I have to go in reverse order. Star Parker (she’s on the right) and I had lunch on Saturday. Whatever happened before that, I don’t remember.

I admired this woman when I was still a liberal, completely amazed by her “welfare queen to entrepreneur” story and confrontational attitude. As a young woman, Star was caught up in welfare dependency and petty theft, found God, got off welfare, started her own business and now runs a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering poor communities.

The Lord’s work in her life is evident through her gentle spirit and determination to incorporate faith in providing solutions to poverty, which include freedom and personal responsibility, and not government welfare. Star offered this speaker/writer wanna-be plenty of advice on how to focus on my plans and develop realistic goals for my career.

A woman like Star is a great mentor for me. She’s a committed follower of Christ and is passionate about her organization and what it has to offer. She recently co-produced a documentary on welfare reform with the BBC in London. Her second book just came out, and she’s already hard at work on her third, Dirty Mirrors.

Star’s schedule is always packed, yet she spent an afternoon with me to answer my questions and just…talk. It was by far the best part of the day. (As an aside, I found an open parking space in Georgetown on a Saturday afternoon in front of the restaurant, just like they do on TV.).

After the presentations and before we went to lunch, Star’s book-signing line moved to the hallway to make room for the next group of panelists. I watched her sign books and thought, “One day, one day.” Everyone wanted a picture with her, and a few people even wanted one with me.

I thought she was headed back to her hotel, so I started packing up to leave, too. She asked where I was going. “Home, I guess,” said the hermit who stays inside writing all the time.

“Let’s go to lunch,” Star suggested. I was going to lunch with Star Parker. Look, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a groupie, and I know Star is just a regular person, but when you’re about to have lunch with an in-demand person you’ve heard on the radio, seen on TV and whose books and columns you’ve read …it was highly unusual.

Rewinding that scene by several minutes, we’re back at the panelists’ table. I was relieved that my speech was over and still couldn’t believe I was on the same panel as Star. She is a natural speaker and very entertaining, rolling off statistics and policy, along with a generous helping of faith and common sense. I was just as excited as the college students.

I gave myself some slack because this was my first speech. I’m not nearly as polished as Star, but I’ll get there. The enthusiasm in the room helped to relieve my nervousness. Even though I could speak on race preferences and civil rights for hours without notes, I did what I don’t like seeing others do: read from a piece of paper. Hindsight is 20/20. Next time no script.

Star spoke first, I spoke second, and Jessica Echard spoke after me. Jessica is a very sharp young lady. She just graduated from college last year (Phi Beta Kappa), and spoke about the recent March For Women’s Lives abortion rally.

Jessica, who works at Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, is a pro-life Christian who went to the march with a group to silently protest the protest. She passed around pictures taken at the rally. You should have seen the vulgarity, which I won’t shock you with. Jessica said that while she and her group prayed throughout the day, various people mocked them and called them all kinds of names.

She encouraged students to speak up on campus and get involved with countering some of the “feminist” issues. Jessica said that the abortion rally was more about hating George Bush than concern for “women’s lives.” I told her if I’d had my stuff together at age 23, I’d be ruling my own kingdom.

About three hours before all this occurred, I was about to leave my apartment. Georgetown University is approximately 15 minutes away, but I left at 9:00 a.m. for a program that started at 10:00 a.m., where I wouldn’t speak until 11:00 a.m. As I’ve blogged before, I’m very early for everything.

Before I leave the apartment, I’m at my desk looking over the speech. I check my clothes to make sure there are no holes or stains, grab my bag and head toward the door. I say to myself, “I wonder if anything unusual will happen today?”

Update: This post was published on my old blog and was filled with Haloscan comments. I couldn’t figure out how to import them when I moved to WordPress.