My Abortion

I am guilty of abortion.

I've never walked into an abortion clinic. I would never consider letting a doctor take the life of my unborn child, but I am guilty of putting my own desires before God's and before another human. 

One day I fell into a pit of fear—gut-clenching panic, a debilitating numbness in my limbs, stark terror rushing through my brain. I checked and rechecked the test strip in my hands before finally assuring myself that it was all right. I wasn't pregnant.

But if I had been?

A kid would cramp my style. It would change the life I've made for myself: a comfortable, good life. I have a husband who loves me, friends, work, and social engagements, and it would all be ruined by a child.

Ruined. That's the word I've used.

Thoughts after the death of James Foley

On television, on the Internet, from friends and family, we hear the "news." This "news"—a kaleidoscope of sensation, a spectacle of heartbreak—leaves us with nothing to do or say.

We turn off the TV and cry just a second for horror, but inevitably subside into helplessness. Everything in us surges and wishes for a half-moment, but we're not Mr. Obama. There is nothing to be done. A single black wave of emotion is all we can afford. A small token to a life cut short, but there it is. We're drained of emotion.

But do we move? Do we actually do something for Pete's sake and crying out loud?

No. We sit back on our heels and cry a second and then scroll down to the next thing. Baby shower, night on the town, reminiscence, old friends, photo, photo-with-cool-filter, lunch out, diamond ring, death in the family, #beautiful, global warming, the Hindenburg...all tangled and blurred into a newsfeed of life and love and pain and evanescent pleasure passes in front of our eyes in five-second soundbites. Witness our Facebook-trawling-Twitter-scrawling-Pinterest-stalling-YouTube-squalling generation as it tries with its Sesame Street attention span to comprehend worldwide devastation and the kind of grief that ends its own life.

Meditations on Winter

dark winter way, a photo by Laenulfean on Flickr.

Today I discovered one of the startling graces of God: winter. The sleeping, the resting, the apocalyptic desertion. Look at the landscape with fresh eyes--it's bleak. A nuclear attack has reduced every twig and flower to paper-dry shadows, shearing the trees, sucking the life out of every living thing. Even the sounds have ceased--no more thrumming insects or croaking frogs or twittering birds--only the rustle of brown thorns against dead bark.

But the world is not dead, only sleeping. Sap is gathering, stirring, replenishing. The forest is dormant, but not frozen; those old, itching fingers are preparing to be new again. People need to listen to the trees. They need to notice that for one season out of four they rest. They let go of their bloody leaves and shrink into themselves, fading into the rest of the world. 


We can see things in wintertime: landmarks on distant hillsides, always cluttered with green, stand out starkly. The underbrush has retreated: feet wander aimlessly over miles of forest without tripping. The sun's heat is, for once, tamed: we can exert ourselves, sweatless. It's a gift.


Here is the crux: shouldn't we winterize ourselves? When was the last time that you stopped, stopped dead, and cast off the burdens you've worked so hard to bind onto your back? When was the last time you rested? There is no restoration without rest. God's grace is this: He created nature for times of rest as well as for times of activity. He did the same thing for you. 

It's Not Dead. It's Only Sleeping.

Ennui

Blowing Bubbles, originally uploaded by Justin Shearer.

What is this dim, purplish monster? This cuddlesome virus that stalks in the midafternoon? It lulls one to sleep, beckoning from the tepid waters of a bath heaped high with frothy bubbles. Turn the corner of pleasure and it is there, staring you in the face. You have been satiated, satisfied. What could be left?


Pleasure can be a heartless taskmaster: exacting what everyone wants to give, but disappearing so quickly that it must immediately be replaced by a different kind of pleasure. A constant cycle--the Ouroboros--and it bores in the end. Even the beautiful, tickling, majestic power of self-fulfillment can leave a sullen aftertaste.    


Still, this monster is a cannibal, a creature that feeds on its own flesh. It would suck you into the bubbles, stroking your eyelids, making you believe that there is but one alternative to pleasure-seeking. But it is harmless, really. Apathy. Inertia. Beautiful ennui....

Demolition Derby

Entering the rodeo grounds we are immediately conscious of the crowds, swarming like so many flies. My eye roams over a multi-colored mob, searching for someone I know, and hoping to God that they don’t notice me. Hairy legs and scruffy beards migrate through the dust and fading sunlight.

An assessment of a cross section of this fearsome crowd would be an examination of an entire caste. This is a society distinct from any other, most similar perhaps, if any similarity could possibly be found elsewhere in the semi-civilized world, to the savage Romans of old. The pagan Romans, however, had the added advantages of Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca, and Musonius Rufus, some brilliant minds amongst them, some shining stars whose light glanced through despite their heathen culture. This class would seem to have few such stars.