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Life

    One of the most powerful movie scenes ever able to stir my blood so thoroughly was toward the end of The Forgotten.  If you haven’t seen it, then I apologize ahead of time for giving away the entire plot.  I recommend you cease reading immediately and go rent it.  After much suspense and intrigue, our main character Telly is in a stand-off with an extra-terrestrial fellow who is part of a team whose goal it is to see if they can erase from the minds of a selected handful of humans the child that each parent gave birth to and raised. 

   Telly has managed to hang on to the memory of her son by saying his name aloud every day.  She spends the entire movie searching for him and trying to get him back, and she refuses to quit even though no one else remembers Sam, and they are all convinced she has lost her mind.  The frustrated alien finally pins her down and, forcing her to give up every memory of Sam one by one, he clears her mind of him entirely, leaving her lying prone and exhausted on the ground.  He starts to walk away, leaving her there, satisfied that his experiment was a success. 

   Until the faint sound of a tiny heartbeat makes him stop in his tracks.  One memory remains: A woman sitting on a park bench on a sunny day, with a hand on her pregnant belly and a smile on her face. 
   Telly slowly pulls herself into a sitting position as the alien turns to face her.  She stands to her feet and he scowls back at her.  Her face radiates certainty and defiance as she slowly and deliberately declares: “I had life inside me.” 

   The alien cringes.  His experiment has failed.   

  She continues, “I had life inside me.  I have a son.  I have a son and his name is Sam, you son-of-a-bitch.”  At which point the alien gets sucked back to wherever he came from (no doubt to receive punishment for having failed so miserably) and Telly gets her son back.   

  

  Women were created by God with some pretty intense instincts to fight for and protect our families, especially our children.  There is everything strong and noble and pure and sacred about a woman carrying life inside her.  By nature a mother is willing to give her own life for her child.  How is it, then, that the world has accepted the backward idea that it is okay for a tiny unborn life to come to intentional harm?  My friend Whitney made the excellent point recently: “Why is it that if scientists found single cell organisms on mars - they'd declare "THERE"S LIFE ON MARS!!!" but a fertilized egg - even as far as a full term baby - EVEN babies that have been BIRTHED - are disposable. It’s all backwards.” 

   Allowing abortion to continue isn’t progressive.  It goes against the very laws of nature set down by the creator of the universe.  Women have become victims of the unnatural idea that killing babies is alright.  Whether they’ve been temporarily or permanently convinced that the life they carry is not worth fighting for, that it doesn’t deserve a chance at life or even a second thought, they’re the ones that lose, because they’re denying their true nature.  And they suffer for it. 

   I know at this point some of you are saying, “You just don’t get it.  It’s her choice to do what she wants with her body.”  Well, it may be my choice to put my fist through your face (it is my fist, after all) but your face has to deal with the results of my actions.  Besides, separate DNA and even separate gender determine that the baby inside a woman definitely does not count as her body.  

    And as far as using the excuse that the baby isn’t a human yet, take a moment to consider how history is full of examples of people who tried to use the excuse that certain groups of people didn’t count as real people.  Take our old friend Adolf Hitler for example.  He wasn’t a big fan of Jews, Gypsies, or Gays, and went to great lengths to exterminate them like roaches.  He acknowledged the Jews as a race, but not human.  Consider that slaves in America were treated as property to be bought and sold, and as such were regarded as less than human.  Both of these practices were widely accepted in their time, and it’s only looking back through time that we recognize the atrocity of considering Jews and African Americans to be less than human.  How long until we view the unborn in the same light?  Given its track record and the horror and disgust that are associated with it from past decades, I’d say the phrase; “It’s not a real person” deserves some serious scrutiny.

   I’m not a mother, but it is my greatest hope to be given that honor someday.  I can say right now that nobody better try to mess with my kids at any stage of their lives, because you can be sure I will fight tooth and nail to ensure their safety and well-being.  

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."
                                                  -God  (Jeremiah 1:5) 


If you can spare 30 minutes, watch  this video it is incredible. 

Queries

     Questions can be funny things.  There are hypothetical questions and philosophical questions and rhetorical questions.  There’s the question you realize you already know the answer to as its coming out of your mouth and you wish you had realized it sooner so that you could have withheld the question and seemed smarter longer.  And then there’s a personal favorite of mine: the dumb question (who’s existence is denied by some).  In my recent pondering of questions I found myself questioning the question.  I realized that there are some questions that perhaps should not be asked in the first place, and if they are asked, call into question the true nature of our personal integrity, not to mention our priorities. 

   I read in a book recently that the point at which a little white lie becomes an actual lie differs for all of us.  Imagine if we got a group together, discussed the point up to which each of us felt comfortable white-lying and why and for who’s intended or supposed benefit, and then averaged everyone’s white-lying comfort zone, and established the mean point at which a white lie crosses over to an actual lie and becomes officially unacceptable.  My question to the question “When does lying stop being okay” would be “What on earth.  Shall we not just all put a hefty effort into being as honest as possible with one another?” 

   In the dating world, one tends to ask one’s self, “How far is too far?”  Or for others, “How soon is too soon?”  My answer to that is far too archaic for most to swallow: “Wait until marriage.”  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying its easy to find the one you love and hold off expressing that love physically.  Far from easy, it’s the hardest thing I ever had to do.  But it is possible.  That’s asking too much, you say.  Well, just hold on a minute.  How many women want to be swept off their feet by the man of their dreams?  The great majority, if we’re being honest, from childhood through adulthood, at which point the feminine heart is inclined to grow weary of the wait, and despair at her current male selection and settle for whatever guy tells her she’s pretty.  Girls, how many guys would step up and become the men we as a culture need them to be if we put our foots down and said, “Absolutely not, you don’t get the goods until you promise before God and witnesses to love and cherish me and only me for the rest of our lives.”?  Because let me tell you the complete trust and security and love and fulfillment in that scenario far surpasses any fairytale expectations there are to be had.   

   One more interesting question I’ve heard: When does a fetus count as a human?  That’s a slippery slope when you stop and think about it.  I like to say, “At the first available opportunity, better safe than sorry.”  But there are other schools of thought.  Some people feel comfortable with it around 28 weeks. A common idea is to wait until the mother decides she wants to keep her baby before letting society as a whole determine that the life inside her is something to celebrate.  There are those who refrain from bestowing upon people the official title of “human” until he or she pops out of the chute…or to use a more official phrase, until it is “viable outside the womb”.  A human child is such a helpless creature; when are we really viable outside the womb?  If we were to plop a child down in any environment, when would it realistically be capable of self-survival?  At the age of twelve maybe?  For that matter, how many functioning adults would crumble under less-than-ideal circumstances (“thrust into the wilderness” as Frank would say), given our dependence on technology? 

   How viable are any of us really?  Some people are disabled and are never able to care for themselves.  Are they not human by some standards?  Some people grow very old and need intensive care.  Should we off them because nurturing them takes it out of us?  When we begin to try to draw our own personal lines for when we think humans get to be humans based on whatever…where does it end?  Maybe it ends when somebody decides that blue eyes and blonde hair is best, and that some religious cultures are no longer acceptable.  

   We are faced with many questions throughout our lives.  What do you base your answers on? 

Spontaneous Phrases and Grocery Shopping

     It came to my attention recently that there are a few key phrases in my day to day life that apparently just need to come out of my mouth.  I was washing a dog at work, and I did what I always do: I rinsed it down, filled my hands with the special tearless shampoo, turned back to the dog and cheerfully announced, “Face shampoo!”  Bemused, I asked the dog, “Do I always say that?”  Well, if the dog knew the answer to that question it didn’t tell me, but I was pretty sure I had developed the habit of declaring the imminent application of the face shampoo upon each dog’s face.  Upon further investigation, the declaration was often followed by the clarification: “…for your face!” in equally cheerful tones.  

    This discovery made me stop and consider what other things pop out of my mouth unobserved and on a routine basis.  As it turns out, motorcyclists trigger this Tourette’s-ish phenomenon;   specifically those foolish motorcyclists who feel compelled to ride about without protective headgear, eliciting from me the exasperated, single-word command, “Helmet!”  Also a common driving expression that I unwittingly spout when I find myself at a four-way stop: “My turn!”  ...well, its justified...it is, after all, my turn...  

    And I don’t know if it counts as a phrase, although it is a form of vocalization, but I find myself inclined to hum whilst I shop.  I’m not a crazy driver, but it’s not always possible to take turns at a creepingly-slow pace, and sometimes if I’m driving home and taking turns and there are groceries in the back….well, sometimes those groceries shift.  At which point I end up hollering, “Hang on, everybody!”  And I can’t help it.  If I have a passenger who knows about this urge of mine, then yes, they laugh at me.   

   Grocery shopping is a trying time for me.  People would do well to get out of my way, and usually they just don’t put in the effort to do so.  Lazy swine.  One day, in the midst of such unfortunate circumstances, I found a strange source of amusement.  I was enduring the bad luck of having to deal with not only poky customers, but a wheel on my cart that had somehow been slightly flattened in one spot, so that it clunked with every turn.  One might ask why I didn’t just trade that cart in for a better one.  Well, that cart was the one I had traded in for one that leaned heavily to the port side, and I didn’t have all day to be switching carts out for better ones, so I stuck with the clunky cart.  

    I was trucking right along, making good time toward the grocery section despite my clunking, when a woman who apparently had all day to shop pulled out in front of me and proceeded along at a snail’s pace.  At first I was annoyed, until I realized that the rhythm of my cart wheel’s clunking was heaping effective guilt upon her.  The sound of my approach was as follows:  “Clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk—clunk…clunk….clunk…….clunk………clunk…….….”  That woman knew what she had done, and my cart wheel had informed her of her wrongdoing.  Had informed everyone in the near vicinity of her wrongdoing.  She hung her head in shame and I veered off into the cookie aisle, wholly satisfied.  

    Listen shoppers, if you’re not going to shop at high speeds, then for pete’s sake, move over and let others pass.  It’s not a complex notion.  Alas, I cannot criticize with a clear conscience, because let’s face it, I do dumb stuff.  The other day I came home from buying groceries, filled my arms with bags, approached the door, and held up the key.  The van key.  What did I think I was I going to do, start the house? 

Dog Days

     For the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of working as a dog bather at Petsmart, or, to use the fancy term, I’ve been a “salon associate”.  I have to say, out of all of the jobs I’ve had, the role of dog bather is the one I’ve fallen into most easily.  I came into my current position with previous customer service experience and dog bathing experience, so all I had to do was learn the specific services we offer and the priorities within the system, and voila!  I find myself in a happy little niche. 

   Its also fantastic that my co-workers are so cheery.  There’s always chatter and laughter and helpfulness and good times.  I get my girl time, which I’ve been desperately needing since I left Shannon and Speed Scrabble back in Alamogordo, and before that my friends back east.  The dogs are usually splendid.  We get the bouncy fluffballs, the nervous shiverers, the massive shedders, the angry nippers, the frisky wigglers, the adoring kissers.     

   Sometimes I laugh at my dogs.  The ones who sail through the salon doors acting as if I’m their new best friend are the same dogs who find themselves dripping in the bathtub, their former fluff rendered into a sad sopping mess, gazing at me pitifully and cursing my sudden betrayal from under a mound of suds.  The velocity dryer also lends some amusement to my day.  The velocity dryer can be loud and strong and makes some dogs nervous, but others will lean into the airflow, allowing me to direct the jet of air into the dog’s lips, causing an amusing cheek-flapping effect that I cannot watch with a straight face.   

   My uniform, as usual, is out of the ordinary.  I wear whatever tank top I want because its covered by the salon (blast I can’t think of the word…poncho…smock!).  I wear black running pants that dry quickly, and water shoes for breathability.  There is no good footwear for a dog bather.  Boots will fill with water.  Sneakers just get soppy and stinky.  Water shoes at least breathe somewhat.  So I’m dressed all in black, but there’s nothing particularly cool about the look.  I shouldn’t complain, after all, what work uniforms don’t look a little goofy when you’ve left the workplace?   

   Not every day is all fun and games.  A schnauzer came in the other day covered in three varieties of ticks.  Parasites are never fun to deal with.  Some customers are impossible to please.  It’s a fantastic system though, because if a customer is giving me trouble, I can just refer them to a groomer.  If they give the groomer trouble, they can just be referred to a manager.  Its lovely to never be cornered or alone when problems arise in the workplace.   

   One thing that surprised me is my change in perspective since I’ve worked here.  I harbored a small fear that I would have to put on a façade to deal with the dog owners, who obviously would be shallow, frivolous people for spending hard-earned money on something as goofy as having someone else bathe, brush, and/or trim up their dog.  Unnecessary spending at its worst.  Ultimately I still personally want to end up with a low-maintenance breed when the time comes, but I have come to appreciate that people bring in their dogs for improvement.  Part of the reason for that is that its so easy for me to take pride in my work here.  Its so far from dreary, in fact its incredibly satisfying to receive a grungy shedding beast with overgrown toenails, and hand it back to its owner all soft, shiny, and shed-free.  Dog owners (or, as we say ‘’Pet Parents”) are excited to bring their dogs to us, and are usually delighted with the improvements.  We fawn over their dogs and tell them how wonderful and handsome they are, and they eat it up.   

   There’s lots of love in Petsmart, and so many upsides.  I don’t have to work to the point of exhaustion and then collapse into bed at the end of the day.  I don’t have to wander to the edge of the property and break frozen water buckets in freezing temperatures.  I don’t have to live with my coworkers or offer to super-size something that shouldn’t have been ordered in the first place.  I don’t have a long commute (10 minute drive, woohoo!).  I don’t have to sit at a desk and war with my conscience over whether or not I should smuggle a book in because there’s absolutely nothing for me to do.  I don’t have to try to help people accessorize or update their look when in reality fashion all but bores me to death.  I suppose there are downsides too.  I do miss the fulfillment of training horses.  Okay, maybe that’s the only downside, the dogs aren’t horses.  But really, its great fun to go into work and play with dogs all day.  In keeping with the great Dogs Vs. Cats Debate, however, I still like coming home to a cat at the end of the day.