The Corner With a View: Post of Shame

Last Sunday, my husband asked me if I was still doing 7 Quick Takes... which shamed me into not waiting till the last minute to blog, per my usual route.

This one is for all my fellow slackers! (Thanks to Jen for hosting!) Some awesome reads:

ONE

"When you're born, you don't really know what you're getting into," a resident of mine observed. "I'm not sure how I would have reacted if I had known I would be a 98-year-old old maid in a nursing home."
I knew what she meant. "Yeah," I said, "If I had known what I was getting into, I would have quit then and there."
"Don't quit!" Eula suddenly responded, "If you quit, who will help me get into bed?"
Somehow those unexpected words--spoken in a state of mild confusion--cut me to the quick.

Bethanie Ryan at Sacred Dignity, "Don't Quit!"

TWO

But Jesus in the confessional is not a dry cleaner: it is an encounter with Jesus, but with this Jesus who waits for us, who waits for us just as we are. “But, Lord, look ... this is how I am”, we are often ashamed to tell the truth: 'I did this, I thought this'. But shame is a true Christian virtue, and even human ... the ability to be ashamed: I do not know if there is a similar saying in Italian, but in our country to those who are never ashamed are called “sin vergüenza’: this means ‘the unashamed ', because they are people who do not have the ability to be ashamed and to be ashamed is a virtue of the humble, of the man and the woman who are humble.

Pope Francis, as reported by Vatican Radio - "Pope: Shame is a true Christian virtue"

THREE

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

The quote on the left is from President Obama's address to this year's graduates at OSU... as telling as when he told the press (at the White House Correspondents' Dinner) that he prefers to get his news from whitehouse.gov! Which, as we all know, is as trust-worthy as Jay Carney himself.

FOUR

We live in a country where if a six-months-pregnant woman started downing shots of vodka in a bar or lit up a cigarette, people might want her arrested. But that same woman could walk into an abortion clinic, no questions asked, and be injected with a drug that would stop her baby’s heart.

I’ll put my cards on the table: I think life begins at conception and would love to live in a world where no women ever felt she needed to get an abortion. However, I know enough people who are pro-abortion rights—indeed, I was one of them for most of my life—to know that reasonable and sincere people can disagree about when meaningful life begins. They also can disagree about how to weigh that moral uncertainty against a woman’s right to control her body—and her own life. I have only ever voted for Democrats, so overturning Roe v. Wade is not one of my priorities. I never want to return to the days of gruesome back-alley abortions.

But medical advances since Roe v. Wade have made it clear to me that late-term abortion is not a moral gray area, and we need to stop pretending it is. No six-months-pregnant woman is picking out names for her “fetus.” It’s a baby. Let’s stop playing Orwellian word games. We are talking about human beings here.

How is this OK? Even liberal Europe gets this. In France, Germany, Italy, and Norway, abortion is illegal after 12 weeks. In addition to the life-of-mother exception, they provide narrow health exceptions that require approval from multiple doctors or in some cases going before a board. In the U.S., if you suggest such stringent regulation and oversight of later-term abortions, you are tarred within seconds by the abortion rights movement as a misogynist who doesn’t “trust women.”

Kirsten Powers at The Daily Beast, "Abortion Rights Community Has Become the NRA of the Left"

FIVE

My "baby" sister's May Crowning was this past Tuesday! I just love these songs:

"Oh Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today! Queen of the angels! Queen of the May!"

"You were chosen by the Father. You were chosen for the Son. You were chosen from all women, and for woman shining one... Teach us wisdom, teach us love."

SIX

For everyone having a tough day, week, month, year...