Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

He stood on the platform and reminded me of the battle I had abandoned. One gets tired or distracted and mentally diminishes a thing, as if it would fit in a cupboard--towards the back of the top shelf, too high up to be seen. Or maybe, I've never really joined the battle at all, contenting myself with good intentions, and opinions and words. I made a speech on it once--courageous, in a way, for a kid. The captive audience at speech contests seemed too good a thing to waste, since my parents mandated I give a speech anyway.

Roe v. Wade, he said, could be compared to Dred Scott--one party viewed as not holding a citizen's rights, as belonging to someone else. His words reminded me of echoes from farther back in time: not as much a person, not a whole one. Spoken by an African-American to a mixed congregation, the parallel seemed especially fitting. This was not some white man piggybacking on an African-American fight; this was a man identifying the cruel realities of his people's past with the realities of today's unborn. Out of the smoke and blood of the Civil War came a proclamation for his people's freedom. But today's battle is different. "Today's battle," he said, "is not taking place in some far off fields, but in the wombs of our women and the values of our culture."

It is a secret battle. A battle inside. Those who have fought inside themselves know the threatening horror of the thing--and also, the craving to make it smaller, even with a lie.

I like to think I would have answered the great summons of the past--would have hidden Jews from Nazis, would have sheltered escaping slaves, would have done something. But this is my own time, and so often I am content with only imaginings and words.

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The following is the address to Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "The Mother." It is worth the time to look up. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=172081