Monday, July 13, 2009
Monday, July 06, 2009
Do you?
Monday, July 06, 2009
0
“While you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.” -Tony Campolo
Sunday, June 07, 2009
The Death of George Tiller and My Thoughts on Abortion
Sunday, June 07, 2009
1
Around lunchtime last Sunday I began to feel the pangs of a looming internal crisis. My wife Regina got a text message from her sister saying that George Tiller, notorious late term abortion provider, had been shot and killed at his church in Wichita, Ks. As I processed that information over the next hours and days I experienced a range of emotions that I hadn't fully prepared myself for.
Being raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church in the suburbs of Wichita , George Tiller played a prominent role in the formative years of my spiritual and political development. He was equal parts bogey man, Adolf Hitler and the devil himself. He was the face of evil incarnate and he carried out his grim work just a few miles away from the mall that I frequented as a teenager. Long before I could ever grasp the complexities of an issue like abortion (I'm not sure that I do now), I was standing outside his clinic holding poster board protest signs. I have a vague recollection of one late night vigil where I was actually interviewed by a local TV news crew. I don't recall the exact reason for the protest but I remember that it was cold that night so the January anniversary of Roe V. Wade would fit I suppose. In any case, the news crews shows up and somehow I end up in front of a reporter with a bright light in my face and they're asking me why I was there. My brilliantly succinct 13 year old answer was something like "Um well, because um, I don't um, think it's right um for them to um be able to kill um babies, you know?" That was literally all I knew about abortion...it involved killing a baby, and of course that was wrong right? I couldn't even understand why we were there. How in the world could we even be having the conversation? This was the most black and white issue I could possibly imagine. In my mind, the typical abortion case file involved a teenage girl or twenty-something young woman who got pregnant as a result of her sinful lifestyle and was too selfish to make room in her life for a new baby so she decided to take the easy way out and get an abortion. People got abortions because they wanted to fit into a prom dress and not have their freshman year of college interrupted.
Of course this was before I had ever heard of words like anencephaly, a condition where the baby is born essentially without a skull or the major part of their brain, usually blind, deaf and unable to feel pain. This particular birth defect is fatal 100% of the time. This was before I read the accounts of families who discovered that the precious baby that they were hoping for and planning for and praying for and waiting anxiously to hold and love and raise was essentially on life support inside the womb and had no chance of survival. Let that sink in for a moment. Fatal 100% of the time...no chance of survival. What do you do with that? As a young prospective mother how do you even allow your mind to process that information? Do you get a 2nd opinion? A 3rd...4th...5th opinion? Do you experience denial and anger and bargaining and all the other stages of grief that humans go through when a loved one dies? Do you carry the baby to term and allow it be born and die naturally? Do you have an abortion and end the pregnancy on your own terms? Do you name the baby and bury it and have a funeral like any other baby who dies tragically? I read of families who did all these things. Which of these choices is more right than the other? And who decides?
So these were the things that were running through my mind last week when I heard that Tiller had been murdered. As a lifelong opponent of abortion the coldly pragmatic part of my mind reasoned for a moment that the death of George Tiller would result, at least in the short term, in less abortions. On the other hand, the murder of this man would likely set the pro-life movement back by decades and turn Tiller into a martyr for the pro-choice movement. Worse still would be the damage to the peaceful, prayerful, non-radical arm of the pro-life movement who would likely be painted with the same broad brush as the murderer who pulled the trigger. Further still, what about the women who used Tiller's services as a legal if not horrible option for dealing with a fatal neural birth defect like anencephaly? Could it be that on some level this man who was the face of evil to me as a youngster was in some way, to some women, the hero that so many people are saying he was? Was it possible that by providing a less terrible option than carrying and giving birth to a baby with a death sentence that he was in some way bravely doing what needed to be done but few others in the medical community had the constitution for? Is it possible that for some people, in some circumstances, the services he offered were the more humane choice? The bile rises in my throat as I type that. It breaks my heart and makes my head spin to say it but I just don't know anymore. Does Pro-Choice mean pro-abortion? If you allow for abortions in extreme cases (like anencephaly) are you ethically and logically obliged to allow and approve of abortion on demand for all reasons? If you concede a little ground on this issue have you, in effect, conceded everything?
Here is what I do know - too often Christians who hang their hats on the sanctity of life seem to mysteriously disappear when the logical end of their stance on abortion comes knocking on the door of their church. Without the intervention of the church or other community minded organizations, poverty stricken, poorly educated people whose lives spiral into a vicious cycle of crime and poor decisions result in more tragically unwanted children destined to repeat the mistakes of their parents. We say we are against freely available condoms and sex education, the morning after pill and Plan B contraception for spiritual, ethical and philosophical reasons. But we fail to remember that ideas have consequences in real life. The effects of these philosophies we espouse are very often the victims of the abortions we fight to prevent. Pro-life has to mean more than just caring for 9 months and then moving on to the next girl in line at the pregnancy crisis center. As Christians we must value life in all of it's forms and stages.
Being raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church in the suburbs of Wichita , George Tiller played a prominent role in the formative years of my spiritual and political development. He was equal parts bogey man, Adolf Hitler and the devil himself. He was the face of evil incarnate and he carried out his grim work just a few miles away from the mall that I frequented as a teenager. Long before I could ever grasp the complexities of an issue like abortion (I'm not sure that I do now), I was standing outside his clinic holding poster board protest signs. I have a vague recollection of one late night vigil where I was actually interviewed by a local TV news crew. I don't recall the exact reason for the protest but I remember that it was cold that night so the January anniversary of Roe V. Wade would fit I suppose. In any case, the news crews shows up and somehow I end up in front of a reporter with a bright light in my face and they're asking me why I was there. My brilliantly succinct 13 year old answer was something like "Um well, because um, I don't um, think it's right um for them to um be able to kill um babies, you know?" That was literally all I knew about abortion...it involved killing a baby, and of course that was wrong right? I couldn't even understand why we were there. How in the world could we even be having the conversation? This was the most black and white issue I could possibly imagine. In my mind, the typical abortion case file involved a teenage girl or twenty-something young woman who got pregnant as a result of her sinful lifestyle and was too selfish to make room in her life for a new baby so she decided to take the easy way out and get an abortion. People got abortions because they wanted to fit into a prom dress and not have their freshman year of college interrupted.
Of course this was before I had ever heard of words like anencephaly, a condition where the baby is born essentially without a skull or the major part of their brain, usually blind, deaf and unable to feel pain. This particular birth defect is fatal 100% of the time. This was before I read the accounts of families who discovered that the precious baby that they were hoping for and planning for and praying for and waiting anxiously to hold and love and raise was essentially on life support inside the womb and had no chance of survival. Let that sink in for a moment. Fatal 100% of the time...no chance of survival. What do you do with that? As a young prospective mother how do you even allow your mind to process that information? Do you get a 2nd opinion? A 3rd...4th...5th opinion? Do you experience denial and anger and bargaining and all the other stages of grief that humans go through when a loved one dies? Do you carry the baby to term and allow it be born and die naturally? Do you have an abortion and end the pregnancy on your own terms? Do you name the baby and bury it and have a funeral like any other baby who dies tragically? I read of families who did all these things. Which of these choices is more right than the other? And who decides?
So these were the things that were running through my mind last week when I heard that Tiller had been murdered. As a lifelong opponent of abortion the coldly pragmatic part of my mind reasoned for a moment that the death of George Tiller would result, at least in the short term, in less abortions. On the other hand, the murder of this man would likely set the pro-life movement back by decades and turn Tiller into a martyr for the pro-choice movement. Worse still would be the damage to the peaceful, prayerful, non-radical arm of the pro-life movement who would likely be painted with the same broad brush as the murderer who pulled the trigger. Further still, what about the women who used Tiller's services as a legal if not horrible option for dealing with a fatal neural birth defect like anencephaly? Could it be that on some level this man who was the face of evil to me as a youngster was in some way, to some women, the hero that so many people are saying he was? Was it possible that by providing a less terrible option than carrying and giving birth to a baby with a death sentence that he was in some way bravely doing what needed to be done but few others in the medical community had the constitution for? Is it possible that for some people, in some circumstances, the services he offered were the more humane choice? The bile rises in my throat as I type that. It breaks my heart and makes my head spin to say it but I just don't know anymore. Does Pro-Choice mean pro-abortion? If you allow for abortions in extreme cases (like anencephaly) are you ethically and logically obliged to allow and approve of abortion on demand for all reasons? If you concede a little ground on this issue have you, in effect, conceded everything?
Here is what I do know - too often Christians who hang their hats on the sanctity of life seem to mysteriously disappear when the logical end of their stance on abortion comes knocking on the door of their church. Without the intervention of the church or other community minded organizations, poverty stricken, poorly educated people whose lives spiral into a vicious cycle of crime and poor decisions result in more tragically unwanted children destined to repeat the mistakes of their parents. We say we are against freely available condoms and sex education, the morning after pill and Plan B contraception for spiritual, ethical and philosophical reasons. But we fail to remember that ideas have consequences in real life. The effects of these philosophies we espouse are very often the victims of the abortions we fight to prevent. Pro-life has to mean more than just caring for 9 months and then moving on to the next girl in line at the pregnancy crisis center. As Christians we must value life in all of it's forms and stages.
I'm a lazy writer...
So it's been a while since I've posted anything substantive on this blog (some would say years...but that wouldn't be very nice of them). Basically, I just came down with a nasty case of blog-slack. I went on vacation for a week and some other stuff and just haven't made the time to sit down and write. I need to do better about that. I love to write but it's very easy to get out of the habit. Writing isn't always easy and frankly, watching TV is much easier. Consequently, TV has been winning the battle for the hour or so of free time I have at night that isn't consumed with family or work. Anyway, my summer resolution is to write something, anything, at least once a day. It might not always be a blog post, but even if it's just some free verse that I dump out of my brain into Google docs I think it would worth the excercise. Any other aspiring bloggers/writers feel the same way?
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The Bike King and the 10 Commandments
If Fireproof is the Citizen Kane of "Christian" movies then The Bike King and the Ten Commandments has to be the Evangelical answer to Plan 9 from Outer Space. Please to enjoy 3:47 of the finest performances ever captured on film. My favorite part is when the God tree magically spits out an unlabeled CD-R of what I assume to be the 10 Commandments. Sigh...no, I'm not kidding...
For a more detailed (and slightly snarkier perspective) check out Patrol's review of this instant classic.
For a more detailed (and slightly snarkier perspective) check out Patrol's review of this instant classic.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
The Weepies - Can't Go Back Now
Sunday, May 03, 2009
2
I am so into this band right now...they just make me smile
Saturday, May 02, 2009
My blurry-ass pictures from my stupid camera...
Saturday, May 02, 2009
0
I took a few pictures on this trip that I was happy with. My Olympus digital camera sucks only slightly less than the Kodak Disc camera I was when I was 12 so most of my snaps come out blurry which is very frustrating. Here are a couple that I was happy with...
Never again...
Although there are many days when I question my career choice, I can say that working for Massive Dynamic (shout out to all you Fringe fans out there) has given me many opportunities that I don't know that I would have otherwise. Among these opportunities is the chance to travel a bit every once in a while. I actually enjoy travelling so the few trips I take a year are not bothersome and other than getting a bit homesick towards the end, I am usually glad for the opportunity to see and experience new places. Last week I had the chance to spend about 6 days in Germany and Austria. If you've never been I can't recommend it highly enough. It is breathtakingly beautiful country. I spent the majority of my time in a small village at the foot of the Austrian Alps called Jenbach. It was like stepping into a postcard. Everyone there was wonderfully kind and welcoming. They serve a fantastic Austrian beer called Zipfer (almost exclusively). Like when you order a beer, they don't ask "what kind would you like?" they just pour you a Zipfer. So I had a few of those...
Last Friday, my colleagues and I stayed in Munich, Germany and spent the evening with a fellow employee from Munich, a gentleman named Karl-Henz who showed us some local beer halls (are you noticing a trend here?) and an amazing Italian restaurant where we enjoyed dinner late into the evening.
On Saturday, we had the opportunity to spend a few hours at the Dachau concentration camp memorial. I can honestly say that this was one of the most profound experiences of my life. I don't know how you can really prepare yourself emotionally for something like this, but I was not. As you approach the camp you are met by an iron gate bearing the German phrase "Arbeit macht frei" which means "work will make you free".
As I walked through the gate to the camp I broke down and had to stop for a few moments to compose myself. It's literally as if you can feel the weight of everything that happened in that terrible place.
Gate to Dachau Camp
After viewing a brief film on the history of the Dachau camp and the atrocities that took place there, we walked the grounds and toured the prisoners barracks and bath house.
Prisoner bunk house
Prisoner toilet facilities
Guard Tower
There really aren't words to describe what it's like to be in a place like this. I was overwhelmed by feelings of sadness for the people who suffered and died there and simply for the human condition that allows people to hate so much and to commit such atrocities. In the midst of all of that sadness and despair however, there was a tiny flickering hope that maybe as a people we learned something from that dark period in our history and remain committed to ensuring that it never happens again.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Make 'Em Say Uhh...
Friday, May 01, 2009
0
So I'm playing (and I use that term loosely) in this basketball league at my church. It's an open league which apparently means that it is made up mostly of guys who are rehabbing a knee before they can return to the NBA or possibly sitting out a year due to academic reasons before they can transfer to Duke or North Carolina to finish their NCAA careers. I am the slowest, fattest, whitest guy within 10 miles of this gym and I am fully preparing myself to be humiliated every Monday for the next 8 weeks. We had the season opening Jamboree on Monday...it iterally looked like this (complete with the dude in the gorilla suit dunking from half court):
But I'm not going to quit...I signed up and I'm playing. At the very least, I should learn how to take an elbow to the solar plexus without vomiting. Wish me luck...
But I'm not going to quit...I signed up and I'm playing. At the very least, I should learn how to take an elbow to the solar plexus without vomiting. Wish me luck...
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