What effect does a 40 Days for Life Campaign have?
My answer is a rather roundabout one, and it is threefold; a
bus ride, two pairs of skates, and a notebook!
***
I think
we were going home from a party – but I’m not sure, it was when I was such a
young child that it merges with other memories from around the same time. All I
know is that myself and Isaac ended up on the longest bus ride of our lives,
going to my house. It was one of those charming single-decker buses that are
going out of fashion now. It took a very peculiar route, because it should have
been a journey that took at most half an hour, if one went in a fairly straight
line from there to our home, but this bus route had clearly not been designed
with a ruler in mind, or direct connection of locations as a priority. It
meandered down back streets, the little nowhere neighbourhoods that fill the
gaps between the major places-to-be in London, and did not appear to care when
it finished its journey. Another thing that may have a made it feel so long was
that we were sitting down together, but were unable to play. At the age of four
or five, vocabulary is thin and there is not enough of it to fill an hour or
two with conversation.
What I do know is the freedom that we received upon getting
off the bus filled us with a joy that arriving at home does not normally cause,
and at last our inability to play much on the bus and the silence that had
resulted was replaced by wildly energetic rampaging in our back garden. The
longer the wait, the more the light at the end of the tunnel is appreciated.
***
Slicing through the thick, glassy
mass of frozen water, also known as a skating rink, I proudly surveyed my
success in my newly discovered hobby. There were definitely skaters on the rink
who were worse than me. I had barely fallen over once. Well, maybe once. Not
more than that, anyway. Another friend had joined me – let’s call him Ben – and
he had fallen over a lot more than me. That may have possibly been because I
stayed very close to the edge and had my hand out, ready to grab the handrails
if a tumble seemed likely. Ben, on the other hand, went for a bolder style of
skating, impetuously going out into the middle and falling over a lot, of
course, but learning from his mistakes. I’m not sure who was the better skater
in the end. Perhaps there is something to be said for both points of view. My
mother still laughs at the video of me falling over that one time.
***
When you are around the age of
seven, there are few gifts more exciting (in my opinion) than a notebook that
has never been used. There is endless potential for filling the notebook, and
even the thought of it, and the plans you can make of what to put on the pages,
are enough to fill many happy hours. This was what happened to Colette, a
friend of mine, when we were both staying in the same house. We created worlds
together. Colette – being the younger by some years -would dictate her stories
to me, and I would write them down on the left-hand pages of her notebook. The
right-hand side was kept for all of the brightly coloured pictures of the
characters that the pair of us would draw, long before the page of writing that
was meant to accompany each one was finished. Our story’s plot may not have
been the most logical, nor the deepest, but it had its good points: A pleasant
enough family came into difficulties when discovering a poorer family, and one
of the older girls made up her mind to help them. Perhaps it was a
stereotypical plot, but to us it felt like the most original story written
since the early days of literature. It provided more than enough entertainment
for many a rainy afternoon (and one particular occasion when Colette had a
minor accident and couldn’t run around too much) and deepened our friendship
through our shared creative experience.
***
What
does all this have to do with a 40 Days for Life vigil? Well, quite simply, it
was prayer vigils like 40 Days coupled with the work of the
GoodCounselNetwork.com that caused these events to happen. If history was
re-written, if no-one had ever gone and prayed outside an abortion centre, what
difference would it make? Now this is a question that is very easy to answer:
There
would have been no little boy named Isaac on the bus that day ten or twelve
years ago; that pair of skates Ben was wearing as he fell over so many times
would have been empty; and the pages in Colette’s notebook would all be blank,
untouched, devoid of the colourful lives of the characters she invented to fill
them with,
– because none of them would have lived to do any of those things.
All three of those friends – Isaac, Ben, and Colette – were
the children of women who turned around at the gates of the abortion centre thanks
to vigils just like 40 Days for Life and received help and support from Good
Counsel. They chose life for their baby, some of them in very difficult
situations, which took a lot of courage. They were, however, provided with
genuine help and support (Have a look at Good Counsel’s blue leaflets at the
vigils for just a small example of the help we give!) that made a reality of
what had seemed impossible – motherhood.
Maybe
you’ve never been to a 40 Days for Life before, maybe you’re a regular
volunteer, maybe you used to come but times have changed and something’s
holding you back from returning. Whoever you are, it can be very easy to wonder
why we should bother to keep on running 40 Days for Life every year no matter
what, especially with the news for pro-lifers so decidedly disheartening right
now. Is praying on a street corner, 150 metres away from an abortion centre any
use? Of course it is! We have to do the best we can do to save lives, and if
150 metres away is the closest we can get, that is the best we can do. If Ben,
Isaac, and Colette were the only children to be saved by all these years of
pro-life vigils in England, Wales, and elsewhere, wouldn’t it still be worth
it? Isn’t that hour of public prayer, as little as once a week or as often as
thrice a day, worth it once you think about every little moment, like the three
I’ve recorded here, that will make up a tiny part of a whole life, thanks to
your witness? Isn’t every little snapshot of life, every little scene that make
up the drama of human life, infinitely precious? It is for me.
That is
the effect of a 40 Days Vigil; a bus ride, two pairs of skates, and a notebook.
Nathanael
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The Prayer Vigil in Brixton will run for 12 hours a day, 8am to 8pm, seven days a week from Ash Wednesday until Palm Sunday. If you could spare an hour or more to come and pray with us, it would be of great help. The vigil takes place at the corner of Brixton Water Lane, London, SW2 5BJ. For more details or to book to attend please contact Gabriella on 07745711064 or 02077231740
For details about 40 Days for Life Prayer Vigils in Reading, Ealing, Southend, Liverpool, Nottingham, Glasgow, Leicester, Bournemouth and Sheffield see here and for the rest of the World see here
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