Dr. Donald Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, wrote the following in his August, 1999, issue of the AFA Journal. With good reason, his son, Tim, reprinted it in the current June, 2011 issue. I am so struck with its aptness back then, its appropriateness still, and Dr. Wildmon’s prescience that I couldn’t resist reprinting it yet again.  (emphasis mine)

In 1973 The Supreme Court said it was OK to kill unborn babies. Since then, we have killed more than the entire population of Canada. And it continues.   A woman’s choice? Half of those who have died in their mothers’ wombs have been women. They didn’t have a choice. It is called abortion.
Me? I go to church, the minister preaches, I go home. That’s what Christians do now.

First it was in dingy, dirty theaters. Then, convenience stores. Then, grocery stores.Then on television. Now it is in the homes of millions via the Internet. It is called pornography.
Me? I go to church, the minister preaches, I go home. That’s what Christians do now.

They called it no-fault. Why should we blame anyone when something so tragic happens. Haven’t they already suffered enough? Half of the marriages in America end this way. The children suffered. The family broke down. It is called divorce.
Me? I go to church, the minister preaches, I go home. That’s what Christians do now.

At one time it was a perversion. We kept it secret. We secured help and hope for those who practiced it. Now it is praised. We have parades celebrating it, and elected officials give it their blessing. Now it is endowed with special privileges and protected by special laws. Even some Christian leaders and denominations praise it. It is called homosexuality.
Me? I go to church, the minister preaches, I go home. That’s what Christians do now.

It used to be an embarrassment. A shame. Now a third of all births are to mothers who aren’t married. Two-thirds of all African-American children are born into a home without a father. The state usually pays the tab. That is why we pay our taxes, so that government can take the place of parents. After all, government bureaucrats know much better how to raise children than parents do. It is called illegitimacy.
Me? I go to church, the minister preaches, I go home. That’s what Christians do now.

At one time it was wrong. But then the state decided to legalize it, promote it and tax it. It has ripped apart families and destroyed lives. But just look at all the money the state has raised. No longer do we have to teach our children to study and work hard. Now we teach them they can get something for nothing. We spend millions encouraging people to join the fun and excitement. Just look at the big sums that people are winning. They will never have to work again! It is called gambling.
Me? I go to church, the minister preaches, I go home. That’s what Christians do now.

Not long ago, Christians were the good guys. But now any positive image of Christians
in movies or on TV is gone. We are now depicted as the bad guys – greedy, narrowminded hypocrites. The teacher can’t have a Bible on her desk, but can have Playboy. We don’t have Christmas and Easter holidays – just winter and spring break. We can’t pray in school, but can use foul language. It’s called being tolerant.
Me? I go to church, the minister preaches, I go home. That’s what Christians do now.

Yes, all these things came to pass within 30 years. Where were the Christians? Why, they were in church. All these things are for someone else to deal with. Times have changed. Involvement has been replaced by apathy. Don’t blame me. I didn’t do anything.
I go to church. The minister preaches. I go home. That’s what Christians do now.

As I mentioned in my last post about my new cell phone, coping with a new, fancy phone is not for the faint of heart or chronologically challenged. I think I have, I pray I have, just finished updating my Easy Minutes plan for the new phone, as well as providing my new Visa card number. It may have been too much to ask of Shanda – enrolling in an air time plan AND changing my Visa card number, both on the same call. I’m sure it took well over a half-hour but Shanda was unfailingly polite and we exchanged innumerable Thank-yous and You’re-welcomes. I do hope it all went well.

I finally took a picture with my phone camera and used it for my wallpaper. Not too hard. It was a great puzzlement to me how my friends are able to upload photos from their mobile phone to Facebook. I wondered if I should go online to my Facebook page on the phone (which is not that difficult, once you hurdle the hurdle of logging in and providing a password on that teeny-tiny keyboard) and try to upload from there, much as I do on my blog. You know, they don’t tell you any of this stuff in the instructions! I still don’t know how to email with the phone (but that will be another day.) Oh, for the good old days when you emailed from your computer and made  nothing but phone calls from your phone.

Instead I went to Facebook on my computer to find out how to upload photos and it gave me an email address for that. I had to figure out for myself that it was an email address, because it had an @ in the middle and a dot.com at the end. What to do with it was the question!!! Eventually I noted that when I entered contact numbers on my phone there was a space for email addresses and I put the FB address there. I wrote a little message, “inserted” an image of Stanley, and sent it to FB. Twice, I guess. Because there are now on my FB page two photos of Stanley. I haven’t a clue as to what happened to the accompanying message.

So you see, I’m a work in progress. Let’s see if I can show you Stanley, who is 92, and just this morning prayed three rosaries and a Divine Mercy chaplet up by the hospital where we pray to stop abortion twice a week. He truly deserved that rest.

Now, if you find Stanley’s picture on my Facebook page, you can click on it, it will fill the whole screen, you can see Stan’s smile and read his sign. BUT if you click on the one on this blog, it does NOTHING! Someday, perhaps, someone will explain that to me.

It’s a good thing I accumulated lots of minutes when I had my old cell phone because most of my long calls were on my Magic Jack (much cheaper!) Otherwise I might be worried about frittering away so many minutes playing around, experimenting around, trying to figure how things work. And failing, time and time again! I wonder how long it will take before my LG900G is no longer a fascinating toy but a willing and cooperative executor of my every command.

And here, just because I can, is a photo of our snowball bush is full glory. The lilacs have just petered out — each has its own season. You see how it is? Every day I learn something.

And that’s enough learning for one day. The brain is feeling the strain! Maybe someday I’ll give Stanley the “snowball treatment.” Not now.

A & J, husband-and-wife Jehovah’s Witnesses, have been coming to talk with me on Saturday mornings for three weeks now. They are lovely people, trying to follow Jesus, and that alone makes them friends. This past week they left me a little booklet, What Does the Bible Really Teach, and I have started to read it.

Offhand, I can think of three reasons for doing this: First, these are nice people, fellow Christians, deserving of a hearing and worthy of respect. Second, they make me, as a Catholic, rethink what I believe and why. Third, as a person who can’t remember chapters and verses, it helps me become more familiar with what is in my Bible. We will probably all learn something from this encounter.

Today I ran into why the Jehovah’s witnesses call themselves by that name. It is true, as they say, that the Hebrew scriptures use Jehovah as the proper name of God 7000 times, but it is many times translated as Lord. Though the King James bible most often translates the tetragrammaton as “LORD”, Psalm 83:18 is one of the several occurrences in which it is translated as “JEHOVAH”.
Wikipedia lists 7 biblical translations of this verse, five of which translate the tetragrammaton as Jehovah or Yahweh; the remainder (as well as my Douay version) use Lord. The Geneva bible, 1560, uses a form of Jehovah.
The tetragrammaton is the four Hebrew letters corresponding to YHWH (see below):

According to Jewish Orthodox tradition, the Sacred Name is not to be uttered and accordingly, the form “G-d ” is used in writing or printing. In place of pronouncing the Sacred Name in prayer, worship and discussion, the form “Adonai” (the Hebrew for ‘Lord’) is used.

Reading just a few pages of their little booket assures me that Jehovah’s Witness believe many of the things that we Catholics believe, but there are important differences, some I have discovered already, and some in later pages yet unread. It disturbs me that Jesus’ last prayer (KJ version, John 17:21) reads: That all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

What I hope to learn in these meetings is why the founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses decided to take scriptures which were declared inspired by the Catholic Church and start yet another church – why the Witnesses think that their interpretation of the Bible is more accurate, true, believable, than that of the early church fathers and current Catholic scholars. I understand, too, that Jehovah’s witnesses have their own translation of the Bible and I hope to learn something of the qualifications of those who rendered that translation.

However, it is fine with the me if they want to call God, the Father, Jehovah. I might even do it myself occasionally – when I’m not using his other Hebrew name, Abba.

Keep tuned for further thoughts and insights on Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Months later:

Alas, after a number of very interesting sessions with my JW couple, they were transferred to another area. I miss them a lot and enjoyed them very much. Rather than delete all the material I have accumulated over these weeks, I have decided to put it all in one post so I (or anyone else) can find them easily.

BIBLICAL QUOTES TO DISPROVE THE BELIEFS OF THE JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
by Christine McCabe on Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 10:02pm

THE DIVINITY OF JESUS
1. In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God. (Jn 1:1)
2. He spoke of God as His own Father, and so made Himself God’s equal. (Jn 5:18)
3. “I tell you most solemnly, before Abraham ever was, I Am.” (Jn 8:58).  (“This,” he added, “is what you must say to the sons of Israel: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’) (Ex 3:14)
4. “The Father and I are one.” (Jn 10:30)
5. “If you know Me, you know My Father too. From this moment you know Him and have seen Him.: (Jn 14:7)
6. “Doubt no longer but believe.” Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28)
7. He is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of His nature, sustaining the universe by His powerful command. (Heb 1:3)
8. He makes His angels winds and His servants flames of fire, but to His Son He says: “God, your throne shall last for ever and ever.” (Heb 1:8)
9. While we are waiting in hope for the blessing which will come with the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus. (Titus 2:13)
10. His state was divine, yet He did not cling to His equality with God…  (Phil 2:6)
11. In His body lives the fullness of divinity… (Col 2:9)
12. For there is a child born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him: Wonder Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. (Is 9:6)
13. A voice cries, “Prepare in the wilderness a way for Yahweh. Make a straight highway for our God across the desert. (Is 40:3)
14. “Before me every knee shall bend, by me every tongue shall swear,…”  (Is 45:23)
15. But God raised him high and gave him the name which is above all other names so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord… (Phil 2:9-11)

THE GLORY OF GOD/JESUS
1. “My name is Yahweh, I will not yield my glory to another… (Is 42:8)
2. “Never will I yield My glory to another.” (Is 48:11)
Although God has said He will not yield His glory to another, read the following:
3. “Now, Father, it is time to glorify me with that glory I had with you
before the world ever was.” (Jn 5:5)
4. “Go on growing in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory, in time and in eternity.” (2Peter 3:18)  Therefore, Jesus must also be God as well.

JESUS AND GOD THE SAVIOR

1. “I, I am Yahweh, there is no other savior but Me.” (Is 43:11)
2. “Yet I am Yahweh, your God since the days in the land of Egypt; you know no God but Me, there is no other savior.”
3. “He does not lie and so, at the appointed time, he revealed His decision, and, by the command of God our savior, I have been commissioned to proclaim it.” (Titus 1:3)
4. “To Titus, true child of mine in the faith that we share, wishing you grace and peace from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Savior.”  (Titus 1:4)
5. “But when the kindness and love of God our savior for mankind were revealed, it was not because he was concerned with any righteous actions we might have done ourselves; it was for no reason except his own compassion that he saved us, by means of the cleansing water of rebirth and by renewing us with the Holy Spirit which he has so generously poured over
us through Jesus Christ our Savior.” (Titus 3:4-6)
6. “From Simon Peter, servant and apostle of Jesus Christ; to all who treasure the same faith as ourselves, given through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2Peter 1:1)

THE JUDGE
1. “For the Father judges no one; he has entrusted all judgment to the Son.”  (Jn 5:22)
2. “Fear God and praise him, for the time has come for him to sit in judgment; worship the maker of heaven and earth and sea and every water spring.”  (Rev 14:7)

THE WORSHIP OF GOD/JESUS
1. “You must worship the Lord your God, and serve Him alone.” (Mt 4:10)
2. And as they got into the boat the wind dropped. The men in the boat bowed down before him and said, “Truly you are the Son of God.”  (Mt 14:33)
3. When He brings the First-born into the world, He says: “Let all the angels  of God worship him.” (Heb 1:6)
4. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “Sir,” the man replied, “tell me who he is so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said, “You are looking at him; he is speaking to you.” The man said, “Lord, I believe,” and worshipped him.” (Jn 9:38)

THE FIRST AND THE LAST
1. Thus says Israel’s king and his redeemer, Yahweh Sabaoth: I am the first and the last; there is no other God besides me. (Is 44:6)
2. “Listen to me, Jacob, Israel whom I have called: I am the first, I am also the last.” (Is 48:12)
3. He touched me with his right hand and said, “Do not be afraid: it is I, the First and the Last; I am the Living One, I was dead and now I am to live for ever, and I hold the keys of death and of the underworld.” (Rev 1:17)i
4. “Write to the angel of the church in Smyrna and say, ‘Here is the message of the First and the Last, who was dead and has come to life again;  (Rev 2:8)
5. “Very soon now, I shall be with you again, bringing the reward to be given to every man according to what he deserves. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

GOD/JESUS CREATOR

1. Through all the ages, this has been kept hidden in God, the creator of everything. (Eph 3:9)
2. “I, myself, Yahweh, made all things, I alone spread out the heavens.”  ( Is 44:24)
3. “My hand laid the foundations of earth and my right hand spread out the heavens.” (Is 48:13)
4. “He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him.” (Jn 1:2-3)

THE TRINITY
1. God said, Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves…  (Gen 1:26)
2. “Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” (Mt 28:19)
3. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (2 Cor 13:13)

GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT

Jehovah’s Witness teach that the Holy Spirit is a force. They deny that He is alive, that He is a person, just as they deny the whole Trinity. If the Holy Spirit is simply a force then…
1. Why is He called God?
“Ananias,” Peter said, “how can Satan have so possessed you that you should lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the money from the land? While you still owned the land, wasn’t it yours to keep, and after you had sold it wasn’t the money yours to do with as you liked? What put this scheme into your mind? It is not to men that you have lied, but to God.”  (Acts 5:3-5)
2. How is it that He can teach?
“… but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you.  (Jn 14:26)
3. How can He be blasphemed?  “And so I tell you, every one of men’s sins and blasphemies will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”  (Mt 12:31,32)
4. How is it possible for Him to speak?  Paul had one last thing to say to them, “How aptly the Holy Spirit spoke when He told your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah:…” (Acts 28:25)
5. How can He be grieved?
“Let your words be for the improvement of others, as occasion offers, and do good to your listeners, otherwise you will only be grieving the Holy Spirit of God who has marked you with his seal for you to be set free when the day comes.”
6. How can He help us in our weakness?
“The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pay properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words… (Rom 8:30)

THE RESURRECTION – HIS/OURS

1. He said to them, “Peace be with you,” and showed them his hands and his side. (Jn 20:20)
2. “Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me you hand; put them into my side. Doubt no longer but believe.” (Jn 20:27)
3. Jesus answered, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.”  The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary: are you going to raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this… (Jn 2:20-22)
4. “Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts?  Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I indeed. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this he showed them his hands and feet. Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, and they stood there dumbfounded; so he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” And they offered him a piece of grilled fish, which he took, and ate before their eyes.
5. If there is no resurrection of the dead, Christ himself cannot have been raised, and if Christ has not been raised then our perching is useless and your believing is useless; (1 Cor 15:13-14)
6. “For us, our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes the Savior we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body. (Phil 3:21)

THE SOUL

1. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell.” (Mt 10:28)
2. “I saw the souls of all who had been beheaded for having witnessed for Jesus
and for having preached God’s word…” (Rev 20:4)

ETERNAL HELL
1. In his torment in Hades he looked up and saw Abraham a long way off with Lazarus in his bosom… “for I am in agony in these flames.”  (Lk 16:23,25)
2. Of those who lie sleeping in the dust of the earth many will awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace. (Dan 12:2)
3. “He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.” (Mt 3:12)
4. “It is better for you to enter into life cripple or lame, then to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.” (Mt 18:8)
5. “All those who worship the beast and his statue, or have had themselves branded on the hand or forehead, will be made to drink the wine of God’s fury which is ready, undiluted, in his cup of anger; in fire and brimstone they will be tortured in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb, and the smoke of their torture will go up for ever and ever. There will be no respite, night or day,…

PURGATORY

1. “I tell you solemnly, you will not get out till you have paid the last  penny.” (Mt 5:26)
2. “And anyone who says a word against the Holy Spirit and he will not be forgiven either in this world or in the next.” (Mt 12:32)
3. For if he had not expected the fallen to rise again it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead… (2 Macc 12:44)

“You study the scriptures, believing that in them you have eternal life; now these same scriptures testify to me, and yet you refuse to come to me for life!” (Jn 5:39)

My thanks to Christine McCabe who did the thorough and scholarly bible search above.
(emphasis mine).

I can’t say anything bad about my old Nokia 1100 cell phone. It has served me well for years – and even got better over the years as improvements were apparently downloaded every now and then. It worked. It was cheap. It was simple. It was apparently unbreakable. It didn’t take pictures, or browse the internet but when I wanted to call someone, even across states, it was there and ready. I part with it somewhat sadly, as with an old friend.

Enter LG900G. I could have it for $40. The monthly charge would stay the same. But, oh, the possibilities! It has a voice recorder, FM radio, a camera and a video camera, and an organizer. I was told I could store quantities of contacts and music, I could surf the internet! I don’t have a clue as to what its capacity really is. I could have a “smart phone” for only $40! I thought it was time for this old lady to treat herself and to move on up to the big time. I succumbed.

It came. Putting in the battery and the back cover went easily enough. Then I plugged it in to charge. It lit up and told me it was charging and activation was required. So far, so good. So pretty.

Activation was something else. I could activate my new phone on my computer or by phone. I wanted the number of my old phone transferred to the new one, as well as the minutes I already had. I liked the anonymity of doing it on-line so I could take my own sweet time to figure things out and not tax anyone’s patience. It did not go well, in part because I started out using my wrong email address, wondering why they would not recognize me. Eventually it was suggested that if I was having problems I could “call this number.”

I got this guy from Ghana with an accent, using a kind of stilted pre-programed English. I had to keep asking him to repeat himself as he gave me directions as to what I should be doing with my old phone. Push this, push that, see the little box that says code? Now in that box put in #*3#2 or some strange combination of numbers and symbols, and push OK. When the box said “code accepted” is seemed like some sort of miracle. We went through that little routine once more, and got another “code accepted” in spite of his language difficulties and my hearing difficulties. All in all, it was a challenging, patience-trying experience.

So there I was, with the minutes gone from my old phone, no time on the new phone, and just the assurance that sometime in the new two business days the new phone would be activated. In actuality, it took only about 24 hours when my new phone started carrying on in my pocket and it announced that I had some 700 minutes of air time and my coverage would not expire until 2012.

Getting a new cell phone is not for the weak of heart. Or the technically challenged. Next thing you know the thing rang. I pushed the wrong button and ended the call. They left a voice mail! What to do? Look in the booklet. Push 1, hold it down. Well, it has one of those querty keypads with numbers all mixed up in it. I had to figure out which were numbers and which were letters. I didn’t know where to put my ear when someone started talking.

I was delighted to find out that I already had one loaded app – Facebook, of all things. In a fit of hubris I said OK to Facebook. I was warned that if I went online it would cost me minutes but I felt adventurous. Facebook login came up. I got as far as “babydot@” and I couldn’t find an @ key. And when it wanted my password, I couldn’t figure out how to switch from letters to numbers! So much for my first sally into “smart phoning.”

My LG900G and I have been getting to know each other for two days now. I found the @. I found the thing to switch to numbers from letters. I even found the key to make spaces between my words. I learned how to enter my contacts and spent quite a while doing that. Then I actually called my doctor and communicated my desire to change an appointment. Oh, the wonders of my new phone. But still, so much to learn. I know it has a camera and will take pictures. I don’t dare try. Not quite yet. For a while my LG900G and I are just going to take it easy and gradually become friends.

If there is anyone out there who would care to mentor me in this new relationship, I sure could use the help!

I stole the video. I stole the title. Just wanted to repeat once more the unvarnished truth — cohabitation sucks. It demeans women. It demands contraception, otherwise known as fertility poison. It threatens children with permanent instability, if there be such a thing. How can we have fallen for this scam? SUCKERS!!!

Two years ago I wrote a post titled Mortimer Adler, Catholic.  Dr. Adler, born Jewish, became a Christian in 1983 and finally two years before his death in 1999, at the age of 97, formally entered the Catholic church. Dr. Adler has long been my model of rigorous reasoning and intellectual integrity.

Having just finished reading My Journey to the Land of More, I chose a similar title for this post on Leona Choy, who just before her 80th birthday became a Catholic.  While the conversion of Leona Choy to Catholicism in her old age may not be as newsworthy as the conversion of the “world’s best paid philosopher,” it is also because of rigorous reasoning and her book is a mighty good read.

Leona was born into Protestant Christianity, was baptized as a baby, and “can’t recall any time in my growing years when I ever deliberately rejected anything that I had heard about God and Jesus and the Bible. I always eagerly sought for more.”    From the beginning, she loved Jesus, sought to do God’s will, and says over and over again, “God had his hand on my life.”  “My desire as long as I can remember has been to listen to and obey the leading of the Holy Spirit.”

She writes:

I was already in my late seventies.  As a lifetime Christian I figured that I knew most of what there was to know about the Christian faith and life.  I am not a beginner; in fact, I am an “ender.”  I am chronologically challenged, as some say, since most of my life is behind me.  I am a veteran Christian because I have had a personal relationship with Jesus since my youth.  I have lived a full and satisfying life of learning, service, relationships, family, and a long career in Christian ministry.  I had no complaint, no dissatisfaction; I was thankful to God for his lavish love and generous blessings.  I have had a wonderful life! . . . .  I was the wife of a minister for forty-six years.  We cofounded a para-church mission organization and a Chinese church in our nation’s capital.  I have written and published many books, established a publishing company, and I am president of a  Christian radio station.

When Leona published  her autobiography in her seventies,  she, with good reason, thought it was  a wrap!

It was about this time when Leona’s old friend,  Arlene,  announced that she had become a Catholic.  Amazed, bewildered, Leona sought to enlighten Arlene and set her straight.  She wrote her a 27-paragraph letter telling her what was wrong with the Catholic church.  It takes a really informed Protestant to come up with that many arguments against Catholicism!  Thinking her faith unshakeable,  she says,  “I felt that I should honestly examine Catholic doctrines firsthand, not from hearsay, so I could discredit their fallacies and delusions.” She knew God’s hand was on her life and God  would help  her with discernment.

Leona goes step by step, always seeking God’s truth and God’s help, bringing scriptures to bear on each point, and demolishing her objections to  Catholicism one by one. It was not a journey that she wanted to make, but it turns out to be not only fascinating but convincing.  I invite you to follow along with her on her Journey to the Land of More.
Leona’s Journey

(As a bonus, she writes some good poetry, too.)

~~~

“My chief reason for choosing Christianity was because the mysteries were incomprehensible. What’s the point of revelation if we could figure it out ourselves? If it were wholly comprehensible, then it would just be another philosophy.” — Mortimer Adler

Mother’s Day, and of course I’m musing, as Grandmas do. I’m going back to 1947, I’ve been married three months, and I think I may be pregnant. Well, I knew that could happen if I got married. There was no birth control pill back then and I wouldn’t have used them anyway, because I knew I wanted children “someday.” It seemed “someday” had arrived and we were all right with that. We had figured out how to do the “sex” thing and apparently we were doing the “baby” thing, too. Not bad for amateurs!

I was about two months along when I started to have some slight bleeding which I thought might indicate an imminent miscarriage. What really surprised me was that I started to cry! I had not realized that I was already invested in this baby. I didn’t know that I cared much at that point whether I was pregnant or not. Another thing that also surprised me, after the bleeding stopped and I was still pregnant, was how miffed I was when my plans to go shopping for yarn to make a baby afghan had to be postponed. I wanted to start that afghan NOW – it was going to be made of pink and blue crocheted squares, stitched together, backed with flannel, and bound with satin ribbon. But not next week – NOW! How strongly the nesting instinct had kicked in!

All this musing was prompted by a MercatorNet article, What Price Baby Bliss? which dealt with the desire for babies, “reproductive technology,” and the pain of childlessness. It is an excellent, thought-provoking article but it does not deal with something that comes up especially on Mother’s Day – the pain of having been pregnant but terminating that pregnancy with abortion. It is becoming more and more obvious with the appearance of the Silent No More and Rachel’s Vineyard ministries that abortion wounds a woman in her deepest self.

Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave writes:

As I get ready to celebrate Mother’s Day with my children and grandchildren, I cannot help but think of the hundreds of thousands of women for whom this day is not a time to celebrate the joys of motherhood.

Instead of enjoying their child’s embrace, those women will be thinking about what and who might have been—how their lives would be different. For those women, Mother’s Day may be one of the hardest of the year.

My heart goes out to those women, it breaks for them. Those mothers—because they always will be mothers—had their children ripped away from them, somehow convinced that abortion would “solve the problem.” I hope you will join me in taking just a minute of time on bended knee today to pray for them that they might find comfort in God’s healing power and love.

Once a woman becomes pregnant, very powerful hormones kick in. As a bird starts to build a nest when an egg in on the way, so a woman, without even knowing it, gets ready not only in her body but in her mind, for the coming baby. As the mother bunny lines the nest with fur plucked from her belly, so the woman thinks cradle and baby clothes and pink and blue afghans. Why does Planned Parenthood not want the pregnant woman to see the ultrasound? Because everything in her would rise against hurting this wee son or daughter that is dependent on her and she can’t go through with the abortion.

When it comes to sex, we seem to be actually hardwired. You don’t imagine, do you, that Adam and Eve needed instructions on  how to “be fruitful and multiply?” If you don’t believe in the Adam and Eve stuff, you know that Emmeline and Michael  in the Blue Lagoon discovered how to “make out” and nurse their baby without a “how-to” book.   (Yes, the Blue Lagoon is fiction but you know perfectly well that in real life the same thing would happen, don’t you?) Those hormones and that hardwiring cannot be turned off like a faucet. There is usually grieving for the baby that is miscarried but often everlasting remorse for the baby that is destroyed by “choice.” It goes against everything womanly in a woman.

On this Mother’s Day, I pray for all mothers but especially those with empty aching arms whether by chance or by choice. Lord, help us to appreciate the gift of life and the blessing that is a baby.

Spring Street in Danbury is only a block long, running from New Street at the east end, to Beaver Street on the west.  When we bought our house on Spring Street in 1962 it cost $10,000.  My parents made a $1000 down-payment and we were to take care of the $87/month mortgage.  It was on a good sized piece of land and was half-way down the block, upper Spring Street being the nice part of the street and lower Spring Street the seedy part.

In 1982 Dorothy Day Hospitality House opened on lower Spring Street.  As Professor Paul Hines of WestConn tells the story, the winter had been very severe in 1981 and some folks had broken into a railroad car seeking shelter and had started a fire.  Some of the alumni of the Catholic Worker, including Leo McIlrath and Hines,  held a meeting thinking something needed to be done about the plight of the homeless.    Leo was busy with the Senior Center and Paul, with his wife Dr. Ann Hines,  had both  a pediatric clinic and a new baby.  Still,  meetings continued and the number of people wanting to be of help  grew.  They found the current building on Spring Street, central and available,  but had no money for the rental.  A 90- year-old lady on Social Security started a collection with $5.  They then remembered Father Giuliani* at the Benedictine Grange in Redding  had just inherited some money and he was willing to contribute $2000.  Dorothy Day Hospitality  House was off and running! For almost 30 years it has offered food and shelter to hundreds daily with nothing but volunteer help.  As Leo said at the beginning, “If God wants it, it will happen.”

Over the years Spring Street has been well known by the homeless, the hungry, drug traffickers, pimps and prostitutes.   It is also known for its octagonal house which was built in 1852 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.  My own house was built in 1870 – my original bathtub still has its legs and we sometimes pull funny square nails out of old planks when doing repairs.

There used to be three churches on Spring Street’s one block.  Two of them,  a Spanish Pentecostal church and a black church, which might be described as of the store-front variety, were on lower Spring St. and a fancy brick-and-mortar Lutheran Church with steeple and chimes was on upper Spring St.   In 1986 it occurred to me that it would be nice if the three churches got together and sponsored a block party so we could all get to know one another.  I broached the subject to Mrs. Larsen, wife of the Lutheran pastor, and she liked the idea right away.   We went up and down the street and talked to every family, inviting them to come and contribute.   I also spoke to Father Carew, then a priest at St. Joseph’s on Main Street, and he agreed to ask the band (Outpouring) at the Community of the Cross to play at the party.   The police blocked the street off, people brought food, the band played and the church chimes rang.  A good time was had by all.  The block party was repeated for two subsequent years.  I met Kneesie, homeless, pregnant,and a drug addict,  at that first block  party, and she came to live with me for a few months after her baby was born.

Just this year Jericho Partnership with headquarters on nearby Rose Street, formed an alliance with the Lutheran Church on Spring Street to use their facilities to further their outreach to women in crisis pregnancies, at-risk youth, the homeless and the needy – “if you have a problem, we have a program for it.”  One of their objectives is to “clean up” Spring Street, and they have my hearty approval.

Last week  members of Jericho once more hosted a little party on Spring Street, complete with hot dogs, soda, snacks, music and a blocked-off street.  It was a small start but a welcome one.  The best part was the witness of  four men who told about their sorry history, what God had done for them, and how long they have been clean and productive.

God is still alive and working on Spring Street  – Hallelujah

*It came as a surprise to me that Father Giuliani, who made such an  important donation, and I are “related” in that he is the brother of my long-time best friend, Felice, about whom I blogged just a few days ago.

~~~

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.  – Isaiah 43:19

Unaccustomed as we are to the techniques of photoshoppers, forgers, and forensic investigators we can only look at the evidence presented and try to figure things out. Welcome to the evidence. We know, at the start, that a president that promises transparency does not spend millions to prevent his long form birth certificate from being shown. Something is very fishy. What is he so determined to hide? And why?

Obama has no option but to make light of the whole birth certificate issue. He says we have more important things to deal with, but here, at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, someone went to a lot of trouble of prepare Obama’s little talk.

It seems that Trump’s inquiring about Obama’s birth certificate prompted the appearance of the long-awaited long form. I wonder what will come forth after the release on May 17 of Jerome Corsi’s new book Where’s the Birth Certificate: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President. It is already #1 on Amazon.

Time will tell. Personally, I hope Donald Trump realizes that I am counting on him for a final verdict on the “birther” issue. Why do I expect more truth from Trump than from Obama?

Donald Trump on our teflon President:

Related:

Critics argue Obama long form birth certificate is fake

Is Obama’s “birth certificate” a  fake?

Why does Obama have two different birth doctors?

pdf of birth certificate released April 2011

Obama Using Stolen Connecticut SS number

Further expert analysis of Obama documents

Ex-CIA expert claims document forgery

Final report, expert evidence of photoshopped certificate:PDF

This video is the last thing I will post on this subject. SNOPES and FACT CHECK both contend Obama’s birth certificate is valid.

Later. Changed my mind. Expert photoshops similar certificate:
http://patriotupdate.com/13452/forged-creation-matches-obamas-birth-certificate

Also found this video!!!

Corsi/Breitbart, Sherif Joe Arpaio Cold Case Posse

Sarah Jane Roberts writes the story behind this video  in the  YouTube description:

One day I was cooking dinner in my kitchen, and I felt a burden for the babies around the world that never have a chance to live their lives because of abortion. I prayed at that moment about how I could make a difference with the limited time and energy that I had, having four children of my own including a newborn. I felt compelled by the Lord to be a voice for these babies using my own voice…I sat at my piano and as I wept, these are the words and the music that flowed from that moment. I asked God to tell me what these babies would want to say if they had a voice…”You named me no one, but I wanted to be known.”

From: Live Action

On the other hand, this Pampers advertisement calls each baby a miracle.