Wendy Davis and Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum

Wendy Davis is soon to release a memoir with her description of the late-term termination of her daughter diagnosed with what sounds like agenesis of the corpus callosum.

Unfortunately while her description of her daughter’s actual physical condition is recognizable, her prognosis for the little girl is not.

Lots of people live long and meaningful lives with this condition. They may need help from developmental therapies, their lives may be altered by their condition, but they are definitely not

“blind, deaf, and in a total vegetative state”

In fact, quite the contrary–Kim Peek, the inspiration for the movie Rain Man was born with ACC.

Neuropsychological tests of people born with ACC sometimes indicate that some people may “think a little differently,” but sustain normal lives and present with average intellectual functions.

Interestingly enough there are many other syndromes associated with ACC, some genetic and some not. Two of the not-genetic are maternal nutritional deficiencies and fetal alcohol syndrome.

Regardless of cause, any child or fetus diagnosed with ACC deserves the full protection of the law and the ADA, not medical termination because of their prognosis.

Wendy made a choice, but it was not a choice that supported the rights of her unborn daughter or any other child diagnosed with a learning difference or special need.

I want to live in a state, in a country, governed by the staunch belief that Americans with disabilities deserve full protection under the law regardless of their age, level of ability, or any other distinguishing factor.

To terminate the life a disabled person just because she is or may be disabled is a tragedy indeed.

Happy Birthday, Little Ones

The day I lost you I sent you a letter. I sent a letter I knew your adopted parents would never let you see.

Just like your real name.

Just like your mother, your brother, your sisters. So many beautiful faces.
Taken from you.

I say this because you do have a real name and you do have a real story. And unlike most children adopted under spurious circumstances, you have a paper trail–articles in the local papers, a federal lawsuit. Questions about a very bad judge.

I knew that if I lost you, I had to send out every possible sign that you were and always would be loved.

A mother should be able to celebrate her children’s birthdays, but for your mother each day like this is a reminder of what was stolen from her.

Losing you broke my heart, but not mine alone.

All I ever wanted was to make sure you know, really know, you are loved.

So think of yourself as the magic princess, little one, whose royal parents send out lanterns on your birthday,hoping, just hoping you will see them.

All for you. All this light for you.

Breastfeeding preventing breast cancer?

I am bemused with scientific studies. There is one out now stating that the “myth” that bras promote breast cancer has been refuted.

Apparently this was based on the fact that breast cancer is more common in developed than developing countries.

Seems far more likely that the tendency of women to have fewer children and eschew nursing would be a more significant marker.

I fact the healthiest thing for women is the following:

Have children before 30
Have many children
And nurse on demand for greater than one year per child.

Many mothers in developing countries do all these things, nursing children to 2 years and beyond and nursing far more years than women in industrialized countries.

One study said that every 12 months of nursing reduced breast cancer risk by 3-5 percent.

And that is only the benefit to mom. Babies who nurse on demand get countless advantages from the process.

Grover Cleveland–rapist bully?!

This article is appalling. It outlines a story of date rape, aggression, child abandonment, and political bullying perpetrated by one of our nation’s presidents. The story was aired and well-documented before his election.

Yet none of the story is found on his Wikipedia page.

I think it is time to speak bluntly about a man who appears to have fooled a lot of people but who was a predator and a liar.

And a textbook example of a sexual predator who hides his crimes and brutalizes his victims.

If Cleveland can have fooled us all, what predators do you know who appear honest and trustworthy, even though they are decidedly not?

My Monster

My monster sits
At the kitchen table
Gnawing on the hollowed bones
Finding scraps of meat left on them
they say you can choke on these broken shards of wings, thighs
The breasts of flightless birds

Few eat their filigreed
Hearts
But when they do you can see through
Each vivisected chamber

He mutters only phrases
Like girl, you know…girl if only…
If only you had..
He is so very clever to leave out
All the
Proper nouns
Dependent clauses
Merciless verbs
years and years of completely merciless verbs

Ellipses for teeth
Never dulled to the task
Of separating bone from marrow
You tell me the vultures
Are being decimated
By poison and other modern perils
Leaving the dead all alone
In their towers of silence

And I know this must be true for Rizpah will shoo them off
Until God chooses to relent…

This drought will define us
Cotton-mouthed and bone-dry
So cavalier about our own now-
Forgotten prayers
For rain

The lottery ticket paradox

I have a bag of parables and pet theories I used to bore my youth group with…regularly.

One of them was the lottery ticket theory, which goes something like this:

If a rude person verbally assaulted you in a parking lot and insisted that they were handing you a winning lottery ticket you might be put off by the assailant, but you would be a fool not to take the ticket and check the numbers.

Jesus is that ticket.

We Christians are absolute morons–rude, pushy, myopic, prejudiced, morally flaccid.

You name it, we flub it.

But Jesus did not. He flubbed nothing. He gives us back our lousy, flea-bitten lives, whole and restored.

Why bother restating an old story from my former life?

Because I believe.

Because I still believe.

Perhaps if birds

Perhaps if birds
Could bring the rain
We would seed our yards,
Learn their calls
Keep the cats inside.

/beckon to them with fields of sunflowers
/covet their myriad congregation along electrified wires
Build their houses
Guard their nests
Stay all our empty words

For a mated call to water

My children play
Duck, duck, goose
With rich adjectival muster-
medium-sized duck, superhero duck
Yell Goose! and always be prepared to run

Anthropomorphize these missing storms
See sparrows in each laden cloud

Sow the fields with barley
Surely they will love barley
And swoop down toward us
“with healing in his wings”

All our science is naught
Fruitless and pendant
Cotton in the mouth
We cry
medium-sized rain, superhero rain,

Or no rain at all
Because we have forgotten…

He said fire the next time

Bring the Rain

I have a short story I recite with my son–

It rains
And then the worms come out
Then the birds eat the worms.

You will notice it is both a celebration and a cautionary tale.

The worms don’t fare so well.

But at this point the story is almost entirely mythic. It does not rain here. My son does not know rain.

I have written about my misguided annoyance about this drought, this lack of rain. I used to think God was not listening to me. Now I know we are not listening to Him.

This is our drought.

Both California and Texas are experiencing historic droughts. Here in Texas we squander our water on fracking. In California they are paying people to remove their lawns and deep water drilling is big business.

And in our churches we ignore our glorious interventionist God.

We must pray for rain.

But first we must pray for the reign of God. Our lack of water is merely a sign of the drought of holiness that defines this generation of believers in Christ.

The message is simple and incisive and begins with a question not an injunction, an invitation to love, not a list of rules.

Ask yourself–

Are you in love with God? Do you long for Him the way a man in the desert longs for rain?

And if the answer is yes then the result will be apparent to all who know you.

You will bring that rain. You will bring that water.

The water of life. The city of God. A Man, a Word: Jesus.

There are no deserts of either holiness or love when He is close.

So keep Him close.

Bring the rain.

Clouds without rain

Two days this week we had beautiful storms. There were dark clouds full of rain. Thunder. Lightning.

Only the rain never came.

I told my kids that I had to hope that it rained somewhere in the state of Texas. But the lack of rain makes my heart ache. We need it.

I think of Elijah, praying for God to hold back the rain because of the sin of his people. Mine are no better than his, am I praying the wrong prayer?

This week I heard a story of ordinary sin and degradation. Well…several. This one particular story was disheartening because a number of people who claim to ascribe to a clear moral code registered little or no willingness to apply that code.

When our moral code lapses we are clouds without rain.. The phrase comes from James. He is exhorting a young church to be active in applying the good news and power of salvation to a broken world.

If we don’t because we are uncomfortable we are as useless and sterile as clouds without rain.

Hydrate, Darling. Hydrate.

Adoption Accounting

I recently watched the movie Philomena.

There is a harrowing scene of loss in the movie. A scene I once had to endure myself.

I was a foster mother–a mere placeholder without any legal recourse, but Philomena and thousands like her were the true and legal biological parents of children who were stolen through the misuse of power and secrecy of adoption law.

We need transparency in adoption. No government entity or adoption agency or even adopting couple should be able to hide behind confidentiality to steal children.

And we need to be clear about this:

All children of adoption should have the right to know their true story, their real names, all their family. They may also need to know that this truth of who they were and where they came from…yes, and even who they “belong to” now, may have been obscured in the documentation of the adoption process itself.

For years it never occurred to me that social workers and adoption agents would lie to take a child from a parent.

And for years after I knew they could and did, I felt the subtle pressure to keep quiet about it.

We would rather some things remain opaque, because if they were transparent we would have to acknowledge all our broken stories.

And complicity in such unspeakable sorrow.