We wanted to ask if you’d please extend your prayers to someone in the Beliefnet blogging family, Michele McGinty, who writes “Reformed Chicks Blabbing,” a conservative political blog.

Her friend Angela Arnold posted this today on Reformed Chicks:

“As you know, the cancer has returned, and it is very aggressive. The
chemotherapy that began in January was totally ineffective. Yesterday
she started a new drug, and we are hopeful that it will stop the growth
of this cancer.”

We at Fresh Living and Beliefnet are sending our hope and light her way.

I also wanted to share an earlier posting from Angela on Michele’s blog, in response to some unkind comments on Michele’s news. Political blogs on our site and elsewhere tend to attract the most vociferous, unkind, below-the-best snipes and Michele’s is no exception. News of her cancer has not been met with collective compassion. It’s awful. And yet I notice these uncharitable tendencies in myself, especially around loaded political topics–and I’m also a cancer survivor. Another rashy symptom of being human, me thinks. And though I usually contain my not-nice urges within my cranium, clearly others do not. Angela has some beautiful things to say about that, the way we hide behind pseudonyms to express the bile in our souls:

“Among my friends and acquaintances are political conservatives,
moderates, and liberals. They are Christian, decidedly not Christian,
and decidedly undecided. Full quiver, no quiver, vegan and meat loving,
school teachers and home educators, people from every era and corner of
my life are represented there.

I do not always agree with their comments.
I do not always agree with their lifestyle choices.
I do not always agree with the ballots that they cast.

But I will never elevate my own desire to be “right” over your desire to just be.
No matter how eloquently I may speak, without love, I am a clanging
cymbal. And so, my mission is to be encouraging and loving in every
online interaction.

Why is it so much easier for some people to be charitable face to
face than it is for them to be that way in the anonymous blogosphere? I
understand that when a person creates a blog, he or she invites a
certain level of public scrutiny and criticism. But why does the very
semblance of human decency cease to exist when one is hiding behind a
pseudonym? If I were your neighbor, your co-worker, your high school
honey, would you feel quite so comfortable calling me an idiot and
taking joy in my suffering? And would I deserve such contempt simply
because I dare to disagree with your political leanings?

There can be peace, even among those who must agree to disagree.
This is not some wishy-washy surrender to moral relativism, but a real
desire to live at peace with all people, as much as it depends on me.” – Angela Arnold

Here’s a link to Angela’s entire post.