oh and uh can I get an AMEN?!

"The best way to protect our First Amendment rights is to use them without fear."-Father Frank Pavone

My friend Chelsea tweeted this during the NRL Convention and I just found the piece of paper I wrote it on. Serendipitous! Okay now back to work.

I went to the Capitol, y'all

Photo 1: This is when we discovered my camera was not, in fact, broken.
I had turned on a weird setting without knowing it and thought it was broken.
Missed out on a lot of great shots while my camera was being cray cray.

Photo 2: the amazing Chris Smith. Just wow.

Photo 3: Hey wassup, Speaker of the House?

Photo 4: Chelsea & me! Also, heels = always a bad idea.

nice poem

"If"

Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream – and not make dreams your master, If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!” If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Living by this wisdom is really difficult lately.

It's Not A Sprint

My first article as an HLI America Young Scholar:

When I joined the pro-life movement a few years ago as a high school senior, I thought the task at hand was clear, but daunting: overturn Roe v. Wade.  What I didn’t realize is that the movement to end abortion is just that – a movement, a shift, a gradual realignment of our society’s priorities.  This shift not only includes our laws, but the culture we live in – a culture that accepts and promotes acts of violence against the most vulnerable and innocent.  I quickly learned that overturning the unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling would not instantly create a life-respecting utopia where every child, planned or unplanned, would be seen as a blessing.  I realized that conquering the culture of death is not a sprint; it’s a marathon.

Continue reading here.

oh today

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

-Martin Luther King Jr