January 2011

The good note in the beginning of that week was that, again, on Saturday morning American
Family Planning was closed.  Accordingly, four of us left AFP at about 8:30 and drove across
town to Summit.  We called ahead to tell the Summit sidewalk counselors that we were coming;
but we made it clear, in order to avoid confusion of roles,  that we would be there strictly for
prayer support.  However, we had barely arrived and begun a rosary when the Guadalupe phone
rang.  Alicia answered, had a brief conversation,  then told me we had to go.  Someone there at
the abortuary, who had decided not to go in, wanted to meet with us.  Alicia suggested the
McDonalds a few blocks away, where we then headed.

It was one of those cheerful McDonalds with the bullet-proof shield running the length of the
counter.  We sat and waited, and waited.  They never showed.  We went back to Summit, then,
where we found a scene of confusion.  As the story gradually unfolded, a granddaughter being
taken in for an abortion by her grandparents had actually resisted them just before walking
through the front door.  Her grandmother, in response, had lifted a large purse and knocked her
granddaughter to the sidewalk.  When the sidewalk counselors, for her protection, surrounded the
granddaughter, the grandparents reacted with curses and threats.  The grandfather, with a
twisted turn of thought, advanced on Patrick and accused him of having sold his people into
slavery.  Stated in a normal tone of voice, it would have been somewhat comic.  The
grandfather’s face, though, was distorted by rage.  When Patrick calmly responded that he hadn’t
been there, the grandfather yelled, “You’re white!  You did it!”

The abortuary’s “counselor” came out and took the granddaughter into her protection—more or
less guaranteeing the death of the baby.  Police came too, two squad cars, but did nothing.  On
Monday of the new week we were encouraged when the mystery couple who on Saturday had
called us from Summit called again.  We again agreed to meet, on the following day, at the same

My last letter, featuring Abraham and his challenge to count the stars, was a hint at the fun I am having in teaching a scripture course to my SSA students.  In the past few weeks, since the October letter, the class has moved through the rest of Genesis and is now well into Exodus; and though I rarely comment to them about what I do outside of the classroom, my own thoughts often see the parallels.  One of the scriptural themes that keeps appearing is the limits and flaws of human intelligence.  Right from the get-go, in Genesis, human intelligence goes wrong when Adam and Eve partake from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in an effort to be like God.  But they—and even we the readers–have already forgotten that they already were like God, made in His image and likeness. Their minds saw a problem that didn’t exist.  Abram does the same thing when he goes down into Egypt and has Sar’ai pose as a single woman so that the Egyptians will deal kindly with him.  After Pharaoh learns that he has taken a married woman into his house, he does rebuke Abram, but then returns to him his wife and loads him down with many gifts.  So where’s the guy who caused so much fear in Abram?

The story of Joseph gives further illustration of these matters.  The dream of the sheaves tells Joseph that he will in some way become master over his entire family, including his father and mother.  Why then does he so contentedly enter into the work of his slavery?  And why, as a way of getting on in the world, is he not willing to “lie with” Potiphar’s wife–just as Abram was willing for Sarai to lie with Pharaoh; and Lot was willing to have his daughters lie with the attackers of his house; and as his daughters later were willing to lie with Lot; and as Tamar was willing to lie with her own father-in-law– all for the sake of getting on in the world?  We know, of course, that these stories illustrate man’s ultimate infidelity to God and his insistence on effecting resolutions according to the terms of his own, faulty intellect.

The beauty of innocence, however, is in its willingness to obey.  The innocent have a clear vision of heaven and earth.  God is Father; he shepherds His people; and there is no greater joy than in simply obeying His word.  And speaking of the innocent, it’s time to tell you of a miraculous event which flowed from the innocence of some of the SSA students.  At the beginning of the 40 Days for Life campaign, I asked the students to spiritually adopt a child in danger of abortion; and every day after Mass the children recited the prayer of spiritual adoption, while many even wore the spiritual adoption bracelet.  But I also asked the older students to write a letter to a mother considering abortion; and I promised that I would put each letter into one of the envelopes that the Guadalupe Partners hand out on the sidewalks in front of the abortuaries.

And so it came to pass that on one Saturday morning a car pulled up to the curb in front of Summit abortuary on Detroit’s west side.  The driver of the car, a woman, got out and entered the building.  A sidewalk counselor, Michelle, approached and spoke extensively with a woman in the back seat.  That woman eventually agreed to go into the building and bring out the first woman.  Then, after a few minutes, to everyone’s surprise, a third woman climbed out of the back seat and also entered the abortuary. Very curious about why she had failed to see the third woman, sidewalk counselor Alicia approached the car and stared through one of the back windows.  On the back seat she saw an open sheet of paper with hand-written script.  Because the paper had once been folded, the top third of the sheet was still slightly bent over, so that Alicia was unable to see the page’s full contents.  On the bottom part of the sheet, however, she clearly noted a reference to Saint Michael the Archangel.

A young student had heard a teacher’s request, had written a letter to the best of his or her ability, had delivered it to the teacher, and from that point on—under usual circumstances—would have heard nothing more about it.  The student didn’t tie himself up with theoretical difficulties and calculations of odds.  The student didn’t ask whether the teacher would really keep his promise; whether anyone would actually read the letter; whether an abortion-bound 

woman would give serious consideration to a grade school student’s hand-written letter.  But God set up very unusual circumstances to bring the letter back to light.  Not only did someone who knew what the letter was see it, but she also saw the fruit of the letter; for, after the third woman went inside the abortion mill, all three came out, spoke briefly to sidewalk counselors, then left.  Only then did sidewalk counselors understand that the second woman, the one who had promised to go in for the first one, herself had an abortion appointment that day.  In the end, one letter saved four people: two mothers,  two babies.

If the rest of us could just put aside our fears and do what should be done! Our human calculations, though, get in the way of our freedom.  There are so many reasons why we shouldn’t go out on the sidewalk, so many reasons we shouldn’t approach the Pharaoh of the abortion industry:  “I’m not eloquent, Lord! Get someone else to do it!” I may be wrong, but it seems that after the Lord compromised with Moses’s complaints by agreeing to send Aaron as spokesperson, Moses ended up doing most of the talking.  Alicia herself tells the story of how she hid next to a Little Caesar’s one of the first times she went out to an abortion mill.  But for several years now she has been Guadalupe Partners’ number one sidewalk counselor.

Several mothers have turned away recently from the Summit abortuary.  As always, we will need your help in assisting with the needs of these mothers.  We are also looking for volunteers to be specially present at Summit on Fridays.  Summit abortuary does 2^nd trimester abortions, a two day procedure, and begins the procedure on Fridays.  Apparently, the abortionist also injects the mother’s womb to kill the child on the first day of the procedure.  In the past, we have succeeded in having laminaria removed and the child rescued on Saturdays, the second day of the procedure. However, the new practice of this injection takes away that possibility.  If we can be there on Fridays, we can speak to mothers whose children are older—not more valuable—and who have more awareness of the reality of the child.

As for American Family Planning, the abortionist has been absent.  A substitute abortionist has shown up during the week (twice, I believe), but the mill has been closed the last two weekends. Please, please pray for the conversion of this abortionist, and pray that his business will soon close!

God bless,

Edmund Miller

The Catholic Mass often remembers Abraham as “our father in faith”—which is true, but maybe we’d have more appreciation for this truth if we remembered how long it took him to become this father.  Almost from the moment of his call, Abraham manifests an imperfect obedience, an obedience touched with anxiety.  Even though God told him to leave behind his “kindred,” Abraham takes with him his nephew, Lot.  Why?  At that point in his life, Abraham had no heir, and no doubt he took along his nephew as a security measure, someone to whom he could pass along the wealth of his life if he were to die without a direct descendant.  Because he has not fully obeyed the command of God, things go wrong for Abraham from the start, and he is forced to run down into Egypt in order to escape famine.  Here, too, Abraham’s actions are clouded with anxiety; afraid that the Egyptians will harm him, he allows his own wife, Sarah, to be taken into the house of Pharaoh so that things “might go well” with him.  Later, in a moment reminiscent of Genesis 3, Sarah offers Abraham a forbidden fruit, the embrace of her own maid Hagar, so that Abraham might have an heir. Abraham yields, in Genesis 16, to this tempting offer even though God, in Genesis 15, had made a solemn covenant with Abraham, promising to him and to his descendants “this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.”

I think my favorite part in this whole drama is when God takes Abraham outside and tells him to “look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.  Just so…shall your descendants be.”  That’s quite a hefty promise, we think, and then we move on with our reading—failing to notice, as we do so, that the sun doesn’t even set for another 12 verses.  So that’s why God added that little modifying clause, “if you can.”  Abraham, as a mortal man constricted to the present moment, on his own could not have counted even the first descendant.  After all, man’s vision of the present moment is hampered by ignorance, prejudice, and his own conceit; how, then, could he be expected to see even five minutes into the future? God, however, who sits above time and creation, can see it all.  He sees the stars; He sees our past and future; He sees beginning and end. The lesson for Abraham, then, isn’t “Relax, you’re going to have plenty of descendants.”  The lesson is, “Stop resorting to your own calculations and your own machinations. I the Lord am in charge.  Trust me.”

Certainly, in doing the work of sidewalk counseling in Detroit, I go through many times of Abrahamish anxiety.  Times when I see that the work isn’t going as I intended for it to go—not in terms of methods, or results, or of scheduling.  This is the way it’s supposed to work: the Guadalupe Partners show up at the abortion mill just as the appointments begin to arrive.  With crisp, fluent prose and reassuring smiles, the Partners engage in intense dialogue with a well-intentioned but tragically misled young lady.  The young lady is convinced by the crisp, fluent prose of the Partners.  She goes home, where she is visited by the Partners later that same day.  Together, they formulate a plan which guides the woman safely through her crisis.  She and her baby then live happily ever after.  

Actually, it sort of does work this way sometimes; but such encounters never were often, and they’re becoming rarer.  This doesn’t mean that we don’t have turn-aways anymore—we do—but there’s almost no pattern to them.  Which is where my Abrahamish frustration comes in.  I want to devise methods to suit the patterns found at the abortuaries; yet when there are no patterns, it’s hard to find a method.  For example: years ago, when we sidewalk counseled in Ann Arbor, we employed a summary sheet detailing the law suits filed against the abortionist there.  It was very effective.  We tried the same method in Dearborn.  It didn’t work at all.  Then we began offering assistance and free ultrasounds; and during one summer, almost every week we were taking someone for an ultrasound.  Now, it’s perhaps once every three months that we 

schedule an ultrasound.  Over at the Summit abortuary, where we began sidewalk counseling about two years ago, originally the appointments there were open to receiving our envelope.  Now, increasingly they decline. (“I’m good,” seems to be the standard response.)

So, God, what works?  What method do you want us to use? Should we hand out rosaries?  Should we use graphic images?  Should we go during times of the day when they are not doing abortions? More aggressive?  Less?  What?

God: Edmund, look up at the sky and number the stars, if you can.  Just so shall be the number of children rescued from abortion.

Edmund: Well, it’s 5:21 and still plenty of daylight.  I can’t count a single star.

God: I know that, you ninny.  But I can.  As for you, don’t worry about numbers.  Be patient. Be faithful.  So you don’t have as many turn-always as you used to have at American Family Planning. Do you think it’s all up to you? You’re only one small cog in the work that I am doing. Haven’t you noticed that their business is down to about a third of what it was a few years ago?

Edmund: Yeah, I have noticed that.  Psychologically, though, it’s just not as satisfying as having that dramatic encounter and turn-around right there at the door of the abortuary.

God: Oh, shut up.

Edmund: All right. 

Meanwhile, our relationships continue with the women turned away from the abortion mills.  One mother, who suffers from clinical depression and, at the same time, supports a household of 11, was almost $3,000 in arrears to DTE.  We helped cover what state aid wouldn’t.  Regularly, we help the mothers with diapers, groceries, furniture and appliances.  Most of these mothers have no committed men in their lives and can expect very little help from extended family.

God bless,

Edmund Miller