The Weeping Prophet

Sometimes, deep in my soul, I feel akin to the weeping prophet (Jeremiah). He was weeping over the state of his city, his Jerusalem, his people, his God's chosen people.

I remember being very young (Jr. High?) and coming across my first images of famine in Africa. These black and white images blown to the size of a TIME magazine page of skeletal babies sitting in dust--actual age: ten years old. One image really made me mad (and I believe I still own it). This wealthy merchant walked up to a rice stand run by a starving family and stole a bag of rice. Tall and in white flowy gowns and a matching turban, the obviously wealthy and well-fed man didn't even look down at the skeletal frame of the little boy who reached his hand out to stop him but whose skeletal frame was too weak to get up to chase after the thief. Justice is so clear in that picture. So clearly not served.

I used to read The Economist and other foreign policy magazines to learn about national atrocities. I would take the most descriptive images and tear them from the magazine and tack it on my bedroom wall. This, I knew so deep in my heart, had to stop. Tack. Up on the wall they went until my room was nearly covered.

I look at marriages and families today with some of the same intense passion of justice not being served. Of women and men who lie about their marriages--first to themselves and then to the rest of the world. Of people afraid. Afraid to seek God's best? Of men who refuse to stand up, die to themselves and start leading the way by following in Christ's example.

I am now learning about childbirth in America. Suddenly, I feel like the rest of the world could be teaching us. "Even though the United States has the most intense and widespread medical management of birth--99% of women give birth in a hospital--we rank near the bottom among industrialized countries in maternal and infant mortality....According to the World Health Organization, we rank second to last among 33 industrialized countries in this regard and 30th for maternal mortality. Although we are superior in saving the lives of infants born severely premature, women are 70% more likely to die in childbirth in the United States than in Europe."

"In the countries with the best maternal and infant outcomes....the vast majority of laboring women get individual support from a midwife, are free to move about and birth in whatever position feels best, and are rarely induced, anesthetized, or cut" (Pushed, xv).

This is wrong. It's wrong that we have stigmatized birth and a woman's natural process of labor by declaring it a medical condition. It's wrong that we wreak our fear all over their bodies and force them to take great risks to protect the doctor's backs.

Don't even get me started on the food processes and toxic chemicals that NO OTHER country in Europe will even touch but that we hand out as safe because IT MAKES US MORE MONEY. Pesticides are poison!!!! I don't know how we can be so ignorant. If it kills the bugs, it CAN KILL US. And don't even get me started about the ridiculousness of fortified foods that MAJOR COMMERICAL CORPORATIONS pass off as "healthy."

"Selling salt is actually a side line for salt companies; they make most of their profits pulling out the minerals and selling them back to us through health food stores and to companies like Kellogg's that take a naturally healthy food, process the pee out of it (till it's worthless) and then add back some minerals and vitamins. The minerals come from the salt companies. This is called fortified food."

"For every gram of PTS (processed table salt) that your body cannot get rid of, your body uses twenty three times that amount of cell water to neutralize the salt. Eating PTS causes excess fluid in your tissues which can contribute to cellulite, arthiritis, and kidney stones."

Hey, but it comes in a nice, handy box! And the men who sell it say it's healthy--mmmmm, fortified! Must be good for us--the cartoon Tiger says so! These are the same type of men who we criticize for running companies like Enronr, AIG, etc. Come on, guys. THEY WIL SELL YOU ANYTHING!

We are poisoning our own people from the inside out.

It brings me to tears, to weeping. I want to scream. I used to want to move to the developing world to feed them myself. I used to want to get into politics. But slowly God started showing me that I am not the Holy Spirit. I can't make lasting change. Only He can change hearts and that's our real problem. I started to see that the greatest method to bring about change is genuine, transparent motherhood. Suddenly I want dozens and dozens of children.