gather the souls

Genesis 12:5 KJV

[5] And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

My daughter has to do a slide show about very small souls, cupped in the hand souls, lost at sea souls, their tiny lives made consciously insignificant by human design alone

There are quiet, tree-lined lanes in the arteries of the capitals of the world where pretty twins play while their siblings become the interstitial jigsaw pieces of a world built without reference to

The souls they had gotten in Haran

What is a man’s soul?

And what will he give in exchange for it?

For what does it profit a man

If he gains the whole world

And loses his own soul?

Louisiana and the Supreme Court

The idea that a person whose sole job it is to cut out and exterminate living humans from their home by force is “a real doctor” is directly related to the Rabbits of Ravensbruck, the death camps of Hitler, the medical experiments conducted on unwilling victims by “licensed doctors” in WWII German and Poland, to Pol Pot, and ultimately to all the forced, anti-disability, and sex-attributed abortions around the world.

Real doctors try to save life, not crush unborn patients. So I get why the Supreme Court would be a little confused about the Louisiana law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges.

But it is a good and appropriate law and should have been upheld.

If it is not, then we must ask what the five ruling justices think will happen when the mothers in these clinics face the physical trauma of an operation or procedure that is by its very definition violent?

They will face it alone, because the person who did this to them does not live in their community. Does not reveal their true identity. Does this thing to them and then leaves them alone.

When our courts are unjust and our moral compass has been knocked out by nearly 50 years of acquiescence to legal and institutional murder, it is no wonder that we have lost our way.

We will not find it again without facing what we have done and what it has cost us–

Our very souls and our own children.

Abortion is murder, not medicine, and SCOTUS has just proved it by shielding practitioners who perform it from the full and appropriate licensing and credentialing process.

Shame on us. Shame and mourning.

Job 4:7 NIV

[7] “Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed?

Abortion. That is where.

What Would Tyrone Say?

I have been a big fan of Alex Hirsch since first encountering Gravity Falls. The series is layered, well-written, lovable, and infinitely quotable. So last night when I found out that Hirsch and his partner have raised money for Planned Parenthood, it was point of sorrow.

Seems ironic that a man whose works are written for children would not see that abortion kills children.

I know, I sound quite plaintive and simplistic, but I can’t stop thinking about one of Hirsch’s most lovable creations–a clone of his comic placeholder, Dipper Pines.

I wonder how Hirsch could have kept the narrative alive for Dipper’s several (and equally lovable) clones?

Keeping the narrative alive–

The opposite of the deadly agenda of Planned Parenthood.

The Imaginary Conversation

He is gone now

Gone to me, anyway

But I think of the things I would ask him if he were still here–

Would persistent nausea be enough? Or swarms of stinging insects? How about dead bodies? Or all the stubbed toes and fingers gone unmended

What if this post-modernist hell of your own invention were not unbearable heat, agony and utter despair

Forever/

Just

… an airless room, waiting for a love which never comes

All your regrets all your missed chances

To cry like a baby

Wail for a Savior

Weep at his feet, hair in hand, perfume spent

Shaken finally by what you

Would have been without Him

Welcome Home, Antarctic Explorers!

I was there when you packed your bags, when you got the passport pictures, (the garrulous postal employee who took them was a highlight!). I was there for all the worry–the mama worry–and there for the day when we drove to the airport all together

To see you off to

Great Adventure!

Despite all my trepidations, I was excited for all of you. I thought this will be cool and said take lots of pictures!

I went in with my eyes wide open

Too many emails back and forth with grownups

getting paid a lot to take you there

Not Mothers Teresas at all

But I didn’t expect this

The lonely road home

The uphill battle just to get you back home

You are home now, darlings

And never let anyone tell you

You are worth anything less than the whole world entire

I would tell you

If I could stand in every airport in the world

Homemade Sign held high and goofily askew

Letters spelt out–

💜WELCOME HOME, ANTARCTIC EXPLORERS!!💙

You mean the world to me

The Feast of Thorns

Long before our terrible story your birthday was already

the feast of Servites pruning winter roses. I cling to that now, all the other days this day could be:

Obstinate mountains lumber into obeisant seas

Lame men whole, blind men see

Dead men rise and shake off their shroudy bindings

impossible things all around ya

If only you will

See

Planting Daisies

I pull down the old book, look for recipes for cultivating children, like the time she sewed the earth with dragon’s teeth and made them into men…

I don’t want men

I want daisies

Dozens and dozens, hundreds and hundreds, legions and legions, fields upon fields

Filled with Bellis perennis–beauties everlasting

Because only God can

Make lasting

Children out of words

And wildflowers

Flight 752

They boarded the plane. Put their bags in overhead compartments. Scanned the list of drinks and snacks on what they thought would be a long flight. Buckled in the children. Watched the international pantomime for safety on an airplane. Assured flight attendants they were old enough for exit seats.

None of us are

Ready for the impact

The percussion, the fire, the fall

As though the story we had been always told about Icarus was a slanderous lie

He did not fly too close to the sun at all

No warning, no premonition, no string long enough to thread them free of

The labyrinth, the

Friendly fire