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Please forgive me if you find any part of the following message offensive. I realize that, because so many people receive these messages from so many diverse backgrounds, there will be those who have conflicting views regarding the subject of abortion. There will be those of both genders who have been involved with an abortion in some way. They will have their views and I’m entitled to mine as well.

To these, I have this to say: IF abortion is murder as some say, and certainly we all acknowledge murder as a sin, Jesus is the only alternative for having those sins forgiven just as I’ve had my many sins forgiven, for mine are no less offensive to a Holy God. We’ve all sinned and have fallen short of His glory, Scripture tells us. So, whether we’re talking about abortion, rape, murder, lust, greed, rage, gossip…it’s all sin and only the blood of Christ can save any of us.

To those who believe abortion is murder and is, therefore, wrong, I have this to say: I’ll stand by as you cast that first stone. People who hurt people are hurting people and need our compassion, mercy and help. NOT a condemning finger pointed at their faces. If you feel compelled to fight for those who cannot defend themselves, don’t blow up an abortion clinic or handcuff yourself to one of its doors. Don’t carry a bigger sign or yell louder than those across the line. Instead, give them water and set up a portable pavilion to provide shade. Love them and see if it doesn’t open up the door for intelligent dialogue and ministry opportunities. They’ll know we are Christians by our love. Even our enemies will recognize that. Simply put, what would Jesus do? He died for His enemies.

To those considering abortion, I have this to say: I’m sure you’d agree that in order to make good decisions, we need good information. Agreed? Please consider and even pray about the information contained herein. Go to Pro-Life as well as Pro-Abortion websites, bearing in mind that they cannot both be right. People are either lying to you or telling you the truth. That’s the way life is. If a statement isn’t true, what else can it be but a lie? Right? There are no half-truths or white lies. Something is either true or false, despite today’s culture that resists absolutes.

Here’s a tip: check out the leadership, the founders from which a group’s philosophy flows; its roots. For example, Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood. Her first handbook, published for adolescents in 1915 and entitled, What Every Boy and Girl Should Know, featured a startling afterward in which Sanger wrote: It is a vicious cycle; ignorance breeds poverty and poverty breeds ignorance. There is only one cure for both, and that is to stop breeding these things. Stop bringing to birth children whose inheritance cannot be one of health or intelligence. Stop bringing into the world children whose parents cannot provide for them.

Personally, I cannot side with a woman with a philosophy so contrary to what Jesus Christ taught. You can make your own decision in this same way.

Here’s my story.

For 14 years, I was not at liberty to discuss the details of which you are about to read. The contents of this article are being written and spoken about openly with permission in recognition of the fact that others my be helped. Hopefully, many others.

I became a serious Christian in February of 1987. Prior to that, I had merely “played” at being one and went through my own series of self-righteous, often sickeningly pious, religious motions. By all outward appearances, I was a better “Christian” than most Christians. Fact was, I was married to my work as an Art Director in the crazy world of Dallas advertising. I went in early and came home late and, though I was faithful to my wife, I shared more of my soul - my mind, will and emotions - with the ladies at work than I did with my own spouse, the mother of my 3 small children. My family got second-best from me. Maybe even third.

One Saturday afternoon, my wife came home from running errands and tearfully told me an awful truth: she had become pregnant through an extramarital affair she was having. She had gone out to have an abortion that morning - an abortion that her lover was “kindly” willing to pay for - but she simply could not go through with it. While both of us cried, I forgave her as I had already made up my mind long ago that abortion was wrong. More on that in a moment.

A few weekends later, my wife had taken our three children to visit their grandmother out of town, leaving me all alone with my thoughts. What I’m about to tell you are the ONLY details that I can actually recall regarding a telephone call I had late that night with a Catholic priest whom I had apparently gotten out of bed to take my call. I needed to talk to somebody - ANYBODY. Having been raised a Catholic, calling a Catholic Church out of the Dallas, Texas phone book was all that felt comfortable to me at the moment.

I couldn’t locate that priest again in a million years. He may have been an angel for all I know. One thing I’m sure of is that God gave him the exact words to speak to me at that precise moment in time. After sharing with him the details, plus the fact that I had since decided to raise the child as my own, he sighed and said, “Wow, Mike…you know, Joseph raised a baby that wasn’t his….”

Friends, that was ALL I needed to hear. I knew in that instant that, with God’s help, I could manage. I do not recall any more of the conversation. I do not recall even saying ‘good-night.’ What I DO recall was turning around to see who was in the room with me as I suddenly felt a very distinct presence. As I turned back around, I felt the Lord’s arms wrap around me in a warm, reassuring embrace.

I was experiencing a peace that passed all understanding.

Sixteen years later, that little girl is a beautiful high school sophomore of whom I am very proud. Though her mother eventually divorced me while the child was an infant, eventually re-marrying a completely different man, only two years ago, she and her husband and I agreed it was time to tell the young lady - our daughter - the truth. Currently, she is forming a relationship with her birth-father, his wife and her two sisters. By God’s grace, the best has been made of an absolutley trying situation.

One look at her and anybody would wonder how anyone could - even for a minute - have considered abortion as a viable option.

(There is MUCH more statistical data regarding abortion, incest, and the right-to-life issue that cannot fit in this section. Therefore, I now present the closing paragraphs Please write me at team1min@aol.com and request the remainder of the article. Thanks!)

What can Christians do?

I have resisted the urge to broadcast regarding this topic for a long time. Too political. Too emotional. Not spiritual enough. But the Lord has apparently given me the green light. I HAD to obey.

I could never have aborted the wonderful, beautiful young woman I raised from birth and know today. I’ve given her my name and she is my daughter and she calls me ‘dad’.

I have met the former Evangelist-turned-talk-show-host of Life Today, James Roberson, himself a product of the rape of his mother. His ministry is feeding and clothing neglected children across the world. Millions of children have been touched by this man’s ministry.

In the early days of Christianity, when Roman orgies were often producing unwanted children, these newborns were often tossed over the wall to be devoured by wild anmals or die of exposure. It was Christians who would gather up these children and raise them to know and love God.

Moses was a baby who was saved as a result of a woman with a heart of compassion, and he eventually led the children of Israel out of Egypt. Jesus himself was raised by Joseph, a man who was not His biological father. All of us who have come out of darkness and into the glorious light of Christ have received the Spirit of adoption and are now the sons of God, co-laborers with Christ, heirs to the throne, and brothers of Jesus.

Raise a baby that is not your own? Assist those who do? In these dark and evil days, where 4500 babies are being aborted EVERY DAY,such situations are more and more likely to occur and touch many of our lives. There IS another way - not a politically correct way, but a CHRISTIAN way - of looking at these situations. As always, as in every instance, there remain no natural answers to this spiritual problem. We cannot lobby, vote or protest these problems away. People need more from the Church than that.

They need what we Christians claim that we have; the answer to all the world’s problems. They need Jesus.

Once again, the Body of Christ, this Army of God, must resist the urge to merely REACT to a situation. Rather, we must ACT according to the example our Savior has set for us.

(Prov 31:8) “Open your mouth for those who cannot speak, and for the rights of those who are left without help.”

Since 1999, Pastor Michael Tummillo has been broadcasting his eMail messages to tens of thousands of people across the planet. Possibly, millions as a result of FORWARDS. Not only are other on-line ministries posting his messages, but others are publishing his articles in their newsletters and newspapers and teaching and preaching from them.

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The term “media” is getting very much confused by informal language. Many of us
will robotically add the suffix, the (media), causing misuse as a
singular noun and often immediate thoughts of negativity follow. Media
refers to numbers of different ways of physically reproducing and
carrying messages. Media is not only expressed
through newspapers, film, television and radio but the Internet,
digital media and other developing mediums. It is important to note
that ‘Media Studies’ is the art of analyzing these texts to uncover
their effect on society. It is an infinitely evolving field, thus one
fragment of its controversial nature, yet most overtly; media studies
is so immensely important to study as it is practically impossible to
live in the twenty first century without encountering some form of
media. A media studies course will output students as consumers with a
greater awareness in making sense of the political, economic and
cultural meaning of everyday life. As one student recapitulates, ‘It
gives you the power of choice, the power to question.’

Re-capping a typical day; I am rudely awoken by a shrieking radio
commercial demanding I take advantage of the managers’ crazy insane
bargain prices. My vulnerable semi consciousness already affected by
crude advertising before hand and eye are coordinated to slam the
snooze button. The Saturday Age greets me in a less intrusive,
although still attention-grabbing manner. The bold headlines demand
consideration, striking photos tantalize the imagination and
advertisements entice by sophistication, among other ploys. T.V Hits
hums in the background while I sift through the paper, now too
expansive to be rolled into one single cylinder. Just a regular
Saturday morning and the media inundation I am embraced with is taken
for granted before even stepping out of the comfort of my pajamas. How
is this bombardment of media affecting my everyday life?

As I flick through the sections it is clear that political issues
submerge the cultural, economic and general sections of the newspaper.
Particularly as terrorist hazards loom whilst contradicting theories
of the P.M and the leading party divide the nation in critical
pre-election hysteria.

Despite claims to objectivity, most mainstream media groups are
politically aligned, either to political parties, governments or to
some broad ideological position, around which they fashion their
journalistic approach. This is very common not only in developing
countries, also in Western liberal democracies.

We are fortunate that we as Australians are privy to well-rounded
journalism. Within the one newspaper I can hear an array of voices,
teaching me how to think rather than what to think. The media has a
fundamental role in intellectual reproduction in society. In other
words, it helps to shape, pass on and facilitate ideas and views among
people in a trans-cultural and sometimes trans-political way. But
increasingly, this has been undermined by the media monopolies, which
control television channels, newspapers and even radio stations. This
has a number of effects.

Firstly, it effectively diminishes people’s choices in terms of what
they receive; secondly, it leads to intellectual hegemony, where the
media selectively determines what we should know and what we shouldn’t
know; thirdly, it helps to reinforce dominance of a particular
political viewpoint representing political hegemony, especially in a
world increasingly dominated by the US and its few allies.
We must remember that the media is not an autonomous, objective and
innocent entity with a ‘god’s eye view’ of the world. They do not
always have the interest of humanity at heart.

Rather, in many cases, it is a struggling human institution, driven
and molded by the need for economic survival, political patronage and
public legitimacy. Journalists find themselves caught between these
powerful political and economic imperatives and have to juggle, jinx,
goose-step and wriggle their way through these to survive, let alone
succeed, as journalists.

For economic survival, the media has to ’sell’ itself using various
techniques such as news sensationalism, advertisement, market
competitiveness and business stratification such as mergers and even
monopoly. But how these are carried out may sometimes be ethically
questionable.

The media industry may not alienate the poorer classes intentionally,
it is just the unfortunate fact that poorer classes are generally more
susceptible to being ‘brainwashed’ by media, rather than having a
critical opinion to see the bigger picture.

The Italian theorist, Antonio Gramsci believed that
wealthy upper class achieved its power over the working class by
achieving its always resistant and unstable consent, rather than by
illusion or deception. Whereas his contemporaries believed that the
media induced ‘false consciousness’ through diversion and
misinterpretation, so that the working class never realized the
historical destiny which Marx predicted for it. Gramscis theory wasn’t
as simple as popular thought, his significant reformation made the
ideological critique of the media more socially complex and
conceptually refined. Challenging media studies to consider his idea
of ‘hegemony’ and the many messages contained within media messages-
as distinct from one ideological meaning.

Through Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, Western Marxism was able to
incorporate other important European interpretative traditions into
the study of media, namely semiology and structuralism.

Semiology being the study of signs. Structuralism was a broad
intellectual movement, largely based in France which linked
psychoanalytic and anthropological theory and semiology which together
as one propelled what is sometimes called the ‘linguistic turn’ in
cultural theory.

‘This refers to a turn away from the more sociological and political
economy modes of analysis found in the Marxist tradition and towards
the study of media representatives as such.’

The mainstream media in Australia, especially the widely circulated
tabloids and broadsheets, do not really have any sharply distinctive
ideological voices. They tend to swing between ‘left’ and ‘right’
politics. Australian television stations are much more politically
critical and ‘progressive’ than their US counterparts. The
Government-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has been
labeled by John Howard supporters as ‘left-wing’, and in need of
reform. The debate between pro-Bush/pro-Iraqi war ‘right-wing’
journalists and anti-Bush/anti-war ‘left-wing’ journalists has been
raging in the television and print media in the last few months in an
exciting way.

Having spent time in the U.S, it is obvious their media industries are
by and large politically and intellectually narrow, compared to their
Australian counterparts. It’s a reflection of the ideological
straight-jacket and political myopia of the ‘American Way’ and
‘American Dream’ thinking, where everything starts and ends in
America. Television news and programs for instance are exclusively
American in focus and the rest of the world does not exist except if
their half-literate president is visiting another part of the world
which most Americans don’t even know exists, or if their military
heroes are out bombing and liberating a terrorist hideout in a
far-away desert land. Therefore media industries are able to exert
direct and indirect control over the thoughts and actions of its
audience, in this case- the American public. To put this theory into
current events we just have to look at the frenzy of war-mongering by
Bush and the willingness taken up by the mainstream media to help
ferment and inflame collective irrational hysteria and mob blood-lust,
the ideological and moral cornerstones of American patriotism. ‘Death
to the enemies of America’ became the daily sound byte. Anyone opposed
to the killing of Iraqis was declared un-American, evil or insane.

Media studies inform us how to look at media institutions with a
critical eye, always questioning the source and motivation behind the
text, in a hope we do not become vulnerable proletariats!

With the influx of ‘new’ media comes feelings of excitement, anxiety,
tension, fear and anger. It can be difficult for some to accept this
‘new media’ (the digital age), rather these people tend to grasp to
the past and regard change as the cause of all social ills, political
problems and social degeneracy. We must embrace change because we can
rarely prevent it, nevertheless it is vital keep a barrier, a sieve
surrounding our minds to ensure we are not brainwashed by the powerful
media industry. We must be savvy ‘media readers’, especially in the
times in which we live. If not we may become ‘cultural dupes’ as has
recently happened in regards to the Iraqi War; media mogul, Rupert
Murdoch used his media empire to mobilize US and world opinion towards
the Iraqi ‘war of liberation’. The media in the US became the
propaganda institutions for deception and lies about the Weapons of
Mass Destruction and other myths.

Mary Anne has been writing for custom essay writing service for 5 years.You can ask her about college esays or dissertation writing service.

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Perhaps no single human behavior is as universal as procrastination. Even the most productive among us occasionally fall prey to its grip. And there are few things that rob us of more joy, productivity, freedom and achievement than procrastination. My purpose today is not to discuss all the reasons we procrastinate, but to offer some simple but powerful techniques for breaking its hold on us. Perhaps as you read this, you’re procrastinating on writing a report, exercising, starting a project or cleaning off your desk. So, read on, and apply any or all of the steps listed below, and start making things happen.

1) Ask yourself which project, task or result will have the greatest payoff for you if you act on it now. Once you’ve decided on a focus, go to step 2.

2) Ask yourself what you could produce or complete in the next 5 minutes toward that project. Usually it’s a matter of taking one or two small steps that breaks the deadlock of procrastination.

3) Once you’ve identified those small steps, pick one and do it. Then do the next.

4) Stay focused on the results you’re aiming for. Most of us get derailed because we smother ourselves in the minute, forgetting to look up at the goal we were after in the first place. Especially if it’s a big project, keeping that vision in mind can be very motivating.

5) Keep a list of easy-to-do projects that will produce a quick, visible result. Sometimes we simply need the satisfaction of a small win to fuel us toward greater achievement.

6) Remember times when you broke through procrastination and even beat a deadline? A coaching client of mine recently completed two huge projects in a matter of days. Now when she gets mired in “I don’t know if I can do this,” thinking, I remind her of her recent accomplishment, and it sparks her motivation.

7) Stop worrying about whether you “feel” like it. As Shakespeare said, “our doubts are traitors.” Instead go back to steps 1 and 2 to decide what is most important, then act on it.

Celebrate your successes along the way. Did you complete a project this morning that you had to get done? Give yourself a small reward. The old saying “nothing succeeds like success” applies here. But usually we get so busy on the next task or project that we don’t stop to savor the satisfaction of our accomplishments.

9) Create a guideline to remind you. In the Best Year Yet program we create guidelines–standards of behavior–to guide us through the year ahead. A guideline that repeatedly shows up on my BYY plans is “Act on it now.”

10) Do something counter-intuitive. Need to break a mental block? Get up and do a few minutes of stretching or walk around the block. Trying to write and the well is dry? Get a paper and pen and simply write the first thing that pops into your head. Keep writing until words begin to flow again. Get laughing. Laughter has a way of clearing mental debris, and the endorphins released have a way of getting you in action. Sometimes the logical thing to do is the least logical. Give it a try.

As I often confess, these weekly messages are more for my benefit than anyone else’s. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m ready to tackle the rest of my to do list!!

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Quote of the Week
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“Procrastination is the fertilizer that makes difficulties grow.” ~~Unknown

Betty Mahalik has been coaching small business owners, independent professionals and leaders who want to achieve more but stress less, since 1996. Her background includes several years in the broadcasting and public relations fields prior to starting her own firm in 1987. She is an accomplished public speaker and corporate trainer specializing in communications, goal-setting and leveraging your strengths. Since 2001, she has written a weekly motivational message, free to subscribers, titled Monday Morning Coach.

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