Standing Watch Before the Dawn

Our designated spot is just off the driveway of the strip mall, across a small parking lot, a hundred feet or so from the clinic. Legally, it’s as close as our “40 Days for Life” parish group can stand. Driving up I noticed I’d be on the sidewalk by myself this cold and windy Thursday evening. I parked, and exchanged my keys for the beads I’d pocketed at home. They gave me something to fidget with as I strolled, nervously, to my post. There, I folded my arms with my back to the street, trying to settle myself for an hour of prayer. Showing up is always the hardest part.

Above, the remnant of the day’s gloomy sky was breaking up in the west. Lit by a hiding sun that had sunk below the horizon, the undersides of the separating clouds went from bright gold on my far left to a sad purple overhead. A hundred reddish shades blended in between, and kept me gazing up.

A familiar voice from my past repeated an old seafarer’s saying just then. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” my father would say whenever we fished under skies like this. I’d rather be fishing with him right now, I admitted to myself.

Looking upward (and remembering back), my eyes avoided the structure before me. Seeing the dark brown building out the bottom of my periphery, I zipped my collar up to my chin. “Women’s Care,” the sign said. The letters were old and fading, just like the deceit it advertised.

Beneath the name and behind the lies of this foreboding place, wonderfully-made unborn children died here today. That sudden thought (or was it the chilly wind?) sent a shiver of unease down my neck. It’s better to look towards heaven, I decided, than to conjure up a glimpse of the gruesome, frightening things that take place so close to where I was standing.

Call me a coward. Or tell me that I don‘t pray with enough courage. If I did, then maybe I wouldn‘t have to look away when the reality of abortion is directly in front of me. But then, all of us do it. All of us turn our heads. If it wasn‘t for our distractions, the dreadful thing would be too much to bear.

I’d rather not stand here alone, I thought rather loudly, sending the hint skyward, hoping it might pass through the colors and reach the Artist above. Maybe He would somehow come… descend from the darkening clouds… and comfort me in the cold. Then a doubt arose. With what goes on here, does He ever come near this place?

Alone with that question, I hummed a hymn I’d learned long ago. The words seemed like a good way to begin praying.

...Abide with me, fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens, Lord with me abide....

It didn’t take long for Him to answer my wish. No, nothing miraculous. Just a gift of nature—fifty to sixty Canadian geese on their seasonal migration—heading straight at me from across the eventide sky, making the most of the reflected light to get their day's journey in.

“Thanks for the company,” I told Him, admiring His handiwork. Soon I could hear them—honking as they cheered each other on, flying like an arrowhead shot from miles away.

I remember as a boy my father explaining the way they traveled. “In the Navy, our ships would travel in a wedge like that,” he’d recount, pointing his long arm upward past my ear while he knelt behind me. He liked to take me back with stories of his youth, especially his service in the North Atlantic where his fleet protected unarmed merchant ships on their way to Europe. I superimposed the approaching formation with the warships I pictured from the memory he once shared. “The lead ship would break the waves so the ones in formation behind, riding along in the wake, didn’t have it as rough.” I could still hear the waves… and still feel his chin on my shoulder. His breath warmed my neck as my now traced over his then.

“How time flies,” I whispered up to him, knowing he’d get the pun. From my teenage years on it was my job, it seemed, to cheer him up. He liked it when I distracted him from his sadness. His last thirty years had been heavy for him—ever since he was told of a grandchild lost in a building like this.

“Seems like only yesterday you were telling me about the evil sea creatures that tried to sink your ship,” I said, keeping the conversation going. The Wolfpack submarines were deadly. Each sailor had to take a turn on deck watching for a periscope or a torpedo’s trail. I imagined him close by, the two of us manning the lookout.

“How cold was it when you were out there standing watch?” I asked. He didn’t talk much after he was told that his daughter‘s child became a casualty of yet another world war. Just then a chilling gust stirred, and a small cyclone spun some leaves and papers along the pavement. His way of answering, no doubt: it was really cold.

His own watch ended last year. I miss him these days. But I never feel him closer than when I come to pray at a clinic. He knows I’m there, but that’s not why he shows up. I've figured him out. He knows I can leave. I think he’s there for those who can‘t.

“It seems like only yesterday,” I said again, thinking of my childhood and a time when places like this weren’t allowed. But now they are, and ever since the declaration of war, fifty million grandchildren are gone. It was too much to dwell on, so I returned to the hymn…

...Change and decay in all around I see; oh Thou who changest not, abide with me....

“Tomorrow is Friday,” I told him in my prayers, as if he didn’t know. He knew. He knows what each morning means for this building—especially Fridays when business seems to pick up. Around eight, it will open--and become an evil sea creature rising from the deep with a gaping mouth to devour more children and grandchildren. Suddenly I recalled the rest of the mariner’s saying. “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.”

“Can you ask for some geese to fly over when the place opens?” I asked him. “Or angels?” Anything to fly the little ones home.

In less than twelve hours, the sky would brighten again. I looked to the east, and said a silly prayer, asking Heaven to stop the sun from rising. The darkness would keep the clinic from opening, I mused. “Can’t we just wish this place into a black, eternal absence?” I tried to reason with the sky. Unreasonable thoughts. They diverted me from the sad visions of the next day’s battle I saw through the water that my bottom eyelids could no longer contain. I had taken my eyes off of the geese.

“Ask Jesus to be here tomorrow,” I prayed, “when the little ones enter those doors I’m trying not look at.” I listened. Is their noise some coded message, I wondered, telling me He’ll be ready and waiting—to hold and heal and mend and kiss the tiny babies whose little frames will be torn from the place where they sleep now in their final night?

I closed my eyes and turned my mind to a dawn further off. It wasn’t darkness that I’d meant to ask of Heaven. Musing again, I squinted my imagination towards that one breaking day when trumpets will sound with the sunrise. A gloriously painted sky will start out purple, tricking us into thinking it’s just another day of dying for innocent, hidden babes. But then! Then it will flash to a fiery orange and a brilliant yellow and—in a startling instant—a blinding white!

“Dad, does He tell you when the war will be over?” I whispered upward. The honking was nearly at its loudest as he answered.

“I know, I know… a silly question,” I laughed back.

Then for a blessed half minute more, I pointed my face in the direction of the living wonders that were sent—no doubt—to aim my thoughts toward Heaven. And I continued to tell Him my mind. I mentioned how so many of us have had enough of standing in front of buildings like this—tired of trying to bring peace to a world that doesn't even know there's a war going on inside the wombs and souls of our sisters. I told Him how our morale is being tested. We know there will be victory...that the war will end and peace and justice will triumph—but victory seems a dream. Still, I told Him, we're longing for the carnage to end, yearning for that unimaginable morning when an explosion of all-exposing light will tell us the battle is won and the innocents are safe forevermore. And with my humming I told Heaven, and the One who made the geese and all living creatures great and small, that I believe—in spite of my thousand impatient doubts—that the day will indeed come…

...Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me....

At the end of the verse I stopped and listened closely to the geese—and to our Father—directly above. Then in those moments, as I stood on the sidewalk battling the elements, the hideous building had completely disappeared. Witnessing in prayer for the little ones, I’d been rewarded. My prayers—more powerful than an atomic bomb—had made the place vanish.

Nothing to fear, He was saying, so long as we show reverence to life when it comes along. I stared, frozen but now settled, acknowledging this gift of life—one of the millions that come our way when we look to Heaven. I had turned my Faith against the peace-destroying beast—this Leviathan that is devouring entire generations—and was mesmerized by Life, and its Giver who longs for our company.

My neck was straining and my back was arched. The convoy was mostly behind me now. I dared to be bold—to turn my back on the building—and did a casual about-face, ready to salute them as they headed for the horizon.

Then it happened again. Another surprise—a second sign appearing in the sky. How stupid I was to let the new symbol shock me. Time and distance had flipped it around as it took on its deeper meaning… a trickier code… hidden in what was now a departing “V”.

“That means victory, right?” I asked the last of them—birds, but also shrinking dots at the top of a letter that was scrolling away. “You were sent to tell me there will be victory soon, right!?” The honks were fading—soon a parting whisper. I strained my ear and listened for my answer.

Nothing. Then sensing the dark presence behind me, I unfolded my arms and buried my hands in my pockets. The right one still clutched my rosary. It’s the chain of my anchor, and it keeps me from drifting. Stationed here, while the fleet sailed off, I warmed the beads and felt for the answer.

Ah! There it was. I'd found it.

“The Virgin!” I said to the sky, finally understanding. “The Virgin!” A calm—the deep, warm, motherly kind—settled over me and made my fears seem puny. I turned back around, ready to face Her enemy. Leviathan, I realized, has not yet seen the full power of our Virgin Mother.

“You are waging war against Her children,” I informed it. Then, turning all my impatience over to Her, I started that powerful, powerful prayer. I reminded the monster—repeatedly and slowly, fifty times and more—of how our Mother will crush its head on that day when She comes to rescue Her little ones.

“Those are Her babes that you will harm in the morning,” I said to the clinic again, finishing the rosary—and my watch. “Leviathan, take warning.”

Common Ground? We were made for Uncommon Heights!!

I'm thinking of writing another article for CatholicOnline. Today was a day filled with many blessings, all linked to the Assumption and the graces that flow through our Mother to us. Many good thought "from above" today. The piece for C.O. has to be about the health care proposals, and the inclusion of abortion in any legislation that passes. I can't see any health bill NOT guaranteeing the funding of abortion... and euthanasia for that matter. In the City of Man, these are integral components in the economic structuring of humankind--for we are all headed for "thing-hood" when our worth is determined by cost. It all goes back to Leviathan... the book, that is. By Hobbes. The philosophy of the post-Reformation European elites who were determined to separate from the monarchy, but realized they needed a "gameplan" first. That strategy included the same ideology that has brought us to this "common ground" mantra we hear being sung by City of Man's rulers. Common ground... that agreed upon giving up of certain personal rights "for the good" of the larger, more important community... and that community's survival. If people would only read!!! They would see it all around us--you give up your sick grandfather's need for expensive health care so the middle-aged middle-class can have their proper share. Granted, that share is not equal--but their share is based on what they can give back to Leviathan. Same for the unborn. If conceived out of marriage, and likely to come into an existence where nurturing is likely NOT to occur, then chances are the poor little one will be of small worth down the road. In fact, he or she will most likely become a drain on the community's resources. Better to abort. It's for the "common good." Strange how seeking the common good, in the parlence of the wealthy, leading elite, is derived from a search for "common ground." It's the other mantra. We seek the common ground through dialogue (which is pretty much one sided) as we listen to our leaders tell us how to agree upon what is the common good. The common ground is the consensus... what we are willing to sacrifice (where have we heard that word quite a bit lately?) "Can we afford grandpa's hip replacement?" the question is posed. Then the argument is laid out that "no, we are going broke, and hip replacements are luxuries at this time, so grandpa will have to limp his way to the next life. Which brings up the question: What is the next life? Is it something we're overlooking in this whole health care debate? We're so focused on the "common ground" that we are blind to the "common heights" to which we are all called. In the ultimate height to which we are called, we are of infinite worth, for there we are not called to make, or produce, or contribute... No, there, in heaven, we are all just called to be. And by "being" we become who we are... no less and no more. We find our place, our rank--and a peace upon which no one could ever put a price.

The elite have already found their place in this world. And they are bound to it with such clutching might that they won't let themselves go... won't let anyone go... to those unquantifiable heights. Theirs is the City of Man. A tall, formidable fortress, no doubt.

But to those of us who aspire to higher things... immaterial things... this fortress is more like a prison. As they strive to wall us all in, it is our yearning to break out and fly free. Those of us who have lived long enough in the confines of this old prison know that there is more. Our Faith speaks of it. It tells of a place... a city... the City of God... which will be built upon the ruins of the City of Man.

Soon, the common ground may very well begin to tremble. And the earth will begin to shake violently. City of Man will not withstand it. When the walls crumble... well then, perhaps will we have found that common ground... the common footing... upon which we can begin construction of the New Jerusalem.

Funny how we think we're building this huge, impregnable rampart, when we're really just waiting for it to fall, then to show us our human limitedness, and then to become the foundation for the real city that will last.

From the vantage point of our common height as Christians, we sit on a hill... hmmm, what hill is this? Oh yes, it's Calvary. From here the whole final episode would be quite entertaining, if it won't be all so tragic first.

What gods and God remember

Private jets and other flying things
all soaring past on tax-paid wings
while citizens do their vacationing,
forgetting slaughtered babes.

“Why be so sour and ruin recess?”
say the high priests and the priestesses,
“found common ground’ll change this mess:
Forget the grieving moms.”

For these are times for stimuli!
And health care bought by you and I
while economies must rectify…
so forget those emptied wombs.

When autumn comes and we awake
seeing FOCA wasn’t the thing at stake--
but passed, this law calls all: "Partake
in the New Forgetting!"

At least we’ll have expenses paid
for medicines that cause to fade
the memories of how we delayed--
then forget what we forgot.

But they will not now, nor soon forget
(though unending will be the great regret)
poor babes, and moms, and wombs we’ve let
only high priests to remember.

For when gods win come this September
and procedures are paid for in November
that go into women and there dismember
babes in the womb forgot,

remember then, your mercy Lord!
Forget our sins, and our discord.
Your children live beneath a sword,
though pagan gods forget

that Your Sword and other eternal things
bring justice down, while angels’ wings
fly back to You where sad songs sing
of forgotten slaughtered babes.

The final blow

In the summer night when the wind blows
and I close my eyes to picture this
moving invisible something
that cools me and the darkness,

I see a face.

Whose face is this
that I’ve closed my eyes to see?
It doesn’t move.
No blinking.
No smile.
No frown.
All muscle twitches stopped.

Gazing on the face, it’s then that I know where I am called to live
and how long.
The wind speaks it to me...
this cool wind that blows from across the desert.

I know this face. It is vain for me

to ask Whose it is.
It is the face I will stare at for eternity
only if
I start staring now
and continue until then--
the face that I must not open my eyes to lose.

Eyes closed. The world shuttered out.
There,
almost still,
with air touching me
then moving past,
I see.

Nearly still now.

It is hard to love just a face.
It is hard to like a face that no longer smiles,

or even frowns—

a face that doesn’t move

at least for now....

The leaves on the tree stop. Silence.

For now, but for a moment...

...and in this moment
with the leaves still
and the tree still
and the wind still
and nothing now to cool my thoughts
or refresh my patience
or blow away the thoughts of my day
and the dust of my imperfections...
just then...

I see a tear
there,
on the face,
not yet dried.

I reach out toward it,
but cannot.
The closer my finger gets

to the wetness on this face,
the more my hand must pull back.

I want to touch it before it dries,

but more tears flow--
tears which are a gift,
and mine.

Powerless, unable to reach further,

I can only touch these instead,
and my own face
which wants to hide
as it distorts itself in cries and grief.

Anguish.

This last remaining tear--
undried
come out before the eyelids dropped--
was cried for me
long, long before mine for His.

Then in the sad dark night
when the sobbing for a face

that no longer moves
becomes my only pieta,
I feel the wind again.

I know now, this wind.
I feel it,
on my face,
from across this desert
come to dry my tears.

Believing the story
I know this breeze as I know my own breath,
and peace comes.

The breeze,
the air,
that came out

of the mouth of this Man

before all muscles ceased,
as He pushed up

and gasped

and grabbed

and pulled

and tore

and groaned

then heaved

and breathed His last,
complete and final breath
from deepest depths
and past relaxing, dying lips

that kiss the air so-long.

Oh, the Face with the tear
upon which I now stare!
(eyes closed)

Oh, the One who gave to the Father

this kiss,

and yes to us--
of His forever and final Spirit
Holy
Unending
Life-giving

and cooling in the night.

Joyful Mysteries (for an End to Abortion)

The Annunciation

Mary, in a mystical but real experience, hears an angel telling her that some Power from on High will cause her to conceive a life within her womb. This is not just any life. It is Life itself, in human form, and will change the world forever. The only thing Mary has to do is accept this new Life with a simple, yet universe-changing, motherly “yes.” And she does. With little wealth, not yet married, so very young, and living in a world where the Empire of Rome could legally announce life-ending decrees at a whim--decrees like the one that would soon happen when Herod declared the slaughter of all children two and under. For worldly empires do not want to share their power and authority with the King of Life. Still, Mary said yes. May that moment--that world-changing, miraculous brief instant in time--may it transcend all time to the moments of all human conceptions. May all of our miraculous fraction-of-a-second beginnings be somehow re-conceived, with Mary standing beside our own biological mothers at their moment of “yes” as we seek to re-create the world around us. As our world is made new again, may all mothers have Mary at their sides as they bring new life out their power to conceive. And may all new life, begun mysteriously by a power we human beings do not “own”, may that new life come to its earthly ending only when the Power from on High chooses to bring us to Himself.

The Visitation

How sad that our world no longer admires the awesome wonder of motherhood so openly and so joyfully. A reluctance to offer help or hope for our mothers today comes from the bitterness our world tastes because it accepts abortion. Yet Mary is there for each mother. She, along with all of the queens of creation who have ever experienced life in their wombs, is the Queen who walks among her people. She stood with her pregnant cousin Elizabeth. Two mothers. And two sons. Four humble, selfless people who would live their lives as a connected family, so history could record the joy they shared for life. One boy leapt in his mother’s womb at the presence of the other, greater One. May we begin to feel the joy of Life as Mary brings it back into our world. She walks among us, her people. She asks all mothers to join her. Herod--the symbol of emperors, regimes, governments and courts who want to silence Her Son’s prophets as they leap for joy because the King of Life is returning--that fearful, cowardly Herod has no more power over the life within. That life within, joined to the Life in Mary, is ours to joyfully enthrone as we bring help and hope to women whose children will make them like queens.

The Nativity

In a small barn, at night, without a midwife or nurse, and after a long, difficult trip--a young woman in labor lays on a blanket spread out over some fresh straw. The man with her is not the father. Yet there they are, in this man’s hometown where a decree has forced them to go. There, with a bright star--an actual, historical celestial event--shining down on this village… here, all of the prophecies that ever foretold the victory of Life over death are being fulfilled. The blanket, and the straw, and the simple barn, and the humble man who helped bring this woman here--all of it, and all of creation too, under this star, receives this Child in this silent, holy, calm, bright moment. May that saintly man, and this Child, and the Child’s loving Mother, be with all children as they leave their mothers’ wombs. May they show mothers how to love and hold and cherish their children. And when mothers are led into those places where no woman ought to bring her child, may those two loving parents and their Child quickly snatch the pieces from the evil one who tries to destroy life. May they immediately erase the terror of the moment, and the memory of a far too early exit from this world. May they wrap the little one--whole now, and Home--and embrace its once unwanted body, holding him or her in the love of a new Holy Family. And with all the little ones who have returned Home too soon, may they shine down their light to our darkness. With every little one taken, may heaven grow. And may the prayers of all those in heaven soon open all hearts to receive Life.

The Presentation in the Temple

Can we hear the prayers in Mary’s heart as Joseph presented their new Child to the priests in the Temple? “Here, heavenly Father, is the fruit of your mysterious love for us.” Imagine the inability to comprehend it: how can this, a young mother, present to Yahweh the greatest gift that could ever be offered to Him in His Temple? All of the world’s gold could not surpass in value what was being presented to heaven that day. And what was this presented offer? A baby! A fragile, completely dependent, innocent baby! Here He is, shared now with us from His Father; then shared back to His Father from Mary. Proof that Life is to be shared by all. Please, God, let all mothers know that the child within is hers to be shared--and not destroyed. And let our nation know that if we continue to share in the acceptance of abortion, we are sharing the one thing that ought not be shared--for we are sharing death. We are offering to You, oh Father, an abomination when we present these millions of deaths to You. Quickly turn us around. Wake us up! Show mothers the gift that is within them. Then shower all of your blessings on the mothers who share their children with the world.

Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple

Mary hears the words, “Don’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business?” and kept those words in her heart. Now, may she share the meaning of her Son’s question with us. May she show each mother that her child--from his or her very first moment--is destined for something greater than any of us can imagine. Each child has a purpose, a reason, a place. We see it in each child when we look or listen: a smile that says, “I love you.” Or an “I love you” that makes us smile. That purpose begins in a mother’s body--a true temple of the soul--where personhood is found. There, in the mother’s temple, another temple is made. Temple after temple after temple. Our mothers build something no man could ever make. For our mothers build our world, then fill it with goodness--with the warmth that comes from their smiling children, and with the love that comes from our Father through each child. May all pregnant mothers--especially those considering abortion--hear this secret whispered in their hearts. And may they find their new purpose within them.

Luminous Mysteries (for an End to Abortion)

Jesus Baptism

May all people hear the Voice from our Father as it tells us that all of His sons and daughters in the womb are His beloved children. The people who saw Jesus being baptized could not see His divinity. But He joins our humanity with His, and is washed with earthly water at the hands of a good man, his holy cousin John. May the mothers who are now carrying sons or daughters in their wombs see the beloved humanity within them that eyes cannot yet see. May those same mothers find good doctors, that is, good men and women who want to safely bring their babies out of the watery place they now live so they can continue their young, fragile lives in their mothers' embrace. May our Father show all mothers how pleased He is when we join in helping them, as we cry out in this desert where we live, saying that human life from the very beginning is eternally beloved. Because with all human life, God is well pleased.

Wedding at Cana

So many women who are considering abortion do not have loving, strong men in their lives who are willing and proud enough to say, “This is my child, too.” The perfect man is hardly around in their time of need. But Jesus is the perfect Man, and with Mary’s motherly direction, He can work miracles in our lives. May all pregnant women, married or not married, who are feeling empty at a time when they should be feeling the fullness of life inside them--may all of them find Jesus’ transforming power. With Mary’s help, may they see how God has filled them with the miracle of life, a life that is meant to be lived and shared with others--especially within families, and most especially between mothers and fathers as they both bring life into the world.

The Proclamation of the Kingdom

Any nation that allows abortion is hardly a powerful nation. Such a nation is the exact opposite of the Kingdom of Jesus, for His Kingdom will make princes and princesses out of the powerless and the least among us. May we proclaim our sadness for the millions of acts of evil perpetrated against the powerless unborn, asking our King for mercy, for healing, and for reconciliation. Our King came to save all sinners, and to satisfy our thirst for justice for all of the wrongs done to our little brothers and sisters. May the world see that all of us--from the very moment that our King elevated us to personhood at the time of our conception---all of us, everywhere, are destined to inherit the Kingdom he planned for us. He planned it for us--all of us--even before we were made in our mothers’ wombs. And in that plan, we are, we always were, and we always will be, made for that Kingdom.

The Transfiguration

Jesus is man. Our world wants us to think of Him only as man. But our world does not understand that something (or someone) can be two things at the same time. Jesus is man. But he is also God. A newly conceived thing is a collection of cells. But it is also a human person. May those who see only the lump of cells or tissue in the womb also begin to see that it is--at the same time--a brother or sister of ours. May they see the new, living, growing figure as it truly is: a dazzling and magnificent work of nature. But not a work just of nature. It is also a work of something (and Someone) far greater than nature. For our little brothers and sisters--and all of us, too--are works of the Divine. Two cells, once separated and alone, find each other in the womb where they are transfigured into a person. After Jesus’ transfiguration, he told us (as he told his disciples): “Do not be afraid.“ May all mothers be comforted by these words as they carry the awesome, new, transfigured life within them.

Jesus Gives the Eucharist

Jesus broke the bread and said, “Take this, and eat, for this is My Body.” Then He took the cup and said, “Take this, and drink from it, for this is the cup of My Blood.” With those words, He began His walk toward his crucifixion where He would die, just as all of us must die. Many of us die after experiencing years--sometime many years--in this world. But many--too many--of our brothers and sisters will die before they are born. When we go to Mass, and drink His Blood and eat His Body, we join with all of God’s children. And in His suffering, we join with the suffering experienced by all of the victims of abortion. The mothers, the unborn children, families, friends--all suffer from abortion. But the Sacrifice of Jesus is greater than abortion. May we pray for the day when all persons celebrate with joy the ending of abortion. Until then, may we receive Him--and all of the little ones--in hearts that are open to the sacrifices of love.

Time to Figure Out The Insanity... And Why The Woman Will Be Victorious

The Book of Revelation reads like a history book for Life. It could have been titled "The Rise and Fall of The Powers of the World that Destroy Children." Read it closely, and see if you can find the source of the power that is now used by nations to condone and even promote abortion.