Seven Quick Takes #3

 -- 1 --

So now procrastination has become the latest thing, what with Grace following in Jen's footsteps and posting the 7QT links in reverse order. Good thing today was the day I was too busy with real life to have an early edition of 7QT all ready to post at 12 am. Now the real question is, is it worth it to wait till the end of the day (tomorrow morning for me) to link this, or just deal with getting lost in the middle of the MANY linked blog posts? Decisions, decisions. #firstworldproblemsinthirdworldcountries (<-- that's definitely going to be a post some time.)

 -- 2 --

Has anyone NOT heard about Gosnell by now? Is there anything new to say? People are asking good questions already. I think my primary feeling is that we need to be storming heaven, because this could be the moment that could change hearts... or make monsters. 'If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.' I wonder how many Germans in Nazi Germany had to face this moment- when they realized the horror of what was really happening behind the smooth propaganda, and had to make a choice to get out (and face the consequences) or compromise their souls forever. Like Peter Singer and others, whose philosophy justifies infanticide.

I do believe that most pro-choicers don't really know what they're supporting. But maybe they do now, what with breathing babies having their skulls crushed, spinal cords snipped with a pair of scissors, dead bodies blocking up toilets, severed limbs, and other nausea-inducing details. And of course the question is going to arise- what's the big difference to doing it to babies outside the womb or inside the womb?

I was curious about what the mainstream media was now saying about Gosnell, and I found this NYT opinion piece, It ends with:

To respond effectively to the doubts about abortion that fetal snipping summons up, pro-choice advocates would need arguments that (to rephrase Senior’s language) acknowledge and come to terms with the goriness of third-trimester abortions while simultaneously persuading the conflicted and uncommitted of their validity, and that somehow take ownership of the “violence” and “gruesomeness” of abortion (to borrow Harris’s words) without giving aid and comfort to the pro-life cause. And in the absence of such arguments, the pro-choice response to Gosnell feels either evasive and euphemistic, or else logically consistent in ways that tend to horrify the unconvinced — and in either case, inadequate to the challenge his case presents to the cause of abortion rights. But of course it’s possible that those arguments are absent because they simply don’t exist.

-- 3 --

Something the Gosnell trial brings to the front of my mind, once again, is that evil really does exist. Sin exists. They're nor just accidents, or mistakes, or bad choices. We don't know each person's culpability, but hard, cold facts like this sure force us to lose the rose-tinted glasses that make us think we're all basically good people, and we're doing fine.

-- 4 --

I'm going to stop talking about Gosnell. But not thinking. Or praying. Okay, that's a lie. I'm going to start praying. Once I take a nap.

-- 5 --

I was reading an article about Pope Francis and there was a quote from 2011 that I found quite interesting-

In a revealing interview in 2011 with the news agency AICA, then-Cardinal Bergoglio was asked about the Catholic laity in Argentina, and he answered with these words: “We priests tend to clericalize the laity.We do not realize it, but it is as if we infect them with our own disease.And the laity — not all, but many — ask us on their knees to clericalize them, because it is more comfortable to be an altar server than the protagonist of a lay path. We cannot fall into that trap —it is a sinful complicity.”

Of course, he wasn't saying that altar servers are not doing something good and useful, but as one commenter put it, 'I understand His Holiness to be saying that it's easy to be an altar server, extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, Lector, Cantor, chorister (as am I - in fact I have been most of these) instead of proclaiming the Gospel in the workplace, our favorite bar/restaurant/social club, family friends and society in general. I think he's challenging me to not see the more or less "internal" ministries if you will, as sufficient. I might do all those things, but, I still fall short of my vocation as a layperson if I do not then, "go in peace to love and serve the Lord" outside the confines of my parish building - outside the relatively safe environs of the comfortable community, even while being a real evangelizing force even there, where so much complacency and dissent still prevails. My true vocation is less proclaiming the Word in the Church and far more to proclaim and live it everywhere else.'

I agree. Mission and service is more than reading at Mass. Especially in India, we tend to stay in our little in-group, and think we're doing good. Mission means 'being sent OUT'!

-- 6 --

Speaking about mission, I'm super excited about a short summer programme I'm organizing in a slum close to my home. In spite of cramped quarters, paint everywhere, crazy kids and an opportunity for everyone to laugh at my pathetic Hindi skills, it's been going well. You know how people say that Jesus came for the poor and the rich, that we should reach out to the rich too? Well, my theory is that you go to the rich... and take them to the poor. Both will be changed.

-- 7 --

I want to do more exercises in creativity with kids. In most Indian schools, uniformity is far more important than creativity. So 'art class' meant the teacher drew a picture on the blackboard, and everyone copied it as best they could. I kid you not. That was my experience through my entire school life. You ask most Indian kids to draw a picture, and guess what they'll draw? The SAME picture- hills in the background, sun peeping out, trees in the middle and river in the front. And blue clouds. (Why doesn't anyone look upwards and nptice the blue SKY and white CLOUDS??) Thankfully, we didn't get that today during our t shirt painting activity. We did however get two Angry Birds, one 'I love Michel Jackson' and another 'I love Miachael'. They know who Michael Jackson is? I guess I should be surprised I didn't get any Bieber fans.

Well, I guess those 'quick' takes didn't exactly live up to the name. Oh well, next time.

Grace once again is the enthusiastic hostess of Seven Quick Takes this week.