Look at all the Angry People

People are weird.

(I mean, seriously.)

I'm not, of course, talking about the great mass of men and women, most of whom don't care overmuch what other people think, live in step with their judgment and taste, and so are regarded (ever so slightly) as "weird" by all their friends.

I am talking about those few, exceptional, and probably distressed individuals who, for some mysterious reason, decide that I am the Enemy Of All That Is Good In The World, and proceed to break every law of courtesy and decency in telling me so.

Case in point: I was pulling the 10-12pm shift for '40 Days for Life' outside the 'mill' last night, along with a certain young lady. And we were enjoying a warm, windy, non-eventful night when a woman (apparently on her way back home) approached us.

Now from this woman I learned many unexpected and startling things. For instance: I was informed that I was actually a liar and a hypocrite on the subject of virginity; that I was "crazy", and my facial expressions marked me out as such; that I probably thought myself a "bad-ass", with the implication that such was an unfortunate and raving delusion; and, finally, that I was both a "faggot" and a "rapist", and that my very appearance confessed such iniquities.

Like this guy, but sketchier.

Such revelations, you might well imagine, were tremendously startling; but none so startling as the very fact that they were made at all. I could think of no connection between the physical facts of our occupation of that particular bit of sidewalk, and the coarse and hateful way they were denounced. There seemed to be no apparent proportion between two young people mildly talking on a street corner on a mild evening, and an older woman (with an unfortunately vulgar vocabulary and an adamant expression behind her eyes) accosting and wildly excoriating them.

The interview didn't last long. The vulgar woman repeatedly talked about how we should "get the f*** off [her] sidewalk", and when she threatened to call the police I suggested that that might be really the right thing to do after all. Not sensing the irony in the encouragement, she realized that she didn't know any number for the Chicago Police Department that wasn't "911"; and, upon hearing that we didn't know the number either, decided that her doorman would probably know. And with that (and a few more carelessly-selected words) she left us alone to cope with the aftereffects of adrenaline withdrawal.

Less mustache, but you get the idea.

To Our Pro-Life Readers: You will encounter hatred eventually. There are many people in the world who were 'sold a bill of goods' on abortion: that it was a quick and easy way out, that it would solve their problems, that it would enable them to pursue happiness more freely. The sad truth is, though, that the acceptance of abortion entails a rejection of the things we know as most human: hope, joy, courage, sacrificial love. It does violence to biological fact in support of "preference" or "convenience". Such a choice cannot but lead eventually to bitterness, hardness of heart, shame, and hopelessness.

Or, as has been so succinctly said so often on the Interwebs: h8ers gonna h8.