Has Your Pastor Preached on Abortion? A Resource to Help, by Stephanie Gray

A year and a half ago, I met Pastor Ken Shigematsu, senior pastor of Tenth Church in Vancouver, where 2,000 people attend each Sunday.  He was preparing to deliver a sanctity of life sermon on abortion and asked me to preview his outline and give feedback.  Unfortunately Pastor Ken is rare—all too often church leaders avoid doing what he did: they avoid preaching on abortion from the pulpit, especially on a high-attendance Sunday morning.  But that needs to change. 

After working through his outline and doing my own presentations in various churches over the years, I developed a resource to make a pastor’s job as easy as possible when preparing to speak on this sensitive subject.  By clicking here you can access my PDF “Notes for a Pro-Life Sermon” and share it with your church leader.  In fact, last fall Bishop Dewane of the Diocese of Venice, Florida, circulated this resource to all of his priests.  Regardless of denomination, this document provides insights and resources a pastor can work with to deliver a pro-life message that is his own.

And why should he?  Because of the following:

1) Abortion happens a lot: 56 million of the youngest humans among us, pre-born children, are killed by abortion—every year around the world.  

2) Abortion happens amongst Christians: According to the Guttmacher Institute, 13% of women obtaining abortions identify as Evangelical Protestant, 17% as mainline Protestant, and 24% as Catholic.  That means that over 50% of women aborting align themselves with a Christian faith tradition of some sort. [Note: The source for this comes from the Guttmacher Institute (GI), which is a pro-abortion organization; however, they collect statistics that are otherwise difficult to obtain.  Furthermore, GI is an American organization.  Similar statistics are near impossible to get in Canada since statistic-collection regarding abortion in Canada is limited.  However, given the similarity between both countries regarding abortion rates and public opinion on abortion, it is reasonable to deduce that Canada’s statistics about the faith background of women having abortions would be similar to those of the US.]

3) Abortion happens amongst women who have already made that choice: As I’ve written in the past, some of the post-abortive are pre-abortive, as pointed out in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology Canada (2012; 34(6): 532-542) which stated, “At least one third of women undergoing induced abortions in Canada have had a prior abortion.”  So not only can preaching spare women from ever killing their children, it can spare women from killing more of their children.

These statistics alone highlight the importance of preaching on this topic.  And any fear a pastor may have that people will react poorly needs to be addressed by this point: People may react poorly if the topic is handled poorly.  But the opposite of poor preaching is not no preaching—it’s good preaching.  This PDF will equip pastors to preach well on the topic of abortion in order to bring justice, mercy, and healing to our world. 

The Power of No, by Stephanie Gray

     I always seem to be on a plane, 30,000 feet above my home, when news is released of my country making landmark decisions to advance the Culture of Death.  In February 2015 when the Supreme Court overturned the law prohibiting assisted suicide, I was en route to speak in Texas.  Yesterday, fourteen months later, I was en route to present in Wisconsin and my stopover gave me a chance to read that the Liberal government had introduced Bill C-14, draft legislation allowing for euthanasia and assisted suicide.  And although it was tempting to want to stay in the clouds, to flee a country that promotes perversion of “health care,” my plane landed, I had my passport, and I was reminded that I am Canadian.  So as I think about my country’s attack on human life—and my country’s attack on the medical profession that is given the sacred duty to respect and protect that life—it occurs to me that the response of people of good will ought to be very simple: We just say no.

A firm,

confident,

calm,

unshakable,

unwavering,

            well-reasoned

No.

     Think of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man: the power of no.  Think of Gandhi and his followers’ famous Salt March: the power of no. Think of Alice Paul and her fellow suffragettes: the power of no.  Like these social reformers, we must go against the tide and declaratively state our no in the face of injustice.

• Inject a poison to kill you?  No.
• Refer you to someone who will kill you?  No.
• Hold your hand while you kill yourself?  No.
• Be silent when I should speak?  No.
• Vote for a politician who would advance this Nazi-like philosophy of “lives unworthy of life”? No.

     Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has noted, “Our success will depend more on whether we are respected than liked. Respect flows not from doing what the other finds pleasing, but from what is seen as consistent with principle, courageous, and immune from the temptation to change with the wind.”

     So in the spirit of being consistent with the principle that human life has inherent dignity and worth, that each human being is willed, loved, unrepeatable, and irreplaceable, when some wish to end such a life that is not yet over, we say no.

     In the spirit of being courageous, as the powers-that-be may threaten and intimidate those who do not comply with this impending unjust law (which St. Augustine would say “is no law at all”), we say no.

     In the spirit of refusing to change with the wind, when different variations of the same death-obsessed philosophy are proposed, we say no.

     Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

     The times of challenge and controversy are here—now.  We must embrace the power of no.

Canada's Contradictions, by Stephanie Gray

     Contradiction (con·tra·dic·tion \ˌkän-trə-ˈdik-shən\) the act of saying something that is opposite or very different in meaning to something else; a difference or disagreement between two things which means that both cannot be true. –Merriam Webster Dictionary

     A read of recent news reveals significant contradictions going on in Canada:

     ·         On one hand, a remote First Nations community in Northern Ontario, Attawapiskat, is facing a suicide crisis so dire they’ve called a state of emergency.  The federal government has responded by sending in mental health counselors to try to stop these deaths.

     ·         But on the other hand, that same federal government is in the process of forming a new law which would make suicide legal, possibly even allowing it for “mature minors” and the mentally ill. 

     Is suicide wrong because of what it is or because of where it’s done?  Do we really want to say it’s wrong when done on a First Nations reserve but right when done in a hospital?  Is suicide wrong because of what it is or because of who does it?  Do we really want to say it’s wrong if done by oneself but right if done with a physician’s assistance? 

     The tie that binds a suicidal teen and a suicidal elderly person is suffering (physical or emotional) to the point that they see no reason to live.  But because people are valuable and killing is wrong, civil societies pursue suicide prevention.  Suicide prevention is all about alleviating a person’s suffering without eliminating the person.  Suicide prevention is about giving hope.  In fact, as the Canadian Association of Suicide Prevention points out,

     “‘Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out’ [Victor Havel].

***

     “Hope, at the darkest moments in our life, is not a comprehensive commitment to faith and belief.  At those times hope can be as simple and as profound as the voice of another human being who appears to hear our fear; hope can be the knowledge that the sun will rise tomorrow, hope can be the smell of fresh spring rain, or the first snow flake, or the photo of someone we love.  When despair seems to overcome us we feel disconnected, isolated, lost.  What we need most in those moments is a means of re-connection, relationship and belonging.” [Emphasis added] 

     As news of suicide spreads across the internet, another contradiction is circulating:

     ·         On one hand, people are horrified at a recent report  revealing that sex-selection abortion is happening among Indian immigrants to Canada, skewing the population’s sex ratio.  The Globe and Mail reported that “among Indian-born mothers, the proportion of males increased with the number of children born. By the third birth, 138 boys were born to Indian-born mothers for every 100 girls, and by the fourth birth, 166 boys were born to every 100 girls.”  The paper stated that over 4,000 girls are “missing” as a result.

     ·         On the other hand, Canada allows abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy—for any reason.  Rather than be horrified, all too often people celebrate this as a “woman’s right to choose.”

     Is abortion wrong because of what it does or because of why it's done?  Do we really want to say it’s wrong when the motivation is getting rid of girls, but okay when the motivation is getting rid of boys, the disabled, the inconvenient, or any human in general?

     The tie that binds a sex-selection abortion and another abortion is the rejection of the youngest humans among us based on the circumstances or wishes of older humans among us.  But because humans are valuable—whether they’re girls or boys—and because killing is wrong, civil societies should reject abortion.

     In brief, Canada can’t have it both ways.  If we are to deplore the suicides in Attawapiskat and if we are to deplore the sex-selection abortions among some Indian immigrants, then we should deplore all suicides and all abortions.

Saving Lives from the Sidewalk, by Stephanie Gray

“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.”

     Proverbs 24:11 is often quoted in a pro-life context, but practically, how can it be lived out at the eleventh hour?  How do we rescue and hold back pre-born children who are nestled in the wombs of their mothers who are walking into abortion clinics? 

     Last weekend my questions were answered with clarity when I travelled to St. Louis, Missouri, to speak at the Nexus 2016 conference.  I had the joy of presenting alongside, and spending time with, lawyer Lauren Muzyka of Sidewalk Advocates for Life.  I was extremely impressed with the life-saving work she and her team does “in the trenches.”   Her ministry is described as follows:

     “Sidewalk Advocacy refers to crisis intervention in front of the abortion center. It involves actively encouraging a woman to choose life, empowering her to leave the abortion center, and ministering to all present to bring about a conversion of heart from a culture of death to a culture of life, thereby ending abortion.”

     Does it work?  Already Lauren’s ministry has saved over 1,000 babies and seen more than 25 abortion workers leave their deadly jobs.  The compassionate, well thought out strategy that she and her team employs comes not only from rigorous study, but from hands-on experience: Lauren herself has been a sidewalk counselor for 15 years.

     Much more could be said about Sidewalk Advocates for Life, but I think it is best said by this touching and powerful 6-minute video of a baby saved from abortion by their work:

The Day I Was Stumped, by Stephanie Gray

     A couple years ago I spoke at the March for Life youth conference in Ottawa where the topic was “Stump the Pro-Lifer.”  Instead of giving my usual one hour presentation, the time was spent with me fielding questions from the audience—with attendees given the challenge of thinking of their toughest questions to confound me.

     Most of the questions were typical of what I’d heard many times before, and in answering I was able to articulate basic pro-life apologetics, emphasizing that humans have human rights and because the pre-born are human, they have the same right to life as you and me.  But then the question came, the question that (momentarily!) baffled me:

     “If you believe in God,” an audience member asked, “and therefore claim that life is a gift from God, then how can you claim we have a right to our lives?  After all, gifts are something given—they can’t be demanded; we can’t claim a right to have them.”

     Suddenly 1,000 teenagers in the audience started hollering, cheering, and clapping.  They felt it was a tough question and were excited to hear my response—was I stumped?  Truth be told, I felt stumped; in trying to think of an answer, I took advantage of the audience’s reaction by trying to get them to extend their clapping: “Oooooooh,” I said, “Very good….grrrrrreat question,” I remarked as the audience laughed and cheered.  My colleague, who was in the audience, later told me that she was trying to clap long and hard to drag out the time before I had to answer because she wasn’t sure if I had an answer either!

     I silently called on the Holy Spirit for inspiration and began to speak.  Truth be told, I wasn’t satisfied with what I started to say (nor can I remember it today), but then, about 30 seconds into my rambling, the inspiration came (Praise the Lord!).  I explained my thoughts as follows:

     Believing life is a gift and believing we have a right to life are not contradictory.  To believe life is a gift means if I’m alive, then God loved me enough to will me into existence and my life is a gift from Him.  Embracing human rights doctrines simply says once I’ve been given the gift, people around me may not take my gift away from me—my life is not their gift, it’s mine, so I have a right to ensure my gift is not unjustly taken from me; hence, I have a right to life.  That’s why abortion is a human rights violation—it takes away the gift of life from pre-born children, a gift they have a right to have because they were given it, and a gift we don’t have a right to take.

     The cheering began again.  They were satisfied.  Whew!

     In reflecting on my answer in light of much news about euthanasia, it occurred to me that some might take this point but ask, “Even though someone doesn’t have a right to take my gift of life from me, if I don’t want it anymore, I can get rid of it, can’t I?  After all, if I don’t want a gift someone gave me for my birthday several years ago, it’s okay for me to get rid of it, so isn’t it okay for me to choose euthanasia and get rid of my gift of life I no longer want?”

     To answer that, we need to realize the following: The gift of life we’ve been given is so valuable it’s priceless.  We’re not talking about getting an article of clothing that will go out of style.  Instead, imagine being given a trillion dollars.  It wouldn’t make sense to use only a portion of it and say, “I don’t want it anymore,” and then proceed to burn the rest.  So too would it be wrong to live a portion of our lives and then prematurely destroy them.  So if we don’t understand how valuable our lives are, then our job is to eliminate our incorrect understanding as to our worth, not eliminate our lives.

     Moreover, think for a moment about the Giver of the gift of life: The Giver loves unconditionally and is perfect; He only wants our good.  His judgment is better than ours.  He takes great joy in giving us the gift of life.  Can you imagine throwing a present in the face of a parent who lovingly gives his child a toy that will bring happiness?  How, then, could we throw back at the face of an all-good God the gift of life He gave us?

     To be sure, life on this earth has a natural expiry date that God built into it.  We will die, and we all have to face our mortality.  But if our Creator knows better than us about when that moment should be, then isn’t it our responsibility to steward the gift we’ve been given in the meantime?  After all, imagine if that money was given with an expiry date—except you didn’t know when on the calendar that was.  Wouldn’t you do your best with the resource you’d been given and not shorten the unknown time you have with it?  Likewise, we do not know precisely when each of us will die, so we should embrace our invaluable resource until such time as it is designed to run out.

     Now some might interject that if someone is suffering they can’t “do” much with their gift, so what’s the point? First, as I’ve written before, in such cases we should certainly alleviate suffering—just not eliminate the sufferer.  Moreover, unfortunately in this imperfect world suffering is a part of life—it’s not something limited to those who are dying.  And time and again, inspiring people, heroes, and role models, teach us to strive to overcome suffering and to turn obstacles into opportunities.

     Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl, who saw some suffering people reject the gift of their lives by committing suicide in the concentration camps, wrote about how he decided he would not follow in their footsteps.  He also tried to dissuade others from doing so.

     He said, “We had to teach the despairing men that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us…When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task…His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden...When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude…love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire…a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.”

     Suffering is confusing.  It is a mystery.  But like many things in life, particularly those we don’t understand, what matters is what we do with them.  St. John Paul II, in "Salvifici Doloris" (On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering), wrote,

     “We could say that suffering . . . is present in order to unleash love in the human person, that unselfish gift of one’s 'I' on behalf of other people, especially those who suffer. The world of human suffering unceasingly calls for, so to speak, another world: the world of human love; and in a certain sense man owes to suffering that unselfish love that stirs in his heart and actions.”

     That point is well illustrated in an imaginary story (read here) about suffering people who don’t have elbows, and the different reactions one could have in their situation.  Ultimately, their suffering led to love.  And if there is no life, there can be no love.  So we should respect the gift of life each of us has been given because it is with this gift, of an unknown duration, that we can love. 

A Response to Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide by Dr. Julia Bright

Stephanie's Note:  I met my best friend Julia when she was 4 and I was 5 and she visited my kindergarten classroom.  Since then, we grew up together, played all sorts of games and made-up activities together, performed piano concerts (including our own-composed duet) together, graduated high school together (thanks to her being so smart and skipping grade 9 going from grade 8 into my grade 10 class), going to UBC together, and travelling together.  On Friday, March 11, 2016, we finally presented together.  We spoke on euthanasia and assisted suicide at the Chilliwack Pro-Life Society's banquet dinner.  I was so impressed and inspired by her presentation, that I'm sharing it here below.  Julia is not only a brilliant family physician (seriously, besides skipping a grade in high school she got into med school after 3rd year university), she is caring, compassionate, and ethical.  Her patients can be guaranteed she has their well being in mind.  Her presentation that follows is proof of this.  Here it is: 

     If you’re anything like me, you have found the recent news regarding the legalization of physician-assisted suicide in Canada overwhelming. It is easy to feel discouraged and distraught by these changes, and so I want to focus my reflections on something positive. Staying positive is what I believe is the best antidote to this negative force entering our country.  In order to stay positive in the face of these changes, we need to:

1.      Acknowledge and think about our own mortality

2.      Support those among us who are dying or nearing death by helping them to achieve peace and live out their last days well

3.      Support the palliative care movement

      We need to remember that there is an alternative choice to suicide—a natural death in the context of a caring community. 

     I speak to you from the perspective of a family physician involved in palliative care, but also as a person who faces her own mortality when thinking about these issues.  And that is key when trying to accompany people on the journey of dying.  We must acknowledge that one day we will be the one dying.

     That being said, I am no expert on this, because I haven’t died yet.  In fact, I haven’t even faced a serious illness yet in my life.  So my reflections are based on what I’ve learned through my work and from other doctors.  I would like to reference Dr. Kuhl, who wrote the book What Dying People Want and Dr. Gallagher, who is a palliative care physician in Vancouver who has written multiple articles in Canadian medical journals.

     At this point, I want to tell you a story.  It is about a patient of mine who died recently at a relatively young age from cancer.  He went through multiple medical treatments in an attempt to overcome this illness, but ultimately after facing more and more problems at home and hospital, he moved to hospice for his final weeks.  During one of my visits there, he was lying in bed watching a home renovation show on TV.  I asked him how he was doing and while we talked, he pointed out to me a small wooden box on the table at the end of his bed.  It was an urn that his neighbor had made for him.  He was planning to be cremated and that box would one day soon hold his remains. He hoped that in the future his wife and their pet dog would also join him in this resting place.   So, he was lying in his bed, with this reminder of his mortality directly in front of him.   What really impressed me about this was his acceptance of what was happening.  I thought to myself-am I brave enough to calmly acknowledge that one day I will die?  Will I be able to maintain that bravery when my death is imminent?  And an even harder question-can I accept that my loved ones will one day die?

     Personally, I hope I can get to that place of peace.  And when I am taking care of a dying patient, that is my goal for them-to create enough freedom from physical and emotional suffering so they can obtain peace and acceptance. 

     Is it possible to have a good death?  I believe it is because I have seen it.  People who are comfortable, surrounded by loved ones, well looked after by experienced nurses.   People who have said their goodbyes.  Dying is not all negative.  As I heard a priest say once, happiness is not dependent on health.  Some of the most content, calm people I know are physically unwell.

     Cultural movements like physician-assisted suicide usually arise as a misguided response to a real problem.  People in Canada have died in pain and have faced obstacles to obtaining care that maintains their dignity.  Their families have suffered watching this happen.  The answer to physician-assisted suicide is not to wish that things could just go back to the way they always were.  It is to use this as an opportunity to create a better solution... [To read the rest of this presentation click here for the PDF of the full talk transcript.]

The Comprehensive Case Against Abortion Given at Stanford

My view from Hoover Tower at Stanford University in November 2015.

How can the pro-life position be explained with reason and grace?  How do we compassionately articulate the intellectual case against abortion?  On November 20, 2015, I gave over an hour's worth of pro-life apologetics at Stanford University.  Creative Catholic Works kindly came out to record the evening, and put the compilation online.  If you'd like to hear the 4-minute summary, the 1 hour presentation, and/or the questions I addressed afterward, click here.

Cultivating Virtue, Part 3 of 3, by Stephanie Gray

In this series I’ve been examining 5 things people can do to cultivate virtue.  Point 1 about organizing self-less activities can be read here.  Points 2 to 4 about creating alternate heroes, strengthening willpower, and nurturing connection can be read here.

That leaves point 5: Protect against invasion.

     No matter how hard one works to strengthen themselves or their children, we are imperfect people living in an imperfect world.  So what safeguards can be put in place, particularly due to the invasion (such as pornography) that technology can bring into one’s home?  Here’s the list I recommend at the Parent Support Meetings I teach at:

     a)      Have a “no technology in the bedroom” rule; it simply decreases the odds of a child accessing pornography if they’re using technology (at least in your home) with other people around.  Consider the story of a 9-year-old girl in England who had set up a profile on a dating website, which connected her to a couple in Canada, who had sex in front of a web cam for her and were planning a camping trip where they could have sex with her.   A rule about no technology in the bedroom could have dramatically changed this situation; however, it’s important to point out that even technology in shared spaces can be used improperly when no one is around, which is why the next step is important.

     b)      Put a filter on all your family members’ devices.  Covenant Eyes has a good one and you can learn more about it here. 

     c)      Continually ask the question, “Why?” when you make decisions.  When I speak to parents of 11-year-olds, I ask how many of their kids have cell phones.  A few raise their hands.  So then I ask why their child needs a phone?  If a child, who is a minor, is always with a trusted adult, and if adults have cell phones, then a child doesn’t need a phone.  However, there are some times where that isn’t the case; as one parent told me, his child uses public transit so the child needs a phone in case of an emergency.  In this case, asking “Why is a phone needed?” brings us to a good reason for getting a phone.  But, it brings us to a good reason why only a phone-calling phone—not a data-enabled device—is needed.  As my fellow trainer Sue points out, her kids’ first phone is a flip phone that they have during their high school years—that enables her and them to communicate, and for them to have a resource to call for help in an emergency, but which doesn’t have access to data which is not needed and could give access to harmful material.

     When considering giving teens devices that adults use, such as data-enabled phones, it’s important to remember that the teenage brain is not properly developed.  Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor gives an excellent explanation of this in her TED Talk, in which she states her great motto, “Keep ‘em alive to 25.”  There are some things adults do (e.g., drive a car) that we don’t let children (e.g., 13-year-olds) do because we realize that while the tool is very helpful, it can be dangerous if mishandled.  Even when we eventually do transition young people to driving, it is with training and supervision before they are left independently with a car.  Technology, which is helpful but can be dangerous, should be treated the same way.

     d)      Have conversations—lots of them—with your child.  Don’t just make rules without explaining them.  Listen and talk.  Ask good questions.  Speaker and author Matthew Kelly illustrates well the art of good questions for teaching one’s child at this link (click on preview and listen at 4:31).  Use analogies to help your child understand that rules are meant to help us, not harm us; for example, you could ask them to think about stoplights at intersections and what the red, yellow, and green lights mean.  Then ask them what would happen if a person going one direction thought red meant go, and a person going in another direction knew green meant go.  The subsequent crash would be bad, and potentially fatal.  The standard about the meaning of stoplights and the expectation that people follow the rules is meant to help us run as a civil society and keep things peaceful and safe, rather than be unduly restrictive.  So it is with a parent’s rules—they are meant to help us, not harm us. 

     Moreover, spend time—with your child—going through websites like Fight the New Drug  and Chastity Project, watching video clips and reading the material and then discussing together.  Let your child know they can come to you to talk about anything they are struggling with or stumble upon, and make sure you are calm, receptive, and compassionate in the face of your child revealing weakness.

     e)      Foster silence: There is so much noise, visual and audio, in our culture today that it can be hard to hear the voice of God; it’s difficult to perceive the still small voice of conscience.  Consider Elijah: In 1 Kings 19 God wasn’t in the wind, earthquake, or fire.  Rather, He was in a whisper.  Elijah heard God’s command in the silence.  So too must we make it a priority to encourage times of silence in our homes, which should lead to prayer and repentance.  As author Jacques Philippe writes, “Prayer enables us to draw from God a life that is ever new, to let ourselves be continually reborn and renewed.  Whatever our trials and disappointments, harsh situations, failures, and faults, prayer makes us rediscover enough strength and hope to take up our lives again with total confidence in the future.” 

Cultivating Virtue, Part 2 of 3, by Stephanie Gray

Me with one of my heroes, Nick Vujicic, who I met in 2010.

     Last week in part 1 of Cultivating Virtue, I said there were five things we can do to respond to negative forces in our culture like isolation, no self-control, self-centeredness, using others, and a false identity.  Point 1 was to organize self-less activities.  Today we reflect on three more responses:

2. Create alternate heroes

     My fellow trainer Sue came up with this great idea.  As the saying goes, we become who our friends are—because friends are who we spend a lot of time with, and who or what we spend time with ends up rubbing off on us.  What goes in will come out.  So it is with heroes—whoever we spend our time watching, studying, and thinking about will manifest in our behaviors.

     If you don’t want your children to emulate foul-mouthed promiscuous celebrities, you need to fill their minds and lives with good alternatives.  That’s why I love featuring the stories of Nick Vujicic, Dick and Rick Hoyt, Zach Hunter, or Caden and Conner Long.  There are endless examples in the history books and online of people, young ones in particular, who are making, or have made, a positive contribution to the world.

    What these true heroes demonstrate is how to live life based on “Happiness Levels” 3 and 4 instead of 1 and 2.  The Washington-based ministry Healing the Culture  has taught extensively on this topic of what they call The 4 Levels of Happiness.  They say the following,

     “The way we de­fine happiness will determine how we live our lives, what we think is most important, how we treat other people, what we mean by ‘success’ and ‘quality of life,’ how we view human rights... even how we view ourselves as human beings.”

     They point out that defining happiness simply based on physical pleasure (Level 1: I’m hungry; I eat; I’m happy) or ego-gratification (Level 2: I run a race; I beat you; I’m happy), will bring about an unhealthy society.  But real heroes, as mentioned above, define happiness based on contribution and self gift (Level 3: I see you are in need; I help you; I’m happy) and faith in God’s unconditional love (Level 4: abandonment to God and experiencing the peace which flows from that).  It’s important to note that happiness levels 1 and 2 are not bad in and of themselves—it’s good to meet our physical needs and advance our talents; the point is simply that a problem arises when our ultimate end of happiness, our focus in life, or our purpose for living, stay on those levels rather than advance to higher ones.

3. Strengthen Willpower

     The third thing we can do to cultivate virtue is to strengthen willpower, and I wrote about that here. 

4. Nurture Connection

     Humans were made for relationship.  Whether it’s the Bible telling us that (in Genesis 2:18: “It is not good for man to be alone”) or whether it’s clinical psychologist and professor Dr. Sherri Turkle telling us that (as outlined in her TED Talk Connected, But Alone?), we are creatures built for connection.

     When I went on a 40-day retreat last fall, I experienced freedom by being unplugged.  Not having technology as a distraction left a void that was beautifully filled by connecting face-to-face with the people I was living with in community.  Whether it was talking face to face with others over three sit-down meals/day, or evening chats with my dorm sisters before bed, or joining other guests and members in card games or musical extravaganzas that involved harmonized singing, piano, guitar, and fiddles, we were together, in relationship; that is what we were made for, and as a result our spirits were nurtured.

    If, for the rest of your life, you had to choose between only spending time with your loved ones face-to-face or only staying in touch with them via technology, which would you choose?  Our answer explains why it is important to set up boundaries around technology—to make sure we truly stay connected.  Technology should aid our human interactions, not replace them. 

     Case in point, when I returned from my retreat and "plugged back in,” I started to handle technology differently: I found I wasted a lot of time swiping the Facebook app on my phone, so I removed the app.  Instead, I allow myself to log in only twice each day.  I am able to receive the benefits of this social networking tool (stay connected to find out about in-person events and share and receive information related to the culture wars) but keep things ordered so that technology is a slave of me, not me a slave of technology.  These limits force me to think through my usage (one log in during the day means I only have one login left!), to reflect more deeply about what is worth posting—and what isn’t, and to give primacy to my in-person relationships, not technological networks.

     Likewise, families that thrive will set up boundaries and limits around technology use.  There should be times where technology isn’t allowed (during meals, during family games nights, and in the car [some of the best parent-child conversations can happen in the car where people are in close proximity but staring in the same direction—if technology isn’t allowed to get in-between]).  If done right, far from being oppressive, such boundaries will be freeing to the human spirit and will make sure face-to-screen connection doesn’t replace or supersede what we were made for: face-to-face connection.

Wonder what the fifth point is?  Read it here!

Cultivating Virtue, Part 1 of 3, by Stephanie Gray

“When we deny children access to meaningful education about their burgeoning sexual development, we give them no choice but to glean what they can from a highly sexualized media.” –Sharna Olfman, psychology professor

     Since moving back to BC a year and a half ago, I have partnered with Signal Hill and the Catholic Independent Schools of the Vancouver Archdiocese to be part of a team of speakers who train parents how to talk to their children about human growth, development, and sexual morality.  When parents don’t feel equipped or comfortable speaking to their children on this topic, the culture’s reaction is to say, “We’ll do it for you,” and then government steps in, as we’re seeing with the Ontario sexual education curriculum.  But what we teach at these “Parent Support Meetings,” is that the parents, not the government, are the primary educators of their children when it comes to sexuality; therefore, instead of replacing the parents in their role, we aid the parents in their role.  That’s why, parents of students in grades 4-7 in Catholic schools in the Vancouver archdiocese are called to come to meetings to be informed, enlightened, and equipped for how to speak with their children on this sensitive topic.  My role is to give a general session presentation and speak to the parents whose children are in grade six.  And upon reflecting on one of my recent presentations, it occurred to me that what I recommend for these parents is good advice for us all.

     After playing this short video, I reflect on the quote by the featured dad who narrates “We have some pretty big hopes for him [his son James].”  Parents naturally want what’s good for their children, and the parents gathered that evening have big hopes for their own kids too.  But, there are strong forces in the world today that can interfere with this.  I ask the parents what challenges they see facing their soon-to-be teenagers, and I get a litany of answers such as

·         video games,

·         social media,

·         pressure to fit a certain mold, and

·         pornography.  

       While some of those things are inherently wrong (pornography), others may or may not be a problem—it’s how they’re used (social media).  So if we step back from the specifics of that list and look at what general problems can be brought about, they are the following:

·         isolation,

·         addiction/no self-control,

·         self-centeredness,

·         using humans as objects, and

·         a false identity.

     So if we want to directly respond to these negative forces we need to develop their opposite, positive, forces.  Doing so creates an environment where virtue, instead of vice, will naturally breed.  So there are 5 things I recommend for the parents, and us all:

1.      Organize self-less activities

     When I was growing up, my mom volunteered—a lot.  And because she volunteered, quite naturally my sister and I volunteered too, helping her deliver meals on wheels or assisting at various pro-life and church events.  Her nursing work with the elderly naturally lead to our playing the piano for the elderly, and so forth.  How often are parents taking their children volunteering?  The more that happens, the more children will naturally look outside themselves, building a defense against the temptation to turn inward.

     Then there is RAK: Random Acts of Kindness.  A few years ago when I was living in the Toronto area, I was bored about an impeding lonely weekend with no plans.  While lamenting over text with one of my friends in Calgary, she too was bored and down on life, and although we were texting that we wished we could hang out with each other that weekend, geography and expensive flights put that idea to rest.  Then she texted me, “I know what we need!  We need RAK!”  I thought it was a typo or strange auto-correct, but then she explained to me what RAK was, and how we could challenge each other to spend the weekend doing at least 7 random acts of kindness, taking photos of our adventures, and then swapping stories at the end of the weekend.  From leaving flowers on a car in a parking lot, to placing an uplifting quote on a post-it note in a public washroom, to making a meal for a needy friend, to leaving an encouraging note at a bank machine, to dropping off an envelope at Tim Horton’s with money for the cashier and the next customer, and more, We. Had. A. Blast.  Our weekend started off negative, but it ended so positively; there were smiles, laughter, and joy, all because instead of looking inwards, we chose to change our gaze outwards.

Wondering what the other points are?  Fine out in part 2 of this reflection!