[World, September, 14]
There are many ways to act out pro-life convictions, and a surprising number of people do so by singing. A recent survey of the field yielded over 40 titles of pro-life songs, and the list is certainly incomplete.
There are two album-length collections of pro-life music, plus many singles and amateur songs. The first album, “Sing Out for Life,”
[World, April 17, 1993]
Thanks to the eclectic tastes of my thirteen-year-old son, whenever a tape player is on I'm apt to be serenaded by one of the Pauls--Simon or McCartney. Hours of exposure have reaquainted me with these luminaries of my adolesence, and have led, surprisingly, to new reflections on the mystery of election.
[Human Life Review, Spring 1993] “Are you sure?”
The question caught me off guard. I had been rattling on to my friend Mark Crutcher about the terrible abortion law just passed by the Maryland legislature, the appalling anti-woman provisions, the consternation of the pro-life community, and had wound up with the assertion that we wanted to bring it to referendum.
[National Catholic Reporter, February 5, 1993]
Linda was six months pregnant the first time I saw her. Her mother had kicked her out of the house, and the homeless shelter only allowed her two weeks, so she was about to be homeless again. When Linda came to stay with us, she brought all her earthly belongings were in a black plastic garbage bag; about half was stuffed animals.
[First Things, December 1994]
Paul Hill's thesis has sometimes been expanded into “the big what-if,” the scenario often used to challenge pacifists. What if you had to defend your own children from a criminal? Wouldn't deadly force be justified then?
Anyone finds such a prospect deeply distressing. But the very impact of this image hinders us from realizing that shooting an abortionist fails the analogy in three important ways.
[World, October 1, 1994]
Sexist treatment is blatant on Broadway. Street hawkers hand women, not men, fliers advertising nail salons (with puzzling semi-English names like ”Tanning Nail“). Men, on the other hand, get fliers advertising the ”World's Hottest Dancers." The latter fliers suggest that a woman who hopes to attract men by investing in her fingernails has chosen one of the least likely sites of interest.
At the corner of 42nd street a slight, city-pale man is handing out pamphlets freely, without regard to gender.
[World, September 17, 1994]
Tom Clancy is the novelist for patriots, and Pat Buchanan is one of his biggest fans. But one of Buchanan’s recent columns, devoted to praising Clancy’s work, had a line that pulled me up short: “[His characters] put duty, honor, country above all else. And in a Clancy novel there is no moral equivalence: The U.S.A. is the greatest force for good on the planet.”
I write this as the U.N. International Conference on Population and Development begins in Cairo. The U.S.A. is there, parading as the greatest force for abortion, birth control, and eugenic population management on the planet. Our immense wealth and power make us a force hard to withstand.
[World, August 27, 1994] 1969—Gary Mathewes arrives at the Wood-stock festival with his streetwise, drug-dealing Greenwich Village girlfriend. “I don't remember buying a ticket, or anyone asking for a ticket,” he says. “I don't remember much, except spending a lot of time lying on the ground.”
1994—Father Gregory Mathewes-Green stands at an altar covered with gold brocade. “Holy things are for the holy,” he intones. “One is holy,” the people sing back, “One is Lord, Jesus Christ.”
Twenty-five years after Woodstock, twenty years after he insisted on a vegetarian spread at his wedding reception,
[World, April 23, 1994]
The American Association of University Women, which last year issued a report equating boy-girl schoolyard teasing with sexual harassment, is now concerned about how schools damage little girls' fragile self-esteem. The problem is that they don't have enough role models.
Wait a minute, you say. The last time you visited a school, at least half the teachers looked to be female.
[The Christian Century, April 13, 1994]
When my friend Marvin came for a visit, I presumed he'd join us for vespers, out of curiosity or simple politeness. To my surprise he was deeply reluctant. Marvin is a dedicated convert to a conservative branch of the Presbyterian church, and it began to dawn on me that he might actively object to Orthodoxy.
I recalled the evangelical Protestant anxiety about highly liturgical churches:
