AMERICA! DEFEND THE FAMILY OF ONE OF YOUR CITIZENS!

Well, the world got a glimpse of Miriam Ibrahim's baby girl born

Baby Maya

 yesterday in a Sudanese jail. See the picture to the right of baby Maya. Miriam was shackled to the floor in the prison. As grotesque as this was, Maya's birth brought joy to the bleak surrounding. For more information go to "Meriam Ibrahim Was Forced to Give Birth to Baby Maya While in Chains" LifeNews.com 29 May 2012,
http://www.lifenews.com/2014/05/29/meriam-ibrahim-was-forced-to-give-birth-to-baby-maya-while-in-chains/

Daniel Wani of New Hampshire

While I have been prepared to approach Canada's Immigration Minister to appeal to Sudan to allow Meriam to come to Canada with her children, her husband is an American citizen. Daniel Wani (27) is a biochemist who lives in Manchester, New Hampshire. 

Rightfully, it should be the U.S. government doing this for his

family. If the Obama government will not find the wherewith all to forcefully defend the wife and children of one of its citizens -- who faces torture and death for the dastardly crime of refusing to renounce her Christian faith -- who will they defend internationally?!  

I call on the thousands of American readers of this blog to lobby their Members of Congress to have America intervene in this despicable situation and demand release of Meriam Ibrahim immediately from the Sudanese jail. Bring her and the children to America to be with her American husband before the Sudanese torture and execute Meriam Ibrahim in the name of Islam.

Mark

CHRISTIAN WOMAN JAILED FOR HER FAITH GIVES BIRTH TO BABY GIRL

I want to report that Miriam Ibrahim gave birth to a baby girl in prison today. The online news source LifeNews.com reported:

 

“Meriam Ibrahim, the pregnant Christian woman sentenced to death for refusing to accept Islam, has given birth to a baby girl.

The mother sentenced to death in Sudan for her Christian faith gave birth to a baby girl in prison today, the Daily Mail reported in an exclusive. Meriam , who has spent four months shackled to the floor of a cell, delivered the baby five days early, ...”

Miriam’s small son is also with her in prison. There are concerns about his health because of the squalid conditions in the prison.

IT IS ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE THAT YOU GO TO THE LINK

BELOW, SIGN THE PETITION TO RELEASE MIRIAM FROM THE SUDANESE JAIL. WRITE TO YOUR FEDERAL POLITICIANS TO LOBBY SUDAN TO RELEASE IBRAHIM AND NOT CARRY OUT THE SENTENCE TO TORTURE AND EXECUTE HER AS PLANNED.


http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/release-meriam-ibrahim-dont-punish-her-for-her-faith.html

I will be approaching Canada’s Immigration department to offer asylum here to the Ibrahim family: But first things first. We must get her and her children out of jail and not tortured!

Mark Davis Pickup

HumanLifeMatters 

CHRISTIAN MERIAM IBRAHAM TO BE EXECUTED FOR HER FAITH!

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/release-meriam-ibrahim-dont-punish-her-for-her-faith.html

I received an urgent request from LifeNews.com to sign a petition to Sudan to spare the life  of Christian convert Meriam Ibraham. The details are below and a link to sign a petition is above. Will it influence the Sudanese government? I don't know, but we must try. She is our sister in Christ and is about to be tortured and killed for her Christian faith. Are we prepared to die for our Christian faith? I ask that you sign the petition above, ask your friends, co-workers, neighbors, family and members of  your church to sign it. DO IT QUICKLY! MERIAM'S LIFE AND THAT OF HER UNBORN CHILD HANG IN THE BALANCE. (Her 20 month old son is also jailed with her and sick from prison conditions.)

Mark 

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From LifeNews.com

Meriam Ibrahim is 8-months pregnant and is a Christian woman sentenced to hang to death in Sudan for rejecting Islam. She is being shackled by Sudanese officials despite the fact she is eight-months pregnant and there are grave concerns for her health and the health of her unborn baby.

Meriam will be tortured - beaten with 100 lashes for marrying an American Christian. Then she will be hung for being a Christian. Meanwhile, her son, a 20-month-old boy and American citizen, is also jailed with her and is sick from the prison conditions.

Ibrahim’s husband, U.S. citizen Daniel Wani, said lawyers representing her told Amnesty International that religious clerics in court had asked her if she would recant her faith, but she told them: “I am a Christian.”The death sentence issued to a woman who refused to renounce Christianity for Islam in Sudan is an “egregious violation of basic human rights,” Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), Chairman of the House congressional panel that oversees U.S. policy in Africa, said previously.
“This is an affront to religious freedom everywhere,” Smith said. “The refusal of the government of Sudan to allow religious freedom was one of the reasons for Sudan’s long civil war. The U.S. and the rest of the international community must demand Sudan reverse this sentence immediately.”

WE NEED YOUR HELP TODAY: Please sign the LifeNews petition to support Meriam Ibrahim and raise awareness about her and her unborn child. Join with us to tell the world that this is an affront to religious freedom, the right to life, and human rights. Join LifeNews to call on the government of Sudan to reverse this sentence and release Meriam Ibrahim immediately so she and her unborn baby can get the medical care and attention they desperately need.

Over 2,500 people have already signed the petition to support Meriam, will you take 60 seconds to join them?

CANADA: LIBERALS ATTACK VULNERABLE LIFE AND EVEN FREEDOM OF OPINION AND THOUGHT

Before I begin this post, I want to clarify that I am not a member of, or loyal to, any political party. If someone was to ask me where I stand of various issues, they would find me to be very conservative on social and life issues and slightly left of center on economic issues and the environment. My loyalties rest entirely with Christ, the sanctity of human life and the Common Good of society. 

I know most readers of this blog are American, yet this post is geared toward a Canadian audience because of the gravity of recent developments in Canada. American readers please view these developments as a warning about the darker side of human nature and corruption of democracy and free thought.

Yesterday morning I received a startling but not unexpected email from Canada's Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. In part, it read:

"This morning the Québec government re-introduced its euthanasia

bill in the identical form as Bill 52 before the Québec election. The Québec Premier forced the Liberal members to support the introduction of the euthanasia bill. Since there was no opposition to the re-introduction of the bill, it has returned to the stage it was at before the election (second reading stage).

This means that Québec may pass its lethal euthanasia law next week.

Vivre dans la Dignité and the Physicians Alliance have announced that they will legally challenge the euthanasia bill as unconstitutional, if passed."

I suspect the basis for their challenge will be that euthanasia and assisted suicide are federal justice matters covered under Canada's Criminal Code, whereas Québec unilaterally and arbitrarily decided they are health matters which is provincial jurisdiction.

Let me be clear: this should not come as a surprise. The Liberal

behavior of forcing its members to support this action is not unique nor democratic nor does it acknowledge personal conscience. This past February the federal Liberal Party -- counterpart of the provincial Liberals -- adopted a resolution to decriminalize assisted suicide if re-elected to Parliament.[1]  

Liberal leader
Justin Trudeau

The current federal Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau recently said that all federal party candidates for Parliament must be pro-choice! (The Official Opposition, the socialist New Democratic Party holds a similar position.) This will, in effect, eliminate practicing Catholics and devout evangelical Christians from running for Parliament as Liberals or NDP.[2]  

Catholic and evangelical Christians must not tolerate this! Pastors speak out from your pulpits about this assault against Christians participating freely in the political life of Canada. 

Regarding the Québec euthanasia bill write to your MPs (CC: the Prime Minister and Minister of Justice) demanding a federal appeal against this assault on the sanctity of human life. Write letters to the editor of newspapers, make blog and twitter protests about Québec's euthanasia bill. Expose the federal Liberal resolution to strike down Canada's law against assisted suicide. 

Protest Trudeau's announcement that all Liberal candidates must be pro-choice to kill unwanted or inconvenient unborn children. Now their provincial counterparts are about to attack the sick and disabled! 

The Liberal Party is not only assaulting vulnerable human life but the foundations of free thought and open democracy.

Mark Davis Pickup

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[1] This is the same federal  Liberal Party that unanimously supported in Parliament the idea of a national suicide prevention strategy. What's the difference? A national suicide prevention strategy would work to protect healthy, able-bodied suicidal Canadians while decriminalizing assisted suicide would kill the dying, sick and disabled.

[2] We must remember that it was the Liberal Party, under Justin's father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, that brought abortion to Canada in 1969, resulting in the death of millions of unborn babies.

BEETHOVEN'S 5TH SYMPHONY

[Click below or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jh-E5m01wY For Beethoven's beloved 5th Symphony]

WHY I KEEP RETURNING TO THE MUSIC OF BEETHOVEN

Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827)

In the great treasury of music, I keep finding myself coming back again and again to Beethoven. You may think it's because he was one of the greatest composers who ever lived despite his deafness. That is true, everybody loves great music and everybody loves an over-comer. But there's something more that keeps drawing me back to Beethoven. Until recently I found it difficult to identify what that 'something' was until I saw a certain documentary about his life. (Warning: the documentary can be found at the end of this post and is nearly an hour long.)

At the end of the program I heard a number of people make comments that came close. One said, "The reason he is the greatest composer is that he's prepared to share his life with you more than any other composer." Another person said this about Beethoven's music: "In sadness there is hope, where it's hopeful it's sad." Still another commented, "A great piece of music is like a mirror. Everyone sees himself." 

It's true. 

Instruments Beethoven used
to try and hear

In Beethoven's music I see his struggle with his deafness, despairing then hopeful, quiet beauty then explosive defiant energy. I hear his stark anguish and celebration, despair and victory, beauty and pain. He knows the struggle against disability yet still rises to ability. And I think to myself, "That's the unstated message: The human spirit can triumph against adversity, it can find possibilities in impossibilities. The human spirit seeks ability even in disability."

Beethoven's music is like a mirror that demands the listener to enter those emotional and spiritual aspects that make us human. Beethoven put his humanity at the center of his music. He shows the listener open and emotionally naked vulnerability. In Beethoven's vulnerability we are reminded of our own.

The last person to comment in the documentary below captures the essence of Beethoven best for me:

"The thing about Beethoven that impresses me the most is his remarkable generosity in his music. This man who had a stormy and difficult life, a lot of conflict in it, returns again and again to the most important piece to the most telling moments, to a kind of deep, grateful, hymn-like utterance -- as if to say life is good, it's all worth it."

That's it! That is why I find myself continually coming back to the music of Beethoven. It is a declaration that despite tragedy and trials, life is worth while.*

[Click image below or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHo7-PMXf9Q . Great Composers: Ludwig van Beethoven}

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* I previous wrote about Beethoven in a blog post entitled, "Transcending disability". 

THROUGHOUT IT ALL, GOD MADE A WAY FOR ME

At the end of my struggle I will say it was worth it because God was with me throughout it all. At the darkest moments Christ has been my light. When bitterness threatened to take away my joy the sweetness of His Word restored me. Years of chronic illness and disability sometimes took me into an abyss of sorrow and despair; God made a way for me to emerge back into the sunlit valley of His love.  He has been the constant of my life's journey.

God will be the same for you if you let Him.

[Click on image below or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zo3fJYtS-o, for hymn God Will Make a Way.]