Since Rutgers DT Eric LeGrand was paralyzed last week during one of their football games, I have browsed through quite a few news reports on his injury. Because spinal cord injuries are hard enough for the injured person to understand, let alone some third party reporter, I’m always interested to how the injury is reported in the media. This one … Read More
Prayers for Eric LeGrand
Rutgers junior defensive tackle Eric LeGrand suffered a spinal-cord injury during their game against Army on Saturday. From ESPN: The injury occurred with just over five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s game, just after Rutgers had scored a touchdown to tie the game at 17. LeGrand was attempting to make a tackle on the ensuing kickoff, and … Read More
Lessons From a Little Flower Redux
Four years ago, I started this blog as an extension of my pro-life apostolate. As you’ve probably noticed, I also write a lot about suffering and the Cross. That’s because it has been my observation after several years of pro-life advocacy that one of the underlying causes of the culture of death (abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, cloning/ESCR) is a desire … Read More
Pain: God’s Megaphone to Rouse a Deaf World
A hattip and many, many thanks to Mark Pickup for finding this great clip from Shadowlands, in which Anthony Hopkins plays C.S. Lewis answering that age-old question: does God allow suffering? and, more importantly, WHY???: I hope you caught this part: “It is precisely because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering.” In his post Pickup … Read More
Defining Beauty
For those who think that people with a disability have a lower “quality of life”, that life with a disability is not worth living: Find out more about the documentary at: http://definingbeautydoc.blogspot.com/ Incidentally, my good friend Penny, who helped me out a lot after my accident, was the second runner up in Miss Wheelchair America 1993 and the very first … Read More
Early Alzheimer’s and the Value of a Vow
Some of you have probably already seen this at either Deacon Greg’s blog or Elizabeth Scalia’s: Watch CBS News Videos Online There’s so much going on in this story. So much that could be discussed. For example, the woman who said that she would not want her grandchildren to visit her when she can no longer recognize them. But the … Read More
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
How appropriate that, after writing this post last week, my latest Netflix movie turned out to be The Diving Bell and the Butterfly about French journalist and former editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, Jean-Dominique Bauby. Talk about a man who “had it all”, only to seemingly “lose everything” when a massive stroke left him paralyzed from head-to-to with locked-in syndrome at … Read More
Pixar Wisdom: The World Needs More “Jackalopes”!
This is one of my absolute favorite Pixar short films: Maybe I’m stretching it a bit, but it kind of reminds me of this passage from Romans (5:3-5): we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured … Read More
The Inspiring Story of Garvan Byrne
I don’t think it matters how handicapped you are or how sick. You always succeed in something. God gave us each a gift. –Garvan Byrne March 20, 1973 – April 16, 1985 After watching these videos and hearing the words of the delightful young Garvan Byrne, terminally ill and handicapped from birth, I am reminded of something Fr. Jaques Philippe … Read More
Santorum: Daughter w/ Trisomy 18 “Worth Every Tear”
Former PA Sen. Rick Santorum has a moving piece int he Philadelphia Enquirer honoring the second birthday of his daughter Bella: ‘Incompatible with life.” The doctor’s words kept echoing in my head as I held my sobbing wife, Karen, just four days after the birth of our eighth child, Isabella Maria. Bella was born with three No. 18 chromosomes, rather … Read More