18 | January | 2009 | Paroxysm of Giggles / Critical Mass

I know that God’s kingdom is not only beyond my
effort, but also beyond my vision.
I will accomplish in my lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing I do will be complete,
just another way of saying
the Kingdom lies beyond us.

So this is what I am all about:
I plant seeds that one day will grow.
I water seeds that are already planted, knowing that
they hold future promise.
I lay foundations that will need the future effort
provided by others.
I will bring the yeast that will produce effects that
stretch beyond my capabilities.

I cannot do everything
and there seems to be a sense of liberation
in realizing that.
It enables me to do something
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step
along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to
enter in and do the rest!

I may never see the end results, but
there is a difference
between the Master builder and the worker.
I am a worker, not a master builder; a minister,
not a messiah.
I am a prophet of a future not my own.

Amen.

(Adopted from a prayer by Archbishop Oscar Romero, killed in San Salvador in 1980)
Thank you, OLGC! — For I totally ganked this from your bulletin! 🙂

OH boy! I snatched up this book from the library, and even in the prologue I found something so utterly horrifying, that I just had to stop reading to let you know:

From “The Clone Age,” by Lori B. Andrews, page 7: “Is it the wrong time for a pregnancy, but you want to freeze the fetus in case you later want to bring to life that very baby? Cryogenic Solutions of Houston offers such freezing, even though the technology to ‘reanimate’ such a fetus is not yet available.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Although, I probably shouldn’t be surprised, it’s not like people don’t already freeze their children — that we don’t have thousands of little kids on ice right now. But something about how very callous that statement is just struck me in a unique way. This is not about a couple wanting desperately to have kids and the only way is to conceive in a petri dish. This is about your personal convenience! That poor child has already been conceived normally and is growing and thriving in his or her natural environment, and you want to rip him out of your body and freeze him — oh, but hang on there kid, because some day I might decide that I want you?!!?!?!

There is nothing in that decision that has anything to do with love — except for the extreme, selfish love of self of the individual making that horrible decision.

And, supposing you do this, what do you tell your kid???!? “Hi, honey. Yeah, well I want you now, but I didn’t want you earlier,”????? What is that going to do to the poor kid’s self esteem?

This is a sick, sick world in which we live.