Whose Rights Are More Right?

First I am going to warn you, this is outrageous and I know it.  I am not making a case for or against abortion.   I am going to draw a parallel to illustrate something. Bear with me, I am not trying to change anyone's views on women's rights.  I am trying to make a point that there are many people in the United States that truly believe to their core that abortion IS murder.  Just for a moment try to put on glasses that allow you to see through their eyes -- for a moment. It won't kill you!

Let's examine two really emotional topics and I will draw a parallel just to see if you can try it on, if even briefly to gain perspective.  I am hoping that maybe if you read this and really try, that you might at least get an idea of how "the other side feels".  The outrageous comparison? 

 Guns and abortion…

I know, pretty raw stuff.  Ironically, these two issues are often diametrically opposed to one another in our society -- a person who staunchly believes what a woman does with her own body is her right is more likely to support gun control measures.  A person who believes in the right to own and bear arms is more likely to believe that life begins at conception.  Interesting yet impossible to truly correlate and the two don't really correlate but they can be compared and contrasted to attempt to understand why people feel the way they do.  It also shines an interesting light on our society's hypocrisy. 

From the perspective of "one side" to own and bear arms is a Constitutional right.  It is endowed by our Founding Fathers and clearly stated in the Constitution. This group feels as though they should not be punished for the bad behavior of others and it opposes any added gun control measures; guns don't kill people; people kill people.  It was not them involved in Newtown, Aurora or Idaho.  This group is also more likely to look at abortion as murder, that life begins at conception and if not that, at least at viability. They view abortion as murder. Let that sink in for a moment. This isn't a judgment on their part it IS what IS for them. When they demonstrate and picket a clinic they are doing it to save lives -- it for them is no different than a left-wing group picketing a horrible factory that is guilty of human rights violations and works children 18 hours a day. Therefore, as they see it, there is a complex hypocrisy in the "other side" wanting to "protect their children" from guns but also being willing to "murder" well over a million babies every year. They don't understand why you don't protect the child's right to life before it is born but will enlist the World Health Organization if you hear of a factory in Bangladesh that uses 8 year old girls in a sweat shop. A child is a child is a child…to them.

We are all familiar with Roe V. Wade.  In it "Jane Roe" fought for the right for women to legally terminate pregnancies - she had been raped and did not want to bear the child that was conceived as a result of that rape.  The battle lasted longer than 9 months and she did have the baby but she continued the fight. Until then abortions, when they happened, were illegal and at times done in horrible places with little or no medical training and women attempted at times to do it themselves.  In part the argument to legalize abortion was to support and save women from "back ally" procedures.  They argued regardless of the legalities involved, horrible abortions would continue to happen and women would die or be damaged for life.
The stats (with estimates because several large states including California refuse to report abortion stats to the CDC) are as follows:

Total number of abortions in the U.S. 1973-2011: 54.5 million+

 234 abortions per 1,000 live births (according to the Centers for Disease Control)

Abortions per year: 1.2 million

Abortions per day: 3,288

Abortions per hour: 137

9 abortions every 4 minutes

1 abortion every 26 seconds

Equals the population of Dallas, Texas (2010 Census)

1% of all abortions are "late term" abortions.  Late term is generally defined as over 24 weeks. At this stage the fetus is viable -- meaning it can survive outside its mother's womb.  This equates to 12,000 abortions of viable fetuses.

We are not as familiar with the 1938 ruling of United States vs. Miller or the more recent District of Columbia vs.HhHe Heller. In this case, the plaintiff in Heller challenged the constitutionality of the Washington D.C. handgun ban, a statute that had stood for 32 years. Many considered the statute the most stringent in the nation. In a 5-4 decision, the Court, meticulously detailing the history and tradition of the Second Amendment at the time of the Constitutional Convention, proclaimed that the Second Amendment established an individual right for U.S. citizens to possess firearms and struck down the D.C. handgun ban as violative of that right. The Supreme Court further strengthened the 2nd Amendment with McDonald vs. City of Chicago in 2008.

When gun control measures are suggested often we hear "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns".  In essence, like abortion, regardless of the legality of it, people who want guns will still get them.

Let's look at gun deaths in the United States.

Guns kill approximately 30,000 people annually in the United States. Just under 11,000 are homicides, roughly 19,000 by suicide and about 750 are accidental shootings.

.00009 people per 1000 people

Gun deaths per year: 30,000

Gun deaths per hour: 3.42

Gun deaths per minute: .057

Gun deaths per second: .00095

Less than the population of Bozeman, Montana

Guns kill 2.5% of the "population" that is being aborted.

(Note: There are roughly the same number of gun-related homicides as there are late term abortions.)

The socially conservative right sees women "murdering" (their words not mine) 1.2 million babies every year.

The socially liberal left sees guns (not the people holding the guns) kill 30,000 people every year.

A pro-life person -- doesn't see a vast difference in the death of an aborted fetus and the shooting death of a five year old.  To them, they were both people and both are tragic.  The pro-choice person sees a huge difference and does not see the fetus as a life when it is still within the walls of a woman's body.  It is her life to either give birth to or abort --  it is not "alive" although it has hands, feet and a heartbeat. There isn't an across the board agreement of when "life" begins.  It is her choice.  Each side will not accept that the Supreme Court of the United States has upheld the rights for each of them. 

If one argues against abortion the pro-choice side automatically goes to Roe v. Wade and says "the Supreme Court already decided". We are done here and it is carved in stone.  But when the 2nd amendment supporter argues for the right to bear arms the anti-gun person (who is more likely to be pro-choice) dismisses the multiple times in the last century that the SAME Supreme Court has upheld the right to posses and bear arms.  They act as if it is undecided.  Roe v. Wade is untouchable but Miller, Heller and all the other 2nd Amendment cases are somehow written in pencil and are subject to continued challenge.  Hypocrisy? Yes. Again, I am NOT arguing for or against abortion here -- the hypocrisy is that when the pro-choice person is challenged they rely on the Supreme Court decision.  When that same person pushes for gun control they dismiss the Supreme Court decisions.  Why is the Supreme Court only right when you agree with the decision? It doesn't work that way.  We can't pick and choose.

As is made clear in this outrageous narrative, this nation is populated with people who have hugely divergent beliefs.  One cannot get more divergent that pro-life/pro-choice and pro-2nd amendment/gun control.  But we all have to live together.  One side feels that "our children are being slaughtered."  The other side feels that "our children are being slaughtered."  Interesting huh? So what is the answer?  Are one group's rights more right?  They each seem to think so.  But the fact is that they are not.  The US Supreme Court has upheld each group's rights and those rights affect the population. Each right should be used wisely.

Thoughts on Divine Forgiveness

Thoughts on Divine Forgiveness

I had an epiphany on Sunday.  One of the issues that I have long had with Christianity is "forgiveness". That if one confesses with his mouth and proclaims Jesus as his Lord and Savior that he is forgiven.  I have known some great Christians and I have known some slime-balls. These are people who stand up on Sunday, thump their Bible a bit and then Monday through Saturday live in the gutter.  In fact some of the most abhorrent people I have ever met -- are deeply involved in church.

First I had to separate religion and faith/spirituality.  That was simple.  Religion is of man -- Spirituality is of God. I have a great relationship with God.  I believe in God and I believe that Jesus Christ was His Son.  I am okay with that.  There is one other stumbling block I have with Christianity and that still needs some pondering.  I can't accept that while Jesus Christ might be MY path to God that there are not other paths as well.  I can't believe that God is that limited, that small. He wants to be available to ANYONE who seeks Him.  I can't believe that just because you are born into another culture and another faith that you cannot connect with God.  He would not turn His back on anyone who was simply born in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and didn't have access to the teachings of Christ. I believe that God connects with cultures in ways that they can accept and understand Him. So for Christ to be the ONLY way (even though He might be MY way) -- it just not reasonable to me.  But that one is not resolved and therefore is NOT part of my epiphany.

Let's talk forgiveness.  Imagine that someone rear ends you in traffic.  The damage is not great but there IS damage.  The person who hit you is sorry and you are willing to let go of your initial anger at having your car damaged and your day disrupted.  You have FORGIVEN this person for their mistake. That said, you are still going to require some restitution for the damage to your car.  It was their fault!  Forgiveness is an emotional thing.  It is about letting go of resentment and anger.  Maybe your friend owes you a lot of money and has for a long time.  You can be angry at him -- stewing about it and getting wrapped around the axle about it.  Of course the anger is ONLY affecting you -- your friend lives in another state and is totally unaffected by your daily resentment.  So you decide to forgive him emotionally and let go of the anger.  After all, if his situation was different and he made changes, then he would pay you back.  But nothing has changed and he has not paid you back and has made no effort to.  But you have forgiven him emotionally.  He owes you no penance and he doesn't have to be punished.  That does not mean he doesn't have to pay you back.  Restitution and punishment are different -- there is nothing punitive in restitution.  God forgives and thus has let go of punishing you for your sins.  That does NOT mean at some point in this life or the next that you do not have to pay restitution for whatever damage you have done.  It is God's will and God's decision in deciding what your restitution looks like.  The idea of Hell is punitive -- that you will be eternally punished for your sins.  Read Dante's Inferno and you will get a great idea of what it MIGHT look like!  But I don't think God wants to waste souls and energy on punishment.  It is like putting someone in prison for property damage when it might be better to let the person work and pay of his debt and restore what he has damaged.  When the gal who started the Hayman Fire was sent to prison I thought it was a waste.  She should have been sent out to the forest she destroyed and made to work, clearing and planting…that would have been restitution. What good was putting her in prison where we had to house, feed and care for her on the tax payer's dime?  I would have preferred that she get out there and work to make what she damaged whole again -- or at get as close as possible.  I will stay off the tangent that this could lead to…

In my mind Hell is reserved for a select few from two camps.  The first being such damaged souls that there is no changing them -- there is no hope.  They are those who are born or have become evil.  There aren't many but there are some.  God knows who they are.  The second group is those who are totally unwilling to be remorseful.  I don't mean that people have to formally confess to anyone in a church or anything.  But these are people who "take" and don't have any consideration for those they take from nor do they feel sorry for anything they have done to hurt or damage others. They let others pay the price.  I think these are few as well -- but the number may be growing in today's society.  God knows who they are too -- so I don't need to concern myself with them other than to avoid them when I meet them.

So in conclusion -- yes God forgives all those who genuinely seek His forgiveness -- but that does NOT mean you are off the hook!  You will make restitution and it won't be Hell.  It will be making the world a better place, in some way restoring the balance of "goodness" that your "bad deed", or sin if you will, got out of balance.  It is really a big picture thing -- much like the Navajos and their idea of Beauty.  The word Beauty to them really means balance in all things.  Your "divine" restitution might come in this life or another and it might benefit the individual you hurt or it might not.  They have their own path and their own story and that damage might be a lesson or part of their "bigger picture".  That part is up to God.  That does not mean that in this life you don't have to pay for the guy's bumper you hit!

Ray Lewis - Redemption and Reality

On a dark night in Atlanta thirteen years ago, Ray Lewis was in the back of a limousine speeding down an street, leaving the carnage of what would become a notorious murder scene. Today, this very day, Ray Lewis prepares to play his final minutes in the NFL as one of the most storied, celebrated and iconic players in league history. Is this fair?  Is this justice?  Has there been redemption? What is the story here?

There are two clear story lines when the name Ray Lewis is uttered.  To explore one means you have to ignore the other -- they are incongruent, incompatible and until now to have both be "true" about a single person, impossible.  Ray Lewis has done the impossible. I am not talking about a 17 year career as a hard hitting line backer -- 17 years for most in the NFL is truly impossible.  I am referring to the absolute reinvention of himself. What's undeniable is that as well as Ray Lewis played the game of football, he played the game of redemption even better.

"He's a remarkable case study of worst-to-first," says Vada Manager, a corporate strategist and a former Nike executive who helped guide the company's strategy during Kobe Bryant's rape accusations. "There aren't many athletes who have done what he's done in rebuilding his image from where it was to where it is today."

Here is what we do know. Ray Lewis was in the Buckhead District of Atlanta partying with friends following a Rams win over the Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV.  It was well into the dark morning hours. At that time in his career Lewis had been recognized as a Pro Bowler but was not in any way the icon he is today.  He and his buddies got into a heated argument with another group in an trendy bar; it turned into a brawl.  Lewis and his buddies left the scene in a limo as Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar, both in their early 20s, lay in their own blood, dying of stab wounds. Lewis and company were not seriously injured and suffered no stab wounds.

Thes are indisputable facts but there is still much we don't know – the cause of the fight, the person (or persons) holding the knives, Lewis' knowledge of and involvement in the events. Lewis and his two companions were charged with murder. To avoid being prosecuted Lewis was allowed to make a deal.  The murder charges against him would be dismissed, he would not be tried if he tesitfied against his to cohorts, Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting. What Lewis would agree to admit to was a simple misdemeanor of obstructing justice.  

Lewis's testimony proved to be worth little as both Oakley and Sweeting were acquitted of the murder charges. Civil suits against Lewis, filed by both victims' families were settled out of court for a still undisclosed sum of money and a $250K fine was levied against him by the NFL. He was also handed a one-year suspension from play by the NFL -- that turned out to be toothless as he was allowed to suit up and play in the very next season and go on to play in that year's Super Bowl and be named the game's MVP. His career as an icon had just begun.  He would go on to be invited to 13 Pro Bowls and now is being allowed to retire as one of the greatest defensive players to ever line up.

The public figure we now know as "Ray Lewis" was just getting started.  He went on to become a leader of his defense with Biblical fervor.  He has created an image of the "chosen one" to carry the message to his teammates of God's glory, his power and his grace.  While some may doubt Lewis' authenticity -- he believes what he says and his followers flock to his side. He is force.  What has been and is still missing in the equation of redemption is one fundamentally required element: Confession.  Without confession one cannot be saved.  In this case a safe, private confession is meaningless.  While he and his God may see it as his key to the Kingdom I would doubt Oakley and Sweeting's families see it that way.  I don't see it that way.

I was caught up in the Ray Lewis phenomenon. I watched the NFL Network's "A Football Life" focusing on Lewis that ran last fall and thought to myself "what a guy!" I had no knowledge of the events that transpired that tragic night in Atlanta over a decade earlier.  I was moved by him. "We've got to savor these moments!" "I couldn't see that when I was 24, 25! That's why God had to incarcerate me, so I could see how great his blessing was for me! So I had to come from a jail cell to the Super Bowl!"  His bragging about time in a jail cell is about as trite as Johnny Cash singing about Folsom prison.  Johnny Cash never went to prison or shot anyone like his songs lead us to believe and Lewis never really did time. Lewis did have a wakeup call following that night in Atlanta. He did change. He is great at what he does. But he fell short of redemption by keeping his secret.

A well known publicist notes that there are three consistent factors necessary for any public figure to change public perception, and Lewis choreographed all three perfectly:

1. Winning is redemptive. The public is forgiving, the public will give you second chances, the public has a short memory if you WIN! Lewis won immediately after the Atlanta incident, and while he hasn't been back to the Super Bowl since, he's continued to play at the height of his profession for more than a decade.  Had Lewis been stuck on a losing franchise we might not even be talking about him.

2. Rehabilitation begins at home. Lewis has been the consummate teammate; he has been a family man and as we saw in "A Football Life" has rekindled a relationship with his astranged father -- the first male in his family to do so thus ending the string of father's abandoning their sons.  He is authentic. Lewis is believable. He hasn't been involved with any problems since then.

3. Charity and image are essential. Lewis has been a vocal force for charity, and he's also shown a more deft touch to his public image, as with his humorous NFL ad with Tom Brady this season.  He has walked the talk.  He has done a lot of good -- regardless of how you or I feel about him his contributions have mattered.

Of course, even if every athlete involved in scandal knows (or is taught) the three steps to redemption, not every athlete has the opportunity, the drive or the personality to be able to pull it off. We can consider Pete Rose, whose achievements are forever tarnished by the scandle of his gambling while playing. Then we look to Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both stained by allegations of steriod use. None of these players has the opportunity to "win" again at their chosen profession -- thier careers were over. All three have chosen, or have been forced to choose, an adversarial or indifferent stance.  They did not have the three essential elements available to them.

Michael Vick was given a serious second chance but could not pull the "winning" rabbit out of his hat.  He tried. We tried but the ingredients were just not there.  Lance Armstrong has now been stripped of titles and banned from his sport.  Armstrong does have the huge success of raising awareness and money for cancer research to support him but even in his confession, which a step further than Lewis has gone, he was not believable nor did it feel like there was regret in his words.  His was a calculated image rebuilding strategy which may or may not have worked.  Time will tell.

Lewis is doing everything he can to make the Atlanta incident a footnote to his story, not the first line, and he's well on the way.  How can a double murder be a footnote? How have we let him do that? He understands how redemption works in America and we have been willing lemmings. It has been a tireless PR campaign for Lewis and he has done a smashing job.

Lewis has publicly put Atlanta behind him. When a USA Today reporter asked him about the murders this week, Lewis replied, "You want to talk to me about something that happened 13 years ago right now?"  My response to Lewis would have been -- "Yeah it's about time."

In March of 2012, he spoke to students at Harvard University, a speech that forms the backbone of his NFL Network documentary. "The first night I was in jail, a whisper came to me, and it said, 'Can you hear me now?' " Lewis said. "That's when I knew that no matter where I was, by any means necessary, I had to prove to myself, to my family, to my fans. … I gotta get something done. If y'all [that accused him of murder] are that bold to put my reputation on the line, I'm that bold to fight for it."  But all his fighting was really for himself.  It was HE who reaped the greatest benefit.  It is confusing that the public is so willing to forgive him when he is the largest beneficiary of his makeover.

"I'm always disturbed in my spirit about how people look at me from that incident," Lewis continued in another interview. "Those families that were affected will never know the truth. And that's sad."

But why will they never know the truth? Isn't it within his power to tell them? Of course it is; he was there. So Ray, step up and change that. "I would like for him to tell one day exactly what happened," Lollar's aunt, Cindy Lollar-Owens, told USA Today. But for Lewis that day will not come until he has lived his dream first.  Telling too soon might have derailed his career and forced him to pay a price he was unwilling to pay.

There is the flip side of this with its own set of facts:  Lewis was never convicted of any crime. No existing evidence suggests that he was materially involved in the deaths of Baker and Lollar. The evidence that might have connected him is mysteriously absent -- no blood soaked clothing. It did exist at some point in time -- but it was never recovered. He was allowed to make a plea deal and that is a regular and normal part of our legal system.  It happens all the time.

While I am a Believer and Lewis promotes himself as a follower of Christ, when the Bible discusses confession in Romans 10:9 and 10:10 the perpetrator of a sin gets off pretty easily. Romans 10:9 states: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  That's it. It does not say you must hold a press conference nor does it even say you must confess your sins -- only your faith in Jesus Christ! In Romans 10:10 it says, "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."  I find this severely lacking and it just isn't good enough.  So Lewis has lived by the "book" both the book of man's law and the book of God's law.  It has worked perfectly for him.

In conclusion, I cannot convict Ray Lewis of any crime.  I don't know to what level he was involved.  I don't know if he held a knife or if he just held his tongue.  I do believe that he believes what he preaches; he walks the talk.  I do believe he is a changed man and that he would never, not ever, put himself in that sort of situation again, but he did put himself there that fateful night and that he was involved in some part of it by simply being there and not telling about it.  He is undeniably one of the greatest if not THE greatest man to ever play his position.  But the fact remains that he has been able to live a dream while two young men never got the chance to live at all.  The dream was carefully crafted and was only made possible because Ray Lewis was never required to make a confession.  The letter of man's laws and God's law, according to the Bible, say that Lewis is "redeemed".  Why do I feel duped?  Do I want bad things for Ray Lewis? No.  That said, today, Super Bowl Sunday, Super Bowl XLVII -- the Niners versus Ravens -- I want Colin Kaepernick to render Lewis ineffective and I do not want Ray Lewis to put the ultimate feather in his cap by ending his career with a ring on his finger.  The time has come for this storybook to reflect some reality.  Go Niners!

Risk - Reward: The Math is Simple

I prayed for Caleb Moore. In fact I just bowed my head and asked God to take care of him and his family. He was a tough young man and I prayed that he would recover -- I now pray for his soul and the hearts of his loved ones left behind. This accident prompts a question, "how dangerous is too dangerous?"  One must assume that Caleb knew of the dangers.  He competed once with a broken pelvis and tailbone only one day after the crash that caused the injuries; he is a tough young man.  He had to be in amazing pain and yet competed and place in the top three.  Part of what these daredevils thrive on is cheating death.  They live to overcome odds and flirt with physics.

The NFL is in the midst of the "safety" talk.  I find it very hard to believe that today's NFL player does not know acutely know of the inherent dangers of his sport.  In times past the ignorance had some innocence; there may have even been decpetion. But today I tire of the frequent laments about how dangerous playing professional football is.  Ya think? Most have been playing since pee wee. It is hard on your health to repeatedly slam into other massive men.  If that is not obvious to them when they sign up then they are truly ignoramuses.  Professional football players are richly rewarded for being willing to expose themselves to the risk.  That is in part what they are paid for.  They know that an NFL career will not last the 30 years they might have as a computer programmer -- so they make more money in a shorter time span.  If they are smart they can live forever on a five year career. They can easily earn more in a single year or maybe two of play than I can earn in a lifetime.  I was born a woman; I didn't even have the opportunity.  I am educated and have outstanding, valuable experience. Society does not value me in the same way.  We don't pay for me to risk danger.

Risk is rewarded. Our troops get rewarded with "hazardous duty pay" when they are willing to expose themselves and risk their lives for the freedom of people they have never met.  Their rewards pale in comparison to that of an NFL linebacker but their pay is still connected to exposure to risk.  It is why a crab fisherman in the Bering Sea can make enough to buy a house in two seasons of fishing -- if they bring in a healthy payload.  Risk - reward. We get rewarded for two primary things.  First for being successful -- sometimes this is luck and sometimes it is brilliance sometimes a combination.  The second is being willing to expose oneself to danger.  It is an ancient equation.

Three people are killed by bulls each year in rodeo and an average of 20 people are killed in performance equestrian or rodeo events.  Tell me the last name you remember the name of a person who was killed in rodeo?  Lane Frost maybe? That was July 30th in 1989.  If we are to apply the averages for "death by bull" that was 23 years ago and that means that 70 men have been killed by bulls since then.  Do you know a single name on that list? I didn't think so. That is more deaths during "work" than the entire history of the NFL.  Also the suicide rate in the NFL is lower than the general US population and their average lifespan is longer -- I did the research. The media would lead you to believe otherwise. But bull riders are different.  They KNOW what they do is dangerous. They accept it. They embrace it.  I once heard a joke that goes like this.  If you want to know when you are a bull rider then fill your mouth full of marbles.  Each time you ride a bull spit one out.  When you have lost all your marbles, THEN you are a bull rider!

Based on this this is a pattern of "we need saftey measures" vs. "do it anyway", the more eyeballs on the sport of course the more attention it gets -- both good and bad.  But aren't the eyeballs there in part because of the danger?  If we bubble wrapped our NFL players and the X-Games made the landing area a big air cushion like stunt men use -- would we watch?  Would they even want to play?

A single mediocre NFL player makes more than 100's of professional rodeo cowboys combined.  These men hitch rides, owning nothing but a saddle or a bucking rig, sleep six or eight to a motel room and scrap enough money for food and a cold beer before hitting the road again for the next 8 seconds in another dusty town. What a life, eh?  They are chasing a high and that high is directly connected to the danger.  Few of them achieve riches and most end up with a permanent injury of some sort and a life of chronic pain.  Many would do it all over again if they could turn back the clock.

If you watched the Olympics last year and then compared ANY of the gymnast's routines to those of even 20 years ago, the stunts and the limits they pushed made the old routines look mundane, boring, dare I say easy?

So in conclusion, precautions and balancing risk versus reward is certainly important. When anyone examines a challenge they must calculate what safety precautions they must take in order to live to tell about it. They also want to push the edge of the "possible" and do the impossible and often don't want to be limited by safety measures.  Human beings have always desired to push limits, explore uncharted waters and go where no man has gone before. If we did not we would never have landed on the moon, Lewis and Clark would have never reached the Pacific and our land would never have been settled by wandering souls from across an ocean following the stars.