Hey, Michael Moore You Got Some Splainin' to Do!

In what kind of twisted world do the rights of a known terrorist who is responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent lives trump the rights of an unborn child? In Michael Moore's world, is the answer. Today, on The View , Michael Moore presented his new book. I don't know what it is about, although there is a charming picture on the cover.  But, no interview with Michael Moore is complete without asking him his opinion on the Iraq war and the fate of Osama bin Laden.  Apparently, he is the beacon of truth and honor when it comes to right to life issues.  Except when it comes to abortion.  What?! Uh, yeah. He declared with grand arm gestures, "As a catholic, it is wrong to take the life of a person unless it is in self defense!"  Good.  Me, too.  I'm right there with ya, Michael.  But when the blonde co-host asked him if that meant he was pro-life, he hesitated and mumbled and tried to recover, saying, "I'm pro-life in the sense that I don't believe you should kill people."  Good.  Me either.  Killing people is serious, wrong business.  If he was sitting next to me, I would have fist bumped him.

But, then, I heard the words..."Not when it comes to abortion."  And, Joy Behar could be heard giving an assist to the stumbling guest, by saying..."When they're alive.  When they are alive. He's pro-life when they are alive."  Okay.  Awkward.  Michael Moore is right to life when people are alive.  But that does not include abortion.  Does that mean, Michael Moore, that you came on The View today to say that Osama bin Laden deserved his day in court but these babies are not alive?

Where Were You?

I was folding a load of laundry when I got the call from my father that the first plane had hit.  I turned on the television in my bedroom quietly.  I had a toddler sleeping in the next room and I didn't want to wake her.  There I sat, with my pregnant belly, still in my bed clothes, folding laundry when I watched the second plane fly into the second tower.  I called my father back and we were mostly speechless but making comments in the form of unfinished sentences and moments of silence as we were caught in disbelief.  Then, we got news about the pentagon.  Dad said he was going to call my other siblings.  I attempted to call my husband.  I would not be able to reach him for three hours.

I never finished folding that load.

Somehow, I fed my little girl and we sat in the den that morning.  She was oblivious to the chatter on the television as she emptied the legos out of the box and clinked them together and tried to stack them.  When the images became unbearable and the panic of non-stop breaking news started to scroll across the bottom of the screen, I turned off the television and just sat with my daughter and watched her play. Occasionally, I felt the sure kick of a new life, that of my soon to be first born son.  I was aware at that point of how many moms and dads had perished.

Where were you, God?  Where were all the guardian angels to catch those people when they had to jump because the heat from the flames was far worse than the thought of plunging to their death?  Where were you, God?  Does that not enter the mind of all of us, no matter how sure or unsure we are of our faith?  And, certainly the non believers ask, where was your God on September 11, 2001? 

Where is God?  Right now.  When a child is starving.  When an earth quake strikes. 

We believe him to be omniscient.  He, and only He, has the ability to see the really big, big picture.  So, for us, mere humans, with our brains no bigger than the size of our coupled fists, it is difficult to comprehend how He could allow these things to happen.  We can't see the complete picture from all angles.  We are lacking the gift of infinite wisdom. We only know a small part of the story.  We know what we read in the bible and what is passed down through our tradition as Christians.  But, God does not really spell it all out for us.  So much of our life on earth is incomprehensible.  And it is in these times of horrific tragedy where our faith takes on a palpable shape in our lives.  At these crossroads we can either continue to walk in faith or we can walk away.  We can declare that God is dead or we can ask God what we are to do next.

We have come this far by faith.  Let us continue on in faith, despite circumstantial evidence to the contrary.  By faith, I have my second born son, Joseph. There is no other explanation for his being in this world.  Without faith, I would not have left myself open for a fifth child at the age of 43.  Each time I behold him, the thought crosses my mind that I cannot understand how this world came to be, nor how it is each day, but I know that when I trust God, my life unfolds magnificently.

Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. 

~Hebrews 11:1 

The Beauty of the Truth

I plucked a red pepper out of the garden yesterday. 
It was well formed with rounded quadrants at the top and bottom.  The skin was soft, smooth and ruby red.  The stem was perky and green and still had a leaf attached.  It had a scent of pepper mingling with sweetness.  It was simply beautiful.  It sits on my window sill and I gaze at it when I am at the sink.  I tend to put small beautiful things on my window sill.  I spend a lot of time in my kitchen and I like to surround myself with beautiful things.   Making beautiful things gives me great pleasure, too. When I cook, I am aware of the color and presentation of the food as much as the taste.  I consider the color of the platter and how it will complement my entree.  There is something about beauty, wherever it is found, that captivates us and makes us pause for a moment.  But, what is in that moment?  Why do we have beauty in our lives?

Fra Angelico was a monk who was also a painter.  I had the opportunity to explore the San Marco Monastery in Florence when I was in college.  On each dormitory wall, he had painted a fresco depicting moments in Christ's life.  I stood in the nearly empty dorms and imagined what it must have been like to awaken in this spartan room and the only thing other than walls and floor to greet the monk was a thing of beauty.  Colors and lines and symbols telling the story of our Lord.  What richness among the impoverished life of these monks!  It was as if they traded all the treasures that this natural world has to offer to live in the beauty of the eternal truth.

The life of Christ has inspired some of the most magnificent works of beauty known to man.  During my time in Florence and Rome, I was able to experience coming face to face with so much beauty.  So many gifted painters.  Not just Michelangelo and Leonardo Da vinci, but their many apprentices, too.  And not just painting, but literature, architecture, and music has also been created by man to glorify God.  We have G.K. Chesterton, Flannery O'Connor, and  Robert Southwell, to name a few, whose writing uses the beauty of language in either its poetic or reasonable tilt to tell the truth. 


By stark contrast, when beauty is absent, we find darkness, confusion, destruction and despair.  When the towers fell, ten years ago on September 11, 2001, we witnessed the opposite of creation.  We witnessed destruction.  The images that emerged from that tragic day were filled with darkness, confusion, destruction and despair.  In the same way, we pause and we are captivated.  But there is something very different that moment when we behold ugliness. When something is created to glorify God, there will be beauty.  If we really believe this to be true, we must question how war and acts of war can ever be considered acts that glorify God.  In light of the recent conflicts, Pope Benedict has said that we need to be "asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war'."  In the face of the depraved images of war, I hope we can pause and reflect on how we can resolve the problems in the world without turning to acts of war.

Since September 11, 2001, we have each done our part to restore beauty to the landscape of our life.  There are so many little ways that we can participate in God's ongoing creation.  Grow a garden, knit a scarf, paint a picture, play a song on the piano and take moments to experience beauty wherever you can find it.  And create it where it is lacking.

from New Heaven, New War

With tears He fights and wins the field,
His naked breast stands for a shield,
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows, looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns, cold and need,

And feeble flesh His warrior's steed.
~Robert Southwell

Botticelli, Madonna of the Magnificat