Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The Mountain - Part 3

Therese was a little shocked at loosing her clothes and everything else she had brought with here.  Not too far a head was a line of brush so her ran over to it and hid.  Her fear of being naked was over come by the feeling of being somewhat free, but still somehow contaminated by the city she had left. In the walled city naked flesh was encouraged but was never something innocent.  While they were encouraged to be free with their bodies there was always something licentious, never innocent.

Pushing farther in the brush she found a small river or almost a creek.  Across the river and down a bit, on the other bank, was a piece of white cloth caught in the reeds.  If she could get across she could use that to clothe herself.  She plunged into the water.  It was cool and swift.  As her head came up out of the water she could see that she was about half way across and the cloth was still a bit father down.  She felt some how cleaner and lighter than when she entered.  Twice more she ducked under the water, it was the only way she knew how to swim, and finally she came up on the other side and within reach of the cloth.  She called out to see if anyone was near who might own the cloth.  No one answered so she figured the wind may have carried it there.  Surely it had been there a while and bleached by the sun because it was so white.  She stepped out and dressed herself.  Tearing a hole for her head and ripping some off one end for a belt she was able to fashion herself a dress of sorts.

She thought she should be afraid or at least worried seeing she was in a strange country without any food or shelter and without any obvious way to get back to the city, but she wasn't.  Therese felt free and oddly lighter.  There seemed to be a light wind at her back pushing her on toward the mountain so that was the way she went.

Why was she doing this she thought?  Anyone back in the city would thought she was mad.  Stark raving insane.  Here she was following a whisper and a wind.  Maybe if they knew what she was feeling they might not have found it so strange, but really even she found it a bit odd.  Who was she? She was no adventurer, frankly no one was in the city.  She wasn't brave or particularly smart but somehow she felt compelled to reach that mountain.  Somehow she felt that her hearts desire lay there.

As she walked along she realized she wasn't the only living creature outside the walls.  She could hear noises and bird songs.  None of the sounds were familiar to her but she recognized them as animal sounds.  In the city all the animals are in cages so maybe they just sound different when they are free she thought.

Over to her right she noticed a path developing.  Not a wide path but definately a path.  Therese thought she could even make out human footprints so she thought she must be going the right way.  She wondered if the person who left footprints in the old building had come the same way, maybe some of the footprints she could make out belonged to that person.

Therese walked and walked but the mountain didn't seem to be getting bigger.  She was getting hungry.  She had drank water at the river but she was getting thirsty too.  The wind at her back continued to push her along but she thought she smelled something.  Faint at first but it got stronger as she walked along.  She heard something too.  Human sounds she recognized.  Then the path split.  She could either keep going on the way she was, hungry and thirsty but with the wind at her back or she could go the way it looks like most people went.  She could pull aside and see if there was someone there who could help her.

She couldn't really just go on without food and water and maybe she could meet someone who could tell her if she was going the right way.  As she turned down the other path she felt the wind leave her back.  The soft whisper died away.  Now she felt how truly alone she was.  She needed now to see if there was someone else down the new trail who could help her.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

The Mountain - Part 2

Therese woke up the next morning before anyone else.  She ate her breakfast and packed a bag with everything she thought she might need.  She brought food and clothes and money for her trip just in case she found a way out of the walled city.

The night before she had told her family what she had seen.  Therese described the mountain and the plain and asked her parents if they knew how to get outside.  They had just stared at her.  Why would she want to leave the city?  They had everything anyone would need.  Hadn't a new water park just opened?  Was there a new store opening every week.  They had all that was new and fashionable why would they want to go outside?  She asked them about the old building and asked if they had ever been inside.  They said no and they were pretty sure it was illegal or at least very unfashional to got in there.

At that point she gave up and went to bed more determined than ever to get out.  Leaving the house at dawn she made her way to the wall.  She figured that somewhere along the wall was a gate or something and if she just search the whole thing she would find it.  The longing in her heart to see the mountain again ached.  There was a path that followed pretty close to the wall so she could see the wall as she walked down the path.

Therese walked and walked.  By noon she was about a third of the way around.  She stopped ate her lunch and watched the passers-by.  Where were they all going?  As the afternoon went on she walked and looked.  Therese never saw so much as crack in the wall.  At 2:45 she realized she was getting close to the old building and it's tower.  The building was near the wall about a block away.  As she approached the building she wanted to look again and she if the light was there still.  She went to the back of the building and move the board again and looked inside.  It was still there.  It must be electic she thought, a lamp or a candle would have gone out.  As she placed the board back she thought she saw it flicker.

The was lower now and the shadow cast by the building touched the wall.  But it looked different from the other shadows on the wall.  Going to investigate Therese saw something that hadn't been there the day before.  There was a thin space, the width of the shadow, a hole in the wall.  A thin breeze came through, it sounded like whisper.  Therese looked at the space.  Could she make it? It was very thin but she thought she could just make it.

Therese put her bags down, she could reach them once she got through.  She turned side ways a put her leg through.  She could just make it.  A funny thing happened as  she moved her torso through the slit, the wall seemed to grab her.  She pushed and pulled and without any luck.  She was stuck but she couldn't give up.  She could see the plain and smell the fresh air.  She was almost there.  As she strained and pulled she began to cry.  She was close. She could touch the outside of the wall.  The wall was about 3 feet thick and the crack must have narrowed as you got to the outside. The bricks that made up the wall grabbed at her clothes tearing them.  As she inched her way out she felt them tearing but now more than half her arm was out.  She could get a good grip now.  She pulled with all her strength and she pulled herself free there was a loud ripping noise.  She finally freed herself of the walls grip but as she did her clothes tore.  She made it, but she was naked. Therese turned to grab her bag only to find there was no longer a hole in the wall.  She was free but she had nothing.  No clothes, no food, nothing.  She was outside the wall, now what?

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Part one - The Mountain

Once upon a time, there lived a young girl.  She lived in a very large, very beautiful city.  It had everything you could need, plenty of shops, great libraries, all sorts of entertainment.  There was a great wall around the city, twice the height of any of the buildings.  The wall was there to keep what was outside the wall from coming in some said.  Others said there was nothing outside and if there was you wouldn't want to go there anyway.  They had everything they needed right there to be happy.

Now this young girl, Theresa, was about 15 years old.  She was not like the townspeople she longed to know what was outside the walls.  She didn't care if it was beautiful, or scary, or both, she wanted to see it.  But how could she?  She had stood on the roof of her house on her tip toes and couldn't see. She tried all the trees without any luck.

Her family wasn't very happy with her.  "Why can't you be like the other kids your age? Why don't you have a boyfriend and hang out at the shops like your sisters did?".  They didn't understand, she didn't want to be different, but it was like something was calling her.  Everyone else in their city did the thing that make everyone happy, they said.  Everyone else spent their days eating and drinking and shopping.  Why couldn't she be just like everyone else?

One day, walking throught the streets, she came upon a building she had never seen before.  It was all boarded up.  It looked to Therese like no one had beef in the building for years and years.  Walking around it, it was made of stone and had very tall windows.  It had a tower and that tower had one window at the top.  Therese didn't know it was a tower, no other building in town had one, but this one did.  She thought to herself " If I could get in there and climb up as high as I could go I would be able to see over the walls".

Therese knew that she could pry one of the boards off a window and get inside.  She went home and came back with a hammer.  Going to the back of the building she looked for a board to pull off.  There was a window at the back that was out of the way and easy to see from the street.  Therese pulled on the board and it was loose.  It swung on one nail.  She took a deep breath and stepped through.

In was dark and cool inside but there was a faint light when her eyes adjusted to the darkness.  A pale red light at the other end of large room.  She longed to go and see where the light came from but her mission was to climb to the top and look over the wall.

She turned and moved toward the base of the tower.  She found a set of stairs and started climbing.  Her steps were muffled by the thick layer of dust that covered the treads.  As she climbed higher she could see the top of the tower and the little window.  Light streamed in the window and there was a slight breeze.  Therese could now clearly see the steps and she noticed something.  She could just make out footprints.  They were covered over with dust but obviously someone else had been here.

Just before she reached the top she closed her eyes and stopped for a moment.  What if it was nothing out there?  Did she really want to see that?  What if there were monsters as some people said?  She had see.  When she reached the top she kept her eyes closed and turned to face the open window.  She held her breath and openned her eyes.  In front of her was a beautiful sight.  A broad flat, green plain that ended in a magnificent mountain.  It had a proud sharp peak and trees grew most of the way up.  It was so beautiful it hurt her eyes.  She laughed and then started to cry.  She thought climbing the tower and seeing what was out there would satisfy her but now she knew she would never rest until she crossed the plain and climbed the mountain.  She stayed until the sun started to set and then climbed back down.  Therese knew now that she would never be happy behind the walls now.  She knew she had to get outside.

As she climbed back out the window, the little red light caught her eye again.  She looked and there no footprints leading towards it.  How did it stay lit and who put it there?  Once outside she forgot the light as her mind raced, how was she going to get outside?  If she went home and asked her parents they might lock her up to keep her inside.  She knew someone else had seen the mountain, she had seen their footprints.  Had they gotten out?

It was getting dark so went home determined equally not to tell anyone what she had seen and to try the next day to get out.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Being ProLife means having Agape Love

I have to start with two definitions.  Agape, divine, self sacrificing love for God and mankind and ProLife, supporting the culture of life.  What does that mean to me?  Those two words are the foundation of faith.  Agape love is the kind of love God has for us and is the kind of love we should have for God and one another.  To have Agape love means to sacrifice both for God and our fellow man.  This kind of love isn't a warm fuzzy feeling but a decision to place others needs higher than ourselves.  Because of this I fail at it all the time.  We are fallen and so Agape is very hard for us.  Jesus came and shows us the ultimate in Agape love.

To be ProLife is to strive for Agape love.  To sacrifice for the good of the other.  To do so we can't kill one another, for any reason.  We have to work for the salvation of all, especially our enemies and those who might want to kill us.  You can not be ProLife and blow up abortion clinics.  To love with Agape love means to inconvenience yourself in your giving to help others.  Which is more important, the higher tier of cable service or feeding the poor and providing medical care to everyone?  Doesn't it also mean giving your time.  It an be as simple as giving your time to talk to a neighbor who is lonely.  Sometimes I think that we find it easier to write a check but God wants us to put ourselves out.  He died for us on the Cross we can give up a weekend to help run a food pantry or build a house.

Most infatically to love God and to be ProLife does not mean killing in the name of God.  It doesn't even mean being mean in the name of God.  Hurting grieving families with signs full of hate speech is not what God calls us to do.  It does mean remonstrating those who are going wrong and pointing out what they need to do, but that has to be done with love, not anger.

The problem with our society is we have forgotten love and given up ProLife for what is easy and feels goos at the moment.  If we don't respect all life, how can we expect others to respect our lives and the lives of our families?  Until we all, become more lovingly ProLife we will continue to suffer from violence.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Life is the most precious gift - a ramble caused by grief.

How precious is life?  If it were not the most precious thing then the Redeemer's sacrifice would not have been so important.  This is why destroying life is so wrong, no matter how you destroy it.  The funny thing is that this is the same reason why being a martyr is such a great thing.  We can give our life away as a great gift but we can't destroy it as if it means nothing.

It is so hard then when someone we love dies.  It is their life that is gone and not them.  They still are and we hope to see them again when we die.  We will see them forever and they won't be in pain, but still death causes grief.  Why is that?  Is it the loss of what they could have become if they were still alive?  Is it only their company we miss?  Is it really just that we miss them?  If no one misses someone who dies is their life somehow less precious?  I don't know other than to say life is so precious that everyone's life is precious.  

With life we have the hope of repentance.  I often think this is why the death penalty is so wrong.  I often wonder why atheists don't value life more than those who have a hope of the afterlife.  If you believe that this all there is shouldn't life have the highest value?  This maybe why we grieve when someone dies to some extent.  We know that they are either destined for heaven or hell at that point.  When a great saint dies we often feel that they have gone to their reward and that helps us in our grief.  

Life is so precious in fact that even the partial death of causing pain and suffering is wrong.  Driving someone to despair is like causing a partial death, and not helping someone in need is like not helping someone who is hurt.  ProLife has to mean more than being antiabortion or it is not ProLife.  If ProLife means shaming pregnant women or blowing up doctors are we any better than those who kill innocent children?  We might actually be worse because we should know better.  ProLife means a life of love.  Love all,even or especially our enemies.  I heard it once said that an enemy is simply someone you need to pray for.