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Glasgow, Scotland
Words are formed by experiences, and words inform our experiences. Words also transform life and the world. I am a writer and Presbyterian minister who grew up in the 1960's in the segregated South of the United States. I've lived in Alaska, the Washington, DC area, and Minnesota. Since 2004 I've lived in Glasgow, Scotland, where I enjoy working on my second novel and serving churches that are between one thing and another. I advocate for the full inclusion of all people in the church and in society, whatever our genders or sexual orientations. Every body matters.

Thursday, January 30, 2020

A Time to Choose


A Time to Choose

For everything there is a season,
   and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to want to get pregnant,
   and a time to want options for birth control;
a time to plan to have children,
   and a time to plan not to have children;
a time to choose to end a pregnancy,
   and a time to heal after a pregnancy;
a time to break down stereotypes about “pregnant teenage girls,”
   and a time to build up boys’ and girls’ knowledge 
      about human sexuality and reproduction;
a time to weep for the lives of female children and adults
      who find themselves with little or no opportunities,
   and a time to laugh at the hypocrisy of politicians who vote
      against equal opportunities but ensure their own are covered;
a time to mourn underfunded health and welfare systems that threaten
      the lives of individuals and families in poor areas, rural or urban,
   and a time to dance whenever interfaith or non-profit coalitions help
      make miracles happen in peoples’ real lives;
a time to throw away patriarchal laws governing females’ bodies,
   and a time to gather women into administrative, judicial, and
      legislative bodies to govern;
a time to embrace the truth that female human beings are created in
      the divine image,
   and a time to refrain from treating females as inferior to males
      or sub-human;
a time to vote one’s clear conscience,
   and a time to lose one’s guilt and shame;
a time to keep hope,
   and a time to throw away despair;
a time to tear up “shoulds,”
   and a time to sew commitments;
a time to keep silence and listen to her,
   and a time to speak and tell her you believe her;
a time to love bodies of all colors, shapes, sizes, and abilities,
   and a time to hate any violence against females;
a time for war against rape and incest,
   and a time for peace — to pray to end the need for abortion.

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