Love Saves Lives

The world is messed up. 

No one is ignoring the fact there are many injustices in the world. Some of us focus on very particular issues, but no one can say that the world is perfect. Many hypotheses have come up over the millenia as to why there is such heartache and chaos in the world.

Regardless of the root cause, we all know that our strife is caused by evil.

Evil is real. It is the absence of love, and the world is aching for love to enter our darkness and make all things right again.

Love is real my Dear Readers. It is so real, and I have spoken at great length about this love that each person can participate in. Love is not distant, and it is not something that we have to wait for. If anything, we are choosing to focus on the evils of this life and look away from true love.

How do we find this love?

We have to start truly encountering others and loving them if we are going to change the world for the better.

I learned this lesson at the March for Life in Washington DC this past weekend.

Growing up in a Catholic household, I have learned quite a bit about what it means to be truly pro-life. To be prolife does not mean you just care about abortion, although that is a main focus. Being pro-life means that you recognize that each life has an immeasurable worth, and that we cannot just decide who deserves to live or not.

To be pro-life means to be pro-peace.

To be pro-life means to be pro-diversity.

To be pro-life means to be pro-equality.

To be pro-life means to be pro-love from conception to natural death.

However, I did not realize how much of an impact that worldview would really have on me. The pro-life movement seemed like some sort of fantasy where we all love one another, regardless of our backgrounds. We say that we value every life, but I know that there are people I would rather not spend extended time with. Should one’s recognition of the dignity of each human person, from conception to death, really change the way we encounter one another?

This thought struck me the hardest when Notre Dame reached the March For Life Rally.

It was right after we took this picture.

Seriously....this group is incredible in both heart and size.

I ran in to a few folks that I knew, but I could not even talk to them. (Sorry to those of y’all who had to endure my inability to speak following the picture). Why? Well, we were on top of a hill, and we could see all of the people coming in to the March. Unlike any other protest I had seen, these people were completely normal looking. Outside of the bright white Notre Dame hats, the multi-colored scarves from other schools, and the flags, it looked like a completely normal mass of people.

But they were happy.

From all corners of the hill, I could hear people laughing. I could hear joyful chatter, cheers for the babies they saw walking with their parents, prayers raising all around me, and not a single tear on the faces of those around me.

So many happy faces.

How could such joy be real? How could this joy make an impact on policy? How could we possibly save the lives we wanted to protect if we were so happy? Were we not fighting the most difficult battle?

I felt so small.

Even though I am a very loud person, I tend to feel like I am on the outside. Perhaps it is because of my developmental differences, perhaps it is because I am a very passionate Cell Biologist, perhaps it is because I am a devout Catholic in science, or perhaps it is because I love my family more than anyone else on Earth. Regardless, I have always felt particularly small on this Earth.

So when I saw all of the faces that shared the same joy as me, I felt even smaller. Could my one life make a difference for the millions of souls lost to a choice that they could not make for themselves?

The commissioner for our Notre Dame group said that we needed to encounter everyone around us at the March. After all, we were all in support of all life. Not just before birth, but for the entirety of our lives until we meet again in Heaven.

I honestly thought he was just trying to build community in the 1000 strong ND students.

Then, as we were walking up to get in the front of the March, I saw my friend through the crowd. He ran up to me with arms wide open for a hug. Sure, he was as amped as a person could be, but that did not discredit the genuine nature of this embrace.

I only know this individual from teaching religion. I hardly have any impact on his life, and yet he went out of his way to greet me.

I no longer felt alone in the crowd. 

I was a beautiful little soul who had worth. I was worthy of someone going out of their way for half of a second to give me the hug that I so desperately needed. Joy returned to my face, and I turned to my friends with a huge smile. I wanted every single person around me to feel like they had been heard, like they could be seen, like they were a human being with immeasurable value.

Inspired by the little bit of love I received from my friend, the small band of graduate students started to encounter every person around them.

We did push-ups like it was a football game. We encouraged the sophomores struggling through Organic Chemistry. We laughed about the weather, the slow pace of the march, and the giant jackets tied around our waists. We introduced each other to our friends, and we swapped stories of everything under the sun.

And then the March began.

As I marched, I noticed that not only my group, but every person in the crowd was inspired to share the value of each soul around them. Because we believed that each person was worth love, we treated one another as though they were worthy of the best life they could live.

We danced. We ran. We skipped. We laughed. We held hands.

We celebrated the lives of everyone around us.

What’s interesting about these sorts of things is how having a large group can change the way you see the cause. Because Notre Dame had over 1000 people in white hats, we were easily broken up amongst the several other hundred thousand people. Regardless, we were still way in the front, and we made our best effort to continue leading the pack towards the Capitol Building.

Intriguingly, we kept running in to the people we intentionally encountered at the beginning of he March.

Obviously these were unplanned encounters throughout the course of the March, but each encounter held a different set of meanings for each member of my party. Depending on how well we got the know the soul beside us, we had a completely different experience.

But each encounter mattered.

And each encounter ended with a smile.

This is what life is supposed to be like. We are all walking along this path called life, and there are billions of people around us. People may be beside us for the entire journey, but the majority of the people we love will slide out of our lives for a time. Sometimes they will come back, as many of the souls we met at the beginning of our march did, but sometimes we will not see them until after the March is over.

But we will never get to share in the joy of another life if we are unwilling to acknowledge them.

There were a few individuals that my group were slightly hesitant to greet at first, but we knew that if we did not acknowledge them that we would miss out on an opportunity to share in their joy. For me, as a small soul, it meant the world to me to tap someone on the shoulder, smile up at them, and acknowledge that I loved them in the midst of hundreds of thousands of other souls.

So from the closest of friends to the little boys who gave me high fives, thank you for letting me love you on this March.

My Dear Readers, we can all love one another in this way.

It is not difficult to love souls near us. All it takes is a smile and acknowledging their presence. My friend’s hug at the beginning of the march changed my entire perspective on my position in the pro-life movement; why should our little acts of kindness do any less?

No one is going to hate you for being kind to them. Even if you broke their heart. Even if you have a different political view. Even if you are from different religious backgrounds. Even if you are not from the same countries.

To be pro-love means to be willing to encounter others with kindness and courage.

And to be pro-love is to be pro-life.

I saw this when we were three-quarters of the way through the March. We came across a multi-cultural band playing Salve Regina.

People from all religious backgrounds, of all races, of all tongues, joined together in a song. We joined together to praise a woman who was pregnant out of wedlock in a society that would rather stone her than see the child. We praised a woman who chose to give birth in the worst of conditions. 

We praised a woman for choosing life because of love.

That is a story that all races, all genders, all sexual orientations, all backgrounds can honor.

Tears flowed from my face. Yes, it was love that brought us all together in this place. We were not speaking out against abortion. We were not speaking against doctor-assisted suicide. We were not speaking out against war. Instead, we were speaking for those who want to love and want to be loved. We are speaking for the women who feel trapped by a society that does not understand her desire to love a child conceived through rape or another tragedy. We are speaking for families that are filled with love. 

We are speaking for love.

It was this love for every soul, regardless of their circumstances, regardless of their smallness that brought us together.

That is why the pro-life movement is so happy. It is not because they are tripping on some weird cult juice. It is not because they are deluded Christians. It is not fake, and it is not someting that the media makes up. The joy of the pro-life movement is in the purpose of the pro-life movement.

To be pro-life is to acknowledge each soul for what it truly is.

To be pro-life is to see someone and say, “I love you.”

When you are seen for who you were meant to be, you realize that you belong on this earth, and you realize that you are worth just as much as any other person around you. When you are loved by another person, from a stranger to a soul who has known you for years, you are reminded of your infinite worth.

This world is deprived of so much love, and without love, the evil in our world seems to flourish.

But evil will not win.

Why?

Because Love Saves Lives.