Monday, January 03, 2005
Towards a Coherent Stance on the Culture of Life
As a Christian and a Catholic, I believe that life is a gift from God, something to be cherished, that Jesus presents himself in the guise of the needy, the hurt, the suffering for me to care for. For me, the culture of life means the struggle to see all people, from conception to death as having value and worth because of our shared humanity, because they are valued and created by God.
And it is a struggle. When we see people who do heinous crimes, our first reaction when they are punished by law is often to want them executed, as if that balances the scales. When we see panhandlers who obviously live on the street, who are dirty and intoxicated, we want to turn the other way, in part because we worry about our safety.
When we see a woman panicked about the baby she didn't want to have, filled with anger perhaps, and not knowing the full consequences of her action kill her baby, it is easy to get angry or self-righteous until you've been panicked or frightened in that way.
And yet, I look for models, and the first I see is Mother Teresa. "Love until it hurts," she used to say, and she practiced what she preached, walking the streets for the most cast off, people dying and dirty, sick and ugly, and picked them up and took them home.
It is possible to learn, to trust God enough that you can see the threatening or unwanted stranger and see God's creation. I am not good at it yet - God is still working on me, and giving me reminders of my own selfishness and unwillingness to know that that person was sent to me to help.
I cling to the Instrument of Peace prayer because that, I think, is one of the best and clearest statements of where I wish I was spiritually, each and every day:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
more on this later.
As a Christian and a Catholic, I believe that life is a gift from God, something to be cherished, that Jesus presents himself in the guise of the needy, the hurt, the suffering for me to care for. For me, the culture of life means the struggle to see all people, from conception to death as having value and worth because of our shared humanity, because they are valued and created by God.
And it is a struggle. When we see people who do heinous crimes, our first reaction when they are punished by law is often to want them executed, as if that balances the scales. When we see panhandlers who obviously live on the street, who are dirty and intoxicated, we want to turn the other way, in part because we worry about our safety.
When we see a woman panicked about the baby she didn't want to have, filled with anger perhaps, and not knowing the full consequences of her action kill her baby, it is easy to get angry or self-righteous until you've been panicked or frightened in that way.
And yet, I look for models, and the first I see is Mother Teresa. "Love until it hurts," she used to say, and she practiced what she preached, walking the streets for the most cast off, people dying and dirty, sick and ugly, and picked them up and took them home.
It is possible to learn, to trust God enough that you can see the threatening or unwanted stranger and see God's creation. I am not good at it yet - God is still working on me, and giving me reminders of my own selfishness and unwillingness to know that that person was sent to me to help.
I cling to the Instrument of Peace prayer because that, I think, is one of the best and clearest statements of where I wish I was spiritually, each and every day:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
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