Life

“… new children are born into our torn and twisted world every day, and each one brings the renewed message that God has not lost faith in mankind.”  Indian poet Tagore.

As I lay on my back beneath an East German car inspecting the chassis, my fingers traced the wooden frame.  “I can’t believe you build new cars like this!”

“What is it you do in America?” my new East German acquaintance not much older than myself inquired. 

“I do cancer research as a university student.” 

“Ahhh.” He exhaled throttling his voice not to be overheard.  “As a scientist, you would not go free from our country.  You’d get no visa.”  The East German youth climbed from beneath the pea green auto and assisted me to my feet.  I offered him sweetened chocolate in return for visiting with me though I think he genuinely enjoyed my company.  His eyes infected mine with his desire to visit the West.  My imagination of what was once an ornate Berlin avenue prior to the World War … collapsed to a canyon of remnants from Allied shelling.  Few cars, pea green, aqua, and brown traveled the vacant streets.

It was 1982.  Through Checkpoint Charlie, I had passed through numerous chain linked cells to acquire a six-hour visa to enter East Berlin for my afternoon visit.  An ever-present industrial haze poured over the wall defining East from West blocking the brilliant summer sun.  Polluted, decaying Eastern greys dissolved Western greens.  East Germany’s over-harvesting decimated forests faced extinction while considerable high-sulfur coal fueled the country.  Cultural segregation, unemployment, and military grew to epidemic, suffocating rates. 

Before barbed razor wire and concrete walls were erected in August 1961, skilled laborers and professionals, averaging 1000 each day, fled to the west from east Berlin.  During the wall’s existence, an estimated 24000 people fled East Germany.  Rubble from World War II bombings still remained nearly 20 years later on the eastern side.  The average income on the East was 1/6 that of the West.  Not only were the goods and food stock of poor quality, citizens could not afford them.  Far more migrants fueled vitality in the West while avoiding the East.  Life was fading in East Germany.  Fortunately, the wall collapsed in November 1989. 

This could not happen to us … right?  Threats are advancing in a world of indifference.  Our walls are not easily visible.  We’ve done a good job camouflaging them with sensationalism, partial truths, politics, and selective exclusion.  Our walls are psychological, socio-economic, and religious.  People bury themselves in excesses, commercialism, consumerism, and waste thieving life from others. 

Does the quality life matter?  Such as job satisfaction, access to healthcare and education, free borders of travel, a clean, healthy environment, freedom from crime, violence and oppression.

What has happened to pro-life?  It has lost its identity, been reduced, and has failed to mature. The movement is disconnected and politics have blurred it.  Politicians are inconsistent, fickle, and dysfunctional, often using ‘pro-life’ as a distraction.  To many it seems pro-life has accepted a reduced role, identifying only that which it stands against – abortion.  A “mature” pro-life approach should be comprehensive encompassing all the conditions supporting the quality of life.   

Numerous presidential elections have lacked candidates with consistent pro-life agendas.  Korean War veteran and Franciscan priest, Brennan Manning exposed the lack of consistency on issues. “Abortion and nuclear weapons are two sides of the same hot coin minted in hell.  Hard to vote for anti-abortion legislation and proliferation of weapons on the same pro-life – anti-life ticket.” 

Christians didn’t demand or support better candidates.  An atheist colleague stated, “If a comprehensive prolife candidate did run for office, Christians would not have supported them.”  

 “I (Jesus) have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10  Being pro-life means taking seriously that God intended blessings on all ‘that has the breath of life in it.’

Today, comprehensive pro-life must build networks between non-profit organizations, public support, and operations.  Pro-life must be consistent with protection for the unborn, disadvantaged and elderly, access to healthcare, education, employment and job satisfaction, a clean, healthy environment, reduced crime and violence.  To fail at or disconnect from one of these is detrimental to all life.  All connect through creation!  East Germany’s failures and inconsistencies styfled life.  Men and women have devoted their lives protecting the sanctity of life.  Never in our history have we been freer to promote and live a consistent model.  But have we contributed more to the fragmentation of coherent pro-life choosing various aspects to support while excluding or abusing other critical aspects at a cost to all life?

1 in 4 children in the US live in poverty according to the 2014 National Center for Children in Poverty and as high as 1 in 2 when considering specific indices such as access to food, safe and clean housing, parents, quality education, and healthcare.  In one of the wealthiest nations in the world, how is it that so many kids live in poverty and are homeless?  Dallas Morning News; “17% of Texas women and 14.2% of women nationwide live in poverty.”

Pro-adoption, foster care, social programs need support.  Too many young people are killing young people.  Kids don’t and can’t attend schools in their own neighborhoods due to high violent crime.  Gun violence, narcotic use, depression, and suicide are in some areas epedemic.  Bryan Stevenson reported in his best-selling Just Mercy: “By 2010, Florida had sentenced more than a hundred children to life imprisonment without parole for non-homicide offenses, several of whom were 13 years old at the time of the crime.  All of the youngest condemned children - 13-14 years of age - were black or Latino.  Florida had the largest population in the world of children condemned to die in prison for non-homicides.”

Are we responsible stewards of life while exploiting the environment and its resources?  The word anima used in Genesis for animal meant “breath of the spirit” in all things living, plants and animals.  Following man’s abuses, God sent a sign we see today, a rainbow, to Noah, trusting man to be good stewards of His creation.  “This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you:  I set my [rain]bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”  Gn 9:12-13

The most majestic cathedrals in the world continue under siege with threats of “drill, baby, drill.” Our national parks, gems God created over millennia are not only protected gifts to the American people, but the most cherished attractions for our international guests whose ancestors failed to protect in their homelands.  See the permanent scars in East Germany, South America, and our American West. 

We need go no further than our own borders to discover environmental abuses.  Residents in Flint, MI and Washington DC experienced the ill-neurological effects of contaminated drinking water.  Volkswagen and others have been indicted for violating emissions standards while industrialized leaders, nations and corporations, consider rolling back air quality standards.

 Another fragmentation to pro-life is arrogance over reason.  God created man with the ability to reason.  Hopefully, within the sciences, we are constantly trying to understand life, protect it, mend it, strengthen it, sustain it, celebrate it, and bring it to a gentle conclusion.  Cheers to those ebola fighters and others who cure and serve in endemic areas.  Will efforts like theirs continue despite decades of financial cuts to our unique national labs?  Will discoveries be to the benefit of everyone?

Though I expanded upon a few, the elements of life are interdependent.  In the US and free world, it is a right to pick and choose.  Acting on empowered choice inconsistently as a Christian, as a Catholic is a failure to recognize the value of life with gratitude for God’s blessings.  If pro-life does not embrace a more comprehensive, complete, inclusive approach, it will lose its credibility.

THE GOOD NEWS!  Though addressing all the pro-life segments may appear to be overwhelming, each is well within grasp.  Each fuels, supports, and gathers momentum for the others!

God engages us … through His creation, … the life of his Son, Jesus, … and with the Holy Spirit to guide us and to give us wisdom.  Jesus unrolled the scroll of Isaiah “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me …” Luke 4:18  The Spirit is upon each of us.  We must see, listen, study.  Being prolife isn’t about how we vote.  It’s about how we live!

"I came that they might have life and have it to the full." John 10:10  Alleluia!