A week ago today one of the largest ever pro-life marches was held in Washington DC, our nation’s capitol. Throngs of people filled the streets and prayed to end the painful death of millions of unseen children. What began as a small demonstration in the years following Roe v Wade has grown into a major event drawing a variety of individuals and groups from across the great United States. People of differing race, size, gender, religion, and economic backgrounds united for one purpose:
To end the killing of children
whose cries we cannot yet hear.
Hundreds of thousands gathered to pray that the light of life, love, and hope in an innocent child trumps the darkness of death, selfishness, and fear of those who, contrary to the claims of the pro-choice movement, feel they have little or no choice but to abort an unborn child.
With crowds reaching close to a million people, such a newsworthy event must have created a media frenzy. Reporters from the nations top stations must have been vying for a spot, each hoping she would be the one to cover such an event. Ratings must have gone through the roof as personal triumphs survivors of abortion were delivered online, as testimonies of those who chose life when faced with uncertainty were heard on car radios, and as the faces of those now mourning the choice to end their child’s life were shown on our living room televisions.
Perhaps the draw for some following the event would be less on the side of human interest. Some of us are more analytical, wanting facts rather than the subjective fluctuating of human heartstrings. For those, the draw to watch may have been statistics contrasting the number of abortion clinics in minority and poverty stricken areas compared to those in wealthy areas, or perhaps it was the fact that Margaret Sanger, one of the leaders of the pro-abortion movement, was racially motivated, or maybe it is just the knowledge that tax money funds abortion giving those engaging in risky behaviors less motivation to change.
Or maybe not.
Maybe those reasons didn’t draw a huge audience at home watching. Maybe reporters weren’t falling over themselves in an attempt to get the scoop. Maybe you didn’t hear much of the March for Life at all, but maybe there was a good reason. Maybe there was a bigger, more important event that had taken place only a few days earlier.
After all, wasn’t it more important to know that…
the Patriots had deflated balls.
The New England Patriots, vying for a place in the 2015 Super Bowl, were accused of using deflated balls and the whole country seemed to be taken by the topic. Forget the March for Life or other newsworthy events that week. We didn’t hear about Ferguson or healthcare or the national jobless rating. We simply learned the Patriots had deflated balls.
What struck me most however, was the surprise that seemed to accompany this deflated balls issue or the fact that it was the PATRIOTS that had had their balls deflated.
So many of us are playing with deflated balls – too afraid to act as we were created to, too lazy to take a stand, to do what is needed, too ashamed to look in the mirror, to see our own reflection.
We do not openly compare salaries or bank accounts but often judge people by our assumption of their financial worth.
We bought into the belief that there is no black and white, right or wrong, and yet we can’t shake the feeling of injustice when some un-good (since there is no wrong) has been done to us.
We have been told to each his own, that all paths are equal, and that everyone is different and that is okay, but when we speak about it being okay to conform to Christ, we cower realizing our different path is wrong (well not wrong, just un-good, and that is bad!)
Our little boys have been suspended for using pretzel sticks to pretend shoot “bad guys” in the school cafeteria, but then we wonder why these same boys grow up to be men who fail to act heroically when needed.
We have given people the right to the many “free” things: EBT cards, heat, cell phones, homes, college education,… but fail to realize that by taking handouts, we have become dependent, slaves to the whims of the government. We have paid a dear price by giving up the very freedom not-so-distant ancestors fought for.
We have shut down VA clinics and waited so long on Veteran care that it is too late for many suffering families. We have forgotten that, since Freedom is not free, someone needs to be thanked and cared for and that our Freedom needs to be handled delicately but lived bravely.
We have let men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers walk away from families with little to no real cost to them. We have encouraged too many to break the Marriage vow, the one contract recognized by God, and leave the surviving spouse to do the job of two, often on the salary of half.
We have allowed our own endless quest for a mythical happiness to replace the seeking of real joy that comes from knowing one’s place in the universe, in society, in the family and we wonder why we are insatiable, why we need more all the time.
We have watched too many of our men, confused by gender roles and what is expected of them, override natural instincts in an attempt to redefine manhood as either a tough-guy bully or an effeminate pussyfoot when it is neither.
We women have bought into the feminist movement, believing worth comes not from being at home with our families or even in fulfilling careers but in the freedom to express ourselves sexually whenever, wherever, and however the mood strikes. We have sacrificed our values, or forgotten we had any in the first place. We tempt man where he is weakest and, in our weakness, fall for the pseudo man, the tough guy and the pussyfoot, because he is convenient when we should have waited patiently for a real man to show himself; we were surprised and hurt when we were burned.
We women send silly emails about sisterhood and how we sisters need to stick together when the man falls apart, but forget that we are all connected. We kill one another with gossip. We find excuses to have affairs with the someone else’s woman’s husband, boyfriend, significant other and fail to realize we are using a blame the victim mentality by issuing our excuses.
We hope our children grow up more courageously than we have, but the problem is that deflated balls, in this case, is genetic. Too many of them no longer know what it’s like to have the balls to take a stand, to speak up when it counts, and to sit quietly until the time is right.
And we have mistaken having balls for being courageous.
The March for Life movement was trumped by the Patriot’s deflated balls, but I cannot help but wonder at the irony of it. Have others realized that God could have allowed any team into the Super Bowl, that any team could have cheated in the same way? Is it a coincidence that it was the Patriots whose balls were deflated, drawing attention away from the March for Life and possibly other worthy causes?
Probably.
But still, I can’t help but notice that it is the Patriots and wonder what our ancestors and forefathers would say and then I can’t help but Hope, as we head into the 2016 election cycle, that America finds a candidate who has the Courage, and the faith to sustain that courage, to truly lead the next generation. It’s about more than balls. It’s about our survival.
This is a longer post than my usual and not the tone I try to convey here very often. Thank you for letting me get some of this off my chest. Please pray for America. There are still some really Good Men and Women out there. Thank you for being one of them!
God Bless…
