Joy in the morning

I am very much not a morning person.  First for the purposes of school, and now work, I have gotten very good at tricking myself out of bed - putting the alarm across the room from my bed, getting a coffeemaker with a timer so I wake up to the delicious scent of go-juice, packing my bag the night before so that in my dawn stupor I do not accidentally leave the house without something vital - all useful.  There is also the fact that my cat regards me as his personal butler, and is not above eating my hair to encourage me to get up and provide additional kibble.  Nevertheless, no amount of prep is going to improve my mood when the rosy fingers of dawn poke me in the eyes once again.  So it’s good to start the day with something positive, and this is especially important when the morning’s activities include praying outside an abortion clinic.

The last few Saturdays, I have been making it to daily Mass.  My parish is literally less than 10 minutes from my front door at a relaxed walking pace, so you might think I would have tried it sooner.  Alas, no.  Previously, Saturday was my only day to sleep in, and I guarded it jealously.  After I started praying in front of the clinic, I figured  getting up for that was early enough.  What I failed to consider is that I prepared for almost every other aspect of my presence there - showering, season-appropriate clothing, comfy shoes, plenty of coffee.  Even a bag so I could run by the farmer’s market afterwards.  Physically, I was ready to go.  But temperamentally, I was often anxious, grumpy, resigned, etc.  Sure, I was giving up my Saturday mornings, but I wasn’t being a cheerful giver.  Starting the morning with Mass helps a great deal towards starting the day in gratitude.

It also often gives me something to think about.  For instance, the word that stuck with me last Saturday was “delight”.  The idea that we are supposed to bring delight, joy, and wonder to the people in our lives can seem a difficult task at the best of times, and even more so at Planned Parenthood.  And it seems especially hard these days - after a period of relative slowness, there seems to be a recent increase in business.  We are seeing more and more women stagger out of there, in obvious physical pain, in some cases needing to be helped into their cars.  Is this increase due to the Rockford clinic shutting down in January?  A new abortionist, perhaps, or less time being allowed for recovery?  We will probably never know, but every time I see this, it puts a major dent in my cheerfulness.  But while grief certainly has its place in abortion, that place may not be there.

For these women come to this place already in despair.  They have decided that there is no joy in the new life growing within them - not for themselves, not for someone else.  They do not want to wonder about the future of their unborn children - they only want to protect their present.  Delight is excluded by the darkness of fear.  If we don’t bring delight, joy, and wonder to that place, there won’t be any at all. 

For those who would say that abortion is a serious problem, and we need to be serious about it, I say yes to the first and no to the second.  I suspect many of these women already had someone in their lives sit them down and tell them, “This is serious!  You need to take care of it!  What about your future?”  They already think that things will only be OK if they go on as they were before their little stranger made his or her presence known.  We can say that while continuing their pregnancy may well be terrifying, there is also to be found “Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief”*

I am not sure how we may delight these women.  But perhaps it starts with being delighted to be there.  We got picked to play!  We get to fight!  This is our city - let us go out there armed to the teeth with joy! 

* J.R.R Tolkien.