Chuck Colson was obviously an influential man. But he has been influential in my own life as I have thoroughly enjoyed his books and podcasts. I remember seeing his book Born Again in a church library somewhere and rolling my eyes because I thought the title was such a cliché. Who knows why, but I ended up bringing that book home and reading it. I subsequently bought copies of it to give to anyone who was interested, which is something I’ve never done before or since.

Obviously he is best known for his Prison Fellowship Ministries, but he was also a stalwart of the pro-life movement.

Here’s an article about him at the time of his passing away:

I shudder to think of what I’d been if I had not gone to prison,” Colson said in 1993. “Lying on the rotten floor of a cell, you know it’s not prosperity or pleasure that’s important, but the maturing of the soul.”

Well put.

Tomorrow I fly home from my Holocaust course at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. I’m feeling just a little bit melancholy as this was a meaningful time filled with learning of all kinds. Tomorrow I return to “real life”. (Before I left I posted a photo of tulips; now I hear snow is in store. Sigh.)

Anyway, humour me just before I return to the ins and outs of Canadian life/social policy/work etc. etc. etc. A quote from my course when we examined the resistance to the Nazis:

I would call it a ‘positivistic approach to life’…a kind of belief that under any circumstances you are a human being and it is up to you to react as a human being. They can break your body; they can’t break your spirit without your cooperation. This is what we used to tell them. After all, the logical way to fight death is to live, isn’t it?”

–Joza Karas

There’s something meaningful there for me. Perhaps for you too.

Friends, I’m sorry I have not been able to update the blog. Those of you who have tracked with us for a while, however, will know this is the first break since 2008. I’m in Israel, doing a week-long course at the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem. Fascinating, heavy, busy: A fantastic learning experience from the academic perspective but also because the participants are literally from across the globe from Africa, to Europe, to North America. Lots to ponder. I’m sure I’ll be able to include some of the information I’m learning for a long while to come.

But for now, enough of you have emailed me this link about six hospitals in Toronto hiding the knowledge of fetal sex.

It’s amazing how slow people are to wake up to the fact that yes, this is happening in Canada. And it’s further amazing to me that some women defend it and claim they are “defenders of women’s rights.”

Danielle Smith on social issues:

In our Wildrose, when our members elected me, they knew they were electing a candidate that was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage,” Smith told an all-candidates gathering in Okotoks, a town of 24,000 located south of Calgary. “The only way we’re going to be able to become a mainstream, big-tent conservative party which is capable of forming government is to focus on the issues that matter to Albertans.”

Wildrose is a populist party. If abortion matters to Albertans, it will have to matter to Danielle Smith. I seem to recall a referendum where abortion did matter to Albertans, and they were pro-life. I’ll try to look that up.

I may be on holiday and hardly blogging at all, but let it not be said I don’t pay attention to the important stuff.

Angelina and Brad are going to tie the knot!

Now seems like a good time to mention I am going to be away a lot in the coming weeks. Blogging will be lighter than usual. (And by the time I am back, it will be tulip time in Ottawa! Hence the photo.)

Read about it, here:

My party’s suppression of debate is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Today I am saying sayonara to my Liberal membership.

It’s strange to see the Liberals try and capitalize off of abortion support. When did they get this extreme?

Lila Rose on being a woman in today’s culture:

We don’t wish to take the country back in time; rather, we aspire to move it forward, beyond a time when women are treated as objects and pitted against their children and their religious institutions — and toward a time when truly emancipated women embrace their intrinsic dignity and, with it, their authentic womanhood.

(h/t)

Just a quick little click of a button and you can make your voice heard: that the President of Planned Parenthood America should not be on TIME’s list of top 100 people for this year. But if she gets it, look at the bright side: At least they’re not inducting her into the Order of Canada.

I missed this two days ago but I’ll link to it now. It’s an article about how feminism has liberated men. Apparently, we’re not supposed to be concerned that some men lack ambition and sit around not doing much.