To Die For...

Read the Book of Matthew...


While satisfying the political junkie side of me, I came across a question put forward by a fellow Christian and staunch second amendment activist.
The hypothetical query is this:

If you know your neighbor is anti second amendment and has been politically or personally  active in trying to regulate or otherwise remove your right to bear arms, and an episode occurs whereby this person is in danger from an armed intruder, are you morally obligated to defend this person or could you just put it off as a learning experience for the neighbor and let the chips fall as they may...?

At first glance this looks to be an easy decision for most Christians. It is not as simple as it seems.

Number one, if I'm already in  "Sunday School mode", of course I'm going to point that "eye for an eye" is under the old law and as free children in Christ, we are to all treat our "neighbor" as our own bodily self.

Where the difficulty arises is when we realize in the day-to-day world of popular opinion, political fervor and just 'forgetting to go pick up Jesus today' as we are apt to do in the rush to get the morning started, these thoughts and conversations don't necessarily turn Biblical.

And what if the question posed was about a specifically morally destructive person, without whom our most devout Auntie might say the world is a better place?
Think Fred Phelps, think abortion doctors...

Consider this:

You drive through a dangerous part of town after work every night and a person, who single-handedly drove a referendum that removed your right to keep a handgun in your vehicle for protection, moves next door to you.

Every day after that referendum passed you have feared driving to work because of the specter of returning through those streets; lamp lights broken from gang activity; one red light after another catching you as you sit with your doors locked waiting and scanning the trash filled alley as best you can clutching your cell; one finger on speed dial for 911.

You get home one night and, by the light of your low-beams, see the yard next to yours littered with posts calling for a complete end to all gun ownership within the county limits.

Seething with righteousness, you attend all the civic meetings on the subject, to find your concerns falling on deaf ears because the county board is stacked with gun control advocates.

One night you are certain that you've been targeted for a  burglary. You hear clanging noises in the garage and a muffled curse. Thankfully you know right where you placed your little derringer and if you can't wing 'em, surely you can scare whoever it is from returning on  this night!

Bang-pop! You hit the garbage cans and hear a squeal. Your neighbor's lights come on.

He's called the police. You have to help fill out a report. You have to ride down town in a cop car to do it. Humiliated you get to bed late, get up in time to take care of your work clothes hurriedly the next day, but are still late for work, and dog tired. You get a demerit the very week you were going to ask for a raise.

As you drive home through those scary dark streets, you think how your neighbor is going to use this incident to further his own anti-gun cause. Although you believe you'd  succeeded in preventing a burglary, the cops had reprimanded you for shooting into the darkness where there could have been an innocent animal or person...you can't think of a good way to change people's minds about the right to bear arms; you're tired; it's been a long day...

With all this on your mind you pull into your driveway and turn the key off. Not even bothering with the garage door, you just sit and breath.

Two figures shuffle across the space between your garage and the neighbor's. Next thing you hear a weak but urgent,

"Help!"

rising out of your neighbor's open window.

You push 911; you have it on speed dial.

"Help me, oh help..."

You could creep inside your house now; you know exactly where the gun is; and pop off a  few rounds to scare the perps away, but if you don't, number one, the cops have a better chance of catching them therefore eliminating a threat to yourself, and two, the man in danger has been trying to eliminate your ability to defend yourself.

...as you wait for the police to arrive you have a decision to make...


I'll let you make it on your own...(dang that's hard!)...




Meanwhile always keep Jesus in your heart. Pray for me and my little blog to do something good. 

here's the Bible (+ commentary, maps, devotionals and much more from a guy who's ministry is the digital Word)  to download for free/I've used it for years and now they even have a mobile version.
 And BibleGateway's Bible online to read or listen to.

Women are pathfinders

Proverbs 3:15-18

 

 Abortion, of course, is a medical procedure.

Yes all but the new readers have heard this rant before, but it is my stance on the matter and may as well be re-stated here.

Women and doctors had a problem with states playing God & Doctor, when a doctor wanted to prescribe an abortion for a dead fetus (which can cause gangrene), and things of the nature that would do bodily harm to the woman.

Yes there have always been women who wanted an abortion because they weren't married or didn't want to have any (or any more) children. But we developed contraceptives that work a huge percentage of the time. So that took care of most of the worry if you wanted to go around freezy-breezy as far as sex goes. It did not stop communicable disease but did prevent unwanted pregnancy to a great degree.

Some states (Texas is one) did not allow forced abortion under any circumstances threatening the doctor's license and jail time for him--a big incentive to him not to perform one even if in his considerable training and judgement, the procedure was imminently necessary. You might get a court order but that would be a long process and by that time the woman may have delivered a glob of infection and if she lived be sterile the rest of her days.

So when attention was drawn to it, everybody eventually saw that that was wrong.

But then came along a case of a woman wanting to abort without a doctor's recommendation. Still the horror stories of doctors not being allowed to do their job persisted and swayed the public to hope for a decision that was fair.

Why the court at the time chose this case to hear and why the ruling on only her right to privacy instead of the right of doctor patient privilege I have not a clue. A better case -one where there was a need for an abortion instead of a want would have been more proper to clarify THE PROBLEM.

But since we all respected the court back then as the ultimate and final conveyer of understanding of the constitution, we mostly bowed to their decision as a society and tried to wrap our head around it. Men came around to that oft repeated phrase, "It's her body..."

Well yes it's her body but she cannot prescribe drugs or other invasive treatments for it so why can she be allowed to write her own scrip for an invasive gynecological procedure?

Then yes abortion "clinics" were waiting with bated breath like the illegal bootlegger the night before prohibition. And they sprang up all over the country seemingly at once. Suddenly there was not one but two or more in every region. You didn't have to drive but 30 miles in either direction to have an abortion done.

One would have thought these investors knew how that ruling was going to go...

...So now that these companies are well healed of course they are going to remain political and pay for ads that tell you this is your right as an American citizen.


Hog wash and poppycock; nothing could be further from the truth.

Lemme tell ya something, ladies, life is uncontrollable because that way it remains beautiful.

If you can control every aspect of human birth (and we will soon have that capability) you only promote the mundane.


Other than that philosophical interlude I have this to say. Women are created to be pathfinders. We make do, make up, shake up and clear the air. 

But we should never make the rules alone.

We interpret a way to live and help to nourish the good that is in the world. It's our calling. If life throws lemons at us we are the ones who make the (literal and metaphorical) lemonade, not the men. We have honed a skill over eons of struggle. We are family. What would a man be without us? Don't give up the bread basket of life.

Let some other woman bring it to term, love it and make it into part of her family.

We fought too hard to get to our center to throw it all away and become just another guy. We are special. We are cherished. We are honored. We are truly amazing and we can do something amazing.