You Are a Liar/I Hope You're Eaten Alive

This is a reflection on two episodes of Conversations With People Who Hate Me that deal with the topic of rape and sexual assault. As Dylan says, if that's not something you should be reading about right now, that's totally fine. Go out and do something good for you. But if you've got the energy, this might help you see something new in the world you haven't seen before. 

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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.

For Christ's Sake

On Sunday morning, we had one of the most powerful All Saints Sunday services that I've ever been a part of. The church was full of people gathered to mourn the losses of the past year and to celebrate lives, long or short, lived well and lived deeply. The bell tolled more than seventy times as the list of names was read and the chancel was aflame with candlelight. The congregation was grieving the loss of both its oldest member (just a few weeks short of her one hundred and third birthday) and its youngest (just a few weeks past his and his twin brother's first birthday) and still, there was an abundance of joy. They lived in the place where hope meant deep strength rather than weakness.

It was beautiful.

It was beautiful and I was going to write about it.

I was going to unpack the service and really dig into the comment one of the parishioners made about it. ("It was heavy this morning, ladies. I know you gotta do it, but...")

I was going to let us sit with this lone empty high chair, which hit me like a sucker punch to the gut as I walked into the fellowship hall, because there should be two of them. This child should not have to grow up without his brother, nor this mother live without her son, but the fact of this emptiness remains and that's why we have Sundays like yesterday.

I was going to be deep and encouraging and I intended to share all of the gifts given to me that morning with all of you.

And then what happened in Sutherland Springs... happened.

Happened again.

How is this happening again?

How are we doing this insane dance again? How was once not enough? Playing like thoughts and prayers are sufficient when what does the Lord require of us but to do justice? Where is this famed mercy that we're supposed to be loving when people are bleeding out on the church floor? What kind of God are we walking with if we continue to allow instruments of murder to be easier to obtain than medical care, when we enable death and curtail life? Our hearts are cracked, every single one of us, with deep chasms that scream for fulfillment, and we pretend like bullets are safe things to have within reach.

God.

I swear.

Is one dead kid not enough? Wasn't twenty? How high does the pile of corpses have to be, exactly? I'd love it if you'd give me a number, just, you know, an upper limit for the number of acceptable gun deaths in a given period of time, because apparently we live in some twisted reality where that number is not zero. I mean, parents of toddlers put covers on all the outlets but it's not like we're outlawing electricity. We're just taking precautions because we decided that one kid dead from electric shock was too many. I don't understand how you can even pretend to be on the side of life when you value access to guns more than the safety of the most vulnerable among us.

So, is it a question of legislation? Or is it a question of enforcement? Training? Equipment? Is the real issue here domestic abuse and toxic masculinity and broken community? Radicalization and terrorism? Fear? Guilt? Greed?

You know, I honestly don't care anymore. It doesn't matter to me which fix we try. I just need to know that we can all see that there's a problem here. I need to know that we all know that this is not what normal should look like, that this is not what good or even fine looks like. I need us to acknowledge that this is not the life that we were freed for.

Dear God, what have we done that we continue to have Sundays like yesterday?

Vulnerability

I have been told, recently and frequently, that I need to work on my vulnerability because, as a pastor, people are going to want to see that vulnerability from me. People keep saying to me, "They want to know you're human!"

Really.

They want to know I'm human.

What, this shipwreck of a body isn't enough to convince another person that I'm human? You need to see something more than this frayed hair and these frumpy clothes, these wrinkles and these rolls, the dozens of tiny scars and scrapes and cuts on my skin, in order to know that I'm human? I walk around daily in my vulnerability just like you do, but I don't demand proof of emotion before I see you as human.

And while we're at it, why should I have to join the scores of people I know who have outed themselves as survivors of sexual harassment or assault? For many of us, that just comes with the territory of having a female body. But maybe you want some more disaster tourism of the emotions on your timeline so sure, let me tell you about the time that I got catcalled when I was in a vulnerable state. It got to me so much that I had to write about it so that I could get it out of my head. Is that enough for you to accept that there's a problem? Or do you need something "more real", something that would "actually count"? Because I can go digging back into the pain and panic of another story I don't tell for a reason, if the #metoo isn't enough for you to believe me, but don't expect me to like you on the other side of that. I'm not Jesus. You don't get to dig your finger into my side to see if it still hurts and expect graciousness from me.

I just don't understand what you think I am, if I have to start naming my troubles in order for you to see that I'm human. I'm here, aren't I? Is there any person on this planet that hasn't had a share of sorrow? How do you walk through this life, live in a limited body like this, without trouble visiting your doorstep? Who do you think I am, to have avoided being ravaged by the same deep pain that has seeped into the soil of this world and ruined you in some way too? Do you need to see how my mind hurts? My body? My heart? Do I need to unravel every one of my monsters for you before you can say, Me too? Do I have to show you how a comment can send me into the depths of my fears about myself before I earn the right to have you to sit down across the table from me and call me sister?

Listen, I hear all y'all when you say that I need to open up more, but I'm still kinda puzzled. How do you not see the bandages I've wrapped around my wounds? Sadness seeps into my every smile like a beacon-- how did you not notice that? There are days when I've used every ounce of energy I have left to drag myself to the places that I need to be, where commitment is the only thing propping my shoulders up and Someone Else's kindness is the only thing that can find its way out of my mouth, because goodness knows I have nothing left to give. You're telling me that on those days you don't see how I'm taut like a cello string a turn away from snapping? I'm that good at hiding it?

Well. Coulda fooled me.

Guess that makes me kinda human, huh?