From Woke Mob Member to Truth Seeker

On January 12, 2022, I received the following comment to my blog post “The January 6 Epiphany.”

“Are you from the woke mob? You probably support abortion in all ways and are a lost sheep. And if 91 million people voted this moron into office that shows how bad of shape our country is really in.”

Thank you, Truth Seeker, for reading my blog and commenting. I don’t know what “the woke mob” is, but I have been awake for ninety years, was born during the Great Depression, and can still remember all the sacrifices we made to win World War II. I am a US Marine Corps veteran who served during the Korean conflict. I was willing, and still am, to put my life on the line for you and your freedom to send me an accusatory, unkind email.

After the Marine Corps I went to seminary, became an Episcopal priest, and served as a missionary for many years. I have been married to the same wonderful woman for sixty years, and we have three grown daughters and four grandchildren. One of our daughters is multichallenged (deaf and legally blind).

We have traveled to some seventy different countries, five of which were communist and four were dictatorships. Many of the countries we visited were in the Third World, which has given us a touch of reality and more appreciation for this great country.

You are partly right about my stand on abortion. I am not for abortions, but I am for a woman’s right to make that decision. I wonder what you would do with twelve-year-old twins who were impregnated by their father or with a young woman with the mental age of five who was impregnated by a caregiver. I suspect you know what my decision would be in each of these cases.

“Liberty and justice for all,” for me, means that each woman has the right to decide what she is going to do with her body, which is none of my business. But I’ll make a deal with you: I’ll vote against abortion if you will vote for a law that demands the penis of every man who impregnated an unwilling woman is cut off. Deal?

I like President Biden. He’s a man of faith, highly respected around the world as well as by long-time members of Congress. He does not care if you are for or against him, but he wants to make sure that whoever you are you have a good education, healthcare, decent housing, and equal opportunity to be all you can be. Throughout my years I have appreciated and respected almost every president, regardless of which side of the aisle he is on. They have made great sacrifices to serve their country.

Again, you are so right: I am “a lost sheep.” For my whole life I have been looking for ways we can all respect each other even though we disagree. In the last five years, I have been terribly discouraged by unbending partisanship, a willingness to overthrow our delicate democracy, and a hatred of our fellow beings that we lost sheep have never experienced before.

I wonder, Truth Seeker, what your ideas might be as to how we can, once again, become the United States of America?

PeaceLoveJoyHope

Photo courtesy of William Murphy (CC BY-SA 2.0)