Pro-life and Mortality

           A thought, God gave us our mortality. We, as a World Religious view, look at murder as something sinful. That is to say, it distances us from God, the God who gave us life. 

          These two, Pro-life and mortality, are important companions in our relationship with God. God gave us our mortality so that we may have a life to live. God gave us the “Commandments” to help guide us in a “Pro-life” manner. This gives us the chance to live a life without considerable fear of a
pre-determined death, or, of a random act of violence. 

          Abortion, the killing of a fetus (Latin for baby), is a planned death. The fetus’s life was not given the opportunity to live. And so it is considered a sin, or separation from God. Respect for life, in general, is a given, regardless of how high or low the life form is considered. 

          In Genesis, (chapter 1), God calls all life “good” until the creation of man, then God calls the birth of humanity, “very good.” Humanity is special to God. God blessed all creation, but gave “dominion” to humanity, to “care of Gods’ creations”. (Genesis 2: 15) 

          To CARE for God’s creations. God blessed Humanity and said “Be fertile and multiply”, and take care of God’s creation. The golden rule (Matt 7: 12), the greatest commandment (Matt 22: 37-40) and 1 Corinthians 13, where love is charity and charity is kindness to all. ALL! 

          It’s almost sad that God had to put in writing “shall not kill” and soften revenge with only “an eye for and eye” (Exodus 21: 24) and finally “turn the other one (cheek) to him as well”. (Matt 5: 39) These, however, are for those of us lucky enough to live and apply Gods word. An aborted fetus has no opportunity. 

          No opportunity to live. An innocent’s death should not be chosen out of convenience. Care should be taken by husband and wife to plan for children, not to plan how to rid of children. We should not be so quick to distance ourselves from God. The road back is hard. But not impossible. 

          The hard road is true for men as well as women. In Matt 1, Joseph wanted to divorce her quietly and not expose her to shame. Exposing her to shame would have meant death by stoning for Mary and her fetus, Jesus. Instead he listened to the angel of God, and married her. And cared for them. 

          We are given our mortality to give us a chance to follow a road in life. OUR MORTALITY to experience life. Which road we choose, with its many forks and diversions, is a freedom God has given us. We must first have a life, before we can experience our mortality and our humanity to make these choices. 

May your choices come from a place of care and kindness. 

David E. Gonzales

The Gift of Mortality

If we were all immortal, then there would be no reason to live. There would be no one to take care for. There would be no one to nourish. There would be no births, no deaths, no babies, no aged and no disease. There would be no one; new. We would be as we are. We would have no desire to learn, for we would know all things necessary to know.

Life would not be worth living. Oh, sure, there would still be buildings to build and re-build, clothing to make, food to grow. But those things would simply be the status quo. Impressing your neighbors would be a moot point. All things that could be done would already have been done.

Truly living is to be engaged. Engaged in life, in people and in creating things new and better. Immortality takes away any incentive to engage anything. This make our mortality a gift. The gift of desire. To be engaged. To give birth, to aid the aged, and the inflicted. Even grief, as painful as it is, is a gift. For we can’t grieve without first having loved. And love [charity] is our greatest calling. Charity is what brings us the most gratification.

Charity is born from our mortality. Charity houses and clothes the poor and feeds the hungry. Charity brings light to injustice and justice to the most vulnerable. Our mortality brings out our humanity in us. Our mortality is a gift, not a scourge, from God. For without our mortality, complacency would be the rule. Immortality would allow us to live forever, but our mortality allows us to be alive!

May you always be alive in life!

David E. Gonzales