Really. Seriously.
I've been hearing stories lately that I'd like to share with you.
Last week, I had a lady tell me she stopped going to church after high school. She'd grown up in a local church (which shall remain unnamed, but Enid, this happened among you) and got shunned when she graduated high school three months pregnant. Instead of being concerned about her, supporting her decision to raise her child, and helping her get a start in life after doing something that made it all a little rougher, they threw her out. They raised her, and then when she didn't turn out the way they wanted her to, they threw her away.
Isn't that special? (Sorry, Dana Carvey) I wonder who thought this was a good idea? Could it be.... (you know you want to say it) Satan?
I told her I didn't think they sounded very nice and that I was sorry that happened to her. It probably didn't mean much coming from me, me not being one of the supposedly good Baptists who pushed her out into the world at a tender age in a vulnerable state, but I hope it helped. It was the same lovely congregation who keeps leaving tracts on our receptionist's desk for people to take. The scary kind I feel like I have to throw away because they're creepy.
You can't make people turn out the way you think they should. Life doesn't work that way.
I said something to a friend of mine yesterday when we were going out to pick up cans for the Horn of Plenty and I've been thinking about it ever since. "I wasn't raised to throw people away". I was talking about high school, and my best friend, and how she was afraid to come out to me. I hope I would have been nice, but I don't know. I hope I would have surprised her. I really wasn't raised to throw people or animals away. You just don't do that. People are too important to give up on. To put it the way my Dad did once when explaining why he kept and provided for some rather annoying large dogs *someone* left at their house, you owe something to a critter once you take it in.
Back to Kindergarten: Would you like that if someone did that to you? No? Don't do it!
This is the screaming parent/teacher/relative version of the golden rule. This is why when toddlers bite, parents sometimes out of frustration resort to biting back. Treat others the way you want to be treated. If you do something that horrifies your parents, even if they're the ones that are wrong about it, take their feelings into consideration. I'm not saying don't be yourself. I'm not saying to change who you are to fit their expectations. I'm saying that when you are evaluating their reaction to the situation you need to take into account that their point of view.
Take it into account, but don't assume it could never change. Love is a powerful thing.
So is conversation. Another lady, another day, this time with gentle teasing about husband being totally freaked out by my affection for our President. I mentioned (honestly) that I am terrified of all of the Republican candidates because of their extreme views and lamented that moderates seem to be in short supply. (I'm Episcopalian, an Anglo Catholic really, and to me, moderation is the only sane way to approach most things.) The subject turned to birth control and then to abortion and she told me that she remembered the days before Roe V Wade and she didn't think we needed to go back. She knew several girls who had gotten infections, had complications, and a few who had died from illegal abortions. I've heard about it, read books about it, and this woman had actually seen it.
It kind of brought it home to me why it's so important to keep the government out of my reproductive health choices. I think abortion is horrible (so does she), sad, and painful. I hope no one ever has to have one. I also think it should be legal and safe. I don't want the government between me and my doctor. I don't want my motives questioned if for some reason it becomes medically necessary to remove the products of conception after a miscarriage. I definitely don't think anyone should have to see an ultrasound of their dead baby before having it done.
Would you want someone to do that to you? Well, dear ones, that's what these laws some of you are trying to pass would do.
I'm also not trying to reward bad behavior (otherwise known as premarital high school sex) but don't you think that shunning incident I described above might be the kind of thing that might make a person really terrified to be pregnant?
I don't want you to think I take this lightly. God knows I don't. I'm still that woman who as a girl was adamantly opposed to baby killing in all forms. It's just that now I'm a woman who knows her government can't be trusted not to use torture so I definitely don't want to trust them with my reproductive health or anyone else's. Oh and life isn't always as simple as we want it to be. Good people do bad things. Bad people can do good things. People aren't just one or the other, but both. Life is complicated and we just don't know what some folks are going through. I think we need to trust them enough to make their own choices, though, and trust God enough to know that he will redeem those choices if they're not good ones.
By the way: I never, ever, ever, wanted to talk about this in public. Ever. I mean that.
Seriously.
But I wish someone had made me see some things a little sooner so I could avoid hurting the people I've hurt.
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