The wages of sin..

... are death.

I don't know what, exactly, got me thinking about abortion while I was in the shower this morning. But I was thinking about it and it got me all riled up again.

I kept thinking about that quote from Mother Theresa. At some point she met with President Clinton and he made some comment about the poverty in Calcutta. Her response was "Poverty? It is a poverty that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

Ouch.

Over 49 million of them since January 22, 1973. 49 million. We, as Americans believe ourselves to be the pinnacle of culture.

49 million murdered babies.

We rally and froth at the mouth because of human right violations in China and North Korea and Sudan.

We've callously performed and defended 49 million executions on complete innocents.

We give our convicted criminals air conditioning, education, food, cable TV, Ph.Ds, health and dental care, even sex change operations.

And we've killed 49 million people who never even got to take a breath.

What in the world can be going on in this country that compares to this mass slaughter of children? There is no terrorist in the world that can wreak the kind of devastation on our country that we have chosen to wreak on ourselves. And all in the name of freedom. Freedom! Freedom from responsibility. Freedom from consequences. Freedom from recognizing that each life has inherent worth regardless of the financial, economic, political, or personal circumstances.

How many children? Forty-nine MILLION. Let's put faces on those, shall we? Let's put those 49 million people into our country. Now walk through downtown at lunch. And count.

1
2
3
4
5
6
die
1
2
3
4
5
6
die
1
2
3
4
5
6
die
1
2
...

Get it? Every 7th person dies. We spend millions and millions each year finding cures for cancers that will kill hundreds each year. As we should. We spend more millions in lawsuits from people who chose to smoke themselves to death. We spend millions creating people so we can kill them and try to harvest their cells for a technology that will theoretically help thousands but doesn't show the slightest chance of being clinically feasible.

Help thousands. We kill millions to help thousands? Help me understand that. Michael J. Fox, help me understand that. Patty Reagan, help me understand that. Hollywood, help me understand that. C'mon Michael Moore. Where are your documentaries now? How much more of a story is there than the deaths of one in seven people because we feel like it?

1 in 7. Dead not from some illness. Dead not because of the war in Iraq or Vietnam. Dead not because some whacked-out militant terrorist group came and ripped those lives away.

Dead because we wanted them dead. Dead because we decided our plans were more important than their lives. Dead because we felt like it.

You wanna bash George W for the war in Iraq? Go right ahead. I don't much care for it either. You wanna bad-mouth him for sending American jobs out of the country. Ok by me because I'm rather upset about that myself. But he's the first president I've seen man enough to stand up and protect the children. Where were your other presidents when those babies were having their skulls punctured? Where were your other presidents when the little fingers flexed for the last time and the hearts stopped beating? They were in Washington chanting "You go girl! Take the life from that baby! It's your right!" No, I don't agree with a lot of what Dubya's doing. But the single greatest human rights violation in the history of our world has happened and continues to happen right here in the U.S. entirely with our blessing.

Hey, I'm all for women's rights. I just wonder what rights are there for the 25 million women we've killed so far.

Failures of the Lost

What is it about these June pregnancies? *sigh*

I've been thinking a lot about my earlier blog post from last November about hope. Phil and Christy had that beautifully healthy little baby and honored my wife and I by asking us to be Anna's godparents. Poor little Anna is just past 8 months old now and is miserably cutting teeth. Poor thing :(

And somewhere in all this, my wife and I have tried to have our third. Tried and failed.

Twice.

Two miscarriages. Two failed implantations. The best the OB can give is "bad stuff". What the heck does that mean? Does the sperm have a criminal record and is thus doomed to fail? Do the eggs have issues with self-worth and self-esteem and give up before they've had any real chance to succeed? There doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong with either of us (except that I'm old and fat).

So do we keep trying? Where is my sermon on hope now that I need it? Where is my faith now when the random emotional breakdowns come from nowhere and disrupt my safe little cozy life?

Sadly, I don't know. I've been working too much to tell you. 55 hours one week. 65 the next. 75 the next. Since February. And no real break in sight. Supposedly it's earned me a promotion but I wonder if that's just a gateway into more of the same. Odd that I would choose to see Adam Sandler's movie Click in the middle of all this. The last place I expected to find a wake-up call to my life was an Adam Sandler movie!

Family Force 5 has been a bright spot though. Sometimes I crank up FF5 in the car on the way home so loud that the tires rattle. And it takes a lot to make tires rattle. I should add them to my player here on the blog. *shrug* Maybe later.

So, with no more answers than I started, I'll leave. No meaningful homilies today. No words of hope and wisdom for the masses. No annoyingly profound messages to salve the tormented consciences of my non-existant readers. I'm human too and subject to fatigue and despair.

Why despair? Because my prayer life sucks. I know the answer to this problem just as I know the answer to my obesity. I just haven't found the will to do anything abut either. I have chosen not to pray just as I have chosen not to jog. I have chosen not to read my Bible just as I have chosen not to eat healthier foods. Because I'm lazy and apathetic.

Disappointed? *nod* You should be. I know I am.