Perhaps on Thursday when the re-org was announced at work. Now, I'm not affected. But, about 1/5 of the Vice-Presidents at work used to be women. Now, 1/7th are women. And I don't believe that places of employment should be have an equal balance of gender, but I think it should be somewhat closer to equal. Women matter in the workplace.
Perhaps it was a discussion on "reproductive rights" that made me feel like a murderer, who killed Gabriel. And a woman who suggested that she doesn't particularly believe that pregnancy can be fatal. Words saying "how often is it *really* fatal". But, I wasn't supposed to take offence, because she was sure that I had made the right decision. She was just presenting factual information. Factual information that wasn't based on facts. It was based on a few experiences of hers. And experiences are not facts. She figures I should have just had faith, and everything would have been ok. You know, do something totally different than what I did. But, I'm not supposed to be offended at her suggestion that if I had followed her suggestion I'd have my son, and be a better Christian.
And I was left conflicted, and hurt and very, very angry. And wondering, are there really doctors around there who suggest that women will die, when they won't? Seems to me, however much you might not like it, a woman dies every 6 minutes of pre-eclampsia in Africa. I'm tired. I'm tired of being judged by someone who has never been in my shoes, never been in that awful, terrible place of having to chose.
And I'm tired of the tendency of a certain group of women, who have never had their very lives threatened, who think that they can make reproductive rights be something that is simple and easy and pretty and clean. I'm tired of hypocrisy and narrow mindedness and sheer bloody mindedness. I'm tired of absolutes and an unwillingness to understand something from another perspective. And I'm tired of a discussion about sin, that doesn't focus on sin of setting yourself as judge and jury, and judging people more harshly than the good Lord judges you, and so adding more burdens to another person's sin instead of loving them, and giving them the grace and mercy that we all deserve as a child of God. I'm tired of looking at certain Christians and thinking "No wonder the entire world hates us. I hate us when we are like this". And I'm tired of knowing, that in their smug and self satisfied world, they will simply use the world hating them as proof that God loves them more.
Perhaps it was going to John School yesterday, which doesn't really ever assure me I live in a perfect world. Frankly, I think men who hire prostitutes are something close to the scum of the earth (I know, not very Christian of me. I'm working on it) Certainly more than that was seeing a man I knew and respected and liked in the class. If you had told me at 2pm on Saturday I would be seeing someone I knew, he would not have been on the list. Not even at the bottom of the list when I was throwing out random guesses. And I can't tell you any more, because I have signed an oath of confidentiality. So I bear this burden of knowledge about a man, that I would rather not have.
And I feel world weary today. As promised, here's the Whinge-For-All scarf. Seems appropriate on another whinge-y day. I'm going to church. I'm going to do a bit in the garden, and then I'm going to escape into Super Paper Mario.
