#Colin maclever full

It was most typical that women would be dropped off and walk into the clinic alone, but that morning two women walking in together stood out. I was leading the Rosary with a group of teens and Aimee was sidewalk counseling, I think for the first time. When asked something like this I almost always think about a Saturday morning some years back when Aimee and I were praying outside of an abortion clinic with a group of students. “How can we make a convincing argument to someone who is pro-choice?” Lewis, The Great Divorce, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 77, 104)Ī few days ago an eighth grader asked a simple question as she prepared to go to D.C. But there’s still a wee spark of something that’s not just herself in it. What she calls her love for her son has turned into a poor, prickly, astringent sort of thing. If there’s one wee spark under all those ashes, we’ll blow it till the whole pile is red and clear…. Lewis employs this concept in his book, The Great Divorce, where the heavenly creatures can work with even a small spark of goodness in order to bring souls along to heaven:

#Colin maclever full

Perhaps we can blow upon the spark, until it is white hot smoldering coal and in service of full truth.Ĭ.S. We create strawmen, weak caricatures of the opposing position, rather than seeking to understand where some truth or goodness or beauty has been distorted. We like and share and comments in echo chambers. Our opinions are so often highly fortified talking points, guarded against dialogue out of raw insecurity.

Wade decision, in a polarized world full of deeply entrenched opinion in which real discussion and genuine dialogue are rare, but ever more urgent. Here we are, more than forty years after the Roe v. I am pro-life because, especially since Aimee and I have adopted children, I know the vulnerability and bravery of women in crisis pregnancies and how adoption can be healing and empowering where abortion scars and tears at the hearts and souls of women. I am pro-life because I love life and because I love specific unique and unrepeatable people. Looking into their eyes depoliticizes the discussion and reminds me that I am not pro-life fundamentally because I am against something. Whenever the topic of abortion comes up Leo and Zelie concretize the urgency of a movement for life. They could have fallen for the lure of the quick fix and gone with the flow of the modern throw-away culture, but they instead did the far harder thing. The unique and unrepeatable light that each of them brings into the world could so easily have been snuffed out in a country where there are 1.3 million abortions each year. I often remember that Leo and Zelie are survivors who were exponentially more likely to be aborted than adopted. Colin MacIver offers some compelling stories and arguments that may improve the way you share the pro-life message with your peers, family, and anyone you encounter.Īs the father of two adopted children, my thoughts about abortion and the way forward for the pro-life movement have developed significantly in the past decade.