Please, please don't take offense! Your friendship is far too
valuable. And certainly no offense was intended.
But since this is off the list please allow me to examine your
situation in more detail based on public information; at least I
assume anything you told me is public and this message is NOT public!
You chose to adopt Rachel. You chose to quit your job to care for her.
Even if (and I surely hope not, for any woman let alone for you) you
had been raped and became pregnant, you chose whether or not to have
the baby. Don't say your religion makes it impossible to have an
abortion; people choose whether to follow their religions all the time
and they remain totally sincere. I know a Seventh Day Adventist who
had her high school aged daughter get an abortion. I wouldn't dare
talk to her about it; Lillian knew the family back then or I would
never have heard of it. And had you borne the baby you chose whether
or not to keep it.
Or, to take another example which should rank equal in intensity from
a religious point of view, I just met an Orthodox (not Conservative)
Jew who travels and "works" (in the Old Testament law sense) on the
Sabbath, and who yearly organizes and conducts a choir to singing
Christmas carols.
About a year ago you yourself were thinking of getting help from an
agency (or something or other) to learn Windows. You got Freedom Box
instead; another choice. You have two computers instead of one. You
have two braille displays instead of one. You go out to eat on Friday
nights. All choices.
I sold a Windows computer a couple years ago for $60 and
"accidentally" left both Jaws and K1000 on it.
So please, Cheryl, do not take offense. But it is not the case that
you have zero options. Windows just isn't that important to you since
you got Freedom Box, just as a $50 printer wasn't important enough to
me until a few months ago.
One of the important experiences of my life was shortly after I
graduated from computer school. I nearly went nuts there because what
they did was to take their under-nourished computer course (aimed at
high schoolers) and give it to us blinks at half (or was it a quarter)
speed. I'd already had 3 college level computer courses and wanted as
much meat in my education as possible so I could have a _prayer_ of
getting a job. When I got the job I said to my office partner one day,
"They changed me into a bitter old man!" I was 24 at the time and that
struck even me as ridiculous. About that time I started listening to a
late night radio program whose host was a stage hypnotist. He
explained how hypnotism was just suggestion. Somehow it all clicked,
and I realized I could continue to foam at the mouth against that
lousy computer school, or I could choose just to leave it behind and
go on to more important stuff (like getting married and divorced!).
And you can choose to take offense or not. Please choose not! And if
I've continued to bother you, please tell me that also.
--
Lee Maschmeyer
<lee_Maschmeyer@xxxxxxxxx>
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear
to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than
what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."
--Lewis Carroll
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