If you aren't offened, you aren't paying attention.

If not now, when? ...and why then?

Life and Death on Mars.

Pro life, anti death.

In 1919, a 13 year old girl in Oklahoma was raped. Rather than put the baby up for adoption, or turn to the arcane arts offered by some mid-wives at the time to terminate the pregnancy, the young girl and her mother decided to keep the child and raise it together (at great familial cost). That 13 year old girl was my grandmother. The baby was my mother.

In early 1950, my mother was told by her OB/GYN that she wasn't pregnant as she thought, but that she had an intrauterine tumor that needed to be surgically removed immediately. My mother declined the doctors advice, choosing instead to wait. They were both right.

On August 19th, 1950, I was born. My mother did indeed have a intrauterine non-malignant tumor that was removed about ten years later... six years after the birth of my sister. Perhaps this helps to explain my passion for the unborn.

In some ways, I am twice a survivor.

It can't be 'un-seen'.

Germany, 1945.

Houston, 2015.

Roar.

When 'Science' and 'Magick' agree.

There has been an odd coming-together of the followers of 'Science' and the 'Occult Arts'.

In the late 1960s, I ran with a pretty artsy/hippie crowd. Among my circle of acquaintances (and one friend) were some very serious professional/semi-professional astrologers (not astronomers, although I knew a few of them as well... later). I found what they did and believed entertaining and fascinating in an arcane sort of way, and I was flattered by the chart one of them drew for me based upon my moment of birth, but I never applied this gnostic knowledge more than using "Hey, what's your sign?" when meeting girls. The whole idea of a person's identity being set when they breached the womb just made no sense to me. 

But at least three times over the last few days, I have heard and read different, well educated people (two of whom I used to respect), people who often rely of 'science' as their appeal for support, state that a 'fetus' isn't a person until it is born. Before that, it isn't a human being at all.

These followers of 'science' voiced the exact same belief as did the followers of astrology I knew forty years ago: a fetus is 'formed' into a human being at the moment it breaches the womb (as if inclusion in "humanity" is accomplished by the inflating of the lungs). Before then, it is just a "product of reproduction."

True then, knowing it would be true now.

"Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen."

Paul's Letter to the Romans, 1:22-25

Art history.

The death of science.

 

There's a problem here. It's more than a misunderstanding, and it's not simply ignorance. There is good dose of arrogance, however. Do you see it?

Yeti is a manufacturer of rigorously designed ice chests and accessories, including thermal drinking cups like this one (this is their 'small' size model). They really do apply some of the best available technology to create containers that will retain temperatures for long periods of time, hot or cold. Stainless steel, double-walled travel cups are no big deal, and this one far out performs the other name-brand ones I have. Far outperforms. I filled two vessels this morning (6:15 a.m.) with 200° F degree water. Within an hour, the contents of one cup had cooled to 152° F. The Yeti had cooled to 180°. Eight hours later, vessel #1 had cooled to room temperature (65°), while the contents of the Yeti were 112°. That's impressive performance. But...

"KEEPS YOUR DRINK AS COLD AS SCIENCE ALLOWS" is the marketing motto on the cup. Since when did Science have consciousness? 'Science' is a methodology at its basic level, a reservoir of knowledge at its highest level. At its basic level, it is a rigorous method of investigation, designed to leave nothing to 'chance' or prejudice. At it's highest level, it's an ever-changing amorphous, non-sentient, entity. It doesn't "allow" anything. It enables, at best, through discovery and application.

But in our culture, 'Science' has been deified by many, led by anti-theists (atheists), but mimicked by the gullible. In the popular culture, it's easy to see the word "science" used as a name, as "Science." This entity Science replaces (or co-exists in competition with) the notion of a god/s, with a Creator God, and with Yaweh (reducing Yaweh to a mere god, or replacing 'Him' with a new god). As a believer in the Creator God Yaweh, and as a believer in the investigative truth of science, this alarms me, because it's a dangerous disservice to both.

The outcome promises to be a great steaming pile of 'not good' for all involved. The heat will be retained at all costs.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Just thought you might like to see a photo of where I come from (literally... on a couple of levels).

This is a shot of my mother, Freda June Rice-Taylor Summer, taken in about 1971. We had just finished putting the horses back into the pasture after she and my sister had been on a ride. This was shot on our small piece of land in Grayson County, Texas. Situated on a bluff above the Red River, our property was right on the historic Preston Trail.

Of all the remarkable folks who traveled down that trail into Texas (one of the earliest entries into Texas was the Red River ford at Coffee's Fort, just a couple of miles down the road), none were greater in my eyes than June Summer. A believer of the first order, she would be 95 today. She passed into Paradise in 1988 at the age of 68.

Thanks for everything, Mom. Especially for the prayers. I know you're pleased with your great grand-daughter and namesake.