When does Life Begin?

A fertilized egg in a Petri dish is NOT life. It lacks many things in order to become a life, not the least of which is a womb, be it human or artificial. Because the fertilized egg does not have all of the things that it needs in order to mature, it cannot be considered human, nor does it have rights. Such a collection of cells is just that.

There is a special sanctity to the womb, especially the human female womb. This is a special place created by God whose sole purpose is to incubate and allow life to begin. A fertilized egg inside of a womb is MUCH different than one outside. The one inside has all the pieces necessary to become life. It has rights. It is a real person. To remove such cells from their life-giving place is akin to removing a living adult to a place without oxygen. It is no different than leaving a child to starve in place where no food is available. This is what makes induced abortion so abominable. The embryo, which is in a place where it has everything it needs to mature, is forcibly removed from it safe harbor and deliberately terminated.

Too much emphasis is placed on the fertilized egg. An egg’s fertilized status is not at issue; it is its environment that matters: Does it or does it not have everything that it needs to become a living, breathing individual? Once all the pieces are in place, separating any one of them from the others is murder.

Stem cell research on fertilized eggs should be allowed as long as the eggs being used for medical research and development have never been in a place where they had all the things necessary to become a person. An apple seed on your kitchen counter is no more an apple tree than a fertilized egg in a Petri dish is a person. Once the seed is planted, then all the necessary elements for it to mature are in place and it should be nurtured and cared for with all the respect that any living thing deserves.

The World is NOT a Giant Ashtray

Why does it seem to me that smokers think the entire world is their own personal ashtray? Even though there are two polished silver standing ashtrays just outside the door where I enter work each day, cigarette butts are still scattered all around. Does smoking destroy a person's ability to aim or their concern about litter? A co-worker of mine who smokes has a decided proclivity for dragging me outside with him for his smoke breaks. One day while outside for a "smoking-break-meeting", I watched a maintenance person with a large broom spend several minutes cleaning up the mess of butts littered all around the ground. My smoker buddy hits the can pretty often, but there is no excuse for not hitting it 100% of the time. If you miss, Pick It UP And Try Again! Other butts are far away from the ashcans, as if the smoker thought he had some God-given right to scatter butts where he may. Maybe someday science will be able to tell us why smokers think they can scatter their ashes and butts anywhere they want.

Designated Smoking Areas (DSA's)

Restaurants

Although many laws have been passed regarding who, what, where, when, and how smokers can indulge themselves, there is much more to be done. No DSA should be in a path traveled by non-smokers. One restaurant, which I no longer frequent, has its non-smoking section in the BACK, its DSA up front. The hostess gladly escorts me through the smoking section (which I am trying to avoid) to get me to my non-smoking section. Public access walkways and non-smoking sections should all be placed where there is NEVER a requirement to walk through a DSA.

The Work Place

Many DSA's are right next to entry doors, requiring non-smokers to pass through the trash and second-hand smoke to get to their destination. Let's change the law to require that DSA's be at least 50 feet away from public access walkways. Make the smokers stand far away from everyone else while they poison themselves. This area should be definitively marked off and strategically located so that even wind-driven second-hand smoke is not a factor.

Medical Campuses

In the same way that there is zero-tolerance for smoking on the grounds of public school campuses, a zero-tolerance smoking ban should also be in place for entire medical campuses. There should be no such thing as a DSA anywhere on, in, or around medical facilities. In the same way that the school principal has to cross the street to smoke, so should the heart surgeon. It has been proven that second-hand smoke exacerbates many medical conditions. Sick or injured people coming to a medical facility should have the right to hygienic environs, free of all known toxins. Smoking in these locales should not be permitted under any circumstances.

Special Accommodations for Smokers

While at Fort Knox several years ago picking my son up from basic training, I noticed a sign in one of their "Designated Smoking Buildings" (DSB) that said "The Ground Is Not A Giant Ashtray". The DSB was a metal bus-stop-like enclosure painted military green. Every DSB I saw was at least 100 feet from any other building, and they were spotless. This means that anyone who wanted to smoke on base had to go out of their way to find a DSB and had to clean up after themselves. A laudable effort. I would discourage all companies from building shelters, lean-to's, out-buildings, or anything of the like to accommodate smokers. Paint a simple circle on the ground, downwind from all buildings, and require that smokers stand there to smoke in rain or snow or dark of night. Maybe if we make smoking ever more inconvenient, we can even save some lives while we clean up the trash too.

America, Homosexuality, and Sodom and Gomorrah

And the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." And the LORD said, "Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know." And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. And Abraham drew near, and said, "Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" And the LORD said, "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes."

Genesis 19:17-26 (KJV, emphasis added)."

The Lord promised Abraham and Lot that they would be preserved because of their righteousness. There are many places in scripture where the Lord tells us that if we are righteous, then He will permit us to remain in his Promised Land. If we are not, we will be destroyed. Let's read on in Genesis.

And there came two angels to Sodom at even. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. And he said, "Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways." And they said, "Nay; but we will abide in the street all night." And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat. But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, "Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them." And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, "I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man. Let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes. Only unto these men do nothing, for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof." And they said, "Stand back." And they said again, "This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge. Now will we deal worse with thee, than with them." And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door. But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

Genesis 19:1-10 (KJV, emphasis added)

The men of Sodom sought these new visitors to Lot's house to have sex with them. Lot begged them not to do this evil because they had come to his house for protection. Then the angels asked Lot about all the members of his household and told them to get out of the city. Lot inquired of the Lord and asked (almost rhetorically) if He would also destroy the righteous along with the wicked. The Lord promised Lot that if he could find even ten righteous men in the city then he would not destroy the city. Lot could not find even ten righteous men in the city. Lot left Sodom with his family, and the Lord destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone from heaven. So complete was this destruction that today we have only an idea of where these two cities might have been.

Today we live in a Promised Land. America is a place reserved for the righteous and for those who believe in God. As such was it conceived and founded. It is a place set apart where there is freedom of worship; it is a place where the true gospel of Jesus Christ can be taught without fear of reprisal. It is because of the few righteous that America has not yet been destroyed. We must return to God because God will not be mocked. Just as the inhabitants of the Promised Land were conquered and destroyed by the Israelites, so will we be destroyed if we do not obey God's laws.

Homosexualilty is a sin, plain and simple. Gender is part of God's eternal plan; it is not a choice for us to make. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Homosexuality was a sin 5000 years ago and it is still a sin today.

God will not allow us to remain in the Promised Land if we do not keep his commandments. Slowly but surely we are removing Him from every aspect of our lives: our schools, our government, and our personal lives. This must change if we are to survive as God's chosen people in His Promised Land.

Who Saved the Cat?

Tiggy, the Firefighters, and the Vet - A Parable

When the firefighters pulled Tiggy from the basement of our burned up, smoked out, water-logged home, she was a lifeless jumble of bones in a sack of feline fur. For all intents and purposes she was dead, unable to save herself from drowning in eight inches of water because of smoke inhalation. The firefighters worked hard on her and got her mostly breathing on her own. We rushed her to the vet, fearing the worst. The vet immediately put her in an oxygen tent (a cage with a plastic door) and began treating her aggressively with corticosteroids and antibiotics. We visited her every day. It was heartbreaking. We had no idea what to expect. When we went to see her on the third day, she was blind, had no use of her front legs, and did not know who we were. The vet said she had suffered an "unknown amount" of neurological damage and that even if she did survive, that her life might not be worth living. We briefly considered putting her down, believing it might be best for all concerned. We quickly discarded that idea in favor of taking her home and nursing her back to health as best we could. Death was not an option. She was a member of our family.

The next morning Tiggy seemed to have regained some of the strength in her front legs. Though still totally blind, she seemed anxious to examine her New World. We let her exercise her new legs for a few minutes several times each day, for that seemed what she wanted most. It was soon evident that she was getting stronger and that some of her eyesight was coming back too! Though we were not hopeful for a full recovery, she made amazing strides in the months that followed. Less than a year later she had full use of her limbs and eyes. She did not return completely to her former self, however. Her personality changed, mostly for the better. She was cuddlier than before, often sleeping at my side. She was quieter than before. Sometimes, as she sat in early afternoon sunbeams, her head would gently shake and bobble like one of those toy dogs in a car's rear window, as if contemplating the mysteries of the world. She spent many of her days like any ordinary cat, content to sleep on the back of the couch from whence she could survey her domain.

Now the $64,000 question: Who saved Tiggy? Did the firefighters save her? Did the veterinarian save her? The answer, I believe, is that they both saved her. Both the firefighters and the veterinarian played very different, but equally vital, roles in saving Tiggy's life. She would have died if either one had not done their part. The secret to preserving Tiggy's quality of life was to have both the firefighters and the veterinarian do their respective parts, in concert, in order, each one with their own distinctive talents, knowledge, and abilities. If either had failed to do their job, Tiggy would have died. If either one had tried to do the other's job, Tiggy would have died. If there had been two sets of firefighters or two veterinarians, instead of one of each, Tiggy would have died.

Men and women are like veterinarians and firefighters. Their roles and responsibilities are very distinct from each other, yet equal in importance. Many good things are lost if either one shirks his or her duty. Good things die when either partner is missing or tries to do the other's job. When they work together, each performing his or her own role, miracles occur. Tiggy is my living proof.

A Cure for Loneliness

One of my all-time favorite songs is "All by Myself" by Eric Carmen. The melody is based on Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 (in C Minor Opus 18 II Adagio Sostenuto). It a beautifully melancholic piece that exudes all sorts of sad emotions. It is easy to see why Carmen loved it so and put words to it. One part in particular always touched me:

Living alone, I think of all the friends I've known,
But when I dial the telephone, nobody's home.
Hard to be sure, sometimes I feel so insecure,
And love so distant and obscure, remains the cure.

I believed this for a long time, that love was the cure for all that ailed me. Having come from an family that failed in its attempts to love me unconditionally, I was in constant search for feeling, for meaning, for something that would grab my heart and rip it out with such fervor that I would finally realize that feelings are good and that I really was alive, not just existing, not just the brunt of someone's idea of a cruel joke. I believed that "love" would make me FEEL something. I tried many things: porn, self-gratification, masochism, gentlemen's clubs, anything to try to make myself feel something. Nothing worked. Luckily I stayed away from drugs and alcohol. Being obsessive-compulsive, I believe that drink would have ruined me completely.

The truth is, in fact, the love is NOT distant and obscure, and worse yet, even if you were able to find it, it turns out it's NOT the cure either. The idea of "love", as defined by society, is a mythological panacea. Having taught us that we are not responsible for our own actions (more on that in a later article), society would have us believe that something other than our own minds and our own selves is responsible for our happiness. Society hopes to convince us that happiness, joy even, is found in things, in other people, in any noun that is defined outside of ourselves.

True happiness, the "Cure" as Eric Carmen calls it, is not found far away and is not intangible. The cure is inside of us each one of us. It is up to us to determine how miserable or felicitous we want to be. If we live our life waiting or hoping for some external influence to change us, then we are living a wasted life. Each one of us has control over our own thoughts, feelings, ideas, perceptions, interactions, emotions, and self-worth. Discard the bad. Hold fast to that which is good. Choose to adopt the positive and divorce yourself from that which is self-deprecating.

The cure is inside.

No Matter What, We Still Get to Choose

A lady friend of mine, let's call her Candice, recently renewed a friendship with an estranged girlfriend, let's call her Julie. Candice had been working for a long time to build up the courage to get herself out of a bad situation. She wanted to clean up her act, go back to church, and leave her less than desirable way of life.

She and Julie talked of renting apartment together as a way of helping them both get out of bad situations. Shortly after renewing their friendship, Julie talked (read: blabbed, gossiped) about Candice's problems with other members of the church. Some (at least one) of these church members apparently judged Candice as being unworthy to belong to their group, and took an immediate dislike to her.

Now Candice feels that all her hard work and good intentions are for naught. Those feelings are very understandable. I would most likely feel the same way myself if someone betrayed my confidences. Candice feels like everyone at the church will be staring at her and thinking the worst of her. If she ever does go back to church, it will be with extreme trepidation, even though it is, in fact, what she wants more than anything else in the world.

I am familiar with the people of this religious community. I have known many of them since they were babes in their mother's arms. They are not mal-intentioned or mean-spirited. They have their own problems. It goes without saying that none of them are perfect either. Candice suffering from the delusion that everyone in the congregation will be looking down their noses at her. She is imagining a worst-case scenario of what these people are going to be thinking of her, and then reacting to that mythology as if it were the truth.

The truth of the matter is that most people are so concerned with themselves that they don't have time to worry about anybody else's problems. Another truth is that Candice still has the freedom to choose her actions for herself. She can choose to ignore the lies in her head and go to church anyway to get the spiritual nourishment that she so desires.

Whom Are We Trying to Impress?

There is a large billboard by which I pass on a common route home. It is an advertisement for a Kawasaki Jet-ski. It says, in big bold letters: "Impress the Mermaids".

Now, I am not ordinarily in the business of trying to impress anyone, much less mythical beings. The way I see this ad, it seems to be trying to tell me that it is important what other people think of me based on my material possessions. This is, in my estimation, probably the poorest of all reasons to want to own anything.

We should not concern ourselves about what other people think about us (loved-ones excepted). Since we have no control over what they think of us, regardless of what we own, say, or do, what makes us think that a new jet-ski will garner their approval? No matter what you say, do, think, or own, some people will be impressed, others will be offended, and many others just won't care. We should not consider how others may react to us when making decisions, no matter how large or small. We cannot take upon us the responsibility of trying to control what other people think. When we try to impress, that is exactly what we are attempting.

The myth that society has propagated onto us is that if we own "cool" stuff, that people will like us, accept us, girls will flock to you, guys will magically turn into cavalier gentlemen, and all your myriad problems will be erased from the consciousness of everyone who has ever known you. Pay attention to the next toothpaste commercial you see. What is it really telling you?

The use of this myth in our society promulgates conspicuous consumerism by playing off of what Maslow's refers to as "Love" in his hierarchy of needs. "If you buy our product, people will love and accept you." Nothing could be farther from the truth. The acceptance of our own self by our own self is the most important acceptance to which we can aspire. If we learn to be accepting of ourselves, we will no longer feel the need to create a façade in the hopes that others will love us for it.

Why is there no Joy in Mudville?

In the famous poem, Casey at the Bat, by Ernest L. Thayer, the final line has always given me pause.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,
but there is no joy in Mudville -- mighty Casey has struck out."

And just why is there no "joy in Mudville"? Did the people of fictional Mudville, even in 1888, hold one member of their hometown baseball team responsible for how they felt about themselves? This must have been quite a burden on Casey, to know he was the holder of the state of mind and happiness of all the people of his town.

I propose a more accurate, possibly a little less iambic-pentameterly correct version, of the last few lines, as follows:

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,
But still there's joy in Mudville, even though the man struck out.

The residents of Mudville are not a silly lot,
They do not wander aimlessly seeking what is not.
'Cause long ago they found that joy was not found in a game,
But in the soul of everyman, his own joy he can claim.

As early as 1888, and probably as early as Cain and Abel, we have been taught, by society, in one form or another (usually surreptitiously and unconsciously), that the way we feel about ourselves is somehow dependent on things other than ourselves. Admittedly, the residents of Mudville were disappointed in the performance of their star player at a seemingly critical moment, buy this disappointment is a far cry from Casey's unexpected failure being the cause of draining all the joy from each member of the Mudville community.

Is the way we feel about ourselves dependent on the clothes we wear? The amount of money we make? The kind of car we drive? On someone else's (supposed) opinion of us? On some imagined circumstance over which we have no control?

We get to choose for ourselves if we have joy. We should not depend on or use any external circumstance as a measurement of how we feel inside.