Yesterday I got involved in the hornets nest that is
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.
Oh, sister, you are not sinless and yet your hands are full of stones.
