Thursday

Hmmm...not too much notable on the adoption homefront to write about today. We continue the wait officially in "the window" for a referral. We did not hear yet of any referrals given in October so that makes me expect December as our possible referral month. Still waiting patiently to hear from Shaohannah's Hope as well. I realized the other day that my friends that had been pregnant (2 of them) already have had their babies and that makes ME the next new momma - Yay! I think I will start gathering family pictures soon to compile a simple little photo album to be sent to our baby as soon as we accept our referral (Lord willing). I guess I will just leave you with a Juliana-ism from breakfast this morning.

Juliana: Momma, if you were under our house, and if you were a tree, then we would be in a tree-house.
Me: Yep, I guess you are right.
Evan: Maaaaaaah.

Just curious

You have probably noticed already, but I added a widget (that word cracks me up!) to my blog that allows me to see what town you are accessing my blog from. Don't worry you are all still anonymous :) I won't leave it on for long, I was just wondering where my readers were from. I personally have a blog of an adopting family in California that I read as well as a few others and I totally welcome whoever wants to read my ramblings. I also still welcome your comments as it is only b/c of a few strange and unrelated comments that I started to moderate them, which simply means that I have to approve them before they will be shown on the blog. I also won't judge you if you check it like 3 times a day...there are a few blogs that I pop in to multiple times a day (ha ha!) especially if you have already admitted to it (wink, wink Cherylmom!) I feel very priveledged to have along with Craig, Juliana, and Evan a front row seat to this story the Lord has chosen in which He will display His glory. Please stay along with us as we seek to see the face of the Lord more clearly through His sovereign workings in our lives!

A right response

I have been thinking lately about the fact that most likely our baby is born by now. It seems a bit strange that I will be missing the first moments and months even of this child's life...a child that the Lord has planned for us from the beginning of time. We are not the Lord's plan B family for this child just like adoption is not our plan B for a family (you know b/c the first plans didn't work out). For, "He works all things according to the purpose of His will." Eph 1:11

I wanted to purpose right now to not skip this part of my next child's life. There is much I don't know about him or her (like whether this child is a him or a her Ha!) but there is much I DO know and even now can be rejoicing in.

"You are the Lord, You alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you" (Neh 9:6)

"Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!" (Ps 95:6)

"For you formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." (Ps 139:13-16)

God describes His people (those that trust an obey Him) as " everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made." (Isa 43:7)

"In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind." ( Job 12:10)

The pictures above are Juliana (1st, 3rd) and Evan (2nd, 4th) shortly after they were born. I remember when I first held each of them being blown away, truly speechless, at the wonder of God's creation as I was merely a bystander as these babies were being wonderfully knit together inside my tummy. I wonder if I will have that same sense of wonder again when I first meet our new baby? It is easy, as I often catch myself doing, to dwell on the unknowns, however, we are called to dwell on what is true...I DO know that this child is precious in the sight of the Lord as he or she has been imagined and created by the Lord himself. This little one is made in the image of God and is created to find his or her satisfaction in a relationship with his or her creator - for this is where the glory of God is shown to the world. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him (quote from John Piper). Let us have a right response to the wonder of creation! Lord please give us worshipful hearts as we see your sovereignty, power, and kindness in the gift of new life.

Dragon tears

We finally wrestled Evan into his dragon costume. It is stinkin' cute! He tolerates the dragon head on for oh, about 3 seconds, but it is still worth it to see that little dragon tail wagging around :) The second picture is Evan's new picture taking face...very helpful. Especially when it is already a monumental feat to get a nice picture in the first place (ha ha!). We will probably do the little mid-morning downtown trick-or-treating and maybe go to one of the nursing homes for trick-or-treating, but will most likely skip out on the Halloween night thing. I will have to be taking them by myself as Craig has another committment that night and I know that Evan would cry the whole time we would be seeing scary "maskas" as Juliana called them last year.

No new news on the adoption homefront. We are at 3 months waiting which puts us in the expected 3-5 month window for a referral! This morning I reminded Juliana that we were going to get a new baby soon and she reminded me that we should name her Tree-head. Oh, my sweet Juliana. I told her maybe and that it was a beautiful name for sure. I guess it is a little more visually pleasing than Fro or Falfy which she named a few of her stuffed animals. Ha! Tree-head, that cracks me up.

Recovering Ourselves through Living for Christ

“To live for yourself is to rob yourself of your own humanity. It is only in living for Christ that we actually begin to become what we were meant to be.”

- Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More (Greensboro, NC; New Growth Press, 2007), 100.

A good laugh

...So we are entertained pretty easily around here. Craig and I fired up our old computer for his sister Brenda last night and saw that our old budget files were still on there. We took a peek just for fun at our 2003 budget. We had been married about 1 1/2 years by then with no kiddos and were both college students in Omaha. Get this...our average monthly grocery expense was $144! We only ate out about once a week, so this is really what we could eat off of. Ha! That sounds like pocket change to me :)

White priveledge cont...

So, if you are just coming in on this whole white priveledge thing please see previous posts :) I feel like I could write a book on this, so to spare you I will just take chunks at a time.

So, lets imaginatively put ourselves back into the time of the Jews and the Samaritans where Jews were following the ceremonial laws from God and the Jews considered Samaritans unclean simply b/c of their race. There is a lot packed in here that I will probably not all get to. In my understanding, salvation had only yet been revealed to a select few outside of the Jewish race (Rahab and Ruth to name a few) We know from Hebrews that in the Old Testament that the sacrifices and laws that the Lord instituted were not to obtain forgiveness of sins, but instead to be a shadow of the coming Messiah...forgiveness and salvation has always been based on faith alone. All this to say, we must not attribute the unkind treatment of the Samaritans to any fault of the Lord's. In fact, the Lord made specific laws that instructed the Jewish people to be kind to the alien in their land, or person not of their racial heritage.

So, here we are Craig and Erin (pretend we are Samaritans) adopting a Jewish baby for whatever reason. The unkindness between races was most likely reciprocated with animosity towards the Jewish people. Though our child would be Jewish, he would probably not be accepted by the Jewish peoples as he would be unclean coming into contact with us - he would have no Jewish priveledge as it were. Would it be the right thing for us to completely ignore the treatment he is likely to recieve and send him into the world ignorant of this animosity simply because it is sinful and we know that it shouldn't even be an issue in the first place? Are you tracking with me? To be honest, when I heard about this whole "white priveledge" issue I wanted to completely dismiss it. I don't want to make our child feel different than us! And here I would be saying, "You will be treated this way, but I won't." My point with this post is to simply say, after thinking on it I do think there is wisdom in preparing our Ethiopian child for the treatment that he or she MIGHT encounter. Though, please understand we feel that there is a right way and a very wrong way to do this.

That's all for now. More installments to come. Thanks for bearing with us as we hash this one out. Please don't think we take this task of raising a multi-ethnic family lightly. It would be easy if it weren't for sin. Oh yeah, if it weren't for sin there wouldn't be a need to adopt! There would be no fatherless children and certainly no poverty. Because sin entered the world, we became enslaved to the power of sin and death. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our sins, made us alive together with Christ..." (Eph 2) We continue to pray for wisdom which the Lord is always pleased to give to His children.

Cookies-a-la-Juliana

Juliana made these cookies this morning as I was working in the kitchen-and taking notes :)

How to make cookies:

2 8 soil (i think she got soil confused with flour, ha ha!)
200 cups eggs
more hundred eggs
10 cups powdered sugar
10 more soil
I need lots more powdered sugar
Now I need sprinkles, smarties, and chocolate chips

Cook at 20 degrees for 20 minutes, then 10 degrees. They will be done at twenty o'clock.

Thankful

One thing that I am thankful for in this whole process is that the Lord has enlarged my view of the world by so much even up to now. I can't say for sure that we will end up with an Ethiopian child as we have planned. "The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord established His steps." (Pr 16:9) I do know that the Lord is in control of all details, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are ALL things..." (Romans 11:36) and that even if this process would come to a halt for an unforseen cause I know that this time was not wasted. It seems I have crossed an invisible bridge that can't be uncrossed. I have seen the helplessness of the eyes of the fatherless and have seen via the blogworld the bodies of little children ravaged by malnutrition just this week. I think I knew they were there, but who wants to really see the sadness and death? I used to look away. They plead for hope which requires sacrifice on our parts. Will we sacrifice our wants so that we forgo buying a "luxury" such as starbucks so that a child can eat. Will we sacrifice our time that we might offer encouragement and prayer for those that are suffering. Can I save the world? no. Can Christ? Yes. I see the picture of my Savior becoming even a bit more in focus "For now we see Him in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." (1 Cor 1312-13) My relationship with the Lord is becoming ever sweeter as I see His greatness and how He is working on a much grander scale than I used to entertain my mind with. Let us not forget those suffering and even if we have no material goods to give, let us not forget to lift the suffering up in prayer...for Christ has died that our prayers might be heard and answered.

Daily life

I thought I would lighten things up a bit and post some pics of the kids. Evan was enjoying a chocolate cupcake from the neighbors while Juliana modeled her halloween costume outside a few days ago. The last few pics are Juliana in a dress made by her Great-Grandma Martin - very special!

Things are pretty normal around our house these days. Changing diapers, making meals, and reading books take up much of our day. We continue to wait to hear from Shaohannah's Hope regarding a grant as well as eagerly awaiting our referral of a child.

First thoughts

So, I think I will begin to tackle this whole "white priveledge" thing. Craig and I had a great talk the other night and I am pretty sure we have found some thoughts that we believe are true and we will keep...and others that we don't think are biblically based.

The example in the Bible that came first to mind was the story of the woman at the well in John 4. Jesus was Jewish by birth and the woman was from Samaria. The people of Samaria were a mixed race group of people which began when the King of Assyria brought foreigners to live in Samaria (2 Kings 17:24-31) and eventually their occurred intermarraiges with Jewish people. The Samaritans were not liked by either the Jewish people or other Gentiles (non-Jews). Samaritans were considered unclean and a Jewish person (except Jesus!) would never have even talked to or come near them by choice. Needless to say Samaritans had no invisible knapsack of assets to pull from. Sociologist might have talked about "Jewish priveledges" as opposed to "white priveledge" in this culture.

I guess I just want to first acknowledge that the Bible does describe similar (sinful) interactions between races. Being a Samaritan DID make life harder. Being a Jew DID make life easier. How do we transition now to our lives today. We do agree that our child will experience life differently than we do. Some of the points brought up in the paper I cited earlier do resonate with me. Our little town of 8,000 doesn't see much diversity so is it likely we will be stared at at Wal-Mart...yeah, I think it is a good bet. Will I feel more burdoned to protect my Ethiopian child than my other children for fear others will be unkind...yeah, maybe I will. Will my child after they are grown be pulled over by the police more often than I am...yeah, maybe they will. How then do we raise our child to feel connected to us and their community as they realize they are treated at least at times differently? I will have to continue later :)

A T-shirt with a purpose

This shirt can be purchased in the store section at www.compassion.com

Compassion International is an organization that exists to serve children in poverty and share with them the gospel of Jesus Christ. A friend alerted me to a special fundraising drive of Compassion to raise money to provide food for the families of Compassion International children. This organization has stellar backing by the BBB and other financial watchdog organizations and I would totally trust that any money sent their way will reach its destination as food for hungry tummies. Ethiopia is listed as one of the countries hard hit by the rising food prices and the shirt above is available to buy from their site and the profits are put toward the Food Crisis Fund. The word on the front of the shirt is "please" in Amharic.


Global Food Crisis Fund


A dramatic rise in the cost of food in recent months has created a life-threatening crisis for millions of the world's poorest families. Most Compassion-assisted children and their families have been affected and some have been absolutely devastated.

Although costs and assistance vary by region, an average gift of:

• $13 helps a child for one month
• $39 helps three children for one month
• $78 helps six children for one month


Emergency food assistance is needed now. Compassion will distribute food and other means of support to the most severely affected families first, followed by less affected families, as determined by our program staff. Please donate now.

If you are brave enough to see the effects of famine first hand please visit the site www.haitirescuecenter.wordpress.com. While we are comfy in our beds with full tummies, children are dying simply for lack of food. Let us not forget. Oh, Lord please let us not forget them.

What is "white priveledge"?

My purpose for this post is not to agree or disagree yet with the content...only to define what it is we are talking about :) This particular paper is written by a social worker.

"White priveledge is an invisible knapsack of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious." White priveledge would be putting an advantage to one race while the author describes racism as putting others at a disadvantage. Whites are taught to not recognize white priveledge as men are taught not to recognize male priveledge. There are daily effects of "white priveledge" and they are conditions which attach somewhat more to skin color than to class, religion, etc. Here are some examples:

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
3. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
4. If a traffic cop pulls me over , I can be sure I haven't been singled out b/c of my race.
5. If my day, week, or year is going badly I need not ask of each situation whether it has racial overtones.
6. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help that my race will not work against me.
7 I can turn on the television or open the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
8. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to "the person in charge" I will be facing a person of my race.

According to the author, white skin color is an asset in our society.

Going there again...not sorry

If you have a heart to defend the orphan, how can you not have a heart to protect the unwanted unborn from abortion. There is only one difference between the two. One is denied even life itself. The very women who are demanding women's rights are killing little girl babies every day...where are their rights? So, this time we look at Senator Obama when it comes to his record on abortion rights. To see the entire article (highly recommend!) go to www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=2630

In a recent essay, Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University makes the case that Sen. Obama is "the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States." Further: "He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress"

This is quite a claim, but Professor George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton, argues his case convincingly.

First:

For starters, he supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, ''forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.'' In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminated in utero were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry complains are not happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them) would happen.

Second:

He has promised that ''the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act'' (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed ''fundamental right'' to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, ''a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined 'health' reasons.'' In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would ''sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.''

Third:

Obama, unlike even many ''pro-choice'' legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice. He has referred to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a ''punishment'' that she should not endure. He has stated that women's equality requires access to abortion on demand. Appallingly, he wishes to strip federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to abortion for pregnant women in need. There is certainly nothing ''pro-choice'' about that.

In addition:

In an act of breathtaking injustice which the Obama campaign lied about until critics produced documentary proof of what he had done, as an Illinois state senator Obama opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an abortionist's unsuccessful effort to kill them in the womb, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. This legislation would not have banned any abortions. Indeed, it included a specific provision ensuring that it did not affect abortion laws. (This is one of the points Obama and his campaign lied about until they were caught.) The federal version of the bill passed unanimously in the United States Senate, winning the support of such ardent advocates of legal abortion as John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. But Barack Obama opposed it and worked to defeat it. For him, a child marked for abortion gets no protection-even ordinary medical or comfort care-even if she is born alive and entirely separated from her mother. So Obama has favored protecting what is literally a form of infanticide.

To be or not to be...

Colorblind, that is. I admittedly have much to learn in this area. When starting to dig into the dynamics of an inter-cultural/inter-racial adoption I have found quite a bit of "expert" information, some of which seems good and some of which seems that it misses the mark by miles and miles. The stakes are high, to be sure. This is my child we are talking about and my momma heart wants to do what is best for him or her.

To be quite honest as parents I am fully confident that the issue of the color of our new child's skin will be of no consequence to us. In our home our new child will be a Merrihew. Period. However, I recently read a comment from a social worker that says she cringes when she hears those words from parents. Teach them about "white priveledge" she said, we are negligent parents and doing incredible harm to them if we don't. Let us be quick to listen and slow to speak as we hear from those who do this kind of thing for a living, however, let us always "test everything; hold fast what is good." 1 Thess. 5:21 and we are to test everything against ultimate truth which is found in the Bible. So, what is "white priveledge" and what does the Bible have to say regarding the raising of our new son or daughter in light of our new family dynamics? I'll get to reading and let you know when I find out!

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reprach, and it will be given him." James 1:5

Waiting, but not waiting

...today I got to learn about moderating comments! I have changed the setting so that I have the power to remove or keep comments as I had someone comment on something I 1.)don't have the time for and 2.) has nothing to do with this blog. That is why this post is a little different than last time you saw it.

The waiting continues on the adoption homefront. Truly the kiddos keep me so busy that the days are flying by. The pictures above are from the last month or so. The handsome little redhead is my nephew in Omaha, Kai. I suppose now would be a good time to start putting together a little photo album that will be sent to our new little one as soon as we are matched with him or her. It is almost guaranteed that by now he or she will have been born. Lord, please care for our little one tonight. Some things I have learned recently is that at the Holt Care Center in Ethiopia they feed the babies from little silver cups, not from bottles. I think it is b/c they are easier to clean and sanitize? Just something to prepare for when we go to pick him or her up as far as feeding once we have them with us...Ahhh that will be so amazing! Also, I think that the care center workers give the adoptive parents a special book with more detailed family history (if available) and pictures from the time the child spent in the care center. This would especially be a blessing as our child grows older and will begin to try to understand their history more. I was really excited to find that there are two Sovereign Grace churches in Addis Ababa. Sovereign Grace is a ministry in the U.S. headed by C.J. Mahaney and others whose teaching (books, online) has taught me much about the gospel and its continuing importance in my life. Anyway, I soooo hope we are able to make it to one of the churches and worship with the Ethiopian people. What an amazing bond it is to be able to share fellowship in Christ and worship alongside a completely different culture. Aside from, you know, meeting our new baby, this will come in a distant, but very high second :) In case you are interested, Sovereign Grace is highlighting the Addis Ababa churches in a special missions video this week. I am eagerly anticipating it and will try to post a link to it when it is available.

Sundays

I love Sundays. Today was an especially sweet one. The morning was filled with time at church, followed by lunch with friends. In the afternoon we had some encouraging fellowship with some new friends we have recently met. They love the Lord and His word also...which has proven hard to find in McCook. I'm not just talking about people who go to church on Sundays, there are plenty of those, but people who actually LOVE the Lord and seek to know Him more. I heard a sermon online the other day by Paul Tripp and it had a great section in it that talked about how we really make maybe 3 or 4 big decisions in our lives and that essentially our life is not defined by those 3 or 4 big decisions. Instead, the essence of our lives is found in the little moments, the mundane moments as that is where we spend our lives. The kicker was when he then said the following: If the Lord doesn't rule your mundane moments, then He doesn't rule you. Ooohh. That is so true. It is easy to profess that Christ is our Lord, but is He really? "The heart is decietful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it." Jeremiah 17:9 How quickly we can convince ourselves that we are following the Lord all the while we sit and waste away our evenings in front of the TV, shop for things we desire, and on and on. What about working to advance His kingdom? What about loving our neighbor? What about praising our Savior for what He has done? Oh, let us not waste this life the Lord has given us and I pray that the Lord, in His grace, would use us as the means to bring salvation to many. Is there really anything else that matters? "We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal." 2 Cor 4:17,18

Some family pics

So a quick catch up to where our family is at. The first few pics were from the Heritage Days parade last weekend. The kids had a good time watching the parade and we had a good time watching the kids :) The last three pics are from Brenda's new house. We threw her a housewarming surprise party this evening. We had a good laugh about the cake incident this morning as we enjoyed eating it. I have since decided that I should find a reason to make a carrot cake with homemade whipped cream frosting at least once a week. It has become my new favorite and since I am the cook, guess what kind we will be having!

So I wasn't going to go there...

I held off for as long as I could. I wasn't going to even approach the subject of politics, however, the issues arising are so crazy that I can't help but talk a bit on sancitity of life issues. As it always should have been, sanctity of life issues have been in the forefront of my mind as of late. Unwanted babies of abortion minded women are just as fatherless as the orphans of the world and we are called to strive in protecting them. Albert Mohler has had some incredible and worthwhile editiorials on his blog this last month on the state of the family in society today. He has covered the candidates in regards to sanctity of life issues and all his concerns about them are well-documented as far as quotes and being able to read context, etc. We must know our candidates and where they stand on very fundamental issues. Obama's support of abortion rights is well-known. Biden, on the other hand, is a little bit confusing. He claims to believe that abortion is murder, however, is unwilling to prevent it by making abortion illegal. Read the following quote from the Mohler blog:

Speaking Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Senator Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for Vice President, made headlines by stating that he accepts "as a matter of faith" that human life begins at conception, but he would not impose that view on others as a matter of law. Speaking on "Meet the Press," Biden responded to a question from Tom Brokaw. The anchor had asked Biden what he would say if Sen. Barack Obama asked him when human life begins [see video clip here]:

I'd say, "Look, I know when it begins for me." It's a personal and private issue. For me, as a Roman Catholic, I'm prepared to accept the teachings of my church. But let me tell you. There are an awful lot of people of great confessional faiths-Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others-who have a different view. They believe in God as strongly as I do. They're intensely as religious as I am religious. They believe in their faith and they believe in human life, and they have differing views as to when life-I'm prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception. But that is my judgment. For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society. And I know you get the push back, "Well, what about fascism?" Everybody, you know, you going to say fascism's all right? Fascism isn't a matter of faith. No decent religious person thinks fascism is a good idea.

Biden first calls the issue "personal and private," an interesting way to introduce a statement about a matter that inevitably has relevance to public policy. He claims to accept the teachings of his church, but then states that other religions hold to other views, and these believers "believe in God as strongly as I do" and are equally religious.

We live in a pluralistic society, he argues, and it would be improper for him to "impose" his judgment on others, who may be "equally and maybe even more devout than I."

He then realizes something of the intellectual problem he has just created and argues that, for example, all good religious folk would oppose fascism, and thus we can presumably establish that as public policy. "No decent religious person thinks fascism is a good idea," he concludes. So is the new criterion for public policy to be what a "good religious person" might think?

Kate Phillips of The New York Times explained Biden's predicament this way:

In the interview Sunday, Mr. Biden tried to walk the line between the staunch abortion-rights advocates in his party and his own religious beliefs. While he said he did not often talk about his faith, he said of those who disagree with him: “They believe in their faith and they believe in human life, and they have differing views as to when life — I’m prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception.”

Sen. Biden may have been attempting to "walk the line" politically, but a closer look at his actual argument is truly horrifying.

Sen. Biden says, and we must take him at his word, that he accepts as a matter of faith that human life begins at conception. But, he argues, he is perfectly willing to support a woman's right to choose to end that human life.The killing of human life is called homicide. Murder is the willful taking of a human life. The senator has here stated that he believes abortion to be homicide, but he defends a woman's right to kill the unborn human life within her because he would not impose his beliefs about human life (and thus about homicide) on others.

In other words, if we take Sen. Biden seriously, he would defer to others who believe otherwise when it comes to the law.

How can he live with this? There are significant questions about the extent to which some matters can properly be legislated. But there is no question that the government -- any government -- must take a stand on the question of human life. This is why the abortion issue simply will not and cannot go away. The government takes a side on this question, like it or not.

I believe Sen. Biden to be a serious man, and that is what is most frightening about this. Can a morally serious man really say that he believes that unborn babies are human beings, but that it should be a protected right to kill them?

Randomness

Oh my! I apologize AGAIN for not blogging. We are so glad to be able to help Brenda out. It seems that moving Brenda has taken up our free/blogging/evening time lately. Again, I don't want to seem as though I am grumbling, just wanted you all to know what is going on :) Juliana and I just finished icing a delicious carrot cake and will head over to Brenda's new house after naps to decorate with balloons and streamers, put some flowers on the table, and put the cake in the fridge for a "Praise the Lord for your new home" party this evening! We thought Brenda was gone for the morning but she happened to stop back in while the cake was in the oven. I used 2 round cake pans and Brenda looked in the oven and asked what was in there cooking. She thought they were pies. Juliana, knowing full well that she was to keep a secret, just stood in front of the oven door and was smiling and chanting "blockin' the oven door, blockin' the oven door". I just kind of laughed it off and I'm sure Brenda thinks we are crazy...if she didn't already :)

I keep thinking/hoping that any day now we will hear back from Shaohannah's Hope regarding our grant request. Maybe today! I have had so many ideas for blog posts in the last few weeks which I haven't had the time to sit a write. The kids are going to the ranch for a few days this week so that Craig and I can get some house projects done and I anticipate that I will have some time to write then. Thanks for sticking with us in this time of waiting!