Just mind your own business - God will take care of the rest.
As a Christian and a member of a free society, I speak up for the freedom of women to keep government out of the woman-physician relationship. Plain and simple.
Wisdom of Job is the same as the love of Jesus
Unfortunately, many on the religious right uplifts and justify the use of "force and physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere" against the freedoms of others - be it the 11 conspirators at an abortion clinic or the hundreds of conspirators at the capital.
Such evangelistic friends of the US are more aligned with the friends of Job in our time; instead of aligning with grace.
The friends of Job tried to pass judgement and cultural legislation about the plight of Job's life. Their claim was they knew the truth of God. In the end God admonishes the friends for their words and deeds.
Like Job, the US today is said to be sickly, failing and suffering. Like Job, the "friends/patriots" of the US are advising to exercise judgement and cultural purification as a means to "cure" the friend. All the while claiming to "know the truth of God".
In Job, at the end, God tells the friends that he is angry with them because they did not speak the truth about him, as Job had. And further, God command the friends to offer burnt offerings to Job, and that Job will pray for them.
- It is not truth when one aligns the Justice Department with the political party of an administration. The Justice Department is and must act independent of whatever political administration. Labeling the justice department as an arm of a political party is corrupt and so far from the truth of God.
- It is not truth when one uses the suffering of the Cross as justification to intimidate mothers and daughters on what they can and can not do with their body. My Lord died on the cross so we can all be free. Free from our personal sins and our collective sins. Through the freedom of turning towards God. Who are you to judge.
- It is not truth when we pass laws persecuting doctors for exercising their conscious in the sacred relationship between women and their physicians. The pressure on physicians is the worse coercion within our society today. This is what causes me to speak up now.
- It is not truth to equate a woman's choice to be equal to the evils of the concentration camps/furnaces. We are all just a collection of particles. And the particles of an unborn within a woman are so intimately connected to the soul of that woman - that we must protect and trust in the sanctity of that provision with all the freedoms we each hold.
Un-intended Consequences
The issue of cultural legislation is personal, both because of my daughters and because I experienced the pressures of cultural legislation in my own personal life. When a culture dictated that a birth requires specific "corrective actions" on the woman, man and child during birth - we are turning our backs on the power that our Lord bestowed upon us. I do not believe any advocate (pro or con) truly understand
- the pressures of such cultural righteousness,
- never considers the un-intended consequences of forcing a union (man-woman, woman-child, man-child), nor
- the effects of removing freedom of anyone to adhere with some social cultural correctness.
Being forced into such union changes the projection of all lives. And while I firmly believe God works thru all things for good. Still when choices are made without real freedom - those choices made have quantum effects that one can never comprehend. Advocates for strong cultural legislation never really trust in God. For God always act for justice as he did when God appeared to Job.
The reader of Job can never comprehend the suffering of Job unless one understand the loss of freedom. The acts of Satan/God ,as agents in Job's life, were not the real loss. It was the loss of freedom due to the friends judgement. The friend standing on their own sense of cultural righteousness; holding it over all of us. That weight in our lives is the real un-intended consequences. The world's judgement that my life is somehow flawed.
When a woman terminates a pregnancy - does one see the provisions of God and say "it is good". Or does one adhere to cultural legislation and judge our neighbor as flawed requiring correction.
A world without suffering - just mind your own business
I believe we would all welcome a world where abortions are not necessary, Where every child is welcomed in love and grace by everyone in our society - regardless of the circumstances for the creation of that child. It is truth that sex is fundamental to to sexual reproducing animals sex; and predates humans by half a billion years. The birth of a child is a blessing. The termination of a birth is between a woman and God.
Claiming to speak for those that have no voice (ie. the unborn) is a perversion of many social conspirers. Such conspirators seek to give a voice with just intentions but ultimately seek power instead of grace. I will defend anyone's right to protest - to raise their voice, to advocate and to share their God given views. I just ask that you speak for yourself. Do not claim to know the truth of God. No matter what religious authority you deem to have.
We want laws that reflect what is possible and the best of our humanity rather than to force what may be culturally impossible. The suffering of Jesus never calls us to intimidate or stand in judgement of the freedom of anyone's choice.
Just mind your own business - God will take care of the rest.
F. Rojas 2024
PS. this post was motivated by the following:
- 2024.09 - Catholicvote.org: 89-year-old death camp survivor facing prison for pro-life work; this triggered me to weight the acts of someone claiming to be suffering "because of" Jesus's suffering. To weight carefully how God may be speaking in our world.
- 2019.10 - YouTube: Neil deGrasse Tyson | The Ben Shapiro Show; in my research I fell into Neil Tyson's views on abortion and our social contract. More importantly, who speaks truth in our world today.
Who wrote this? Is this anonymous?
ReplyDeleteIt is me - F Rojas. Updated with author and some PS on what triggered it.
DeleteC wrote: For your reflection [Numbers 11:25-29] . This is today’s 1st reading. Made me think of what you wrote on Wiwa’s couch and your objection that people on the right seem to claim to be speaking on behalf of God as if no one could or should.
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it, God bestows his Spirit in all ages precisely for people to speak his life and light into the world. By the way, did you know that at your Baptism you were baptized priest, prophet and king. Each and every baptized Christian is given this mission.
And if you reflect on the work of the prophets, they were usually not well-received by the popular culture. In fact it was usually a sign that they were sent by God when they were unpopular and rejected because it affirmed the need for the “cultural correction” God was calling for. Jonah runs from God when called to prophesy to the Ninevites because he feared that they would reject him. Many of the prophets were attacked and even killed because of the people’s prideful opposition to the will of God. Despite the risks, they persevered in their mission to bring the people back to God.
Today’s pro-life “prophets” speak out against the injustice of abortion (a sin that cries out to heaven) and call for society to choose a better way- a way that respects the dignity of ALL life, born and unborn, mother and child.
Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets speaking life and not death into every circumstance life at its most vulnerable stages is concerned. Grace and peace. 🙏🏻
FR: There is a subtlety that is important to make. The blog does not object to people speaking on behalf of God - in ways that uplift and shines God's Spirit into our world. In Numbers, the young man were prophesying the Word of the Lord. In Job the friends missed the mark on reflecting the Word of the Lord. What should the friends have said/done is my personal life long quest - with the help of the Lord.
DeleteSome claim that the left, and this blog as an example, is trying to shut down views of the right. Nothing is further from the truth. So thank you for engaging in this discussion. This reflects the spirit of "Wiwa's couch".
Upon reflection on "prophets not being well received" - it seems to me that we should seek God's will through our discussions on Wiwa's couch (to understand, rather then to be understood). The abortion discussions is hard and has become so convoluted.
We miss the import part where agree on God's will:
- "call for society to choose a better way" and
- "where every child is welcomed in love and grace by everyone".
On this we are both prophesying for the Word of the Lord.
Where we diverge is when some seek to codify the persecution of women/doctors and in pushing the government into the intimate relationship between mother, father and doctor. Let us call for a new way, a new society relating to abortion. Says the prophet - Trust in God.