Sunday, October 12, 2008

Life, Death & Meaning

Bodies in Motion is a display of dead bodies touring the country. They are sliced, diced, stripped of skin, anatomically correct and on display. The guide claims that the display is suitable for children ages 10 & up. The founder of this controversial display assures us that he has gone through a "reputable body broker" and that they are not, as some have speculated, tortured Chinese prisioners. Cause, I mean, ya know, the reputable body brokers can be so trusted. Right.

When I mentioned the display to Viking Man his first reaction was that the thing was vile and unorthodox (in the little "u" sense of the word), breaking Levitical Codes. Orthodox (in the capitol "U" sense of the word) Jews have firm prohibitions against desecrating human bodies and have strict codes of behavior around death and corpses, as most cultures do, in honor of the dead. The body is seen as an extension of the spirit who once occupied it and to desecrate the body would to defile and dishonor the person that they once knew.

Imago Deo- we are created in the image of God. We are created by the Holy of Holies in the image of Holy.

Today a friend sent me a link to a YouTube which for some reason wont upload. You can see it here: http://WWW.youtube.Com/watch?v=VIdbYjmbFzo .

Infanticide is now being touted as abortion. Babies are being born live through an induced, vaginal birth. The baby is issued a birth certificate. The baby is left to die. The great state of Illinois practices this form of "abortion" in large urban hosptials. Thank-you Senator Obama (said tongue in check) for opening wide the door to the culture of death in the name of change. That kind of change I can live without.

I'm grieved. Deeply, deeply grieved. I'd like to think that as a nation we still value life. Of course, I'm pro-choice just like everybody else. Choose to have sex or not. Once you do, be responsible. This would mean don't murder and deconstruct the meaning asserting that it's a choice, cause the dead person didn't choose. And God's plan was thwarted and aborted and justice was wronged.

Post-modernism and the deconstruction of language is taking it's toll. We look at dead bodies, in the name of science, but c'mon, it's all about entertainment and pay for the privelage to do so, carting our little, impressionable minded kiddos along, desensitizing them as we go to what's right and pure and holy. (For an excellent discussion from a Biblical perspective on these terms see Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture by David DeSilva). It's but a baby step to go from full blown dead bodies on disply to live birth murder by neglect. They are just bodies after all.
Imago Deo. Bodies created in the image of a Holy God.
And I wonder about the breathe of life that God gifts to each person at birth. The Ruwach, snuffed out. We are turning our backs on God in more profound and fundamental ways than simply wiping "In God We Trust" off of buildings.
Flower, in a burst of profound 5 year old wisdom asked me today, "Mommy, why are they killing the babies like the Pharoh's kill the babies."
Cause we now consider life to be cheap instead of sacred, death to be exploited instead of honored and meaning to be whatever we've de or re-constructed it to mean instead of a logical connotation of a word or phrase.

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