Art, prayer presence are planting seeds, Thayer says

We’d been anticipating it for a couple weeks—the visit of former Planned Parenthood manager Sue Thayer—another of the abortion giant’s defectors who’d seen the light of life. And this was the day.

Arriving at the sidewalk of our state’s only abortion facility during the fall 40 Days for Life campaign, I saw people gathered around someone, but it wasn’t our out-of-town guest. Instead, 18-year-old Maria Loh was sitting on the ground, scrunched over her latest sidewalk-chalk creation, her palette of colored chalk scattered near her, along with a laminated picture of a 38-week old fetus she was using for inspiration. The much-larger drawing, in oranges, yellows, and pinks with black outline, was inescapably alluring, especially here.

Maria had arrived hours ago—at 6 a.m., she told me—to start her project. It was now almost 1 p.m., and final touches were still being added. Sizing up her sidewalk-square-easel canvas and creation, I was mesmerized.

I’d seen Maria’s artwork before, on summer walks about my neighborhood, including the one applied onto a section of the driveway of her family’s home; a gorgeous Marian depiction that soon would become the focus of a Catholic News Agency article.

Around the time that article appeared in French, on a national Catholic social-media page, I defended Maria when someone called it offensive to create something so sacred that could easily be washed away by rain, or possibly stepped on. Maria seemed to recall something they hadn’t: that even if temporary, her drawing would be held forever in the heart of God, maker of sunsets.

Pastor Paul Letvin’s opening prayer pulled me away from the artwork, prompting me toward a pickup cargo bed, in which he and Thayer were now standing to address the crowd and share her story. Thayer spoke of the deception in which she’d been entrapped, and the things that led to her ultimately leaving her work in the industry, including the handwritten note in the window of the car of a nearby businessman that said, simply, “You know in your heart abortion is wrong.”

This, along with messages she was hearing on Christian radio, began to work on her conscience. When webcam abortions were quietly introduced within the company—abortions done remotely with a physician watching by Skype as the woman ingests the first set of pills to abort her child, and non-medical personnel doing the rest—Thayer spoke up, and was fired.

A large severance payment was offered if she would never speak of her employment there. Thayer refused it, eventually getting involved in pro-life activity in her small town of Storm Lake, Iowa, and in time, accepting a position as outreach director with 40 Days national.

Thayer directed some of her words at the escorts. Then, turning to the crowd of 75 prayer advocates, she said seeds were being planted through our presence, even when our prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears, encouraging us to keep at it.

That evening, I got a call from Maria’s grandfather, Deacon George Loegering. Earlier, he’d beamed as he shared with me how proud he was of his granddaughter and her talent. This time, however, the news wasn’t good. “They washed away her drawing,” he said, notably upset. “We waited until the last escort left, but they came back later and erased it.”

Her mom had some pictures of the demolished artwork, he said, sharing that the colors from the chalk being washed away had blended together, giving the appearance of blood. “It seems,” he said, “that they felt they had to abort this, too.”

On my way to Adoration that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about Maria’s beautiful drawing, erased intentionally by human hands. “Why couldn’t they have just let the rain wash it away naturally?” I asked, directing my question at God. It seemed, in a symbolic way, to be the difference between miscarriage and abortion.

In the chapel, I read these words from a recent letter from Archbishop Carol Maria Viganò: “…today, what is good is censored, because evil does not tolerate it.”

Earlier, Deacon George had assured me that, despite her disappointment, Maria was doing okay; she’d offered her work to the Lord, after all. And when I shared the sad news with Colleen Samson of 40 Days for Life North Dakota, she helped put things into further perspective.

“I believe Maria’s chalk ‘baby in the womb’ touched some of the escorts’ hearts,” she said, “and even if they destroyed it, the image remains in their minds. God will use it as a seed to bring them home to truth… one day… one day.”

Roxane B. Salonen, a wife and mother of five, is a local writer, as well as a speaker and radio host for Real Presence Radio. Roxane also writes weekly for The Forum newspaper and monthly for CatholicMom.com. Reach her at roxanebsalonen@gmail.com.