Thursday, January 27, 2011

Marching for Life



Many moons ago, way back when I only had three children, I went to the March for Life in Washington D.C. I took my then six-year old Nathaniel and five-month old Rebekah. Kate stayed home with friends. We went with a busload of people, many of whom we knew and would help me along the way with my baby and the stroller. I had been active in the local Pro-Life group, so this was an issue with which I was familiar, as was Nathaniel. He had made a poster for a contest, which he won, the prize being the tickets for the bus to Washington. That year, 1993, the March fell on the day after President Clinton's Inauguration. While we marched, our new President reversed years of pro-life progress by issuing five executive orders reversing Title 10 regulations banning abortion referral by federal employees, repealing the Mexico City Policy restricting federal funding of international organizations that work to reverse countries' abortion laws, negating the ban on funding for fetal tissue transplants, ordering military hospitals to perform abortions, and asking the FDA to "review" the import ban on RU 486. The timing was certainly no coincidence and was a symbolic victory dance for the pro-death camp which had found in William Jefferson Clinton a man after their own heart.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Baby, It’s Cold Outside!


I've not mentioned anything lately about running for the simple fact that two circumstances occurred simultaneously and sidelined me… for now.


 

Circumstance Number One, when I went for a Saturday morning run with the running group in mid-November, I got as far as 4 and a half miles, was feeling great with my breathing and rhythm, was no longer minding the cold temperature, when my knees both began to hurt. A lot. This wasn't a crankiness about the work I was putting them to, this was a downright mutiny. I tried walking a bit, thinking that after a brief break I could pick up again with the running- after all, it was going so well. But when I slowed for a walk they suddenly hurt even worse- in a weird, weak way. I actually stumbled and almost fell. Once I had walked for a bit the pain was gone so I resumed running and the pain returned almost instantly- and the knees had recruited my left hip to join them in their mutiny. I finished the distance, (for a total of 6 miles) somewhere between a limp and a run. Anyone watching my halting gait may have thought I was rehearsing for an upcoming audition for the role of Quasimodo.