Rodeos and the movement towards being pro-life
Having kids changed my mind and re-oriented me
Every year, on July 4th weekend, our family goes to the St. Paul Rodeo. Over 50,000 people descend upon the town of 326 locals and pay $20 to park on their lawns and eat chicken grilled by the local Catholic parish. The event is a patriotic carnival complete with a ferris wheel, bull riding (both real and mechanical), and more cowboy hats than most of us will see for the rest of the year. The High School Booster Club’s strawberry shortcake alone is an institution. My parents came to town this past weekend for a visit during the long holiday weekend. Beyond meals together and a trip to the Oregon coast, we went to the St. Paul Rodeo together. Our time together made me think of how improbable life is and how lucky we are to have children and a family to share our lives with. In short, it got me thinking about the movement in my own life towards being pro-life.
Nearly five years ago, Kelly told me that she was pregnant with our first child - Declan. Then, as someone who considered themselves to be a left-leaning moderate, I thought I was pro-choice. My experience moved me differently. I immediately began talking to her belly as if a fully-formed human being were living there. At no point did we refer to Declan as a fetus. He was always a baby. Our baby. (And now a boy who will be going to Kindergarten next year, and I’m not really ready for that, but wow does life move at you fast and I feel like I’m digressing in my writing here).
At some point, you find yourself realizing that you can’t really see the future – and that the present is all that you have. I find I want to skip a particular standing meeting I have at 7 A.M. on Thursdays because I don’t want to miss having breakfast with my kids before they head off to daycare. Life moves quickly; the ones we love are only with us for a short time.
What does it look like to be pro-life in a world that doesn’t provide adequate care and security for every child once they are born? Our country’s birth rates are below replacement levels and our social safety nets have holes in them for the children we are bringing into the world. The circumstances of every pregnancy in our country isn’t founded in a loving relationship like my kids were. The pro-life arguments I hear seem cruel when the most extreme stories are brought to light.
Much of the past few months I’ve been renegotiating my relationship with our family dog. She isn’t what we expected her to be. She was supposed to be 30 pounds, grown. She’s 60. She was supposed to be a “super smart breed” – she’s nearly human. She is a bounding fountain of energy – rarely satisfied and always wanting to play. She gets into things and chews them up. We nearly got rid of her due to irreconcilable differences – we chose a different path instead.
As someone who grew up with a miniature poodle and, later, a long-haired chihuahua – I’m new to the big dog scene. I’ve had to reorient my life around her schedule and needs. A daily two-mile walk. Taking her swimming in the river when it is hot out. Treats and belly scratches in the evenings. She’s just a dog – but I’m allowing her to change me along the same lines as having my children has changed the shape of my life.
I suppose the point I’m making is that we must allow ourselves to be shaped by the decisions we make rather than look for quick fixes. We live in a world constantly looking for the quick fix. The easy way out. We would rather impose our will on life than be shaped by the movement of our lives.
We like to live with the illusion that we are in control.
C.S. Lewis writes in The Abolition of Man that “There has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world.”. Rather kicking against the goads on this – attempting to exercise our wills upon the natural law – we can build our lives within the truth of it. Lewis called this natural reality The Tao. Another way Lewis puts the Tao is this, “the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are.” When we stop fighting against the law of nature, we can free ourselves from the angst of trying to be God.
And, perhaps, we can find a way to love our neighbors through all of their life experiences and figure out a way to get everyone tickets to the rodeo.