Equality - Justice - Peace

I have been struggling to figure out what to write for a while now - since the end of December, in fact. Every time I sit down to sort out my feelings I end up furious and I slam my computer shut. If I'm alone, I cry, or yell, or kick my desk, or punch my pillow. Sometimes I meditate or pray; sometimes I just try to do something else until I calm down. I've been avoiding my own anger. Maybe it's time to stop.

Here's why I'm angry: Jyoti Singh Pandey.

Do you know her name? If you don't, you should. Maybe you know her as India's Daughter. Or maybe you know her as that girl who was gang raped on the bus in India, and who died of her injuries two weeks later. Or maybe you don't know who in the world she is, or why anyone would be angry about her.

I have a confession to make - I'm not just angry about Jyoti Singh Pandey. I am angry about Steubenville, Ohio. I am angry about Savannah Dietrich. I am angry about New Mexico's House Bill 206. I am angry about the Violence Against Women Act of 2012 which was stalled when Republicans balked at protecting Native American women, immigrants, and the LGBT community from violence.

I am angry for my friends who have been abused and harmed. I am angry for the women and men who are pressured by society not to come forward after they have been raped. I am angry for the soldiers who are shamed by their leaders and comrades after being raped or assaulted. I am angry for the children who suffer in silence because they are afraid to tell someone that they are being hurt by a family member or friend. I am angry for the LGBT people who have been viewed as prey and who are attacked simply because they have different expressions of gender or orientation. I am angry for myself, and angry at the people who decided it was fair and just for them to take what they wanted from me with no thought about the damage they did to my psyche and my soul.

For the past month, I've been trying to find a way to constructively deal with my anger. I have signed petitions, worked to raise awareness, and participated in two magazine interviews on the subject of sexual violence and the rape-friendly culture we live in. I have meditated, read books on healing, shame, and vulnerability. I have prayed endless prayers, asking God to change our world. Asking God why people are so cruel. Asking God how he can allow these things to happen. I have prayed that God would take away my anger.

I wanted peace. I wanted resolution. Instead, my rage grows. Maybe the answer is in the anger - maybe the rage itself is right. Shouldn't good people be angry when they see evil being committed? Shouldn't we be enraged when we hear about innocent women and men and children being abused? Shouldn't we be galled by inequality and injustice?

If everyone was angry, maybe things would change. If everyone felt this same anger that I feel, maybe instead of ignoring these issues or deeming them too controversial, we would all work together for justice. Maybe we would overturn a few tables in our cultural temples, and drive out those who are abusing the system for their own gain. Maybe. This is my hope - that each of us could be as incensed over injustice and inequality as every football fan is when the refs make a call in the other team's favor. That we could all spend as much time working for justice as we spend making up our fantasy football teams and talking about last night's game. This is about human rights, people! Wake up!

Equality. Justice. Peace. Aren't these things worth fighting for?

...let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ~ Amos 5:24, NRSV

A Brighter Place

My favorite holiday movie is A Christmas Carol. I think I love it so much because it is such a redemptive story. I love watching the hardened old man become a boy again, acknowledging the power of his past hurts and the harm he has done to others, and yet finding forgiveness - and giving it - because of Christmas and what it means for the world. But the biggest, best reason I love the story is because I have my own life-version of it. I've been struggling with how to write about this for a while now, but I think the best way is just to do it. Some stories just need to be shared.

In the dark days of December 2009, I was in a dangerously abusive relationship with a man whose mental and emotional instability increased exponentially as the weeks passed. His rage was constant and his capacity for blaming me for everything wrong with his life seemed limitless. He would go from hating me, calling me names, and throwing things at me to crying on his knees with his head in my lap, begging me not to leave him, threatening to kill himself if I did. These mood swings were swift and violent - sometimes lasting only hours so that the kind, understanding man I saw in the morning was a punch-throwing, knife-brandishing maniac by the time darkness fell.

The abuses grew apace with his rage. His screaming-shouting-sobbing spells increased in frequency and though I cared deeply for him, even at that time, I knew I could not stay in the relationship without serious risk to my own life and sanity. There came a day when he threatened to burn down the house we sometimes shared, to burn down my church, to kill me and himself. I came home that evening to find some of my belongings damaged and destroyed, and partially burned pages from a Bible on top of the kitchen stove. Fear crawled over me like ants skittering over my skin. As I was rushing to leave before he turned up, he came in the door and pulled me down the hall to his bedroom - to "talk", he said. The discussion ended up with me dodging heavy books and anything else he could get his hands on to throw and him shrieking obscenities and threats at me. You would think I would have had the sense to leave him then - and it isn't that I didn't want to. But he ended the discussion by threatening to harm himself and others and leaving me feeling responsible for the damage he might cause. That was December 8th, two days after my grandmother passed away; it was ten more days before I was able to leave the relationship.

All through the summer that we were together, he had chipped away at my belief in God. At the time I thought he was questioning and doubting because of his painful past and the hurts of two failed marriages. He was a pastor - my pastor, actually - and he held a lot of authority as such. He kept introducing questions about God's reality; believe me, a seminary-educated person has a lot of knowledge that can easily be turned from building up faith to tearing it down. By that December, I didn't know if I believed in God anymore. My abuser had used my faith to draw me into the relationship in the first place; it was what had brought us together. I was exploring a call to ministry and he was helping me to discern that; he was also my marriage counselor. I had absolute trust in him in the beginning and because of that, I did not believe that he would lie to me or do anything to hurt me. Later on, when the emotional and verbal abuse began I started to question the things he had told me, but the questioning only brought more rage and repercussions. My faith withered - by that December, it was reduced to ashes. I had no functioning belief in God. I felt more alone at that time of my life than I ever had before.

My grandmother died on December 6th. When I was a child, she was instrumental in bringing me to church and helping me to find my way into belief in God. Though I had long since turned away from the fundamentalist structure to which she had introduced me, I had always honored her place in my journey toward faith. Her death rocked me. I knew she had passed on in complete belief even though her life had been difficult at best, and she had spent her last years nearly blind and with a host of health problems. Her faith never wavered. In the days after her death, I found myself dreaming about her each night and waking with images of her careworn face very clear in my mind. I felt she was trying to tell me something important, but I couldn't discern what it might be. I awoke from them feeling frustrated and frightened, as though I was missing some vital point she was trying to make.

During the early morning hours of December 18th I had one last dream about my grandmother. That week had been particularly awful; my partner and I had met with his District Superintendent about his possible return to ministry in the face of our relationship, which had begun during my divorce, and was inappropriate on many levels due to the fact that he was my pastor, adviser, and counselor. The meeting was a fiasco. I didn't want to go in the first place - I wanted out of the relationship and away from him. He lost his temper and yelled, calling his superior a "pharisee" and comparing himself to a persecuted Christ. Driving home that night, he threatened to murder his DS, blamed me for the position he was in, and said he would commit suicide after he "took care" of the people who had hurt him. By that Friday morning, I was unable to sleep more than a few moments at a time because the tension was so great, even though it had been months since I'd had more than five hours of sleep at a time. During one of those short naps, I dreamed that I was walking into a funeral parlor. It resembled the church I had attended as a child, and at the altar was a casket surrounded by yellow roses. I knew my grandmother was there though I couldn't yet see her; I could feel her presence both physically in the casket and spiritually around me, where I stood. Beneath this was a layer of awareness of the dream state, the fact that I was lying in bed in a darkened room with a man I feared - I felt her presence there, too; a tingling warmth that at once saw, comprehended, and still forgave all the wrong decisions I had made that had led me to this place. In my dream I approached the altar and a red light in the ceiling cast a rosy glow onto her body; her skin looked healthy and warm. On her forehead, filled with red light, were the words God is real. Though she was dead in my dream, I could feel her spirit standing with me, imparting to me everything those three words meant and all their implications for my future. God is real. God is Real.

I woke up with my faith restored, like an ember glowing in the darkness. I knew that I had to end the relationship I was in and I had to seek and offer forgiveness where I had hurt others, and where I had been hurt. That day was one of the worst I have lived through - and anyone who's read this blog knows I've lived through some dark days. But the light was there, sustaining me, giving me the strength to end the relationship even though he hit me, hurt me, threatened to wreck his car and kill both of us, and then later, tried to overdose and kill himself. The light was there, showing me the path out of that hellish place, though he cried and begged and pleaded with me not to leave him, and even though my mouth was bloody and my shoulder was bruised from his fists, it was still hard to go. The light was there, steeling my resolve during the weeks afterward when he put himself into a suicide-watch program and finally sought treatment for his mental disorders and continued to try to talk me into coming back - I stayed strong because the light that had been kindled in me as a child but had burned to ashes, that same light that my grandmother had coaxed and nurtured, the light that had rekindled upon her final visitation to me - the light was there. The light was all the proof I needed that God is real.

This year, as I watched A Christmas Carol and saw Scrooge's ghostly visitors, I was reminded of that spiritual visitation I had received, the redemption and restoration I experienced because of the deep love that my grandmother had for me. Was she really there? Honestly, it doesn't matter. What matters is the truth she worked so hard to make sure I learned - that God is real. Because of her I was reminded of that truth in all the most vital ways, and I received the strength I needed and could not seek for myself. That visitation was my ghost-of-Christmas moment and it led me out of the darkness and into a brighter place. Heaven and the Christmas-time be praised for it.

Forgiving vs. Enabling

"To forgive all is as inhuman as to forgive none." ~ Seneca

Forgiveness should always be a topic at the forefront of the Christian mind. I know that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, especially over the course of the last six months. I have wrestled with the concept of forgiveness the way Jacob wrestled with his Angel. The reason for this struggle is that I recently exited an abusive relationship. As a Christian, my first thoughts were about how I could forgive my abuser. I was angry over what he had done to me, as I imagine anyone would be. Worse than the anger was the hurt I felt -- I had given my love openly and freely; I had worked hard to treat him the way I myself wanted to be treated, but instead of responding in kind, he chose to tear me down both physically and emotionally. I felt so damaged by his abuses that I was uncertain whether I’d ever be able to trust myself enough to love anyone again. Forgiveness was something I felt I needed to offer, but I wondered if I would ever achieve it.

I spent a lot of time praying about it, as you might imagine. Each time I thought about my abuser, I’d repeat aloud or in my head (as appropriate), “I forgive you.” Sometimes, I did this dozens of times a day. What I wanted was to be able to stop thinking about my abuser, to stop feeling so hurt and so angry at him for what he had done. I wanted to move on and forget all about it; I wanted things to go back to the way they were before. But as time passed and my walk with God progressed, my anger diminished, which had the function of allowing me to see the situation more clearly. As the weeks went by, I began to see a flaw in my thinking. I had been counting on forgiveness as the means by which I would forget about the abuse and reclaim my life. I had intended never to address the abuses in any legal or even moral way; my intention had been to set aside what he had done and to pretend that nothing had ever happened. God had other plans.

As I prayed daily to forgive my abuser, God began quietly opening up channels of communication with other people. At first, I had been unable to really talk with anyone about what had happened; the pain and shame that I felt were too great. But God brought person after person into my life, and each of these people brought healing to me in one way or another. Some of them showed me by their actions that they loved me. Some of them were able to understand my heart without even knowing what had happened and they offered their support in subtle ways that reaffirmed my damaged sense of self-worth. Others offered their shoulders and listening ears with kindness and caring so strong it was palpable. As the story began to unfold to these treasured few, the Spirit went to work, showing me vital pieces of the puzzle that I had ignored or had been unable to see or understand. Yes, I had to forgive; it was required of me because God had forgiven me for my many sins and wrongs. I could not ask for forgiveness without first forgiving those who had wronged me. I accepted this and understood it. The harder part to learn was that forgiving does not always mean what we think it does.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines forgiving this way:
To give up resentment of or claim to requital for, or to cease to feel resentment against an offender.

I began examining my conscience to see if I had been able to achieve true forgiveness, and I found that my anger and my hurt were gone; my resentment had vanished. I wished my abuser well. I hoped that he got the treatment he needed and that he was able to build a life with someone else, and that he would never hurt anyone else. I was confident that I had forgiven. But as the Holy Spirit worked in my life, my conscience began to speak to me, nudging me toward deeper understanding.

Forgiveness is good. It is what Jesus would have done. But would Jesus have left the situation as it was? Would he have refused to speak out or tell the truth about someone, knowing that that person was capable of extreme violence and of harming others? Would he simply have forgiven and walked away, leaving others to suffer in the future? No, my conscience clearly told me that Jesus would not have done so. He would have found a way to heal the entire problem. That might have entailed the casting out of demons, or it might have consisted of curing a disease, or of driving money-changers out of the temple before they preyed upon the poor. I did not want to face the idea that through my forgiveness and lack of response, I might be enabling my abuser to go on and abuse again. After all, his ex-wives had experienced violence at his hands but had done nothing. He was in a position of power when he met me, and he had abused that also, crossing boundaries that should not have been crossed. If someone had reported his abuses in the past, he would not have been in a position of power when he and I met. And if I did not report his abuses, then he would continue in that position, able to easily harm others in the future.

The Free Online Dictionary defines enabling as: to supply with the means, knowledge, or opportunity…to give sanction to. My silence had become a means of enabling this man to hurt others, and to believe that he could do so with impunity. How could I live with that?

Still, I didn’t want to deal with it. I had forgiven. I wanted to forget. I wanted to let the past be past, and I wanted to believe that he had learned his lesson and would never abuse anyone again. Then he began turning up near where I live and work; a pattern of behavior that he had admitted repeating in the past when relationships and friendships were terminated. God was speaking through my friends, through strangers, and even through my abuser’s actions; He was showing me my responsibility.

It has been difficult to take action, and the situation is unresolved at this point. I don’t know what will happen. However, I do know that I have a responsibility not only to forgive, but also to protect others, to keep them from harm. I can still think of my abuser and wish him well. I regret that I am compelled to report his abuses – I did not want to do this. But God often calls on Christians to do things that we do not want to do, and it is the hardest tasks that are the most necessary. I have forgiven – but I will not enable. My silence will not be the vehicle by which another person is harmed. Jesus wouldn’t do that! He would tell the truth in love, no matter how hard it might be, and that’s what I am going to do.