Unofficial

Last Lent there was a 247 silent protest at the local abortion clinic on campus. Unofficial St. Patrick's day happened to fall on one of the Fridays. If you don't know Unofficial is a Friday when students ditch class and spend the entire day drinking. I was on my work to at 8 and they had already started. So I thought whomever was at the clinic that night might want a little company and I went out around 9. Two things. First I don't like leaving my apartment after 8. It's fine if I'm already out, but I don't like leaving after it. Secondly I had been watching Harry Potter 4 and didn't get to finish it, so I was not very happy. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice. Anyway, I get there and there are 2 protesters and another guy. The other guy was a bit tipsy and was trying to make logical arguments for subjectivism. I have no patience for that line of thought and even though I hadn't been there two seconds and didn't know the guy I couldn't keep quiet (it's hard for me remember). "Hey man, there is no right and wrong it's all based on your perception." "No, there is a right and wrong, things are black and white, there is no gray." "Oh there definitely is gray, what's right for you might not be right for me." "No, for example, I'm right and you're wrong. It's quite simple" "I don't think we are ever going to agree." "Well stop being wrong and then you'd be right and we'd agree." After that he stood around for awhile then walked off. But this post isn't about abortion. After he left, so did one of the protesters, so it was just me and the other guy who I happened to have seen around before. I asked him where all his friends were (he's pretty well known) and he said they all had other plans. I told him he needed new friends if they thought it would be alright to leave him alone out here.

You see, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before being out there. Complete strangers, most drunk, were coming up and screaming the worst things at us (I should have brought a notebook some were quite creative), and others were shouting at us to fight. I remember when I first got there we were standing in a line that required people to walk behind us to stay on the sidewalk, and I asked that we move back so that people had to walk in front of us. I had a serious concern about being chived in the back. Before I left my apartment, I could not have imagined complete strangers treating others so terribly. All we were doing was standing there with some signs. Even I was smart enough to keep quiet for once. Most of what they said was stupid stuff, but there was one comment that hit a little too close to home and really hurt. Then I got to thinking, these strangers have no idea how terrible they are behaving. In fact to them they think they are behaving correctly. But I could see nothing but ugliness. It was so bad you couldn't get upset at them, instead the instinctual response was to pray for them. I likened it to meeting a demon face-to-face. You're not going to fight and provoke it, and you're either too scared or brave to run, all you can do is silently stand there and pray. Faith doesn't exist, if you see a demon from below you know just as well there is something above. And the feeling is so strong, this need for prayer, that all emotion goes out the window. Your whole effort is being put into making sure that someone up there is listening, because this ugliness you are seeing goes beyond just typical meanness. It really was like these people were possessed. As I stood there praying for them I got to thinking about how they felt they were behaving fine. And then I thought about myself and all of sudden I stopped praying for them and started praying for myself.

These people thought they were behaving fine but I could see more starkly than ever before how horrifying they really were acting. And I thought, "is this how people see me when I am messing up?" Being sensational is different than perfect. I have my vices and while I have difficulty seeing them as being all that bad, the idea that from the outside looking in people see in me what I was seeing that night brought me to tears. Never in my life had I been more sorry for my sins than I had been right then.

Eventually another protester came and I left, it was way past my bedtime by that point. But I could not have imagined being out there alone. That guy who would have been alone probably has the biggest pair of anyone I've ever known. Although interestingly I want to add that during the time we said two Rosaries and a Divine Chaplet. And during those times the furious crowds did not come, and things were relatively quiet. We had a few cars slow down and look at our signs, and some people far off making some shouts at us but that was it.

It is a poverty to decide a child must die so that you may live as you wish. -Mother Teresa