I helped a friend procure an abortion, and I regret it.

Several years ago I helped a friend procure an abortion. I drove her to the clinic and "protected" her from the women who tried to talk to her as we walked into the building. Even then, as a pro-choice atheist, I regretted that decision. I had bought into the theory of "reproductive freedom" but when it came time to practice what I thought I believed, I knew I had gotten something wrong. I told myself that it wasn't really a baby - just a clump of cells - but I couldn't make myself forget that that "clump of cells" had a heart beat, that at one point in our development I and all my friends were "clumps of cells". The world reduces people to what they can do, so an embryo that is still forming has no value because it can't contribute anything. The message of Christ is that we are more than our sins, accomplishments, choices, etc. Are lives are worth infinitely more than any quantifiable measurement of their contribution. Who we are is created for Eternity. All we will become is present in who we are right now, just as all I am today was present 27 years ago in a "clump of cells". Today is the anniversary of the supreme court's Roe v. Wade decision. Here is a link to a short video featuring the former Jane Roe; she regrets her the role she played in legalizing abortion. Please pray for an end to abortion, and an end to the reasons people seek abortions.

Someday I'll start posting again, but I just don't have the time right now. Peace be with you!

What I would have said at School of Community tonight if my car hadn't broken down and I had been able to go.

A lot has been going on for the past few weeks that's left me feeling trapped and overwhelmed. I was thinking and praying about the situation while I stood in my mechanic's waiting room, and at one point I said to God "I just want to be free!" Then I realized that I had fallen back into confusing freedom with getting my own way and that if freedom really means the ability to become who I was created to be then my circumstances are not really an issue. This realization awakened the hope that I'd stopped looking for when I got too busy feeling sorry for myself. My hope is this: that God is not working around my circumstances, He's working in them. None of this is really new to me, but apparently I need to keep repeating these lessons in order to actually learn them. Giussani said something about that in one of the Is It Possible To Live This Way? books, but I can't find the actual quote.

From St. Augustine

What human being could know all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ and concealed under the poverty of his humanity? For being rich, he became poor for our sake so that by his poverty we might become rich. When he assumed our mortality and overcame death he manifested himself in poverty: his poverty was not a sign of riches lost but a promise of riches to come later. How great is the abundance of the delights that he conceals from those who fear him but prepares for those that hope in him! Until what is being prepared arrives, we can understand only in part. To make us worthy of this perfect gift, he, equal to the Father in the form of God, became like us in the form of a servant, and he re-forms us to be like God. The only Son of God, having become the son of Man, makes many sons of men the sons of God. Taking on the form of a servant, he takes those who were born and brought up as servants and gives them the freedom of seeing the face of God. For we are the children of God, and what we shall become has not yet appeared. We know that, when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. What, then, are those treasures of wisdom and knowledge? What are those divine riches unless they are what is sufficient for us? What is that multitude of delights unless it is what fills us? Show us the Father and it is sufficient enough for us. In one of the psalms one of us — either with us or on our behalf — said to him, I shall be filled when your glory appears. But he and the Father are one, and whoever sees him sees the Father also, so the Lord of hosts, he is the King of Glory. He will bring us back, he will show us his face and we shall be saved; we shall be filled, and he will be sufficient for us. Until this comes to pass, until he gives us the sight of what will completely satisfy us, until we drink our fill of him, the fountain of life — while we wander about, apart from him but strong in faith, while we hunger and thirst for justice, longing with a desire too deep for words for the beautiful vision of God, let us fervently and devotedly celebrate the anniversary of his birth in the form of a servant. We cannot yet contemplate the fact that he was begotten by the Father before the dawn, so let us hold on to the fact that he was born of the Virgin in the night. We do not yet understand how his name endures before the sun, so let us acknowledge his tabernacle placed in the sun. Since we do not, as yet, gaze upon the Only Son inseparably united with His Father, let us remember the Bridegroom coming out of his bride-chamber. Since we are not yet ready for the banquet of our Father, let us acknowledge the manger of our Lord Jesus Christ.