Ignorant Historian

While I was listening to the radio the other day it hit me.  Someone was talking and they said, “Blah blah blah in ‘10…”

What?  Next year’s 2010?  Well, I guess that make since numerically.  But that means that it’s the start of a new decade.  A new decade is just over 4 months away!

I suppose it shouldn’t be a big deal.  Time passes.  Our calendar system is arbitrary anyway, there’s nothing special about January 1, 2010 (and yet, that number is hard to type!).

But for me, it’s something more.  It’ll be the end of the decade that, more than any other, defined me. I turned 18 in 2000, graduated from high school and went off to college in 2001, graduated from college and moved cross country in 2005, graduated from grad school in 2008, and now in 2009 I became salaried and will start paying off my student debt before the end of the year.

But when January 1, 2010 hits, all that will be a part of a past decade.  I guess this must have been what my parents felt when the 80s ended (maybe? but they had 2 not-so-little youngins by then, so they were already more “grown up”).  I suppose we all have to go through the getting-older thing, since the alternative is death.

But really, my generation was cheated.  Our decade doesn’t even have a name!

Photo by orcmid

Did you know that I upon occassion listen to classical music?  Primarily when I’m trying to write my novel.  Maybe I think that listening to creative, well-written music will help me write a creative, well-written book.  It’s couldn’t hurt, right?

Back when I played the clarinet, I’d also occassionally play classical music.  The clarinet is fairly young as instruments go, but there was one classical composer that was fond of the instrument: Mozart.  One of my favorite pieces to play was written by him.  The fact that he was a genius and seemed to write effortless has always enthralled me.

So, when I saw an article on Mozart’s death, I had to read it.  It’s not believed that his death at the age of 35 might have been from complications from strep throat.  This then led me to contemplate…can one’s death be untimely?

Yes and no.

Yes, because I believe that all our deaths are untimely in the sense that we didn’t have to die.  Without sin, we wouldn’t have died.  Yet our choices have led to death, something that we’ve come to expect to happen later in life.

No, because I believe that we don’t deserve the moments we are living now.  That’s not to say that I wish everyone dead, but to say that every moment God sustains our life is a gift.  When that gift is up, it’s not “untimely” because it should have been up days, weeks, or years prior.  Yet God graciously lets us live on.

And I thank God that He has allowed me to live another day.

Photo by hoyasmeg

From time to time I’ve heard the sentiment, usually from those of a pro-choice persuasion, “Why is abortion such a big deal?”  Obviously, this issue has me and several others all in a tizzy, but for what purpose?  There are many issues that I feel strongly about, so why is abortion often front and center?

In order to realize why I think of it as a big deal, I’ll try to help you see it through my eyes.  It’s really an issue of worldview: because of the way I see the world, I can’t help but make a big deal out of abortion.

I believe that life begins at conception.  That’s when the man and the woman’s DNA are combined in such a way to create new DNA.  The embryo–even when he’s just one cell–does not have the same genetic material as his mother, so he can’t just be an extension of her.  Because that baby–no matter how small–is his own person, taking any actions to deliberately kill that person is MURDER, just like it would be murder to kill any other innocent human being.

If you found out that the government was allowing (and in some cases funding) people and organizations to murder innocent people, wouldn’t you be upset?  Wouldn’t you do all that is in your power to speak out for those individuals and help them?

That’s why abortion is such a big deal to me.  While I know many of my readers won’t agree with the foundational premise of my pro-life position, I hope you recognize the logic of my conclusion based on that premise.