Lawns and Liberty are Dying in California (But there is hope!)

You've probably heard of California's current drought.  The worst one in more than a millenium?

Well there's more than just a dusty Central Valley and trendy "dryscaping" happening in the West. Liberty, like our lawns, is dying slowly.  What do I mean?

Our pro-life pregnancy centers are under attack.

Kindly remember this on your Rosary beads: in June the state's House passed legislation to force pro-life centers to refer clients for abortion (read more about it here).   Right now our Senate is at recess but when they reconvene in August, they will vote on what pro-lifers have coined the "Bully Bill" or Action Bill 775.  If it passes, and becomes law, and if centers refuse to comply, that is if they refuse to refer women for abortions (which they will), good-bye medical license.

I can't stress enough that this could spell the closing of all pro-life medical crisis pregnancy centers in the state, maybe even the country. For on the horizon, I'm sure, lies a Supreme Court case on the issue - and we all know how well those have gone for Christians lately.

Starting this fall, the state has prohibited teachers from giving any instruction that "reflects adversely" on the homosexual community (and school districts cannot sponsor any activity or group that promotes "discrimination," murkily defined, against homosexuals).

A law that basically kills speech and debate class is a bad law.   California's new FAIR education act, or Senate Bill 48, goes beyond anti-bullying: it requires school materials to showcase homosexuality as always a good all of the time.  It's unclear what will happen if you're a religious organization.

I'm all for inclusive academics but a law dictating that students MUST be taught to think about homosexuality only positively, like rainbow flag touting drones, is unprecedented.  What this new social science curriculum means for Catholic and private schools is yet unknown.  What is known is that our local media isn't reporting on this monumental change to the textbooks and school starts soon.  We shall see what happens.

Brendan Eich happened.
When Brendan Eich was forced to "step down" from Mozilla for a private donation to the Proposition 8 campaign, a chasm of despair ripped open in the Silicon Valley political universe. If a founder of Mozilla can lose his livelihood for privately opposing gay 'marriage' what chance do the rest of us have?

The message from the technology elites to their cogs was clear: no one is safe.  Do something distasteful to us and risk your career.  Mozilla and companies like them are trying to excise freewill in an area where they know people claw desperately for the scraps from their billion dollar tables.

But there is hope!
I don't want to leave you with an image of lady liberty submerged in the sand of our sunny beaches - or our Death Valley for that matter. We may be California but hey, we're still the Catholic Church.   Surviving adversity and persecution is kind of what we do.

With all the dire out here, many of us did a long, overdue happy dance with the announcement that Fr. Robert Barron is happening!

Let me just repeat that: FR. ROBERT BARRON is coming to LOS ANGELES as one of her auxillary bishops!!!

We're getting Fr. Robert. We're getting Fr. Robert. Woot,

Here's some more hope:  Christ Cathedral is happening. In a post-clerical scandal world it is a big deal to me and to many that the Church in the west shows signs of expansion and revitalization.  The cathedral is undergoing renovation right now but will hopefully open its doors soon.  I'm so there for mass next time we head to Disney.

The Walk for Life West Coast numbers continue to swell.  Also a big deal.

We still have our beautiful, historic Missions (a.k.a. the indigenous roots of our flip flop problem). Why our Mission Trail still isn't widely known as the Camino of America, I just don't know.

Catholic Answers is in San Diego. 'Nuff said.

And never, ever forget this: Californians voted not once but twice to affirm the traditional definition marriage.  Twice.  That fact alone should tell you two things about California: 1.) the people here do care and 2.) you'll never hear that we care, not in the mass media anyway, which has also been completely silent about our receding liberty.

It's tough out here.  So please pray for us. For rain. For the Church in California.
Our souls and our soil will thank you.

Pro-Lifers and Former Abortion Workers Must Be Patient with Each Other

Trending in the media and blogosphere on account of the Gosnell trial and the emergence of investigations into the cruel, ugly face of the late-term abortion industry are several editorials that highlight one of the toughest parts about this movement: it is made up of sinners

Sinners who are working to end abortion, sinners who are post abortive, sinners who used to work in the abortion industry, sinners who are angry about the sin of abortion, sinners who come off as cold and others as judgmental.  Sinners, sinners, sinners, all of us who want desperately for this great sin of abortion to end and nought but the help of God’s grace, and yes other sinners, to help that come about.

As someone who has worked in the pro-life movement now for almost a decade, I believe wholeheartedly in God’s unconditional forgiveness for all sinners, regardless of how scarlet those sins may be, should one be genuinely sorry.

But this last month, some of the articles I read and photos I’ve viewed online, and testimony from abortion workers I’ve heard have absolutely disgusted me.  My stomach has been turned, my heart has been sickened and my faith been taken to a new level of trust in God’s mercy for myself, for others and for our country.

I believe repentance and healing is possible for everyone, but, let me tell you, I had to really, really pray this last month to maintain that belief.  Does that me a bad person? Or just a pro-lifer who needs everyone’s patience as I work towards a conversion within myself to becoming more fully compassionate toward others?

Some reading this might be tempted to label me as deeply and secretly judgmental toward those involved in abortion.  To a certain extent, they wouldn’t be wrong.  I have to pray EVERYDAY about not being judgmental whether it’s over someone’s driving ability or childrearing or eating habits.

Most people, I find, also have to struggle with their general prejudices about many things.  We’re all human.

When it comes to holding prejudices regarding the abortion industry, even unconsciously, keep in mind that we’re talking about a business where sin compounds with sin compounds with more sin and it can genuinely be a shock to the system, even for the most seasoned individual.   And just as many former abortion workers talk about how it was Love that helped them to change their ways, that same Love from the Almighty is what pro-lifers need if they are going “into battle,” so to speak, to change hearts in the abortion industry.

That means that pro-lifers need to experience God’s Love in their own brokenness and sinfulness so they understand how someone can say, “I used to work helping to kill babies, but I have found forgiveness,” or “I killed my children, but I have had found healing and new life in Christ,” and believe such redemption is possible.

Two conversions must always take place for true healing between our camps to occur.  Those involved in the sin of abortion must change their beliefs and repent their involvement in the sin.  The pro-lifer must also convert interiorly and become a truly compassionate, herald of the Gospel if they are to maintain any credibility as Christians at all.

Neither type of conversion or process is easy, and we have got to admit that more often.  Pro-lifers have to understand it might take a lifetime someone to come to regret their role in abortion.  Those who have repented for their abortion-related sins need to be understanding when forgiveness and rejoicing over their conversion doesn’t come like an automatic finger snap to many people ‘on the outside.’

If the comment boxes regarding this topic are any indication of mood then there is one glaring truth out there in the pro-life movement: pro-lifers and former abortion workers, and post abortive individuals must be patient with each other. But I believe that when we are willing to extend that olive branch of patience to one another, then perhaps then the rancor in the comment boxes over whether someone is truly sorry over their past sins, or if someone else is “real” pro-lifer or just an angry, condescending jerk, will cease.    

So let's pray for each other's conversions! Is there any one of us that doesn't need it?

Then maybe we can all catch up to heaven and do a little more of the celebrating over changed hearts, with the Father, who runs to embrace each of us no matter how far away we are.

Chalk Markings (Sidewalk Snapshots Vol 1)

Standing on the sidewalk, in the midst of busy northern San Jose, with the whirr of traffic all around us, my daughter asks me, “Mommy, can you pwease make a hopscotch?”  I have to smile at her request.  Her playful entreaty for me to draw "squawes" stands in such high contrast to the very serious reason we are out on there.   It is not the first time she has made this request.  In fact, as is often the case, our colorful chalk markings from the previous week are still lightly visible on the pavement.

It doesn’t take long to find the pale remnants of last week’s hopscotch. I set my beat up “40 Days for Life” sign down, and grab her nubby chalk. Still clutching my rosary in one hand and reciting fragments of the Hail Mary in between square-art, I realize just how lucky, yes, how blessed I am to be there.

Not too long ago, I was just another heart that hurt every time I drove past the corner lot in the streaming traffic.  Then, I would simply make the sign of the cross as I passed the clinic.  But deep down, I felt a tug in my heart to do more.  Call it a personal invitation from the Holy Spirit, but the feeling stayed and one day, I finally went out and prayed by one of the nation’s many death camps for the unborn.

That tug or “call,” to my own surprise, has only intensified.  And so I consider praying on the sidewalk a blessing, for, because of it, I've grown in compassion for the mothers, fathers, workers and escorts who enter the clinic.  And I'm more courageous, or at least, not as fearful about going out there.  I used to be afraid of giving a visible pro-life witness to the world, but now I am not afraid.  I pray to feel love in my heart for everyone who goes into the clinic, for love conquers fear, and the people who enter the clinic are very, very afraid.  They tell me as much themselves. 

So now I pray year-round at the same site, but having the kids with me has changed things, as evidenced by our chalk markings.

There is also a sad side to all of our chalk play.  You see, the colors on the pavement all end at the cement line demarcating the clinic's line.  One you cross that threshold there are no more rainbows, no more lady bugs, no more flowers, scribbles, shapes or hopscotches.   There is only a dark tarmac driveway, a stranger to lead you to the door, and a world of pain, devoid of all color.

I'm convinced that God uses simple things such as chalk markings to further instruct us on the great disparity between the culture of life and culture of death.  By the same token, the sight of children on the sidewalk, is the most tangible lesson on this.

Which is why I bring them, though we must be an oddity to behold.  Imagine, if you will, a mom, kneeling on the ground, her baby boy staring out from his stroller, and her toddler girl watching every movement of the chalk in her mama's hand.  I draw the first hopscotch square.

            “See sweetie, it’s a square.  Hail Mary, full of grace...”
            “Squawe,” the little girl repeats back to me.

            “…the Lord is with thee.  Yes, four sides, a square.  Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.  Look, now we put a “1” in that square.”

            “Numba 1, mama?” her eyes widen in recognition of the number.

            “ Yes.  Now another two squares and a “2” and “3.” Holy Mary mother of God, pray for us sinners,” I draw a few more squares and number them, “now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”  The hopscotch is completed.  The girl is gleeful.

            I look up at the car windows of the traffic and see a few sets of eyes looking in our direction.  I also see one of the abortion escorts circling again in our direction.  I wish I knew what people think when they see us: a mom, her two small kids, an abortion clinic, a rosary, a stroller, chalk, life and death all at once.

            Some of them let us know what they think especially when it’s not very nice.

            But, armed with our arsenal of snacks, chalk, pamphlets and pro-life paraphernalia, we are undeterred.

            And this is just one snapshot of praying “on the sidewalk” told through the lens of a “sidewalk” mom who is just one of thousands of such mommies and daddies and grandparents out there on the gray concrete, weather beaten trenches of the nation’s grassroots prolife movement.  But there are countless other snapshots that need to be told and shared.  Some contain real tragedy, others real misunderstanding, others: the innocence of a child such as one little girl drawing on the ground in front of The Tower of Mordor known as Planned Parenthood.

How about you?  Do you have any “snapshots” or sights you encounter when you hold vigil at the sidewalk?  Care to share?

Only 'Pro-Life' is Fully Pro-Human

“What does it mean to be a human being?”

I have a simple answer to this question which can be confirmed in any person’s daily life.

Simply, to be human is to seek to save one’s life and the life of another.    

I’m going to deal with the latter, first.

First, saving the life of another:  My son loves to scare the bejeebers out of me.  If he isn’t trying to crowd surf (without the crowd) by diving head-first off the couch, or pulling household chemicals out from under the sink, then he’s stuffing some inedible object into his mouth and then giggling as I scramble to stop him.

Instead of becoming complacent to his consistently suicidal habits, I am on red-alert most of the time, actively working to curve his I-think-I’m-Superman behavior and channel his curiosity to non-fatal objects, such as toys.

And I’ve observed that I’m not alone in seeking to preserve my child’s or anybody’s life. In fact, our most basic human instinct compels us to do so.  With regards to my children: whether we’re in public and another adult calls out to my child if they’ve disappeared around a corner, or we’re in the mall and the grown ups surrounding us take care to avoid knocking over my toddler who is absentmindedly darting through knees and couples, people always demonstrate a very human sensitivity to the vulnerable little person near them.   I have never once encountered someone willing to callously kick a child over, or ignore them if the are in danger. 

No, something triggers within us when we sense the potential for harm is imminent.  I would say this is our human instinct to be on guard, whether consciously or not, to protect life-in-general.

Second, saving your own life.  This is inextricably linked to safeguarding someone else’s life.  Think about it.  What makes us different from the magnificent wild beasts that roam the Savannah?  The difference is that we care for those among us who are wounded; we don’t treat them as broken objects and leave them to become some predator’s meal ticket.  Somehow we sense that our welfare is intimately tied up with theirs, and we begin to instinctively operate by the golden rule: we treat those in need the way we would want to be treated were we the ones injured (I think deep down, we know we all will need to be cared for at some time or another.)

If you want to put it another way, our empathy, our ability to look outside of ourselves and care for someone else is what humanizes us.  This can help us understand what Christ meant when He said, “Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” (Lk 17:33 NASB)  It’s when we turn exclusively inward to seek our identity at the expense of loving those around us that we’ve missed our own humanity because we’ve betrayed our innately human ability to care for and sacrifice for others.

Therefore it is consistently human to want to save life: your own and someone else’s.

Those in the pro-choice camp want to argue that “preserving one’s life” (at least, the outer shell of a it and all its material accouterments) requires the ‘choice’ to kill an unborn baby.  But their argument is inherently flawed because the so-called 'choice' of abortion is one whose essence contradicts the nature of the human being, who is naturally inclined to save and not eradicate life. 

Therefore, only the pro-life perspective is consistently and fully pro-human.

This stands in sharp contrast to the view of an abortion providing giant like Planned Parenthood which justifies the taking of innocent human life because they see the bringing of that life into the world as a violence.  And the same can be said for euthanasia: the pro -‘death with dignity’ camp operates under the perverse notion that we ‘impose’ life on those who are nearing its end.

This world view is the complete opposite of the pro-life, pro-human camp.   It’s anti-human because its manifesto holds that life is somehow detrimental to us.  We’re supposed to laud those that would end this burdensome gift-of-life, be it our own or someone else's.

But the pro-life movement marches on because its principles are confirmed in our inner-most being.  Deep down we seek to truly preserve our lives and to flourish – even the 'choice' of abortion grows out of this desire, though it’s a decision that inherently violates it.   And this is not only the case of abortion but to all life issues.   One needs not look much further than within the confines of their own home, at their children or in the mirror for proof.

Bringing Children "to the Sidewalk"

In hardly any other instance is the contrast between the Culture of Life and the Culture of Death more evident than when families bring their children to pray outside an abortion clinic.

In my family’s case, the difference between the two ‘cultures’ is only intensified by the fact that the area’s largest abortion clinic sits right across the street from our YMCA. It’s hard to describe how surreal the close proximity of two such disparate realities actually is.

On any given day, the YMCA holds camps, swimming lessons, child-care and classes that ring of the uplifting sounds of life. There, children laugh, play and learn. It is a place so full of energy that visiting is like plugging yourself into a health-outlet so that you leave more fully alive than when you came.

But not fifty feet away, quite the opposite is happening. Next door, at America’s number one abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, reign the sounds and sights of tears, brokenness, silence and death. There, many children are being denied the opportunity to ever know life outside the womb while children just across the way are experiencing the goodness it can contain.

And so one morning each week, after crafts and fishy-crackers we all board the Nichols mobile and head across the way ‘for a walk’ (that’s all my little progeny really understand at this point). The beauty is that my kids don’t cease being kids on that sidewalk.

I try to imagine the viewpoint from the staff inside the clinic as they sit ‘protected’ by a bullet proof facade, security cameras and metal detectors while just outside their windows stand those very threatening ‘conservatives’ with their strollers and children who are busy playing Ring around the Rosy, hop scotch, tag, sharing snacks, and waving ecstatically to the police who come circle the block at the clinic’s request.

Little else rivals the very compelling irony of this picture: where the so-called champions of ‘quality of life’ have become the purveyors of death, while the supposed opponents of ‘women’s rights’, who happen to mostly be women, along with their children, are busy doing all the living right outside their doorstep.

I tell you, the ‘different sides of the line’ caricature, perpetuated by the media, of the heroic staff of Planned Parenthood sitting harangued by those bully right wingers falls apart once you are actually there. What you see speaks for itself: outside their clinic, children are living, and inside they are dying.

The parking lot alone presents an eerie portrait. It is full of people (mostly minorities) sitting solitary in their cars presumably just waiting for someone to come out of the clinic. It’s quite the opposite of what happens at a hospital, isn’t it? Family and friends generally remain in the hospital waiting rooms to support you during things like surgeries and child birth. Not so at Planned Parenthood. The “support” is only as close as the distance between the building and the parked car (in many cases it’s just a drop-off and pick-up arrangement). Occasionally someone will get out of their vehicle to come talk with us, but for the most part, they stay put.

But they can still hear the kids. It would be hard not to.

There are strong opinions widely circulated about this but I consider bringing the kids to the sidewalk a good, Christian witness, and that’s why I bring them. The rare individual will still verbally abuse us despite their presence, but, this may be a reaction to how the kids, just by being there, drives home the reality of what happens to unborn children behind the high walls of Planned Parenthood. The juxtaposition of their beautiful innocence against the walls of an organization founded on racism and blood money is one that society needs to see and really spend some time contemplating. It is their presence on the sidewalk which reminds us how we all started, and hopefully, how we can be again.

When the “True Compassion” Bough Breaks, Society’s Confidence Does Fall

NARAL and Planned Parenthood make their daily bread off of society’s fear. They have convinced many that deprivation of abortion services is some sort of attack on women’s health, if not public health in general. What’s more they’re working very hard to persuade us that pro-life groups want to wage a “war on women,” on healthcare, and especially on the poor.

But this so-called "war" is ideology based, not gender based, and it owes its existence to great extent to the fallen limb of faulty evangelization: a doctrine of “false compassion” that sacrificed the truth in the name of political correctness and told America that it’s okay to kill the unborn for the sake of some materialistic notion of the common good. In doing so it ended up eliminating the entire basis for what the common good actually is: it destroyed our sense for the value of every human life as integral and necessary to that society.

By extension, it has severely altered our confidence and assuredness of our own self worth for the negative.

And so, of course people are going to “choose” abortion, “choose” to get rid of “the problem” because their sense of their own humanity has been violated by a cultural ethos which is downright hostile to any mention of the sanctity of human life. Human beings are commodities now, whose worth is assigned, and so it isn’t a far stretch to see how, in the profiteering world of an abortion provider, an aborted person is just another means to a financial ends, much like a living person.

My question for NARAL and PP is this: now that we base worthiness-to-live solely upon the happenstance that we are “valued” or “wanted” or a “choice”, then are we less worthy of life when we make mistakes, when we fail, or when we are betrayed? Do those inevitable life tragedies now make us superfluous commodities that society can discard? There are, after all so many more highly “valuable” and desirable people out there.

Of course not. We are not always going to be productive, or do the right thing, or be regarded highly by our peers, but this should never be equated one’s intrinsic worth.

But for NARAL and Planned Parenthood, it is. And they sell their dehumanizing ideology to a society whose notions of the inherent dignity of the human person have all but been eliminated, both by them and the “false compassion” movement which says “do whatever is culturally acceptable at the moment,” whether it hurts you or the culture you live in.

And yet if you talk to anyone, and I do mean anyone, they will agree that, at least, they consider themselves and their life to be important. Fancy that. People instinctively confident, or at least possessing some sense that their own life has value. A little more of that mixed in with the generosity to allow someone else to feel their own God given self worth one day is just what our culture needs (and, by the way, that's true compassion).