An ode for Annie...

Ms. Jesus Freak lets loose on abortion. Annie Lamott:

EVERYTHING WAS going swimmingly on the panel. The subject was politics and faith, and I was on stage with two clergymen with progressive spiritual leanings, and a moderator who is liberal and Catholic. We were having a discussion with the audience of 1,300 people in Washington about many of the social justice topics on which we agree — the immorality of the federal budget, the wrongness of the president's war in Iraq. Then an older man came to the mike and raised the issue of abortion, and everyone just lost his or her mind.

Or, at any rate, I did.

Maybe it was the way in which the man couched the question, which was about how we should reconcile our progressive stances on peace and justice with the "murder of a million babies every year in America." The man who asked the question was soft-spoken, neatly and casually dressed.

First Richard, a Franciscan priest, answered that this is indeed a painful issue but that it is not the only "pro-life" issue that progressives — even Catholics — should concern themselves with during elections. There are also the matters of capital punishment and the war in Iraq, and of HIV. Then Jim, an evangelical, spoke about the need to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and the need to diffuse abortion as a political issue, by welcoming pro-choice and pro-life supporters to the discussion, with equal respect for their positions. He spoke gently about how "morally ambiguous" the issue is.

I sat there simmering, like a samovar; nice Jesusy me. The moderator turned to me and asked quietly if I would like to respond. I did: I wanted to respond by pushing over our table.

Instead, I shook my head. I love and respect the Franciscan and the evangelical, and agree with them 90-plus percent of the time. So I did not say anything, at first.

Then, when I was asked to answer the next question, I paused, and returned to the topic of abortion. There was a loud buzzing in my head, the voice of reason that says, "You have the right to remain silent," but the voice of my conscience was insistent. I wanted to express calmly, eloquently, that pro-choice people understand that there are two lives involved in an abortion — one born (the pregnant woman) and one not (the fetus) — but that the born person must be allowed to decide what is right.

Also, I wanted to wave a gun around, to show what a real murder looks like. This tipped me off that I should hold my tongue, until further notice. And I tried.

...
Then I said that a woman's right to choose was nobody else's goddamn business. This got their attention.

A cloud of misery fell over the room, and the stage. Finally, Jim said something unifying enough for us to proceed — that liberals must not treat people with opposing opinions on abortion with contempt and exclusion, partly because it's tough material, and partly because it is so critical that we win these next big elections.

It was not until the reception that I finally realized part of the problem — no one had told me that the crowd was made up largely of Catholics.

I had flown in at dawn on a red-eye, and, in my exhaustion, had somehow missed this one tiny bit of information. I was mortified: I had to eat my body weight in chocolate just to calm myself.

But then I asked myself: Would I, should I, have given a calmer answer? Wouldn't it have been more useful and harder to dismiss me if I had sounded more reasonable, less — what is the word — spewy?

Oh, so sorry, Annie. Sorry that the Catholics were cool to your Gospel of Choice.

Here's my question. Annie Lammott is convinced and overjoyed that Jesus loves her. She's been talking about for ages now. Jesus, loves, accepts and gives Annie strength.

So. Why does Jesus love Annie and not the little quiet mini-Annies in the womb?

(Thanks to Patrick Rothwell for finding a link to the conference in question - Richard Rohr and Jim Wallis were the offending squishes. Wow.)

And yes, Annie Lamott is post-abortive. She wrote in one of her books about her experience of a sense of Jesus' presence in the wake of it. It was a powerful scene.

Update: A reader adds this almost first-hand account in the comments below:

...husband and I attended part of the conference Anne Lamott is writing about. skipped the Sunday evening session, and her tantrum. our friends relate that it was like a bomb dropping in the room, destroyed all the goodwill and peace built up over the course of the weekend. so sad. she has to deny it is a life, in order to live with herself, I guess.