The annual March for Life is this weekend, albeit accommodating for the current COVID-19 situation. Some turned out for the main event in Washington D.C. but in large part it's been a local affair.
Something I've noticed, and have for quite a long time now. Here are some photos from today's events and one or two from last year's:
Notice anything about these pro-life people? The biggest thing each of them has in common across these photos?
They are smiling. They are joyful. They are beautiful.
They look genuinely happy.
Now let's be clear about something. They are together in common purpose: to end the most barbaric practice that this country and too many others sanction. As Mother Teresa said when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her unborn child, what is left between you from killing me or me from killing you? There is nothing between."
These people understand that better than too many others may care to.
But look at how beautiful they are.
Look at the light in their faces.
What is it that unites them together, above all else?
I will tell you. It is love. Love for one another but also, love for those they will probably never know. Love for innocent life.
I see their faces and they are pure loveliness to behold.
And then I think back, to four years ago. What I saw in San Diego on the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States. There were "pro-women" marches in many cities.
What did I see?
It was something like this:
Let's ignore the brazen vulgarity of the signs being held aloft. Although trust me, what I saw that day in San Diego was far worse. There were also the women dressed in vagina costumes, but that's as far as I'm going to go in describing the spectacle. It was NOT something that a sane person would want small children to be confronted with.
Look at the faces of these people. How dour and downcast, and bitter, and empty of all joy they look. If there is any emotion to be seen at all, it is anger. They look drained and without sympathy or care.
There is no love that I see in their faces. There is instead, well... hatred.
Hatred for others? Could it be hatred of self?
There is darkness in those faces.
There is none of the joy and care and beauty among these pro-abortion activists, that there is in the faces of those who are pro-life.
On the basis of these photos and more like them, just by those alone... I know that I would much prefer to be counted among the pro-lifers.
Indeed, I do count myself as among them. And I am not ashamed of that.
Because I do try to love others as I love myself. Because I don't want anyone to be hurt by the grief and anguish of abortion. Because I don't want the most innocent of lives to be ended within the womb.
I want my own face to be among those of the beautiful, however weary and weathered it may be.
Maybe next year I'll get to march alongside those who go forth in peace and joy, bound in the common purpose of seeing to it that all lives matter. Because, they do. Even the unborn.
Physical appearance, doesn't matter. Not when there is that brilliant light in the eyes, in the smile.
I choose to do my best to have that light in my own eyes.
And I like to believe, dear reader, that however deep down, you want that light in your eyes, too.
