Making connections

Update: Some diaries at My Left Wing that you might like to check out:
Angry Left? No. Wrathful Left? Absolutely.
The Stoning of Maryscott O’Connor
Who Is Really Hurting the Progressive Movement
Short Rant on Leftie Hypocrisy?

Maryscott O'Connor, ya done good!

Go over to My Left Wing and check out her post, Wherein I Respond to the Response to the Post Article. The whole thing is worth reading, but for my purposes here, I'd like to highlight this part:

Among the hundreds of emails I received yesterday (the good outnumbering the bad by a large ratio) was a short note from a 76 year old woman in Virginia. I could almost see her hands shaking as she typed her missive to a complete stranger she'd just read about in her morning paper. She explained that she had only ever used the computer her children got for her to send and receive emails. But she read the story about me in the Post and was almost overwhelmed with gratitude and relief. She lives alone. She doesn't talk much to her children anymore, and she watches a lot of television.

Over the past 5 years, she has turned into an angry, despairing woman whose sense of powerlessness over the state of the world has almost overtaken her sensibilities. She got on the computer and found my blog, the one she read about in the Washington Post; as she read the diaries and front page stories and comments, she was alternately amazed and overjoyed to have found a community of people who thought and felt as she did. Her email to me was not just to thank me and tell me her story; she wanted me to help her to register, as none of the instructions made much sense to her.

I responded to this woman, whom I cannot help imagining as a classic, archetypal Little Old Lady, because her emails sound so much like the archetype; I gave her detailed instructions about links and mouse clicking and scrolling. I registered her and told her how to change her password. She is now a member of My Left Wing, a liberal community comprised of people just like her: left wing, liberal, progressive, religious, irreligious, profane, politically aware, interpersonally connected, loving and supportive people who gather at the same website to discuss whatever they're thinking about at any given moment.
...
One little old lady sitting at her kitchen table alone in Virginia stopped feeling so alone yesterday because of something I did; that is enough.

Shortly after reading Maryscott's post, I checked my Faithful Ohio blog and found that it had a new comment--this is a blog that hasn't really taken off yet, so just discovering a comment there calls for a celebration. Of course, as I clicked to read it, I silently hoped that it was a polite comment, and not the other kind. I do get those, sometimes. Sometimes it's someone telling me that I'm going to Hell for being too liberal, and other times it's someone telling me to shut up talking about religion in public. Because, just by expressing something of myself publicly, I am taking a risk. It's not as big a risk as Maryscott took allowing a reporter into her home, but it's a risk nonetheless. And can be time consuming, and occasionally one wonders if the effort is worth it...

Happily, it was more than just polite. It was touching and uplifting, much like the letter Maryscott O'Connor received from the woman in Virginia. And, as the commenter indicated, he found my blog, indirectly, because of that article in the Washington Post:

I was watching C-Span this morning and heard the moderator make reference to this mornings article in the Wash. Post about myleftwing.com so I immediately went to that site through which I found my way to your site. I thank God.

When I read some of the things on your site I began to silently cry, tears poured down my face. As I read further I was up-lifted and edified by what I read. On this most important day of 4/15/06 'Holy Saturday' in the religious year I beheld a miracle. The miracle is that I found yourself and others that think like me.

I just commented back to Bob (who, incidentally, has a blog of his own), thanking him for his kind words, and agreeing that the ability to make these kinds of connections via the internet, is a miracle. The fact that someone can click a link, read some words, and *poof*, suddenly not feel quite so alone...suddenly have a little bit more hope than before...that, to me, is a kind of miracle.

...and all God's children said, AMEN!

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