A Gem from a Friend

Catherine, a friend who keeps a pro-life blog, posted a video that I want to share. The speaker, Stephanie Gray, offers her best argument for life.

[Note: That is my friend's real name. What? Why? If you click the link to go to her blog, as you should, you will discover her name anyway.]

Making the Case for Life: Pro-Life Apologetics from Mark Harrington on Vimeo.

Five Years in the Planning

Last weekend, Wendy came back into town for an event that we'd been planning with Julia for five years. Way back when the three of us were sophomores, we took a class on Greek Civilization with a friend from CCM. The four of us spent many evenings in our dorm room studying for tests. When we learned about symposiums -- where Greek men sat around drinking and talking about love -- we decided that this tradition should be continued, by the four of us. However, since we were all 20 at the time, it wasn't about to happen right then.

Now, five years later, Julia and I are back in the 'burg, Wendy's parents live here and she's not far away, and our friend is at a med school rotation generally in the area. Thus, we decided to carry out our symposium plans! We had a surprise guest, a mutual friend who comes back to the area that night.

Everyone pooled in with alcohol and food, and Wendy brought talking points. She also brought some old dress-up material for togas, much to the males' chagrin. Mine eventually ended up over my head more as a veil than a toga. We ended up with a very good conversation about many things related to love and dating: marriage, soul-mates, filios vs eros, etc. We offered a variety of perspectives and ended up talking later into the night than we expected.

And You Are Christ's: The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life, Thomas Dubay, S.M.

More of an Idiot: And You Are Christ's: The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life, Thomas Dubay, S.M.: "I borrowed this book from a friend who is reading it as prep for a retreat. The sub-title really tells it all. Fr. Dubay writes about people who dedicate their lives to Christ as celibates. He explains it in terms of love, self-gift, and prayer, and contrasts this approach to ideas of freedom for service. He offers the idea that virginity for Christ is a radical, rich, and loving. The virgin remains single because she is completely given to God, totally in love with Him, and can't imagine anyone else as the focus of her life. He of course goes into detail and pulls on Scripture and the saints, but that is the long and short.

I enjoyed the book, but I think that's mostly because of where I am in life right now. It's an accessible read and insightful, however, if you are interested in the topic."

And the Green Grass Grows All Around

As I mentioned in my previous post, Percy picked me up in Richmond after I spent the morning sidewalk counseling. We went from Richmond to Lawrenceville, which is essentially in the middle of nowhere. One of Percy's friends from YouthWorks (a program for which Percy and I have both worked) is on a clogging team, and they were performing at a college there.

After a lovely ride to the soundtrack of bluegrass Disney (imagine "Circle of Life" meets "Let the Circle Be Unbroken," with a lot of banjo), we arrived in Lawrenceville a good hour before Percy's friend. So he and I explored the town. All of it, on foot, in one hour.

The first shop we walked into promised "Something for everyone." I spent most of my time in the store thinking how wrong that promise was. The entire store filled two large rooms -- and by filled, I mean that every inch of the two rooms was covered with stuff. It was all second-hand, and normally I am a fan of thrift shopping. But the chaos of the organization (again, just piles), combined with the obvious age of some products (metal tubes of toothpaste? TVs that are older than me!), added to the... eclectic taste in product (large plastic lobsters, a massage machine that looked like a space ship, furry car seat-covers...) made me hesitant to touch anything. Percy and I spent quite a while wandering, gawking, laughing...

And then I found what was for me. In the midst of the chaos, I pointed at a picture and cried: "I found Jesus!" And He was there... also, there was a picture of Him.

When we were leaving the store, something else happened to make me a fan of this store. The owner stepped out to talk to us. Addressing Percy, he handed him a flyer and said, "Next time you come back, your wife will say that you should go to..." And he looked at me to finish the sentence. So apparently Percy and I are married. Um. Yeah....

We wandered around into a second-hand boutique and an apple festival that was more of a yard sale. Then we met up with Percy's friend and his fiancee for lunch, where Percy and I were again told that we were a couple. After this incident, he started telling everyone about his male roommates.

We left the restaurant and Percy's friend pulled a ukulele from his trunk, and an Irish whistle. They proceeded to play the instruments on the street while singing and dancing, until a lady came out of a store to ask if this was a preview for the show tonight. Delighted, Percy's friend said yes.

We walked the town again with Percy's friend and his fiancee. Percy and I had seen a sign for an estate sale, but I had very strong feelings about not going to it. However, when the third person of the day told me that we should go to the estate sale, I decided that it was a sign from God and we wandered over. An old building was set up very nicely as a house. Except for the random stuffed (i.e. taxidermied) bird on a stick, it wasn't morbid, and we had a good time window shopping. Percy even found a kitchen table to bring home.

We decided to bring his car back to see if the table would fit. The woman working the sale gave four random strangers her home and cell phone numbers in case she wasn't there when we got back. She told Percy that he could even take it home and send her a check in the mail. I couldn't believe the amount of trust that still exists in some parts of the world.

Luckily, after much maneuvering, we managed to fit a kitchen table and four chairs into the back of Percy's car. We left the estate sale and finally got down to the business of watching clogging.

In case you (like me until very recently) have no idea what clogging is, think contra dancing (square dancing + ballroom) meets tap dancing, and you are very close. The Celtibillies (exactly what they sound like) played, and the Green Grass Cloggers and a group of Irish dancers danced, and good times were had by all. I was highly impressed and had a blast -- plus, we had been through the town so many times that day that townspeople greeted us like friends.

After the show, Percy and I hopped back into his car and his friend and the fiancee followed us back to the 'burg. Coming from the middle of nowhere, we took mostly back roads on the venture and ended up coming at town from a new direction. The road and stars were gorgeous and I was surprised by the fact that it worked and we made it back! Sometimes, I'm just a little too much of a skeptic.

Richmond Medical Center for Women

I am playing catch-up -- it seems to be a recent pattern on this blog. I have two important stories from last Saturday that are now more than a week old.

I started Saturday with a road trip to Richmond. The Students for Life (SFL) group on campus goes to the Richmond Medical Center for Women once a month as sidewalk counselors. While I have been to pray outside of a growing handful of abortion facilities, I had never gone for the explicit purpose of sidewalk counseling. The three of us on this venture came armed with pictures of children in utero, information about the local pregnancy resource center, hand-written cards from people in SFL, and brochures on Rachel's Vineyard.

When we got to the yellow brick building, we found two women from a local church already there, each carrying a bag of information similar to ours. Their church sends someone to the facility every Saturday. They told us their basic strategy as I fingered my rosary inside my hoodie pocket. Because we can't enter the parking lot, they called to people as they got out of their cars and headed to the door, asking if they would like prayer or some information.

I spent most of our three hours there watching, running my fingers in circles in my pocket. A couple people took our information, but no one came to talk to us, and no one came to pray with us. One girl, visibly pregnant, left the same way -- and her mother looked so much happier on their way out! One man looked like he wanted to come talk to us, but the woman with him led their girl angrily into the building. So many human dramas happened in the cars as they pulled passed us, in the parking lot as we called to them, in the yellow brick building as we lost sight of them.

Just as the air of the CCM Chapel hangs heavy and thick like incense, made beautiful by the prayers of the past, so the air around the Richmond Medical Center for Women shivers with the knowledge of the nearby death, made sacred by the sorrows of the women who enter and leave each day. It's hard to explain the air around a place like that, but every abortion facility at which I have prayed has felt that way. Even Percy, who picked me up from Richmond and only stood on the sidewalk with us for a few minutes, felt it.

Whatever "it" is, it makes me aware that right there, no more than 50 yards from where I stand, is where people die. It impresses upon me the immediacy of this need. Sometimes, I can be content with the idea of "changing the hearts and minds of the people," and taking a long view of the change that needs to happen in our society. Not when I stand on the sidewalk, watching women and girls enter a building where a man will kill their children.

I know there is much work that must be done to have a society free of this evil. We must fight the battle on all fronts -- working at home to change hearts and minds, working in political process to affect laws, working in resource centers to provide help -- and standing on the sidewalk, praying for the women who bring their fears to that yellow brick building.

Part II, Take II

One of my friends said what I was trying to say, in different words and with her own stories:

http://lauraebuchanan.blogspot.com/2010/11/fear-and-sorrow.html

Day-Maker #12

A three-way Skype video chat with Ana and Percy. Partially because I am living in the future, partially because I was Skyping with someone who lives less than 5 minutes away, and mostly because they are two amazing people.