SanctiFusion

The Wall Street Journal today, in a story about an upcoming report on the effects of the abortion trauma on the mothers involved, quotes one clinic director, Susan Hill, who runs clinics in five southern states, as saying that, “‘..women today need less counseling, less psychological care than they did in 1973,’ when abortion was legalized but still carried an enormous stigma.” We might speculate that this is in line with the overall loss of sensitivity for human life, generally. Over the last thirty or so years we seen a shift from a time when the film, Bonnie and Clyde

(From Warner Brothers, no less- What’s up, Doc?) stirred such controversy over its gory scenes. Now Hitchcock’s style of suspense stories has been replaced by “splatter films,” and pop music now features brutal rape and murder in place of undying love and devotion.

Ms. Hill, who has been in the business of “providing abortions” for thirty five years, said she, “has tried offering postprocedure counseling sessions — but very few women show up.” In her words, “They want to get past it and move on with their lives.” Overlooking the possibility of all kinds of motives for not returning to the “clinic” to walk through that trauma all over again, it might be good to consider the real effects on all the people in this picture. Read the rest of this entry »

That’s what the man’s wife was telling him to do. His story comes to us from the Near East, maybe in the area we call Iraq. He was the “man with everything.” Big, loving family, health, home, land, successful business, strong faith. Suddenly all he had left was a shaken faith, and his wife was nagging him to throw that away, and just die!

“Curse God and die!” He had sat down, right down in the ash pile, and gone over his whole life. What had he done to deserve all this? What had he done? Searching over all his memories, as if there were a diamond in the grass, a clue of what he had done, of what should he repent to at least get out of his present condition. The bad news was that there were no easy answers. He was innocent. There was no sin for which to ask forgiveness, and if God could be bought off, he had nothing to offer.

Curse God and die? In older cultures a curse carries real meaning. In Kenya, if a person is cursed by their parent that person is without a family, and so cast out from the community. As they say, “I am because we are.” This modern worship of the exalted self, the heroic individual, has no place in the past, and its future doesn’t look too good, either. If a person is cursed, then that person is cast off as dead. All relationships are severed, and that person is considered dead. To curse God is to denounce Him as unworthy of our fellowship and so to reject any relationship with Him.

Curse God and die! Maybe his wife was thinking that it was better to die than continue to suffer so. “Just tell God what you think of His little plan! He’s a big boy- He can take it!” As the pain of his disease increased and waves of loneliness swept over him, there was sure to be that temptation. Death would be a relief. There would be no more pain, no more loneliness, no more the disgrace of sitting there in the rubble of what had been a prosperous life. Surely it was only God, the source of all life, Who was keeping him alive through all this. To sever himself from that sustaining power would surely be the last blow, and he would have peace, wouldn’t he? The one thing that held him up was the love of God. He knew, beyond knowing, that God loved him, and he loved God. He could not curse the One he loved: His faithfulness to the Faithful One carried him through, and in the middle of the troubles he could still say,

“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He will stand at the last day upon the Earth. And though the worms destroy ..my body, yet in my flesh I shall see God!”

Some people choose wealth, and achieve it. They make it their one goal in life, and whatever they do becomes an expression of that desire. Their choice of friends, if they go to church they find the one with the best connections,, etc. Sometimes they succeed, and find themselves climbing that slope which they expect to bring them to great happiness. The farther up they go the more the scene changes from being somewhat singled out in the crowd as the one with “ambition,” to being singled out by the crowd as the one with nothing but his ambition. No longer in the crowd, because the crowd “had nothing to offer,” there is now a lonely figure, alone, struggling up the slope toward “great happiness.” The many stories of those who have reached that peak, and found it dry and barren, have little effect in getting past their mantra of “but I’m different.”

On the other hand, we might observe that some choose poverty. For the sake of a simple life, and being accessible to one’s friends, poverty has its advantages. The main drawback is that, while the rich person has a measure of control over how much money they have the poor really doesn’t. And, for the most part, the rich is rich by choice, but the poor one is seldom poor by choice. Those that are, and honestly so, find that the way up is a lot longer than the way down. That probably explains the fellow that history just calls, “the Rich Young Ruler,” who wanted to be Jesus’ disciple. Jesus required of him the one thing he was most afraid to lose: Control. Likely all his wealth was from one of two sources. Either it was inherited, or it was made with wealth that was. To give it all up would mean staking his whole life on the teachings of this Rabbi- not just the intellectual or contemplative components, but down to how the next meal was coming. To choose poverty is to relinquish control, which is not a bad thing if it’s the Lord to Whom we relinquish. To his credit, and the Lord’s happiness and great glory, though the young lad turned back at that time, Church tradition tells us that the young man who was following Jesus from the edge of the group, wearing only one garment, was the same who had, “had great riches.”

There is a verse in Proverbs which tends to get translated two different ways. It is often read as a man ignoring the counsel of friends to do as he pleased. The other, as found in the King James and not many others, gives a picture of one forsaking all pleasures and distractions to seek “all wisdom.” Not being a Hebrew scholar I would have to consider that the difference would have to be more how it is read than how it was written. If we follow the Calvinist view that sin is the supreme force in this world, then the pessimistic reading would support that, The Bible says that, “..where sin abounds, grace that much more abounds,” and that would make God’s grace the greater, so I can thank the Lord for the inspiration,

“Through desire a man, having separated himself, mixeth and intermingleth with all wisdom (Pv. 18:1)”

Reading some amazing stuff this week by one of the “Old Guys” of the Church. In On Loving God St. Bernard, as the spiritual leader of a monastery, speaks of how we discover love, and how that love can lead us to God. Read the rest of this entry »