THE IDES OF MARCH

On this day in 44 BC Julius Caesar was assassinated by traitorous friends in the Roman Senate. Sixteen centuries later Shakespeare memorialized the day in one of his plays with “Beware the Ides of March.” On this Ides of March, five centuries after Shakespeare, I was confronted with a jarring reminder, in words that were new to me, of America’s ongoing wholesale assassination of its most vulnerable citizens in what should be the safest place in the world–a mother’s womb. And the deaths are far more gruesome than stab wounds.

I was on an invigorating, enthralling walk to the mailbox this morning under a clear, blinding blue sky, thanking God for the blessing of such a beautiful day, when I was stopped dead in my tracks by this shameful reminder on a service van parked in my neighbor’s driveway. What a painful jolting reversal of my mood!

I cannot comprehend the will required among the “pro’s” to mentally block the grisly reality of that procedure or the convoluted rationalization required to say such is acceptable to a Holy God who made us all in his image.

Lord, how long will you continue to lend the beauty and blessings of your creation to such a nation as ours?