Father's Day. Yay. I have five kids so I should be having breakfast served to me while I languish in bed, enjoying their acknowledgement of my awesome Dad-ness, and rejoicing as my precious children ask what they can do for their wonderful father. Y'know, dream stuff. But none of that is happening today. None of it would've anyway but it especially can't today because I'm away for Father's Day.

I feel bad about it. But I think it's the right decision. I'm attending Notre Dame's Vita Institute by the Center for Ethics and Culture. This is my first time leaving the kids for a few days. It's hard. There were tears and gnashing of teeth from the little ones. Loooooong hugs. I felt terrible. It's no use explaining to kids that you're leaving your kids to promote a culture of life. Kids don't really do irony.

So my wife and kids rushed me to the airport so that my plane could be delayed. For an hour. So I languished in an uncomfortable seat had an egg sandwich which was the hottest thing on the planet. It was seriously like egg flavored fire. And then I watched the news and read a newspaper. Spoiler alert: None of the news was good.

A terrible shooting from a racist nutjob. The U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, seems quite ready to codify gay marriage as the law of the land, religious freedom is under attack, and Christians are being killed, imprisoned, and torn from their homeland throughout the world for the crime of being Christian.

Nice mood setter.

After a connection in Detroit (also delayed) I showed up at the conference. Late. Everyone was sitting in this really nice stadium seating classroom and I barge in all sweaty with my suitcase in tow looking like I'm on the run.

When I sat down I looked around the room at the few dozen others in the classroom who are all pro-life leaders from around the country and the world. These are the people arguing with legislators. These are the people who are counseling women, protecting life. These are the people who are on the front line of the culture war. I'm just a blogger. These folks are discussing legal cases and embryology and I'm still trying to figure out how to save a document on Wordpress. I felt a little embarrassed about all that (but it didn't stop me from partaking in the M&M cookies during the intermission. Oh and watch out for the things that look like chocolate chip cookies. They're actually raisins. I know, right?)

So now I'm in a dark mood from the day's news, the raisin cookie debacle, and I'm embarrassed about my profession and I start listening to the brilliant Professor O. Carter Snead essentially give a one hour dissertation on the darkening and advancing clouds of Mordor also known as abortion jurisprudence. He goes into details about the legal absurdity of Roe v. Wade, the horror of Doe v. Bolton, the heel-on-the-throat decision of Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. He explains in gory detail how every court case seeking to restrict abortion eventually fails due to a requirement to allow for the "health" of the mother which is defined by...the abortionist. And oh yeah, the media and the vast majority of academia are aligned against us as well.

It's really depressing when someone who's smarter than you and knows a lot more than you says things are actually a little worse than you thought. But in the end, Snead reminded us that there is hope.

And I know there is. And that hope is Christ. And us. And organizations like the Center for Ethics and Culture which proclaims loudly that the truth that the Church affirms about the human person is the foundation for freedom, justice, and human dignity. And there is hope because there are people out there counseling women, praying for the future, and lobbying legislators. And they're attending conferences like this one because they want to do it better. It's a pretty inspiring thought.

Throughout the conference we'll be learning every argument about abortion there is and it will prepare us better to go out into the world, reinvigorated for the uphill climb that awaits us on issues such as abortion, end of life decisions, eugenics, euthanasia, and cloning among other things. But we're Christians and we understand that  nobody gets to carry their cross downhill. It's always uphill.

After last night's session ended I went back to my dorm room and instead of touring the campus, I face-timed my kids. They passed the phone around told me that they loved me but they couldn't believe I fell for the raisins in the cookie trick. They all wished me a happy Father's Day and told me they loved me again.

And I couldn't help but think that there is hope. We are a hopeful people, us Christians. Because the results don't depend solely on us. We do what we can. We run our race to the best of our ability. But the world's finish line is not ours.

I'm hopeful that all these amazing people who I'm meeting at this conference are out there working to protect life. They are running their race. And if the only thing this dopey blogger can do is tell you that there are amazing people out there doing wonderful work then maybe that's my role.

And I'm hopeful because I have five kids at home who know that their father is committed to life, who march with him every year, and will one day work to promote the precious idea that every life is sacred because we are all touched by God.

So have a happy and hopeful Father's Day from this dopey blogger at the Vita Institute.