Back on February 1st, 2007, Emma Beck was found hanging in her room. She was declared dead early the following day her 31st birthday. Her suicide note read "I told everyone I didn't want to do it, even at the hospital. I was frightened, now it is too late. I died when my babies died. I want to be with my babies: they need me no one else does." You see Emma's boyfriend had reacted badly to the news that she was pregnant with twins and although she initially missed her first appointment for the abortion. She reluctantly showed up and at eight weeks had her babies murdered even against her protests that she had changed her mind. All this because her stupid boyfriend Ben "reacted badly".Emma was a successful artist who had sold many of her paintings. She could not deal with the fact that she murdered her babies, it was too much to bear. This is a true story, but one that plays out all too often. There are a lot dynamics going on here. Personally, I would like to smack Ben over the head with a two by four. I'm more than impartial for I have a twin brother myself. Again I ask "why does this world produce selfish, arrogant, ignorant, and immoral fools like Ben?". Equally so why do so many women against their conscience and their feelings go along with their dumb boyfriends? How is it that we produce hospital personnel who refuse to recognize a persons request to choose life? Why did Emma believe that there was life in her and at the same time our current president-elect not know when life begins? How does world produce people who would not permit a doctor to be present after an abortion when a baby miraculously survives the murder attempt.
Why? Why? Why? I'm sorry but the name of this blog is Stranger in a Strange Land and maybe I am missing this gene that causes people to become stupid and ignorant of the obvious. I am sorry, but I am not impressed with anybody who cannot recognize the dignity of life. I'm tired of this mindset wrapped in a small selfish world where human life is cheap, children are nothing more than pets and many times less than that, the disabled or the elderly are deemed useless, ready to pull the plug on them whether they want it or not. Many of the Old Testament prophets railed against the sinful ways that God's chosen people had taken. I am not a prophet, not worthy of anything like that, but after 50+ years on this planet I can tell you this, the world is not smarter, is not more civil, does not care more about human life, does not have more respect for faith, religion, and God. Despite all the technological advancements we are producing human beings who have a smaller and smaller worldview. Things that passed for pornography and indecency pass for an everyday look. God has been tossed out of the schools, the workplace, any where in the public square replaced with ignorance and squalor. For what? More toys, more ways to be amused, more self indulgence. You can have it.
Again Here is the Litany of Conversion with a few more verse added:
United in the mystery of the conversion of Paul, we pray for the grace of conversion in our own life:
R. Lord, Give me the Grace of Conversion
Lord Jesus,
When I look at my life from the starting point of my own insufficiences, instead of from the fact of your compassion, grace, and love for me. R.
When I would prefer to live by my own thoughts and my own understanding instead of by your Truth which alone can set me free. R.
When I would rather brood over what annoys me than turn myself over to you always invite me to come to you. R.
When I obsess over self-absorption, complacency, and self-assertiveness. R.
When I get dejected about my sin, not because it offends you, but because it prevents me from being able to take delight in myself. R.
Whenever I live in a dualistic way, as if my faith and "my real life" are two separate things, R.
When I am deceived into thinking that my happiness depends on something in the future instead of what you give me in the present moment, R.
When discouragement and shame make hard for me to be faithful, R.
When I become distraught over the evil I would commit if left to myself, forgetting that I do not live according to myself but that I live in you, R.
When self-doubt and fear seem to have the last say, R.
When I miss the point of my fragility, a gift you give me so that I will always be prompted to rely on you, R.
When I am inclined to interpret my problems as punishments and my miseries as being abandoned by God, R.
When impenetrability takes over my life, making me resistant to your beauty and all the little ways you ordain yourself to me, R.
When I get distracted by my feelings, my emotions, my passions, my regrets, R.
When I get duped into thinking that I must fix myself up in order to have a relationship with you, forgetting that you come to me with your love just the way I am, R.
When I treat my faith like some abstract answer to be sought instead of as a loving Presence to be affirmed, R.
When I get discouraged by chronic or recurring sins in my life, R.
When I would attempt to earn you favor by achievements, forgetting that I did not choose you, but it is you who chose me, R.
When scandalized by my own selfishness and self assertion, R.
When the oppressive nihilism of life makes me ignore or reduce the desires of my heart that lead me to you, R.
When independence and self-sufficiency make me resist the companionship with others through which you will give me your friendship and tenderness, R.
Whenever I treaty my preconceptions like idols that drain my life of wonder and simplicity, R.
When the evidence of all that is wrong with my life leads me to become paralyzed, indifferent or lax, R.
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