Month: March 2016

Since the old [Judeo-Christian] ethic [of the sanctity of life] has not yet been fully displaced [by the new ethic which places relative rather than absolute value on human lives] it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death, Qtd by Reardon. 
Between 2010 and 2014, abortion rates in the US went down 12 percent. Rates went down in states where restrictions made it harder to get an abortion. But they also went down in states where abortion remained easily available. In a couple states, rates went up, but that was largely because facilities in nearby states had shut down.
Rates were declining before David Daleiden released his undercover videos of Planned Parenthood operatives negotiating the price of unborn children’s body parts. And before Cecile Richards admitted before Congress that Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms and gets a large part of its revenues from abortion.
(Planned Parenthood’s Annual Report of 2014-2015 shows that PP’s client numbers are down by 200,000 and abortions are down 1.1 percent.) Continue reading “Is America Waking Up to the Truth about Unborn Life?”

When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it , He began giving it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.  They said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?”  
And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them, saying, “The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.” They began to relate their experiences on the road and how He was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.
Luke 24: 30-35, NASB, from Biblegateway.com
He is risen indeed!

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If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you, (Matthew 17:20b). 
My mother hid eggs for us. And she hid our Easter baskets too. I don’t know how she managed it, but I don’t remember finding my basket until the end. It was as if she orchestrated the journey from egg to egg to basket. The crescendo always came at the right moment.
Eventually, the egg hunt fell by the wayside. But we loved our baskets, so they kept coming. Milk chocolate bunnies every year, the solid ones with the basket on the bunny’s back. Continue reading “From Memory Springs Hope”

“Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” II Timothy 3: 12
There is a strange ethic today, one of disrespect. It springs from a demand for respect. But it’s a tunnel vision respect–a one way street. But it goes in two directions. Let me explain.
It’s a mentality that says, “I don’t have to respect you because you don’t respect me. Or my cause. Or the ax I am grinding today. Or [fill in the blank].” It doesn’t 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.
Continue reading “The Lost Art of Respect”

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. I Cor 13: 12-13.
A picture of imperfect reality. History, humanity, as a reflection in a pond or lake. The dust, the rocks, the flesh and bones, are all real above, only water and image in reflection.  The landscape shifts. Colors brighten or dim. Sunny days or cloudy ones. Stormy darkness. Warmth or cold. Seasons that are warm for me may be cold for others.
Reality is more than appearance, more than reflection.
The weather is perfect–sunny and breezy, low 80’s and low humidity. We are carefree. On vacation. Nurturing grandchildren with amusement parks, exposure to various cultures, family history, educational experiences. A chance encounter on a busy road.
And there he stands. A bearded homeless man with a sign that says simply, “Hungry.” Definitely a new cultural experience. Continue reading “Reflecting on the Reflecting Pond of Life”

The woman stood in front of the church to tell her story. She had never spoken to such a large group before. I was in the auditorium “by chance” 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. Continue reading “A Price to Our Humanity”

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 don’t know who was driving. Perhaps the car was moving of its own accord.
I was on my way to a nearby town–at the time the only place locally where abortions happened. The entire dream was comprised of the two car rides–going there and coming back. The whole way there, I knew that this something had to happen. “I have to do this,” my dreaming inner self said. Ironically, I had the sense that I had no choice. Continue reading “BLOGPOST: The Secret Trauma of Abortion”