Transcending It All
Topic: spirituality

One of my daily readers recently wrote about her unresolved process in resolution with the church and her perpetrator.  I decided that  some of the words I used in replying to her e-mail were what I was wanting to say to you today about what is commonly referred to as "healing"--a process that means many different things to different people.

>>>What you have to do is to find ways to transcend it all and nurture your own soul.  That's a very individual decision that requires much creativity and exploration, I've found as I've done my own work and worked with others.  There is no pat answer for everyone, and we have to learn to respect choices about what to do with personal belief systems, theology, and our involvement in systems that have betrayed us.  All while knowing that we do not live in perfect worlds. <<<<

Finding Words that Work
Topic: coping

Because good words used as weapons sometimes carry a lot of burdensome weight, I find myself often stopping in the middle of conversations to take care of the feelings that a word may generate.   Or to correct a misunderstanding in how I've used it. 

I've noticed this to be a common problem when conversing about any sensitive issues.

Forgiveness, when rightfully used, applies to the process of an individual of equal or greater power giving some sort of pardon to another.  Some would interpret it to mean a total pardon.  Others understand that this is a form of spiritually letting go or "leaving a person's destiny in the hands of God."  Others would say it means that the forgiver no longer holds a personal grudge against the offender and no longer expects anything in return. 

There have been whole books written on the subject of forgiveness, with elaborate definitions offered by the various authors.   I find it impossible, as a person who specializes in understanding collusion with clergy sexual and domestic violence, to accept any of the definitions that I've studied for years.  So, at the risk of confusing things further, I'll throw my own in the mix, for consideration.

As I understand it, forgiveness means extending unconventional love to a person that I perceive has harmed me, no longer requiring that the person pay a debt to the offended that the offense would seem to require. 

I do not see anywhere in Christian scripture that says anyone has a right to demand that forgiveness be extended by any victim toward a member of the clergy.  In all instances, forgiveness in the Bible was from a person with more power to a person of lesser power OR "brother to brother" (so inerrantists should see this as women being exempt?)  Nor is it required by a child toward his or her parents who have blatantly abused their offspring.  These power dynamics are simply not present with clergy offenders.  Only God can extend unconditional love in such cases, so I'll consider that decision to not be my concern!

When the church fails to hold accountable those who have great power, but use that power to harm the ones placed in their hands for safe-keeping, the church has no RIGHT to "forgive them."  To do so is to betray victims again while neglecting to exercise the powers that the clergy and church leaders have had invested in THEM. 

Only when an offender steps down willingly, without being forced to do so, and shows a persistently contrite heart with open confession and submission to full public exposure can an abusive or violent offender in the pulpit even be considered a subject for forgiveness.  These conditions, to my knowledge, have never been met by any offender.  For arrogancy, sometimes disguised with an appearance of humility (not to be confused with shame), seems to be a universal trait of offenders.

Forgiveness is NOT a step in rising above or transcending the soul trauma that has been rendered to victims.  Neither is it a step in what the church calls "healing," ANOTHER word the church doesn't understand. 

When victims, survivors, or advocates adopt these garden-variety definitions of good words that the church places generically on all people, it is a form of self-betrayal--and self-betrayal, done whenever we play the old tapes of colluders while failing to look deeper at the complex issues, is what most often keeps people in bondage, unable to rebound, rising again, transcending.  Now, those are words that work for me. 

Impure Projection
Topic: Making Changes

It's my problem, and I've been trying to figure out WHY it's a problem for me.  Simply stated, I don't like generic terms to be used when dealing with complex problems.

That's why I asked, without being able to fully explain, that participants in last weekend's retreat refrain from using the words "healing" and "recovery."  They are good words, but so trite that they don't describe the specifics of what the speaker is talking about.  And the speaker may have a totally different idea than the listener.

Same with "forgiveness."  That's the word I call the F word, while I prefer to call "healing" the H word. 

Partly, because both of these words have been used as weapons so many times by people of the institutional church.   Used whenever the speakers want to see victims as sick or unforgiving, when the system refuses to admit that it is the one with these diseases, not the survivors who are speaking truth!!!  It's pure projection!  Or, technically speaking, very impure projection.  Sadly, so often victims--both primary victims and those who deeply love them--have internalized the warped meanings.   The results are self-inflicted wounds.

I've actually had some rather extensive training and experience in both nursing and writing.  Both of these disciplines have discouraged me from using generic terms as I prepare individual documents.  In nursing, those documents would be the elaborate care plans that patients never see, especially in psychiatric nursing.  My instructors (and later the inspectors)  would have required a thorough explanation of what outcomes I wanted to see in my patients if I ever chose to use "healing" or "recovery."  They would want me to describe the signs or steps I intended to go through in achieving this--to paint a picture of what this generic thing called "healing" or "recovery" would look like in THIS INDIVIDUAL, not in a general group of people.

Same goes for writing--we are supposed to always look for the most specific word we can find in order to create a unique manuscript that communicates ideas nobody else in the world has ever communicated.  Not that I always do that, but that's my own individual goal as a writer.

So, over the next few days, I'm going to be expounding on these thoughts that probably leave you somewhat baffled today.  Baffling is not a bad place to be.  It can get us thinking and out of our individual ruts--about all of the generic terms we've learned to accept as "good enough" when we fail to dig deeper than ever before.

R - E - S - P - E - C - T
Topic: coping

R - E - S - P - E - C - T   the song rings out.  I'm working on a re-write of that familiar tune.  Can't get it to quite fit the melody yet.  Maybe I'll find a way to keep the beat, but re-write parts of the melody.  When finished, it will sound something like this:

"R - E - S - P - E - C - T --

 That's what I don't need, you see,

 From those whose lack of integrity

 Caused them to lose all respect from me."

              When I have self-respect, I have everything.  When it wanes, then it's time for me to take inventory.

Watching and Waiting
Topic: spirituality

"Watching and waiting" isn't necessarily being passive.  Sometimes it's soul work. 

When I am so anxious or worried about others' ability to do something that I think is so important, I find it incredibly hard to wait until they decide that it is important.

I think this is especially hard for us parents and grandparents because we somehow believe that if we had just done everything right, then our children would be as wise as we think they should be at this moment.  We forget that they are individuals and that their worlds do not revolve around us or what we say or do, said or did.   Nor should they!

As they become increasingly independent, falling on their faces when we refuse to pick them up even if they are slow learners, we learn to let go of our desire to keep them both the innocent and the wise little souls that stay unshaped by others.  As if all wisdom resides in their mothers!   We learn to risk trusting them.  We believe in their ability to find their own answers, and make it their sole responsibility for doing so.  All while knowing that not everything depends upon us.

One of the problems of people who are overly dependent on outsiders, either spiritually or emotionally, is that these individuals come to believe they are incapable of being an important player in the shaping of their own souls.  Sometimes they learn this from their parents, who do not intend to teach them these things but end up doing so.  On a practical level, this means they become incapable of finding ways to take care of themselves.  The longer it takes for them to learn, the fewer easy choices they end up having as life goes on. 

As we delight in the things of this life, focusing on the abundance of good, despite the destructive forces that are out there, we are able to center on what we can and cannot control, to find our center, and then to be more responsible with the opportunities that come our way without holding onto the illusion that we are in control of the universe.  Even if that universe seems to be centered around one of the many complex issues in this world.  Or around just one individual, who may be capable of far more than we can imagine if we only let go of what we cannot change, forgive ourselves and others for not being perfect, and return to the most difficult work of all--that of attending to our own souls.

 

Remember Where Home Is
Topic: spirituality

Trauma and the shock that comes when we learn that our world isn't as simple as we thought it was yesterday seems to occur every time we turn on the TV.  It also happens in our everyday life when we try to solve problems.  For problems are often far more complex than we are comfortable with them being.

If "home is where the heart is"--or in a spiritual sense "where the soul is," then we can be at home even in the midst of the storms. 

The problem is that our souls often do not feel at home as they become MIS-shaped by external factors or thoughts that pull us away from the truth about ourselves. 

At retreat this weekend, I was constantly reminding myself, as well as the participants, that it is possible to be "at home" in the spiritual sense, being a part of God's creative process of rebounding, no matter what my circumstances.

The work of attending to our own souls, neither expecting nor depending upon others to bring us back to home, helps us cope with all we know and experience.  When we learn to be open to new information, while carefully sifting out what we want to take into the soul that we continue to shape for ourselves.  Or when we just patiently wait as we seek to be a part of finding answers for ourselves and our complex world, we are at home with ourselves.  

 

Time Out, Please
Topic: spirituality

Starting tomorrow, I'll be taking a break from the blog until Monday, May 5.  During this time, I'll be leading a retreat for women who will come together as strangers, united by the fact that they hold an immeasurable gift that the church has rejected--the gift of speaking truth to power.  The gift of teaching truths to those who see themselves as the spiritual authorities, yet cannot hold their colleagues accountable.   To the point that it is now often front-page news!

We will be seeking new insights into how to embrace the journey of living in Parker Palmer's "tragic gap."  Learning from one another.

My expectation is that we will all return with our cups over-flowing because of having been together, having found new friends in person.  This is the usual outcome of such retreats. 

You'll be getting some of that spillover next week.   Please hold us up in your thoughts and/or prayers.

Living with the Questions
Topic: Making Changes
All successful social activists, or anyone interested in facilitating change in our world, must live with a degree of comfort, where the questions are.   Welcoming more questions from others, as well as those that arise from within.   As thinking deepens, speaking is carefully calculated, moderated by well-defined feelings and intuition. 

Risk and Trust
Topic: Making Changes

As we speak truth, we do so because we have a degree of risk tolerance.   We also trust ourselves to be able to cope with the impact of the backlash that comes when we speak truth to people who prefer to live in DIM thinking (See www.takecourage.org/collusion.htm)

We are not trusting others to hear, though we hope they will.  Instead we are centered so that we can speak with boldness, even though we may be trembling internally.  In the deepest part of our souls, we each know that we are going to be okay even if nobody joins us.

No Such Choice
Topic: Power

Have you ever noticed how we all crave praise, but are prone not to want the responsibility that inherently comes with power?   So that we can so easily deny our power in order to avoid responsibility? 

 Think about it.  It's a very human trait, and none of us are exempt.   The greater the power, the greater the responsibility, whether the power is denied or accepted.