Our long holiday from democratic debate over one of the most contentious issues of our time appears to be ending. In the theme of this year, a return to reality is upon us. What’s so devastating is that we have to have this debate in the first place.

Society has become desensitized to the violence of abortion and anesthetized to reality. The process of performing an abortion, whether by depriving the child of a healthy environment or through the physical act of ending their life, is inherently violent and always wrong. Juries punish harshly those who perpetrate similar acts against children in their care, so why the rage over applying the same standard to children at the earliest stages of development?

Selfishness is a central element of the argument, along with a distortion of love. Like so many cornerstone components of the human experience, love is anything and nothing at all. Love is not a feeling. Love is not love. Love is complete surrender, total sacrifice for the other.

Accepting the gift and responsibility for the care of a child is the highest calling of humanity. That acceptance requires the fullest measure of devotion from the parents, and a life-long commitment to the child. To observe the beauty of that relationship unfold is one of the most beautiful things in the universe. The child enters into existence wholly dependent on their parents. Then, as they reach the mid-point in their lives, the dependence begins to reverse. Decades of parental self-sacrifice are repaid through decades of child self-sacrifice through elder care.

Parenthood is a journey of weighty responsibility. But it’s a journey that is necessarily rooted in the total gift of self, a complete surrender of the parent’s priorities for the child. That is true love.

Tags: Generosity

The culture of rage is here, a general acceptance of rule breaking in the furtherance of political ends. Rage is primal, reaching into the area of your brain that runs your internal “fight or flight” response. It shuts down logic and instead pursues action, no matter how unhinged.

A sad consequence of this indulgence of rage is that it rewards the party that can convince the highest number of people to turn off their brains. Alexander de Tocqueville marveled at the educated electorate that he met in America, and how everyone engaged in the democratic process. He’d be shocked to see that it only took 200 years to convert that America into a mob.

Humans are naturally trusting, and so it can be easy to accept reasonable sounding arguments, even if they’re fallacious. Many will ask you to excuse the intentionally killing of a child, but only in “rare” cases of rape, incest, or the health of the mother. A critical review of this request presents some questions.

Why is the only response to the violence of rape, the violence of killing a child? In what medical circumstance is it medically necessary to kill the child, rather than end the pregnancy early by delivering the child and admitting them to the neonatal intensive care unit?

Under the weight of logic, the argument collapses. We know inherently that killing is always wrong, with the sole exception of in self-defense.

Rage, and the beneficiaries of rage, benefit when you turn your brain off. Keep yours on.

Tags: Political Life

For over a year now, we’ve lived in our new house. I think that it takes time to get used to your new environment before you deeply understand what changes would improve your lifestyle. We’re at that point.

My father-in-law was here last week for a visit. An extra pair of hands, along with the natural feeling of renewal that springtime brings, inspired us to move on to the next phase of home improvement.

When we moved in, our house had an intercom system. We removed four of the five speakers shortly after moving in, with the last one in the master bedroom. Over the weekend, we pulled it down, patched the wall, and painted. I have a great feeling of completion.

Along with the system were two intercom boxes on the porches. Five minutes of screwdriver work, and their yellowed squares were down and in the trash. We pulled down a fake fence in the side yard and trimmed dead branches that were overhanging the deck.

These were small projects, many taking less than an hour to complete, but the overall impression is a gigantic change. A cleaned up yard, a completed bedroom, and little annoyances resolved.

It’s easy to feel trapped in the same sinful inclinations, day in and day out. Our character flaws pigeon-hole us into the same types of sin. But while we may feel trapped, Easter invites us to take a fresh look. A bit of TLC, a little time changing our environment or refreshing our perspective reveals two truths. God defeated sin, and so we can conquer it. Our God is a God of mercy who gives us all the resources we need to embrace and live His Law. All we have to do is put in the work to make the change.

Tags: Spirituality

There’s a quirk in human psychology when it comes to time. We have lists of things that we’d like to do, but never enough time to do them. Yet, when our schedules open up, we’re more likely to drift to watching TV or wasting time, rather than investing it in quality activities from our list.

The path of least resistance is too easy to take. I enjoy a lazy river as much as the next guy. The mistake is believing that important things like work and chores get in the way of recreation.

A healthy amount of work is part of a well-balanced life. Work gives us productive activity and dignity. We use our skills to improve the lives of others, and generate compensation that supports our family. Engaging in quality work allows us to mirror the lives of Jesus and his father Joseph, who we know based on historical records, worked very, very hard.

At the end of the day, I’m often tired. It’s hard to summon the energy to clean the kitchen or take care of the little tasks around the house that need to be done. Some days, I whiff and check out for the evening. But on the nights that I take 15 minutes to get the kitchen clean, or the 10 minutes to pick up the books and toys around the house, the following day always goes better.

I’ve always planned to have a date night with Alison once a week. An evening where there’s nothing on the schedule except spending time with her. When I was solely an at-home dad, it rarely happened. We’d spend small chunks of time several times a week in the same room, and that was it. Now that my availability is cut down, Sunday night is a much bigger priority for a date night for me. Coincidently, we’re having date night much more regularly.

There’s a balance to managing the many responsibilities that we have in life. In the face of them, we can’t surrender to idleness or overwork. Like our spiritual life, making this balance requires daily effort and some amount of failure. Try harder next week.

Tags: Productivity

Easter is here and the tomb is empty. The timing of Easter this year was prescient. In my listening to the “Bible in a Year” podcast, I lined up exactly with the events of Holy Week. The same went for my daughter’s Bible curriculum. For her school work, we read a story and the next day she narrates the story and draws a picture. In her telling, Jesus was hiding behind a tree, waiting for Mary Magdalene to show up. The image she drew of Jesus lying in wait was amusing.

Now that we’re into the Easter season and our Lenten practices are over, it’s time for an annual reminder about the point of what we just did. Lent, Holy Week, and Easter are only the beginning. They’re the keys that unlock the true freedom of Christian life. They’re the exercises and disciplines that draw us into our call to constant conversion.

Fasting from sweets, your snooze button, or meat on Fridays is the first step. It’s the introduction to the discipline of fasting. Fasting isn’t giving something up, it’s raising our awareness. Many vices aren’t driven by a desire to do evil, but a reaction to some negative event in your life. Drinking to excess may be covering up deep emotional wounds. Impatience behind the wheel may be about allowing too many pressures to build up in your life. When we give something up, we have an opportunity to be curious about what’s really going on in our lives.

Our successes and failures this Lent are another part of our journey. The Christian Life is anything but boring, and answering Jesus’ call to pick up our cross and follow him is the work of each day. But when we’ve completed our trek to the top of the hill, the place of the skull, what waits for us is not public humiliation and complete destruction. What waits for those who answer the call is the ultimate victory.

Tags: Spirituality