CHANGING THE CULTURE OF DEATH.(Brief Article)

"I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to buy a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough to love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please."

--Wilbur Reese

Reese's words remind us that we so much more prefer comfort and ecstasy to painful but liberating transformation. It is so tempting to settle just for "a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack." More than that sounds too overwhelming. Where is the moderation if we go for more than $3.00 worth of God? The next thing you know, we'll transcend our selfishness and do what's right. This could mean a change of heart, cultural upheaval. Very upsetting.

Upsetting, indeed, to us and those around us. But isn't that the lot of pro-lifers? Like our fellow human beings, we are afflicted by spiritual laziness and the desire for comfort, but somehow we have bought more than "a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack." Our souls may not yet be "exploding" but they are restless. Our sleep is disturbed by the cry of the innocent.

Life is different when you get more than "$3.00 worth of God." We fear that our souls might "explode" and that we might be forced to see our true selves. We tremble in anticipation of the painful transformation that comes with it, but we should gratefully accept that we have been blessed. We are free to do what's right. Given to us is a noble cause: the protection of those whom the "culture of death" seeks to sacrifice.

The task is enormous but the goal is quite clear: We are to confront, reject, and subvert the culture of death and replace it with God's culture of life. We don't know when the culture of death will end, but end it will--because God, the Giver of Life, is also the Lord of History. Hence, however weak and overwhelmed we may feel, our cause will prevail.

Yet, just because God is in charge doesn't mean that we can sit back and watch the show. So, act we must. And as we act we should keep before us Mother Teresa's admonition that however modest or small our allotted task may be, we must "do it with love." Mother Teresa did not say this because she was given to sentimentality. She said it because she recognized that love comes from a decision--not a feeling--to do God's will and do it right.