Unviable

I want to explain something before I write this next post.  I’ve noticed that my recent entries (say, in the last two weeks or so - yea, that one) have sounded a bit . . . politicized.  Prophesied.  Soapboxed.  I’m telling you now because I’m about to write another one.  I’m doing this for two reasons:

First (or possibly second), because I am an aspiring author.  As such, I have been informed by those who know such things that I ought to be blogging consistently.  Platform building.  Welcome to the 21st century.  I’ve mourned the days of carriages and quills, but that didn’t do any good.  My second reason is because what you’re reading right now is a blog.  My blog.  Scary as that may sound.  And this is what’s happening in my life right now.  Or in my head, which seems to be more interesting than anything else.  Except for that night the sewer swamped the entire kitchen floor at work.

Moving on.

Last week I learned that Hitler was a vegetarian.  This week I’m learning about legal abortion in America.  Slightly disturbing how the two are related.

Before he was hung by the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about abortion in his book Ethics:

“Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life.  To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue.  The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life.  And that is nothing but murder.”

After looking up the word nascent (“just coming into existence, emerging”), I can say I wholeheartedly agree with Bonhoeffer.  Who wrote this before the days of ultrasounds.  Before we saw a pre-born’s heart beating.  Before National Geographic’s in-color photos of life inside the womb.  Before images of developing fingers and toes and eyes and noses.

But the right to life is more than an emotional appeal.  It’s a moral appeal.  One that, if it remains unsaid, makes us look a whole lot like the country of Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler.  He justified killing Jews because they didn’t match his “Aryan” standard.  We justify killing unborn humans because they don’t meet our development criteria.  He killed disabled children and adults because of their mental and physical immaturity.  We justify killing unborn humans because they’re not “viable” yet.  He locked them in gas chambers from which millions never emerged.  We lock them in the womb and only let them out piece by mutilated piece.  He stacked them on carts and took photos.  We throw them in dumpsters outside the back door.

The question is not whether or not the unborn are human.  They have a heartbeat.  They have unique DNA.  They have a gender.  We know if we let them out, we’ll see a little boy or a little girl.  Not a dog or a duck or a monkey.  We just haven’t bought their first pair of shoes yet.  We haven’t set them at their desk at school where everyone can see them.

America has screamed for tighter gun control since a man walked into an elementary school and indiscriminately shot the entire class.  I recently read an article in the Grand Island Independent on that subject.  The author, Ann McFeatters, quotes, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are 30 gun-related murders every day with another 162 people wounded by guns and 53 suicides.  Every day.”  (Notice she uses the word murder.)

That’s 245 dead people!  Per day.  Obviously, we need to do something about our gun problem, right?

Here’s some more statistics for you.  Did you know approximately 11,000 babies are born in America every day?  Did you know in that same time span, there are roughly 3,000 abortions?  Three thousand.  Compare that to births, and that’s nearly 25%.  We’re destroying 25% of our population.  Legally.  Without even giving them the opportunity to eat Cheerios.  Or learn how to ride a bike.  Or vote.  Or breathe.

Let me write this another way.  If today’s statistics had applied thirty years ago when I was born, one out of every four of my friends would not be alive.  A quarter of my graduating class.  A quarter of my co-workers.  A quarter of my cousins and second cousins and third cousins.  Gone.  Legally.

While the church in America does . . . well, what?  The same thing the German church did under Adolf Hitler?

I’m not going to tell you what to do about all this.  I’m sure I’ll have a hard enough time deciding that for myself.  But after a bit of research, I can recommend these resources if you’d like to know more:

    + The Case for Life by Scott Klusendorf
    + The Silent Scream (half hour 1984 youtube video detailing the abortion operation)
    + Or maybe you want to go to Planned Parenthood’s website and see what they have to say about the abortion issue.  It’s very enlightening.

As Regards the Emperor and His Clothes

(This isn't really meant to be a profound post.  It is simply a brief sketch of thoughts revolving in my mind due to certain conversations and literature.)

“I recently came across the fairy tale of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ which really is relevant for our time.  All we are lacking today is the child who speaks up at the end.  We ought to put it on as a play.”

I love this quote.  Partially because it uses words like fairytale and child and play.  But also because a friend recently told me a very near version of the exact same thing.  We were discussing the state of our educational system and the different methods currently in use to inspire our teachers onto new heights.  As a teacher herself who has experienced this government-sponsored training, my friend is rather well-qualified to speak on the subject.

May I introduce Preposition Man?  I’m sorry if he’s confidential, but no one told me.  He’s the little pipe cleaner figure teachers across our nation are encouraged to use to teach English in their classrooms.  Under, above, on, beside.  Mr. Preposition Man can do them all.  Cute for a class full of second graders.  But high school?  What mental age are we teaching?

“The Emperor hasn’t got any clothes, Mommy!” the young boy screams.  He’s not being brave.  He’s just honest.

I look across our nation.  Where we write “In God We Trust” on our quarters but aren’t allowed to hang His words on our courtroom walls.  Where a woman can sue a fast food restaurant because she spilled hot coffee on herself.  Where we’re having trouble defining marriage, baby, hate crime, and a whole host of other words.  Where schools in Massachusetts recently adopted a policy that any child in their system wishing to be titled “she” must have that option.  Even if “she” is a boy.

“The Emperor’s naked!” the child cries.  While the grown-ups in the fairytale look on and say nothing.

Back to the quote at the beginning.  It was written by a man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  A German.  In 1935.  During the reign of Adolf Hitler.

Perhaps these are the sort of thoughts that come when delving into a nearly 600-page biography on the life of a martyred German pastor.  Do you think I ought to stick with the daily comics from now on?  I’m not really trying to be prophetic, and I’m certainly not political, but I do wonder sometimes where our nation is headed.  And who in our country ought to stand up and say something about it.

When Things That Don't Exist Come to Life

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

It’s an awful sentence.  Negative.  And weak-verbed to boot.  I know all about sentences like that.  I’ve been hunting them down in my manuscript.  Eight hours a day, five days a week.  I finally feel like a real author.  Even with the [unpublished] preface.  Here, on revamp #258.  Okay, it’s not really that bad.  But that’s how it seems.

Back to the Rome sentence.  It may be awful, but it’s also very true.  Applicable for cities, families, and books.  Maybe especially imaginary world books.

I’m currently reading the true account of a reject horse named Snowball. (See Elizabeth Letts' The Eighty Dollar Champion.) Dog meat material turned jumping champion in the middle of the last century.  The author’s done a tremendous job of digging into the story, setting the stage, bringing the characters to life, taking us to the scene of the triumph.

Oh, but goodness, it makes me glad I’m writing fiction.  I’d really hate to set up camp in a Surnian library to research their history.  And the Elite?  I don’t know how I’d portray them faithfully.  They’re much too terrifying.  I’d be afraid of them decapitating me in the middle of the night if they didn’t like what I said.  Which, of course, they wouldn’t.

The good news is the characters are putting on flesh and blood.  Really.  Bounding right off my computer screen and into the house. (Don’t worry.  I locked them in the basement last time.  I don’t think they’ll try it again.)

Until next time . . . Enjoy your coffee and the color green. (Hopefully not both at the same time.) I’ll be staring at my computer screen, seeing all sorts of things that don’t exist.

(Oh!  Thought you might like to eyeball this relic from Surn.  Found it in the village library.  Squashed between a teenager’s journal and a recipe for fried frog legs.  Apparently, no one thought it was very important.  I snuck it over to the Xerox machine when no one was looking.)

My Imaginary Friend

Meet Jerusha.

Fifteen years old.  Five foot five.  Black hair.  Brown eyes.  Orphan.

And my favorite part:

Completely a figment of my imagination.

Or she was until my talented friend Kelsey Turner sat down in front of her computer and brought a figment of my imagination to life.  Aaahhhhh!!!  It's Frankenstein!  Everybody run! . . . Oh.  Sorry.  Wrong book.

Now Jerusha is stalking facebook walls and blog posts, taking her first hesitant steps towards fictitious immortality.  In my mind, just the fact that I can actually see her puts her well down the road towards Hollywood fame.  Gotta love the mind of an aspiring author.

Anything is possible.

For now, I'm greatly enjoying the writing process and watching the talents in others come to life in this world through the venue of another world.  Surn.  You've never been there, have you?  Don't worry.  Give us a little more time . . . We're very much hoping to take you there soon.

May the wind ever make your eardrums beat and the broccoli ever flee the cracks between your teeth.

Dear Book Worms and Lab Rats

Dear Readership,

After countless bug-eyed hours spent reading tiny little words on a great big screen and the waves of brain cells irretrievably lost in the process, I can now declare with great sincerity that I know more about publishing than I did two weeks ago.  I am so enjoying this newfound wisdom, in fact, that I am inviting you to join me.  Mwah-ha-ha-ha! (Was that evil laughter?  Oh dear.  Where did that come from?)

We’re called The Guinea Pigs.

Actually, I’m not really part of the group.  I’m more in the role of presiding mad scientist, though I have yet to track down a white lab coat.

The Guinea Pigs really do exist.  Or at least they will until I exterminate them.  Corporately.  Not individually.

Here’s the grand announcement in regards to my non-published aspirations:

If you are a book worm longing to be a lab rat, and if you have a handful of hours to spare in the next month, and if your eyes can stand the hours of healthy computer screen radiation, then I (the mad scientist without the lab coat) invite you to join The Guinea Pigs.

It’s quite simple.

As an unpublished author who knows more than she did but still doesn’t know much, I am working the kinks out of my book.  Yes, even mad scientists have kinks - and it has nothing to do with my hair.  I am inviting all family, friends, perfect strangers even to read through my manuscript in three segments and answer a few painless questions at the end of each.  No mad editing skills needed here.  Just gut reactions.  I am greatly hoping this will get me more in touch with the reality of my book and less captivated with the fascinating but slightly illogical illusion I’ve been staring at.

If you are interested, please send me a note, and I’ll sign you up with the rest of my brave Guinea Pigs. (Don’t worry.  No one’s been poisoned yet.) If you’d like to know more about the book first, click on Et cetera on the blue strip above.

May your slippers ever warm your toes and the robins never catch your fingers.

Most sincerely,
the authorship