Here is where I get totally irritated with the “right to life” movement.

The Republicans are working hard to make it harder for women to get abortions, doing things like trying to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood and making abortion clinics have to comply to hospital standards in order to be allowed to exist.

Simultaneously, though, in the name of a balanced budget, Republicans are also calling for the Department of Education to be abolished. If that were to happen, the most needy children would be the most adversely affected. No Department of Education means fewer Pell Grants for disadvantaged youth, making it nearly impossible for many to most of them to go to college, and it also means slashing of funds used to fund programs such as “Headstart.”

I do not hear the beating of indignant hoofs of those who claim to be in support of “life” when it comes to the children who will be so disproportionately affected if the cuts the Republicans want are implemented.

Shouldn’t I, though? I mean, if one is a supporter of “life,” shouldn’t that support be for more than an unborn fetus?

Don’t twist what I am saying, please. I do not like abortion; I think that there is so much contraception available that there should be fewer and fewer unwanted pregnancies. I think that the women’s health clinics that might lose federal funding have done much to teach young women about sex in general, safe sex in particular, and about the importance of contraception in avoiding unwanted pregnancies.

But that being said, I shudder at the seemingly very narrow definition of “life” that anti abortion supporters seem to have. They seem not only not to care about children once they are born, many to heinous situations, but they also seem to blame them for their plights – AND seem more than willing to support large sums of money to be used to build prisons for them.

Marian Wright Edelman, head of the Children’s Defense Fund, calls that the “cradle to prison” syndrome. Living a life of quiet desperation, a child of a parent or parents who do not want you, who pay no attention to you, who take no time with you …is not life. It is mere existence.

I daresay that many young people who are headed to prison are headed there because of a prevalence of advanced “failure to thrive” syndrome. I think they received just enough human interaction when they were infants, but as they have grown, they have been neglected and nearly completely abandoned, having to raise themselves.

That is not life. It is mere existence.

The right to life movement will not hold water for me unless and until it shows a willingness to look at life more broadly. It will not have any credibility to me as long as its adherents seem to want more for an unborn fetus than for a baby who actually makes it out of the womb.

Mere existence is not life. It is a state of desperation and despair, and can only cause a society to erode.

That is a candid observation.

Filmmaker Keith Beauchamp posted on his Facebook page a comment sent to him about his upcoming series, “Injustice Files,” which will air on cable television.

The comment was from an irritated white man, “Greg,” who objects to Beauchamp’s series, which will concentrate on cold murder cases, many of which involve the murders of black people that were never solved.

“Greg” calls Beauchamp a racist, and says that he is only interested in “demonizing” white people. He mentions a double homicide in Atlanta where, I am supposing, two white people were murdered and the case is still unsolved. He asks what would happen if John Walsh only “profiled” black suspects on his program…

And so on.

I read “Greg’s” post several times, shaking my head more each time I read it. Surely he knows that in this country, the scales of justice have not been balanced as pertains to people who lost their lives during the Civil RIghts Movement. . Surely he knows that literally scores of murders of people, black and white, went untried, that in scores of cases, even when a suspect was known, no arrests were made, and blatant lies were told about how they must have died. Surely, he has read how it happened, over and over, that in spite of compelling evidence against a person who might have killed a person during that time period, jury after jury returned a verdict of “not guilty,” allowing murderers to go free and leaving families feeling betrayed and violated.

Surely, he remembers how Myrlie Evers had to fight to get authorities to pay attention to the case of her husband, and how that case was “cold” for years and might still be, had it not been for her persistence. Surely, he feels some measure of outrage that the murderers of the three Civil Rights workers, killed in the South, never paid for their crime? Does he know that Viola Liuzzo, a white woman, daughter of a Tennessee coal miner was a 40 year old mother who died in that struggle? Does he know that she drove, alone, to Alabama, to work for justice and though it was pretty much known not only that members of the Klan murdered her, but who, exactly, those men were, her case was pretty much ignored by law enforcement officers in that state?

I shook my head when I read “Greg’s” comments because they showed why America is so sick when it comes to race. Too many Americans do not want to take their heads out of the sand; it is easier to just “blame the oppressed” (I refuse to use the word “victim) for having been oppressed, and in that way, assuage their own complicity in what has gone on.

For years, local and state governments, as well as the federal government, turned their heads as lynching was happening everywhere. A black person (and some whites as well) merely had to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and say the wrong thing, and a lynching was on. I guess “Greg” doesn’t know the story of how scores of white Americans would head on over to a lynching, bringing picnic lunches and cameras, to take pictures of a soul hung from a tree. I guess he never heard of how black people were not only hung, but their extremities and genitals often cut off and their bodies burned…

It’s part of our history, and it’s grotesque, but the saddest thing is that these American citizens were killed and slaughtered and nobody cared.

This program is about unsolved Civil Rights cases. Thank goodness.The fact is that is that way too many cases involving horrendous murders of these brave and committed people have gone cold. Thanks to some people who do care, like Beauchamp, some of these murders are being solved, and it’s only right. It’s right, and it’s long overdue.

Wanting to find out who killed someone’s father or mother or child doesn’t make one a racist, Greg. It makes one a person of conscience who wants to see justice. The families of those people who were so badly treated and forgotten deserve to see justice just like anyone else.

A nation cannot get well unless and until it acknowledges that it is ill, and America has been way too reluctant to acknowledge that its most devastating illness has been and continues to be racism. The same Constitution that you quote has lofty phrases that speak of freedom and liberty, and the Declaration of Independence says that “all men are created equal.” OK, so the founding fathers didn’t mean black people when they wrote that, any more than they meant American Indians or women to be included in the equality mix …but time and history have allowed people to understand that declaration in its fullness.

All people ARE created equal, Greg, and are indeed endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ..among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness …and justice.

Beauchamp’s series will not demonize whites, but will show that hard work has resulted in justice for some families who have suffered for far too long.

That’s a candid observation.

I watched and listened today as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak went on national television and told the thousands of people thronged in Tahrir Square that he is not leaving office, not until September,

His words made the already agitated yet anticipatory crowd angry. They had already heard him say he would not seek re-election and would leave office in September, and they had flat out rejected his overture. They are tired of his leadership and they want him out, and they have not changed their minds.

They were agitated today because of the overall situation and because they have apparently suffered under the Mubarak regime. They have felt oppressed and disrespected and they are tired of it …yet they were anticipatory, hopeful, when they heard that Mubarak would speak on television. Surely, they thought, that meant he had heard their cries and felt their pain …and would leave office now.

It was not the case, however. President Mubarak appeared to be trying to conciliatory, yet he was indignant. He would NOT be forced out of office. He was sure that the people were only as agitated and disturbed as they were because of “outside influences.”

When he said that, I went into a zone. I listen to life and its happenstances with the ears of an African American woman who has studied history, specifically the history of African Americans in America. The hue and cry during the Civil Rights era was that black people were only clamoring for rights, including the right to vote, because of “outside influences.” Back then, those outside influences were thought to be the Communists. Even as a child I thought that it was kind of stupid for people to blame everything on Communists, especially something as basic as people wanting to be free.

When slaves wanted their freedom, again it was said to be due to Yankee influence, “outside people influencing our nigras” Every time I have read something like that I have cringed, and so, when I heard Mubarak go the “outside influences” route today, I cringed again.

Though the Founding Fathers didn’t intend, when they wrote “all men are created equal,” for that phrase to apply to everyone, black, brown, red and white, male and female, the fact is that all people were in fact created equal, and all humans desire to be free from oppression. Even if people submit to oppression for a while, they will rebel after a time, because no human being was meant to be controlled by another.

That is a basic principle that Mr. Mubarak apparently does not understand. If his government has been as oppressive as the people indicate, then they have been smoldering for a while, yearning to be free, and looking for an opportunity to claim that freedom, just like African Americans, slave and free, did.

Cinque, the African on the ship Amistad, said, once accused of treason and tried in the United States, “Give us free.” He risked his very life to be free and to be treated as human being, as did thousands of slaves who chose to jump overboard rather than be enslaved and treated as chattel. There was no need for “outside influences.”

American news reporters are voicing disapproval for Mr. Mubarak’s consistent reference to “outside influences,” probably not aware of how Americans used that same phrase when African Americans fought to be free.

Here’s what I know: once the seed that grows the desire for freedom takes root, there is no turning back. One CNN news report said that the people gathered in the streets of Cairo are not afraid; indeed, one Egyptian man said on camera, “I am not afraid anymore. I am not afraid to die for my freedom.”

When people are not afraid, they cannot be stopped. There are no “outside influences” working in Egypt. The people, Mr. Mubarak, would be free. God knows.

The people …would be free.

And that’s a candid observation.

I cannot imagine how parents and family of people who disappear into thin air survive the emotional pain.

Every once in a while I think of two people who were with us one day and then, simply, gone. One was a young man who attended Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He was vibrant, wonderful person, who loved life. He directed the youth choir and was active in the church. He graduated from high school and headed South to college.

He lived with his grandmother and she was so proud of him. If I remember correctly, he was in his freshman year and was planning to come home for Thanksgiving. He called his grandmother before he left his campus, on his way to the bus station, to say he was on his way.

That was the last anyone heard from him or saw him. He has never been found.

The other person who disappeared into thin air was a classmate of mine at Yale Divinity School. He went with a group of friends to New York to celebrate New Year’s Eve. He was at a nightclub with his friends and reportedly went outside “for a moment.”

He has not been seen since.

It jostles my imagination to think of how one survives that kind of thing. I know people go on, but what must life be like? This world is not a safe place and there isn’t anything we can do about that.

But this is what we can do: treasure each moment we have with our loved ones. There is nothing more special, more precious, than people in our lives who care and who love us, not because of who we are but in spite of who we are. Their shortcomings should not be enough to outweigh their value to us, and to our emotional and spiritual well being.

There are some things that I am actively practicing- one of which is celebrating every day of life that I have and appreciating and loving fully my friends and family. I pray for “hush mouth grace” when one of my friends or children or siblings say or do something that rubs me the wrong way. I am practicing putting things into perspective.

Because, honestly … I would rather have a million days of irritation than one day of having to endure the emptiness of one whom I love simply being …gone…disappeared, without a trace.

We humans get caught up sometimes, too many times, actually, in the small stuff. The fact that people can just disappear ought to give all of us pause …and encourage us to put things into perspective.

That’s a candid observation.

In a calm and subdued voice this morning, President Obama told people at the National Prayer Breakfast that “When I wake in the morning, I wait on the Lord…and when I go to bed at night…I wait on the Lord.”
The president was referring to the words found in the Book of Isaiah, where it reads, “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings, as eagles; they shall run and not get weary; they shall walk, and not faint.”
The president talked of the strength his Christian faith has given him, though he didn’t go to church much as a child. His mother, he said, took him to church on Christmas and Easter.
But the president said that his mother was a profoundly spiritual woman, who drummed into him the tenets of the so-called “Golden Rule,” that we do to others as we would have them do to us.”
That basic teaching, he said, has driven him and guided him to be concerned for “the least of these.”
And yes, for those who have wondered, questioned and criticized, he said that did in fact confess Jesus as his personal Lord and savior, something that happened as he immersed himself in working for the poor and disenfranchised, and was surrounded by pastors and ministers who believed in and leaned on the Christ.
What was gripping about the president’s words was how clearly his concern for “the least of these” peppered his every sentence. He said that he prays regularly, that it keeps him humble and focused on those who struggle. He said that church and non-profits cannot fix all that is wrong, and the private sector will not.
That being the case, he voiced his belief that it is government’s role to help where and when it can. He talked about remembering Biblical principles while guiding government to help “in alignment with the principles of our Constitution.”
I often think that when it comes to many things, there is not such a divide between Democrats and Republicans as people make there out to be. There isn’t even that much a divide, on some things, between Conservative and Liberal.
But as I study history, and today, listened to the president, I did think that the division between red and blue is “the least of these.” It feels like some of those who are Conservative would leave those in America who are struggling to fend on themselves, blaming them, in essence, for their situations. They would rather pray and work for people in other lands…
The cry of “government being too big” has seemingly come when government has tried to help the poor and struggling in America, “the least of these.”
To me, at least, as I listened to the president, that reality seemed most stark. Here is a president who believes in the Bible and the Constitution as deeply as any Conservative, yet whose heart breaks at the thought of people being without health care, or food, or shelter.
At the same time, he has to worry about, and establish, America’s place in the world. He cannot close his eyes and ignore the chaos in Egypt, and he has to set up policies that will advance this country, not put it in danger.
His, then, is a plate full to overflowing. I find comfort in that he “waits on the Lord” even as he works to meld Bible and Constitution. He quoted Lincoln, who said that often he is driven to his knees to pray, because there is nowhere else to go.
That is a good thing. A very good thing.
A candid observation …