Dear Rodney,
It tickles me, the saint thing. As if!! I figure that people need heroes, that’s why some call me a saint. Look, I’m just Helen, OK, and I try to live my life with as much integrity as I can muster, which means doing what love demands. Just like you did with the 30+ hurricane refugees. You saw a need and responded, right? I think anyone can do what I"ve done, and if given an opportunity, would…
Enlightened self interest? You better believe it. Because when we love, truly love, we become very alive; we grow, and if that’s not "self interest," I don’t know what is. Love, S. Helen
Dear Allen,
You’re right, aborting a baby is a terrible "choice"…the alternatives
which you spell out…abstinence, etc. is, of course a preferred
alternative. I want to help women explore those alternatives before
they act. How many are in desperate circumstances? Haven’t thought at
all, just do it? How many feel desperate because they’re all alone, no
one to help them. These are considerations of compassion. Not
condoning – just compassion,which seeks practical, concrete
alternatives. I like your honesty. Don’t worry about that "P C"
thing. Cordially, S. Helen
Dear Bill,
Have you read, "Don’t Think of An Elephant" by G. Lakoff (sp?) It’s all
about how we frame an issue. To frame a consistent life ethic, whether
with A I or anyone will need to be wider, I think, than simply a
woman’s "choice." Of course, a woman chooses…. but in what context?
What other life issues are involved? How do we give the unseen
life-on-the-way a voice? Cordially, S. Helen
Dear Steve,
Lillie just came home, told me that I missed you by a hair tonight cuz
I’m at her house for supper but you went off early to a bar!!.
Get off that I-don;t-like-Repub-thing. I love Republicans as long as
they care about poor people and the voiceless ones, and the common good
- and that sounds like maybe who you are. Glad you’re journeying
through my books. Sometimes I step back and say, " This is
incredible…I can’t believe this is happening… Next time, S, when
Lillie invites you, COME! I’d love to meet you in person.
Love, Helen
Dear Rev. Curt,
Pronounce my name Helllllyion… just kidding…. Prejean =
pray-shaun. Now practice in front of your bathroom mirror! It’s the
French. It throws everybody. Love. S. H.
Dear Mary,
What a delight to see you in among the responders to the blog. 28 years ago??? Sweet Jesus! I tell you, this time thing’s a bloomin’ mystery. Me, I’m just living and pressing ahead. How are you? Write to me by email Hprejean @ dpdiscourse.org Love, H
Dear J,
I like you. Like your honesty. Like your passion. Come to Batahola. Meet the people. You’ll never be the same. Love, S. Helen
I received many thoughtful comments on my first contribution to the God’s Politics blog, including this one from MNW:
Dear Sister Helen,
Can you write on what you think about torture?
Did you ever, in your wildest imagination, think that the
United States of America would legalize torture?Can you explain how ANY Christian can support a president
that tortures other humans? Can you explain how ANY Christian can support those
who passed a law to legalize it in the USA?I don’t get it. I don’t get how any Christian can now
support this president. It’s quite obvious that he has already tortured people
(given that the torture bill includes provisions that pardon him for any crime
he might have committed in this arena dating back to 9-11-01…and for the fact
that this bill wasn’t even a thought until the Supreme Court ruled that he was
in violation of the Geneva Convention) and that he plans to continue to torture
people.I certainly don’t see Christ in any of it. Can you explain?
You’re on to one of the most important moral issues of our day, MNW. Going along with George W. Bush, Congress recently “amended” the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners to allow torture of terror suspects in Guantanamo. They don’t call it torture, of course. President Bush calls it “alternative ways of obtaining information”. Suspected terrorists can disappear into the black hole of Guantanamo and be held indefinitely without charge.
This nation lost its moral footing on the torture issue when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty in 1976, stating that it is not against the dignity of human beings to kill them for their crimes, even though an alternative life sentence is available.
The definition of torture as stated in the U.N. Convention Against Torture and by Amnesty International is:
“an extreme mental or physical assault against someone who has been rendered defenseless.”
To confine a human being in a small cell for 15 or 20 years to await being taken out and killed is mental torture. To shackle conscious, imaginative human beings and bring them to the death house with the clock ticking away the last days and hours of their lives is mental torture. To prepare human beings for execution by diapering them, shackling them, and forcibly injecting them with valium to lower resistance, then strapping them onto a gurney and injecting them with chemicals that first paralyze them so they can’t cry out and then throw them into cordiac arrest is mental torture and in all probability physical torture too. We’ve been trying over the last 30 years to sanitize death, make it look like we’re not really killing them, we’re “putting them to sleep.”
The death penalty always involves torture. There’s no way to kill a human being without causing them extreme pain. Legalizing death doesn’t change anything.
And that was one of our first steps towards this new legalization, this new sanitization of torture. By classing people as other than human (they’re nothing but "terrorists" or "murderers") and hiding them away from public view, we allow terrible acts to be done in our name. There’s nothing Christian about it.