Pensées Sombres

Staring Into the Abyss

Yesterday afternoon was not good. Once I had yesterday's blog entry finished and posted, I should have just taken the rest of the day to do enjoyable things: read for pleasure, listen to music, watch the birds on my patio, etc. But I knew that another Planned Parenthood video had been released, so...

First I read about it. Then I read some more. Then I actually watched the video. Then I spent much of the rest of the day trying to make some sense of what I had seen. And trying, unsuccessfully for the most part, to fight off the urge to weep...

I have lived a long time, and I have been an avid reader my entire life, so of course I have read many, many books. Only a tiny handful of them affected me so profoundly that I have returned to them again and again, re-reading their words and finding succor in them.

Historian Gertrude Himmelfarb's essay collection On Looking into the Abyss is one of that handful.
I have it on my Kindle, which makes it easier for me to re-read whenever I feel the need, as I did yesterday.




In the introduction to the collection, Himmelfarb speaks of how the Holocaust "stands as a rebuke to historians, philosophers, and literary critics who, in their zeal for one or another of the intellectual fashions of our time, belittle or demean one of the greatest tragedies of all time." The reality of the Holocaust, she reminds us, will overcome any attempts to "deconstruct" it, or to explain it away, or even to deny it altogether.

I believe that, in the fullness of time, the barbaric reality of the abortion-on-demand regime created in the wake of Roe v. Wade will be viewed not as a necessary element of political and social equality for women, but as a dark stain on our national character, equally as shameful as slavery, the treatment of Native Americans, etc.
I believe it is entirely possible that the Planned Parenthood videos might be the catalyst that finally forces the nation as a whole to face the truth of what we have allowed to take place for more than 40 years.

When I taught at Bishop LeBlond Memorial High School in St. Joseph, Missouri (1995-2004), an annual event was our students placing crosses on the south lawn of our campus on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade to symbolize the lives lost through abortion.

South lawn, Bishop LeBlond Memorial High School

They planted one white wooden cross for each one million abortions since 1973 (as of 2015, it would require 58 crosses). This area of the campus fronted Frederick Avenue, a main thoroughfare with a lot of traffic.

One year, someone was so upset by the display that they drove their car onto the lawn (late at night), knocking down as many of the crosses as they could.


I didn't really understand that level of hostility then, but now I think I have begun to get a handle on it.

As the angry reaction to the Planned Parent videos is showing, there are many, many people who sense the truth about what abortion is, but deeply resent any explicit reminders of it. Deep down, I believe their anger is rooted in guilt, in the knowledge of their own complicity in permitting the barbarity to become so commonplace, so normal.

And what of the people who continue to blithely dismiss any criticisms of abortion-on-demand? Himmelfarb had them pegged, too:

The beasts of modernism have mutated into the beasts of postmodernism--relativism into nihilism, amorality into immorality, irrationality into insanity, sexual deviancy into polymorphous perversity. And since then, generations of intelligent students under the guidance of their enlightened professors have looked into the abyss, have contemplated those beasts, and have said, "How interesting, how exciting!"

For those twisted souls who see only the "empowerment" of women in all of this, I really don't know what else to say. Dostoyevsky handled the issue this way in The Brothers Karamazov:

We must do everything within our power to help the progressives who blindly defend abortion-on-demand understand that, if we are to retain our humanity, the answer to this question must be "No."

I believe that persuasion can help those who don't see the truth. And I will continue to do my small part to help in that regard...but for now, at least...

Exactly. But it's okay, old friend...I'm pretty sure we'll both feel better afterward...

Things That Make Me Happy:

It was only a two-game series, so...

Last night at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, my beloved Kansas City Royals finished off a two-game sweep of the Reds with a 4-3 victory.

It was an odd game. The start was delayed more than 90 minutes by rain, and when the game began both teams wasted little time scoring. The Royals scored twice in each of the first two innnings, the Reds scored twice in their half of the 1st inning, and added a single run in the bottom of the 3rd. After that, though, both teams' bats went silent, and for the final six innings there would be no further scoring. In fact, the two teams combined for just four more hits between them the remainder of the game.

Newest Royal Ben Zobrist was 4-for-5 with two doubles, an RBI, and two runs scored. The decisive runs scored on a two-run single by All-Star center fielder Lorenzo Cain in the 2nd inning...

"Bang!"

Now it is on to Boston tonight to begin a four-game series at Fenway Park. Danny Duffy (6-5, 4.03 ERA) takes the mound against the Red Sox Wade Miley (9-9, 4.58).

Until Next Time...

At one point during his concert there in 2011, Irish singer-songwriter Kieran Goss was joined on the stage of the Grand Opera House in Belfast, Northern Ireland by American singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman. Today's send-off is their performance of Chapman's "Sand and Water," a song which never fails to move me to tears. Today feels like a day for tears.

Enjoy...and if you feel a tear welling up, don't fight it...