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"In Life's name, and for Life's sake, I will use the Art for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so, till Universe's end." --The Wizard's Oath, Diane Duane
Kids and I are reading the Young Wizards series now. Such a powerful statement, the Wizard's Oath, and when I'm reading it out loud to the kids it's like, watch it, those are words of power, a serious prayer, a vow before God, or, in this series' terminology, The Powers That Be. But I answer myself, That's only a problem if I don't mean it. And I mean this. I believe in the Wizard's Oath. I will do my best to live it even if I don't have literal magic powers. Whatever human powers I do have must be used in the service of Life.
I've discussed this before, in earlier posts I don't feel like looking up to link to, but I was raised Pro-Life, in every sense of the word. Anti-abortion, yes, but also pro-environmentalist, pacifist, anti-death-penalty, guarding growth and easing pain, as the wizards say. I believe in the Positive, as I've said in another earlier post somewhere, I believe in What Is.
Now when I was younger, and a bit sheltered and naïve, I had no problem embracing the Pro-Life Movement as it was defined by my Church, with my grandma and aunts and cousins who were all deeply involved in it. Then I got older and began to notice problems, most importantly that laws against abortion didn't actually prevent abortions, they just made abortions more dangerous. It seemed to me (and still does seem to me) that more abortions could be prevented not by changing the laws, but by changing people's minds about having them. And that involves giving them options, giving them the means to raise their babies safely or finding other trustworthy people to do so. It means giving mothers the actual means to survive in this unfair world.
There was a bit of a hiccup in the Church's Pro-Life stand, that I didn't fully appreciate until I was married, in that the Church's multi-part issues of Pro-Lifeness included a stand against birth control, and you know what? PREVENTING pregnancy is an awfully good way to prevent UNWANTED pregnancies, and therefore abortions. I can see how the birth-control prohibition fits in the Pro-Life philosophy, because let's make all the life we can, yay, except that it's not practical, and the implication that maybe you shouldn't have so much sex then is unfair, particularly when your partner wants it more than you, and darn it, at least you're not KILLING anything! But this is just the start.
Because, apart from that hiccup, there were other prohibitions in the Church's Pro-Life stand that seemed to be curiously forgotten by the Republican lawmakers who claimed to be Pro-Life, like the prohibition against capital punishment. I'd hear political ads that contradicted themselves in the same sentence: "I'm Pro-Life, and I support the death penalty for violent offenders!" Dude, you're not Pro-Life, you're anti-abortion. It's different. That's not even mentioning the people who bomb abortion clinics, which is nearly ironic as you can get.
But currently the discord between Pro-Life-as-in-believing-the-Wizard's-Oath vs. Pro-Life-the-Political-Movement-to-Overturn-Roe-vs-Wade has reached levels so painful I am screaming inside, screaming that my loving, genuinely good-hearted relatives still support the most anti-Christian politicians possible just because said politicians have so twisted the Pro-Life movement with propaganda, just because said politicians give so much lip service to their own "Christianity." They've come to trust Fox News because it tells them what they want to hear, and not the truth that exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees of the Christian Right.
And even when faced with the truth? That these so-called "Christian" politicians are adulterers and rape-apologists, that they applaud the accumulation of wealth before the safety and well-being of the huddled masses, that they're applauded by and often are themselves white supremacists and neo-Nazis, that they separate families and hold children custody, that they tell bald-faced, easily-disprovable lies and commit treason? Well, those are just downsides we'll have to accept, as long as that anti-abortion legislation goes through!
NO. NO NO NO. THIS IS NOT WHAT JESUS WANTS FROM YOU. THIS IS NOT WHAT JESUS WOULD DO.
These politicians are now trying to convince us that a mass migration of poor and desperate souls fleeing danger in their homeland for a slightly more hopeful chance in our country are a dangerous invasion that must be stopped with military force. WHAAAAAAT? It's stupid, bewilderingly stupid, for one thing, but for another thing where do you honestly believe Jesus would stand on this matter, were He here to remark upon it? He doesn't NEED to be here, we already HAVE His words on the subject. "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."
BASIC CHRISTIANITY, here. Basic Christianity calls us to stand up to the Pharisees who are quickly turning our country into a Fascist state.
Basic Christianity calls me to type this. It's kind of a scary thing. I've been working on it for over a week, and I keep running away from it-- "What if people argue with me, and I can't get my words out? What if people decide they won't listen to me anymore? What if people question my own sources of information as if I don't have a FRIGGIN' MASTERS DEGREE IN INFORMATION SCIENCE? What if...?" But I can't keep watching good people who call themselves Christian aiding and abetting --and voting for, next week-- these literal anti-Christs! So it's All Saints Day. A good day to hunker down and do it. The Christian Right has been gravely misled and is deep in crisis, because they've forgotten who Christ really is. You know, the guy who gave the Sermon on the Mount.
I'm not asking anybody to go out and encourage people to have abortions, for gosh sakes! Stay Pro-Life! But think about what Pro-Life MEANS when you take your political stands, and pay attention to what's going on, and what people who've been manipulating you for political ends have actually been saying! Look objectively at these people and see the truth before it's too late.
Kids and I are reading the Young Wizards series now. Such a powerful statement, the Wizard's Oath, and when I'm reading it out loud to the kids it's like, watch it, those are words of power, a serious prayer, a vow before God, or, in this series' terminology, The Powers That Be. But I answer myself, That's only a problem if I don't mean it. And I mean this. I believe in the Wizard's Oath. I will do my best to live it even if I don't have literal magic powers. Whatever human powers I do have must be used in the service of Life.
I've discussed this before, in earlier posts I don't feel like looking up to link to, but I was raised Pro-Life, in every sense of the word. Anti-abortion, yes, but also pro-environmentalist, pacifist, anti-death-penalty, guarding growth and easing pain, as the wizards say. I believe in the Positive, as I've said in another earlier post somewhere, I believe in What Is.
Now when I was younger, and a bit sheltered and naïve, I had no problem embracing the Pro-Life Movement as it was defined by my Church, with my grandma and aunts and cousins who were all deeply involved in it. Then I got older and began to notice problems, most importantly that laws against abortion didn't actually prevent abortions, they just made abortions more dangerous. It seemed to me (and still does seem to me) that more abortions could be prevented not by changing the laws, but by changing people's minds about having them. And that involves giving them options, giving them the means to raise their babies safely or finding other trustworthy people to do so. It means giving mothers the actual means to survive in this unfair world.
There was a bit of a hiccup in the Church's Pro-Life stand, that I didn't fully appreciate until I was married, in that the Church's multi-part issues of Pro-Lifeness included a stand against birth control, and you know what? PREVENTING pregnancy is an awfully good way to prevent UNWANTED pregnancies, and therefore abortions. I can see how the birth-control prohibition fits in the Pro-Life philosophy, because let's make all the life we can, yay, except that it's not practical, and the implication that maybe you shouldn't have so much sex then is unfair, particularly when your partner wants it more than you, and darn it, at least you're not KILLING anything! But this is just the start.
Because, apart from that hiccup, there were other prohibitions in the Church's Pro-Life stand that seemed to be curiously forgotten by the Republican lawmakers who claimed to be Pro-Life, like the prohibition against capital punishment. I'd hear political ads that contradicted themselves in the same sentence: "I'm Pro-Life, and I support the death penalty for violent offenders!" Dude, you're not Pro-Life, you're anti-abortion. It's different. That's not even mentioning the people who bomb abortion clinics, which is nearly ironic as you can get.
But currently the discord between Pro-Life-as-in-believing-the-Wizard's-Oath vs. Pro-Life-the-Political-Movement-to-Overturn-Roe-vs-Wade has reached levels so painful I am screaming inside, screaming that my loving, genuinely good-hearted relatives still support the most anti-Christian politicians possible just because said politicians have so twisted the Pro-Life movement with propaganda, just because said politicians give so much lip service to their own "Christianity." They've come to trust Fox News because it tells them what they want to hear, and not the truth that exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees of the Christian Right.
And even when faced with the truth? That these so-called "Christian" politicians are adulterers and rape-apologists, that they applaud the accumulation of wealth before the safety and well-being of the huddled masses, that they're applauded by and often are themselves white supremacists and neo-Nazis, that they separate families and hold children custody, that they tell bald-faced, easily-disprovable lies and commit treason? Well, those are just downsides we'll have to accept, as long as that anti-abortion legislation goes through!
NO. NO NO NO. THIS IS NOT WHAT JESUS WANTS FROM YOU. THIS IS NOT WHAT JESUS WOULD DO.
These politicians are now trying to convince us that a mass migration of poor and desperate souls fleeing danger in their homeland for a slightly more hopeful chance in our country are a dangerous invasion that must be stopped with military force. WHAAAAAAT? It's stupid, bewilderingly stupid, for one thing, but for another thing where do you honestly believe Jesus would stand on this matter, were He here to remark upon it? He doesn't NEED to be here, we already HAVE His words on the subject. "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."
BASIC CHRISTIANITY, here. Basic Christianity calls us to stand up to the Pharisees who are quickly turning our country into a Fascist state.
Basic Christianity calls me to type this. It's kind of a scary thing. I've been working on it for over a week, and I keep running away from it-- "What if people argue with me, and I can't get my words out? What if people decide they won't listen to me anymore? What if people question my own sources of information as if I don't have a FRIGGIN' MASTERS DEGREE IN INFORMATION SCIENCE? What if...?" But I can't keep watching good people who call themselves Christian aiding and abetting --and voting for, next week-- these literal anti-Christs! So it's All Saints Day. A good day to hunker down and do it. The Christian Right has been gravely misled and is deep in crisis, because they've forgotten who Christ really is. You know, the guy who gave the Sermon on the Mount.
I'm not asking anybody to go out and encourage people to have abortions, for gosh sakes! Stay Pro-Life! But think about what Pro-Life MEANS when you take your political stands, and pay attention to what's going on, and what people who've been manipulating you for political ends have actually been saying! Look objectively at these people and see the truth before it's too late.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-02 05:36 pm (UTC)From:There was a priest at my childhood church when I was in high school and college who really pissed off some folks. During one of his homilies, he pointed out the hypocrisy of calling yourself pro-life if all you care about is abortion. He was mostly going after the death penalty, but he threw in a few other things, too, that really riled folks up. He's still my favorite. He left right before we got married and I was bummed because I had wanted him to do our ceremony.
One of the more infamous cases of pro-life violence happened here with the killing of Dr. Slepian. The local paper just covered the anniversary within the past couple of weeks. He lived in the neighborhood that we just moved out of. James Kopp hid in the woods behind his house at night and shot him through his kitchen window as he stood in front of the sink. I often thought of him when I'd be in front of my kitchen window at night, looking out into the dark woods behind our house. It makes me kind of glad that there are no longer woods behind my kitchen window.