Joy in the Darkness
We live in a dramatic moment in history. This can be said for every generation as it faces its own unique challenges. However, this doesn't soften the blows we feel every time we open our laptops, turn on the news or witness the great suffering that surrounds us. It helps to focus on the good things in life.
This story is from 2020 and was reported in the Belfast Telegraph. It lifted my spirit when I read it.
A two-year-old boy with a cleft lip has become
the proud owner of a puppy with the same birth defect.
Bentley Boyers’ father came across the dog, named Lacey, when
he went to a shelter in search of chickens to add to the family’s small
collection of farmyard animals.
Ashley Boyers, Bentley’s mother, told PA: “He looked at the
puppies just because, and he called me on FaceTime and said ‘hey, I think this
puppy has a cleft lip’ so I looked at her and I said ‘you need to get her, we
need her’.
“So he ended up asking the ladies if she was up for adoption
and said ‘my son has a cleft lip, I wanna adopt it for him’, and they said
‘well I guess it was meant to be’.”
The family, from Michigan in the United States, brought Lacey
home from Jackson County Animal Shelter on Friday and Bentley quickly became
smitten.
Mrs Boyers, 22, said: “He was head over heels, he absolutely
loves this puppy.
“Lacey is his everything now.”
Bentley was born with a cleft lip and has so far had two surgeries to close the lip up, with another one due when he is older.
“As of right now he’s practically fine, he’s the happiest kid ever,” Mrs Bentley said. “He’s the most open, loving kid ever.”
And she believes the bond between the pair will become more important as Bentley grows older.
She said: “He pointed it out, he said ‘puppy’s got a booboo’ and I said ‘puppy has a booboo just like you used to’.
He said ‘puppy has booboo like me?’ and I said ‘yes’.
“So I think he’s starting to understand that him and the puppy have something in common because when he sees pictures of himself with a cleft lip he says ‘that’s Bentley with booboo’.
“I think it’s going to mean a lot to him.”
In 2021, there were forty abortions where the baby had cleft lip or cleft palate. Six of these were late-term abortions at 24 weeks and over.
Hopefully stories like Bentley and Lacey’s will show just how fulfilling life can be with their little differences.
Every boy should have a dog. I always did. As I get up there in years, I'm coming round to the opinion that every...ahem..."seasoned" man should have one, too. I was unaware Jack was a Van the Man fan. You are a person of erudition and taste.
ReplyDeleteSome of Van Morrison's served as an anchor for HJ during the craziness of the 1980s.
DeleteIn an interview with the Irish Times before his 70th birthday, Morrison said of religion:
"I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. In one of my songs I do now, 'politics and religion, superstition go hand in hand'. That's my take on it, but nobody knows that song, you know, because they don't play it on the radio. Spirituality is one thing, religion... can mean anything from soup to nuts, you know? But it generally means an organisation, so I don't really like to use the word, because that's what it really means. It really means this church or that church... but spirituality is different, because that's the individual."
Here's a good summary of his (apologies, Clive) journey:
https://suncoastvanfans.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-religious-beliefs-of-van-morrison.html
I suspect that's the most Van has ever said in a single calendar day.
DeleteYou are forgiven Jack 😜
ReplyDeleteI find those abortion statistics for such a minor condition both shocking and not shocking, and I don't know which is saddest.
ReplyDeleteThe Van Morrison quote is interesting, although I'd say it's spirituality than can mean anything. Religion is quite specific. I think it's true that religiosity has turned many away from the Church because they can't see (or we make it impossible for them to see) beyond that. St. Paul says that the letter kills but the Spirit brings life, and I wonder if our endless conflicts about the former threatens to snuff out the latter.
When I see people hunting through the ingredients list of their foods on fast days with a magnifying glass to ensure there's no egg hidden in it, or telling other people that they're hell bound because their baptism didn't use enough water, I do wonder who in their right mind would want to join a faith like that.
Yes I agree. Religiosity or being religious is a faith killer. I was asked a while ago whether I was religious. I said no not at all, but that I did have a faith.
DeleteWhen I see the abortion stats I think of the Roman attitude to deciding if a baby will be nurtured or exposed. Or the Spartan alleged attitude to infant imperfections and wonder in what way we as a society have progressed.
DeleteRoman society practices in this regard were widespread in the ancient world.
DeleteReasons:
- it allowed poor people to get rid of extra mouths to feed;
- children who were imperfect in some way; and
- children whose paternity was unclear or undesirable.
Roman women also employed contraceptives and received abortions too.
So, we're definitely moving back to pre-Christian practices. Indeed, we're worse as essentially we have abortion on demand with no reason other than "psychological distress" being required and there are alternatives available.
@Clive
DeleteI was asked a while ago whether I was religious. I said no not at all, but that I did have a faith.
Years ago I saw I somebody asked that question on television. Their answer: “Yes, I go to Mass religiously.” Or it may have been “I go to church religiously” — l don’t remember whether it was the Catholic or Protestant answer. In either case, I thought it was a good answer and one that I would use myself, if I was ever asked that question. But I never was.
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27).
DeleteI like James. It's only a short book but there's a lot of good stuff in it.
DeleteThe previous verse is relevant, too. 'Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.'
DeleteThe Greek word beneath 'religion' in v.27 is thréskeia, which Strong says has an 'underlying sense [of] reverence or worship of the gods', which is 'expressed in ritual acts'. There has to be, as Clive says, faith as a starting point for religious acts, or they're worthless. It's interesting that the English word 'religious' has popularly come to mean only the ritual side, particularly when it's devoid of faith. But then, this is basically the charge that Christ lays before the Pharisees.
The English word 'religion' only became associated with 'a particular belief system' in the 14th century. Before that, religioun mostly referred to a state of living bound by monastic vows or a state of piety and reverence.
The Latin religionem derives, according to Cicero, from relegere - to go through again (in reading or thought). St. Augustine and later writers believed it comes from religare, meaning 'to bind fast' - i.e., the obligation or bond between humans and gods. It's also possible that relegere stands in opposition to neglegere - negligence - since one who is religious is one who is not negligent in the observance of the rituals of his or her faith.
An interesting article for other language nerds: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087765?seq=1
Thank you, @Lain. That’s a good read. On the same website there’s this other article (link below) by the same author, discussing various theories about the origin of the Greek name “Red Sea”. The Hebrew name, in the author’s own translation, is “the Bulrushy Sea”.
DeleteI tried to find out more about the author, Sarah F. Hoyt, but she doesn’t seem to be listed anywhere. There’s a present-day writer of science fiction stories by the same name with a different middle initial, but no trace of an early twentieth-century academic at Johns Hopkins University. Do you know anything about her?
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087763?seq=1
@Ray
DeleteThere are many good responses to the question!
I just happen to dislike the idea of being thought of as religious.
@Ray - I did a little sleuthing. Sarah F. Hoyt appears in a 1911 issue of The Proceedings of the American Oriental Society as a 'corporate member'. The American Oriental Society was founded in 1842 to encourage 'basic research in the languages and literatures of the Near East and Asia and covers subjects such as philology, literary criticism, textual criticism, palaeography, epigraphy, linguistics, biography, archaeology, and the history of the intellectual and imaginative aspects of Eastern civilisations, especially of philosophy, religion, folklore and art.' It's America's oldest specialist learned society, and is still going: https://www.aos-site.org/
DeleteI found three articles by Miss Hoyt in the same journal: the two you listed and one on 'The Holy One in Ps 16, 10'. They're all published in 1912.
There's a photograph of her in John Hopkin's archives taken c.1915 at about 25 years old, which would put her date of birth as 1890ish (a contemporary of HJ's). It also gives her initial F. as Fenton.
https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/items/9e9f8224-885b-4c83-a4f8-86961d496575
Searching on her full name and that rough date of birth, I found a burial in Pulaski Village Cemetery, Oswego County, New York, for a Sarah Fenton Hoyt, b. 4 Mar 1885, d. 18 Jul 1955. It links to an obituary from The Pulaski Democrat, July 28, 1955. (I think they mistakenly call funeral rites the last rites here):
Last rites for Sarah Fenton Hoyt, 70, who died in New York City July 18, were conducted at the Methodist Church Monday at 2 p.m. by the Rev. James N. Pauley. Interment was in Pulaski Cemetery in the family plot. She had been in ill health for several years. Surviving is a sister, Miss Jessie Hoyt of New York.
Miss Hoyt was born March 4, 1885, in New York, the daughter of James and Emily Fenton Hoyt. She was educated in the schools of New York and attended Barnard College, Columbia University and John Hopkins University.
For many years Miss Hoyt, her sister and mother spent their summers in Pulaski until the death of their mother in 1948.
Since that time the sisters have visited Pulaski less frequently.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/86820824/sarah-fenton-hoyt
Someone has researched the family tree:
https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LZSQ-D9J/sarah-fenton-hoyt-1885-1955
If this is correct, her grandfather was the amazingly named Rev Zerah Taylor Hoyt, who was a Presbyterian minister. He was sent out preaching, but returned home when his wife became (home)sick. His obit is here:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20064028/zerah-taylor-hoyt
It sounds as if Sarah never married. Hoyt is apparently an Old English surname dating from the 7th century, originally hiehthu from heah meaning high - one who lives on a high place. I wonder what became of her writing after 1912.