Random Thoughts While Slouching Toward May Day

It's raining off and on in the Nation's capital tonight. I'm at the office, getting caught up before taking a couple of days off.

As I was writing about the March, I came across the news of the Republican senatorial primary in Pennsylvania. Long-time incumbent Senator Arlen Specter is in the political fight of his life, despite one helluva war chest. He is solidly pro-abortion and has worked to try to remove the pro-life plank from the Republican National platform. In contrast, his opponent, Congressman Pat Toomey, is proudly pro-life, with a 100 percent pro-life voting record in the last Congress. He doesn't have much money, but he's got a lot of heart. Not to mention a grassroots following that's bigger than himself -- including an unofficial weblog called ToomeyBlog, that follows his campaign.

I also thought about how it felt to be at the March. On the way there, a dozen of us were surrounded by the enemy, people who weren't afraid to hate us while calling us "hatemongers." I'm getting e-mails from pro-life activists asking me to contact my friends in Pennsylvania.

Most of my friends from the dance crowds (including Pennsylvania), most of the people I meet from day to day, most of the damn universe, it seems -- they're all pro-"choice." It's lonely here in the middle of Babylon. Try to start from the proposition that, if an unborn child is a human life, then taking that life away would constitute murder. Infanticide. Whatever! Then you get this whiney little "well I just feel that the woman should have that choice..." Oh yeah. Just like the gal who ditched her car into a lake a few years ago -- with her two little boys still in it.

Scary, huh? Wanna hear something really scary? Try taking a pair of forceps and crushing the skull of a baby when it comes out of the mother's womb. Whatsa matter, hon, losing your lunch over this? Well, get over it, because a bunch of uppity Hollywood drama queens are perfectly okay with the whole thing. But, hey, it's upsetting, it's gruesome. We don't want to think about it.

We don't want to think.

And most people don't. They follow the crowd. The German people in the 1930s were in a tough spot. They took the fall for leading Europe into the Great War, and the Allies made them pay for it. So in a few short years, one man made good on a promise to lead them to prosperity. And jobs. And a cute little automobile for every family. And one kick-@$$ highway system to drive them on.

Oh, and he encouraged them to blame the Jews for their problems, knowing they were prepared to do it anyway.

See how easy it is? As far as I am concerned, most of those pinheads who marched the other day would have followed Hitler to the ends of the earth, if he told them what they wanted to hear. History has proven this, time and time again. You just had to see it to believe it -- grown men and women saying the most vulgar things to innocent little boys and girls, young enough to be their grandchildren, while highly trained law enforcement officers stood there with their fingers up their... um, on their triggers -- yeah, that's it!

But occasionally, someone doesn't go along. It's a big risk. You could lose your friends, your fortune, even your own family! You could miss being invited to all the cool parties too. Who would be stupid enough to do a thing like that?

In a little town called Nazareth, in Galilee, a young man stepped up to the podium in a humble place of worship. After reading a passage from Isaiah ("The spirit of the Lord is upon me..."), he sat down. Then he dropped the bomb.

"Today's passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

Well, we all know what happened next. Everybody thought he was crazy. Who did this guy think he was? He's just the carpenter's son. Let's get rid of this young upstart. So they set about to throw him over the cliff at the edge of town. But he passed throught them and walked away. (Don't ask me how he pulled that off. I'm not God.) But here's the thing. In a town that small, he was related to practically everybody -- his aunts, uncles, cousins, the whole famn damily, all wanted to kill him.

And yet, he walked alone, away from all he knew of this earthly life. And so it began, the journey that culminated in a humiliating death, that ended in rising to life, and ascending to a crown of glory.

It must have been worth it. So it was with the saints. So it was for a few brave young people who stood with a fool like me on Sunday.

So it was. So it still is.