What delighted me most about the experience of early voting was the carefree atmosphere.  Unlike the usual poling places where I've gone in the past, often managed by aged people who tend to be stiffled, extremely serious and deliberate,  the auditor's office was open and friendly, with younger people who seemed delighted I was there.  Also delighted with the large number of children who were learning at some level about the process as they sat by their parents or just played nearby.  Children who will, hopefully, will never believe like the apathetic woman who is throwing away her vote this year.  

Just being among these young parents and children gave me a spirit of optimism!

These are the children we must inspire and teach in all that we do, even as protect them and their freedoms in every way we possibly can.

Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT

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 In my opinion, the woman I met, who refuses to vote, needs to spend at least a year in a country where she has none of our blessed freedoms. She needs to be in a place where the government hands down decisions with a heavy hand, behaving as if it is God instead of the tyrant that such governments really are.

I've lived in a country where freedom of speech and freedom of press and freedom of choice were not a privilege.   Neither was the freedom of religion.   Of course, the lady also has the freedom not to vote.  Thereby, relinquishing her right to have a part in one of the most important elections in the history of our nation.  She has the right to be apathetic. 

The first commandment is one I'd like to see as a universal one, even though it comes from a religious text that happens to be Judeo-Christian.  No government, no institution, and no religion--in fact, no religious text--should be God.  When we allow it to be, we make the "god" a tyrant.  And that's power abuse.

Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT

Updated: Tue 10/21/2008 8:15 AM CDT

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Even with the best of intentions, lawmakers and social service agencies can find it difficult to protect vulnerable children.  Those of us who live near the Omaha-Lincoln, Nebraska metro have gotten a stark reminder in the last couple of weeks.

Not long ago NE lawmakers passed a law to protect infants who might be abandoned by their birth mothers.  At least, that was the intent.  Apparently, some had fears that the law would be misused by distraught parents of older children.  The wording technically allowed children up the age of 19 to be dropped off at any hospital with parents not being held responsible for abandoning their children.  There would be no questions asked, according to the plan.

In the past two weeks, almost 20 children have been dropped off--9 in one family, when their overwhelmed father decided he was unable to cope with the children after their mother died a year or two ago.  Then, heaven forbid, the courts and the Dept. of Human Services couldn't agree on where the kids should live.  Sleeping two to a bed, even in a loving relative's home, the courts said, wasn't good for the kids--even if it was a temporary arrangement and even if the home had been approved by DHS.  So the kids, already in grief from losing a mother, were footballs.  All because we haven't learned how to be a "village" who cares for our children emotionally. 

It will take time, but people are working on the problem.  Somehow trying to keep children (and, in this case, a father) from being left out, unaware that there are safe places they can go when life throws them a curve they cannot manage.

Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 8:08 AM CDT

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Jason Berry, an author who specialized very early in the issues of abusive clergy, was one speaker at SNAP that I didn't want to miss.   Especially since I'd heard him before and respect his wisdom and experience.

He talked about the need to have a new approach in trying to engage the press in covering the on-going saga, in light of the fact that the press is interested in what is really news, of course.  As a writer, I'm always looking for what is different in a story myself.  Have heard the "same old story" many times.  Survivors often do not understand that this is what moves writers and journalists and what makes the general public interested in hearing stories, as well.  Just as it moves us to see movies--we all want to learn something or be entertained in a different way, one or the other.  In this case, the subject matter doesn't tend to be entertaining, but it can be very interesting and instructive.

So Berry's suggestion is that we look for parallel trends to help the press expose the news.  To pique interest in the large percentage of diocese that have cases of embezzlement and to compare the way this is handled or not handled, covered up or exposed.  To show that this often happens in the same diocese where there have been grossly abusive priests.  That's a new way to approach it.

Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT

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The day I brought home my first C, my father looked like he'd been hit in the face with a wet dishrag soaked in buttermilk!  I'd been telling him that I was struggling in math that year. Only when he saw the C did it register, I suppose.

I was rather happy to have the C, considering with how hard I'd been struggling.   And I told him so.  

Dad didn't punish me--at least not visibly.  Yet the look on his face was plenty of punishment.  I'd never seen him so devastated about anything I'd ever done. 

Perhaps he was revisiting his own youth.  After all, he'd been a high school dropout, having quit school to join the service.  Then, following World War II, he redeemed himself by getting into college on probation and managing to make the honor roll at times before graduating and going on to seminary.  I'm sure he was thinking that he didn't want his daughter to struggle as he'd done.  Like many parents, he and my mother had an inflated opinion about their firstborn daughter in those formative years.  I'd just burst my father's bubble, no doubt, and brought him down to reality. 

It wasn't my last C, but Dad learned to accept others when they occasionally made a dent in my otherwise above-average grades. 

In addition to his look, I remember his words more than any words I ever heard him speak!  That's just how big an impact that experience made on me.  So large that I'm certain I've internalized the feelings of that moment; and they continue to work in me, sometimes for good and sometimes not so good.

"Average!!  Don't ever be content with being average," he said.  "Average doesn't usually get much done that's important."

While I am definitely content to be average in many things, and even below average in some, if it's something that I think really matters, I do my best to remember my father's challenge.  The world is full of people who don't try to be above average in much of anything, and that keeps the world revolving.  It all depends on whether we want to revolve or evolve, as I see it.  I prefer the latter.

Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT

Updated: Wed 08/20/2008 7:45 PM CDT

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A victim attending SNAP this year said to me:  "I already know everything I need to know.  I don't want to know more."  It was a strong reminder that this attitude isn't just in professionals who are unable to learn from people with more experience in looking at the complex issues.

It's also there with a lot of victims.  One of the ditches.   It's vital that we all continue looking outside the box at EVERY issue in our lives.  To see the shadow and the spots where we need to make improvement.  When we believe we have "all that we need to know" about anything and aren't looking toward sources that challenge us, then we arrive where there truly is no hope.

Learning and growing is a life-long commitment.  One we must renew each day, whatever we are doing.  The absence of this desire is to join the stagnation of the average person.

Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT

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It is SO difficult for me to wait for a truth to be revealed, as I listen with empathy to the struggles of others.  I so much want to see things fixed, to see the student learn, to see the sick person find health and well-being, to help achieve a fast cure of an ill in society.  To see our institutions be something that the institution just can't possibly produce without a massive amount of work.  Because the problems that I see as so simple at times are really incredibly complex.

How I want to believe that my only speaking or writing the right words is going to produce something magical.  We are told that we can move mountains if we only have faith.  I really believe this is true--provided our faith is a mature faith, rather than one that sees a life and a theology that is constantly moving forward without regression. 

Our societies and out institutions, just as we as individuals, change very slowly at best.  Sometimes not at all.

So here we are again:  Praying for the wisdom to know the difference between what we can realistically change and what we cannot.  And being content to stand in the "tragic gap," even as we are in the process of sorting it out.

Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CDT

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One of my long-term male survivor friends (pseudonym Bob) is a chaplain who happens to also be a musician and a poet.  While we have even stronger connections than those, I cannot say more without breaking his need to maintain a great deal of confidentiality.  Bob is one of the strongest guys, with one of the most tender hearts I know.  Maybe he sees the latter in himself.  I'm doubtful on the first.   I can unload on Bob anytime I feel the need, and his work has ministered to more people than he probably will ever know.  Perhaps more to me than to anyone.

Years ago, not long after he'd revealed his own childhood sexual abuse to some co-workers and family members,  he handed me a copy of a long poem without a title, Let's just call it "The Hippo."  It so eloquently described the fear and courage that it takes to confront what many call "the elephant" --the primal emotions some of us encountered years ago.  While some of you reading this may have just started on the journey of attempting "wake the dead" while keeping your own sanity about abuse, collusion, or a myriad of other issues that trouble you.

"Use this or anything else that I write if you think it will be helpful to others," Bob frequently tells me, true to his generous self.  So here you are:

Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CST

Updated: Fri 03/07/2008 7:58 AM CST

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While the majority of my readers are female, I probably learn as much from the limited number of male survivors and advocates who come my way as I do from the majority.  This is not a reflection on any supposition that these guys are smarter than my own gender.  Please do not misunderstand me there. 

It has everything to do with the differences I see in the responses to abuse that I see between the two genders.  Those responses are not entirely gender specific, just like a lot of other issues.  At this moment, I'm not inclined to write in depth on this topic, though I may assign it to myself at a later date.

Long ago, I would have assumed that it is so much easier for male survivors to speak because society makes it easier for men to be heard on most issues.   I really thought they had an advantage.  I no longer believe that.

To admit to sexual or domestic abuse or to talk about the betrayal one has experienced as a spouse, father, or even as a professional advocate is to risk being emasculated by one's own gender.  For to be the underdog is considered by the traditional male, who has internalized the myths of tradition, to be a loser.  Or it's equivalent (ie. a woman). 

By staying "safe," men are able to preserve the personal advantage of having a place of privilege.  Every time they speak out, it seems there is a double battle to be fought.  In the same way that gay men have experienced.  One must overcome the inertia created by blowing the minds of people who don't want their minds blown.  So the struggles are even more likely to be turned inward. 

Even if one HAS confronted the myth and integrated it well into his psyche, the risk is still there.  Male survivors sometimes are able to overcome a good deal of this fear of being emasculated.  I don't think it ever goes away entirely.

No matter what precipitates their speaking, men who speak up on issues that so many prefer to see as "women's issues," no matter how personal those issues may be, are going to experience the attitude:  "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

After all, Muslim men may be the only group that voices it so clearly, but I'm convinced that Christian men are just as likely to say to themselves and one another:  "Thank God I wasn't born a woman!"

Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 8:12 AM CST

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It is vitally important that all of us live by rules that are based on good judgment.   Judgment for the greater good. 

I'm frequently surprised at how survivors of clergy sexual abuse sometimes are prone to discard rules of civility, apparently reasoning that since "God's representative" broke the rules, then it's okay to do some rule-breaking in order to bring attention to the problems of abuse.  Not that this is a universal or even a common way of thinking.  It just amazes me whenever I see someone manipulating statistics, for example, in order to make a point.  I see this as counter-productive, for no scientific mind or professional is going to fail to see through such manipulation. 

It may surprise you to know that the same occurs with breast cancer.   You've seen the 1 in 8 figures?  Nobody bothers to tell you that this statistic is based on a life expectancy of 93.  Yes, if every woman lived to be 93, there would be a 1 in 8 chance of getting the disease.  That number was thrown around over a decade ago, just as it is today.  Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the life expectancy for women in 1995 was about 78.  These scare tactics have been successful in raising money and alarm, but undue alarm.  Breast cancer is a problem, I can certainly tell you as a victim of the horrific disease.  I want attention called to the problem as much as anyone.  Yet does this justify the misrepresentation of facts? 

As an author, I've had some instances of copyright violation committed by people who were either survivors or professionals in the role of advocacy.  The LAST place I'd expect to find such a boundary violation is in the survivor population.  Yet it's there.

Perhaps some would think I should not care.  After all, the reasoning goes, you should be glad your work is being used.  That's not the point!   Boundary crossing is cheating, no matter how it's done.  One can be cheated of time, money, reputation, or just an ability to make decisions that should be at the discretion of the one who was cheated.

May we never cease to monitor our own behavior and conscience.  It's never okay to cross boundaries, especially legal ones.

Posted by Dee Ann Miller at 12:01 AM CST

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