Next Weekend

Next week Leslie will go to a Girls of Grace conference to be an alternate in their IT girl contest. Marcia, Lauren are going with Leslie and will meet Point of Grace. Leslie auditioned with Alas And Did My Savior Bleed and Strong Enough. I am excited for them.

Counseling

I may not be the best counselor. . .maybe I should take a lesson from Bob Newhart.

New Life Church in the 50's

Post Branding

Who else gets to look like this on their vacation? I suppose people pay hundreds of dollars for a cowboy vacation like this. We branded 176 calves today.

A prayer for today

What, therefore, is my God? What, I ask, but the Lord God? "For who is Lord but the Lord himself, or who is God besides our God?"[13] Most high, most excellent, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most secret and most truly present; most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not supported; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud, and they know it not; always working, ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. Thou dost love, but without passion; art jealous, yet free from care; dost repent without remorse; art angry, yet remainest serene. Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost. Thou art never in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains; art never greedy, yet demandest dividends. Men pay more than is required so that thou dost become a debtor; yet who can possess anything at all which is not already thine? Thou owest men nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby. Yet, O my God, my life, my holy Joy, what is this that I have said? What can any man say when he speaks of thee? But woe to them that keep silence--since even those who say most are dumb. Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 1, Chapter 4

Whirlwinds of ignorance

Whirlwinds of ignorance have circled the South Dakota decision to stop abortions like a prairie tornado. The criticism I’ve read has centered on the insensitivity of the South Dakotan legislature and governor to the plight of women who don’t want the babies they’ve conceived. These children will enter the world unwanted and throw the women’s lives into irrecoverable disarray. Therefore, the logic goes, they should be executed before they can cause such havoc.

I know a lot of women with unplanned children who look back at those children as the best things that have ever happened to them. However bleak the outlook is when they are born they are not necessarily the harbingers of personal disaster for their moms.

On the other hand, I know a lot of women whose lives are complicated, overwhelmed, and completely disrupted by their aging parents. This inconvenience is in addition to the outrageous cost of care for their parents. Medical care available to the seniors can prolong their lives in a highly dependent state for years.

By the same logic as I hear opposing the South Dakota decision, a woman ought to be able to kill her parents so as not to have her life thrown into chaos by their ill health. Surely the government would support her right to live the kind of right she chooses without regard to her parents.

Now, that would never happen – at least we’d like to think it wouldn’t. Why not? What makes parents less dispensable than unborn children? I think it all rests on the pre-ultrasound belief that an unborn child is not really a person when the invalid parent is. If the child who, when wanted, is called a baby from the day of the first pregnancy test is a person, then South Dakota has done the right thing.

Reavely Coat of Arms, Family Crest

Reavely Coat of Arms, Family Crest

Marquee

Matthew 13:44 "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.