Declining support for abortion rights!
http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=18806
It was encouraging to see this story. There has been so much negativity lately if you are pro-life. Oh, by the way liberal news media, it’s “pro-life” NOT “anti-abortion.” Sorry, we aren’t into murder. If we can’t be “pro something” then you can just call us “anti-murder.”
Last summer I was attending my home church, Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati. It’s a wonderful place, and I miss it constantly as I’m now five hours away at college in Nashville. I miss the senior pastor as well, who is a great individual. I always learn so much from his sermons, as he is a man who loves Christ and others relentlessly. At one point during this particular service, he put a passage up on the screen that I thought was incredible. I bought the book a couple Sundays later, read it from time to time over the summer, and consider it deeply profound in its simplicity. It forced me to really ponder what is important in life, and how to focus on those things despite our nation’s amazingly fast-paced culture.
This is the passage he used that really touched me:
The skies were partly cloudy, the temperature was 68 degrees, the wind was out of the west at 10 miles per hour. A beautiful day. At 8:45 a.m. people working on the 103rd floor were pouring their morning coffee, reviewing their Tuesday appointments, bantering with office mates, glancing at the harbor…
One minute later, none of that mattered. Twenty floors below, a 757 transected the building, leaving the 103rd floor cut off, trapped, hopeless. But not yet dead.
When you have ten minutes to live, what are your thoughts? What is important in the last seconds? As a tribute to those nameless faces staring down at us from the smoky inferno, can we stop what we are doing long enough to listen to them? Seeing death from this perspective is not morbid: on the contrary, it can help us see life.
Those who found phones called- not their stockbrokers to check the latest ticker, not their hairstylists to cancel the afternoon’s appointment, not even their insurance agents to check coverage levels. They called spouses to say “I love you” one last time, children to say “You are precious” one last time, parents to say “Thank you” one last time. Through tears they called best friends, neighbors, pastors, and priests and rabbis. “I just want you to know what you mean to me.” And surely those standing on the brink of another world thought of God- of truth and eternity, judgment and redemption, grace and the gospel.
Imminent death has a commanding power to straighten life’s priorities with a jolt. At such dramatic moments, people suddenly realize that priorities matter.
Tragically, however, chronic overloading obscures this truth. How we live influences how we die, and misplaced busyness leads to terminal regrets. If we don’t move to establish and then guard that which matters most, the breathless pace of daily overload will blind us to eternal priorities, until one day we too stand at such a window and look down. Perhaps with regret.
Slow the pace of living until you again remember that day.
If that were you on the 103rd floor, what would have been important?
Live it.
- from A Minute of Margin by Richard A. Swenson, M.D.
I understand that it ends on a somewhat depressing note. I would prefer to view the passage as encouragement. It is so easy in our culture to get caught up in the sheer busyness of life. As a college student, everyone is busy all the time. Sometimes it’s stressful. Sometimes I wish life moved more slowly. I think it is vital that we do what we can to love others. Even if you are reading this and you are not a Christian, or you aren’t religious, you can still acknowledge the necessity of loving others. I sincerely believe that many social problems that we’re encountering in the United States in my lifetime, are the results of people forming their own bubbles. Modern houses have back porches, not front porches. People running late to work get cut off in traffic and give that person the one-finger salute. Life moves at a million miles per hour. We play on our iphones to avoid speaking to others while we wait for a bus, or wait in line at the bank.
What is this accomplishing? Nothing lasting. My hope is that this post will encourage people to slow down. Take that day off and spend it with your daughter. Let the people you love know that you love them. Try to develop friends wherever you go. Realize the value of people. We can’t fix all the problems of this world obviously. But why not attack the root of the problem?
Small things done with great love will change the world.
