s one of the final rites of summer for us–Ag Progress Days in Central Pennsylvania. We borrow a van and sometimes take two vehicles to haul as many grandkids as we can from our small city to a celebration of the farm life that surrounds us and feeds us.
We had two sets of siblings with us yesterday, the other set grown or already booked with other activities. But the brothers and brother/sister group we had with us this time got along better together than they sometimes tend to do alone. Community builds goodwill.
We started with our usual. Hamburgers and hot dogs at a tent the Methodists sponsor and tend. Then we were off to the Corn Maze.
It’s not just a game, but a multiple-choice quiz about Pennsylvania agriculture. Pick the right answers and get through the maze quickly. Go the wrong way, and your siblings or cousins will beat you to the end.
They went through multiple times–a couple of them going forwards and backward.
Then, we walked past the tractors. Grandpa told them about his first tractor and showed them the very model. Two of the younger ones measured their heights by the tires. That was a moment for pictures.
On the way to Penn State’s Berkey Creamery (another tradition), we drove past a farm where I’d once taken some of the cousins to pick cherries. We had ice cream that day too.
But much is changing now. The apple orchard is overgrown, and a sign announces a coming housing development. Yet another one as the farm landscape shrinks further.
Birds are gathering sooner this year. Watching them wind their way over us as the flock shifts shape is one of my favorite features of fall.
Our traditions remain the same. Nature follows a pattern. But society changes to move further away from the land.
We live on a half-lot in our city. Farming to us is cutting the grass, occasionally growing tomatoes, and tending a row of black raspberry bushes.
The harvest is our nod to a way of life that taught hard work and diligence despite hardship. A way of life that brought society beyond subsistence to prosperity and freedom.
A way of life that still brings satisfaction in one’s own work.
We journey to you-pick farms and Ag Progress to impress upon those who come after us that the hard work way is good.
That planting a seed means harvesting a crop–after time, after storms, after work.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was my birthday. I don’t remember which one. But my brother pulled me around our neighborhood on my sled. His gift to me.
Another memory: We were grown. His wife was finishing a bout with a 24-hour bug. I must have been having car trouble because he and I were in his car with my five kids and his three kids on our way home from church youth activities.
My sister-in-law wanted a Big Mac–her post-illness craving. So we pulled into a McDonald’s drive-through for our one sandwich order–with ten people in the car.
My brother joked “Can we have a knife with that? We have to cut it up ten ways?”
The worker turned to comply when my brother said, “No, no, I’m just kidding.” People who work in McD drive-throughs probably see it all.
Soon after that, he and his family moved to the northwestern-most corner of our state–about a four-hour drive away.
We visited each other in summers and sometimes over Thanksgiving or Easter weekend. Sometimes, one or two of my kids would enjoy an extended visit.
He and his wife have modeled nearly 45 years of marriage. But his parenting style also caught the attention of my kids.
Last week, my brother got to spend most of a vacation week with most of my kids and their kids.
It gave them the chance to tell him what he meant to them as they were growing up.
Yesterday we had a family birthday celebration. We sang “Happy Birthday” to three of us, each from a different generation. Multiple birthday celebrations are common with our crowd. And when we get to the names part of the song, we are all calling names in random order. Joyful chaos.
Love is in the singing and the celebration. The food and the talking. Love is in the everyday living. Love is in the memories we carry with us.
There is power in the building of memories. Character grows in the young by thin layers built upon previous layers. We can’t see the importance of a simple layer until later.
Each story, each instance a touching of hearts, another layer.
“The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.โ ~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Each layer, touch, story, memory built over a lifetime to glue us together. To make us family.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Imagine being in a terrible place. The food is beyond bad. The clothing is inadequate. The weather is unbearably hot in the summer and way below what we consider cold in the winter. The work is hard, menial, and endless.
Then imagine that you get to go to a better place. The food is better. You can be warm in the winter. You’re not afraid you’ll die from the bad treatment.
But you find out that, in order to stay there, you have to do things you don’t want to do. You have to help your oppressors spy on your fellow citizens. You have to help them send others to the place that is so bad.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn did not have to imagine this scenario.
After spending years in a Siberian gulag, he was able to go to a place where the Soviet government was doing research. In the 1940s, they wanted Solzhenitsyn to help them develop voice recognition technology. If he didn’t cooperate, they would send him back.
So send me back, he told them.
“Even in the camps, human dignity matters,” says Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Alexander’s son. “We always have choices. Even in the camps. Even where everything is decided for you. What clothes you wear, what food … you’re given, and everything is regimented. There is always the choice to behave with freedom and a sense of dignity.”
Freedom in a gulag? Always. Freedom and dignity everywhere? All the time. Solzhenitsyn is proof that Soviet tyrants overplayed their hand.
โYou only have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your powerโhe’s free again.โ
In prison, Solzhenitsyn found he could speak freely. He was already in trouble. What else could they do?
Even later in exile, he spoke. His iron will was forged behind the iron curtain. He was a man whose heart was full and whose character was steel.
โYou can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.โ
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“[N]ine old nanas” is what Ann Voskamp calls them. They kept their secret for thirty years. They conspired and sneaked out to do their “drive-bys” in the night–hoping no one else would ever know.
They carved money from their budgets and hid it from their husbands–almost $400 every month.
After all that time, one of their husbands finally confronted them. What in the world were they doing? What are all the strange transactions in the bank statement? Extra mileage on the car? Where is she going?
Imagine, thirty years of secrets. One husband wonders what’s going on–what’s been going on. He thinks the worst. Is she being unfaithful?
No. His wife and the rest of the nine nanas were thoroughly faithful. Their nighttime adventures were acts of ministry in secrecy.
They met needs. Sometimes for people they knew. Sometimes for complete strangers. They relished the joy of blessing others.–all sorts of ways.
Once the nanas got started, they worked at listening and looking for ways to give–for people with a need they could fill.
Voskamp: “They knew we’re not here to make an impression. We’re here to make a difference.”
It’s the kind of difference people made for me and mine when we were in need. Food on the front porch–I didn’t count how many times. And once–a blue, silk dress for me. A treasure I could not afford had I pilfered my own pennies for years.
Were the husbands angry when they found out about the Nanas’ capers? Yes. They were mad.
“[They w]anted in on the game,” Voskamp tells us. “They wanted in on writing down names and anonymously paying utility bills, delivering pound cakes and pressing beauty into this world.”
Those ladies married well.
And so the conspiracy of blessing others grew.
Perhaps in our day, it’s ill-advised to sneak out in the middle of the night and set off a security system trying to bless someone with a pound cake or the funds for an overdue bill.
But blessing others is always in fashion. And like the nanas, you and I can be creative and secretive about our giving.
We can look and listen and be ready to fill a need.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โIf I am to spend my whole life being transformed by the good news of Jesus, I must learn how grand, sweeping truthsโdoctrine, theology, ecclesiology, Christologyโrub against the texture of an average day. How I spend this ordinary day is how I will spend my Christian life.โ Tish Harrison Warren
An ordinary day. Do we truly have ordinary days? Or is every day something special? Something God is working through to shape usโto show us His grand, sweeping truths?
About 30-some years ago, I had the opportunity to hear Christopher DeVinck speak. He was an English teacher from New Jersey, a husband and father, a man with pro-life convictions who had lived those convictions. He talked about the extraordinariness of the ordinary. That things we consider ordinary can actually be extraordinary. That the ordinary is more powerful than we realize.
The example he discussed was his brother Oliver whom Christopher said lived the most ordinary of lives. Because of an accident during their motherโs first pregnancy, Oliver was born with serious disabilities.
He would never speak or walk. He lived his entire life at home with his family.
Christopher remembers that their mother would lay Oliver on a sheet in the summer grass while she hung wet laundry on the clothesline. He remembers the extraordinariness of a grasshopper lingering on the sheet.
If weโre not careful, we miss the extraordinariness of simple things that we might not otherwise notice. These things either pass without our notice or stay etched in our brains throughout our lives. We go through our days not knowing what will stick. What will become something weโll carry with us. What will pass by and become insignificant because it really isnโt important. Or what we fail to carry with us because of our inattentiveness. These ordinary life events can deepen our bonds or they can change the direction of our lives.
For instance:
A few years ago, our house had fleas. Theyโd lived here before. And in spite of the visiting dog, we concluded that my husband brought them home from his recent camping trip. He was infested. The dog was not.
So I stripped sheets from beds, powdered the house with borax, and sprayed the dog with a mild vinegar and water wash. Three of the beds werenโt made yet. But we could take care of all that after the family gathering. There would be plenty of time when we got back with some grandkids who were staying overnight so we could pick blueberries the next day.
The plan was simple. Iโd make the beds. Paul could walk the dog. Bedtime would be later than usual but not unreasonable.
Then the plan changed.
โWe have a problem,โ Paul said when he returned from the walk. The dog had nosed his way into a bush and got a snout full of skunk spray.
The new plan meant the dog couldnโt come into the house yet. Paul headed to the store to buy tomato juice. I still had to finish making the beds. So I recruited two grandkidsโcousins, the two oldest.
โYou two watch the dog, but donโt touch him,โ I told them. They sat on the creaky porch swing. The only light from stars and the corner street light.
I gathered old towels, a basin of soapy water, and a bucket for the tomato juice. And by the time I finished the beds, Paul was back.
The younger cousins were upstairs in our guestroom/attic getting in some bonus video game time. Paul and the two older cousins were outside washing the dog.
I stood in between, near a window on a stairway, laughter arose from the driveway.
And I remembered another ordinary day that hadnโt gone quite right. We were at our church picnic. The dinner had been the typical cookout fare of chicken and baked beans. And afterward one of the cousins convinced Grandpa Paul to go on the ride that went forward and backward and sideways.
I chuckled at the memory as I stood on the landing between the cousins upstairs and the ones in the driveway with their grandpa and the soggy dog. I spoke to the ones with the dog.
โRemember the time Grandpa threw up at the park?โ I had told them then that they would always remember that day. โYouโll always remember this day too.โ
It seemed as though nothing had gone right that day, yet all was right that could be. And washing a smelly dog at 11:00 pm was certainly extraordinary.
Credit: Annie Spratt
After the dog dried off and settled down, the lone girl cousin was down the hall between pink sheets with a book and a light. Quiet there already. Later it was quiet upstairs. After the game was off, after an argument over who was hogging the covers, after cousin whispers of adventures past and future.
When all was quiet, our house could not have been more ordinary, nor more extraordinary.
The next day we picked 22 pounds of blueberries. It took two vehicles to carry the cousins and the grandparents. We stopped for ice cream after our work. Grandpa played tag with them in the ice cream standโs playground. Memories made. Bonds deepened. Lives changed? We may never know.
Every day is a 24-hour period no longer or shorter than any other. A most ordinary thing. But one moment can change all the other moments of life. Hereโs an example.
A grownup Christopher DeVinck invited a girlfriend for dinner with his family. After their meal, he asked her if sheโd like to watch him feed his brother Oliver.
โNo,โ was her simple response. He was disappointed but tried not to show it.
On another occasion, he asked a different girl home for dinner. At the end of the meal, he worked up the nerve to ask the same question heโd asked the previous girl: Would you like to watch me feed my brother his dinner?
โYes,โ she said. And after watching for a few minutes, she asked if she could feed Oliver herself.
This girl had cared for her ailing mother. She understood such ministry.
It was an ordinary act of conveying food from a dish to a mouth via a spoon. But it revealed everything Christopher needed to know. He asks us the key question:
โWhich girl would you marry?โ
Christopher has written articles published in the Wall Street Journal and Readerโs Digest. He was invited to speak at the Vatican. Heโs had an extraordinary life to rival that of most writers.
But I would say that the extraordinariness in Christopherโs life came in the everydays that he taught English in New Jersey and then went home to his wife and three children.
Whether life holds fleas and skunks as cousins prepare to pick blueberries or simple dinners at home with parents and siblings, the ordinary pieces of life can become exuberantly important.
The ordinary becomes extraordinary.
About the Author
Author Nancy E. Head was a single mother with five children under the age of 14 when many in the Church came to her aid. Her story illustrates common problems in our society such as the fracturing of families and communities, reflecting a splintering Church. Alienated families and a riven Church cannot minister as effectively to their own members or others until they find accord.
Nancy is the author of Restoring the Shattered: Illustrating Christ’s Love Through the Church in One Accord. She leads a small group ministering to the needy in her community.
You can read Nancyโs HEADlines column on the 4th Saturday each month here at Mustard Seed Sentinel.
Heading photo credit: Ravi Roshan: Author photo credit: Tammy Wolfe
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Neil Postman~
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde is not 50 Shades. This book is a different kind of dystopia. In it, the author depicts a library with hardly any books. The librarian gives the main character Eddie a tour explaining where books used to sit on the shelves and why they’re no longer there. The powers that Fforde imagined deemed almost all books as too offensive.
The shelves of my local library are becoming emptier as every year passes–but for a different reason. State funding comes in based on the percentage of items checked out.
If a book remains in place for six months, it falls victim to the Used Book Sale held not once, but twice a year.
This library is in Central Pennsylvania but doesn’t have any books by Pearl S. Buck on the shelves. Buck wrote prolifically but is best known for The Good Earth. her Pulitzer Prize winner. She also won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. So a writer from our home state who garnered the world’s most notable literary awards isn’t on our home town library shelf.
All because, at some point, dust collected on the copies for six months.
In the meantime, the National Institute of Literacy says that two-thirds of students who “are unable to read proficiently by the end of the 4th grade will end up in jail or welfare. These individuals will also suffer a 78% chance of not catching up.” And that’s not all.
–32 million adults can not read in the United States equal to 14% of the population. –21% of US adults read below the fifth-grade level. –19% of high school graduates can not read. –85% of juveniles who interact with the juvenile court system are considered functionally illiterate. –70% of inmates in Americaโs prisons can not read above the fourth-grade level.
Rod Dreher is floating the idea of a community coalition of churches pooling resources to build public libraries for kids that can be safe places for kids to find worthwhile books like Buck’s novels.
” Why couldnโt churches within a specific community pool their resources and open a childrenโs library where parents didnโt have to worry about their children being propagandized by Wokeness (the liberal agenda)โ especially on gender and sexuality?
He and I approach the endeavor from different angles but with the same goals.
Great literature teaches people to think, discern, and act rightly.
Great literature offers us the self-sacrifice of Sydney Carton who gave his life to fulfill the joy of someone else’s life. And he went to a far, far better place.
Great literature gives us the grace a bishop showed to Jean Valjean when the cleric forgave Valjean’s theft and helped turn his path toward improving the lives of others.
Great literature gives us Homer Smith–a Ulysses for America–a Baptist African-American man who helps German Catholic nuns build a chapel.
And great literature gives us Wang Lung, Buck’s protagonist who shows us the remnants of an ancient culture playing out in a twentieth-century setting.
Buck thought Christianity was irrelevant to the illiterate Chinese peasant when she wrote. It’s too bad she didn’t live to see the seeds of China’s conversion now bearing fruit. Still, her books provide insight into human nature.
Great literature has many lessons to teach. But books collecting dust that are then discarded teach us nothing.
If churches establish community libraries to offer literacy and cultural enrichment, will people come? If we build it, will they come?
They may already be coming to church–and we are assuming they can read the words of songs in books or on screens–that they can read the Word of God.
And if they’re not coming to church–we can offer to open the world and eternity to them because that’s what books do. And that is what the Church should do.
Bringing people to reading would be a secondary task to the work of establishing a place for great books. Such a secondary task would include literacy volunteers teaching basic skills and how to read traditional books as well as access e-books.
But we can’t plant seeds without first preparing a garden.
Having a proper garden of books can change the world for anyone willing to come but unable to find a place to grow.
The ability to read and finding enrichment in daily reading–including God’s Word–improves lives, families, and societies.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Grace does not make the hard thing go away; grace illumines the hard thing with eternal meaning and purpose. Grace gives you company in your affliction, in Christ himself and in the family of God.” Rosaria Butterfield~
Have you ever considered why God sent an angel to Mary to tell her she was the woman chosen to carry his son–and then waited until later to send an angel to Joseph?
In between Mary had to go to Joseph and tell him she was pregnant. How hard would it be for him to believe her? Very hard it seems–since he decided to divorce her quietly–to break what was, by today’s measure, more than an engagement but not quite a marriage yet.
God let the circumstances unfold with no indication that he ever intended to supernaturally confirm the information for Joseph. But then Joseph’s angel came with direction and assurance.
There was another Joseph in the Bible who spent years in prison–years that must have seemed wasted to him. He waited for his life to mean something. And one day it meant a great deal to him and to those who had mistreated him–his brothers who had sold him into slavery. And perhaps even the woman who had lied to put him in prison. This Joseph had no angel telling him all would end well.
A prophet rather than an angel told David he would be king. But God didn’t just swoop down and remove Saul. David had to fight the battles. And he had to fight them God’s way. He had opportunities to kill Saul himself–but he would not harm God’s anointed.
Mary and Joseph, the Old Testament Joseph, and King David had to do the hard work themselves. In the first instance, it would be difficult for Mary not to postpone what would be an inevitable discovery.
In the second case, it would be hard for OT Joseph to hold back bitterness and hopelessness.
In the third case, patience required David to dismiss opportunities he had to make himself king–now.
Speaking up is hard when we know the other person won’t like what we have to say–when we know they won’t believe us.
Not losing ourselves in hopelessness is hard when it really looks like there is no hope.
And keeping our hand back when we know God has His timetable and it doesn’t always (ever?) match ours is hard.
Speak the truth in love.
Fear not, for God is with us if we are His.
Wait for the Lord, for His time. Wait.
And watch what will ultimately (perhaps not soon) unfold.
God’s plan in God’s truth and God’s time–always worth the hard work.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I kept thinking–it’s such a small event. Why do I keep replaying it in my head? It was like a brick that I’d carried with me since childhood and just couldn’t throw away.
When I was a child, an older boy chased me across my front yard, a neighbor boy egging him on. When the older boy caught up with me, he touched me inappropriately and boasted as the other boy laughed.
I can’t remember ever feeling fear as I had that day.
But then I got away–into the safety of my home. Over. Done. No harm. Right?
So why did it keep coming back to my mind?
The afternoon of the second day of the conference brought a time of prayer. Truth Prayer time.
Truth Prayer involves asking God to show you which emotion you’re experiencing that He wants to deal with. When you identify the emotion, you look back to the incident when you first felt it.
You find that the disturbing or traumatic incident caused a wound that you carried with you. An influence in your life that marred other places throughout your journey.
You move from the emotion to the memory to the lies that you believed because of the memory. Those lies are the basis for the ruts you’ve experienced in your life journey. From there, you move to forgiveness. And from forgiveness to a breaking of the soul ties formed because of the lies and experiences–because of relationships–good or bad–healthy or unhealthy.
Next is a renouncing of the strongholds Satan has built in your life.
Lastly, you replace the lies you believed with truth you can carry into your future–hence the name Truth Prayer.
I didn’t leave the conference with any great feeling of change. But the event in my yard with the boys stopped coming to my mind.
It might sound a bit hokey or a little too mystical. And a secularist might discount any healing of a haunting emotion as the simple therapeutic process of having talked it out.
But if a traumatic event or a bad life choice has created ties that pinch years later or led to a series of bad decisions producing even more pain, such a talking out would provide only temporary relief.
The ties and strongholds would remain in place. And they would literally come back to haunt you.
Such views–dismissal as hokey or too mystical or just therapeutic–deny the power of the Holy Spirit to heal us through prayer and the holy communion of fellowship–the bearing of one another’s burdens.
But there is danger in such a prayer. Ideally, three people would be present: a prayer leader, someone to record the events, and the person seeking healing.
Necessarily, all three would be Christ followers. One seeking healing–two others seeking only to see God work. Any other combination could lead to more harm than good.
This summer when the conference returned to our area, I went back too. Last year’s prayer time had been the laying down of a brick I’d carried with me since I was a child. It was the bottom brick in a pile I had stacked through my life–some of them heavier than that first one.
Over the course of the year in between, I came to recognize the pile of bricks that had accumulated over the years. The year in between was the unfolding of a healing process that culminated in another prayer.
This year, I unloaded the pile as far as God helped me identify the bricks I carried. Removing the bottom brick made possible the unloading of the rest.
We sometimes carry burdens for years without realizing how heavy the load has become. And we don’t need to have a conference to unload our bricks. Just a couple of committed Christians willing to walk with us.
Sometimes, without realizing it, we build the bricks we carry into a wall around us.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Our trip to Scotland and Ireland earlier this summer was one of those tours where you ride a bus or ferry from one place to another. For the first few days, I noticed that people in our group were complaining that the meal service was bad–too slow.
I admit that at first, I was among the complainers. Our initial restaurant experience in Scotland was unarguably horrible. But after that, the service seemed to follow a particular routine.
It was slower than we’ve come to expect in America. But when the same pattern emerged from place to place, I realized that, aside from our initial experience, the service wasn’t bad after all. It was simply a cultural difference giving us time to enjoy the food and each other’s company.
We were Americans (for the most part) in a hurry. They were Europeans bred with the idea of not rushing mealtime.
The restaurant staff seemed to have the idea that mealtime is more than food consumption. A bit of extra time between courses encouraged us to enjoy an unveiling of the meal along with fellowship. The time between appetizer and entree, between entree and dessert, was time to get to know the strangers on the same adventure we were having.
There was a young couple apparently on a second honeymoon away from their three children, a retired teacher from Philadelphia, a couple who had traveled to Vietnam and other exotic places–two young women from Canada, a mother and four of her five adult daughters.
We ate amazing breads, drank tea, and relished unbelievable desserts. (A chocolate mousse with a honeycomb topper. (The chef mixes honey and baking soda together and bakes it–then breaks it up to adorn each dish of mousse.) The result resides on the memory of my tongue.)
We also ate a good many parsnips and turnips. That’s because they’re locally grown. We got a true sense of what it’s like to eat there–not the universal sense you get by eating pineapple in Minnesota.
Food and fellowship go together. They create bonds.
Once we got home, it didn’t take me long to get back into the habit of rushing through meals.
As I ponder time away from my habits and out of my routine, I want to slow down to savor the conversation at every meal–as much as I can.
It may be the part of a day from this summer we remember later on. Not just the baked beans, which by the way, in Scotland, come with breakfast–not with dinner.
No matter which meal you choose to enjoy your beans, linger. Converse. Savor. Remember.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was a long drive that began in the evening. My parents put us in the car in the hopes that we would go to sleep. Our long-awaited trip to Florida had begun. At the time, Disneyworld was stillย a dream in Waltโs head.
Mom and Dad had saved up for the trip. They were always doing that. We would later go to the New York Worldโs Fair, Chicago for my oldest brotherโs graduation from Navy training, and Holland, Michigan, for my other brotherโs band trip. But this trip would be our last big one with all five of us.
My oldest brother was sixteen, my other brother, ten. I was six. It was the vacation before the oldest left, but after the youngest had grown old enough to remember.
About twenty minutes out we had to turn around. Mother had forgotten her Catalina swimsuit. It was white with a tiny red logo of a woman mid-dive. It was the suit Miss America contestants wore.ย It had been an investment.
A half-hour later, we were on the road again.
I remember mosquitos in South Carolina. A frog my oldest brother captured, then released. Red Florida clay hanging from cut out hillsides. A glass-bottomed boat ride. Peacocks, and watching alligator wrestling in the Everglades. And one night and dayโa splurgeโat Miami Beach.
Eventually, I grew up to sit in the front seat for long trips.
I learned not to โtreatโ a child in the back seat to chocolate milk. Within a short period of time, the child will be unhappy and no Yankee Candle air freshener can fix that aroma.
I learned how hard it is to drive at night in the rain next to Jersey barriers, with headlights glaring from the other lane and a young child rhythmically kicking the back of your seat.
But I remember my five kids and me singing along as the radio croonedย โAll I need is a miracle; all I need is you.โ And no one complained that I was off key or didnโt know the words. For a moment, we had splendid pitch. Quintessential harmony.
The perfection of the moment washed through me.
Now I have the occasional opportunity to sit up front with grandchildren behind me. Fortunately, there is minimal kicking of the back of my seat. Sometimes, there is the conflict my parents were hoping to avoid by traveling at night. Sometimes, I get louder than they are as I demand peace.
Still, there are moments of perfection. They come in flashes and glimpses as the children sing or tell jokes or just talk to each other.
Once, a swimming flotation device flew down the middle of the van, glancing off the dashboard. A seven-year-old voice said, โI was just testinโ my range.โ A major leaguer in the making.
But then thereโs my favorite from a granddaughter. We were on the way to see Disneyโsย Frozenย with a van full of cousins.
โI used to have imaginary friends, but my brother told me they werenโt real, so they went away.โ Imagination indeed.
The next time weโre in the car and there is conflict, maybe I can tell them about a long drive and a Catalina swimsuit, a frog, a beach, and a miracle song I once sang with some of their parents.
And then I will have a new moment of perfection.
Wishing you some moments of perfection this Independence Day. God bless!
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Photo Credit: Pixabay
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139: 13-14 (ESV)~
I remember the wonderful feeling on my belly–the squirming child who was recently inside me was now wiggling on me.
That happened four out of five times. One of my babies came so quickly I didn’t have a sterile drape on me to receive the child. (I warned them, but did they listen?)
None of my five were premature. But a preemie (and sometimes a full-term baby) born today is likely to receive “Kangaroo Care”–their parents will hold them skin to skin. This practice provides warmth and connection for the babe. Mother’s (or Father’s) body heart, voice, heartbeat are all conduits to connection.
The practice began in Bogota, Columbia, when incubators were scarce and babies in distress were in great supply. The mortality rate plunged from 70 to 30 percent. Since then, the practice has become more widespread–even when incubators are readily available.
The most interesting aspect of the ensuing research I’ve found is that, during the skin to skin time with the baby on or between the mother’s breasts, the breasts change temperature to accommodate the baby’s needs–even going so far that, with preemie twins, one on each breast, the breasts achieve different temperatures to accommodate each baby’s thermal need.
How amazing!
One mother reports using Kangaroo Care with her adopted newborn daughter–allowing the baby to get used to the mother’s body rhythms–to feel and smell her new mother–to get used to the sound of this previously unheard voice.
But the benefits aren’t just for the babies.
One study discusses the effects of Kangaroo Care (KC) for adopting parents. “During KC the motherโs perception of her infant changes: She feels more competent as a care provider, more responsible for her infant, and more in control of her situation.”
Now I think back 35 years to the last time I felt my baby on my belly–warm and wet through the drape.
These were the days when it was still okay to dispense aspirin even to infants and put them to sleep on their bellies. In spite of all we’ve learned, perhaps there is more yet to learn.
We may just be on our way to discovering how healthy human connections come to be from the beginning.
One of those ways–Kangaroo Care–highlights the deft hand of a loving Creator. The Creator who installed a heating and cooling system in the breasts of mothers–the mother’s miracle touch.
We are indeed wonderfully made.
Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his –Psalm 100:3a~
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I’m grateful to Linda Gracey for writing this gracious article about Restoring the Shattered. Republished from The Altoona Mirror–June 7, 2019~
Local Author Likens Life to Glass
In her book,ย โRestoring the Shattered,โย Nancy E. Head of Altoona looks at several facets of life that are like broken glass, but can be restored to a beautiful and colorful stained glass window in Godโs hands.
Her original goal in writing the book was to encourage Christian unity, but she also writes about broken pieces in her life as well as in society.
The subtitle, โIllustrating Christโs Love Through the Church in One Accord,โ reflects her original reason for writing the book.
Head, who is an instructor at Penn State Altoona and Great Commission Schools, said she wants to make the Christian Church aware of what it has in common, as opposed to allowing differences in traditions and doctrines to keep believers from accepting one another and working together.
When one of her five children converted to Catholicism, some of her evangelical friends had trouble understanding his decision, she said. They seemed to have misconceptions about the Catholic faith, she said, and she wanted them to understand that the Catholic beliefs were not that different from Protestant ones.
โSo much division, separation, is based on misunderstandings,โ she said.
In her book, Head provides background on the Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths and examples of how they have worked in unity to spread the gospel. She gives examples of misconceptions and points out how spiritual leaders including Saint John Paul II (pope from 1978-2005), Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Charles Colson encouraged ecumenism.
She also covers legitimate areas where the faiths differ in doctrine and traditions, including concerning communion and baptism.
โSome of our disagreement over communion and baptism is authentic,โ she writes in Chapter 10.
โBut some is distortion, some is misunderstanding. Determining which is which can help to repair the broken window of our faith communities.โ
Whether she is writing about the Christian faith, concerns for societal issues or her own personal life, Head compares the subject to glass in various states. Sometimes it is broken, sometimes it is shattered, sometimes it is scored for a certain purpose. Sometimes she points out how it reflects or transmits light.
Head said the Holy Spirit gave her the idea to use glass, especially stained glass, as a theme throughout the book, but she wasnโt sure how it was going to fit. She knew she was on to something, she said, when she read Ciara Curtinโs article in the Feb. 22, 2007, edition of Scientific American that defines glass as being neither a liquid or a solid, but a state between those two states of matter.
โItโs fluid and flexible,โ Head said.
In addition to Christian unity, Head writes about poverty and other societal issues, such as homelessness, abortion and divorce and a need to understand peopleโs circumstances without being judgmental.
Having known poverty herself, she said, โA lot of people look down on you. You canโt perceive how you ever will become a taxpayer (as opposed to someone who benefits from othersโ taxes). You accept the label people put on you.โ
Head said, โThe church applies labels, too,โ adding that that is part of the problem. โThe Church needs to look more kindly on people and realize that there but for the grace of God, go I. Instead of judging, we need to learn how to lift them up.โ
She gave the example of approaching a homeless man in a church parking lot while others feared him.
โI gave him a gift card (to get a meal at a fast-food restaurant),โ she said.
In her own life, it was a divorce in the 1980s that left Head financially challenged. She had to find work to support herself and five children.
In โRestoring the Shattered,โ she talks about her struggles and how government programs can be a help and a hindrance. Although she received daycare assistance while she worked, she lost almost all of her subsidized childcare when she decided to attend college. She was able to pursue her goal to acquire a degree, to earn more and get out of poverty, because of Christians who were willing to take on childcare responsibilities.
โWe are to encounter the world and meet needs,โ she said.
Among those who have read the book are Cindy Updyke, the wife of a former pastor and formerly of Altoona.
Updyke, of North Carolina, said she read the book from the perspective of people who have been wounded and how the body of Christ as a whole has been wounded by suspicion and misconceptions.
โI love how she wove church history into the story โฆ and compared the personal shattering in her life to how the Church was shattered,โ she said.
Updyke said the book points out that โWe are more effective in healing personal wounds and societyโs wounds together rather than when we each stand in our own theological corners. We are more effective in ministering to those who are shattered,โ she said.
Updyke said Head is an excellent writer and the history in the book is interesting and relative.
โItโs an easy read,โ she said.
Peter A. Joudry, CEO of The Nehemiah Project, said, โNancy Head is a personal storyteller, a church historian, โฆ and a compassionate believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ.โ
He said he read her book while ministering in South America earlier this year and became so excited about what he read that he called her from Bogota, Colombia, to congratulate her.
โShe believes that our message is far too important to be hijacked by religious squabbles and personal biases,โ he said. โShe makes a compelling call to all Christians to unite toward the common objective to be Jesus to our troubled world.โ
“We came from Caladan–a paradise world for our form of life. There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or paradise of the mind–we could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life–we went soft, we lost our edge.” Frank Herbert, Dune~
Imagine spending your daylight hours–most of them in an eighteen-inch tunnel shoveling coal out of your space by hand. Your son stands ready to fill a large bin on wheels just outside the small tunnel. You both get paid for production–not time invested.
You also provide the fuel to warm the homes in your community and beyond.
Boys go to school until it’s time to go to the mines. They grow up and raise families. Sons in the mines, daughters in the kitchens–all working to make life better for the next ones coming. That is the story of the Arigna Coal Mine–now a tourist site–in Ireland.
I grew up in a railroad town near the heart of America’s coal country. I remember the strip mines dotting our rolling mountains. Now restored, the mountains appear never to have been mined.
Yet, mining still happens around us. As my husband and I drove across a bridge in town the other day, we saw a long line of rail cars all filled to the brim with coal.
Mining still happens, but it’s no longer a lone man picking and shoveling out a tiny tunnel.
When machines came to Arigna, they had the opposite effect of what we might expect. Today when we consider robotics and technology in the workplace, we calculate how many jobs will go by the wayside as machines replace workers.
When mining found technology, the industry needed more workers to haul the greater bounty out of the mountain. And since production increased, and since the workers earned through production, both jobs and earnings grew.
Yet in Arigna, one thing remained. And it resonates in my heart every time I ponder it.
When we entered the mine–now a large, reinforced tunnel to accommodate tourists rather than miners–there was a picture of Christ. The tour guide–at a government-funded site, mind you–explained that workers prayed as they began their shifts–prayed for safety–and God answered and blessed.
Our guide credited Christ as the “safety officer” of the mine that produced, first iron, then coal for more than 400 years. In 400 years of mining–with no safety agency overseeing operations until the 1980s–only one man died.*
I’ve pondered the faith and devotion of those miners since my visit to Arigna. And I’ve pondered the life of unimaginable (to me) work!
Like us, they were imperfect. They had conflicts with neighbors and petty jealousies.
They had unmet dreams. In the 1960s, they staged a strike that lasted several months.
Yet overall, they seemed to have a kind of satisfaction we lack today. Life was hard but good.
That’s an idea that seems so foreign to us. We do all we can to resist it. We work with the expectation that life will get better and better must mean easier and more prosperous. Easier and more prosperous came to the miners of Arigna through technology. But they never took the picture down of the One they believed kept them safe.
Life is hard. It’s easier and more prosperous for some. But there is meaning in difficulty. And the One who watched over the Arigna miners is faithful.
*One website asserts that “five or six died” over the years. Another says, “Accidents were few and far between.”
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“[G]hosts of dead men . . . have bequeathed a trust to us living men.” Patrick Pearse,
Patrick Pearse was an Irish Republican (one who sought independence from the British) during the Easter Rising–the failed insurrection in 1916 that preceded eventual independence for Ireland.
His full name–Patrick Henry Pearse–might lead us to assume that he is the namesake solely of the great American orator who called the Virginia Assembly to liberty or death. America’s Henry survived our rebellion. Pearse did not survive the Rising. He gave his all to it.
But there is an older Patrick of Ireland whom Pearse’s parents may also have had in mind as they named their new babe.
It was Saint Patrick who chased the snakes out of Ireland, the Irish say. But the Irish admit that serpents didn’t inhabit the Emerald Isle in Patrick’s day. The snakes in Patrick’s metaphor refer to pagan practices of ancient, pre-Christian days.
Among those pagan practices was human sacrifice.
Today, Ireland is a beautiful paradise for tourists. Small farms and large ones dot the countryside between a few big cities–growing cities as the young begin to abandon the rural for the urban and urbane–as the country reaches perceived heights of sophistication.
Ireland has come a long way from its pagan days and from its hungry days since the potato famine of 1845 and following. It’s now a land with a solid economy and a growing population. That growth is from immigration.
In 2017, the Republic of Ireland had the highest birthrate in the European Union–yet it was still below replacement levels. And that was before abortion became legal at the beginning of this year–an occurrence that seemed impossible to many even as it unfolded.
“The notion of Catholicism as indivisible from Irish nationalism and even from Irish identity might be counted as one of the casualties of the last thirty years’ cultural upheaval,” he writes.
Ireland has taken the same path other western countries have followed from a rejection of sexual license (including nonacceptance of contraception) to the embrace of LGBT sensibilities. From traditional marriage to a no-holds-barred free for all.
Legal abortion was another step on the path to today–although, unlike in America, abortion is limited to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, barring a risk to the mother’s health and the euphemistic “fetal anomaly”–a death sentence for the challenged at every stage of development. A human sacrifice to convenience, cost-effectiveness–ultimately to self.
Foster: “[T]here is a point at which a la carte Catholicism becomes a kind of Protestantism” (57). It’s the same point at which any Christian decides he or she knows best. Whatever our denomination, it’s when we follow our own way.
Hence, legal abortion in Ireland and the rest of the West. And so we abandon some children to death and others to a different kind of desertion.
Michael Brendan Dougherty is an American-born man who grew up hardly knowing his father who eventually married and built a family in Ireland. Dougherty’s mother instilled in her son a deep understanding of his Irish roots. The boy grew into a man who would relish his Irishness and seek a deeper bond with his father.
In My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son’s Search for Home, Dougherty explains the shift of heart that’s happened in the West. In the past, we revered and appreciated those who came before us. Our humility in light of sacrifices they made on our behalf “leads to self-sacrifice in the present and new life and regeneration in the future. . . .
“When we do have children we so often have them as consumable objects, as part of our life-style choices. We do not receive them as gifts, as living things, inviolate and inviolable. We calculate about them, not worried over what we might give them, but what they take from us. . . .
“We are great consumers. We are useless as conservators. Useless in this way, we deepen the pattern, failing to have children, or failing the ones we have” (205-07).
Dougherty, however, has found humility and respect for those in the past. He is breaking the pattern in which he grew up. He and his wife together are raising two young children. He intends to pass Ireland onto them. But he will pass along more than that.
He is chasing away the snake of selfishness and embracing self-sacrifice.
The ghosts of Ireland’s Patrick speaks through Dougherty. “[T]he past reproaches the present on behalf of the future. . . The ghosts of a nation reproach the living on behalf of posterity” (204).
Those same ghosts of Ireland speak to us today–even those of us an ocean away in Dougherty’s America. They call to us to chase away the snakes of selfishness once more–to cleanse our land by washing ourselves in humility and self-sacrifice.
Dougherty quoting Pearse: “There is only one way to appease a ghost. You must do the thing that it asks you” (213).
Photo Credit: Paul Head
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I’m just back from a vacation in Scotland and Ireland. Still a bit jet-lagged. My mind is filled with a clearer view of the history of that part of the world.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was the ferry ride from Scotland to Ireland. There was a sense of transcendence with the journey. A compelling impression percolated through me:
I was going home.
With our ever present outerwear, I saved a table in the food court and got in line to buy some food. The table sat beside a window where my husband and I could watch the water go by. I imagined a quiet time of solitude to enjoy that transcendent peace and a portion of a book.
It was not to be. But something better came instead.
I glanced over from the food line to see a woman sitting at “our” table. I thought it rude, but there were few places to sit. And perhaps such a thing is common practice in that place. So instead of quiet, we had conversation.
She was a nurse–retired but answering a call to fill in once every week or two. She rode the ferry to and from work in Scotland and gave me my first lesson on the deep animosity that still abides in some places between the Irish and the British.
She’d had an uncle who died at Normandy. “When I was a child, we were not allowed to speak his name. He was a Catholic, and he went to fight for the British.”
This story illustrates that–as bad as the Nazis were–fighting them required allegiance to Great Britain–who according to Irish history had behaved much the same as Nazis. Alliance was a bridge too far for many.
I hadn’t realized that Ireland attempted to remain neutral during World War II. The woman on our boat said neutrality was embarrassing. She seemed proud of the uncle who fought. Perspectives change over time.
We landed in Belfast–a more industrial setting than we had seen in Scotland. The next day was Sunday, and our group was to see the Titanic Museum. I had not realized the Titanic had been constructed in Belfast–embarked from Belfast–and sank on a returning voyage from America.
But sink it did, and I imagined there might be something better to do with a Sunday morning. I investigated local churches.
The first one I found seem like it might have a universalist slant. One of the comments on its website said the church was good for people of any religion. I kept searching.
We decided on Saint Malachy’s– a short walk from our hotel. Recently restored, the church had been built in the early 1840s–completed just before the Potato Famine ravaged the country.
The church lost its windows to Nazi bombing raids. Neutrality? The Republic of Ireland is just a bit south of Belfast. Belfast is in Northern Ireland–the part of Ireland where Unionists–those loyal to the British–reside next to the Republicans–those yearning for Irish independence from the UK. Northern Ireland was officially supportive of the British during World War II–yet still hung on to neutrality.
If it sounds complicated, it is. Scotland and Northern Ireland use the pound for currency. The Republic of Ireland uses the Euro. The republic intends to remain part of the European Union. Northern Ireland and Scotland expect Brexit. Some want to stay. Joining the EU nearly destroyed the Scottish fishing industry, so many are eager to go.
But back to Saint Malachy’s.
That Sunday was Pentecost Sunday–the celebration of the apostles in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came upon them.
The priest said that life, energy, light, and growth are gifts from Holy Spirit–the Spirit we cannot see–as we cannot see the wind, but we see the effects.
The Spirit of God brings new life even in places that seem lifeless. The Spirit gives energy. Holy Spirit in us is a gift from God–at Pentecost–and every other day too.
The priest proposed a simple prayer: “Come, Holy Spirit.”
In Ireland, there is still much bad blood between the political parties–and between the parties’ members.
There is much talk about Catholics and Protestants attending schools together. There is growing secularization and shrinking church attendance. There is also talk of removing religion from public life–as if that will take away the purpose of the animosity. As if that will bring peace.
But the animosity comes from the perversion of those presenting themselves as religious, faithful people. It comes from political conflict–not with disagreements over doctrine.
It does not come from those willing to ask Holy Spirit to come.
Ireland is changing. I see that in the stained glass tributes in Belfast’s City Hall to the Irish who fought beside the British in both World War One and Two.
I see it on the television programs encouraging the removal of Ireland’s religious heritage from public life in politically slanted broadcasts.
But for a few potatoes, Ireland may have been my earthly home–rather than my home of heritage. The land is yet the home of my heart. A hurting land that needs healing and restoration from the unseen God who conveys life, growth, and peace.
Come, Holy Spirit. Come to Ireland. And shine light through her.
Photo Credit: Nancy E. Head, Saint Malachy’s Church, Belfast
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint. – Jeremiah 31:25
Saturday I made jam. On Monday I cleaned out a big part of my closet. It felt so freeing to bring some order to where there had been little. Now I’m planning to take some time off from my desk too–restoration time.
I’ve been doing this for awhile–blogging since July of 2015 to be exact. This post is number 407.
The challenges remain. The dog went home to his master. And the blueberries eventually became jam. I’ve written and not cleaned closets–an activity I generally avoid despite the feeling of accomplishment that follows it.
Even so, my goal in the next couple of weeks will be to spend time contemplatively. I have a new journal–pure pages yet untouched.
And downtime for me means other books too. I’ve completed some of the books on my reading list for this year. I’m partway through others. I’ve added and deleted a few since the year began. I hope to knock off several of the ones I’ve begun and get to others I’m eager to read.
Thank you to the faithful readers and the occasional ones. Writing nourishes a writer’s soul in and of itself. Still, it’s great to see someone else getting something out of the arrangement of words and ideas on a screen.
I’m planning to check back in on June 17. I’m hoping to be geared up and refreshed for a Master Class with Dannah Gresh that week. And I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
Lots to look forward to. Now, onto prep and quiet time. God bless!
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
TITLE INFORMATION RESTORING THE SHATTERED Illustrating Christ’s Love Through the Church in One Accord Nancy E. Head Morgan James Faith (238 pp.) $15.99 paperback, $9.99 e-book ISBN: 978-1-64279-049-8; January 22, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Head, a part-time English lecturer at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona, assesses the denominational fissures within Christianity and the possibility of future unity in this debut treatise. The author experienced the sectarianism of Christianity firsthand when she was a young girl: Her father was a Catholic and she attended Catholic school, but her mother was a Methodist and took her to her own church.
In this book, Head asserts that the doctrinal separation between Protestants and Catholics need not translate into mutual contempt, as both are bound by profound spiritual commitments. She goes on to furnish a far-reaching discussion of the differences between the two sides, emphasizing the tension between Catholics and evangelicals.
Along the way, she provides admirably clear accounts of doctrinal debates regarding such issues as abortion, homelessness, divorce, and poverty. In the case of the latter two issues, she draws deeply from personal experience; after Head and her husband divorced, she says, she had to raise five kids as a single mother and fell into dire financial straits.
The overarching metaphor of the entire study is an image of shattered glass, which can symbolically represent either disrepair or kaleidoscopic diversity. Head also supplies remarkably balanced histories of various religious culture wars in America and of the split between liberal Christianity and conservative evangelical thought. Ultimately, she counsels a meaningful dรฉtente between Christianityโs various subdivisions that doesnโt involve surrendering core principlesโcooperation without compromise.
At the heart of the book is a genuine spirit of reconciliation: โIn every encounter with those who disagree with us, we are always to act in love, accepting and respecting the sacred humanity of every person. But we are not to crumble under the pressure to endorse actions we cannot deem morally justified.โ
A thoughtful introduction to complex cultural and theological issues in the Christian faith.ย
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It started as the seed of a plan. Bringing Christian non-profits together to reach out to our city. It came together last Saturday.
After we’d set up our tables, we started with a worship time–a band comprised of five members each from a different church singing in Christian accord.
Our host offered a word from the Bible–Job 9:33–“If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together,”–If only there could be a person to stand between hurting people and God.
“Today, you are that person,” he said.
The kickoff moment came when an elderly man hobbled up the hill to the sidewalk tables and sat down.
The cooking had just begun, but our chef and his assistant scurried to serve the man.
I wondered if he’d had anything at all to eat that day.
Soon parents–mostly moms–came with children.
Outside we offered a mix of donations and discounted (but baked fresh!) food from two meat processors, a bakery, a coffee shop, and some of the ladies attending a retreat that weekend.
I realized we had donors who didn’t offer what was just “good enough”; they offered their best.
Inside were representatives from two pregnancy resource centers, a local counseling group, a Christian school, a neighborhood church with a feeding program, a scholarship provider, a security specialist, and a local children’s ministry offering crafts. There was a table for our host–a city-wide ministry working out of the former elementary school building hosting us that day.
I sat at my author table, next to the table with door prizes.
We lined the edges of the entryway leading up the stairs to the gym where our host had inflated bouncy houses.
People came and found sustenance, encouragement, and those willing to help them in their need.
The expressions on the faces of children winning a prize were utter joy.
When it was over, we cleaned up and went home–bone weary but full of ideas for next year.
We hope this fair was our first attempt. We hope that other places will see and adapt the idea to fit their own communities. And we know that ministry doesn’t end with the conclusion of an event.
Our host will welcome hungry kids this summer, offering a feeding program as well as a reading program. There is more than one way to feed a soul.
We are thankful for the businesses that reached out to people who may never buy a product from them.
We are thankful that some individuals gave money and others baked brownies, cookies, and muffins. People offered us speaking opportunities to let the community know what we were doing and where. A radio station lent us the means to make a public service announcement. A printing/copy company provided insight and expertise in crafting brochures. They worked harder than they had to.
People in community came together to feed and entertain, to encourage and inform–to fill needs. Each one who contributed stood between God and a neighbor as a mediator.
They stood in fellowship with the least of these.
Matthew 25: 40b: โโTruly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.โ”
May we go and do likewise.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“โTeacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, โYou shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.’โ Matthew 22:26-40
There was a time in America when just about everyone knew that piece of scripture. And knowing it–or being reminded of it–as well as other concepts like The Golden Rule really made a difference in how we acted.
“On the night that Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, Robert F. Kennedy was on the campaign trail, preparing to address a predominately African-American crowd in Indianapolis. As cities across the country braced for riots and RFKโs advisors begged him to get as far as he could from the yet-unknowing crowd while he had the chance, the candidate stepped up onto a flatbed truck to break the news. In a scene that was itself like something out of Greek tragedy, he quoted Agamemnon from memory:
‘Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
Until, in our own despair,
Against our will,
Comes wisdom
Through the awful grace of God.’
That night, while dozens of American cities burned, Indianapolis remained peaceful. “
These words, spoken to those who had grown up with the Golden Rule and the concept of loving our neighbors, kept anger from owning the day in one American city.
Compare that story to this one about Rep. Brian Sims’s encounters, first with an older protester, then with four younger pro-life activists–three teens and a mother–outside a Planned Parenthood in Sims’s district. Sims, who used to escort women into an abortion clinic, recorded the videos himself and posted them on social media.
In the first video, Sims berates a lone, older woman (perhaps in her 60s) quietly protesting outside the facility in his neighborhood. He calls her “an old white lady” whose behavior, in his view, is “disgusting,” “racist,” and “grotesque.” He tells her she can “pray at home.” The woman does not respond to his insults except to reach into her purse to retrieve her rosary beads.
“In the other[second] video, Sims approaches a woman [Ashley Garecht] and three girls who appear to be in their teens outside the Planned Parenthood clinic at 12th and Locust Streets and refers to them as ‘pseudo-Christian protesters whoโve been out here shaming young girls for being here.’
“[Garecht] responds, ‘Weโre actually here just praying for the babies.'”
It was the second time, according to Garecht, Sims had accosted the quartet of protesters. He yelled at them at first, and then returned with his phone to record himself and ask viewers to identify the teens.
That means he had plenty of time to think about what he was doing.
He directed his comments to the girls. Garecht came between him and the teens and politely asked him to have a conversation. “Talk to me,” she said. “But he continued to yell at the girls.” He called the girls white (as he had done to the older woman)–apparently presuming that as an insult even though he is also white. The Hispanic teen corrected him.
“I’m not white,” the girl said. “I’m pretty far from white.”
But that didn’t slow him down. He claimed that Planned Parenthood “faces such attacks daily.” It doesn’t seem that he knows what the word attack means.
Sims used the videos to solicit contributions to Planned Parenthood, specifying in the second video that he would give $100 to the abortion titan.
But his plan backfired. Garecht and her husband started a Go Fund Me page after the encounter between Garecht, the teens, and Sims went viral. The fund is in support of a Philadelphia pro-life group.
In three days, they raised $118,000.
When Sims was making his videos, there were very few people on the street. Once the pro-life public saw his actions, they rallied on Friday.
Demonstrators at the Philadelphia Planned Parenthood where Brian Sims recorded his encounters with peaceful praying protesters. Photo by Pennlive (link below).
It’s possible that when the older woman pulled out her rosary beads, she was praying for her own protection. But I would not be surprised to learn she was praying for Sims.
That’s what Garecht and the girls did in the moments after their first meeting.
“We prayed for him then. I said we’ll continue to pray for him.”
The “old white lady,” Ashley Garecht, her daughters, and their friend know the words of Jesus Christ and ideas behind Aeschylus’s words from Agamemnon that RFK quoted. The now-famous Planned Parenthood protesters know the ideas that formed our culture before this moment.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โI have no personal stake in these people, Jean-Claude, but they are people. Good, bad, or indifferent, they are alive, and no one has the right to just arbitrarily snuff them out.โ
“So it is the sanctity of life you cling to?”
I nodded. โThat and the fact that every human being is special. Every death is a loss of something precious and irreplaceable.โ ~ Laurell K. Hamilton
Social Security came to be during the Great Depression as a way of moving older workers out of their jobs to make room for younger workers. Robert W. Merry points out that, today, the Social Security fund is running out of money.
“Consider the recent report that Social Security costs will exceed the programโs income next year, which means Social Security will have to begin dipping into its $3 trillion trust fund to maintain benefit payments. And that trust fund, under current projections, will run out of money within 15 years.”
The problem looms like an oncoming freight train, yet there is little discussion of a solution.
The solution Dole and Moynihan came up with involved taxing Social Security benefits and postponing those benefits until later in life. When the program began, life expectancy was not what it was in the ’80s although it remains close today to what it was during Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
With fewer children being born, the fund can only become more unstable or more expensive per person. Veronique de Rugy writes that between “1945 and 1965, the decline in worker-to-beneficiary ratios went from 41 to 4 workers per beneficiary. Now that rate is 2.9 workers for every recipient.
The cure, if there is one to be found, for this situation may depend on who holds power in Congress and the White House as the problem comes to its inevitable head.
One solution may include higher taxes–both on workers and recipients–and more delays in receiving benefits although it seems unlikely that elder voters will embrace putting off their benefits beyond age 70.
Some may suggest yet another solution–one that is already in play in some places–the withdrawal of medical care from the terminally ill–or the withholding of care from those who need it to continue living–or the overt act of killing someone whose productivity has passed or will never come to be.
Andrea Peyser writes about Stephanie Packer who suffers from scleroderma–an auto-immune disease that causes scar tissue to accumulate in her lungs. She has outlived her prognosis by six years. But not because of any help she got from her insurance company or the state of California–which allows physician-prescribed-suicide.
“[At one point,] her doctors suggested that switching to another chemotherapy drug might buy her time. Her medical insurance company refused to pay. She says she asked if the company covered the cost of drugs to put her to death. She was told the answer is yes โ with a co-payment of $1.20.”
We need to let that sink in. The insurance company refused to provide care that would extend Packer’s life, but killing herself would only cost her $1.20.
Some countries where the government manages all health care have moved even further down this road than America has.
In the United Kingdom, there were the cases of Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard–children who died because of a lack of care–care which would have been expensive.
Medical personnel wanted to actively kill Alfie, but his parents protested. The child finally died after authorities ordered the removal of his life support and a court refused to allow him to go to another country for treatment.
Medical decisions are happening based on cost-effectiveness without regard to patient outcomes, families’ wishes, or even a patient’s own desire to stay alive.
Very concerning: right now, 72 percent of Americans believe euthanasia–assisted suicide–should be legal. The only group for which the numbers fall under a majority are weekly churchgoers.
It’s sad to see that so many people don’t see the slope that slides between voluntary death and mandated murder. When the government is the highest authority–when the government pays for everything–or even when it doesn’t–life becomes secondary.
Simon Fitzmaurice, a victim of ALS, escaped death in Ireland only because the person helping him breathe didn’t know the rules. And the rules state that ALS patients don’t receive ventilators–even though the equipment is available at no cost to the government.
This filmmaker and writer would have received a death sentence–if not for the accident of his rescue–and his refusal–even under pressure–to have the ventilator removed after he received it.
Where once America provided for retirees to make room for younger workers, we may soon find ourselves eventually officially abandoning care for our elders, as well as the weak and sick, to make a financial way to care for everyone else.
But everyone else will then have to watch their own backs.
Such a turn of events would be tragic indeed. Life offers few securities. Embracing euthanasia would deprive us of the security that comes from having a society that reveres human life–a society that understands our lives are worthy of respect until their natural end.
Embracing euthanasia would deprive us of precious and irreplaceable human lives snuffed out on the altar of cost-effectiveness.
It is too great a price to pay to save a little money. There must be a better way.
There must be.
“All life is sacred. Human life is especially so. Protecting it is of utmost importance to God. He takes this so seriously and personally because He made humanity to reflect Him. We are His earthly representatives, made in His image. To murder another person is to mount an attack on the One who created him.” (Genesis 9:8-10 Voice)
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
In Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Jonas is a young boy who realizes that his father intends to kill his younger brother. Jonas makes this realization even as his father seems oblivious to the results of his own actions.
Lowry paints an “ideal” society where drugs eliminate sexual desires and the social order arranges marriages and provides children to selected parents. The society chooses everyone’s family, everyone’s vocation, and instills everyone’s socially acceptable thoughts into their minds. Almost everyone’s.
The society chooses one person in every generation to receive the truth–to carry it–but never to divulge it. For his generation, that chosen person is Jonah.
But the society had failed to obliterate Jonah’s conscience. Some current societies are trying to do the same thing in a very significant way.
“In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada conjured a right to lethal-injection euthanasia for anyone with a medically diagnosable condition that causes irremediable sufferingโas defined by the patient. No matter if palliative interventions could significantly reduce painful symptoms, if the patient would rather die, itโs the patientโs right to be killed. Parliament then kowtowed to the court and legalized euthanasia across Canada. Since each province administers the countryโs socialized single-payer health-care system within its bounds, each provincial parliament also passed laws to accommodate euthanasiaโs legalization.”
Canada isn’t alone in requiring medical personnel to violate their consciences. Victoria, Australia, requires physicians to perform abortions when requested–or to find someone for the patient who will.
What Canada and Australia have become, America may soon also be. Sam Sawyer, SJ, in response to New York’s recently enacted abortion law:
“The R.H.A. [Reproductive Health Act] does not contain any explicit provision requiring anyone to perform or provide abortions, but neither does it explicitly provide any exemption for conscientious objection by health care professionals regarding abortion.”
So this issue is one that remains for the legislature and/or courts to determine.
The radical nature of New York’s law–removing the requirement that doctor’s perform abortions rather than other medical personnel–and removing all protections from children who survive abortion and are born alive–does not bode well for conscientious objection against taking a life.
In the meantime, because abortion can now occur via prescription medication–because assisted suicide often happens via a lethal prescription–and because some contraceptives act as an abortifacient after conception (they kill embryos instead of preventing them–pharmacists are now at risk of violating their consciences too.
Only six states in the US provide a conscience clause, not requiring the pharmacist to either fill the prescription or help the patient receive the requested service through another outlet.
So it was an answer to prayer last Thursday–the National Day of Prayer–when President Trump announced new federal protections for an array of medical providers:
“We finalized new protections of conscience rights for physicians, pharmacists, nurses, teachers, students, and faith-based charities.โ
As with other such rules, this one is subject to change in the winds of any election.
But for those who support life in the medical field–and those who wish to in the future–the news is only good.
Let’s keep working for life to make this change one that lasts for generations. Otherwise, we risk becoming like the people of Lowry’s The Giver–having our consciences obliterated.
Because as James Madison noted, “Conscience is the most sacred of all property.”
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Earlier this week, Anne Susan DiPrizio was arrested in the Alabama House of Representatives for spraying the glass separating visitors from legislators with green paint and repeatedly yelling, “Dumb, dumb, dumb.” She “swung and threw paint on” security guards as they were arresting her.
DiPrizio was protesting the Alabama House’s passage of a bill that would ban almost all abortions in the state.
New York and other states are passing laws expanding abortion and refusing to protect children who survive abortion and are born alive.
Some states are going out of their way to make sure that the smallest abortion victims do not live to speak up later on. Others, like Alabama, are doing everything possible to protect the unborn.
America is gearing up for a showdown on Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton the 1973 Supreme Court decisions that eradicated every abortion law in all 50 states.
Forty-six years later, it’s an issue that just won’t go away.
Every year since 1974, the March for Life has brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to Washington, DC, to mark the anniversary of Roe and Doe.
America has seen attacks on abortion facilities. “Fanatics resort toย violence on bothย extremes of the pro-choice/pro-life spectrum,” writes Feminist for Life Serrin M. Foster (emphasis Foster’s).
More recently, it was in San Francisco during the 40 Days for Life–before Easter this year–when a young attacker assaulted an 85-year-old pro-life man praying outside a Planned Parenthood clinic.
The attacker knocked “Ron” down and said, “Stay down, old man–Stay on the ground–unless you want to get hurt.”
While on the ground, Ron wouldn’t let go of the pro-life banner the attacker was trying to steal. So the attacker kicked him several times. But Ron came back the next day. He had committed to a certain number of hours–and he came back to fulfill that commitment.
In response to the attack, he said, “No, I won’t stay down.”
So Ron returned to his post where he stood and prayed quietly. The 40 Days for Life philosophy asks participants to always respond “with love and charity”–no matter what they see, hear, or experience.
Forty Days for Life credits Ron’s efforts with saving the lives of three babies.
Many Americans don’t realize that laws like New York’s–laws legalizing abortion until birth–simply restore Roe and Doe in their original form. Abortion for any reason at any time in pregnancy.
But today when legislatures pass laws allowing abortion until birth and allowing the neglect until death of children who manage to live through the abortion process, Americans see that as extreme.
Most of America–even those who call themselves pro-choice–do not support abortion until birth. In fact, only 13 percent do.
Perhaps America has turned the tide on Roe and Doe. Perhaps the strategies of 40 Days and Ron can win the day.
If the side of life is the side of reason–and the side against life is a violent man kicking a peaceful elder and a screaming woman splattering paint on security guards, we will win.
But we must be like Ron to win. We must peacefully pray and stay at our posts–even if we are bruised.
Peace and prayer will win this, the battle of our lifetime. They are the greatest tools. If we use them and them alone.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions:ย You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
During the hardest times of my life, the Church was there. A church–the one I attended–but also THE Church–a small piece of it–represented largely in a denomination not my own. The help from those within my worship community and part of other such communities kept my family from being stuck in the poverty trap.
We knew deep need, and the Church stepped up. But we didn’t just get a hand out–or a number of them. We got a hand up.
Christians provided gifts of food, clothing, and money to us. But they also provided childcare so I could go back to school–and advice on how to succeed there and in the workplace. They encouraged. They walked with us.
We did not stay in poverty. And we have those Christians to thank today.
And so is born the idea of the Central Pennsylvania Service Fair–an event to let people in need know where they can get help–or how they can offer help to others.
The idea involves inviting Christian non-profits to participate in the fair. Pregnancy Resources organizations as well as feeding ministries. Children’s, youth, men’s, and women’s ministries. Ministries that provide material needs; ministries for spiritual needs. That’s who we’ve invited to begin.
And then inviting the community–offering fun activities for the family–and a meal. Food is a universal language of fellowship. And we want the day–for a few hours one day next month–to be a day of friendship and fellowship.
–To gather in worship before the event and lift up our community in prayer.
–To let this church over here realize that the church over there is filling a need no one else in the community fills.
–To let people know that someone is there to fill the need that makes them feel all alone in the world.
One church alone cannot lift a community of those in need. It takes individuals and congregations.
Every person who steps up places a brick of support into the wall those in need climb to get out of the hole they inhabit. They have to climb out themselves–but they need the wall of support in order to scale the heights.
A service fair can be a layer of bricks in somebody’s wall to climb out of their hole. The person we help today is valuable to God. And that person receiving help today may be the one giving help tomorrow.
You don’t know the difference your help can make. And you don’t really know the depth of the person you help. What you can know is that no one is beneath the love of Christ. No human being is ordinary.
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizationโthese are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploitโimmortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”[i]โC. S. Lewis
Find a need. Fill it. Lay a brick in someone’s wall. What we do can change eternity.
[i] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1949), 15. Qtd. in Restoring the Shattered
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“If a woman sees her baby on an ultrasound, there’s better than an 80 percent chance she will not abort her baby. If the dad sees the baby on an ultrasound, there’s more than a 90 percent she will not abort her baby.” Anthony Levatino, former abortion doctor~
The 40 Days for Life are over. God answers the prayers of His people. More than 15,000 babies are alive today because of that effort.
Now it’s Holy Week.
Christ entered the city to shouts of joy. But He knew what was ahead. A bigger agony than any other has ever known–physical anguish–plus the turning away of His Father. The sacrificial Lamb on the cross was alone for the first time in forever.
This was Christ who’d said, “Let the little children come unto me.”
But then Resurrection Day. And then Pentecost–the bestowing of God’s Holy Spirit.
And so came the Church.
We are His messengers. We carry the message of life. Physical life for the weak and voiceless. Abundant life for our spirits.
And we carry joy in our message, the joy of knowing such a Savior.
We carry the hope of light into a dark world.
Happy Easter! God bless!
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
In 1978, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became Pope John
Paul II, the first non-Italian pope in 456 years. Not only was he not Italian;
he was from Poland, a country where the government despised the Church. This
new pope was different. Younger than any other pope in the previous century, he
had survived the Nazi occupation only to endure Soviet oppression. He knew the
suffering that is oppression, and it infused his ministry with vivid colors.
When Wojtyla was in Rome becoming the new pope,
Billy Graham was in Poland preaching from Wojtylaโs pulpit, having come at
Wojtylaโs invitation. No other Polish Catholic leader would agree to invite
Graham, and he couldnโt go without an invitation. Graham would later preach in
Orthodox and Reformed churches, a Jewish synagogue, and an Orthodox monastery
during his European travels.[i]
Wojtyla and Graham had planned to get together
during Grahamโs visit, but Wojtylaโs call to Rome for the papal election
delayed their meeting.[ii] Before Grahamโs arrival,
Wojtyla had been overseeing a โradical partnershipโ between a Catholic youth
renewal movement and Campus Crusade for Christ.[iii] His work to light local
flames of faith in the young kindled a global bonfire he could never have
imagined.
In 1979, the new pope returned to his homeland
where more than one million Poles lined the streets to welcome him and millions
more came to hear him.[iv] Lech Walesa, firebrand of
the Solidarity movement in Poland, told Peggy Noonan in 2002 that โwe knew the
minute [John Paul] touched the foundations of communism, it would collapse.โ
Walesa credited โheaven and the Holy Fatherโ as most responsible for destroying
communism in Poland.[v]
The popeโs visit to Poland was a tiny pebble
dropped into a steaming pond. The resulting ripples turned into a tidal wave.
When Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet premier, he saw the handwriting on the
wall in Poland and began to implement reforms across the Soviet Union. He hoped
to save communism by reforming it.[vi]
But by then, the cracks in the foundation of
communism were too deep. Ten years after the popeโs return to his homeland in
1979, the Berlin Wall fell along with the Iron Curtain. The ripples of reform
and freedom in Eastern Europe would reverberate across the globe.
Nineteen-eighty-nine was also the year Hu
Yaobang died in China. Hu was a high-ranking communist official in the Peopleโs
Republic. He had fallen out of favor with party power brokers because he
supported reforms, loosening controls on the press and the people. Inspired by
student protests in America and South Korea they had seen on television,
Chinese college students gathered in Beijing at Tiananmen Square to mourn Hu,
their advocate for democratic reform. The marathon sit-in lasted seven weeks.
Demonstrations werenโt unheard of in China, but the international broadcast of
such demonstrations was. The international press was in town to cover
Gorbachevโs visit to Beijing. Because of his attempts to reform communism, the
protesting Chinese students considered him a champion of democracy.[vii] The presence of the
international press made possible our knowledge of the Tiananmen Square
massacre. In front of the international media, the Chinese government, having
lost face in the weeksโ long standoff, sent the army into the square, killing
thousands and capturing surviving protesters.
Eastern European Christians would ultimately
see freedom. The Chinese students, on the other hand, did not get the change
they had hoped for, but change is what China would see. The Beijing massacre
and imprisonment of surviving demonstrators prompted Chinese youth, especially
students, to look for a new form of freedom. Many found that freedom in Christ.
Why did young Chinese college students suddenly develop a passionate interest
in the Christian faith? David Aikman writes that one โsuggestion was that
Chinaโs traditional Confucian view of man as inherently good was shattered
under the tanks that rolled onto the center of Beijing.โ[viii] The Chinese students
had put their faith in their government, and their government turned on them
and attacked them. Now they would look elsewhere for someone to trust. Within
the next ten to fifteen years, China is on track to become the most Christian
nation in the world.[ix]
The new wave of freedom that started in Catholic Poland ultimately sparked an
explosion of evangelical Christianity halfway around the world. Pope John Paul
II helped ignite that spark.
John Paul II began his papacy by hoping to
visit his Catholic homeland. A faithful prayer warrior, he no doubt prayed for
the people of his native land. The echoes of his first trek to Poland resonate
around the world and into eternity. Christianity and the call for freedom have
gone hand in hand throughout history because Christianity is the truest form of
freedom. It frees us from the bonds of sin and points us to eternal concerns
and away from irrelevant earthly ones.
The more freedom and opportunity we have, the
more God expects of us, but it seems that the more personal comfort we have,
the less we do for each other. In Americaโs large cities, our neighborhoods are
more alienated than ever. Fear, anger, and misunderstanding separate us. Many
of us feed a selfishness that wants to gain comfort others already have. Some
of us just want to hang on to our own level of comfort.
Historically, as Christianity emerges in a
hostile society, Christians have come together to further the gospel. Pope, now
Saint, John Paul II and Billy Graham showed us the difference accord can make
in oppressed nations like Poland once was. But accord is also apparent in
oppressed China.
I had the blessing of meeting one of the Chinese
student protesters who turned to Christ after Tiananmen Square. I asked him
about separation within the Chinese church. โDenomination is not important in
China,โ was his reply.
[ii] The pope would
later visit with Graham in Rome multiple times, and the two corresponded
through letters. When John Paul died, Graham said this pope had been the โmost
influential voice for morality and peace in the world in the last 100 years.โ
Michael Ireland, โBilly Graham: Pope John Paul II Was Most Influential Voice in
100 Years,โ CBN.com transcript of CNNโs Larry
King Live, broadcast April 2, 2005.
[iii] David Scott, โThe
Pope We Never Knew,โ Christianity Today,
April 19, 2005, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/may/13.34.html.
[iv] Peggy Noonan, John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual
Father (New York: Penguin, 2005), 26.
[vii] Nicholas D.
Kristof and Special to the New York Times,
โChinaโs Hero of Democracy: Gorbachev,โ archives 1989, accessed May 14, 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/14/world/china-s-hero-of-democracy-gorbachev.html.
[viii] David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is
Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Washington,
DC: Regnery, 2003), 171.
[ix] Tom Phillips, โChina on Course to Become โWorldโs Most Christian Nationโ within 15 Years,โ London Telegraph, April 19, 2014, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10776023/China-on-course-to-become-worlds-most-Christian-nation-within-15-years.html.
Excerpted from Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered. Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I had a strange dream many years ago. Many aspects of it are unusual; the most unusual might be that I remember it so well. My dreams are usually as fleeting as the smoke from a blown out candle.
I was a young mother then. Only two of my five children had been born. In my dream, it was nighttime and I was lying down in the backseat of a moving car. I donโt know who was driving. Perhaps the car was moving of its own accord.
I was on my way to a nearby townโat the time the only place locally where abortions happened. The entire dream was comprised of the two car ridesโgoing there and coming back. The whole way there, I knew that this something had to happen. โI have to do this,โ my dreaming inner self said. Ironically, I had the sense that I had no choice. Then there was the ride home. Nothing in between. No light of the hospital hallways. No smiling or frowning nurse. No doctor reassuring me or disregarding me. No procedure itself.
There was just a ride home in which I felt only regret. As deeply as I felt the opposite conviction on the way there, I felt so profoundlyโโI didnโt have to do that.โ I awoke with a horror that indelibly impressed the dream in my mind.
For many women, my dream is reality. I only dreamed it. They’ve lived it.
A recent studyย presumed to prove that 95 percent of women who have abortions have no regrets. But most women (62.5 percent) who had abortions and were asked to participate in the study refused to be involved. Another 15 percent of those who had stayed in the study dropped out later on. And yet another 31 percent dropped out before the end of three years. Thatโs hardly 95 percent of women whoโve had abortions. Thatโs hardly even a reasonable sample.
The study further claimed that there is โno evidence of widespread post-abortion trauma syndrome. But it ignored โlinkage studiesโ that showed โan elevated risk of psychiatric admissions following abortion or elevated rates of suicide. Instead, their assessment . . .[was based on] just six emotional reactions they associated with their abortion: relief, happiness, regret, guilt, sadness and anger.โ
Aย similar studyย claimed 80 percent were happy with their decisions to abort. But 76 percent were determined never to have another abortion.ย It was an experience they would choose never to repeat.
Ramah International reports that many women suffer guilt, numbness, suicidal thoughts, and the inability to bond with their other children after abortion. With one in four women in the US experiencing abortion, that’s a great deal of trauma and lack of family connection.
Crisis pregnancy centers help people (not just mothers) who are dealing with the ramifications of a surprise pregnancyโno matter how it ends. They also help with post-abortion counseling.
Women who have abortions suffer from trauma. Those around them suffer too. For those who favor abortion, that trauma is a secret they prefer to keep.
But many have turned against the pro-choice view. Abby Johnson is notable today because of the movie Unplanned. But Bernard Nathanson had been a pioneer of abortion in the 1970s. He became pro-life before he became a Christian. And Carol Everett had also done abortions. She now speaks against the “pro-choice” perspective. There are others.
Human life is sacred. All of it. Born, pre-born and clinic workers too. Violating that sanctity causes trauma to all involved.
There is healing in Christ. That’s where Johnson, Nathanson, and Everett found it.
Our prayers can help more find that healing too. Today is Day 37 of 40 Days for Life. It’s not too late for you to participate.
Call out to God for the babies, the abortion workers, the mothers, the fathers, and other family members abortion wounds.
Our great God hears and answers.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“You are anti-abortion and anti-gay,” she said. Five words to define me.
She knew me from brief classroom conversations and my writing, including my personal history as a reader. I wrote that history for her graduate class in literacy in 2006, before same sex marriage was a national argument. In it, I mentioned Bernard Nathanson’s book Aborting America. Nathanson’s account of his journey from abortion doctor (his term) to pro-life advocate.
I included books I felt had shaped me. Nathanson’s had carved conviction for life into my heart. But there was also William Barrett’sLilies of the Field, the first book I remember reading because I wanted to, not because I had to. And Laurel Lee’sWalking through the Fire: A Hospital Journal, her story of single motherhood that I read before I embarked on a similar experience only without the threat of serious illness.
I had made no effort to hide my Christianity explaining the change it produced in my life had also changed my choice of reading materials. I hadn’t thought to include a couple books I had read on the Christian perspective about homosexuality. I had an opinion on the subject but not one that defined who I was. Nonetheless, my history as a reader was a woven trail that led to a complex me.
But she boiled me down to five words.
In that moment, I struggled to define myself. “I am more pro-life and pro-family,” I stammered.
With the clarity that comes all too often after an uncomfortable encounter, I can state that I am an advocate for human life in the womb and later (which is why ‘anti-abortion’ is an incomplete term to describe the pro-life perspective). And for me, speaking up on behalf of families has related more to the pain divorce causes than it has to the legality of same-sex relationships.
But with my awkward self-definition still hanging in the air and my clearer definition to be formulated later on as I drove home, we moved on to the purpose of our meeting, a discussion of my work throughout the course. Her opinion of my views did not negatively affect her evaluation of my work. I suffered no injustice because she and I disagreed. We have since had other meetings, always pleasant.
She may consider me somewhat of a friend. If she does, I am her anti-abortion, anti-gay friend.
It’s hard to convince others that we deserve a label that positively states a principle instead of one that negatively threatens to restrict freedom. Rather than simply wanting to end women’s freedom to choose abortion, we want women to be free of the nightmare memories of having killed their own children, free from the physical ramifications, such as infertility, that sometimes result from abortion. We really do care for mother, child, father, siblings, grandparents.
We want to be free from the sin of not speaking up on behalf of the innocent.
We also want to be free from the sin of not speaking up on behalf of the family. It is our duty to speak up in favor of children having two parents of opposite sexes. We want people’s relationships to be holy and healthy. Even if there are those who disagree with us. Even if we would rather not, Even if they call us hateful bigots.
It is our duty to speak up on behalf of holiness, yet always to do so in love.
We may not be able to change the opinions of those who disagree with us, of those who put wrong labels on us. But the burden is not on those who look at us through a skewed worldview lens.
It is on us to show love, speak love, live the love of Christ so that they see Him instead of us.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
In 1894, a new play opened on the London stage. Oscar Wildeโsย The Importance of Being Earnestย addressed social concerns, gender, wealth, and status issues.
The story centers around a character with a questionable beginning. Jack Worthing doesnโt know who his biological parents are. Until he does, he cannot marry the girl of his dreams. His shady secret?
He was found in a train stationโhaving been abandoned. Jack Worthing finally finds his motherโand his worth. Now, social status and parentage arenโt as closely connected as they were for Jack or Oscar Wilde. But the world today is finding no shortage of abandoned children.
In 1993, a federal study said 22,000 US mothers abandoned their infants in hospitals every year. Today, the nation isnโt even keeping track of the numbers.
Itโs a problem that doesnโt get much attention. Here or there, a story pops up of a child left behind. Sometimes dressed warmly on a doorstep, sometimes in a toilet or a dumpster. And it’s not just babies. In 2008 in Nebraska, a father left nine of his ten children ranging in age from 20 months to 17 years.
Itโs also a problem that has accompanied humanity through the ages. In every culture, in every time, children were simply cast out into the dark world.ย In Rome, they were left to be eaten by wild animals, or perhaps, rescued only to be exploited. Rejected because they were girls, or imperfect, or one mouth too many.
In America in the nineteenth century, early feminists and physicians worked together to criminalize abortion.
The medical community was working to standardize practices–such as hand washing–and abortion was dangerous. Then, feminists knew that abortion exploited women and harmed children.
Previously, abortion had been more widely accepted since there was little knowledge of fetal life and most people–even the Catholic Church–assumed life didn’t begin until the mother felt the child move.
Yet in the countryside, abortion had been uncommon. Parents didn’t abort children who would be valuable assets on the farm. As the population shifted to cities, abortion–and abandonment–ran rampant. By 1900, every state in America had made abortion illegal.
Note that the laws against abortion were to protect women and children from bad medical practices and oppressive men. As abortion increased, so did the numbers of abandoned children. Dickens reflected real life.
Today, every state has enacted a safe haven law in hopes of saving abandoned children. Hospitals provide bassinets in their lobbies for anyone to deposit a child, away from predators, human and otherwise, away from the elements. Such programs exist in other nations too.
A few years ago, there was a controversy over babyklappens (as the baby depositories are called in Germany). Germanyโs constitution guarantees that citizens have a right to know their origin. Depositing a baby anonymously means the baby wonโt know his origin.
But the controversy was bigger than one country.
The United Nations was concerned about any child who might lose the right โto be known and cared for by his or her parents.โ The UNโs opposition to baby drops is blind to the needs of all children facing this plight, especially children in war torn countries as well as Americaโs inner citiesโsome of which can resemble war zones.
How can the UN not comprehend that some people cannot or will not care for their own children? Fortunately, the UN has no teeth to enforce idiocy.
Desperation may be the answer in many cases. but it is not the only answer. These โunwantedโ children are another example of a โproblemโ legalized abortion was supposed to fix. But legalized abortion leads us to less respect for life, not more. If we can disregard the humanity of the unborn, how much difference can it make to disregard the already born?
We would be more than foolish to expect our government to pass and sustain protection for innocent life born or unborn. Or to expect anything at all from the United Nations. Governments donโt have the answer.
The problems seem overwhelming, beyond our grasp. The world lacks peace. And they donโt know how to find it.
In her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa said, โI feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion because it is a direct war, a direct killing โ direct murder by the mother herself.โ
Abortion or abandonment. Both are bombs in a great war between good and evil.
Every life is a treasure–a potential casualty in that war.
We find the weapon to answer the bombs in only one place. Jesus is the light. We carry His light. We carry peace.
Peace and light spread truth. Speak peace and light today.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
You’re excited to be pregnant. Then the news hits you like a rock. Your child is “incompatible with life. You should terminate.” Or “You have to terminate.” It happens more often than you might think.
But not every unborn child so labeled actually dies.
What follows is a post by Rachael, a friend who knows all too well what hearing those words means since she and her husband Mike found out a year ago that they were expecting identical twin girls–and that the babies were at risk.
“‘SIUGR stands for selective intrauterine growth restriction and occurs only in monochorionic (identical) twin pregnancies.
“About 10% of monochorionic pregnancies will develop SIUGR. Many doctors do not know enough about this condition, and as a result, many are still recommending that parents terminate the smaller identical twin.
“We were given the option to terminate [the smaller baby] Vesper. We faced the options of terminating or relying on faith. We were told, if Vesper passes away, you are going to cause her sister (Olenna) to either pass or have severe brain damage. And you need to prepare for a life with a severely disabled child if that happens. As I watched them dancing on the ultrasound screen, we determined then and there that termination was not an option for us. Vesper was growing and fighting to survive. She was just smaller than Olenna.
“So we went to the doctor every two weeks. The anxiety that filled each appointment until we heard both of their heartbeats is something I hope I never have to relive. But every week our girls fought and grew. After 24 weeks the medical staff stopped asking us every appointment if we were going to terminate.
“Finally, at 34 weeks, the longest they would allow our pregnancy to go, we delivered two beautiful baby girls.
“I am raising awareness for every fighter-survivor and angel out there. Olenna and Vesper want you to know that SIUGR does not automatically mean a death sentence. There is always hope. My girls are six months old and the Joy for our days. I thank God for them.
“‘This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.’ John 9:3“
That’s Rachael’s testimony of life for both her babies.
โShe is incompatible with life. She wonโt survive. I donโt think you understand how serious this is.โ
But Hannah and her husband Craig insisted on giving life to Evelyn–and committed to enjoying her as long as God allowed her to live. The medical practice treating Hannah did not take the news well.
“I was immediately dropped from the practice after calling through screams and sobs to ask where in the world that information came from and that I would continue my pregnancy. I went five weeks without a provider. Tragically, it was a thousand times easier to schedule an abortion for my child than it was to find proper care for myself and my pregnancy.”
Five weeks with no overseeing physician during a high-risk pregnancy. Easy to abort. Hard to find care. Yet, in this case, Hannah averted tragedy.
Because Evelyn is now 2-1/2 years old.
“The only tragedy here would be never meeting Evelyn. All of our days are limited. Not just a child with a chronic illness. None of us are promised tomorrow. I remind myself daily that on my best day or worst day caring for Evelyn, I never have the power to add or subtract a day from her life. “
Doctors advising Hannah and her husband were operating under the notion that all babies with Trisomy 18 die. But that’s not the case.
Former US Senator Rick Santorum and his wife Karen also have a daughter with Trisomy 18. They too received the terrible new that they HAD TO abort their child who was incompatible with life. They refused.
Doctors are not the authors of life and death. God gives us people to love for as long as they and we are here to give love and receive love.
If only we will be as brave as Rachael and Mike, Hannah and Craig, and Rick and Karen.
If only we too will be so brave.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Photo Credit: Mike and Rachael Andrews Family Collection by Lakeside Portraits
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Unplanned is the story of Abby Johnson’s journey from college student to Planned Parenthood volunteer to clinic director to pro-life advocate. It’s in theaters now–but it won’t be there after this weekend unless it makes big box office numbers.
The film begins with Johnson’s statement that the story will not be easy to watch. The film garnered an R rating–ironically making it more difficult for a 15-year-old to see the movie than it would be for her to schedule an actual abortion.
There is no nudity, very little foul language–no F bombs, no God’s name in vain.
Even so, the first ten minutes of the movie may haunt me for a very long time. That portion of the movie depicts a sonogram-guided second-trimester abortion.
Vividly.
There are a few other emotionally jarring scenes. Johnson’s endurance of a chemical abortion (not the simple procedure abortion perveyors present) and the staff dealing with a patient’s perforated uterus (without calling an ambulance) among them.
Ashley Bratcher as Johnson provides an excellent portrayal and delivers a broad range of emotions from the joy of Johnson’s second marriage to anguish over the final realization of what her work for eight years as an “abortion provider” had truly entailed.
But the uncredited star of her story is the prayer others offered on her behalf and for the cause of ending abortion.
Go see this movie. But be prepared to exit the theater changed. There is power in Johnson’s story–whether in her books or on the big screen. There is power in the images of the death and danger involved in abortion.
Yet there is more power in the prayer that asks God to end the horror and grant forgiveness, mercy, and grace after years of pursuing and encouraging death.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Throughout modern history society has been eaten away by a series of internal maladies, man turning against man and class against class: all societies have been characterized by the warfare of opposing interests, by competition, by the isolation and dereliction of each individual man.”ย Rodย Dreher
Roland C. Warren sees a disturbing trend in the argument over human life. Early in the abortion discussion, advocates for abortion (and euthanasia) argued that there was “human life” (with regard to abortion: the mother; with regard to euthanasia: the healthy) and “not yet life” (the unborn), and even “no longer life” (the sick or infirm).
So we had life and non-life. And then ultrasound technology let us peer into the womb where we clearly see–life!
Now, advocates for “freedom of choice” are acknowledging that life is present–and even human. But there is a structure of hierarchy. Some lives supersede others. Warren cites Mary Elizabeth Williams who penned an article titled “So What If Abortion Ends a Life?” Williams acknowledges that life begins at conception. And acknowledges that the admission can weaken her own argument.
But…
“All life is not equal. Thatโs a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. Sheโs the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.”
Note that Williams defaults to the essential red herrings of the pro-choice set. “Her life” and “her health” as if her life is enhanced and her health restored because a baby she removed from her womb is dead.ย The hard cases–life, health, and rape/incest–add up to 1.23 percent of all abortions.
Sandwiched between life and health is “her circumstances”–the situations that motivate 98.7 percent of abortions in the US.ย Difficult circumstances mean the child–he or she–must step aside.
Take further note that the criterion for getting to decide is autonomy. The shift in thinking has taken us from thinking “It’s not a life” to “It’s a life–a child even–but a “non-autonomous” life. The ability to be independent determines the value of life.
Such a notion fuels the so-called “right to die” movement. In her article, Williams mentions “grandma” before she mentions “baby”. Grandma may herself decide to live no longer–or someone else may decide for her. Killing with consent leads quickly to killing without it.
It’s not a big step from Grandma is in pain to Grandma is a pain–and an expensive one at that. When we arrive at that determination, we have made Grandma subhuman. Then, every one of us becomes subject to the same devaluing. No one is exempt.
But Warren argues: that is not who we are.
He paints a hypothetical situation. You are crossing the street and you see two people carrying their groceries. One is a healthy 25-year-old man. The other is an 85-year-old woman. Both of them drop their groceries at the same time. Who do you help?
We help the woman. The one we perceive needs help more. “It’s wired into us,” Warren says. “It’s what makes us human–how we apportion compassion.” He adds that animals–creatures less than human–operate in the opposite manner. Strong animals eat weak ones.
Humans, at their best, help the weak.ย When we live otherwise, we live like animals. And then we have all become less.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โLook at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest pushโin just the right placeโit can be tipped.โ Malcolm Gladwell
When police came to arrest him, he didn’t understand what the big deal was. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He had only been helping people.
Kermit Gosnell would later be convicted for performing late-term abortions, killing aborted babies born alive, and causing the death of a woman who had undergone an abortion. He believed that, eventually, society would exonerate him because we would come to see that what he did had not been wrong after all.
“I continue to feel optimistic of the eventual outcomeโฆthe vindication of what Iโve done, why Iโve done it and how [it] will become accepted within my lifetime.โ
In January, the state of New York decriminalized every crime Gosnell committed. Had he been convicted in that state instead of Pennsylvania, he would have grounds to be pardoned and immediately released, perhaps with an apology from the state.
The woman who had an abortion and died later, had received medications at the hands of untrained employees acting on Gosnell’s orders in his absence.
And a baby weighing six pounds died after being born alive–after exiting his mother’s body–after he had begun breathing on his own. Gosnell stuck scissors in the back of his neck and cut his spinal cord.
That baby was not the only living, breathing child Gosnell and his co-workers “snipped”.
The state of New York has chosen to side with such an approach to death–death inflicted by the trained and untrained–death for the already born.
New York speaks death over those with no voice.
Yet, there is another voice today–a quieter but growing one. It’s a voice that understands the there is “an American consensus … implying that there are truths that we hold in common, and a natural law that makes known to all of us the structure of the moral universe in such wise that all of us are bound to it by common obedience.” George Weigel
We who understand the power of the one behind this natural law must raise our voices now.
America has been going down the path of death for decades–but not so far that we cannot turn back. A few states like New York are opting for more death. But the outcry for life is making itself heard in every state. People are speaking up.
A few weeks ago, a reader told me that she is praying about what she can do on behalf of the unborn.
Here are a few ideas.
Notify your legislators at the city, county, state, and federal levels about your conviction that the legalized killing of children born and unborn must end.
Talk to your neighbors, friends, and family. Most people don’t realize that Roe v. Wade and its companion case of Doe v. Bolton legalized abortion THROUGH THE ENTIRE NINE MONTHS OF PREGNANCY.
Attend or consider planning an event in your community to raise awareness about the plight of unborn children. Join your local pro-life group. Volunteer for/support your local crisis pregnancy facility.
Go see Unplanned, in theaters this week. The story of Abby Johnson who once managed a Planned Parenthood abortion facility but is now a voice for life–and who now mothers eight children–some of them by birth, others by adoption.
Pray. And then pray some more. Pray about what you should do. Pray for the mothers, the babies, the Abby Johnsons who still work at the clinics, and the Kermit Gosnells who just don’t get why unborn–and newly born–life really matters.
The laws opposing life are not immovable, implacable. Perhaps your effort–or our effort combined–will produce that slightest push to tip America back to the side of life.
Before it is too late.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“In each of us, two natures are at war–the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose.” Robert Louis Stevenson
Despite having crafted a rule that defunds Planned Parenthood, all is not pro-life in the Trump Administration. The Health and Human Services Department has not just overlooked but endorsed a funding extension (the second one) for experiments to create humanized mice. The experiments require human body parts–parts harvested from babies aborted late-term.
CNSNews reports that the experimentation at the University of California at San Francisco “creates a demand–driven by federal tax dollars–for tissue taken from late-term aborted babies. According to an estimate it has published on its website, the National Institutes of Health (which is a division of HHS) will spend $95 million this fiscal year alone on research that–like UCSF’s ‘humanized mouse’ contract–uses human fetal tissue.
“Under the new 90-day extension, the contractโwhich the government calls ‘Humanized Mouse Models for HIV Therapeutics Development’–will run through June 5.”
Whereupon, we must ask whether HHS will grant yet another extension.
Allowing this atrocity to continue gives a sense of schizophrenia to the Trump Administration–who, on one hand, are calling out Democrats for supporting abortion until birth–and infanticide after birth–and on the other hand–approving this practice.
There can be no abortion that redeems itself in research–for the good of someone else. To take one life in the hope (and it is a mere hope) of saving someone else is the stuff of bad science fiction, the stuff of dehumanizing oppression of the worst kind.
The Trump Administration–America itself–must decide whether good or evil will be the nature of our land. Will we be a nation where all people are created equal with rights? Or will we be a horrid shadow of nations who’ve used the weak to fortify the strong?
We must decide. And history will forever note that decision.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; He has sent me to bring good news to the afflicted, to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, To announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God; To comfort all who mourn; to place on those who mourn in Zion a diadem instead of ashes, To give them oil of gladness instead of mourning, a glorious mantle instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of justice, the planting of the Lord to show his glory. Isaiah 61: 1-3NABRE
Some seeds take root in the ground. Some travel by air or water. They morph from seed to sprout to stem and grow leaves, then fruit.
A letter from a missionary family arrived a couple of weeks ago. It provided updates with lists of praises and prayer requests. It was one in a series of such letters over decades that tells the story of a family. The letters reveal the heart of their composer: a wife and mother–herself a seed who traveled on the wind and brought forth much fruit.
This missionary mom is a rare poetic spirit–walking us through the triumph of seeing souls come to Christ–and the tragedies of her two lost babes–one miscarriage and one newborn who lived about a day–and the more recent loss of a teenage son due to cancer.
She’s had her own physical ailments, yet her faith stands strong. She has no regrets. She and her family invested their lives planting seeds of faith.
The remnant of this traveling family–now a couple with their living, now grown children spread like seeds around the world–have come home. Planting not just seeds but also roots yet holding the earth around them loosely.
A young couple I met recently has two young children and are preparing for a life of seed cultivation on the other side of the planet. They hold the earth around them loosely. Sitting in their living room a few months ago, their plans unfolded for a simple Christmas and then the big move.
Christmas for the little ones involved only a few items that would travel easily. Like the older missionary family, they live holding onto little here.
The seedย that is me grew in the soil under my feet. Having lived in the same house since 1977, my roots reached deep in this place. My leaves are the colors of autumn, no longer the green of spring. The seeds I produced sprouted in nearby ground.
In her letter, the elder missionary mother spoke of the offerings she will lay before God someday–the fruit of her life.
What we lay before Him cannot be what we’ve held tightly.
We’ll have only the fruit from seeds planted in loose soil. Seeds we pray the Lord will grow into mighty oaks of justice–His plantings. For His glory.
So let it be.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Even while the abortion rate in the US has been dropping (except in New York), numbers are up, as are profits for Planned Parenthood. PP performed 332,757 abortions last year–an increase of 11,000 more children lost over the previous year.
Technically a non-profit, America’s largest abortion “provider” claims a $250 million SURPLUS. That’s a quarter of a BILLION dollars in excess of their expenses–salaries, utilities, rents. Yet it’s not enough.
But PP does so many good things, some say. Only now they are doing fewer good things. Services other than abortion are down–by 11.5 percent. “Other services” would include cancer screenings (a 70 percent drop in PAP tests) and breast exams (down by 64 percent). Other services might also have included mammograms, but PP has never invested in mammogram equipment.
Adoptions? The ratio of abortion to adoption referrals is 148 to one over the last ten years. There just isn’t any money for PP in adoption.
Congress tried and failed last year to defund the abortion giant. So it’s hard to figure out how taxpayer funds increased to PP–by $20 million to a record $563 million to top off a 55 percent increase over the last 10 years. Apparently, it was a bipartisan deal of death.
Death for babies and wounds for their mothers.
Sadly, the Senate also recently failed to pass the Born Alive bill authored by Sen. Ben Sasse and sponsored by every Republican senator. Even Pennsylvania’s own Democratic Senator Robert Casey–a supporter of PP–voted yes. The bill would have required that any infant who survives abortion receive the same medical care any wanted child would get.
Basic medical care denied for the crime of being unwanted.
One bright bit of news is that the Trump Administration has unilaterally defunded organizations that perform abortions, including PP. Under a new rule, family planning funds will only be available to entities “physically and financially” separated from abortion facilities.
The bad news is that the next president can choose to change the rule to provide those funds. That rule will shift with the winds of change in presidents, back and forth, like the Mexico City policy, which came to be during the Reagan Administration and “prohibits U.S. funding of foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortion.”
We know more about unborn life than we ever have. We know that each child is unique, alive, and growing from conception.
That should be enough to protect them in the womb–to get them medical care outside the womb.
That should be enough.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
On Thursday, March 7, at 3:00 pm EST, my publisher, Morgan James Publishing, is hosting a free online launch party featuring me along with some other amazing authors. Weโll be giving away links to books to everyone who attends, as well as a bunch of freebies!
Could you do me a favor and register for the party (and hopefully come to it!)? I know everyone is busy so donโt worry if you canโt be there live. Register anyway and youโll get a recording. Again, all you need to do to be a part of my Virtual Book Launch Party is register right here: www.MorganJamesBookLaunch.com
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It’s like the states are having a contest to see whose abortion laws can be the most outrageous. And the laws seem designed to protect—not the mother–certainly not the child–but the one performing the abortion–which no longer must be a physician in New York–a provision which may soon pass in other states as well.
Some significant changes in New York: “New Yorkโs RHA also repealed a section of the public health law that required the following: that abortions after 12 weeks be performed in a hospital; that an additional physician be present for abortions after 20 weeks to care for ‘any live birth that is the result of the abortion’; and that such babies be provided ‘immediate legal protection under the laws of the state of New York.โ
As outrageous as that is, Illinois and Vermont are in the running to outdo New York by including a provision in their laws (not yet passed, but Vermont’s bill is on its way to the Senate which has a Democrat supermajority). The Illinois provision says that the “fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the law.” The Vermont provision uses similar wording.
The laws will have the same effect as New York’s–abortion until birth. New York jumped through the hoop of making a provision for health of the mother but then neglected to define health, thus leaving it up to personal interpretation. The result allows late-term abortion for preference and convenience.
Vermont and Illinois cut to the chase. Their proposed laws contain provisions that declassify the unborn as humans with rights, which has the effect of not outlawing fetal experimentation and organ harvesting (even for profit).
Further, the Illinois law would require all insurers to cover the costs of abortions–even those of religious organizations. And it “repeals laws that allow husbands to block their wives from aborting their child, eliminates requirements to investigate fetal or maternal deaths resulting from abortion, and allows minors to receive abortions without ever having to notify their parents.”
It’s a dream come true for anyone with a kitchen table and a butcher knife to prey on the unsuspecting and desperate.
Legalizing abortion was supposed to prevent just that kind of back alley scenario.
Alexandra DeSanctis comments: “To the left, abortion is no longer a last resort, an option to be prevented, a difficult and sad choice that some women feel forced to make. Abortion is now a fundamental right, a social good so worth preserving that it is necessary to explicitly dehumanize living human beings to justify it.” (DeSanctis’s emphasis).
We stand at a crossroad in America today. Will we continue down the trail New York has blazed? Or will we choose a different path?
Because of the new abortion law, some New York Christians proclaimed last Saturday as a day of mourning and repentance. And repent is what we must do.
“[I]f then my people, upon whom my name has been pronounced, humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their evil ways, I will hear them from heaven and pardon their sins and heal their land.” (II Chron 7:14 NABRE)
Let us humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn away from this evil. Please, Lord, hear us. Pardon us. Heal our land.
Please.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
We are created in the image and likeness of God, and as such our nature refers us to Him. The battle begins, therefore, against human nature. Ideologies, naturalisms, materialisms, sexual revolutionsโฆ Everything is one assault after another on the very concept of the human, to deny the obvious: our transcendence, the immortality of our souls, our need for God, our masculine-female complementarity.” (Qtd. by Rod Dreher)
It was a moment etched in memory for me when I was in graduate school. We had class that day in a local restaurant–a change of pace from our regular classroom. The topic of discussion was an article we had read about colonialism by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak.”
Spivak is an Indian woman who took issue with the British prohibition of sati during Britain’s colonization of India. The British had outlawed the practice of a woman placing herself (or being placed) on her husband’s funeral pyre and dying in the flames.
Spivak argued that the colonialist power was depriving women of their right to self-determination. A classmate of mine agreed with Spivak representing all the voiced opinions except my own.
“But what if she wants to?” she asked me when I lamented Spivak’s view.
But what if she does not? What if her culture/his family/her family have expectations that she will die–as tradition demands? Cultural demands ooze from the word sati–the name for women who die in the flames. Satismeans “a good woman.”
What horrified me most was the nonchalant attitude of the instructor and the other students. How easy it is to claim “choice” when the person with the most at stake may not actually have a choice and may not even have a voice.
My instructor and fellow students saw nothing wrong with a custom that would label a woman “good” for wanting to die. And what would the label be for a woman who might prefer not to die? Or for one who might enter the flames in less than a fully conscious state so the family would not face the shame of her resistance?
That encounter reminds me of another one I observed years earlier. I was a volunteer in training at a pregnancy resource center. A young woman came in with an older guy. She was a teen–perhaps fifteen or sixteen. He was clearly older–perhaps in his twenties.
He wanted to know her pregnancy test results–a test the center offered for free–a test whose results we would provide only to her–alone.
When the veteran volunteer told him that we would not give him the results; we would only speak with her alone, he made clear his choice in the matter. “I’ll just drive her to Pittsburgh then,” he said–the city a couple hours away, where they could obtain an abortion. During the entire encounter, she did not say one word.
They left not knowing what we knew. She was pregnant.
Despite all the shouting about female autonomy and choice, she had no voice in the matter. He had already made the decision for her. And he didn’t make it with her best interest–or that of the child–in mind.
Graduate students sitting in a restaurant speaking theoretically about satis were far removed from the reality of such a situation. At the pregnancy resource center, I witnessed someone co-opting a woman’s “right to choose.” There was no theoretical life of a child, no theoretical wound for a mother. Those were real.
Dreher: “There is an โanthropological attackโ on the meaning of the human person. What C.S. Lewis called โthe abolition of manโ is upon us.”
When choice trumps meaning, we lose freedom rather than gain it. And in the process, we lose ourselves.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I couldnโt figure it out. A number of students were claiming the speaker was evoking emotion to convince his audience. My college freshmen couldn’t recognize the difference between reason and feelings.
But the speaker didnโt want them to feel. He wanted them to think. To reason. To deduce right from wrong. Feelings had little to do with it. But today, feelings make theย argument. Most people can’t discern between feeling and thinking. To do so would mean there are universal truths about right and wrong.
In the early days of the abortion debate, those who support abortion would accuse pro-lifers of just being emotionalโtoo emotionalโabout the unborn.
Pro-lifers asserted that support for unborn life was more than hand-wringing anguish over potential life. It was reasoned protection for innocent human life. All innocent human life. The foundation for protecting such life was not only religious but also moral and scientific. It was never solely a religious argument. Sometimes, it wasnโt a religious argument at all. (See Dr. Bernard Nathanson.)
But the other side just can’t admit that–unless it tries to co-opt a religious perspective.
โMary Doeโ of Missouri turned the pro-abortion argument on its head. In a lawsuit before the Missouri Supreme Court, Doe protested a Missouri law requiring a waiting period of โ72 hours before having an abortion, [that a woman seeking abortion] look at an ultrasound and sign a form which states [sheโs] read material that contains the line, โ(t)he life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.’โ
A member of the Satanic Temple,* she asserted that the Missouri law violated her freedom of religion and that โshe must not support any beliefs that make her fetal tissue a being distinct from her body.โ
โMaryโโan ironic pseudonymโhad already had her abortion. She refused to hear her unborn childโs heartbeat. She said she was made to feel โguilt and shame.โ
Her emotions trumped truth. She is entitled to believe what she wants. But she is not entitled to her own facts.
She is not entitled to declare a baby a non-living entity simply because thatโs what she wants it to be.
The lack of logic, however, was clearest in her assertion that her unborn child is not separate from her own body–not an entity entitled to protection and life. To claim it is merely a Christian view that the unborn are human and alive is also illogical.
Such assertions ignore facts borne of science: The unborn is a separate being. The child has his or her own DNA. That DNA is human DNA. The unborn he or she is not part of the mother; the child merely resides within herโand does so temporarily. The child is growing. That makes the child alive.
It is not a religious idea that we can hear an unborn heartbeat. Itโs not religious to see fingers, toes, and a face on sonogram imagery. And it is not religious to recognize babies in the womb as human.
The only appropriate religious view to insert in this discussion is that Satan is the father of lies.
Satanโs Temple of death for unborn childrenโThe Satanic Templeโis aptly named. We can be so thankful that Missouri’s Supreme Court realized reason. And we can pray the members of the Satanic Temple receive the blessing of truth.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“At a point later in the year I observed a paddock with two mature ewes with rather thick necklaces of twisted hay. These stubborn ewes, I was told, had taken a disliking to one another in the field and were almost incessantly butting and harassing each other. These edible Elizabethan-style ruffs of hay were the only source of food in the pen, so if the battling ewes wanted to feed they had to get up close and nuzzle, ultimately developing a bond of familiarity” (Craeft, Alexander Langlands 73).
It’s happened more than we care to admit. We decide we don’t like someone. Then Providence pushes us together in a way that we have to rely on each other.
We come to see the “adversary” in a new light. A bond forms.
In the church, that’s community. Imperfect, sometimes ugly. Yet a community, ideally, that feeds its members.
Sheep crave community. Even if it means building a bond with an adversary. The wise shepherd puts the unruly sheep in a situation where they must feed each other so they can both return to the flock.
Craig Rogers says, “Although many think of their flocking instinct to be a sign of โdumbness,โ it is in fact a community-based survival mechanism where they have learned that their strength is much greater in numbers and their comfort and survival is enhanced as a group rather than as an individual. Not a bad lesson for all of us.”
Two are better than one: They get a good wage for their toil. If the one falls, the other will help the fallen one. But woe to the solitary person! If that one should fall, there is no other to help. So also, if two sleep together, they keep each other warm. How can one alone keep warm? Where one alone may be overcome, two together can resist. A three-ply cord[ais not easily broken. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (NABRE).
Remember that Christian who irritates you? Offer some food–figurative or real–and try to get comfortable as an ally in faith. And how about that neighbor who’s a non-believer? That’s someone outside the flock, perhaps a wounded spirit just waiting for an invitation.
Like sheep wearing food around our necks, we carry the Bread of Life with us.
The lost sheep live among and around us. And we are the only ones who can invite them to come home.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โIn a post-Christian culture the dominant worldview is not longer founded on Christian principles. . . The Church no longer shapes the culture. . . . In a very real sense, this โpost-Christianโ world is coming full circle to resemble the pre-Christian world.โ From Seven Revolutions: How Christianity Changed the World and Can Change It Again, Aquilina and Papandrea, 23.
In the 1950s and ’60s we made room for Daddy and Father knew best, and Donna Reedโs version of Mom held her own as did Lucille Ballโs.
Entertainment mirrors society. As the family is the foundation of Christian culture, so it was in the land of television more than half a century ago. But in the late โ60s and into the โ70s, as America turned away from devotion to God, television lost its devotion to family.
In the 1970s Archie Bunker was a cartoonish father who did not know best. Television celebrated the single woman with Marlo Thomasโs That Girl and Mary Tyler Mooreโs self-named series. Men were accessories, not necessities.
In the late โ70s came One Day at a Time, celebrating the woman emancipated by divorce. In the 1990s, Seinfeld was a show about nothing and Friends brought us the sexual escapades of six friends who sometimes came with benefits. Slowly, the television family had been distorted.
Television has become a primary conduit of culture with the average child viewing 28 to 32 hours a week of programming. Television provides much of the information we receive and shapes our ideas. It is an influence on par with the Church and family of the past.
A child growing up on a steady diet of typical network programming would think friendship to be the foundational life relationship, not marriage or a family connection. That sounds like a strange idea. But itโs an idea the world has embraced before.
The Ancient Greek Achilles spent most of the Trojan War upset that he had lost his โprizeโโa woman/sex slave he had won through his feats. He only reentered the fight to avenge the death of his friend Patroclus.
Achillesโ fellow soldier Odysseus spent 20 years yearning to get home to his wife. The war consumed 10 years as Odysseus fought beside male counterparts. He spent the next 10 years trying to get home to his faithful Penelope, but enjoying some dalliances along the way. Odysseus retired to marriage; he did not invest his life in it. His son grew to manhood with his father absent.
The Trojan survivor Aeneas left his lover Dido to achieve his greater destinyโfounding Rome. Aeneas later married Lavinia after brokering the deal with her father. โThe Roman gentlemen we meet in literature were more likely to reserve โloveโ for the exalted philosophical relationship between equals [other men of their social standing] that they theoretically prizedโ (Aquilina and Papandrea 71).
Ancient Greeks and Romans reserved affection for friends; marriage was about deal making. American feminism in the 1970s asserted that marriage was a financial arrangement, detrimental to women. Now unmarried couples cohabitate to save money. And prenuptial agreements and no-fault divorce laws do not seem to have contributed greatly to the romance or longevity of marriage.
For some people today, friendship does supersede marriage as the primary relationship. Itโs not just that some friendships outlast some marriages. That can happen in any age. Itโs that many Americans have come to expect more from their friendships and less from their marriages, just as ancient pagans did.
โFrom the point of view of Roman tradition, the single most revolutionary thing in Christianity was Paulโs startling instruction โHusbands, love your wivesโ (71).
The more America rejects traditional marriage and the family, the more like the pagan world America becomes. And the more pagan our nation becomes, the more clearly Christianity should stand out in contrast.
But โthe truth is that many self-proclaimed Christians are joining the paganization of the culture, not to mention the criticism of Christianity itselfโ (23).
To embrace true Christianity today means becoming revolutionary. People will only hear us if we are willing to recognize the โchallenges to traditional faith, call them out, and resist them. We will also need to support one another . . . speaking up for our brothers and sisters when they are ridiculed.โ
Unity among Christians who embrace orthodoxy in faith and tradition in marriage and family will be crucial to our effectiveness in once more turning the world upside down.
โIn this way, the Church of the twenty-first century can overcome the new paganism the way the Church of the pre-Christian world overcame the old paganism . . . by refusing to deny the faith and by being willing to risk our lives (or the comfort of our lifestyles) for something bigger than ourselvesโ (32).
Refuse to deny. Be willing to risk. Pursue the God bigger than ourselves.
One at a time, we can overturn paganism for Christ once more.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is available in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
It was 2017. Donald Trump had just been inaugurated. The president’s bad behavior of the past frustrated many women. They decided to march on Washington in protest. But pro-life women were not welcome.
This event was exclusive to a particular mindset–one that viewed the sanctity of human life stance with hostility.
But not all the women shared hostility for all things pro-life.
And that some women learned more about the pro-life perspective that day may simply be due to an aversion to the porta-potty.
if you’ve ever marched in Washington, you are either acquainted with the porta-potty, aka porta-john, or you strategically plan your bathroom breaks. If you are marching in the cold of January, you work harder at the strategic plan of finding bathroom facilities.
In Building the Benedict Option, Leah Libresco tells the story of the Dominican friars of Washington, DC, who welcomed pro-choice protesters to use their bathroom facilities in 2017. They opened their doors to women protesting the election of Donald Trump–protesting the rise to office of a president whose past behavior had been unsavory–a president who claimed to be pro-life.
At first, it was only 12 women seeking to use the facilities; then it became more than 100. Libresco quotes the account of Brother Martin Davis:
“The peculiar situation of some people wearing ‘Get your rosaries off my ovaries’ next to men wearing rosaries on their belts did not stop many [of the women] from inquiring into what brings us to live lives dedicated to Christ” (105-06).
Libresco explains that the friars answered the women’s questions about their work and their beliefs about abortion and unborn life, among other topics. The grateful women then passed a hat collecting over $100 for the church.
They warned Brother Martin to avoid reading the text on the hat they passed.
It was an unlikely encounter and yet a profound one. The friars may have found the march discouraging. They might have withdrawn and stayed behind closed doors. They might have lost hope.
Libresco: “To be a Christian means to believe that hopelessness is always a misapprehension at best, and, at worst, a form of spiritual attack” (158).
More than 100 women saw the beauty of Christ that day and heard the message of life. The march’s organizers tried to shut out that message. But a simple act of hospitality on a cold day shut the door against hostility. And it didn’t take much.
From Libresco: “[T]he friars weren’t engaging in traditional witness. They weren’t preaching or participating in a street prayer vigil” (106-07).
They were just being hospitable Christians. They obeyed a calling from God and opened a door where minds and hearts had been closed.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered is out in paperback! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โThe great conflicts in American history, especially slavery, civil rights, and abortion, have been unusually hard-fought and passionate because they cannot be understood as symbolic fights over different worldviews or cultures. Instead, they are better understood as clashes over how common liberal values should be extended to different categories of humans. These conflicts have been disagreements over who counts as a human person.โย (Jon Shields)
It was supposed to fix it allโwomen dying from illegal abortions, child abuse, poverty. Abortion would end dangerous, back alley procedures that killed desperate girls and women. Child abuse would end. Lessening the burden from โunwanted childrenโ would enhance the economic stability of the poor.
Compassionate helpers would be the heroes of abortion โrightsโ.ย Thatโs what they told us in the 1960s and โ70s and into the ’80s. Perhaps some were misguided. We can see now that others were intentionally deceiving us.
Former atheist and โabortion doctorโย Bernard Nathansonย revealed the concoctions after his conversionsโfirst to a pro-life perspective, then to a Christian one. A leading proponent of โlegal and safeโ abortion became a vocal proponent for lifeโand a voice of truth.
โRepeating the bigย lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortionsย was around 200 โ 250 annually [before 1973]. The figure constantly fed to the media was 10,000. Theseย false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans convincing many that we needed toย crack the abortion law.โ
Cracking the abortion law caused, Nathanson said, โthe annualย number of abortions . . . [to increase] by 1500% since legalization.โ
The reporting of abortion complications in 24 states is voluntary, so the numbers we have are guesses. ย Even so, the CDC acknowledges thatย four-hundred and thirty-seven womenย have died in America of legal abortion between 1972 and 2014. Legal and safe was not safe for them.
America bought the lie. And much of what abortion was supposed to fix got much worse.
Some may argue that better reporting has led to greater transparency of abuse that was going unreported before. But the rates of abuse simply do not translate into abortion access reducing child abuse. Child abuse was a problem before liberal abortion laws; today it is a bigger problem. America bought the lie that abortion would reduce, even eliminate, child abuse.
And poverty. Abortion would keep women out of poverty by ensuring that an unplanned child did not interrupt a motherโs education or require her to leave her job. Rachel MacNairย sites Thomas J. Strahanโs assertion that abortion canย exacerbateย poverty. โExperience suggests abortion may instead actually be a contributing factor. Through an increase in broken relationships, psychological difficulties, and substance abuse, a practice which is done exclusively on women may put them at greater economic disadvantage.โ
And as compassionate as abortionists might like to present themselves, nobody does abortions for free.
Anย abortion websiteย lists the prices for a medication abortion (abortion by pill rather than surgical procedure) at between $400 to over $790. Costs of surgical abortions begin lower($350) and increase with the age of the unborn child (to more than $3,000). I ‘m at a loss to understand how a pill (a set of four pills) can be, at any point, higher in cost than that of a surgical procedure.
ike the purveyors of illegal abortion, those who engage in the legal practice of ending a pregnancy through the death of a child conduct their business on a cash upfront basis.
Abortion โprovidersโ were supposed to care deeply about women. But those who perform abortions do not provide. They sell. They earn. They prosper.
They are also potential Bernard Nathansons. As he turned from lies to truth, so can they.ย Robert P. Georgeย credits Nathansonโs transformation to the โluminous power of truth.โ Truth changed Bernard Nathanson.
Forty-six years ago last month, seven robed justices afflicted America with the lie of free and easy abortion. We have not been the same since. Sometimes, we feel hopeless.
But our hope is always in truth. And there is power in that.
Nancy E. Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย is out in paperback!ย Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
When we think of pediatricians, we usually think of kindly people looking to care for infants, young children, tweens, and teens.
We tend not to call to mind the newly elected governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam. In a radio interview, Northam went beyond supporting abortion and beyond even supporting late term abortion. Northam espoused abortion after birth.
Northam’s comments came during a radio interview in which he supported an abortion proposal that would provide no restrictions until birth–clarifying that a woman could be in the throes of labor, preparing to give birth, and could still opt to terminate her child.
And that such a decision could even be made between a mother and her physician after the baby is born.
“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if thatโs what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
He made little mention of fathers being part of the decision.
After a great outcry over his comments, he complained that opponents were taking his comments out of context since such a situation would happen only in “the case of tragic or difficult circumstances . . . [such as] severe deformities.”
Essentially, the governor proposes infanticide–the intentional killing of a born child–because of medical issues the child would face.
Except the bill makes no mention of exceptions–of disabilities that would disqualify a child from life. The bill would allow abortion for any reason at any time.
Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska is one of those criticizing Northam’s stance. โIn just a few years pro-abortion zealots went from โsafe, legal, and rareโ to โkeep the newborns comfortable while the doctor debates infanticide.โ”
It’s been quite a slide from safe and rare to several states giving an official stamp of approval on late abortions. Yet the slide toward infanticide is not over in Virginia yet. CBSnews reports that a majority Republican committee has tabled the bill.
This time.
The winds of politics blow to and fro. And the next election cycle could produce a committee in lockstep with the governor’s views of life.
Abortion is a big issue right now. As a nation, we are bracing as the SCOTUS decisions that removed all barriers to abortion hang in the balance. Most Americans don’t realize that, in 1973, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton legalized abortion until birth.
In the wake of a more conservative court now–and in view of health problems the court’s oldest justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg suffers presently–some states are taking steps to put restrictions on abortion in place. Others, as New York has done and Virginia is considering, are moving to ensure that no restrictions exist in their states.
Should Roe and Doe die the death of the Dred Scott decision, in places where abortion will remain unrestrained, a culture against life will only continue to grow.
And even some doctors, whom we would expect to care for the welfare of children, will become those who ensure their doom. Doctors like Ralph Northam lead the vanguard of such a culture.
No civilization ever stands still. It moves upward toward a noble culture that values even the weak, or it turns downward into a morass of death.
The state of Virginia gave us Thomas Jefferson who crafted the Declaration of Independence and James Madison who developed the Bill of Rights.
Yet in tomorrow’s Virginia, life, liberty, and the ability to pursue happiness may belong only to the chosen. Virginia–and every other state who takes this path–will have fallen.
And the fall will be great indeed.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered came out in paperback on January 22, 2019! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Abby Johnson worked in the building that sat inside the fence. Outside the fence, pro-life people prayed.
At one point, the people praying logged 40 days of prayer–two people at the site 24/7 for the duration of 40 days.
Abby Johnson had begun her career at Planned Parenthood as a volunteer. She walked with “clients” from their cars to the door of the abortion facility as she talked to them–trying to distract them as those holding vigil outside the fence tried to offer help other than abortion.
Abby then moved up through the ranks of hired employees to the position of clinic director. She became the on-site boss.
The pro-lifers offered her friendship and continued to pray.
The Preface of that book begins with this statement from Abby: “This will not be an enjoyable read. It is a necessary one, however, as it narrates the real-life experiences of former abortion clinic workers who agreed to be interviewed, as well as some of my own.”
Reading the books out of order actually provided the context for less detailed stories she provides in Unplanned.
Neither book is for the faint of heart. Yet, I agree with Abby’s preface to the second book: It is necessary.
You might wonder how someone could get caught up in the abortion industry to begin with. And you may also wonder why so many are leaving their jobs.
Swallow hard and pick these books up as soon as you can. Their pages will change you.
Pray for Abby’s ministry–And Then There Were None–which helps abortion workers walk away, get new jobs, and build new lives.
And pray for 40 Days for Life–a ministry Abby once thought was limited to her own clinic but which now touches five continents. Pray for them all, prayer warriors and clinic workers. Women and babies.
Prayer makes a difference. Just ask Abby Johnson.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered came out in paperback on January 22, 2019! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“One after another, a half dozen people in the room named some of the worst things that had happened to them and offered them freely as a gift to the rest of us. In some cases, I had already known the cross a friend was carrying, but there were several weights I learned about for the first time that night. . . My friends moved on from offering conventional strengths and put forward their suffering as their contribution.” Leah Libresco, 56
It’s something we don’t consider often enough. But it makes a big difference as we go through a difficult time and someone else walks with us. It also makes a big difference for someone else who thinks they are struggling alone as we offer to walk with them.
Perhaps it’s happening to you. You face a challenge, but you don’t want anyone to know. You want to keep your secret. Those around you seem so whole and perfect. You don’t want to appear to be the only broken one.
Then perhaps you finally give up your secret. Or even better, when you’re still trying to keep up the appearance of perfection, someone else spits out their secret. You gasp in surprise and relief.
You too?
In sharing your secret or receiving someone else’s, you find a companion who walking that same path.
If we never share our secrets, we can never receive the help we need. And we can never give our help to others.
It seems hard. But it’s not a new idea. It comes from the pen of Paul in a letter of encouragement.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. For as Christโs sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow.” II Corinthians 1: 3-5
In our darkest times, we can find encouragement and compassion.
In the darkest time of a friend, we can be the encouragement and compassion God has already given us.
Show your true self. Give up your secret. Receive and give grace and help. Let encouragement overflow.
Nancy E. Headโs Restoring the Shattered came out in paperback on January 22, 2019! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“Eleven jack-booted thugs” raided his house to retrieve the evidence. They thought he was a criminal. But the evidence implicated someone else.
Many someone else’s, actually. They are the someones at Planned Parenthood whom he caught negotiating the sale of the body parts of unborn children.
He calls himself a citizen-journalist. He is David Daleiden, and he spoke at the 2019 March for Life Conference in Washington, DC, last week.
“The body parts [of unborn children], he says are valuable to sell because they are just like ours,” he says, proving the humanity of the unborn because they are just like us.
The videos reveal that Planned Parenthood has violated the law by selling the body parts, performing partial-birth abortions in order to obtain them, and ignoring the Born Alive Act requiring that viable unborn children born alive as a result of abortion receive immediate medical attention.
(Reader discretion advised as you proceed.)
Planned Parenthood claims that they only receive reimbursement for processing, and shipping and handling costs. But Daleiden has recovered a copy of an invoice showing a double charge–per body part–for two fetal eyeballs shipped in the same package.
Daleiden refers to Planned Parenthood’s abortion business as “state-funded, industrial scale abortion.”
The word industrial implies a for-profit venture on a mass scale. Medicine (like education and law) was once a profession–an art practiced with the idea that the main advantage would come to the recipient of a service–not to the practitioner. The patient was someone to assist back to better health–not someone to exploit for profit.
Criminal charges against Daleiden have been dropped, but Planned Parenthood’s civil suit against him remains. He would appreciate your prayers.
There is a wonderful irony in the story of David Daleiden. He describes himself as “the product of a crisis pregnancy situation.” He grew up with the idea that sometimes children are conceived in less than ideal circumstances, but that “now is always a good time to welcome a new little person into the world.”
Now is a wonderful time to welcome the new little people that Planned Parenthood is horrifically exploiting for profit.
David Daleiden could have been among them. He is one Planned Parenthood missed.
And our world is better because of that.
—————————————–
Nancy E. Head’s Restoring the Shattered comes out in paperback on January 22, 2019! Get your copy here!
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โ[A]nd My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.โ โ2 Chronicles 7:14
[D]irt, soot, and grime can build up on both sides of [stained] glass from pollution, smoke, and oxidation. In churches the traditional burning of incense or candles can eventually deposit carbon layers. These deposits can substantially reduce the transmitted light and make an originally bright window muted and lifeless.[i]โNeal A. Vogel
Six months after I became a mother, my own mother
passed away from congestive heart disease. She was only fifty-four, and I was
only nineteen. Her illness took her quickly, and there was no time for the kind
of healing conversations that might have reduced my regret after she was gone.
After she died, Dad decided to sell the house
and move into a small apartment. As we were helping him prepare for his move,
my brother and I were cleaning the attic and musing over some of our finds. I
still have twoโa silver sugar bowl and a veneered dresser that sits in my
dining room. But our most fascinating treasure was inside the top drawer of the
otherwise empty dresserโa letter Dad had written to his future mother-in-law, Mother
Miller, as he called her.
He was writing from California where he was
waiting to deploy to the uncertainty of the South Pacific during World War II.
He wrote of his sense of โblank thrillโโa combination of โthe feeling of the
unknown and also adventure.โ He discussed how much he enjoyed the navy and how
glad he was to be with the men beside him. He expressed his eagerness to return
to those he loved after the war. โBack home, I have a wonderful collection of
friends; good ones. You and your family come first, Nan of this group being
first. She means everything in life for meโand to think about her and the two
of us together after the war makes all this worthwhile.โ
Dad wrote of three things that gave him a sense
of security. First was his assurance in the men he was with: โin our commanders
and the reason we are going, also we will be successful in our detail.โ The
second was his friends at home and โthe strength my love for Nan gives me and
hers for me.โ His third source of strength was his โfaith and trust in God.โ
The first two addressed โmy worldly cares, the last, my spiritual … I can
leave tomorrow satisfied completely in everything I live for. Not a question in
my mind of a thing left undone, or a word unkindly said, not righted, not a
care.โ The letter was dated August 10, 1942, eight months after the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor.
Years later I mentioned the letter to him. โI
was saying goodbyeโ was his response, โjust in case.โ
The part of the letter that has always stuck
with me is that he left โno word unkindly said, not righted.โ He had done all
he could to make everything right with everyone he was leaving behind. He might
have been able to convince himself that he didnโt have time to fix things with
everyone or that whatever he had done wrong was not a big deal. Instead, โjust
in case,โ he had made things right.
I spent many years dwelling on the sins of my
husband before I fully acknowledged my own. I told myself that his sins were of
greater magnitude than mine and the cause for justifiable bitterness. My own
sins were tiny, long ago, easily explained away as the result of immaturity
and, therefore, easily forgiven. Year by year conviction peeled back layers of
self-justification and excuses. I marveled that so many years after the poor decisions
I made, the consequences of my sin had such weight.
I can look back now and see that God redeemed and
restored much that my sin could have destroyed forever.
* * * * *
Up close and personal, the other personโs sins
always seem bigger than our own. We donโt see the judgmental beam in our own
eye for the speck in theirs. Inevitably, hindsight comes closer to 20/20. As
the image of the window becomes clearer, so does the reflection of ourselves in
it.
Time gives us the objectivity to see two sides
where before we could only see one. We realize that we too are not without sin.
We have no stones to throw. We can give forgiveness and ask for it too. The
perspective of time gives us the opportunity to repent of sins that might seem
long ago and far away. Only Christ, through our true repentance, can wash them
away.
Repentance is how we start to restore the image
of the Bride, not in a public relations sense, but in a biblical one. And
repentance begins with the faithful.
Why the faithful? Isnโt repentance something
for the unbelieving population to graspโthose we perceive are messing up the
world and dragging our culture into a downward spiral? Yes, itโs something they
need to do to become part of the Bride, part of the picture. But the kind of
repentance that can turn the world around is for us. Itโs for his people
already in the church.
I didnโt come to this idea on my own. Iโd been
praying for our nation to turn back to God, but in my mind that always involved
something someone else needed to do. Iโll pray. Iโll watch. Iโll work when I
can. Iโll cheer when it happens.
At brunch one day, my longtime friend, Renee,
dropped a brick of truth on my head. โHe calls his own people to repentanceโmy
people … called by my Name.โ
That is me.
That is us.
….
Confession, they say, is good for the soul. When
we let others see who we truly are, they can be transparent with us. We can
become companions who mentor and disciple each other. Mentoring helps us find a
new path in life. Discipling includes bearing one anotherโs burdens, and
confession is part of that. Discipling helps us navigate our new path in faith
that grows as it goes.
Christ is the Great Forgiver and the Great
Physician who cleans the glass. The repentant church in accord radiates the
image of the window in vivid clarity.
* * * * *
โI wish,โ Scrooge muttered, putting his hand
in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: โbut
itโs too late now.โ
โWhat is the matter?โ
asked the Spirit.
โNothing,โ said
Scrooge. โNothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last
night. I should like to have given him something: thatโs all.โ[i]
โCharles Dickens
[i] Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Stave Two (London:
Chapman and Hall, 1846), Project Gutenberg, released August 11, 2004,
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm.
[i] Neal A. Vogel and Rolf Achilles, โThe Preservation and Repair of Historic Stained and Leaded Glass,โ National Park Service, Technical Preservation Services, October 2007, https://www.nps.gov/tps/how-to-preserve/briefs/33-stained-leaded-glass.htm.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
“At first those questions had enormous weight and urgency. I could hear Him. I could almost make out an answer. But then it was drowned out by what I’ve now heard a thousand times. ‘Everything happens for a reason’ or ‘God is writing a better story.’ . . .
“The world of certainty had ended and so many people seemed to know why” (xv-xvi). Cancer was happening to Kate Bowler, a young wife and new mother, and she did not know why.
Bowler has spent her career as an academic studying the Christian prosperity gospel–the view that all will be well. She and her husband endured the brutal uncertainty of infertility–until their son finally arrived and all, indeed, appeared well.
But then came the horrible diagnosis of terminal cancer. Doctors gave her no hope, but hope was all she yearned for.
“The prosperity gospel is a theodicy, an explanation for the problem of evil. It is an answer to the questions that take our lives apart: Why do some people get healed and others don’t? . . . The prosperity gospel looks at the world as it is and promises a solution. It guarantees that faith will always make a way” (xiii).
The philosophy of the prosperity gospel, she says, was “painfully sweet. . . . And no matter how many times I rolled my eyes at the creed’s outrageous certainties, I craved them just the same” (xiv).
Certainty is something we all crave in life. We seek financial security, good health, and we pray for the provision of health, wealth, and safety for ourselves and those we love.
But we never know what any day may bring. And many times, when the tests come, we don’t understand their purposes.
Bowler’s book is, at times, a rant, not at God, but at the thoughtless among us who don’t know how to avoid saying the most hurtful thing. It is, at times, a grand celebration of life. And it is, at times, a plumbing of the reality many of us will face–a physical decline toward the end.
Yet as she navigates her darkest days, she manages to uplift us. Even to make us laugh. And to help us live in the moment we have–to live in today.
It’s something we strive for–to live in the moment. To deal with the past and leave it behind. To live in the now instead of the not yet.
And we hope it won’t take bad news from a medical team to teach us to dwell in today–something Bowler thought she was doing.
She had spent her life, she believed, “in the center” between the past and the future.
But “I rarely let my feet rest on solid ground, rooting me in the present. My eyes shifted to look for that thing just beyond, the next deadline, the next hurdle, the next plan. . . . As [my husband and I] walked through the tall Carolina oaks on a fall trail dusted with Technicolor leaves, my mind hummed with possible futures. Always. If I were to invent a sin to describe what that was–for how I lived–I would not say it was simply that I didn’t stop to smell the roses. It was the sin of arrogance, of becoming impervious to life itself. I failed to love what was present and decided to love what was possible instead” (154-56).
Bowler’s book is a gentle, well-crafted reminder to love what is present–to be present in today for today is all we can hold.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The debate over abortion had been raging even
before I was a high school senior in 1973. In the school cafeteria one day, a
fellow student showed me the materials she had gathered for her classroom
debate on the topic. I still can visualize the image of tattered unborn
children.
By the time the US Supreme Court decriminalized
abortion, a handful of states had already liberalized their abortion statutes.
But no one expected the total eradication of abortion laws that Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton provided. Roe
declared abortion a constitutional right, and Doe paid lip service to the statesโ ability to restrict late-term
abortions. Essentially, the court legalized abortion in the US for any reason
and at any time during pregnancy. America became a darker place on January 22,
1973โthe day of Roe and Doe.
But those decisions motivated people from various Christian denominations, other faiths, and even no faith at all to come together to end this horror. I was one of those people.
After our family settled into our new home, I
felt restless. I needed a ministryโa cause to devote myself to. I volunteered
at a crisis pregnancy center. And in January of 1979, I saw an announcement on
television that would enlarge my faith community and expand my pro-life work.
The local pro-life group was sponsoring buses traveling to Washington, DC, for
the annual March for Life. I arranged for a sitter to watch Angela and Mike in
anticipation of a day filled with grown-up conversation.
Calling the number on the announcement to
reserve my bus seat kindled a decades-long friendship with the woman who
answered the phone. Anne was a wife, a mother, and a registered nurse. She had
been an advocate for life even before Roe
and Doe, and she became my friend
and mentor. We walked together that January with many others. Over the years,
we protested together, lobbied together, laughed together, and came to love
each other like family. Every Halloween when my children were young, we visited
her home for trick-or-treat.
And there were other friends who impressed me
with their commitment to life.
In the mid 1980s, I met John after he had spent
a week in a Pittsburgh jail for blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic. At
that time, rescue efforts across the country disrupted the abortion business in
an effort to discourage women from aborting their babies. John was a young
married man. I recall that he and his wife had a few children at that time.
Eventually they would welcome ten babies to their family.
Knowing about his rescue and jail experiences, I
asked him to speak to the junior high group at my churchโs Wednesday evening
youth program. When he looked into the room and saw about thirty kids, he
nearly had a panic attack. After some deep breaths, he rallied, entered the
classroom, and inspired us all. Pittsburgh was notorious for its treatment of
pro-life rescuers. I thought it funny that thirty junior high kids terrified
John, but he was completely okay with being civilly disobedient in a city known
for mistreating protesters. In his talk, John didnโt dwell on the
unpleasantness of his jail experience. Instead, he told us about a vision he
had. Driving down the road one day, he envisioned Christ holding a dead unborn
baby and weeping over the child. That experience propelled him into the cause
for life.
Within the pro-life effort, I found a second
faith community. It did not replace my church, but it did give me a new
opportunity to live out my faith and convictions and watch others do the same.
The most significant example of unity between Catholics, Orthodox, and evangelicals in America is the response to the Roe and Doe decisions [regarding abortion]. Conservative ChristianityโCatholicism instantly and evangelicals and Orthodox Christians a bit laterโreached out to unwed mothers and the unborn, establishing crisis pregnancy centers and offering abortion alternatives. These ministries often involve people from different Christian traditions and are separate from established churches.
Pro-life ministries work to save mother and
child from devastation and destruction. The effort employs a three-pronged
approachโeducating the public about life issues (not just concerning abortion
but also about infanticide and euthanasia and, on the positive side, adoption),
helping parents deal with unexpected pregnancies and children already born, and
promoting legislation that upholds the right to life from conception through
natural death.
Efforts in the political realm have been only
marginally successful in protecting human life. But those efforts have kept the
issue in front of the public. In spite of more than a generation of legalized
abortion, the issue refuses to go away.
And abortion rates are now lower than they have
been since Roe. While one studyโs
authors credit new, long-term contraceptives for the drop, they acknowledge
that they did not investigate causes of the lower numbers.[i] Two Gallup polls from 2009
and 2012 show that support for abortion had slipped to its lowest point since
Gallup began asking the questionโpro-choice or pro-life?โin 1995.[ii] In 2015, the number of
pro-abortion Americans climbed slightly, but abortion rates have continued to
fall since they peaked in 1990.[iii]
Those who support abortion often accuse
pro-lifers of caring only for the unborn, of having no regard for the mother or
other family members affected by a crisis pregnancy. The accusation is a hasty
conclusion that ignores the deep commitment of pro-life people to meet womenโs
needs as well as those of their children, born and unborn, since the mid 1970s.
Those who minister through crisis pregnancy centers know their clientsโ needs
are not limited to housing, maternity clothing, and baby supplies. Surviving
children (siblings and those who survive the abortion process) and post-abortive
parents are walking woundedโstruggling with physical, emotional, and spiritual
scars. In response, many pro-life organizations have expanded services,
offering post-abortion counseling, mentoring, and testing for sexually
transmitted diseases. These ministries reach out to post-abortive fathers who
either had no say in a womanโs decision to abort or regret their role in urging
her to it. Moms and dads also often need to learn how to parent and manage a
household. Crisis pregnancy centers have grown to meet the many needs of babies
and their family members.
And ministries to single parents are not
limited to crisis pregnancy centers. In order to meet the needs of low-income
parents, many churches now host daycare centers. Unaffiliated with a particular
church, Momโs House began in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1983. This ministry
cares for children while their parents attend school or career training.
Volunteers mentor single parents, teaching them practical parenting and
household management skills. Now these parents can complete their education,
find employment, and leave welfare. Momโs House now has seven centers in four
states.[iv] Such ministries, which
can be found throughout the US, care for women and already born children.
Success stories of changed lives are plentiful.
Pro-life Christians encourage our culture to recognize and uphold the sanctity
of human life and the primacy of the family. In the meantime, we maintain our
personal Christian doctrines and traditions. In no other area of public
discourse have Christians worked together as effectively as they have in the
pro-life causeโand sometimes with unforeseen results.
* * * * *
Dr. Bernard Nathanson was a central figure in
the effort to decriminalize abortion in the US in the late sixties and early
seventies. His transition to the pro-life perspective is particularly profound
since he was an atheist. I heard him speak in 1980; his intellect and
rhetorical skills vastly impressed me. I was unawareโas perhaps he was thenโof
the transformation sprouting in his heart. He later described his conversion to
Christianity as โan unimaginable sequence [that] has moved in reverse, like
water moving uphill.โ[v] I used to joke that I was
our local pro-life chapterโs token Baptistโa lone Protestant within a community
of Catholic life advocates. Dr. Nathanson was the movementโs token atheist. His
knowledge and experience regarding obstetrical medicine and abortion procedures
were, of course, unparalleled within our ranks, and his atheism demonstrated
that our cause was not simply one of religious fervor but one of human rights.
Nathanson became pro-life when a career change
removed him from the abortion clinic and landed him in an obstetrical office at
the dawn of prenatal ultrasound technology. Seeing the reality of preborn
children altered his thinking about their humanity. The basis for his new
convictions was science, not a foundational belief in the sacredness of human
life made in Godโs image. His arrival at that conclusion was yet to come.
What was the turning point for him spiritually? Was it Christian pro-lifersโ devotion to doctrine? Was it our intellectual grasp of the issue of human life? It was neither. It was the self-sacrifice and devotion to God he saw in the pro-life rescue movementโthe same fervor that landed my friend, John, in a Pittsburgh jail. Nathanson was the rueful champion of โsafe and legalโ abortions. As a novice but secular pro-life observer, he witnessed the Christlike attitude of those in the rescue arm of the pro-life cause. He wrote:
“I had been aware in the early and mid-eighties that a great many of the Catholics and Protestants in the ranks [of the pro-life effort] had prayed for me, were praying for me, and I was not unmoved as time wore on. But it was not until I saw the spirit put to the test on those bitterly cold demonstration mornings, with pro-choicers hurling the most fulsome epithets at them, the police surrounding them, the media openly unsympathetic to their cause, the federal judiciary fining and jailing themโall through it they sat smiling, quietly praying, confident and righteous of their cause and ineradicably persuaded of their ultimate triumphโthat I began seriously to question what indescribable Force generated them to this activity. Why, too, was I there? What had led me to this time and place? Was it the same Force that allowed them to sit serene and unafraid at the epicenter of legal, physical, ethical, and moral chaos?”[vi]
This tipping point pushed
Nathanson into a full-fledged investigation of Christianity that resulted in
him turning his โlife over to Christ.โ[vii]
[i] Sandhya
Somashekhar, โStudy: Abortion at Lowest Point Since 1973,โ The Washington Post, February 2, 2014,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/study-abortion-rate-at-lowest-point-since-1973/2014/02/02/8dea007c-8a9b-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.44d8f5314a65.
[ii] Lydia Saad, โโPro-Choiceโ
Americans at Record-Low 41%,โ Gallup, May 23, 2012,
http://news.gallup.com/poll/154838/pro-choice-americans-record-low.aspx.
[iii] Lydia Saad,
โAmericans Choose โPro-Choiceโ for First Time in Seven Years,โ Gallup, May 29,
2015, http://news.gallup.com/poll/183434/americans-choose-pro-choice-first-time-seven-years.aspx;
National Right to Life Committee, โNew Guttmacher Study Shows Abortion Numbers
Hit Historic Low,โ January 17, 2017,
https://www.nrlc.org/communications/releases/2017/release011717.
[iv] Momโs House,
accessed July 3, 2014, http://www.momshouse.org.
[v] Bernard
Nathanson, The Hand of God: A Journey
from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind (Washington,
DC: Regnery, 2013; first published, 1996), 193.
[vii] Rev. C. John McCloskey III, โForeword,โ ibid., xiv.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have a material connection to Morgan James Publishing, the publishers of Restoring the Shattered. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Last year, I resolved to read more. It was a generic resolution. And one without the means to measure.
This year, I resolve to do better in a more specific way. The accumulation of a pile of books–some I began and set aside and one I’m plowing through–is the foundation of my measure.
I began one book a few days before New Years Day–Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler. Bowler,ย a Duke Divinity professor specializing in the prosperity Gospel, writes of her struggles as a thirty-something new mother struggling against terminal cancer. She writes in the present tense, and her writing is raw and real. More on this very worthy read ahead.
Another book I’d already begun is The Way of Abundanceby Ann Voskamp–a 60-day devotional I set aside briefly to focus on Christmas preparation and Advent-type readings. So far, Voskamp maintains, as usual, a compelling voice of walking in the way of Christ even during difficulty.
The next book I plan to tackle is Dawn–the second book in Elie Wiesel’s Night trilogy. I read Night once, voluntarily, out of curiosity. I read it again, involuntarily to a degree, after accidentally enrolling in a graduate class in Holocaust Literature.
I thought I had signed up for the other lit class at the same time. After all, who would want to study Holocaust Literature for a whole semester? Once I realized my mistake, I decided it was probably too late to try to switch classes. It was my last semester of grad school. I’d just gut it out.
Perhaps my mistake was an accident, or perhaps it was the guidance of God because that class was fabulous. The teacher was the daughter of an Auschwitz survivor and the head of the university’s English department. Best. Class. I. Had. In. Grad. School.
I’ve been curious about Dawn–Wiesel’s first work of fiction–but never took the time–never put it in my pile and never made myself publicly accountable–until now.
Two historical bios inhabit the pile–A Pope and a President by Paul Kengor is about Pope Saint John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan–and Martin Luther by Eric Metaxas.
And there are two books by Greg Groeschel–Altar Ego and #Struggles. I found Groeschel viewing last summer’s Global Leadership Summit.
Jordan Peterson, George Weigel, and Russell Moore round out the enrichment side of the pile. Markus Zusak, the entertainment side, and Karen Wickre’sย Taking the Work out of Networking, a professional enrichment pursuit.
So that’s the pile–my resolution to read with a specific measure. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. And please let me know what you’re reading!
Happy New Year!
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Imagine an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. People sit in a group. My name is _________. I’ve been sober for three years. . . . I’ve been sober for six months. . . . I’ve been sober for ten years.
Then one stands and says, “I’ve been coming to these meetings and I’d been sober for two years, but this week I fell. I got drunk two days ago.”
Further, imagine that the other members tell this person he has to leave. He can no longer receive the help and encouragement of the group because he failed–once.
“Instruct these young warriors in the battle that lies ahead of them. Teach them how to fight using the truth as their weapon. Show them how to see the real kingdom, how to recognize the great distortion, and where to launch their campaign against the evil that has befallen this land. Teach them, Steward.” From The Four Gifts of the King~
Imagine having a message for your grown children who’ve gone astray. But you need some way to help them be willing to hear it.
That’s the premise of a story within a story in the fabulous novel by R. Scott Rodin–The Four Gifts of the King.
It’s part allegory, part fantasy, and part contemporary novel. A novel piece of work, if you will.
Sam Roberts receives a windfall that he never saw coming. And when he finds out that his time is short, he ponders how to pass along the gift to his four grown children who have strayed from the path of Christian faith.
After Sam’s death, his lawyer explains to Sam’s four children the terms of his will. Sam has written a book and the children must read it before they can claim their inheritance. Sam’s two daughters and two sons take turns reading the story aloud to each other.
Rodin deftly weaves the two stories together and is not preachy in the application of Sam’s story to the lives of his children.
In Sam’s story, an army of evil Phaedra plan a final battle against the army of the good king. And Steward, the hero on a quest to this strange land, must convince the deluded people of the kingdom to follow their true king.
Themes of meaning, love, faith, compassion, obedience, service, and forgiveness abound in this tightly woven story of good versus evil–the foundation of all mythology.
Rodin’s fantasy world is captivating. His hero’s quest is believable. In his places–Aiden Glen, Seudomartis, Pitcairn Moor, Marikonia, Petitzaros, and Ascendia, Rodin builds a world where the Phaedra deceive people into building false ramps to nowhere and looking into reflectors that reveal only lies about those seeking their true selves.
Serving, giving, healing, seeking, and finding, and most importantly, trusting the King–that’s what this book is about. The read is a ride worth taking.
And along the way, you too may come to know the King’s deep peace.
The Four Gifts of the King is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Four-Gifts-King-Scott-Rodin/dp/1683509323.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โI will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.โ Charles Dickensโ
When I was a radio news reporter, I wanted to do a special Christmas feature for the morning drive program.
I wrote a poem to record to music but wanted another voice along with my own on the piece. So I went to my kidsโ elementary school and interviewed six first graders. I asked them, โWhat is Christmas?โ
Three of them talked about Jesus. But the other three made no mention of Him. To them, Christmas was all about Santa and presents. Nothing more.
My sample was small and young. Hardly a statistical representation of first graders, let alone Americans in general.
But my results actually came close to how Americans view Christmas today. Pew has issued a study showing that only 55 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. Thatโs down from 59 percent as recently as 2013.
Many of us bemoan such news. Itโs the War on Christmas!
But our complaining about the de-sacralization of the holiday hasnโt changed the minds of those enjoying a holiday they deem secular. All our griping has not turned a tide toward keeping the day holy.
The Pew study investigates not only what bothers usโor doesnโtโ about the growing secularization of Christmas. It also investigates belief (or disbelief) in the assertions of the Christmas story: Jesusโ virgin birth, the shepherds, and angels.
Belief in those details, of course, reflects faith in who Christ is. To deny the details of the Christmas story is to deny the deity of Christ. Those details hold great meaning. He is sinless because He had no human father. God as His Father means He is perfect God as well.
The presence of shepherds within walking distance of Bethlehem indicates that Christ was not born in December. Shepherds typically did not keep their flocks near villages because of the odor they caused. They would be nowhere near Bethlehem except during a 30 period before Passoverโa period of preparation for the yearly sacrifice.
The shepherds outside Bethlehem were Levitical shepherds. Ironically, they were ritualistically unclean. They walked through feces. They touched dead things. The angel told them to find a baby lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling cloths. To shepherds raising sheep for Levitical sacrifice, swaddling cloths would be vastly significant. For a lamb to qualify for sacrifice it had to be perfect, without blemish.
The shepherds swaddled lambs intended for sacrificeโthey wrapped them in cloths to protect them. The angel saying that they would find the infant wrapped in swaddling cloths indicated that the baby would be a sacrifice. That baby was the Messiah they had long awaited.
Many would have expected a Jewish king to be born in Jerusalem–the city of the king–not Bethlehem. But Bethlehem was the City of David–a keeper of sheep.
Christ was the sinless Son of God, the perfect Lamb to be sacrificed for the shepherd’s sins–for our sins.
Most of the world isnโt interested in investigating the Christmas story. The trinkets, toys, and glitzy lights of Christmas are enough for them.
They try to fill the empty spaces of life with the clutter and noise of a secular Christmas. When we complain about societyโs treatment of Christmas, we merely add to the noise. We canโt fill the empty places of their hearts. Only Christ can do that.
So aside from complaining, what else can we do? We can keep the true Christmas in our hearts. We can heed the angelsโ message of โFear not.โ
โDonโt take this sobering news [of the study] as a reason to rend your garments and wail. Use it as reason to make your familyโs celebration of Advent and Christmas more religious.โ Rod Dreher.
As we do, we recognize that, on that first Christmas, God invited the unclean to see His Son. Those who reject Him today are yet among the invited.
People seek purpose and meaning today. But they cannot find it without Christ. One of those children I interviewed understood what so many fail to see today.
โWhat is Christmas?โ
โItโs Jesusesesesโ birthday.โ
He brings peace on earthโwithin our hearts. He is the perfect sacrifice for us.
When we celebrate Him, our silence can overwhelm the noise and darkness. Embrace His peace. Celebrate Him. Shine the true light.
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โOur God who breathes stars in the darkโHe breathes Bethlehemโs Star, then takes on lungs and breathes in stable air. We are saved from hopelessness because God came with infant fists and opened wide His hand to take the iron-sharp edge of our sins.โ Ann Voskamp (138).
First there was the oppression of Egypt, then the captivity of Babylon, then the occupation of Rome.
For quite some time, Israel had been imagining a conquering Messiah. Perhaps on that silent night before the angelsโ announcement, the shepherds were dreaming of the day when they would be free from Roman rule.
The magiโ-scholars debate where they came from-โwere religious. They came to worship. But they may have also had a political motive. They came seeking the new King. They brought gifts befitting a king who may someday want to conquer. They did find the One to worship. They gave their gifts. Returned home. And we never heard from them again.
I wonder. Did they expect to meet a humble king in a humble home? How could they know what to expect of His Kingdom?
The song asks โMary, Did You Know?โ Were there moments when she wondered when she would wake up from this strange dream? But it wasnโt a dream.
He would turn water into wine at her request. He would, as the song says, walk on water, give sight to the blind, still a storm, and raise the dead.
How could she know what to expect from His life?
Reverberating in the back of her mind through His growing up years rang the prophecy of Simeon the priest: โ[A]nd a sword will pierce even your own soul.โ
Simeon had a glimpse at least of what was ahead. But perhaps even he did not understand that Christโs incarnation was not to be political.
From Voskamp: โThe Light never comes how you expect it. It comes as the unlikely and unexpectedโ (139).
Ace Collins writes, โChrist was the king who came not to take, but to giveโ (101). In the ancient world, that concept may have been the most unexpected of all. A King who would utterly give Himself rather than extracting tribute. A King who would suffer on behalf of His servants. He takes us beyond expectation.
We bring our expectations to our daily lives. We bring them to our churches every week. Reaching beyond expectation to ministry with other Christ followers opens doors of fellowship. Reaching beyond the expectation of the manger takes us to the love of the cross.
Wrong expectations limit ministry. The love of the cross has no such bounds.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
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โ[T]he light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,โ John 1:5.
โWhen we do this, I know Christmas has begun,โ my granddaughter says after packing boxes for soldiers.
She and her cousin are my helpers in this yearly task. Gifts and donations loaded into cardboard. Home-made sweets for troops, many serving we know not where. ย A box to light, and lighten, Christmas in dark places.
One year, the night before box packing, the cousin and I set up my nativityโporcelain figurines with a light glowing behind a suspended angel.
This past Sunday at church, someone lit the first two purple candles and the pink candle of Advent. I light them at home.
The candleflicker of Christmas. Little lights for darkening days.
Through Advent, every day gets darker until we arrive at the cusp of Christmas. Winter Solstice is December 21stโthe longest night of the year. By Christmas Day, light is increasing each day.
But Christโs birth is most likely to have happened in autumn. Shepherds are not in the fields in December. Even tyrants donโt mandate a census in December. So Christmas is a traditionโnot an actual birthday.
Christmas comes during the time of year pagans marked the winter solstice, the darkest dayโbut the end of encroaching darkness. A feast to celebrate light that overcomes darkness.
Christmas comes near Hanukkahโthe Jewish festival of lights. To commemorate victory over an effort to eradicate Jewish civilization. To memorialize one dayโs worth of sanctified oil fueling a light that hung on for eight days. Eight days to celebrate light that overcomes darkness.
Christmas proclaims the comingย of a King whoย isย the light who overcomes darkness.
โJesus spoke to them again, saying, โI am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,โโ John 8:12.
There is a Christmas light to light the worldโChrist Himself.
“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Fatherโs only Son, full of grace and truth,โ John 1:14.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โGlory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased,โ Luke 2:14.
Thereโs a battle between peace and war. It seems unnecessary to say so. But this season is when peace is to prevail and war is to fade awayโat least for a time.
That worked once, at least, but only briefly. In 1914, French, English, and German soldiers called a Christmas truce and even sang in unison. It was a โSilent Nightโ with harmony in multiple languages.
I remember my mother telling me the story. For a night, Christmas night, there was peace. โAnd then the next day, they were out there killing each other again,โ she said.
She was born after that war had ended. It was a war intending to end them all. But it only set up the next one. The next one killed even more. Many more.
We look at war and shake our heads. But so the world has been since Cain killed Abel. There will always be those who seek to upend peace to secure their own power, to have their own way.
Into such a world came a baby Christians call the Prince of Peace.
Itโs hard for us to reconcile this Prince of Peace with something He would later say: โDo not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword,โ Matthew 10:34.
Those at war with Him will be at war with us. But He is at once the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of Godโa sword-wielding Lion and a sacrificial Lamb who gives peace and life.
We mark His birth when angels sang, when shepherds and visiting kings worshiped. But a fearful king, trying to stomp out prospective competition, killed young innocents.
Fear waged war with a baby king. So it was in the season we celebrate now.
Mistletoe is a symbol of this season. Its association with peace comes from its pre-Christian roots.ย Scandinavian soldiersย who found themselves battling under its branches dropped their arms and made peaceโat least temporarily.
Mistletoe was a haven of safety. A sacred place of peace.
But it is a parasitic plant. Mistletoe bores through the bark of a host tree and grows up and down through branches. Once it has established its root system in a host, itโs almost impossible to kill. Any tree mistletoe claims will die prematurely, but slowly. Yet the dead tree will spring forth with life.
โA mistletoe-infested forest may produce three times more cavity-nesting birds than a forest lacking mistletoe.โ
Like a king who brings both a sword and peace, mistletoe is its own paradox. Itโs poisonous but also medicinal. It can bring sickness or wellnessโdeath or lifeโdepending on what we do with it.
War is the norm for humanity. Itโs the tree that grows in every forest throughout the world. Peace is the enduring element that seeks to infest it, to overcome it. Our yearning for peace never ends.
The Lion of Judah is the Lamb who comes with peace. This Lion-Lamb will overcome death and war. And there will be peace within and among those who please Him.
We will have death or lifeโdepending on what we do with Him.
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Brokenness can happen before you even realize it. Nancy learned this many years ago as a young woman doing her best to see her family thrive.
All was fine and going well (on the surface, at least) until suddenly, it wasnโt.
Without much notice, she was thrown into separation, divorce, single motherhood and poverty.
Her family would never remain the same. They were broken, but what kind of broken?
As Nancy tells it โ
There are two ways to break glass. One is to simply shatter it. The other is to score it, guide the break, and shape the glass for beauty and function โ Restoring the shattered. Pg. 21
When her family experienced brokenness, the Church was there to help them through that time. Now Nancy tells the story of todayโs Church through the lens of this personal experience.
Written in a way thatโs easy to follow, the book explores subjects like brokenness, suffering, joy, grace and the Churchโs response to the present state of this world.
The Church truly does have a place in all of this because โ
Godโs hands reshape shattered hearts and rebuild broken lives for placement in His story. Being broken can hurt. But God can use our brokenness to glorify Himself โ Restoring the shattered. Pg. 21
And โ
Joy is to have His grace wash over me and splash onto you. To have His grace soak us both through. And stain us forever with His love โ Restoring the shattered. Pg. 41
If you want to lend a hand and do your part in making someone elseโs experience of life somewhat easier, this book is full of simple, yet practical ideas to help you do that.
If you want to learn a bit more about the history of the Church; the similarities and differences that exist within, Nancy sheds light in a way thatโs easy to follow.
Plus, did you know toothpaste is the way to go if you need to get crayon markings off your mother-in-lawโs wallpaper quickly? True story!
Nancy E. Head attends the non-denominational First Church of Christ. Nancy is a lifelong resident of Blair County in central Pennsylvania, dwelling for most of her years in Altoonaโwith a brief interval in Logan Township. She is a graduate of Penn State and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She teaches Advanced Placement English at Great Commission Schools and composition classes at Penn State Altoona. Nancy is a United States Armed Forces Mother and a member of the Blair County Republican Committee and Toastmasters. Nancy worked in both radio and print journalism before becoming a high school and college-level teacher. She blogs about Church and social issues twice weekly, and CBN.com has published several of her devotionals. Her experiences as a single mother raising five young children showed her how poverty alleviation is an issue for the church and an issue requiring a Church in accord.
Humans, history says, emerged from a cave. We drew pictures of animals on the walls around us.
A great thinker, Plato, told a story about a man in a cave. This man is bound. Unable to see anything except the shadows cast upon the wall in front of him. He perceives these shadows to be the sum total of reality.
As Platoโs story goes, the man one day escapes his bonds, leaves his cave, and goes out in broad daylight for the first time in his memory. The bright sunlight blinds him. He needs a guide to discern this place, this reality.
The manโs eyes adjust to the sunlight. He finds his way. And he decides to reenter the cave and tell the others still in bondage there what he has discovered. They are only looking at shadows.
They are missing all that is real.
But they are content. They call him a lunatic. They know what is real. It is right in front of them. Plain as day. They stew in the darkness of the cave.
Emerging from the cave makes a difference. We move from darkness into light. Into a blinding light to which the eyes of our souls must adjust.
British writer G.K. Chesterton pointed out that one man who was born in a cave grew up to an unjust death. Then He emerged from his cave tomb. At no point did his eyes need to acclimate to the light. He had created it. He spoke it real and it became reality. The manโs birth in a cave, and His emergence from another, marks a division in the history of humanity. In this โsecond half of historyโ:
โThere is even a shadow of such a fancy in the fact that animals were again present; for it was a cave used as a stable. . . . It was here that a homeless couple had crept underground with the cattle when the doors . . . had been shut in their faces; and it was here beneath the very feet of the passers-by, in a cellar under the very floor of the world, that Jesus Christ was born. . . . God also was a Cave-Man, and had also traced strange shapes of creatures, curiously coloured, upon the wall of the world; but the pictures that he made had come to life.โ
We are all creatures of a caveโa cave in which we hide from truth or an empty cave from which we have emerged. Every person we encounter is someone who has discovered reality, or is still in a cave, or has come out but cannot yet fully discern through blinding light.
Chesterton again: โMan is the microcosm; man is the measure of all things; man is the image of God. These are the only real lessons to be learnt in the cave, and it is time to leave it for the open road.โ
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Iโve been making them for five decades. I began when I was ten.ย And Iโve probably eaten more than my own weight in raw dough.ย Ever since my mother first let me loose in the kitchen.
Itโs what she did when I was young. Itโs what I did as a tween, then teen. What I did when my children were young. What I still do now.
My repertoire has expanded and contracted over the years to include peanut butter blossoms (chocolate kiss cookies), anise pizzelles, nut puffs (a harkening back to my childrenโs Italian heritage), buckeyes, haystacks, cocoa cookies with peanut butter chips, and just added a few years ago, a gingerbread cookie with peanut butter and butterscotch chips (a personal invention).
Primarily, though, there is the chocolate chip cookie. It is the one where I began. It is my mainstay recipe.
In the hard days of single-motherhood, I clung to tradition. I refused to settle for less than real vanilla extract.
I tweaked the recipe over the years. Switching from half margarine and half butter to all butter. From half granulated, half brown sugar to all dark brown sugar. The recipe is now my own.
As baseball was for Terence Mann inย Field of Dreams, so the cookie has been a constant throughout my life. Cookie baking is thread in the quilt of my years. It connects seasons of anticipation, yearning, trial, fulfillment, and joy.
When I was a novice baker, my older brother was in the navy, out to sea in the Mediterranean. I sent him some cinnamon coated cut-out cookies. He told me that, if I ever shipped that recipe again, be sure to include a spoon.
Another year, I baked and baked and baked. And my other brother and his crowd of friends ate and ate and ate. My mother frowned at noon on Christmas Day as someone ate the last cookie.
Then I was a young wife experimenting with cookieย recipes. Some fell off the list; others remained.
Theย year I had a new baby, my third. I learned that baking early and storing everything in the same container just makes all the cookies taste the sameโnone of which was good.
As a single mother, there was a year I hardly baked at all because money was so tight and time too pinched. A family unfriendly job provided little money and ate my time.
Then there have been years when Christmas cookies were on our table and in the mail to a son overseas. None were of the cinnamon crumbly type.
My mind can still return to the kitchen of my youth. Motherโs old cabinets that went from floor to ceiling. An old porcelain sink with its own drain board in the pantry. My Easy Bake Ovenโminiature pies and cakes. The cinnamon cookies in a box of hope to please the recipient.
Mental snapshots of subsequent toddlers milling around my own tiny kitchen waiting to taste. Years flashing by in technicolor. Handfuls of hope and pleased chocolate-smeared faces.
What were once Tupperware containers in the freezer are now individual cookie trays for each household. A taste of memory from Mom to grace their tables, evoke their memories, and form new ones.
Trays of hope to please the recipients.
Sweet memories and happy baking as you anticipate theย celebration of Christ’s birth!
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When I moved into my home in 1977, I salvaged an old table my father was discarding. Our family grew from four to seven around that table.
Then we shrank. When their father departed, we were six.
The years began to show on the table. One of its legs began to wobble. Without warning, it would collapse to the floor leaving all the work for the other three legs. We would laugh. But after a while, one of us found the falling leg not so funny.
When my youngest son was eight years old, he found a hammer and some very long nails and played carpenter. He reattached the errant piece, permanently joining it to the table. The repair was effective, but not pretty.
A few years later, I got a โnewโ dining room tableโalso recycled. This table was better. It expanded. And our family was expanding. I had remarried. Some of the children had grown and married and had children of their own.
So the table could be small for everyday dinners, and it could be large for family celebrations. Plus, it was reliableโfor a time. Then one of its legs turned mutinous too.
This time, my husband Paul played carpenter, and unless you peeked underneath, you didnโt know the difference.
But our family continued to expand. Eventually, even our stretched out table was too small. Our range of motion became cramped. From fork to plate, to mouth and back. We yearned for extra room for side dishes and elbows.
So we bought a new table. An Amish carpenter constructed it.
This table is even more expandable than the last one. And itโs rectangular rather than oval. Now we have room for baked corn, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, and a host of elbows.
The table was ready just in time for Thanksgiving.
But in order to use your furniture, you first must get it into the house.
Paul heaved and I pushed. But even in its smallest state, the table was too wide for our front door. It would have to come in through the back door. To accomplish that, we would have to hoist the table over the back rail deck. And that seemed impossible unless we could get someone else to help. The best candidate seemed to be the young man who had just moved in next door. He was strong and he was home.
As only Providence would have it, he is a mover by trade. God had placed the perfect workman right next to us.
Moreover, there are many workmen with you, stonecutters and masons of stone and carpenters, and all men who are skillful in every kind of work. 1 Chronicles 22:15
All we had to do was ask.
The old table went out the back door and the new table came in. We had planned to put the old table on the sidewalk with a โFreeโ sign on it. But Paul found out that this very neighbor and his wife had no table. Now they do. We would never have known their need if we had not asked for his help.
So Iโm thankful for my new table. Iโm thankful for the craftsman who made a table with legs unlikely to wobble in my lifetime. Iโm thankful for the help of a neighbor and that we could help him in return.
Iโm thankful for all the elbows to occupy our table this holiday. This year,ย two high chairs sit beside the table. In coming years, perhaps more will join us.
Most of all, Iโm thankful for the Master Carpenter who places us in each otherโs lives and gives us opportunities to help each other.
Give thanks to the God of heaven,โจ For His lovingkindness is everlasting. Psalm 136: 26
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“The way my family anticipates Christmas feels different from the way we look forward to almost anything else. For other things, we’re excited about learning, seeing, or exploring something new. But Christmas is different. We look forward to it all year. We count down the days, just to experience it nearly exactly as we always have.” Joanna Gaines, Magnolia Journal, Issue 9~
Every year, the stores seem to decorate earlier. Santa arrives earlier. Online shopping decreased the hustle and bustle–at least in public. The early decorating seems to be a quest to set the mood–to draw buyers into stores.
Last year, the stores in my locale weren’t crowded. I shopped in the traditional way–but without the crowds.ย
It was great. But I wonder if online shoppers felt like they were missing something–if something about their Christmas experience seemed incomplete.ย
Last week–one week before Thanksgiving–we received 10.6 inches of snow.ย
Thursday and Friday were snow days–closed schools with some businesses following suit. People stayed home and stayed inside except to clear their sidewalks and driveways. Those who had to went to work on Friday. But anyone who could did not venture far.ย
Saturday was different. On Saturday, the snow had done its magic and there I was digging out Christmas music and lighting a balsalm fir candle.ย
Then I went shopping (after extinguishing the candle) to discover the crowds had returned. Lines weren’t too bad. But traffic was heav.
The snow (and perhaps some early retail discounts) called us back to a time when shopping was an adventure requiring movement, planning, navigation, and socialization.ย ย
The forecasterย I married assures me the snow will be gone before Thursday and may not return for Christmas.
No matter. The weather has evoked memories of white days and glowing trees in years past. We are drawn to the season of peace–a respite from the world of bitter politics and bad news.
We anticipate, count the days, and wait. We work, buying, wrapping, cleaning, decorating, cooking, and baking to relive and recreate a day to carry with us through the year.
Our lives are threads tying generations together. Holidays are exclamations.
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It’s our first real snow. An unusual storm for November. My husband calculates it’s been 23 years since we had a snow day in November in this part of Pennsylvania.
The day represents an interruption of routine. Plans dashed. Progress shifted from outside errands to inside chores too long overlooked.
Yet the day also provides time to reflect. To enjoy quiet on the cusp of a season full of noise.ย
I linger over a book and enjoy a second cup of tea. It will be a while before shovels call us outside.
There is time before the world calls us back into the noise.
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He was helping me carry my packages to my car. I was buying some items for a church group donation. We were collecting for a men’s group home in a nearby town. Most of the men there are homeless veterans making their way back into their communities.
This manย was a veteran from Iran. That caught my ear. I’d never met a veteran of Iran before.
We talked about the 1979 hostage crisis when radical Iranian students invaded the US embassy and captured 52 US citizens. They remained in captivity for 444 days.
In 1979, I was a young mother with two young children and a newborn. My younger daughter was one week old when the embassy fell. She was nearly 15 months old when they were freed.
This man helping me with packages had been part of theย failed rescue mission. He said it was his “Benghazi”.
I could tell he had an edge to him. Couldn’t be bothered with small talk. Had seen too many big things in life to talk small.
He mentioned PTSD and some other disorders in quick succession. He had seen things. He had done things.
He said that until he got this job, where he’s worked for five years, he’d had trouble staying employed. This company understood him. Perhaps what they understood was what he’s given for us. Perhaps they understood better than we know.
There is more than one way to give your life for your country.
We say it. We tell them thank you for serving. What we need to realize is that sometimes we are talking to the walking wounded who have truly given their lives for us. They are not the same people we sent off to fix a crisis.
The little sister came home last week. She is the youngest of three:ย herself, an older brother, and the eldest, another sister. They are all grown, the oldest in her mid-thirties.
Mary, the youngest, has accomplished a great deal in life. With an undergrad degree and a master’s from Notre Dame, she’s been a teacher toย the children of some of our national leaders. She now leads a large pro-life ministry in the heart of our nation’s capital.ย But she always looked up to her big sister.
Mary came as the keynote speaker for a large community breakfast that celebrates human life every October. Her sister was in the audience with theirย parents. I was there too.
Mary talked about some of her heroes. On her list was the sister who sat listening silently. The sister who did not get an education beyond high school. The sister who has never held a job.
Mary admires the sister whose life limitations many would mourn. But her sister is one who finds joy in living every day.ย
What Mary is doing is important. And her sister inspired her to press us toward a higher way.ย
“We must work toward a culture of life where abortion is not only unthinkable, but also unimaginable.”
Because it is thinkable and imaginable, our world has lost too many heroes to inspire us to celebrate life and to live every day with joy.
One sister lives a life that many would say lacks value. She contributes no great ideas and produces nothing we can buy.
But the younger sister finds inspiration in the joy in which the elder one thrives. And carries the banner of life for them both. For us all.
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He hadย come to speak at our Toastmaster’s meeting as a guest speaker. When I realized what his topic was, my stomach clenched. He was going to talk about gun violence. Inwardly, I rolled my eyes.
I am a gun owner–a proponent of gun ownership–that people need to own guns to protect themselves–that only the armed have the means to defend themselves.
My view reflects the rural influences around me. Those influences differ vastly from a view often seen in the city–that guns are the tools of those who deal in drugs and crime.
I thought my view was one of only two ways of seeing the issue of gun violence.
But he came to our meeting from a city about an hour away, a city that doesn’t quite have daily murders, but sometimes sees shootings weekly or at least monthly.ย
My job was to evaluate his speech–hence, the clench in my stomach. I thought he would roll out the only other perspective–the old idea of eliminating guns.
I thought there could be no third way of seeing the problem.
But there is a third way. And the third way works.
Here’s the plan that is already reducing violence, already transforming some places in America (from a news report).ย
1. Detect and interrupt [retaliation after an act of violence has already occurred].
A. Work to prevent retaliations: If a shooting occurs, teams of trained workers go into the community โ even a hospital where a gunshot victim is being treated โ to work with anyone impacted and help โcool downโ emotions.
B. Mediate ongoing conflicts: Identify ongoing conflicts by talking to key people in the community about ongoing disputes, recent arrests or prison releases, using mediation techniques to resolve them peacefully.
C. Follow up with conflicts as long as necessary.
2. Identify/treat the highest riskย โ Trained, culturally appropriate outreach workers work with the highest risk to commit violence โ often people they hang out with โย to make them less likely to act violently. Provide them with support to help high-risk individuals instead find drug treatment or jobs and lure them away from street gangs.
3. Mobilize communities to change normsย โ Engage leaders in the community as well as community residents, local business owners, faith leaders, service providers, and โhigh-riskโ individuals, conveying the message that residents, groups, and the community do not support the use of violence.
Here’s a program that’s working. It’s a fresh way of looking at an issue that’s divided our country–among many other issues that divide us today.
There will be places this third way won’t work because enough people won’t step up and do what they have to do to become part of this solution.ย
The solution requires people to involve themselves–to immerse themselves in people and problems that are difficult.
The solution requires us to think outside the box, to find the third way. And to invest ourselves in putting the third way into practice.
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It’s finally come. The crisp cool air. We’ve had only our second wood stove fire. Warming our house instead of trying to cool it down.
The sun rises and sets earlier. I find that comforting. It draws me home to comfort and good foods. To hot tea and a peaceful solitude that feeds my spirit.
But this is also the time many family traditions kick in.
This week, my preparations continue for trick-or-treat night proceed in earnest. I plan to purchase several bags of locally made candy.ย
For years, I’d forgotten that we have a candy factory right here. And buying candy there supports local jobs.
But I’ve already bought some candy from the grocery store this year. Just a couple of bags. Just for the grandkids. I found glow-in-the-dark packaging wrapped around chocolate. That’s perfect for the new tradition begun last year–the trick-or-treat scavenger hunt–conducted in the dark hallways of my house.
Last year, it was glowing paint on wiry spiders that I found on clearance. This year, the grandchildren can go hunting for treats.
Welcome fall. Welcome to this time for traditions and memories. And for new ways to make new traditions, new memories. What are some of yours?
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It’s taken a long time this year for fall to arrive. In fact, the temperatures of autumn are not settling in until tomorrow.ย
Most of the leaves are still green. A fewย are red or yellow. When the cold air finally hits, the colors should become vibrant and plentiful–unless we get wind and rain from the hurricanes.
If that happens, most leaves will just fall off in their green state. We may be moving from the balmy temperatures of summer to the grayness of winter without the beauty in between.
As cooler weather settles upon us, my husband will achieve his final day of employment before he retires to a small business venture. So it’s more like he’s switching jobs than finishing his career.ย
Yet, it’s a new season. One we expect to hold shorter commutes,ย less travel, and more sleep. Certainly, it’s a season of change.
Sometimes change is scary. Sometimes it lacks color. Sometimes the colors are beyond our remembering. Always the God who turns our paths walks with us whatever the new way may bring.ย
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Restoring the Shattered: Illustrating Christโs Love Through the Church in One Accord now available in e-version onย Amazonย andย Barnes and Noble.
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โWhen a community loses its memory, its members no longer know one another. . . How can they know one another if they have not learned one anotherโs stories? If they do not know one anotherโs stories, how can they know whether or not to trust one another? People who do not trust one another do not help one another, and moreover, they fear one another. And this is our predicament now.โ (Wendell Berry, qtd. byย Rod Dreher)
When I wake up in my brotherโs house, eight counties away from my home, the sound of train whistles reminds me of home. But those rails are so close, the sound so much louder, I know Iโm not home.ย An early morning visit to the deck off his dining room confirms the conclusion. No mountains. A low horizon.
My older brothers were the adventurers. The eldest did a stint in the navy that took him to the Mediterranean. He settled in Texas. My next brother only moved across those eight counties that separate us.
I have traveled. But my zip code never changed.ย My residence remained where the mountain ridges surround me, the train whistles serenade me as they have since my birth, and the Mallo Cups are as fresh as fresh can be because the Boyer factory is right in town.
I canโt say I made the better choice. They journeyed with opportunity. My roots grew deeper. But my brothers planted roots too. They became part of new communities. It isnโt just the sights, flavors, and sounds of home. Itโs community. Itโs people.
Americans are famous for being movers. Horace Greeley admonished the adventurous to โGo west!โ ย And westward we turned.ย But today most of us stay put.ย Fifty-fourย percent of us live near the place where we grew up.
Thirty-five percent of us left and then came back.
Rod Dreher is one who came back. The author had hit the big time in large northeastern cities. But after his sister died from cancer, home beckoned to him. He pennedย The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, chronicling her life and death as well as his journeys away from home and back.
But Dreher had another book to write. Coming home was not what he hoped. Inย How Dante Can Save Your Life, he recounts that the return from his odyssey did not produce the peace he sought but instead brought him a stress-related illness.
Dreher found peace partly through the pages of Danteโs journey through the eternal regions. But even more important, resolution came through the relationships that developed through his faith in Christ. Companions walked with him through the stress and illness to eventual healing and wholeness.
He told his sisterโs story. He shared his own. He learned the stories of others. He found those he could trust. And those who could trust him. Dreher says, โI came back to Louisiana looking for my family and my home. I found God and this churchโ (278).
Dreher traded in his professional quest for a personal one. He ended up on a journey he did not foresee. He did not get what he hoped to find.
What he got was so much more.
Restoring the Shattered: Illustrating Christ’s Love Through the Church in One Accord now available in e-version on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.ย
Photo Credit: Joe Calzaretta, Blue Knob Mountain, Central Pennsylvania
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“The myth sovereign in the old age was that everything means everything. The myth sovereign in the new is that nothing means anything. Thomas Howard~
Chance or the Dance: A Critique of Modern Secularism by Thomas Howard is a book for those searching for meaning in life–for an alternative to the secular view that we are here by chance and live without lasting significance.
It is also a book for those of us who already believe in God. We know His presence. And we see His work in the world around us. We ponder His ways and see in them the meaning that infuses every moment of our lives.
Howard explains this way of looking at the world:
“It is a way of looking at things that goes farther than saying this is like that: it says that both this and that are instances of the way things are. The sun pours energy into the earth and the man pours energy into the woman because that is how fruit begins–by the union of one thing and the other” (Howard’s emphasis).
Howard points out that, in spite of the world’s acceptance of the new myth, deep within ourselves, the old myth lives on. It is part of us–and we can only pretend to deny it.
Everything has meaning.
Howard analyzes our partiality for poetry and art, the rhythms and patterns of language and image. The new myth presents a common experience in “order and harmony and serenity, and hence joy [as] a most rewarding fiction” without meaning. The old myth presents the “supreme reality: the way things are.” And that way is full of meaning.
We act out the old myth through a ceremony of meals that we mark by setting the table and arranging the food on the plate in an orderly way.
And we embrace freedom, which is more than “mere self-determination . . . [which would be] tragically limiting.” “Your freedom in the Dance is to be able to execute your steps with power and grace, not to decide what you feel like doing.”
Howard’s book is a delight. It was originally published in 1969–at the height of the sexual revolution. Yet it comes to us in this second edition with a foreword by Eric Metaxas. Metaxas read the book as a new Christian in 1988 and calls it “a kind of prose symphony” and a “rambling yet manicured and sweeping lawn” full of things “you will simply never forget.”
It’s a book you’ll want to read slowly–to savor the ideas–since such beauty is not to be rushed–as in fruit taken too soon from a vine.ย
And through your savoring, may you come to the Dance–to the idea that all we do has meaning now and into eternity.
“In this view, there is no hiatus between what we are given to do in life and what life is ‘really about.’ There . . . a synonymity. All this commonplace stuff is what life is really about.”
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We drank tea once a week and talked about important things. Specifically, we drank peach tea. And generally, we discussed life.ย ย
It was the early 1990sย and my final semester at Penn State. I was commuting about 40 or so miles five days a week with a heavy class load. At times, I struggled to stay awake on my way to my friend’s house. But I always left invigorated, refreshed.
One discussion carried itself over several visits as we sharpened our thinking through conversation.
Much political talk of the day was of values–such as family values. It was a term politiciansย bandied about freely–a termย Friedrich Nietzsche had coined.
Nietzsche used the term as something relative–that morality is something ever changing–or at least something that had changed in modern times–and was subject to change depending on social conditions.
The dispute my friend and I had with that use of the word was itsย application in moral terms. My friend pointed out that Christian morality specifically is based on standards rather than values. Standards are unchanging, absolute. A cup is a cup. A mile is a mile. And adultery is wrong. Always.
On the other hand, values shift from day to day–as in the value of a dollar orย a commodity like, soybeans or pork bellies or bitcoins, which are up one day and down the next.ย
Consequently, holding moral standards means that something that is wrong today was also wrong yesterday and will remain within the realm of wrong tomorrow. Relative moral values can shift with the wind. They can become matters of convenience and expediency.
That was our analysis of the political jargon of the 1990s.
Using values rather than standards to discuss moral issues was another way of disregarding the notion of sin. We’d lost our ability to discuss sin.
Yet today, our language has shifted once more. Unfortunately, it still does not allow room for discussion of sin. To do so is to judge. And above all, we must not judge.ย Even so, the current discussion of values makes room for what is important. And discerning what is important can lead us to moral standards.
In today’s vernacular, valuesย sit on a continuum of priorities. They can be flexible without violating–even while upholding–moral standards.
For example, a business or ministry entity can hold its associates to a standard of integrity. Leaders can expect those under supervision to always be honest and act with integrity in all their dealings.ย
Yet these entities can value productivity, hard work, and camaraderie among those supervised. The value of camaraderie might present itself in social events occurring during or after the workday–inside or outside the workplace.
Good leaders value good fellowship among all associates and realize thatย even while they are on the clock fueling friendship enhances productivity instead of reducing it.
Barbara Corcoran writes: “Employees who regularly gather together trust each other more, which contributes to better teamwork. It also makes them more loyal to the business as a whole. Camaraderieย strengthens communicationsย within a team, and these all contribute to the bottom line of the organization.”
Such a workplace can value employee fellowship and teamwork. The team can come together to help a co-worker struggling with illness or a family issue thereby strengthening the team.
Moral standards remain constant. Family and workplace values are a moving target. Yet such values point us to what is important.
And what is important–the relationships we have in our families and at our places of employment–can only hold together as we embrace the unchanging standards God asks of us at every moment.
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When I was in fifth grade, I suffered a humiliating episode of isolation. Something had happened between the two most popular girls in the class causing them to hate each other with a previously unparalleled venom.
Each girl began to draw allies to her side and against the other girl. Soon two distinct groups formed with all the girls in one group hating all the girls in the other group and vice versa.
Somehow, I managed to miss the drama of how it had all unfolded.ย Maybe I had been sick at home or just not paying attention on the playground.ย I wasnโt part of either group. But sadly, not for lack of trying.
Once the groups coalesced, I tried to join first one, then another.ย Neither group would have me.ย It was nice that nobody hated me enough to form a club of Nancy Haters, Inc. But I was sad that I couldnโt get into one of the clubs.ย I didnโt even care which one.ย I just wanted to fit in too.
Sometimes it feels like we’ve been waiting for something all our lives. I remember as a teen waiting for my father to pick me up from school and wondering how many hours I’d spent waiting for him in my life. But he always came. I always knew he would, and he did.
Having to wait through the unknown is its own cross–sometimes the heaviest. The test or surgery results, the diagnosis. We dwell on the outcome. The thing that willย determine how the rest of our lives plays out.
Colleen Carroll Campbell waited for God to send her a child. She endured the agony of the wait, medical treatments and the monthly realization of yet another failure to conceive.
What weighed most heavily on her was not knowing whether she would ever be a mother.
She and her husband asked God again and again to send them a baby. Yet years of striving and never achieving had convinced her that her dream would never materialize. And in one way it never did. (Spoiler ahead!)
(Spoiler ahead!)
He didn’t send them a baby. He sent them two.
But they had to wait. And in the time of waiting, they grew closer to God and closer to each other.
God says, rest. Wait. Trust me.
We sense we are standing still in that time. But we are not. And God is not still either. He works through our times of waiting. He works in us.ย
Rest. Wait. Trust. And watch for the outcome.ย
It will be worth the wait.
Waitย for theย Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes,ย waitย for theย Lord. Psalm 27:14 NASB~
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We are a divided country today. Righting ourselves begins with the Church. The following excerpt from Restoring the Shattered explains the role of repentance is rebuilding the image of the Church to the world.
—————–
Repentance is how we start to restore the image of the Bride [the Church], not in a public relations sense, but in a biblical one. And repentance begins with the faithful.
Why the faithful? Isnโt repentance something
for the unbelieving population to graspโthose we perceive are messing up the
world and dragging our culture into a downward spiral? Yes, itโs something they
need to do to become part of the Bride, part of the picture. But the kind of
repentance that can turn the world around is for us. Itโs for his people
already in the church.
I didnโt come to this idea on my own. Iโd been
praying for our nation to turn back to God, but in my mind that always involved
something someone else needed to do. Iโll pray. Iโll watch. Iโll work when I
can. Iโll cheer when it happens.
At brunch one day, my longtime friend, Renee,
dropped a brick of truth on my head. โHe calls his own people to repentanceโmy
people … called by my Name.โ
That is me.
That is us.
*****
The first two kings of Israel, Saul and David,
are a study of contrasts. Each king had a prophet. Each one sinned. Only David
repented.
Saulโs prophet was Samuel. Impatient Saul
carried out a sacrifice, refusing to wait for Samuel who was supposed to perform
it. Afterward, he explained to Samuel that he acted โBecause I
saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within
the appointed days, and that the Philistines [the enemy] were assembling at
Michmash.โ
Saul listed his motivations; maybe they sounded
reasonable to him. Maybe they sounded silly as he listed them aloud for Samuel,
who said, โYou have acted foolishly; you have not kept the
commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded
you, for now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.โ[i] Saul stepped out of his
role as king and into the wrong role of priest. But instead of confessing and
repenting, he tried to justify himself.
David had a prophet too. When David committed
adultery, impregnated the woman, and then arranged to have her husband killed
to cover his crime, the prophet Nathan confronted him. Unlike Saul, David did
not give a list of excuses. His response was, โI have sinned against the Lord.โ[ii]
Saul and David both offended God. Saul made excuses
and wore a false face before the people. David was transparent before God and
Nathan. That difference set in motion the events that would remove Saulโs line
from the throne of Israel and establish Davidโs in the line of Christ.
Many churches have turned the volume way down
on the discussion of repentance and are blasting the message of Godโs love. But
we wonโt find blessing unless we refuse Saulโs methods and adopt Davidโs.
Our news sources daily spew stories of
atrocities accompanied by many excuses and little repentance. Sometimes we are
aghast at what people try to justify: mass shootings, rape, looting, riots, and
the list goes on.
There is a sense that my rights are sovereign
and yours are nonexistent. Many in the church have bought into that message.
Instead of confessing our sins and maintaining transparent lives, we justify
our sins, deceiving ourselves that they donโt exist or simply donโt matter.
We canโt expect the world to exhibit behavior
we donโt model. When we model repentance, others see David instead of Saul.
Repentance is the first step on a life journey when we determine to follow
Christ, but itโs also a frequent stopping place along the wayโa place where we
check our direction and retool our priorities, letting him reshape our attitudes.
Repentance produces changed people.
Repentance produces anointed, effective
ministry.
Rather than being a negative burden, repentance
is an overtly optimistic act.
God commands us to โconfess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.โ[iii] Sin and lifeโs burdens weigh us down. On top of those burdens, we add the pressure to appear perfect.
Acknowledging our reality and letting others into that reality is uncomfortable, but that is where healing happens. There is no other way for us to โbear one anotherโs burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.โ [iv] Thatโs important, and we often overlook it. Sharing our burdens with one another fulfills the lawโnot just our prayer requests for that new job or relief of our childโs ear infectionโbut our burdens, what weighs us down and holds us back. Letting each other know our sins is uncomfortable. But confessing our sins to each other brings healing.
[iii] James 5:16, emphasis added. The
rest of the verse says, โThe effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish
much.โ Righteousness follows repentance, not the other way around.
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In the garden before his trial and crucifixion, Christ asked for his followers to โbe one.โ He prayed for those who followed him then and for all who would believe later onโthe universal church throughout history.
Many times Jesus prayed to the Father and
we have no idea what he said. Weโre simply told such things as โJesus Himself
would often slip away to the
wilderness and pray.โ[i] Christ
and the Father had many moments of communion that the Word does not disclose to
us. So every time Godโs Word lets us eavesdrop on Christโs side of those
conversations, we should pay close attention.
Jesus taught us how to pray with the
Lordโs Prayer. And through his own prayers, he illustrated his connection and
communion with the Father. We hear him blessing the fishes and loaves before
crowds and the bread at the Last Supper in the upper room, speaking to the
Father before raising Lazarus, before choosing the twelve apostles, and before his
transfiguration. We also know he prayed in the garden before his betrayal and
arrest. And we hear his prayerful cry from the cross.[ii]
Jesusโ prayer found in John 17 is the supreme
biblical call for accord among his followers. And unlike Paulโs letters to
singular, local churches, Christโs petition encompasses the worldwide church,
for all โthose also who believe in Meโ through all time.[iii]
Jesus directs us to love him, each other, and those outside our churchesโ
doors.
Through a series of that/sostatements, he tells us what should be (that) and what will result from it (so).
That
we would โall be oneโ as the Father and Son are โso that the world may believeโ that the Father sent the Son.
That
we โmay be perfectedโ in that oneness โso
that the world may knowโ that the Father sent the Son and that He โloved [us],
even as the Father loves the Son.โ
That we
would be with Christ where he is so
that we would see his glory, โwhich You have given Me, for You loved Me before
the foundation of the world.โ[iv]
As Jesus makes clear, the
worldโs ability to know Godโs love relies upon we who are Christians loving one
another in unity.
But itโs crucial that we consider what accord is
and is not. Christian unity does not mean we dilute our doctrines and abandon
our traditions. It does not mean we dissolve our church constitutions and form
one gigantic doctrinally devoid church. It means we embrace a visible
cooperation with one anotherโyet without compromise.
“Some suggest [that in his prayer] Jesus is only referring to a nebulous spiritual unity; however, Jesus emphasizes a form of unity that is visible to the watching world, and thus must be referring to a relational unity that can be observed. This does not mean we have to agree on every point of doctrineโwe donโt! Nor does it mean we are to adopt some sort of fuzzy ecumenism in which we compromise the truth of the gospel or overlook sin within the church.”[v]
Journalist and
cultural commentator Rod Dreher in his book The
Benedict Option encourages interdenominational relationshipsโwhat he calls
โan ecumenism of the trenches.โ โTo be sure, the different churches should not
compromise their distinct doctrines, but they should nevertheless seize every
opportunity to form friendships and strategic alliances in defense of the faith
and the faithful.โ[vi]
Accord means we form friendships and alliances,
and we respect each otherโs differences. It means, as C. S. Lewis wrote, we may
โgo on disagreeing, but donโt let us judge.โ[vii] It
means that, at the end of our weekly church services, we join hands to meet
real needs and help hurting hearts find healing in Christโthat we be the visible church.
But we can only increase our ministry by
learning how to meet people in their need.
Likeminded Christians of various denominations
acting in accord will enhance ministry. We are the sand the Master turns into
colored glass. He restores glass pieces cracked under the pressures of life.
And he puts them together in a big picture that shows the world his great love.
We can shine the light of the Master on the
hearts of the broken and lonely and invite them to become part of Godโs big picture.
If you are broken, he can restore you. And once
he restores you, he can use you to restore others.
[ii] Jesus teaching
the Lordโs Prayer (Matthew 6:9โ13), his prayer intimacy with the Father
(11:25โ26), his blessing of food (14:19; 15:37; 26:26), his prayer around
raising Lazarus (John 11:41โ42), and his prayers before choosing the apostles
(Luke 6:12โ13), before his transfiguration (9:29), during his time in the
garden (Matthew 26:36โ44; Luke 22:39โ46), and from his position on the cross
(Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:37; Luke 23:34, 46).
[v] S. Michael
Craven, โPractical Unity: Living Out the Words of Jesus to โBe One,โโ Christianity Today, May 14, 2014.
[vi] Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for
Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (New York: Sentinel, 2017), 136.
[vii] C. S. Lewis, Letters of C. S. Lewis, as quoted in an
email from the C. S. Lewis Foundation, January 23, 2015.
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“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this:ย “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 12: 30-31a
It’s the part of the passage we too often gloss overย “as you love yourself.” But do we really?
We speak to ourselves inย negative ways. We tell ourselves we have failed. We aren’t smart. Others are better.
I remember in high school watching another girl assess herself in the girls’ room mirror. I thought she was beautiful. I wished I looked like her.
Then she stuck her tongue out at herself and walked out the door.ย
That stunned me. How could she think herself ugly? Then I realized. She is just like me. She thinks of herself the way I think of myself.ย
We were alike in our disdain for ourselves.ย Perhaps it has always been so. And perhaps more so among young women.
Yet today, it’s worse for young women who speak to themselves in that same negative voice as the girl in the mirror did.
As we did then, they compare themselves to airbrushed actresses, women on magazineย covers, and other girls pondering theirย images in the mirror as their minds replay the negative echo of social media.
There is a solution. Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves requires us to love ourselves–to stop the negative talk–to affirm ourselves.
This affirmation is not an acquisition of pride–but of seeing ourselves as God sees us. We are people Christ came to die for. We are imago Dei–people of his image who walk in his way.ย
Imperfectly. Awkwardly. Stumbling at times.
But in the beauty of God’s love, we can see ourselves as the unique creations we are. The girl in the mirror is not ugly. She is specially designed for a purpose–an important purpose.
She is here to love herself because she is who he made her to be. And in loving herself–showing regard for herself–she affirms the God-reflection she finds others.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
โNotwithstanding the beauty of this country of Faerie . . . there is much that is wrong in it. If there are great splendours, there are corresponding horrors; heights and depths, beautiful women and awful fiends; noble men and weaklings. All a man has to do is to better what he can.โย George MacDonald, fromย Phantastes.
Horrors and splendor. Thatโs what we find in life. The horrors include bad things we do to each other and bad things that happen by chance. Yet, life also consistsย of splendors, Godโs expression of beauty, His beauty within our hearts that sometimes comes out through our hands.
Splendor is often our response to horror.
On Tuesday, we mark 17ย years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives in Pennsylvania, Washington, DC, and New York City.
It happened in my third year of teaching when I was overseeing a class of seventh and eighth-graders. Aย plane hit the first tower in New York City. The moment marked us all.
Over the last several years, the number of students who can remember the day has trickled to a dripย and nearly stopped. Few young people who recall that day sit before me.
September 11, 2001, brought Americans wall to wall coverage of debris and devastation. There was the relief of joy and the devastation of loss. This person was saved. That one was gone.
Today, it is the fading event that echoes in our days, no longer shaping our times. Yet, we are different–sometimes missing the beauty of that day. Often missing the beauty of each other.
Forgetting the horror of the day means forgetting that there was beauty even in the loss. The heroes of Flight 93 challenged horror when it looked them in the eye. They said no. We felt horror at their deaths but beauty in their heroism.
Presidentย George W. Bushย reminded us that โOne of the lessons of 9-11 is that evil is real and so is courage.โ
Horror happens at the hands of people who choose to bring it. And, as I’ve mentioned, it comes by chance as wellโa different form of fiend. We canโt know why this person didnโt come home at the end of an otherwise ordinary day and that one did.
But we can marvel at those who fight the fiends of evil and chance still today.
This week, we remember the horror and celebrate the beautiful heroes. We celebrate the heroes of today–soldiers, police officers, firefighters, and caregivers.ย We mark the beauty of those who strive to better what they can.ย
May all of us find a way to count ourselves, somehow, among the beautiful. We can work to see the beautiful. And make better what we can.
To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified. Isaiah 61:3~
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Nancy Headโsย Restoring the Shatteredย leads the reader through a compelling and emotional story of the life of a woman who has experienced the best and worst moments of the modern-day church.ย At the same time, Nancy artfully weaves the surprisingly fascinating history of the churchโs theology and its politics in a way that will challenge all of us to walk worthy of our calling.
โBob Gresh, husband of best-selling author Dannah Gresh (nearly half a million books sold)
Inย Restoring the Shattered, Nancyโs account of her life experience, intertwined with historic events and lessons from faith leaders of many disciplines, mirrors the personal problems and societal tensions present in the Christian church.ย Ironically, as the Reverend Billy Graham came to Altoona in 1949 and found discourse in the church strained enough to test his commitment to evangelism, Nancy sees the same discourse today stretching well beyond the city limits of her hometown. Fortunately, through faith and determination, the difficult times strengthened Billyโs and Nancyโs resolve and both were better equipped to encourage others in their journey with Christ.
โPennsylvania State Senator John H. Eichelberger, Jr.
Since the beginning of Christendom, believers have not only engaged in the discussion of difference versus agreement on the doctrines we find within the Bible but have often found themselves participating in the nature of disagreement that brings hurt to individuals and to the church. In her bookย Restoring the Shattered, Nancy sensitively traces the history of division and encourages the church to focus on those doctrines that bring both harmony and light.ย She does this through sharing her struggles of separation within her own family and uses the images of shattered glass to illustrate our brokenness.ย It is a subject that we should not neglect and one that will benefit the church and individuals.
When I met Nancy, she served a university-appointed role as a mentor-teacher to me. She gave every impression of a whole person, a great look for a mentor to have. But like all of us, the external appearance of perfection exists only on the surface. Yet Nancy does have an internal assurance of completionโone which comes from our Savior, Jesus Christ.ย Restoring the Shatteredย offers readers a chance to examine breaks on every layer to see the combined work of restoration on which Nancy and Christ have embarked and offers hope and advice for those who wish to traverse that same path with him.
โReverend Adam Shellenbarger, pastor, Joppatown Christian Church, Joppatown, Maryland
Restoring the Shatteredย is a wonderful first-person perspective of a person on the pathย of Christianity. It shows the commonality of Christian beliefs that can be sharedย in our confusing world.
โGeorge Foster, businessman and lay Catholic
Iโm a pastor who Nancy gets to hear all the time. Itโs been a joy and a privilege to read her and hear what she has to say. She is the real deal! Her passion and insight come through in everything she does, including in her bookย Restoring the Shattered. This is a joy to read, and it can help you on your lifeโs journey.
โReverend John Collins, First Church of Christ, Altoona, Pennsylvania
———————————————
Paperbacks available later this month. E-version available October 5.ย
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โWeโre increasingly constrained by computers and a pixelated abridgement of reality that serves only to make us blind to the truly infinite complexity of the nature world. Most critically, our physical movements have been almost entirely removed as a factor in our own existence. Now all we seem to do is press buttons.โ Alexander Langlands (review by Gracy Olmstead)
My friend and I were at the fabric store–a place we haunt when we don’t go to a coffee house for tea. Our meeting places most often involve tea and/or fabric and sometimes food, over which we discuss our lives–husbands, kids, grandkids, other friends (in a non-gossipy way), current events–and our perceptions of the workings of God in our circumference.
Sometimes we even discuss our crafting–and what it means to us.
Pieces of us stitched together to pass along to others or enjoy ourselves.
Crafting takes time. Investing time in a project teaches us diligence and patience. There is no such thing as instant gratification when you are handcrafting something.
Time and craft add meaning to the final products.
And time, craft, and meaning add value–to a point of pricelessness–for something handcrafted matches nothing else. It is unique, the only one of its kind.
In his book, Langlands quotes a definition of craft (from the ancient term craeft)–“the organizing principle of the individualโs capacity to follow a moral and mental life.โ
To craft is to contemplate–to plan and work the plan. And the contemplative life, Aristotle said, is the only kind of life that can be happy.
As Olmstead asserts in her review of Langlands’ book Craeft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts(now on my Goodreads’ “to read” list) balance is the key today. It’s what Aristotle called the Golden Mean–the balance of a virtue between its excess and its deficiency.
From Olmstead’s review: “Langlands argues for a revival of crรฆft throughout this book, as a response to the toll that industrialization and consumptive living has taken on our world. Who knows whether slower, more laborious rituals will become a godsend to our broken world in future years?”
Who knows? One does. And godsend? Indeed.
The ultimate Crafter/Creator who gave us time, thought, and art.
Slow, laborious work can be a rite of contemplation as we ponder him and his power to make beauty through work. As we see our work become beautiful over time. As we see ourselves as his image–imago Dei. And as we find ourselves anew by emulating his creative ways.
Here’s to time spent happily crafting.
———————-
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As many wonderful things do, it started with a lemon meringue pie.
It was November 1, 2017. I was sitting in our local Perkins (where one finds great pies) with a few grandsons, our exchange student, and my husband. We were marking what would have been my father’s 101st birthday. His birthday “cake” was always a lemon pie.
My phone rang, and I saw that my son was calling. I expected him to tell me he was coming–or not coming and I should save him a piece of the pie. Instead, he said this: Continue reading “A Long Awaited Day”
He was helping me carry my packages to my car. I was buying some items for a church group donation. We were collecting for a men’s group home in a nearby town. Most of the men there are homeless veterans making their way back into their communities.
This man was a veteran from Iran. That caught my ear. I’d never met a veteran of Iran before. Continue reading “More than One Way to Give Your Life for Your Country”
Next Thursday is our communityโs Trick-or-Treat night. On that day, my husband, with all the enthusiasm and anticipation of an eager child, will carve our pumpkin. Then, he’ll light its candle. And even before dark, our porch light will alert our neighborhood munchkins that our house is Trick-or-Treater-friendly.
In previous years, we had stockpiled candy from the grocery store, candy shipped in from far away factories. A few years ago, it occurred to us that in our very own community is a candy factory that employs many local peopleโour neighbors.
Almost daily, we would drive past the factory store as if it were not there. Then one day, I went inside. Yum!โfresh, locally produced extravagances that my neighbors sell to me.ย Here were the treats of my youthโforgotten in the busyness of adulthood.
As a child, I would traipse around our neighborhood with my older brother.ย One year, it snowed, and we were the only ones knocking on doors, braving the wind blowing giant flakes sideways.ย Such was our devotion to confections.
Many neighbors dropped the locally made candy into my pillowcase sack. But I grew up to be a mother who valued the convenience of one-stop shopping. I heeded the sirens of nationally marketed sweets.
Yet, as other local enterprises closed their doors, the candy factory stayed.
You might not have a candy factory in your community, whichโconsidering the way some of us feed our sweet toothsโshould keep the large corporate candy makers from toppling any time soon. But there are other ways to shop locally and bless our neighbors.
It’s a simple matter to search out locally owned stores, restaurants, farm stands, bakeries, and other businesses. Buying locally allows us to share the resources that we might otherwise distribute far and wide. And there are other advantages besides helping to employ our neighbors.
Locally grown food is fresher, tastes better, and is healthier.ย And we don’t have to buy everything locally to make a significant difference in our community.
According to loyaltolocal.com, โIf every family in the U.S. spent an extra $10 a month at a locally owned, independent business instead of a national chain, over $9.3 billion would be directly returned to our economy.โ
It may be a bit more inconvenient to shop locally. It may even cost a bit more. But investing in a local business is ministry.
Feeding our neighbors as we feed ourselves is a creative way to love your neighbor.
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Yes, it’s been quite a while since I last posted. Won’t make excuses. Won’t make promises. Please stay tuned. The writing proceeds.
Lord willing, more to come.
Thank you for staying.
Here’s the note to parents, teachers, and students that introduces curriculum for The Broken Harp posted on milicomathersreads.com:
In the summer of 2019, my husband and I traveled to Scotland and Ireland as a celebration of his retirement. For me, Scotland made good memories, but Ireland held a beauty like home. Not a home Iโd ever experienced, but a home of my soul.
On the way to Belfast from Scotland, an Irish woman struck up a conversation with me as we traveled across the Irish Sea. She commuted via the waterway a few days a week to work in Scotland as a nurse.
She told me about her uncle who had joined the British effort during World War II and died in battle. โWe were not allowed to speak his name when we were growing up because he was a Catholic who fought for the British. But I think that was wrong. He was a hero.โ
That conversation produced the seed from which The Broken Harp sprouted. The sprout grew into a minor obsession with the history and culture of my Irish forebears.
Ireland is a country we often overlook in studies about World War II, what the Irish called The Emergency. Thatโs unfortunate because Irelandโs history during that time is fascinating.
Set in Ireland in 1941, The Broken Harp follows protagonist 12-year-old Brian as he strives to identify and pursue goodness during a time of great challenge. Brianโs father has been arrested, accused of belonging to the Irish Republican Army. Dad, a drywall stone mason, had been the keystone of the family, the rock that held the other pieces in place. Without their patriarch, the family struggles to find what is right and good.
Irelandโs government saw the IRA as a threat to the neutral stance the country was trying to maintain even as it behaved favorably to the British war effort. The government didnโt want to become embroiled in a war less than 20 years after gaining their independence from England.
Because Germany had assisted Ireland during the war for independence, many Irish citizens favored the German cause. Even so, many Irishmen joined the British effort.
Despite or, perhaps at least to some degree, because of the division among the people, the government decided to spend the war years preparing to defend the island from invasion by either side.
Irelandโs refusal to fight on the side of the British resulted in an embargo of necessary goods, gasoline, fertilizer, seed, and foods like flour. The Broken Harp illustrates the hardship the embargo caused as well as support for Germany among those still resentful of British abuse. I avoid any vivid description of that abuse, which would render the work unsuitable for young readers and most older ones as well.
The pages contain a sprinkling of American history and culture with the introduction of a crop duster/knuckle-ball pitcher from Iowa who joined the RAF to fight the Nazis before Pearl Harbor.
Inhabitants of the Emerald Isle immigrating to America represent a bigger version of โGo west, young manโ than we Americans experienced ourselves. The Irish in America today outnumber the Irish in Ireland by seven to one. The primary characters in this book do indeed go west.
The American Dream is to make a better life, a free life, a thriving life.
No matter our nationality, we can find that life in Christ. To follow Christ, we seek truth, goodness, and beauty.
This book is the second in a series that began with Wandering Swallow, a story about a young girl attempting to escape North Korea during the famine of 1995. Her journey with her grandfather takes her through China to an unexpected destination, one of faith. Hana finds truth on that journey.
In The Broken Harp, our protagonist Brian seeks goodness.
The third book in the series Counting on Jude is currently in process with hopes of publication in 2027. That book marks the completion of the series encompassing truth, goodness, and beauty. That story is based on some of the descendants of characters in the other books and is set in current times.
The assignments are writing-intensive and are adjustable in depth and length according to a studentโs skills and level. Writings may be shorter or longer depending on interest and time allotted for the activities.
In the meantime, enjoy this journey to World War II-era-Ireland. Learn about Irelandโs divisions (more than Catholic versus Protestant) and to a nuanced discussion of what deepened the divisions leading to The Troubles of the late twentieth century. Learn how bitterness divides people and how some choose to overcome division to pursue virtue.
Best of all, learn how goodness truly means following Christ for His glory.
God bless!
Milico Mathers
Cover and logo credit Lily Hildebrand.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at nancyehead@yahoo.com or in the comments below.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Milicomathers reserves the right to edit or reject any submissions.
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Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me on Facebook or in the comments.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
The Broken Harp, set for release in time for Saint Patrick’s Day, is suspenseful adventure story with layers and tidbits of Irish culture and history woven throughout.
World War II has reached neutral Ireland where loyalties are divided and secrets can be dangerous. Twelve-year-old Brian McGrathโs world turns upside down when his father is thrown into jail, accused of being part of the Irish Republican Army. With their family shaken and food growing scarce, Brian and his older brother Patrick are struggling to hold things together.
Then they make a discovery that could change everything. Lying on the shore nearby, a badly wounded RAF pilot asks them for help. He’s an American who secretly left home to fight the Nazis. Helping him could mean serious trouble with local who favor Germany in the war. But turning him away feels even worse.
With no other adult they can trust, the brothers turn to Mary, a quiet weaver shunned by the village. She is hiding secrets of her own, including two Jewish children she has sworn to protect. As danger closes in, Brian and Patrick must find the courage to do what is right, even if it means risking everything they have left.
MILICO MATHERS is an award-winning author of Wandering Swallow, A Young Girlโs Quest for Freedom. Having spent more than twenty-five years teaching students from middle school to college, she is also a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and, by family decree, the baker of cookies.
LILY HILDEBRAND is a college student who sings, acts, draws, and is studying physical therapy.
Stay tuned! Amazon link coming soon!
Image Credit: cover image and logo below by Lily Hildebrand
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader, YA, and literary booksโespecially those written by middle school and high school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Milicomathers reserves the right to edit or reject any submissions.
Set in neutral Ireland in 1941, Broken Harp tells the story of brothers Brian and Patrick McGrath, their sister Nan, and their parents, Sean and Sarah, during days of great division on the Emerald Island.
During World War II, Ireland is torn between a government that is subtly supporting the British and a portion of the population loyal to Germany, the nation that helped them become independent of British rule almost 20 years earlier.
The Irish police arrest Sean, accusing him of having connections to the Irish Republican Army.
Without their beloved father’s wisdom, Patrick and Brian must decide what to do when they discover a wounded American/RAF pilot (Yes, that actually happened). They join forces with an outcast weaver who is harboring two Jewish children and ultimately work to return the pilot to his post.
The metaphor of a broken harp refers to Ireland’s national symbol–a harp–and a nation divided geographically and philosophically.
Lily Hildebrand has agreed to illustrate again. The image below is of Brian, the narrator.
I’m signing again with EA Books Publishing with an intended release date of March 17, 2026.
My website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at nancyehead@yahoo.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Death and grief have a profound way of shaping the deepest places of the human soul, sometimes in ways so embedded and entangled that it becomes difficult to even see or articulate the caverns grief has formed.
What is buried deep eventually seeps out and starts to affect the lens by which we see and feel everything else, and the death and grief that was buried deep begins to surface. For myself, death and grief entered my story at the age of three. I watched my parents bring a baby girl, Erin, into the world and then bury her ten weeks later.
Halfway through my motherโs pregnancy with my sister, my parents found out that Erin had Trisomy 18. Some medical professionals encouraged my parents to terminate the pregnancy, and even after my sister was born one doctor suggested not feeding Erin since she would eventually die.
In the eyes of some, Erinโs life was meaningless because it was imperfect and defective. But to my parents, her life had innate worth regardless of her prognosis or her days here on this Earth. My parents chose to do everything they could to care for Erin as best they could for however long God chose to keep her in their care.
Erin required a feeding tube and lots of special care, but my family was blessed to have Erin with us for ten weeks before she passed away.
This tragedy early in my life was a defining experience that shaped me in ways I did not even realize until well into my adult years. I recognized from a young age how I had seen firsthand the value of life and the importance of choosing life no matter the circumstances. It was evident that my parents had been able to use their story and grief to help comfort others. But what I didnโt see were all the ways that this loss had deeply formed my view of God and suffering.
A few months ago, I lost an incredible godly friend. This sweet friend was young and had battled cancer for years. As the end of her earthly days drew near, a piece of my buried soul came out one tearful night as I spilled out my grief to my husband.
As a believer, I fully believe in a God who heals, but deep within my soul I felt such disappointment. I expressed to my husband my belief in Godโs ability to heal, but I felt the lack of seeing God actually heal firsthand in my own life and great disappointment from asking only to seemingly be let down. Tearful words and thoughts spilled out from such a deep place; beliefs so deep that I didnโt even know I had been carrying them.
As a three-year-old I had fiercely prayed for my sister to be healed. I do not have memories of this, but my mother has recounted them for me. I believed that God would heal my sister, but His plan was different and she wasnโt healed on this Earth the way I had asked. So, unbeknownst to me, somewhere along the way I formed the belief that God takes away the things I love. And yes, God can heal, but He seems to choose not to. My life held so much fear, and the more I loved someone or something, the more I feared that God would strip it away.
Even so, in His immense kindness, God began to reveal and shed so many layers of my heart through counseling and my personal growth in Him and His Word. I began to see so many things that I would never have expressed that I believed, beliefs buried deep within my own experiences of grief and fear.
So here I am, at almost thirty years old, and I am beginning to scratch the surface of Godโs amazing goodness and the freedom that comes from knowing Him more and learning to trust in His ways. I do not have answers for my sisterโs short life here on Earth, nor do I understand why some amazing godly people are not healed this side of heaven. But this I do know and trust deep within my soul: I serve a God who never wastes my suffering.
My Savior sees a picture far beyond my own vision. He is not waiting to strip away what I love, but He actually delights in giving good gifts. He may not heal the way that I want here, but one day He will bind up every wound and rid all disease. I will ask for His healing but ultimately trust in His good plans.
Human life is valuable because an incredible Creator intricately designs every life by writing His very image on each life. No matter the defect that human eyes may see, all life has worth and quality because the Creator says the creature He has crafted is worthwhile and made for a divine purpose.
I serve a God who makes no mistakes and never fails whether a life lasts one day or one hundred years. Yes, I will feel the sting of disappointment because sin has marred this world and everything within it. The sting of people not being healed is real. Our suffering is hard and painful, but death and trials are not the end for the life of the believer.
My emotions may feel disappointed by God, but my soul will cling to the truth that He will never disappoint me because He cannot fail me. How merciful is He to work all things, lovely and devastating, to make me more like His Son and bring about the glory of His kingdom. This life will often bring unexpected hardship, and sometimes unexpected joys, but let us not miss that the God of the universe is intimately present in it all because He lovingly draws near to His people.
Erinโs short life is a beautiful legacy that I know has worth and purpose. I cannot see the full picture of the story, but I trust the One who authors the story, and I cannot express enough my gratitude to the Lord for the ways that He has used my loss and grief to help me more deeply know the love and heart of my Savior.
He is so kind and infinitely good. He suffers alongside us and His heart is for us.
_____
Emily Hildebrand is first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ, as well as, a pastorโs wife and a homeschool mom to three beautiful daughters. She resides in Altoona, Pennsylvania with her family. She loves to be with family and friends, serve in ministry, go on adventures, drink good coffee, bake sourdough bread, and pick flowers. Her greatest joy is growing in Jesus and helping others do the same.
[Emily Hildebrand is my granddaughter-in-law and is responsible, in part, for me being a great-grandmother.]
Photo Credit: Emily Hildebrand Collection, logo by Lily Hildebrand
My website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at nancyehead@yahoo.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
I haven’t posted in some time. Life gets busy. It’s the good kind of busy.
Tomorrow begins the third week of a new school year. The final grandchild who attends our school is a senior. I can almost hear the whoosh of passing time.
I’ve spent much of the last year working on The Broken Harp and Strong Walls, a middle grade novel set in Ireland during World War II. Irish history is captivating, especially from that period of neutrality in the war, a time of new independence from England and before the Troubles of the late twentieth century.
The main character, Brian, his father, and his brother, Patrick, are dry stone wall builders who navigate the times the Irish government called the Emergency and the divided loyalties of the community around them. Because of Ireland’s treatment at the hands of the British over the course of centuries, many in that time and place favored Germany in the war.
Brian and Patrick help an American RAF pilot (yes, that happened before Pearl Harbor) and an outcast weaver who is harboring two Jewish children after their father is interned, accused without trial, suspected of being part of the Irish Republican Army.
My granddaughter/illustrator is enjoying her freshman year of college and has crafted beautiful images already.
Hoping to publish on Saint Patrick’s Day 2026.
I’ve also written Virtue Stones, a companion picture book, that explains the theological virtues, the cardinal virtues, plus a few more to get the count to ten. My nephew is doing watercolor images for that effort. Publication date is unknown.
Recently, Wandering Swallow received another award. This time from the American Christian Fiction Writers KidLit Contest, second place for middle grade novels. Paul and I spent a good portion of the spring attending homeschool and classical conventions in Texas, Missouri, South Carolina, Delaware, and Pennsylvania to spread the word about this book.
This Saturday, we’re set to have a booth at Jesus Jam, a local music festival featuring Rebecca St. James.
After a steamy summer, cooler temperatures have finally arrived. We’re on the cusp of a new season, my favorite. A new school year, another year of teaching and writing, Lord willing, another year to invite others into the wonder of God’s world through literature and learning.
We’re feeling very blessed and busy.
The good kind of busy.
Image Credits: Lily Hildebrand and Jason Bulger
Our website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions:ย You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author and illustrators.
Disclosure of Material Connection: ย I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned.ย Restoring the Shatteredย is published through Morgan James Publishing. Wandering Swallow is published by EA Books Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
A character in my favorite Shakespeare play The Tempest aptly sums up the state of social discourse today:
“You rub the sore When you should bring the plaster. “
Some readers might imagine plaster to be the precursor to drywall. That conclusion mirrors a primary cause of poor social discourse today–hasty assumptions.
Instead, the plaster the Bard refers to is meant to be medicinal, healing.
Why do we so quickly look for reasons to be angry? Why do we feel so free to spout our assumptions publicly?
Pick the last social media frenzy over what someone said. You won’t have to think hard or look for long.
Did you read someone else’ s analysis of what that person said, or did you look up the full text to determine the meaning of the statement and decide for yourself?
Do you enjoy your disdain of that speaker so much that you refuse to consider motivations that might be more noble than you’re willing to assign to them?
There are many people out there with whom I genuinely disagree and whose motives I do not trust. Even so, when they make seemingly outrageous comments, I should listen to the context before judging and adding venom to the discussion.
A person spouting some outrageous idea may live up to my expectations in which case, I’m free to spout outrage.
But maybe outrage isn’t the best quick response. I’ve been surprised before.
I’m a conservative who once agreed with President Clinton on an issue.
I even once agreed with Barney Frank, the first openly gay member of Congress, on an issue related to foreign policy.
Every so often, a blind squirrel finds a nut.
Maybe when we read supposedly inflammatory comments, we could just take a breath.
Maybe we could remember a scripture or two–Be angry and sin not–or–Don’t be quick to anger.
Maybe we could not always assume the worst. We don’t have to assume that because I already don’t like the speaker, he/she can’t possibly have any good motive or any idea worth considering. I’ll save time, but not stomach acid, by picking up the views of someone who also might be looking for a bone to pick with that person. I can run with their incendiary views like I’m carrying a lit flamethrower. I don’t have to do the mental work myself.
I’ll rub the social sore.
Or maybe, just maybe, I can bring the healing plaster instead.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
A North Korean girl journeys toward faith and freedom in Mathersโ middle-grade novel.
The story opens one night in 1995 as a North Korean girl named Hana and her grandfather stand by a river in the North Korean city of Sinuiju. On the other side is China, promising freedom. On their side are oppression and a killing famine. Hanaโs parents havenโt returned from seeking work to feed the family. Now, Hana and her grandfather face the river they must cross for survival. โUnder this nightโs moonlight, soldiers would see us if we tried to go home,โ thinks Hana, the bookโs relatable narrator. โDeath through capture and hunger if we returned. Death in the water if we went forward.โ Their guide, Lรบ kรจ, a mysterious, evangelizing man of Christian faith wanted by the Chinese police, is committed to escorting โwandering swallowsโ out of North Korea to safety. This earnest, thought-provoking work of Christian middle-grade fiction effectively sets a tone of high-stakes suspense: โEveryone could report anyone in Choson [North Korea] for criticizing the leader or the government,โ says Hana. The textured narrative is informed by late-20th-century history, before the 1997 Chinese takeover of Hong Kong, from the Tiananmen Square massacre to fear and hunger under North Koreaโs iron-fisted rule. At heart, the story is about Hanaโs first exposure to Christianity and her struggle with questions of faith. Writing in Hanaโs voice, Mathers crafts prose that is disarmingly direct and limpid: โThe train rolled over the tracks with its steady rhythm. I watched the world go by as the sun played hide-and-seek with clouds. I wondered at the idea of a God who could see humans do right and wrong and let wrong happen.โ
A resonant odyssey of discovery, shaped by real-world political challenges and Christian beliefs.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
Wandering Swallow Parent/Teacher Supplement Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her youngโ a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Psalm 84:3.
Dear Parents and Teachers,
Iโm hoping you find Wandering Swallow, A Young Girlโs Quest for Freedom an enjoyable learning experience for your children/students. Along with helping students achieve automaticity in reading through engagement with the story, I also wanted to give them a peek into the culture and history of Korea and China.
Hanaโs journey is more than a quest for food. Itโs a soul journey. Satan often attacks our souls through our bodies. Hana has to pretend to be a boy so she will avoid the fate so many young North Korean females have faced in their search for freedom.
Over the years of the one-child rule (1979-2015), girls (as well as handicapped boys) often suffered abortion or abandonment. In Eastern culture, if parents are only allowed one offspring, they want sons.
Because of the rule, China experienced a shortage of women for men to marry. Girls like Hana are often sold into forced marriages or prostitution. I avoided making explicit references to this danger because I want to allow parents to decide how, when, and to what degree they need to explain sexual trafficking to their children.
Over the course of the story, we meet three characters with Down syndrome. Jinsiqueโs role mirrors the life of Baby Doe who was born with Down syndrome and esophageal atresia, a condition in which his esophagus did not connect to his stomach. A simple surgery would have resolved the issue, but his parents did not give permission.
It took Baby Doe seven days to die of starvation.
Because of the one-child rule, baby Jinsiqueโs life would have been in peril (before or after birth) regardless of a Down syndrome diagnosis. The care Jinsique receives in the book is what I would hope every child would know.
The history included throughout the book comes from some of the sources listed below and several conversations over years with one of the massacre survivors, Shengde Lian. Lian was one of the student-organizers of the protest and provided much of the insight Lแปซ kรฉ gives to Hana at the Square. I had the blessing of interviewing him for a couple of articles I wrote as a reporter and independently.
Much of the plot of my book alludes to Elijahโs experience with wind, earthquake, and fire before he hears the still small voice (I Kings 19). May all our readers hear that voice in their own journeys following Christ.
Wandering Swallow is a tribute to young and old who dared to protest the CCP, those who defied the tyrants of North Korea, and a reminder to America, as John Philpot Curran stated, โThe condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.โ
Thank you for your interest in Wandering Swallow.
Milico Mathers
Further Reading and Viewing for Teachers and Parents: (Parental discretion advised for some works)
All scriptures quoted within the text come from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSIONยฎ, NIVยฎ Copyright ยฉ 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.โข Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader booksโespecially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissionโs 16 CFR, Part 255: โGuides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.โ
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