Sunday, May 13, 2007
I haven't used this blog in a LONG time, but I was writing a sort of journal/musing of my thoughts that I felt like posting online. Not as if anyone will see it, but I wanted to post it anyway. Somehow making my voice available online to anyone makes me feel more powerful than if it is locked away in my computer. Well, here it is:
Tonight I knelt by the coffee table in my living room, weeping and pouring my heart out to God for comfort, for direction, for strength. I have been overcome today, Mother’s Day, thinking about the state of this nation and its welfare. I stand against the practice of abortion and view it as an atrocity, not only against those unborn lives, but also against the calling of those mothers whom we celebrated today. Millions of individuals seem to crowd the media spouting support for the choice to abort an unborn child. Possibly, there are also millions rallying against that very choice, but our voices don’t seem to resonate as strongly. Or perhaps that is only what the opposition wants me to believe. Perhaps our voices are raised up just as strongly, but without a gilded platform to stand on, we aren’t given the same status or notice as our adversaries. Perhaps, also, that is the incorrect terminology. Adversary. Opposition. Insofar as their politics and beliefs clash against my own and cause me to be unable to advance or live in the way I see fit, one could consider those desiring to make abortion legal to be an opposition. But in reality, they are my neighbors, my countrymen, my brothers & sisters. Perhaps the problem comes from being able to define the reality in which we wish to live. Our definitions of choice currently seem to be limited to immediate consequences of life or of death. Of course it is the death of a human life form that I immediately abhor and I might also be so bold as to assume it is the immediate concern for most pro-life supporters. However, it is also the greater picture that concerns me in this volcanic issue. When is a baby considered a baby, or when is “life” created? What is the definition of life or agency? What is the definition of family? Are we, as a people, able to make such permanent decisions, either for or against, without understanding the nature of life & death? How do we view the role of sex in our society? It seems to me that the answers to these types of questions might be a stepping stone in bringing together the two camps on this issue that seem to be so constantly at one another’s throats. We appear to be wildly stabbing at one another, each faction blindfolded by its agendas. We have placed ourselves on opposite sides of the road, cementing our feet in our policies and priorities, without realizing that the answer might quite possibly lie in the middle of the road. But we will get nowhere, either of the two factions, without humbling ourselves enough to agree that we don’t have all the answers. Marriage counselors continually talk about compromise, give-and-take; parents try to teach their children to share almost before they can walk; neighbors chuckle about the silly stubbornness of a Hatfield-McCoy feud; and yet we find ourselves in territory that lies in direct opposition to all of those principles. It may not seem much of a final solution, but this is not meant to be one. It is, however, meant to be a bringing together of warring camps, without shouting, without finger-pointing, without mud-slinging. This fight, it seems to me, is not necessarily about the choice to have an abortion or the eradication of the practice: that is only what all the noise is about. It is only a fight because no one has bothered to come to a conclusion about those core questions. We are dealing with a symptom of an ailing society, not the central disease. To be fair, sometimes one still has to treat a symptom before it becomes fatal, but I can only pray that is not the case with this issue. I also pray for relief, for knowledge, for understanding. Without an openness and a deeper awareness of what is exactly at stake, particularly where the role of the family lies in this matter, we will be interminably standing on opposite sides of the road, our feet firmly planted in our own prejudiced cement.
Tonight I knelt by the coffee table in my living room, weeping and pouring my heart out to God for comfort, for direction, for strength. I have been overcome today, Mother’s Day, thinking about the state of this nation and its welfare. I stand against the practice of abortion and view it as an atrocity, not only against those unborn lives, but also against the calling of those mothers whom we celebrated today. Millions of individuals seem to crowd the media spouting support for the choice to abort an unborn child. Possibly, there are also millions rallying against that very choice, but our voices don’t seem to resonate as strongly. Or perhaps that is only what the opposition wants me to believe. Perhaps our voices are raised up just as strongly, but without a gilded platform to stand on, we aren’t given the same status or notice as our adversaries. Perhaps, also, that is the incorrect terminology. Adversary. Opposition. Insofar as their politics and beliefs clash against my own and cause me to be unable to advance or live in the way I see fit, one could consider those desiring to make abortion legal to be an opposition. But in reality, they are my neighbors, my countrymen, my brothers & sisters. Perhaps the problem comes from being able to define the reality in which we wish to live. Our definitions of choice currently seem to be limited to immediate consequences of life or of death. Of course it is the death of a human life form that I immediately abhor and I might also be so bold as to assume it is the immediate concern for most pro-life supporters. However, it is also the greater picture that concerns me in this volcanic issue. When is a baby considered a baby, or when is “life” created? What is the definition of life or agency? What is the definition of family? Are we, as a people, able to make such permanent decisions, either for or against, without understanding the nature of life & death? How do we view the role of sex in our society? It seems to me that the answers to these types of questions might be a stepping stone in bringing together the two camps on this issue that seem to be so constantly at one another’s throats. We appear to be wildly stabbing at one another, each faction blindfolded by its agendas. We have placed ourselves on opposite sides of the road, cementing our feet in our policies and priorities, without realizing that the answer might quite possibly lie in the middle of the road. But we will get nowhere, either of the two factions, without humbling ourselves enough to agree that we don’t have all the answers. Marriage counselors continually talk about compromise, give-and-take; parents try to teach their children to share almost before they can walk; neighbors chuckle about the silly stubbornness of a Hatfield-McCoy feud; and yet we find ourselves in territory that lies in direct opposition to all of those principles. It may not seem much of a final solution, but this is not meant to be one. It is, however, meant to be a bringing together of warring camps, without shouting, without finger-pointing, without mud-slinging. This fight, it seems to me, is not necessarily about the choice to have an abortion or the eradication of the practice: that is only what all the noise is about. It is only a fight because no one has bothered to come to a conclusion about those core questions. We are dealing with a symptom of an ailing society, not the central disease. To be fair, sometimes one still has to treat a symptom before it becomes fatal, but I can only pray that is not the case with this issue. I also pray for relief, for knowledge, for understanding. Without an openness and a deeper awareness of what is exactly at stake, particularly where the role of the family lies in this matter, we will be interminably standing on opposite sides of the road, our feet firmly planted in our own prejudiced cement.
Labels: Mother's Day
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