I want to be strong. I want to be kind. I want to help. Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ on my left, Christ on my right, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me. I want to be good.
Mostly, though, I want to be strong and I kinda want people to know that I'm strong. I want to be capable and I kinda want to hear people tell me that I'm capable. St. Patrick's Breastplate fails me in the face of my stubborn adherence to this picture of who I am, who I want to be. I want to be useful. I want to do something. Not only do I want these things, but I think that my value, my worth depends on my ability to be useful.
And because I'm usually strong and because I'm usually capable and because my value system depends on it, I find myself particularly torn down when I find that I'm not strong enough or not capable enough. It's supremely frightening when I don't really understand why my strength has abandoned me or where my ability has gone.
That's what happened after I listened to episode 17 of Dylan Marron's Conversations With People Who Hate Me, You Are a Liar. Typically in my past, when difficult topics had come up for discussion, like rape and sexual assault, or any of the other million ways that hurt people hurt people, or careless people hurt people, the walls go up and the analytical mind comes on and I sit with the facts of the matter. No need to get emotional with it. No need to play on someone's heartstrings. Just give me the information I need to understand the situation. Thanks.
But that conversation was so... raw for me. I began listening with such hope that the person who had called a rape survivor a liar would, through hearing her story from her in her own words, come to understand the complexity of the matter and retract not only his comment but repent of the damaging ideas that had led to it. But as the episode went on, it became clear that he was entrenched in his way of thinking and that nothing was going to change his mind and I once again remembered why so many survivors of sexual violence and abuse don't report. People don't believe us anyway, don't hear us. And that's not going to change.
Inside me, my strength was telling me, "Oh, get over it. These are three people on the internet having a conversation that is in no way connected to you. The guy didn't mean anything by it. He didn't harbor any ill will. He just had a difference of opinion. Move on. Get over it. Get over it. Get over it. Shut it down. We have other shit to do."
I couldn't.
I laid there for God knows how long, then got up and found something to distract me. I didn't do any of the things that needed doing. I wasn't capable. I wasn't strong. I couldn't get over even this small thing. For the rest of my life, these small things will knock me off my feet and I will take days to recover and everything good about me, everything helpful will be gone. It's hopeless. I am useless. I am worthless.
This, my friends, is not what good is.
It's easier now, with some distance and some life-changes, to be gentle with my past self and with my mind. I had thought that strength was being able to play through the pain and I understand why I thought that. Sometimes strength is that. But strength is also seeing your hurt and allowing yourself time to heal. Strength is seeing that you are worthy of healing, that you are important enough, valuable enough just because you're here, to receive care for your wounds. Strength is allowing other people close enough to help. They probably want to help too. And usefulness and capability are all well and good, but they are not the pillars upon which your value stands. You, just as you are, are loved and capable of loving, and that is more than enough to build upon.
Once upon a time, during a moment of caring for me while I was deep in the throes of intense self-doubt, a friend asked me, "Well, you believe that Jesus loves you, right?" And I could not for the life of me fathom why he would bring up such a trite idea at such an important time. Sure. Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so. I have accepted this and graduated from Sunday School. Can we move on to something more substantial now?
But I think he was actually aiming at something deeply important. My faith tradition gives me an anchor, a storehouse of hope and love that is never closed to me, though I may not think that I deserve to run to it. The truth that I do believe, phrased in a way that I will hear it, is that the Love that made the Cosmos also cares for me, regardless of what I've done or left undone, regardless of what I can do or will do, regardless of the state of my heart. Christ died for us while we were yet sinners and that proves God's love for us. My brain, my mind, my lived experience might cause me to doubt my worth, but keeping the faith, for me, as hard as it is, means remembering that I am loved by an everlasting, inexhaustible Love, and that I am able to give love because part of that Love lives in me. That, for me, is as substantial as it gets. This is the touchstone. This is home.
Now, this is my journey and not yours. I will be the first to admit that the faith tradition that anchors me is also the one that deeply scarred me, making me think that I was worth less because of my abuse. I have had to wrestle with Christianity and the Church and who I understand Christ to be in order to land in a place of sureness in my faith, and that is not the journey for everyone. Another belief system or another way of seeing the world might speak to you. You might anchor your hope in the good that we can do for each other, and find that goodness and hope and love in your friendships and other relationships, and that might provide the renewal you need to face the world. But let me leave you with two little sparks of hope anyway:
After years of thinking that I wasn't taken seriously or wasn't cared for when I reported, I found out that the truth of the matter is that I wasn't understood. Finding this out didn't heal every wound, but it did open the door for more love and more understanding in my life than I'd had before. Sometimes life surprises you.
And that guy, who wouldn't believe a rape survivor without empirical evidence? Well, Dylan had another conversation with him and I think you'll find encouragement from listening to this one. If you've got the energy, give episode 25, I Hope You're Eaten Alive, a listen. Sometimes people surprise you, if you're able to give them the chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment