“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup

Monday, November 19, 2018

A WOMAN THANKS DOCTOR FOR NOT HELPING HER SUICIDE

See the short clip below from the film Fatal Flaws, courtesy of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Dunn Media.


AN EXCERPT FROM A BOOK I AM WRITING

My wife LaRee and I have been married for forty-five years. We've known each other since early childhood. Our lives together have been touched by every major Life issue of our time. Our love affair began in the months following my father's death in 1970. Below is a short excerpt from a book I am writing. It deals with our experiences with abortion, disease, disability, profound grief and euthanasia—but mostly about the transcendent power of love.


______________

In the early Spring of 1970, it was time to return to the log cabin and prepare it for summer. It was torture. Everything reminded me of dad: His fishing rod hanging in the tool shed, his shoes sitting at the door in the cabin just as he left them the previous fall, a book left open on the arm of his chair. It was like plunging a dagger into my chest. 

I took dad's boat out on the lake and went to a secluded little cove where I often fished with him. The water was cold, clear and still. Dead brushes from the previous year lined the shore. Birds chirped in trees celebrating a new Spring.  Then I heard a loon's lonesome call in the distance and I collapsed on the floor of the boat and sobbed.  I don’t know how long I laid there. All I remember was crying until there were no more tears to shed. Looking up at the sky, I wondered if Dad could see me. I whispered “How will I carry on without you?”

Chapter 6


The telephone rang. It was a call that would change my life forever and bring a new and different kind of love: Romance.  It was LaRee—the girl I had been sweet about since I was four-years-old. Her voice was like a hymn. She said she wanted to express her condolences about my father’s death.  She made my heart leap and took my breath away. For years she lived three thousand miles away in the city of Ottawa. Instantly I wanted to see her. I asked when she was planning to come across Canada to visit her poor, ailing, elderly grandparents living next door (very thoughtful of me, don’t you think? Yeah right!)  Her grandparents were not particularly old and they certainly were not poor, nor ailing. LaRee agreed to come when school was out for the summer. We exchanged photo-booth pictures (four for a quarter).  I spent a wad of quarters behind the curtain trying to get the right worldly and sophisticated pose. Every day I ran to the post office looking for a letter containing her picture.  When it came, the sight of her beauty almost knocked me over!  There was no pixy cut and tricycle that I remembered from bygone years. She was stunning!  Her beautiful brown eyes made my heart melt.  All I could think about was LaRee. 

The day she flew to Alberta. I was a bundle of nerves. When her grandparents went to get her from the airport, I watched from my bedroom window. When they arrived back, LaRee got out of their car unaware I was watching her. It was like seeing a movie star. She stood mere feet away. Somewhere deep in my heart a small flame of hope was lit. Was she the one to drive back my crushing sorrow with the magic of romance? After all, we were only seventeen.  Did I need love too much to be loved?  Self-doubt made me afraid that my desperate heart would chase her away.

... With great uncertainty, I walked to her grandmother’s house, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door with a trembling hand.  Something whispered inside me that the door was opening to my future. Could me be we ? Was it all just wishful thinking on my part? Did LaRee believe wishful thoughts can come true?

I entered her grandparents’ house. LaRee turned and looked at me with her beautiful brown oriental eyes.  She stole my breath and my heart. My wishful thought was that her heart did the same. LaRee did not know I was in love her before we met that day. 

She could be the missing piece of my life and my desperate heart ached for her to love me. But could she? Would she? Hearts too desperate for love often chase love away.  Could she love a desperate heart? Was her heart desperate for love too? Was she the light I hoped for or was she just a summer flame that would extinguish in September after she went back east?  Would I hear that mournful loon cry again when LaRee left at the end of summer?


Friday, November 16, 2018

A THOUGHT ABOUT FULLNESS OF THE HUMAN FAMILY

Remember, everyone has something to give to the Human Family. Encourage and include people with disabilities to share their gifts, talents and unique abilities—even if it's just their presence. 

Thursday, November 15, 2018

THE ONLY LEGITIMATE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENTS


"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government." - Thomas Jefferson

If human life is not worth protecting, what is? Those things that care for, advance and protect all human

life is the only legitimate reasons for governments to exist. These principles must be the motivation for all legal and policy actions of a government for its people.

A DIFFERENT AND BETTER CHOICE

My father
& me
I have always had a good imagination, beginning in early childhood. My father often ruffled my hair and referred to me as his daydreamer. My mother often yanked my ear and called me a scatterbrain. A strong imagination can be a blessing, it can also be a curse. 

A dream is worth dreaming when it brings beauty to
life but not when it causes pain. To hope in a hope that can not be or will not happen is no hope at all. I hoped for love and it was beautiful because it was possible and it came true.

I dreamed of health but it only brought pain. But
savage attacks of multiple sclerosis also taught me that sometimes dreams were all I had. When the truth of my circumstance was too much to bear, I retreated to dreams. I dreamt of how things could have been or might have been.

It was in that dreamland that I discovered a reality on a different dimension, a dimension that made the realities of this world pale in comparison. Ironic. The Author of all reality met me in my pain and invited me to unite my suffering with His salvific suffering. 

And so I replaced ethereal dreams with the
objective reality of Jesus Christ because he met me in my deepest anguish when nobody else could or would. He understood me more completely than I understood myself. He loved me when I was unlovable.

That is why my first loyalty is to Christ. That is why I speak of Him when I give speeches. A secular disability group once asked me to give a keynote address to their annual national conference. The spokesperson said, "We want you to speak but we don't want any of that Jesus crap." I responded, "If I can't speak of Christ, then I have nothing to say. He is my hope." She withdrew the invitation.

An agnostic or atheist might respond that all my talk of dreams and belief in God are nothing more than a cruel disease affecting my mind. If that be the case then leave me to my dreams, let me believe in something higher than what is here. I am content. Cynics would strip me of my belief in Christ—if it
was possible—and let me sink in despair then offer me the secular progressive's solution to my anguish: A lethal injection.

No thank you. I choose a different and better reality: Jesus Christ.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

WHAT AMERICA SHOULD LEARN FROM CANADA

Wesley J. Smith
Wesley J. Smith is one of North America's top bio-ethical thinkers. He has written and spoken extensively about the perils of assisted-suicide not only to the sick and disabled but also to the moral underpinnings of western civilization itself. 

Read his latest column in the American publication National Review Online: "Canadian Hospital Waiting Room Promotes Euthanasia" Canada legalized medically assisted suicide in 2016. Already the tentacles of euthanasia can be found in a Canadian ER. How many others? Legal euthanasia puts the sick and disabled in peril and threatens the proper place for palliative care. Canada legalized assisted suicide under the guise of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). What we got was euthanasia by lethal injection.

If the United States should learn anything from Canada it is not to be like Canada. 

Monday, November 12, 2018

SO YOU SAY YOU'RE PRO-CHOICE?

So you say you're pro-choice. Choose adoption, not abortion. Choose life, not death. Never choose death for yourself or another life. You may regret making life denying decisions. You will not regret making life-affirming decisions. It's really quite simple. You may say that it's easier said than done. Everything is easier said than done.

Here's a truth every person must understand. You
are valuable even when you've ceased to believe it. Decisions should not be made when you are submerged beneath the waves depression or dire circumstances. Your unborn baby is valuable even if he/she is unwanted. You may not want to be a parent but there are thousands upon thousands of childless couples who desperately want to be parents. 

So you say you're pro-choice? Choose to live and let live. All I am saying is give life a chance. -- MDP



Saturday, November 10, 2018

CATHOLIC SOCIAL SERVICES AND CANADA'S LEGALIZED ASSISTED SUICIDE

In 2016, Canada legalized medically assisted suicide for terminally ill and severely disabled Canadians. Many Christian social service agencies did not know how to respond to this new legal framework, not only as professionals but as Christians. The federal government's law was couched within the euphemism Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) to make the murder of sick and dying people sound respectable. 

[NB: After more than two years of Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying, less than 1% of patients were assisted self-administered suicides. More than 99% were lethal injections by a doctor. That is not assisted suicide, it is euthanasia. It is not medical assistance in dying, it is medical killing.]

Even before the law passed pressures began to force Catholic institutions to kill suicidal patients who fit the criteria Canada's odious new law (bill c-14). For example, liberal newspaper columnist Paula Simons wrote a column: "If Covenant Health won't obey law, it shouldn't get public funds to run public hospitals"  It must have pleased the Prime Minister. He recently appointed this awful woman to the Canadian Senate. (Ah, the rewards of being on the progressive left in Canada.)

When the C-14 became law, I was asked to address Catholic Social Services in Edmonton, Alberta, to try and make sense of this horrible new reality. I spoke as chronically ill and disabled person—and placed my address within a context of Catholic teaching.  Click below to hear what I said. MDP


Friday, November 9, 2018

A PROFILE OF ALCOHOLISM

People know me as an advocate for Life and disability issues. Fewer people know that I am an alcoholic. It's been thirty-eight years since my last drink—but the alcoholic personality remains even without alcohol.  I think God left that thorn in my flesh so that I never think I did it all by myself. He led me out of my addiction. It was my first miracle. Early on He told me not to forget those days because many people are still there.


My family has been scarred by alcoholism dating back generations.

Over 30 million Americans are problem drinkers. At a tenth the size of America, Canada has 5.8 million problem drinkers. Alcoholism costs the U.S. economy an estimated $249-billion annually and $14.6-billion to Canada. The human cost is incalculable! 

Alcoholics Anonymous was started in Akron Ohio in 1935 and has helped millions of people stop drinking, and provides family support through Al-anon and Alateen. They do wonderful work and I have great respect for their presence in communities across North America and the U.K.. 

But there is much more that needs to be done at governmental, community, and research in scientific, psychological and sociological levels. It makes sense to support programs at governmental and community levels that address alcoholism, educate young people about risks of alcohol abuse, support recovery and programs and support families of alcoholics.

Alcoholism is no respecter of persons. It spans every social strata of society, both genders, and every racial group. 


Elizabeth Vargas
new book
Between Breaths
available at
bookstores & Amazon
I came across a revealing and brutally honest interview with former ABC news co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas about her journey with the disease. It is excellent and I thank Ms Vargas for her courage and willingness to talk about a disease that needs to be addressed more. Click on the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPLJuyULAZ8


TERRORIZING TUCKER CARLSON'S FAMILY

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS A PHOTO OF AN ABORTED BABY
__________________

Linkedin says Will Oremus is a technology columnist
at the liberal online publication Slate. Slate published an article on November 8th 2018 by Oremus entitled No, It's Not OK That Leftists Threatened Tucker Carlson's Family at His D.C. Home. Now I suppose you might be wondering why Slate's technology reporter would be writing about the liberal left's shenanigans that had little or nothing to do with technology? That's fodder for another post.

Oremus gave us his take on the leftist group "Smash
Smash Racism DC/antifa
chanting & threatening violence
outside Tucker Carlson's house
Racism D.C." and their descent on Tucker Carlson's home on the night on November 8th. In a scene reminiscent of the Ku Kluz Klan surrounding the house of a black family, about twenty protesters hooligans threatened the Carlsons with Klansmen style intimidation tactics  They rang the doorbell and 
chanted threats such as "Tucker Carlson, we will fight! We know where you sleep at night!" A thug threw himself against the door. They spray-painted his driveway. Apparently, one woman was heard shouting she wanted to "bring a pipe bomb."

Neither Mr Carlson nor his children were there at the time, but his terrified wife was home and she hid and called the police

Oremus' disapproved of the behaviour of the mob but went on to say it was "understandable that Antifa activists would feel a desire to make Carlson taste the kind of fear immigrants and minorities often feel in Trump's America." He did not understand why they would actually do what they did? They did what they did because they are Antifa! Thugs. And like the Ku Klux Klan, they hide their faces because they know, in their heart of hearts, what they're doing is immoral.

As a vocal pro-life Christian, I am acquainted with the dirty underbelly of progressive left tactics, but is also fodder for a different post. Let's look at the statement of Oremus that he understood why the Antifa mob would want to "make Carlson taste the kind of fear immigrants and minorities often feel in Trump's America." 

Legal immigrants have nothing to fear. Only illegal
immigrants and undocumented migrants should be concerned and with good reason. They snuck into America illegally, in violation of established immigration laws. They have no right of citizenship by simply being in the United States, any more than I would. That is not "Trump's America." It is the long-established sovereignty of America. As far as minority populations go, their problems existed long before the Donald Trump Presidency. 


Antifa activist and their motto
America is a nation of laws. Antifa does not recognize the rule of law. They are anarchists. Antifa is not simply exercising their freedom of speech, they are trying to silence opposing views through threats of violence and intimidation.

Oremus said that "Carlson and his ilk thrive on the perception that liberals are hypocrites, that they lack basic decency." Replace the word 'liberal' with 'progressive left' and Oremus could lump me in with Carlson's ilk. They are hypocrites. They do lack basic decency. I would bet that the progressive left and their ilk (to use Oremus' word) have many of the same faces in groups like 'Smash Racism D.C., Antifa, and rallies supporting abortion. I would imagine many are liberal Democrats. If they do not show up for organized mob events, the progressive left gives discreet winks of approval. 

Oremus said, "Carlson and others like him revel in highlighting isolated acts of violence of liberal activists or immigrants to rile up conservative viewers." I take issue with Oremus' assertion that violence by liberal activists is isolated. It is not. Acts of violence by liberal activists against pro-Life people are on the rise. (I know, I keep track.)

Supporting the violence of abortion is a lack of basic
decency. Claiming to support human rights yet supporting the killing of unborn babies or euthanasia is hypocritical. Expressing one's own freedom of speech, thought and expression yet trying to deny it from others is hypocrisy. Advocating democracy yet obstructing a duly elected President because things did not go the Democratic Party's way in the 2016 election is hypocrisy. It is not democratic. It is actually contempt for democracy.

Terrorizing a family at their home must be decried by all people of good will. It must not be tolerated. The people behind Smash Racism D.C./Antifa must become pariahs in society. As a member of Tucker Carlson's 'ilk', I stand with him and his family and against these thugs and their 'ilk'.

MDP
________________
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/tucker-carlson-threatened-antifa-wrong-liberals.html?fbclid=IwAR1Z7dnmyyQieJCmxrFIkr1juMd59QIBCAgYySSBiofQMArCFSy8u17uyik Article