March 19, 2021
With enormous respect for believers in Jesus Christ who follow the Roman Catholic faith, this next piece really upsets me.
The Diocese of Bismarck in North Dakota issued a statement March 2 saying the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was “morally compromised and therefore unacceptable” to be given or received by Catholics. The statement claims the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is unacceptable due to a cell line from an abortion being used in its production.
From all of my reading, I cannot find a statement from the Diocese which tells the whole story.
I turned to Dr. James Lawler, who, writing for Nebraska Medicine states “Johnson & Johnson uses fetal cell lines in vaccine development, confirmation and production. But it’s important to have the full context: Fetal cell lines are not the same as fetal tissue (emphasis mine). Fetal cell lines are cells that grow in a laboratory. They descend from cells taken from two elective abortions [in the early 1960s]. Those individual cells from [60 years ago] have since multiplied into many new cells over the past four or five decades, creating fetal cell lines. Current fetal cell lines are thousands of generations removed from the original fetal tissue. They do not contain any tissue from a fetus (emphasis mine).”
Let me rephrase that last sentence: they do not contain any tissue from the body of an aborted baby.
One more thing: fetal cell lines are used to make vaccines for rubella, chickenpox, shingles, hepatitis A, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, and one version of rabies vaccine.
👉 I know it’s not Christmas time, but now may be a good time for this panel:
👉 And two pieces that speak to current events:
👉 Phil Collins is a drummer, singer, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the drummer/singer of the rock band “Genesis” and for his solo career. Between 1982 and 1990, Collins achieved three UK and seven US number-one singles in his solo career. When his work with “Genesis,” his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totaled, he had more US top 40 singles than any other artist during the 1980s.
One of his most successful singles from the period is “In the Air Tonight,” and that brings me to the reason for feature. In QB 350 I showed you a clip of Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich playing drums on Sammy Davis, Jr.’s TV show, and remarked that they are probably the greatest drummers of all time. In response, one blog reader said I should take a look at Collins. So here (as in the picture) is Phil Collins and “In the Air Tonight.”
Oh, people ask what is the song about (some say it is about a man who watched another man drown and did nothing to save him, others say it is about Collins’ divorce) and Collins answers, “If you know, tell me. I don’t know what it’s about.”
👉 On March 19, 1975, Elvis Presley, with a $1,000 cash deposit against a sale price of $102,500, agreed to purchase a southern Colonial mansion on a 13.8-acre wooded estate, on the outskirts of Memphis. Officially, the home called Graceland was where Elvis, his parents and his grandmother Minnie Mae lived, but unofficially, it was also the home/hotel/clubhouse for the entire “Memphis Mafia” – the ever-changing cast of childhood and newfound friends who surrounded and often drew salaries from Elvis once he made the big time.
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| Elvis Presley with his girlfriend Yvonne Lime at Graceland around 1957. |
👉 Before we close, a schedule change. Last Saturday I said our next excursion would be to look at art and artists in three Caribbean museums, from my cruise talk, “Museum Mosaic.” Since this is women’s history month, I’m going to push that back and tomorrow share the story of 13 women who wanted to be included in NASA’s project Mercury, “The Mercury 13.”
👉 Voyager Piloted Home
Today we conclude our look at Psalm 107 and four unforgettable pictures of the changing circumstances of life. The human predicament lays hold on God. And God’s intervention leads to a thrilling call to praise: “Oh that men would praise the Lord for their goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!”
First, the pilgrim who can have God as a guide. Second, the prisoner God can set free. Third, the sufferer God can heal. And fourth, the voyager God pilots home.
The Voyager: “Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters” (107:23). On them the storm rises, until “they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end” (107:27).
This was another familiar picture to those who sang this song. Jews dreaded the sea, it was an insatiable monster devouring ships and men. Countless ships had sailed away from safe harbor and were never heard from again. So many voyagers had never reached safety.
And as with the other pictures, this is more than a simple tale of the sea, it is a story of life. It is a story of storms and waves and fear and lost hope. And what if life really is like all of those ships that have vanished in the uncertain mists and treacherous waters? What if this is all there is, and the story of “a land that is fairer than day” is just that, a beautiful story without any substance, without any truth?
But the psalmist declares once again, “Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distresses” (107:28). We are not lone voyagers on life’s ocean. We are voyagers whom God pilots home. “He brings them to their desired haven” (107:30).
James S. Stewart writes, “And that means the loved one to whom you said good bye on that darkest and loneliest of days that has left your life feeling blank and empty ever since. It will mean that you yourself one day, when the voyage ends; and there, waiting to welcome you as your ship draws in to land, that loved one of your own, waiting eager at the harbor mouth to be the first to hail you as your ship comes in, dear one you thought lost and now have found for ever!”
We know it is so because Jesus has told us, “If it were not so I would have told you” (John 14:2). Comforting his disciples he told them, “Because I live, you shall live also” (John 14:19). We need to take Jesus at his word. “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” (107:31)
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