A few thoughts after watching
the movie "Amazing Grace"

There are more kinds of slavery in this world now,
and more to come!

I knew about slavery, it's affects have been felt and are still being felt. It is not dead! It lives in hidden ways. What are we doing about it now...?

Last evening I saw the movie, "Amazing Grace", for the first time, I knew I'd be moved to a deep place....I surely was. The first scene brought evils of abuse enough, but the tales, the ships we saw, the telling of the history of humans trading themselves to each other in a widely organized system of dehumanization brought a fuller understanding of why we are where we are today. In the end it lights up paths of hope. It is not over, but we are at 'the order of the day' ...it is time to act!

There is no choice for any of us of being born, or where we are born, or to whom we are born. We trust it was out of a love for those who birthed us...not only for us, but for each other. They may have us within their abode, but do not have ownership of our being, or our souls. God is our Creator, though we start the ball rolling, so to speak, but that is also God-given. We are created to be able to do this, and sometimes we need help from others and so far it seems we have done this in good ways.

But, is cloning another form of slavery...when they're looking to clone humans, which they are? Do designer babies fit in here too? The 'slavery' is in taking freedoms from those who are born to be free.. in thought, and developing skills, that God arranged for them. When we humans design a child, those freedoms are designed out! What would my gifts have been if left to God? How would balances God provided for the world to become productive and whole, fully human, be affected?

I would not want to know I was not freely formed for the gifts that a loving Creator chose for me to give to the world...it would be pretty weird if I had to wonder what could I have offered. Instead I would know humans, who had their own needs and desires being fulfilled...that's their job for themselves, not mine. Our ego needs to know it won't die if love envelops it. I might consider that giving me a scorpion, not bread. Violence is also an example of that, and making me what a 'parent' might want leaves God's natural progression of the species out. A Godless society wouldn't even see that, or care...would they? It's a bit like gender killing and unbalanced thinking changing the balance God provides. Gender killing is alive here in this Province, not just..'over-there'.

Are these cloning & designing issues not hidden forms of 'slavery'? If someone is using you as though they owned you, or have changed who you were meant to be, is that not a form of slavery? The people brought here, and elsewhere, were taken from families, homes, countries, where they were meant to love and be and give their God-given gifts. All for money, for prosperity of the rich.

The topic is deep, and heavily invested in profit making for corporations and for the economy. If we knew what we were buying was made of the backs of the poor...
Wal-Mart got the 'sweatshop of the year' award...again!...what would we, are we, doing about it. We play a part in keeping these kinds of hidden evils in place. I do in ways too, we all do. How do we ignite the fires of change...we in this country are losing more freedoms all the time..do we care? WE have been programmed to fit in & to conform ...how sad!

It's in the school systems big-time. I saw it as a teacher, children's creativity being stifled even in the colour of a flower..do it the way I say, said the teacher. Learn how I say, even if you are made to figure things out in a 'special' way....a gifted way, or a slower way, or just differently. You are not acceptable.

Undermining God's gifting of anyone is an unconsciousness we need to be very aware of and off-set...by changing laws if need be, or making sure that laws passed are humanizing and value all people.

You can see I have been affected by the movie and it pushes me on in my thinking of what it is that bothers me about cloning, about designer babies, about God, about changes needed in us, in we who say we are God's children...we all have God as Creator. Believe me, this will be coming up and out more and more...our children may be the ones who have to actually fight with this in laws. Are we going to leave them to do it later? Discussions are needed now. The law to clone animals has been passed. It could soon be what we eat. DNA used over and over....? It seems it's a perfected form of incest. We know what that does within a family.

One man spear-headed a few to change things in his time. His never ending hope and persistence, with push from Newton, made it happen. Are we up for it?

A reminder....a scary one at that..Hitler got in by ONE vote folks...one vote turned the tide of history. He used Jesus as being on his side, as many use God too, but Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther-King Jr.; and Jean Vanier, who is still doing his work...they all have started a new world coming...all with God and Jesus being the example. We have made the claim they did.....light the fire and spread the sparks. The time is now, it is the order of the day!

Someone said... "Whatever you think is missing in a situation, is what you are not giving." What a wake up call!

God be in our affecting change!