GRACEFUL RUNNER Available TODAY!

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Complexity

Aphids (perhaps) on Aloe.

A tiny native bee on a 8/10 of a centimeter long lily anther.

"You Destroyed a Miracle"

 

A letter to the editor of the Asheville Citizen-Times by me appeared in the September 1 issue under the title, "Says every abortion destroys a miracle."   The letter said:

   Years ago I often ate lunch with James Still, a writer of renown in the world of Appalachian literature.  One day I stomped a cockroach that was scuttling across the floor at our feet.

   “You destroyed a miracle,” Mr. Still said…
   I’ve always been fascinated with life in miniature.  When I see an iridescent wolf spider no larger than a sesame seed, or another amazing wild creature around the house, I’ll run for the magnifying glass.
   Science recognizes that fertilization is when a unique person is created.  The biological entity that begins then is the same biological entity that’s born, the same that grows into a toddler, teen, adult, and mature older adult.   It’s only to justify abortion that the words “life,” “person,” or “human” are re-defined to exclude the prenatal human individual.   ”Prochoice” is a philosophy that requires a person to have certain characteristics before he or she has a right to live.
   Whatever the news is about North Carolina legislation or the closing or opening of “Femcare", and however biased the coverage might be, none of it changes the reality that every abortion destroys a miracle.  Not a cockroach or a parasite either, but a living human being.

Link to the letter.

Fearless Symmetry

By Helen Gordon

 

A whirl of chaos enveloped Orange Street in front of Femcare that morning: cars passing, pedestrians, utility bucket truck working overhead, a frequent opponent of our presence plopped in the middle of things, and through it all, a steady stream of mothers heading up the driveway.  One car stops as I approach, the father calm and quiet behind the wheel, the mother quietly distraught beside him. Their tender hearts show on their faces, in their eyes. I speak and question gently, but bluntly, about the reality of what they have come to do. So much time goes by with them frozen in the driveway, Lillian vigilant at the corner where they entered and a steady barrage of prayers from a young trio of siblings ascending through the chaos of street and sidewalk.

 

Finally, the father agrees to back out of the driveway and into the parking lot immediately next door.
 

I retreat from the side of their car to let them talk and, I hope, pray. Soon, our gentle Annie Lee walks up holding her signature rose, a white one this morning, a gift for the mothers that is rarely given away. She greets them at their car window to speak in their native tongue, Spanish. For a long time, Annie Lee listens and talks, but returns to us still holding her rose. "The mother is so upset, so afraid," she says. Then Sharon makes her regular appearance on the sidewalk. She, too, approaches their car speaking to them in her passionate Spanish.

 

Our prayer continues. The chaos continues in the street, on the sidewalk, as other mothers arrive with their babies scheduled to die.

 

A young woman exits Femcare and walks deliberately down the parking lot through our midst and up to the car in the neighboring lot with the mother and father still conversing with Sharon. She interrupts briefly, speaking to the mother in Spanish, and then retreats the way she came and reenters Femcare. Sharon calls to us that she has warned the mother that her situation is very dangerous. Without thinking, I ask Sharon to tell them we shall take them to the doctor. And now I pray ardently as I call his office that he will be there. Keen attention and enthusiasm are the response of those who answer my call and put me on hold to speak to the doctor. A flood of gratitude washes over me as I ready my car to lead them - this doctor and his staff always have hands and hearts ready to help, but how rare it is to find this same understanding of this life and death emergency when entreating others for help.

 

They follow closely (the mother clutching Annie Lee's white rose, as I learned later) as Sharon and I lead them to the doctor's office. We leave Femcare far behind and my thumping heart begins to still.

 

A quiet, warm welcome greets us at the reception desk and we are seated—what a sweet refuge in that little waiting room! Our troubled mother turns to me. She is showing me pictures on her phone of their other children. She is smiling and calm, her true self.  Fear has left her.

 

Very soon our mother and father are with the dear doctor. Sharon and I sit, joyous, grateful, exhausted. The nurse comes to assure us that all is well. As we stand and wait to leave, the father comes out into the corridor. He looks into my eyes and very firmly states, "I knew she would not do it. I knew when we got to that place there would be someone outside to help." My heart was pierced by his look, his words, his presence. I could say nothing, only blink back tears.

 

The battle had raged mightily all morning in the chaos of that place. And there had been victory for one tiny baby, and mother, and father, and four brothers and sisters through the merciful hand of God present in Lillian, and Annie Lee, and Sharon, and our trio of valiant young pray-ers, and in our utility workmen who had very kindly and wisely tightened the bolts of the overhead wires they were taking down so as to keep us safe. They knew we had to be present. One of them had said with a smile, "It won't work very well for you to be across the street, will it?" He knew we had to be close at hand.

 

 

Universal Man @ Barnes & Noble

All three volumes of the novel are now available at Barnes & Noble as e-books that you can download and read on your computer or other device.  The price is $.99 each, which is the cheapest B&N allows.  These new editions feature a number of color photographs.  Click on the text Above to order.

40 Sorrowful Years

I sent this in to the Asheville Citizen-Times yesterday.
It should come out on the 21st or 22nd.

Guest Editorial by Meredith Eugene Hunt

40 years represents a mere turning of a clock—the earth moving around the sun.

      Time magazine’s January 14th cover story proclaimed, “Abortion-rights activists won an epic victory in Roe v. Wade. They've been losing ever since.”  This statement is wrong on the only scale that matters. 40 years after Roe, prenatal children are still being aborted “legally” in our country. 

      While abortion seems entrenched into our culture, in the realm of reasoned argument, the abortion-choice movement has lost the game entirely.  With the advances in observing the life of children in the womb, the work to educate university students on the true nature of abortion, and the logical arguments that demonstrate the humanity and personhood even of an embryo, abortion-choice rhetoric shows itself to be empty.  It’s strong on absurdities, non sequiturs, false history, and demonizing characterizations of pro-lifers.  If you add to our intellectual victory the network of non-profit agencies that serve women in a crisis pregnancy and confirm the compassionate heart of pro-life ideas, the defeat of the abortion choice “position” is total.

      The problems is, legal abortion isn’t dependent on sound jurisprudence or moral reasoning.  It never was.  “Pro-choice” efforts in those directions have been no more than gauze over the power to kill.  They’re an illusion to make the terrible seem less terrible—to comfort people so they can do what they want, and to mislead the desperate. 

      If so, then only a power in the opposing direction can counteract it.  I mean the power to save.  Am I talking about violence?  No.   We are entering an era for artists who communicate when people become deaf to reason, and martyrs who give themselves to saving the lives of others.

      We saw a shadow of the power to save in the Rescue Movement in the early 90’s when 34,000 people were arrested for peacefully blocking doors of abortion centers.  I see some hope now from young people who are impatient.  They’re behind personhood amendments in various states and they understand the principles of rescue, of intervening in a way that validates their belief that each abortion takes the life of a child. 

      On January 11 this year the Alabama Supreme Court recognized that “unborn children are persons with rights that should be protected by law.”  This ruling sets up yet another conflict between powers, one that someday will explode when a state refuses to back down, and instead decides to actually protect all people within its jurisdiction.

      Meanwhile, at a minimum, we need to maintain a prayerful witness outside the places where prenatal children are aborted, the same as we should if born children were being killed under the forceful shelter of government.