Planned Parenthood video features abortionist's tale of horror ...
... the horror of bringing forth a child into the world during the days before abortion was the law of the land.
The tale of pre-Roe woe appears nearly midway through "We Are Planned Parenthood," a video meant to lure teens on MySpace towards Planned Parenthood of NYC's doors. And it's clear PPNYC wants minority teens; nearly all the youths in the extended commercial are of color, which should be no surprise to those who know Planned Parenthood's propensity for selling abortion to nonwhites.
The video's white faces are older women like the host, a laughably breathy Blythe Danner, and Dr. Maureen Paul, PPNYC's chief medical officer. If the video can be said to have an emotional heart, Paul is it, for her story is intended to convey the horror of life before legal abortion. Instead, it just shows the outrageous self-centeredness of a woman who, faced with the consequences of her sexual decision, chose to act as a self-styled Angel of Death for others in the same position.
Here is Paul's speech in its entirety:
"Like many women in my generation, I had an unintended pregnancy when I was a teenager. It was 1968 and and it was prior to the legalization of Roe v. Wade. So I faced the back alleys of America at that time and decided not to have an illegal abortion because I couldn't afford it and because I was afraid that I would die. And so I carried a pregnancy to term against my will and was forced to adopt the child out and it was an incredibly painful experience for me. So that every time I see a patient today, every time I look into the eyes of a woman who is seeking birth control or who has an unintended pregnancy, I know that the work that we do here is really helping to save lives."
Got that?
Paul got pregnant during the free-love era, "like many women in [her] generation." She was scared at the prospect of an illegal abortion, so she had the child and "was forced" to give it up for adoption. (Her language and manner does not suggest that anyone was holding a gun to her head. Most likely, she was simply eager to get into medical school unencumbered by an out-of-wedlock kid.) It was "incredibly painful."
Apparently, the good doctor does not believe that abortion is even more incredibly painful. So, instead of devoting her life to helping unwed mothers, she instead devotes it to "helping to save lives" — obviously not the children's lives. Never mind that her own life and career did not end with her giving up her own child for adoption.
How incredibly selfish. Paul's adoption was painful — well, boo hoo hoo. She should have thought of that before she had sex. Surely she was smart enough, even as a teenager, to know where babies come from.
So, maybe Paul had pain for a day or week or year or decade. She was still alive. Meanwhile, her baby too may be, God willing, alive today — because of the sacrifice that his or her mother now regrets.
Paul is the same abortionist who gave a memorably chilling performance when testifying in 2004 in a test case against the partial-birth abortion ban:
Excerpts from direct examination of Dr. Paul:
Q. And when you begin the evacuation, is the fetus ever alive? A. Yes.
Q. How do you know that? A. Because I do many of my procedures especially at 16 weeks under an ultrasound guidance, so I will see a heartbeat.
Q. Do you pay attention to that while you are doing the abortion? A. Not particularly. I just notice sometimes.
Q. Okay. Does it every come out completely without the head becoming lodged? A. Rarely it does.
Q. And you had said that sometimes when you apply traction to the fetus it comes out intact up to point where the calvarium lodges; is that correct? A. Yes.
Q. In that circumstance, what do you do to complete the procedure? A. Well, there are two things you can do. You can disarticulate at the neck, or what I prefer to do is to just reach in with my forceps and collapse the skull and bring the fetus out intact.
Q. You testified earlier, Dr. Paul, that the fetus can be alive when the evacuation begins; is that correct? A. That's right.
Q. When in the course of the abortion does the fetus -- does fetal demise occur? A. I don't know for sure. I certainly know that if I deliver intact and collapse the skull that demise occurs.
Excerpts from the U.S. government's cross-examination of Dr. Paul:
Q. In performing a D&E at 20 weeks gestational age and above, in your previous capacity, was there ever a time when you saw any indication that the fetus was experiencing pain? A. I have no idea what that means.
The "We Are Planned Parenthood" video ends with an endorsement from Mayor Bloomberg. Nothing could be more appropriate, particularly since, according to a lawsuit that he settled in 2000, he responded to a female employee's announcement of her pregnancy with the exclamation, "Kill it!"
HBO, New York Times hot for terrorist
I received the following e-mail today. Although it's already been around the Web, I'm reproducing it here for those who have not yet seen it:
[Last month] the New York Times carried a review of a film called "Hot House" that goes inside Israeli prisons and examines the lives of Palestinian prisoners. We're not recommending the film or the review. But we do want to share our feelings with you about the beaming female face that adorns the article [below].
The film is produced by HBO. So it's presumably HBO's publicity department that was responsible for creating and distributing a glamor-style photograph of a smiling, contented-looking young woman in her twenties to promote the movie.
That female is our child's murderer.
She was sentenced to sixteen life sentences or 320 years which she is serving in an Israeli jail. Fifteen people were killed and more than a hundred maimed and injured by the actions of this attractive person and her associates. The background is here.
Neither the New York Times nor HBO are likely to give even a moment's attention to the victims of the barbarians who destroyed the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem and the lives of so many victims. So we would be grateful if you would pass along this link to some pictures of our daughter whose name was Malki. She was unable to reach her twenties -- Hamas saw to that.
Though she was only fifteen years old when her life was stolen from her and from us, we think Malki was a beautiful young woman, living a beautiful life. We ask your help so that other people -- far fewer than the number who will see the New York Times, of course -- can know about her. Please ask your friends to look at the pictures -- some of the very few we have -- of our murdered daughter. They are here.
And remind them of what the woman in the Israeli prison -- the woman smiling so happily in the New York Times -- said last year. "I'm not sorry for what I did. We'll become free from the occupation and then I will be free from prison."
With so many voices demanding that Israel release its terrorist prisoners, small wonder she's smiling.
With greetings from Jerusalem,
Frimet and Arnold Roth
On behalf of Keren Malki
Additional background is available here.
9:33 PM |
Altar-native rocker
Via Catholic seminarian Dennis Schenkel comes this video of the Romanian-Italian "Elvis priest," whom Dennis says is a bona fide man of the (satin) cloth:
When I give my testimony about coming to faith, I talk about how I used to seek joy through music.
Actually, it was more than that; I sought joy in songs about seeking joy. And like C.S. Lewis's capital-J "Joy," it was always tantalizing just out of reach. Songs like Bill Lloyd's "Nothing Comes Close":
I’ve got a rage for this machine that’s keeping me out of heaven But that’s the way that it goes..when Nothing Comes Close
I’ve gotta’ face this sight unseen that’s keeping me out of trouble Just when I wanted it most.. then Nothing Comes Close
All the clues point back to back we break each code at random Like mirrors we can stand them end to end Let it go again
I’ve gotta’ track this circle back around to where it started Love in one lethal dose.. but Nothing Comes Close
The artist and songwriter also talks on his Web site about his inspiration for the song: "I knew more about what this song was about after playing it live for a few years than I ever did when I wrote it. Usually that's not a good sign, but sometimes the subconscious lyric tells more about you than you ever thought it could. So in that spirit, that's all I should say."
I believe, as Lewis believed of the seemingly superficial worldly things that gave him his first taste of Joy, that the experience of joyful longing I received through songs like Lloyd's made my heart more fertile for the real thing.
I just noticed that Amazon has picked a new book with which to pair my Thrill of the Chaste for its "Better Together" feature, and it's the most appropriate choice yet: Saints Behaving Badly.
Feminism means never having to say you're sorry ... for leaving your kids to die
Vanessa of the abortion-advocacy blog Feministe is a new mom, and she writes that she can now feel for parents who leave their children to die in overheated cars. (Admittedly, one should read the blog entry for context; Vanessa is loose with her language, but she emphatically doesn't advocate killing born children. At least, not if their mother chose to have them.)
Quoting an article stating some parents of car-heat fatalities were unable to afford day care, she writes, "How sad is that? If I were the employers of those parents, I would consider myself directly responsible for their children’s deaths."
For a woman who claims to believe that it is a woman's responsibility to have her baby or to kill it before birth, Vanessa is remarkably quick to place the responsibility for a child's survival upon anyone but the mother.
Wonkette can find a new adjective for me, because as of today, I no longer "need highlights." I went to a salon in Georgetown recommended by a Dawn Patrol commenter.
Here's a "before" pic:
And here's "after":
Whaddya mean, there's no difference? There's a huge difference. For one thing, in one of the pics, I'm wearing glasses. Also, the lighting in the "after" shot leaves something to be desired. Trust me, the highlights look fab, roots blend, gray is covered, etc., etc.
Another difference is that my eyebrows have been newly decimated by the salon's "threader" (don't ask) who did not speak English. I said, "I don't want them too thin." She heard, "I want them too thin. Mona Lisa thin."
What really gets me is, all the time the threader was threading away, it didn't occur to me to offer up the pain. I could have gotten some soul released from purgatory.
I was very impressed with the shade, because it looked remarkably like my natural color did when I was a kid:
Among Wonkette's pejoratives, one still stands: I remain short. At least, if 5-foot-3 is short. I think I look even smaller. I was reminded of this at the post office on 20th and M today, when I applied for a P.O. box.
The clerk took my IDs and went into the back for a while. Then he came out and asked me to walk around with him to where the boxes were.
I was a bit concerned, wondering why he couldn't say whatever he had to say to me at his checkout.
He walked me over to a wall of P.O. boxes and pointed at the highest one, about five feet up.
"Can you reach that?" he asked.
I could — and I had to laugh at the question. Apparently I am not going to be mistaken for an Amazon anytime soon.
Found this shop in the early evening, in Clarendon. It was delightful to be able to buy some Maltesers for the ride home. This part of the world just keeps growing on me.
8:20 PM |
Friday, July 27, 2007
'First Time' not the deepest
A woman wrote to me today inviting me to contribute to an online project in which she is compiling tales of virginity loss. It is something akin to the "My First Time" Web site where people deposited stories about their loss of virginity; some of the site's tales were recently made into an Off-Broadway show.
I declined. Here's the heart of my reply:
I think the interest in projects such as yours and the "First Time" off-Broadway play are a sign of society's decline. Sex is an intensely personal act. The fact that people are seeking vicarious enjoyment from others' stories of virginity loss reflects that people have become increasingly detached from the mystery of sex. That is in turn a result of the divorce culture and the general decline of marriage.
The experience of virginity loss actually reveals less about love than does the experience of sex within a long-term marriage. I say this even of people who lose their virginity on their honeymoon. At its heart, love is not about the first time. Love is about staying with a person and sacrificing yourself for them. It doesn't make a neat blog entry, but it makes a great marital embrace.
Because Amazon has scanned its entire content, the site's software is able to identify the book's key "Statistically Improbable Phrases" — that is, ones that rarely occur in literature. The SIPs in The Thrill are "singular woman" and "spiritual armor."
I think that pretty much gives you the gist of the book right there!
Amazon also identifies the book's key "Capitalized Phrases": New York City, Sister Gerry, Holy Spirit, New Jersey, Star Trek, Tuesday Night Trivia, and Will You Love Me Tomorrow.
Again, put those phrases together, and you pretty much have the story of my book and even my life.
Most fun for me as author is Amazon's "Concordance," listing the 100 most-used words in The Thrill. I've copied the words below, but you really have to see how the concordance appears on Amazon's page, as it displays the size of each word according to how often it's used in the book.
Here, then, are the 100 most-used words in The Thrill of the Chaste; oddly, "chaste" is not one of them:
able always another away believe between body chastity come date day desire down enough even experience faith fear feel feeling felt find first friends get give go God going good hard having heart husband ing kind knew know life light little live long look looking love man marriage married may means meet men might mind mom mother myself new night now once ones own part people really relationship right say see sense sex sexual should single someone something spiritual still take things think though thought time told two used want wanted without woman women words work world years yet yourself
For nearly a year, long-time Dawn Patrol reader, commenter and guest blogger Kate B. has been knitting and shipping much-needed baby blankets from Texas to the Queens pregnancy resource center Bridge to Life. I am overjoyed to announce that come January, she'll be needing to keep at least one of them for herself! Please join me in congratulating Kate and her husband J.R. (no relation to the Ewings) on the impending arrival of their first child.
I just received the following request from the Sisters of Life. They do not normally send out requests like this, so they must be very concerned. I am not publishing the full name of the prayee, because it is an unusual spelling and I don't want anyone reading this to identify her. Even if you are pro-choice, I hope you will pray for this young woman, because I think we can all agree that no one should ever be pressured into an abortion.
The Sisters write:
"Would you please keep N--- in your prayers. She is scheduled for an abortion tomorrow morning. Please pray that her sister who is pressuring her will have a change of heart."
"We speak of abortion as 'therapeutic,' saving or helping the health of the mother. We speak of living together before marriage — fornication — as some kind of love. There's always a nice word we can attach to it, rather that admit and describe what the evil is."
Reporter Regina Lee's article on Theology on Tap includes a comment from a great local priest:
The Rev. Richard A. Mullins, who spoke about moral relativism during a session in April, said the breadth and clarity of the chats has led multiple people to convert to Catholicism.
"It's profound because people only hear the stories of how the church is dying in Detroit, Chicago and Rust Belt churches, but in many places, it's thriving and it's alive and it's active," he said.
"Not only hadn't I realized that there was effectively a federal subsidy for drug companies to sell birth control to colleges, I hadn't even realized that colleges actually had found a way to profit from student fornication. Nice work if you can get it."
NewsBusters' Matthew Balan reveals the unsurprising fact that the Planned Parenthood question in yesterday's CNN/YouTube Dem debate was a carefully orchestrated plant.
Planned Parenthood to J.K. Rowling: Give Us Genital Hogwarts!
[NOTE: In the wake of Planned Parenthood of New York City's reposting "Harry Potter: Prisoner of Hormones" on its Web site's front page, the following is an update of my August 2004 post on the abortion giant's craven attempt to cash in on the Potter craze.] * * *
Obscenity alert: The "safer sex" and "putting objects" link below contains graphic sexual language. The rest of the links aren't exactly wholesome either — we're talking Planned Parenthood and friends.
The cynical marketing wizards of Planned Parenthood of New York City are hoping children's author J.K. Rowling's magic will rub off on them. They've put a public plea on their Web site—"Harry Potter: Prisoner of Hormones?"—begging Rowling to write sex education into the next novel in the bestselling series.
(This, despite the fact that the series ends with the current installment; Planned Parenthood's potted Potter piece originally appeared in 2004.)
PPNYC President Joan Malin gushes, "Just think of the possibilities: Snapes, that sullen, nasty professor lecturing on the facts and biology of sex; giant Hagrid teaching about love and intimacy; or Professor Trelawney with her 'inner eye' using astrology and fortune-telling to help teen wizards know their feelings."
Would any Potter fans care to comment on those scenarios? Having only seen the films, I'll say that the image of Alan Rickman's Snape lecturing on the "facts and biology of sex" sounds about as edifying as Ozzy Osbourne lecturing on vivisection.
At the bottom of PPNYC's Potter page, the organization lists sex-education Web sites for further information. If these sites are examples of what Planned Parenthood wants Rowling to put into her novels, Harry's fans are going to learn about a lot more than the owls and the bees:
The Advocates for Youth site leads to Youth Resource, "a Web site created by and for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (GLBTQ) youth," which offers the priceless "safer sex" advice, "But if you decide to drink remember to plan ahead before you start drinking 'how far' you will go with someone";
And the link to the Network for Family Life Education's Sex Etc. site, which is "by teens for teens," leads to a page that advises its target audience of children age 13 and up that they can gain pleasure by putting objects in one another's various orifices.
... its message, that is; I don't know whether she's read my book.
I wrote in The Thrill of the Chaste about Fear of Flying author Erica Jong's ideal of "zipless" sex:
... the most obvious problem with relying on impulse is that it doesn’t work. It didn’t work for Erica Jong — she’s on her fourth marriage as I write, the first three having ended in divorce. It certainly didn’t work for me ...
"When you're 12," says Molly Jong Fast, "there's nothing funny about your mother's fourth wedding." Molly describes her own promiscuity as a mistake. "I was sold a bad bill of goods."
"The most interesting part of Willis-Aronowitz's critique is her assessment that feminism has thus far failed in a central task -- that of providing a genuine alternative to marriage."
Mohler says that's because there is no alternative — read why in his blog entry.
Tonight, after witnessing an excellent talk by Baltimore's newly named Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, I was hovering by the prelate's table, hoping to meet him, when a youthful priest approached me — recognizing me from my blog.
Not being an expert on priestly garb, I'd be hard pressed to say why this priest looked sharper than the others standing around him, but I would have understood if I'd known he was the one who has been described by a certain society matron as "our ever stylish man of the true cloth."
The priest introduced himself by his name — and his blog's name. I couldn't quite hear the blog's name; the pub was loud, and my Latin isn't very good. Only when I arrived home did I realize he was the fabled Father M of the group blog Patum Peperium, one of those veddy witty Anglophiliac sites that I admire but don't read too often, as the humor is a bit over my head. (I have yet to be introduced to the works of P.G. Wodehouse.)
Just after he introduced himself as Father M of Patum Peperium, I asked the priest his parish. This time, it was he who couldn't hear me. I was amused when he repeated, "Patum Peperium." I guess you could say a priest's blog is his parish.
"I'm a faithful Catholic, lifelong member of the parish of St. George Romero in Pittsburgh, PA, and I have a desperately urgent question in need of your advice. I was just attacked and bitten by a zombie. Would it be sinful to shoot myself in the head, thereby preventing my transformation into a flesh-eating ghoul? I'm concerned not only about the salvation of my eternal soul, but also the well-being of my family. My husband is not terribly observant and I'm concerned I might eat him before he notices that I've turned."
Read the answer from St. Bernard of Clairvaux, aka Doctor Mellifluus, in Dear Abbé.
I just sent out this week's Edel Quinn Prayer Circle intentions — whew! In its second week, the membership has shot up from six to 14. At this rate, I am going to need database-management software!
Everyone who wrote asking to be a member and who let me know that they fulfilled the requirements of membership (being a chaste single woman with an apostolate who believes in God and that God answers prayer) should have received notice of their "prayee" for the week. If you wrote letting me know how you fulfilled the requirements and have not received the name and intentions of your prayee, please write me at dawneden -at- gmail.com (replacing the -at- with an atsign).
"More than anything else I believe in the power of prayer."
"What boundless trust we should have in God's love! We can never love too much; let us give utterly and not count the cost. God will respond to our faith in Him."
Visited New York City Saturday and joined several dear friends, including Fallen Sparrow (with me at left), Drusilla, Matt Alderman, and Raving Atheist, for a joyous meeting of what Sparrow called "The St. Philip Neri Fun Club."
Sparrow tipped me off to a new online advice column written by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. It is called Dear Abbé.
For your viewing pleasure on this Sunday, the one and only Spanky MacFarlane, fronting Spanky and Our Gang, sings her fabulous lungs out over a prerecorded track of one of my fave rave Sixties hits:
Wonkette thrilled to spot 'somewhat dumpy' chastity author
I was surprised to discover that Alex Pareene of the Washington, D.C., gossip blog Wonkette had the queer eye for the chaste gal yesterday:
I’m not sure if she qualifies for a mention here but I know they love her over at Gawker — Dawn Eden, everyone’s favorite bornagain virgin and fired NY Post writer, having recently moved from NY to DC to become the director of the “Love and Responsibility Program” at the Cardinal Newman Society (this info courtesy of her blog) (I guess the book sales from “The Thrill of the Chaste” started to peter out and who else but the Catholics will pay you NOT to have sex?). Anyway I saw her looking short and somewhat dumpy on K street between 15th and 16th, ostensibly about to cross the street to go to that huge scary Catholic “bookstore” I’ve never seen anyone go into. She needs some new highlights. Welcome to DC Dawn; it’s way harder to find a good hairstylist than a virgin round these parts.
Believe it or not, this is quite a complimentary mention for Wonkette, which generally attempts to imitate Gawker's scatological style. I can't get over that Pareene qualified the word "dumpy" with "somewhat." It's as though he felt a little, well, guilty.
Four-eyed, short, adrift in 'somewhat dumpy'-tude, our protagonist poutingly ponders her dark roots
Or maybe he just felt sorry for me because he knew that it truly is difficult to find a D.C. stylist who does good highlights. Recommendations, anyone?
Incidentally, the "huge scary Catholic bookstore" Pareene mentions is the Catholic Information Center, which is the heart of downtown Washington's Catholic culture. It makes perfect sense that Pareene would never see anyone enter it, as, judging by his blog, real Catholics (as opposed to straw-man ones) are invisible to him. Unless they're on Gawker, of course.
12:51 AM |
The review exemplifies the extreme difficulties modern-day feminist writers have in articulating a philosophy of hedonism. Say what you will about Germaine Greer, she didn't hem or haw about why she should have her beefcake and eat it too. Today's feminist feels the need to appeal to women's "self-respect" — which can excuse even "masochistic affairs."
Willis-Aronowitz praises young women who
bounce between thrilling flings, masochistic indefinable affairs and long-term fulfilling relationships without, as modesty advocates claim, sacrificing their self-respect.
She displays a recurrent fear of being forced to spend the rest of her life with a sex partner. "Why should sex have an everlasting warranty of love attached to it?" she moans. Writing of "the stars of 'Girls Gone Wild' and the fifth graders looking up to Britney Spears," she says, "Regardless of the (sometimes harmful) results of one-night stands or sex before high school, these women are looking to experiment, to find a contrast to immediate, eternal companionship."
That fractured philosophy runs through feminists' apologiae for the sexual revolution — the idea that "sometimes harmful" sexual experimentation should not be discouraged but rather lauded as a sign of deep philosophical striving.
I'm sure that's what predators told the "chicks" in the Sixties right before informing them, as did Stokely Carmichael, that their only position in the movement was prone. Say anything you want about your right to find a contrast to immediate, eternal companionship, baby — just lie back and think of Simone de Beauvoir.
"Maybe," Willis-Aronowitz goes on, "these sexually precocious girls who fervently imitate sexualized twentysomething role models are picking up on the element of fun that sexiness can bring to everyday life."
Have a one-night stand to pick up on "the element of fun that sexiness can bring to everyday life"? Why not just buy a new lipstick? It's cheaper than getting tested for HPV.
What really offends Willis-Aronowitz is not that casual sex might be "sometimes harmful" to women, but rather that books like Shalit's put under her nose the rotten fruit of the lifestyle her parents endorsed. "[J]ust because feminists should acknowledge unhappy teen girls doesn't mean they should have to denounce the gains of the sexual revolution," she sniffs.
Perhaps Willis-Aronowitz believes she is better off without the gains of the sexual revolution — like the corpses of her unborn sisters, brothers, cousins, nieces, or nephews who might have lived had her mother not urged others to support abortion. At the least, when she mentions what she views as gains, she seems to mean something other than the rise in not only abortion but divorce and child abuse in the wake of the "liberation" she lauds.
"Sexual liberation," she writes, "forever expanded the definition of 'good sex,' which is precisely the legacy in danger of being reversed by sexual conservatives."
And Willis-Aronowitz looked at the sex and saw that it was "good." And she defined "good" down to an "experiment." And she defined the "experiment" as "sometimes harmful" "masochistic affairs," but far preferable to "eternal companionship."
The California Attorney General's office recently issued an official title and summary for a new anti-choice ballot initiative. The title of the new initiative is "Mandatory Reporting of Pregnancies and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Minors as Abuse."
This dangerous new initiative seeks to amend the constitution and current law to require mandated reporters, like Planned Parenthood, to report any diagnosis of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infection in patients under 16 as abuse, regardless of the age of their sexual partner.
The estimated financial impact to the state is approximately $11 million for health and social services costs and costs to local law enforcement and the courts.
Note that Planned Parenthood Golden Gate gives a figure for the "estimated financial impact" of reporting such abuse. Apparently we taxpayers would be far better off if sex crimes against children were never reported.
This, from the heavily taxpayer-subsidized Planned Parenthood branch that funded the notorious "Superhero for Choice" animation, which depicted a Planned Parenthood "superhero" murdering peaceful pro-lifers:
During the afternoon before I spoke at St. Alphonsus Church's "Views from the Veranda" series in Chicago last week, I gave a talk to interns who volunteer at the Metro Achievement Center, an after-school program for inner-city girls. That's me in purple, glammed up in advance of my nighttime talk, posing with some of the interns, who come from colleges around the country to spend the summer helping out at the center.
I was very impressed with the center, which is run by members of Opus Dei and includes a chapel with some lovely art. It is an oasis for the girls who come there, many of whom rarely have the opportunity to meet kids outside of their own neighborhood and their own ethnic group. I got to meet some of them too, and they seemed very happy, friendly, and intellectually engaged. It didn't surprise me to learn that 98% of the kids in the program — ordinary kids, not necessarily "gifted" ones — go on to graduate high school, as opposed to 44% of their Chicago peers.
If this sounds like a PSA, it is. (Full disclosure: After my talk, Metro's director surprised me with a $25 Barnes and Noble card and a plastic mug full of Hershey's nuggets.) I don't run PSAs very often, but it's not often that I speak at a place outside of a church that does such good work.
I'm really in awe of people like the college students I met who work in the teaching field, especially when they seek to work with children who, because of their disadvantages at home, are not necessarily the easiest to teach. I would like to have their charism someday, but right now, it seems the best I can hope for is to teach the teachers.
The older I get, the more it seems that the times when I feel pain are when I look for a particular kind of joy in a situation or, more likely, a person where it cannot be found. The very nature of such a particularized search prevents me from appreciating the joy that exists.
What hurts, I think, is setting limits on what qualifies as joy in one's life, rather than being prepared to be surprised by it. The problem is not that I am expecting too much of life, but rather that I am expecting too little.
Entitlement, no. Expectations, yes — if by expectations one means hopes, and if by hopes, one means high apple pie in the sky's the limit.
Remember the folks who had the bumper stickers that said "Expect Nothing"? They weren't a happy bunch.
Many thanks to everyone taking part in the Edel Quinn Prayer Circle. One day into it, I'm already aware of two members' prayer intentions that have been answered in a remarkable way — one of those members being me. If you'd like to be a member of the circle in time for next Sunday's mailing, read the entry about it and write to me, letting me know how you meet the (modest) membership requirements. Also, if you are a member and have not yet heard from the member who is praying for you, please let me know.
Marshall McLuhan knew more than many newspaper editors do today; namely, that if one wishes to improve a medium, one doesn't try to make it do what other media do better. Instead, one builds up the medium's strengths, the things that make it unique.
Most of the editors I knew at the New York Post and the Daily News did not understand this, and I believe that goes for many editors across the country as well. They thought that the best way to improve newspapers was to dumb them down to the attention span of the TV viewer or Internet viewer, and to offer a similarly ultra-varied, razor-thin news diet, with many headlines and very little substance.
They do not seem to understand that a person who buys a newspaper actually wants something to read, not just glance at. He wants to learn more about stories than he would from TV or the Net.
The local newspaper I've seen that best understands this is, sadly, The New York Times.
I remember introducing this 1992 Elvis Brothers video when I was a VJ on Manhattan Cable's "Videowave" — and it's the perfect follow-up to the Aysides video two entries down.
My dawneden.com e-mail address, which is supposed to forward to my Gmail address, has apparently gone haywire. Many e-mails sent to me have been lost. I first heard of the problem at the beginning of the month, but it may have been going on for a while.
So — from now on, if you've been writing to me, please use dawneden -at- gmail.com. (I'm omitting the atsign to foil spambots that troll blogs for addresses.) If you've written to me at my dawneden.com e-mail address and gotten no response, I may not have gotten your e-mail, so please feel free to resend it.
... from the Aysides, featuring the vocals, songwriting, and Fender Coronado of my dear old friend Scott Finter (and the rhythm guitar work of another dear old friend, Joe Ward). I have been rooting for Scott to conquer the pop world ever since he gave me his demo nearly 20 years ago (we were both 7 at the time — ha!). To see him finally star in his first professional music video — especially such a cleanly produced and witty video to one of his best songs — is a joy and inspiration. He looks fab, and best of all, so happy to be doing what he loves.
A demo version of "Outside Looking In" is available on Unsound Volume 1: POP!
Last Sunday, going out for brunch with some fellow churchgoers, I met a dynamic young woman named Edel, after the Legion of Mary missionary Edel Quinn, who is currently up for sainthood.
Like me, she is single and chaste, and like me, she does work that is intended to help fulfill the mission of the Church.
I know several other single women who are likewise chaste and have apostolates —an apostolate being broadly defined as any outer-directed activity that is the work of an apostle, from missionary work to pro-life activism, to taking care of a sick parent, to offering up one's sufferings with the intention that God bless others.
It seems to me that the one thing we all could use is prayer. Fellowship and prayer. Two things, I mean — fellowship, prayer, and praying for one another. Wait, that's three things ...
I propose starting an Edel Quinn Prayer Circle, named after the probable saint-to-be and invoking her patronage. To be a member, one has only to be a chaste single woman with an apostolate, like the Venerable Edel. One does not have to be Catholic, or even Christian, so long as one believes in God and the power of prayer.
The rules are simple. Each Sunday, I will send you the first name, e-mail address, and prayer intentions of a fellow member. Starting the following day, you will pray every day for your "prayee" and send her a simple e-mail notification every day of that week to let her know that she is being prayed for. I'll send them out in a circle so that every member will eventually have the opportunity to pray for every other member.
Beyond that, there are some protocols, which I've listed below.
If you like the idea, e-mail me at my new address, dawneden -at- gmail.com , and include your specific prayer intentions if you have any (though they are not required). Also, leave a comment below and let me know what you think of the idea, and any suggestions you might have. I'm open to suggestions as long as they do not require any work on my part other than sending out the names, e-mail addresses, and prayer intentions to members each week.
Edel Quinn Prayer Circle protocols:
I will ...
Send you every Sunday the e-mail address and first name of a fellow member of the circle, along with the member's intentions if she has informed me of them.
Accept your updates of your latest prayer intentions and send them to the member who will be praying for you.
Not give out your last name or any other information about you beyond your first name, e-mail address, and intentions, which I will give only to whichever member is praying for you during a given week.
Reserve the right to remove you from membership if I learn that you have not been sending out prayer notifications with the required frequency (a bare minimum of four times a week — but ideally every day). I will also reserve the right to remove you if you violate any of the other protocols listed in the "You will ..." section below.
You will ...
Commit to sending your prayee a prayer notification every day. The notification can be as simple as "I'm praying for you," or it can be more detailed, e.g. "I'm praying for your intention of _____," or "I'm praying that God will bless you today," etc.
Refrain from giving your prayee any of your own intentions unless she asks for them.
Refrain from asking your prayee for any personal information other than what I have given you.
Refrain from giving your prayee any information about yourself, how your day was, what you've been through, etc., unless she asks for it. This is very important. Even if your prayee's intention is, for example, that you pray for her recovery from a certain disease, and you yourself have had that disease, don't reveal it unless she asks you. Your task is only to give to her through prayer — not to shift the focus to yourself, however well-intended you may be.
If your prayee asks you about yourself, reveal only what you wish. You are under no obligation to reveal anything personal to her, only to let her know that you are praying for her.
Notify me if your prayee or the member who is praying for you violates these protocols.
Keep me updated on your intentions, if any.
UPDATE, 7/14: Getting a great response, which makes me very thankful. If you are writing, please mention what is your apostolate (as defined above), as this is only for chaste single women with apostolates. Thanks!
UPDATE, 7/15: Many thanks to everyone who's written in. Each of the six respondents who fulfill the membership requirements (being a chaste single woman with an apostolate — see details uptop) has received details on her first prayee. If you would like to join in time for next week, please e-mail me.
