Life… who dictates whether it is to be? I am torn this evening as I consider the recent bills passed in Alabama and Missouri. I’ve seen many of the posts about this topic on social media and find myself feeling a little divided because of my spirituality. I know that the church wholeheartedly agrees with the stricter abortion legislation as they are anti-abortion all the way and I fully understand why. After all, God is the giver and taker of life. The beginning and the end… it is God who should be deciding when life comes into this world and when it ceases to be, but instead we as humans are taking on that role… making a mess of things as usual. Damn that tree of knowledge that allowed us the judgment of good and evil. If it weren’t for that tree everyone would be living in a world of love and peace and acceptance, but now we’re stuck here in this world where everyone wants to play judge, jury, and executioner.
It’s a world full of children trying to be the parent… emotional skills in most are no greater than an ape and honestly some apes may have higher emotional intelligence than some in our species. I know I’m jumping around, but I’m disgusted that this debate even exists on so many levels:
- Men legislating what is right for women having no experience of what it is to be one
- That the idea to abort fetuses ever even came into the equation
- That we are now arguing about laws concerning abortion
Today, while in yoga, I was staring at the mandala they have on the wall. I love mandalas, especially the monotone ones that have one color and a background.
The mandala forces me to see the oneness of it all. It allows me to see the space as part of the image… as it’s own unique “thing.” It is not nothingness, but necessary. Without space, you and I would not exist. Likewise, without “evil,” there could be no good. I’m starting to become convinced that the purpose of life is to experience all there is… or God himself. I’m starting to believe that God is not good or evil, but all of it from the most wonderful saint to the most evil ax murderer. Everything and everyone was created by God and for God. God sees the beginning and the end. God is in the space and in the form and that there is nothing that is separate from Him. God is all there is and we need not battle the evil with this mentality… instead we practice allowing and loving all that is in honor and reverence for God.
To battle the “evil” is to oppose God himself. Opposing God as illustrated in many texts never leads to anything good. When we actively assume the role of judge, jury, and executioner over what we consider “evil,” we allow “evil” to permeate our own being and we in turn become more destructive. When we feel any sort of negative emotion toward another, it is like feeling a negative emotion toward God’s ideas and if we feel God’s ideas and creations are “bad” then we are also saying that God potentially messed up with us and that we ourselves are “bad.” As illustrated, this is not loving and honoring God. God created everything and everything is sacred as a result. To honor all that is and love it the best we can is to love and honor God. To make the most of your life and allow life in is to love and honor God. To honor other lives is to honor God, which is why the abortion topic is such a topic filled with such strong emotion and strong conflict for so many… myself included, which is why I’m working it out with words on a page as writing always helps me to gain more clarity and understanding of every situation.
With abortion rights, who is being honored and who is being judged or dishonored. Whose life is to be respected and whose is not? If we look at the pro-abortion beliefs, we can clearly see the belief that the woman is to be held sacred and her life is to be honored. As I’ve written in the past, love requires choice. God loves us so much that he allows us the freedom to choose to honor Him or not. If we are to love as God loves, it implies that in order for us to show love and honor women, we must respect their choice and allow them the opportunity to choose to carry life or not. However, if we look at the idea that God has ordained that life to come through that woman in that space and time… and that to love God we are to love and honor his creations then we have a very different view. We want to honor the life that God planted within the woman and protect the life that cannot yet protect itself…. Give a voice to the voiceless… defend the weak as Jesus called us to do. Both sides mean well and are intending to uphold life, though it seems that when one side “wins” the other side “loses.”
Ghandi often looked for the alternative to the situation that would prove to be in the highest good and as I ponder my feelings on abortion, having never had one, I feel torn. As a young, sexually active, woman I admittedly had spoken some words of ignorance stating in those days that if I would have become pregnant before I was ready, I wouldn’t have gone through with it. Then when I became pregnant at 28, I realized I could not have ever terminated because I personally didn’t feel I would be able to be right with myself having known the feeling of carrying life. I say this to illustrate the point that often people speak a lot of nonsense until they have gone through the experience. This point is what frightens me. We have male legislators making choices for women. Obviously, these men have never been touched by pregnancy. These men are ignorant, just as I was before having become pregnant and then considering the question of abortion more deeply and more personally. My feeling is that I don’t believe that those who have never experienced a situation should be ruling for others who have. I believe with such a sensitive topic impacting women, women should be the dominant voice in the discussion. However, it severely bothers me that this is a discussion to begin with.
The only reason that this subject is even a matter of discussion is because of the disrespect of God’s creations to begin with. People do not look at sex as a holy union that honors the sacred within the other, but rather something to do for “fun”, which leads to broken hearts, mixed feelings, accidental pregnancies, unborn souls who don’t get to enter the world, devalued people, diseases, etc. I know this because I misused sex just as most of us have and have learned the truth from my experience… as that is often the way truth is revealed to us. There were people I did not treat at as sacred and in my earlier years I’d used them for momentary pleasure, using their body without any spiritual connection, which could have hurt them along the way. In turn, I have also been used and devalued through misused sexuality resulting in a shattered self-worth that I’ve had to intentionally rebuild over the years. I allowed myself to be dishonored, while I dishonored others all the while thinking nothing of it. I share this to illustrate that consensual sex can be an offense against God’s creations, just as non-consensual sex can be.
Situations of rape and sexual abuse are clearly dishonoring God’s creations and have disastrous consequences to a woman’s soul. I believe that these acts also have disastrous consequences to the abuser’s soul as well. With this act they defile themselves by believing that they have to overpower a “weaker” person to get what they want… believing that the egoistic action of exerting power over another is going to make them feel powerful and worthwhile instead of the emptiness they are suffering from. I believe that they walk away from their offense feeling severely disillusioned, being brought lower after each violation, which often leads them to seek their next high because without this form of power they feel powerless and empty.
Why is nobody talking about the reasons that we are sitting here discussing this topic? We fix the root of the problem, we fix the need to have this discussion. If people would start honoring God’s creations, then this would not be a topic of discussion. Pregnancies that occurred would not be caused by misuse of another but brought about by honor and love of another sacred being and therefore honored, wanted, and loved from the start. The fact that the world is in a state where unwanted pregnancies are rampant is quite frankly heartbreaking. The fact that we now are making laws to deal with which side is right and which side is wrong when it is all freaking wrong is atrocious!
How do we untangle ourselves from this place? How do we wake people up so that they see what is at the root of this discussion and work to solve that rather than add more senseless laws that only continue to hurt someone. If for abortion, we kill a fetus. If against, we add further injury to a woman’s already injured soul in many circumstances. No one freaking wins! I have no opinion on the topic of abortion other than to say, we need to back waaaaay the heck up and start having the right conversations about how we can heal people’s hearts and minds so that this is not a topic of conversation requiring a ruling to begin with.
In loving, we are loving God… and when we love God, we receive God’s love in return. When we negate God and rebel against God, we receive God’s wrath (as illustrated in the Bible on several occasions). The problem is some of us have forgotten that we were made in God, for God, by God. This forgetting leads people to make bad decisions out of the emptiness and self-loathing they feel within. As within, so without. When we feel less than, we take on the blaming, shaming, hating, judging, lying, avoiding tendencies that lead us and others into destruction. When people self-destruct, they also destroy everything around them. Your self-loathing pours outwardly onto everything around you, which is why the first order of business it to become aware of the negative ways that you treat yourself and the reasons why. Therefore I do what I do… I desire for people to honor themselves and others. I desire for people to live higher, gain wisdom, and heal this world starting with themselves.