about four years ago i was introduced to the nearest, i believe, abortuary (where they murder unborn human beings) to my home in souderton, pa. the warminster planned parenthood on louis drive is some 15 miles from home. i had volunteered to go there and stand out front and pray as part of a '40 days for life' campaign. that night i met a woman who, in the course of conversation told me that every friday morning some 20-25 babies lost their lives in the building before which we stood. that night the reality of abortion became much more real. i decided to come every friday morning and have been doing so since.
i was a junior in college when abortion was declared lawful in roe v. wade (jan. 1973). i understood conceptually what had just been 'legalized' but that was it. as far back as the early 1990's i had been exercised enough about abortion to write articles for the editorial page of the local newspaper...to tell my wife during that time that i was going to refuse to pay my taxes and go to jail. it was, though growing and becoming enraging,..still largely a concept. then i had a 'vision' (kind of like a day time reverie in which one looses themselves and during which are unconscious of what goes on around...with the nature of a nightmare rather than a day dream) concerning the slaughter of children on the front porch of a neighboring house on my street...a slaughter which though done in the darkness was openly acknowledged by several of the borough police bringing coffee and donuts to the bloody-aproned man and woman who had been active during the night..by the pile of bloodied human parts piled on the front porch.
from that time to this i have gone through periodic paroxysms where i felt i must DO SOMETHING about abortion..not just vote prolife, appear on fridays at the planned parenthood, give to prolife causes, etc. but do something. i investigated the use of violence and heard the words of those currently imprisoned for so doing finally concluding that for an individual to murder to stop those who murder was quite inconsistent not to say direct disobedience to God's command not to kill in premeditated fashion.
ghandi's non-violent, non-cooperation attracted me. it seemed to fall within the bounds of God's instructions on properly relating to governmental authority given in romans 13.1f. paying taxes could not be ignored for it is directly enjoined there and, of course, Jesus paid taxes to a corrupt government and never advocated revolution. but could there not be non-cooperation with something evil encouraged by government so long as there was a willingness to accept the penalty given for such.
then i came upon isaiah 1.17's 'do justice..defend the orphan' as well as the very powerful verses in proverbs 24.10-12 which enjoin the same.
on november 4, while in an abortion paroxysm i felt that i should take a non-violent action of non-cooperation with the united state's support of open genocide against those least able to defend themselves. what action would fit within God's will. i finally decided to go up next to the door of the abortuary with the purpose of interacting with women entering the building. there, upon receiving a 'yes' to the question, 'are you coming for an abortion?', i would ask if they would like to receive information (contained in a pamphlet i had in my hand) that might enable them to make another choice.
i made the decision to do this on december 21...the day when light begins, once again, to encroach upon the reign of darkness.
it did not take long for me, in fear and uncertainty as to whether this was right, to withdraw from that determination.
many times it would be months between abortion paroxysms, but now another followed before the end of november...with the same result. in early december several more came even more closely to each other. i was coming to the point in my daily life where life was becoming what seemed a moment by moment horror and i concluded that nothing i faced in prison could be more horrible. i was, inside, a dead man, but walking around. life was not only totally empty, it was a horror. i must non-cooperate. i must defend the orphan, even if it had to be in such a small innocuous way as this. i would offer pamphlets at planned parenthood on dec. 21.
the day came. i took my place near the door and talked with several women entering. one took a pamphlet (which i was sure would be made known inside). in a few minutes the woman in charge came out and informed me i must move away. i declined to do this with the explanation that i was burdened that women be presented with the opportunity to chose another way to deal with their pregnancy. soon the police arrived. the same type of interchange ensued and i was arrested. i was finger printed at the warminster police station, charged and held for several hours while this was processed. when taking me back for my car at the planned parenthood i informed the officer that i planned to do the same thing. once again i was arrested and this time arraigned before the local judge and incarcerated at the bucks county correctional facility in doylestown, pa.
in the processing i was granted a call to my son in which i declined his offer to post bail and was brought to cell block e where nearly 100 men where in animated discussion, watching tv, playing chess etc. i went into my cell and met my cell mate. we talked, read the bible and prayed together and he went to sleep while i started to read the jail regulations. it is hard to put it into words but, my peace in pursuing the goal of 'making a statement about abortion' and 'suffering in some small way with the millions who have suffered abortion' evaporated completely. i don't remember a time when i felt so completely abandoned by God as i did that night. i just knew one thing: the place where i had assumed i would spend the rest of my life, WAS NOT THE PLACE I SHOULD BE.
in the morning i called my son, who posted bail, and taken by the constable to the courthouse in warminster where my son helped me retrieve my car.
in looking forward to my hearing on 2.3.2012 i am of one thought: to plead guilty to the charges against me and 'pay' whatever penalty is assigned.
what do i make of all this! the thot comes that GOD LET ME DO WHAT I SO DESPERATELY THOUGHT I WAS BEHOLDEN BEFORE HIM TO DO. (with the thot: he is so intent on doing this, the only way he'll be cured is if he does it. only in that way will the fever be quenched). that's the thing that comes. somewhere it says in psalms, i think, 'He gave them the desires of their heart but sent leanness to their bones'. maybe this is something like that, i don't fully know. all i know is that 'i am cured' of any such desire to 'serve God' in this manner.
it has come to me that i couldn't quite see Jesus provoking arrest over anything. Jesus is somewhat of an enigma when it comes to these things. He taught 'do not resist the evil man' but help him, do good to him, speak well ('bless') of him, speak truth to him....but don't in anyway try to 'force' him. is that right?
in my post-12.21.2011 thinking i feel embarrassed over the lame, contrived way i 'forced' arrest. it all seemed so artificial, fake. if they only discarded whole aborted babies in a garbage pail out back which i could secretly 'rescue' and nurse to growth and sustained life...now that has alot more the sense of Jesus than staging a breaking of a rule in order to be arrested. the whole thing seems absurd, in retrospect.
Jesus only 'presented' Himself for arrest when He knew it was His time to give His life. but even then they sought Him out, not He them! i am thinking that my thinking was actually more ghandi than Christ. in the 'name of Christ' i was actually a disciple of ghandi maybe. i am thinking now that non-violent, non-cooperation, my model for 12.21, is in reality a kind of sneaky, round about way of 'gently forcing' one's will on others. no one forced me to abort a baby did they? i can see that if Jesus were forced to abort a baby that He would simply have declined and taken what came.
if God, who is guiding all things can 'live through open genocide', can't i? it is said of Jesus, 'He will not quarrel, nor cry out; nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. a battered reed He will not bread off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out, until He leads justice to victory' matt.12.19f. there is coming a day when everything that any man does that is wrong will be made right and justice will be done. so the message to me is: 1. don't do wrong yourself (ie. stick to doing what Jesus commands), 2. speak truth to those who do wrong in hope that they may fear God and not continue to do so, 3. don't try to force wrongdoers to do right. do i have it right, Lord? not quite sure totally at this point....i am sensing, however, that You may have finally 'cured' me of my incessant abortion paroxysms and the 'solution' they drove me to...finally, it just occurs to me now that in my experience it seems pretty axiomatic that satan drives, compels; God leads, suggests, gives impulse. Lord, help me follow You. the former seems the better description of the paroxysms and 12.21 than the latter.
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