This is an emotional weekend for most pro-life advocates in the bay area. Pro-life what does that mean? Well in the popular culture it means we value the life of the baby in the womb. We value him/her at the moment of conception as a life. Can he/she survive on its own? No. But neither can a baby after it's born. She/he still needs her/his mother/caretaker or they will die, and they are dependent for quite some time.
But I argue pro-life means valuing EVERY life. Planned, unplanned, down sydrome, criminal, Muslim, gay...the list is endless. The moment we say one life can be ended because of xyz we become a Conditional Pro-Life movement. I recently saw Les Miserables..the movie. I had seen the play many years before. As much as we love the moral, we shirk the responsibility of what it means to be a Christian.
When we advocate for a criminal whether it's a Jew in hiding in Nazi Germany or in a small Church where a priest líes to defend a thief, the message is the same. It is not about man's law. It is all about valuing LIFE. It's not about the second amendment and the real roots of why that came to be. It's about why is someone else's life worth less?
We make judgements about whose life is worth less..and when we do that we make God's pinacle creation worthless. We are humans capable of great good and yet evil is present in us. Do we condemn our Creator for giving us that condition and freedom? Every time we judge one being less than another, every time we want to control people so that they don't end a pregnancy or don't go to war or don't have the right to guns, we deny our God given right to choose.
Of course there are and should be laws---but in the end if love/God weighed the most in our individual decisions, we would not be fighting for this or that as much as we do. We would always be PRO-LIFE -- FOR pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-peace, occupy wallstreet, pro-life, NRA, Just War, Free market (the labels never end)advocates. Because in the end we all have LIFE, the gift we as Christians believe God gave us, and that is this what it means to be PRO-LIFE.
God bless us as we struggle to live out what our hearts dictate. God bless us with courage and confidence to love when it is most difficult. God bless ALL life...no matter how it is created, in what stage or the choices we judge it makes.
When we judge human life and all the varied forms...we judge God--and who are we creatures to judge our Creator. HE gave us choice from the very beginning knowing we would make mistakes and yet he deemed that freedom still good. We are not called to judge people even if we have to judge positions and actions. We are called to witness and love.
Let us remember how the angel asked Mary to participate with God. It was not thru force or a threat or thru education...it was thru humble supplication. May we learn from this example.
Yes in the end most of us do not choose LIFE in some moments but that should not dishearten us. We should praise God/Love for being gracefully PRO-CHOICE because that makes the beautiful PRO-LIFE possible.
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