The radical right to life movement. When they failed to counter my words with threats or condemnations – they blocked my comments. So here it is -
Open letter to Jill Stanek
Carla and all the other angry women of the radical right:
The other day I took the van to the doctor’s office. I am in a wheelchair and the city provides van service for those of us who can’t ride the bus. On this particular day the driver was overtly hostile and abusive. I told him that his behavior was unacceptable. Actually I was much more vocal than that. He was being a bully and I was “speaking out for all those disabled people who can not speak for themselves.” Or so I thought.
Later, as I was waiting for my ride home, I saw a young woman with a baby sitting on the side walk. She looked a little scared. I rode up in my chair and stopped to talk a bit. Normally I’m not terribly extroverted – but young women with babies’ kind of pull at my heartstrings. I asked why she was sitting on the sidewalk. She was waiting for a ride too. As we spoke I saw the tension relax and she started to smile as she spoke proudly of her baby.
When I got home, the first thing I did was report the driver. Not happy with a simple complaint, I asked for his supervisor. I was so insistent that they told me he would be given an official reprimand and put on disciplinary probation. I hung up the phone feeling like a superhero. I had vanquished the villain and comforted the children. Yea me.
Then I said a little prayer to let God know how wonderful I was (just in case he wasn’t watching). I was only three seconds into the prayer when it hit me like a lightening bolt.
When my kids were little and they’d get into those stupid never-ending arguments, I used to say, “Do you want to win the argument or solve the problem because you can’t do both.”
As I was praying, I realized that I had won the argument but I had not solved the problem. In fact, I probably made it worse. I remembered the words of Mother Teresa, who said, as she worked with the poorest of the poor in India, that she saw only the face of Jesus. I realized that both those people, the angry man and the frightened mother, were the face of Jesus.
Without knowing anything about him, I had demonized the driver. He could have been a man with a spotless employment record who was dealing with unbearable back pain form a recent accident where he saved the lives of several disabled people. He could have just received the news that is son was killed in Afghanistan, or that his wife was diagnosed with cancer. I didn’t know and I didn’t care to know. I had found a target for my anger and I took aim. My only concern was proving I was right.
He was hostile but my attitude only fueled his anger. If I had been righteous and not self-righteous I would have known that. If I had been listening to God, instead of my own need for validation, then I would have seen him as another child of God in pain. Just as much pain as the young woman.
You have done the same. You intruded uninvited into a conversation about facts. In your quest to deny a young woman facts, you demonized another young woman, without bothering to try to understand her pain. No wonder she had turned her back to you. Your demonizing of her plight is ghastly. Your targeting her should be criminal.
What if I took that name of someone on your blog, and made them a target? I can post there name, investigate them, post a photo, incite people to fill there hearts with hatred and send them hate mail. What if some crazy person decided to do them harm? Am I to blame? At least take down the picture. Your need to target others says more about you than your pro-forced childbirth stance.
The name of Christ is antithetical here.
This is not the way to solve the problem. It’s a way to punish someone else for your sins. When you say you will pray for someone, you only mean you will pray that they find out that you are right.
Later, as I was waiting for my ride home, I saw a young woman with a baby sitting on the side walk. She looked a little scared. I rode up in my chair and stopped to talk a bit. Normally I’m not terribly extroverted – but young women with babies’ kind of pull at my heartstrings. I asked why she was sitting on the sidewalk. She was waiting for a ride too. As we spoke I saw the tension relax and she started to smile as she spoke proudly of her baby.
When I got home, the first thing I did was report the driver. Not happy with a simple complaint, I asked for his supervisor. I was so insistent that they told me he would be given an official reprimand and put on disciplinary probation. I hung up the phone feeling like a superhero. I had vanquished the villain and comforted the children. Yea me.
Then I said a little prayer to let God know how wonderful I was (just in case he wasn’t watching). I was only three seconds into the prayer when it hit me like a lightening bolt.
When my kids were little and they’d get into those stupid never-ending arguments, I used to say, “Do you want to win the argument or solve the problem because you can’t do both.”
As I was praying, I realized that I had won the argument but I had not solved the problem. In fact, I probably made it worse. I remembered the words of Mother Teresa, who said, as she worked with the poorest of the poor in India, that she saw only the face of Jesus. I realized that both those people, the angry man and the frightened mother, were the face of Jesus.
Without knowing anything about him, I had demonized the driver. He could have been a man with a spotless employment record who was dealing with unbearable back pain form a recent accident where he saved the lives of several disabled people. He could have just received the news that is son was killed in Afghanistan, or that his wife was diagnosed with cancer. I didn’t know and I didn’t care to know. I had found a target for my anger and I took aim. My only concern was proving I was right.
He was hostile but my attitude only fueled his anger. If I had been righteous and not self-righteous I would have known that. If I had been listening to God, instead of my own need for validation, then I would have seen him as another child of God in pain. Just as much pain as the young woman.
You have done the same. You intruded uninvited into a conversation about facts. In your quest to deny a young woman facts, you demonized another young woman, without bothering to try to understand her pain. No wonder she had turned her back to you. Your demonizing of her plight is ghastly. Your targeting her should be criminal.
What if I took that name of someone on your blog, and made them a target? I can post there name, investigate them, post a photo, incite people to fill there hearts with hatred and send them hate mail. What if some crazy person decided to do them harm? Am I to blame? At least take down the picture. Your need to target others says more about you than your pro-forced childbirth stance.
The name of Christ is antithetical here.
This is not the way to solve the problem. It’s a way to punish someone else for your sins. When you say you will pray for someone, you only mean you will pray that they find out that you are right.
Oh, sister, you are not sinless and yet your hands are full of stones.
8 comments:
Sharon, you misunderstand the entire post that Jill wrote- she did not demonize the girl contemplating abortion. She was writing about how the girl was being encouraged to abort when asked for advice about abortion, and about how on that blog, anything which would have encouraged the girl NOT to abort was censored...so she gave people on her blog the opportunity to respond with some help from the other perspective, without censorship.
You were allowed to post there as well without censorship, although you have accused us of censoring you.
You have also assumed wrongly that the Carla you posted a picture of is the woman who was the nurse for Terri Schiavo- she is not.
You have the wrong Carla. The picture you posted is that of my wife Carla Stream.
Remove her picture immediately. You have the wrong person and you are committing slander and defamation of character if you continue.
Dear Ms. Sharon,
You are still misrepresenting my wife (Carla Stream) by having her picture on your blog with related links to news stories about the nurse involved in the Schiavo case (Carla Sauer Iyer.)
As I warned yesterday, you are committing blatant slander and defamation of character. This is my second attempt at persuading you to remove my wife's picture from your blog.
I request of you, one last time, to remove the picture of Carla Stream from your blog. I expect you to comply with my request by 4:00 p.m. CDT today. If not, you leave me with another choice of initiating legal action against you in order to persuade you that you are misrepresenting my wife. Please comply. Thank you.
I'm talking about posting the picture of Red Queen. You behave like the women who attacked me in the parking lot of the clinic and beat me with pamphlets (the same pamphlets were on the counter of the clinic).
The young woman did not ask for you opinion and for all you know she already has that information. You are demonizing Red Queen, posting her picture and making her a target (you already managed to get rid of Dr Tiller) because she answered a question posed to her.
THAT IT MY COMPLAINT. YOU PILLORY PEOPLE WHO DO NOT SHARE YOU RADICIAL VIEWS.
Sharon,
When are you going to remove the picture of my wife from your blog? Please explain why it is still on your blog.
Please don't give your previous answer, that you will when the picture is removed from Jill Stanek's blog. Your issue is with Jill Stanek, not my wife. My wife has done nothing to you yet you are holding her picture hostage because of something on Jill's blog.
You are flat out misrepresenting my wife. I have sought legal advice and we have enough of a complaint to legally ask you to remove her picture. Before opening that door I would like you ask again, that you take up your issue with Jill Stanek and remove Carla's picture from your blog.
Your wife moderates that blog for Jill. I would be willing to bet that if she wanted, she could convince Jill to stop posting pictures of people to "target" How many people with you silence with bullets before you take the pictures down?
I have asked you repeated to take down the picture of Red Queen. If legal action was possible, then perhaps Dr. Tiller would be alive.
At least no one ever pictured on my blog has been the subject of death threats.
You are disgusting. What a mean person you are. God help your hard-heartedness and smallness of spirit. Take that man's wife's picture off your blog, you hypocrite!
All I did was hold up the mirror. If you saw hard hearted hypocrites, it was because you were seeing Carla, Jill and yourself without the veil of self delusion.
Take the stone from your own eys little sister before you use God's name to damn me.
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