That Miserable March for Life

We had a good trip down to D.C. this past Tuesday, January 22, for the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Over one hundred teenagers came along from Malvern and the Villa, and they were so good. With a three hour drive and no stops, walking to and standing in a cold field near the Washington Monument for an hour, then finally creeping slowly through the streets of D.C. for another hour or two, and back on the bus for the journey home (no stops).... it's a lot to ask anyone. I didn't hear a single authentic complaint. I'm proud of those kids!

For many of my boys, this was their first time at the March. I was hoping for a little more organization (always hard to manage with so many people), and for us to make it all the way to the Supreme Court building, which has been the custom for Rebecca and I each year. But things got a little off track and we needed to reign in the troops. At the same time, I suppose, letting them move through the crowds, listen, and look, and experience it for themselves without any preconceived ideas was efficacious enough. And it was.

We were present at an event that gathered almost a quarter of a million people (roughly 225,000). Yup, 225,000 human beings, gathered for the same reason, in the same place, and prayerfully, peacefully, and powerfully moving towards the Supreme Court building to overturn by the sheer power of prayer and peace and petition, the most unjust and demonic law of the land; the law that says unborn children are nothing... non-persons.... throw-aways. And we can dispose of them whenever we want, even up until the ninth month of pregnancy.

My students saw a massive body of young people like themselves; high schoolers, young adults, college students; there were rabbis, pastors, bishops, monks, sisters, politicians, mommys and daddys carrying, cuddling, and cruising their kids along in strollers. People from all over the country and from every walk of life. Some drove for 14 hours, others flew in the night before. Banners waving, drums rolling, chants from the silly to the sacred rising up from this body of believers like incense.... a prayer to honor the sanctity of human life.

But you know something? It's a miserable march. It's a tragedy that we should have to gather there, in the nation's Capitol. This is a trail of tears. Yes, there is hope and song, always so much life, so much joy in the power of each other's prayer. But when you round the corner every year and hit that spot where the massive images of aborted babies glare out at you... the weight of it hits you hard. This march is mournful. This is a hidden holocaust.

My students also saw something else, after returning home from the Capitol. Or should I say it was something they did not see? I wonder if you saw any coverage on it... Any pictures of the crowds? Those 225,000 souls. I did some searching Wednesday, desperately trying to get something, anything. I learned that Yahoo! pulled the picture I placed at the top of this post from their homepage after showing it for just a few hours. I never heard the actual number of marchers, and a local Chester County paper actually ran an article on its front page reading "25 Brave Chill" in support of Roe vs. Wade... OK, 25 people supporting abortion as a "right", standing in the cold for an astounding 45 minutes. While 225,000 travel from across the country travel to D.C. for one of the greatest outpourings for a single purpose in our history: to cherish and reverence life, from the womb to the tomb. Miserable, unjust, scandalous... pathetic.

Now for a chilling image so we can all have a sense of just what is at stake in the March for Life. It's a website with a page of single dots, each representing a single human life. The square of 10,000 dots is the building block for each of the graphics it lists below. Each square contains 1,000,000 dots, or 100 squares like the one above. Remember, each dot represents a human life. The sum total - more than 48,000,000. God have mercy on us... visit it by clicking here.

"Even though you can't hear or see them at all, a person's a person, no matter how small."
- Dr. Seuss

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The podcast of this event is available here, and at iTunes.