There is a dispute opening up in Ireland between the government and Catholic hospitals, who have recently said they have a moral objection to performing abortions. The government, who is working now to legislate for abortion, has responded that hospitals who receive public funds must follow the law of the land, and that only individuals can be recognized as having the ability to hold conscientious objections. In saying this, the government seems to have forgotten that hospitals are not merely buildings full of inhuman healing machines, but are rather associated groups of individuals – individuals who do in fact hold moral beliefs. The government has also ignored the precedent set in 44 States in America, the American Medical Association, and a 2010 resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stating that “No person, hospital or institution shall be coerced, held liable or discriminated against in any manner because of a refusal to perform, accommodate, assist or submit to an abortion.”
Of Death & Life
After attending the funeral of an extended family member this week, I was once again reminded of the short span of my own life. The funeral was more than a recognition of the reality of death, though, and more than a celebration of a life well lived: it was also a celebration of a sure hope beyond the grave. As the apostle Paul said: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I found a little graveyard
The grass grown up so high
On beds of now-forgotten folk
Whose names are scrubbed by Time
A few more days
A few more breaths
And I will join them here
And grass will grow
And time erase –
My name will disappear
But if your grandkids find me there
There’s no need for dismay
My Saviour broke the power of death
And I’ll be Home to stay
I Can’t Be Anything I Want To Be (And That’s Okay)
If you believe, you can achieve.
Evidently, if you believe hard enough and long enough, you can even fly – that’s what I heard on the radio. Metaphorically, this is encouraging. Practically, it’s still annoyingly impossible, no matter how strongly I imagine myself butterflying above the ground. The kind of advice that tells us we can be anything we want to be is meant to be inspiring, to encourage us to try difficult things, and help us push through to reach our goals even when it’s hard. The slogans sound so great and fit so well in songs and movies and books and memes and posters that it’s easy to overlook that one pesky little drawback of how none of them are true.
Continue reading I Can’t Be Anything I Want To Be (And That’s Okay)
The Freedom In Forgetting
The elephants at Belfast Zoo were rocking. As soon as we turned the corner and saw them, we had to laugh. They looked like they were grooving to their favourite tunes on invisible headphones, and we started trying to figure out what song could make elephants dance like that. The game stopped, though, when we read the sign: these elephants had been rescued from captivity and hard labour. They had spent years working in logging camps and circuses, and had gotten used to being chained up whenever they were not working. The rocking had nothing to do with dance music: It was a coping mechanism, because for much of their lives, they couldn’t do anything else.
I Lost My Independence. And I’m Happy About It.
I lost my freedom and independence on the 9th of May, 2004. It was a sunny day in Virginia, and we were celebrating: Jessica wore a beautiful white dress and we hired tuxedos, a horse drawn carriage, and a chocolate fountain for the occasion. The pastor who gave the message told us that in one sense, the day marked a death. Not a physical death, but a death of our two independent lives which were now being joined together to create something new. He was right. In the fourteen years since that day, neither of us have had the freedom and independence we enjoyed before. In fact, over the years we’ve found three highly effective ways to limit our independence even further: their names are Daniel, David and Rebekah.
Continue reading I Lost My Independence. And I’m Happy About It.
Why Nothing Matters If There’s Nothing But Matter
The longest selfie stick in the history of humanity was 4 billion miles away from home when it took a picture of us. The photo is now famously known as “the pale blue dot”, because it happened to catch our planet as a point of brightness floating in a ray of sunlight. Astronomer Carl Sagan had suggested that NASA take the picture with their Voyager I probe, and he eloquently described the result:
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilisation, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
Continue reading Why Nothing Matters If There’s Nothing But Matter
A Hand In The Dark
“Sorry for your troubles”, they said, one by one, to the smiling lady who offered each one of them a cup of tea. But through her smile, her words were desperate: “To lose one son was bad enough, but at least we knew that was an accident…”
The second son was lying in the front room, pale and cold. The coffin was padded, unlike the rocks where he’d been found at the bottom of a cliff. There was no note. No reason. No signs and signals, even after every memory of every person was turned over in the search. There was just this pale face in the front room, this politely smiling mother, and these cups of tea. Continue reading A Hand In The Dark
What’s New About New Ireland?
Hello! My name is Seth, and I live on the south coast of the Republic of Ireland. Ever since I was a child I have found that writing is the best way for me to collect my thoughts and process what I see and experience, so I’ve done a lot of it. I find that the world is a bottomless depth of wonder and intrigue, and this blog is a small attempt to scratch my way under the surface. So welcome to my new blog. These days, new things are usually considered to be the best things, so this might be the best blog you’ll read today. Anyway, it will almost certainly be the newest. And speaking of new-ness, you’ve probably heard more than a few people saying that the recent referendum landslide in favour of legalising abortion is proof that we are living in a New Ireland. No one denies it.
So what is new about New Ireland? First and foremost, New Ireland is Not Catholic. Except when she is. Continue reading What’s New About New Ireland?
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