{"id":7361,"date":"2004-05-04T06:54:10","date_gmt":"2004-05-04T06:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/ps_139or_not.html"},"modified":"2004-05-04T06:54:10","modified_gmt":"2004-05-04T06:54:10","slug":"ps_139or_not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/ps_139or_not.html","title":{"rendered":"Ps. 139….or not."},"content":{"rendered":"

Go check out the photo heading the Piraeus blog today<\/a><\/p>\n

The woman in this photo is not, of course, consciously making any religious statement, but my own mind was pulled in that direction by her photo. More specificially, it put into really stark terms, as this blogger says, the distinction between these perspectives.<\/p>\n

Many try to justify abortion on religious grounds, or, at the very least, place it – somehow- on a plane of affiars to which God is indifferent. I really don’t get that at all.<\/p>\n

I mean, do you believe that God is responsible for the creation of each human life or not? Do you believe that God’s hand is in the creation of each human being or not, that really, in God’s eyes, there are no accidents? Do you believe that God loves each and every person?<\/p>\n

Then how can you believe that God could be please to see this unique little person he’s fashioned targeted for execution?<\/p>\n

What so many seem to have forgotten is that this way that we live – working mysteriously with God to create and rear children and care for each other in community from conception to natural death – is just terribly difficult because it requires such sacrifice of the self. To be able to love in this way requires one to be totally wrenched from the socket, turned around and re-oriented. No<\/em>, I am not the center of the universe. Yes<\/em>, others are just as deeply loved and valued by God as I am. Yes,<\/em> God works through me to bring life and nurture. And yes<\/em> I want to love – and all of that means, no matter the price.<\/p>\n

That’s hard. And when religious communities step off the boat and settle on the land of self-actualization – it’s harder than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Go check out the photo heading the Piraeus blog today The woman in this photo is not, of course, consciously making any religious statement, but my own mind was pulled in that direction by her photo. More specificially, it put into really stark terms, as this blogger says, the distinction between these perspectives. Many try…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nPs. 139....or not. - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/05\/ps_139or_not.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ps. 139....or not. - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Go check out the photo heading the Piraeus blog today The woman in this photo is not, of course, consciously making any religious statement, but my own mind was pulled in that direction by her photo. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}