Tragedy....

Hmm.... this may be a difficult post. I've read two things tonight and both have moved me deeply. Hmm... and oddly, the topics are very closely connected although the sources have no connection at all.

This first is the 2nd piece in a series that Kathy Escobar is doing on the beautitudes called blessed are those who mourn.

This second is a 4,000 word suicide letter written by Bill Zeller telling (for the first time) about being raped as a child and how that affected him.

They both made me cry. At first, I thought it was for different reasons, but really, they are the same seen from a little different angle.

They are both about the pain of abuse and our need to examine that pain and let it out. In reading Kathy's post, I was reminded of the point I reached, 4 years ago, when I finally started giving a voice to the memories, the images, and they started to form a pattern... and I told someone, for the first time, what was actually done to me. It was like poison being drawn out. I am in debt to the friend who was willing to listen - who understood what was going on.... and for the next two days, I laid on her couch and cried...and slept....and cried.... and she let me. And that was the beginning of letting that incredible pain out.

And then I read Mr. Zeller's suicide note. And as I type this, I am crying. The words he wrote are very familiar. Very. And my heart breaks because he didn't find someone to tell.... and I went back 23 years ago when I tried to take my life. And I thought some of the same things. I really believed that people might feel a little bad for a couple of weeks and then get over it and be better off.... And I took a bottle of Darvon.... and told God I was sorry as I started to fade.... and woke up 24 hours later.... and I know that God had intervened. And, at the time, I was disappointed. Now, I'm not. I am glad I am still here. But then....

I think of Mr. Zeller and what he went through and I wish like hell I would have had a chance to talk to him - eye to eye - and tell him there is a way to get that fucking darkness out of the driver's seat. There is only one way. Shine the freakin' light of day on it and TALK ABOUT IT. It is the most difficult barrier I have ever broken through - when i went to my first counseling session after I had started to really remember details, my hands shook as I filled out the form. When I called a local hot-line to get numbers of counselors, I took the cordless phone and hid in my bedroom, scrunched up on the bed and could not speak above a whisper. I was scared. But I had had a taste of what it was like for the pain to bleed out and that gave me strength - motivation. And I had someone who cared - and who needed me. I had a reason to try. I had gotten a glimpse of an idea that maybe I wasn't just fundamentally bad....

It's funny. I was just talking to that friend this week about new details that have surfaced - I had come to the realization that at the age of three years old, I was faced with this dilemma.... at 2, I had been molested and told to forget it, never tell, big trouble.....and at 3, I saw a Billy Graham movie about teenage sex with a message of - at least the one that yelled at me was - REPENT! And at 3, how do you repent for something when you can't talk about it? I know, I know, I didn't do anything wrong - but that 3 year old didn't know that. And man, has that dilemma messed with me my whole life.... and I want to take that little girl and hold her and tell her she is not bad and that I am so sorry that happened.... And as I read Mr. Zeller's letter, I wished I could have done the same for him. Just held him and told him he was not bad. Hold on and talk about it and it will almost annihilate you - almost. But then, it will start to get better and the darkness will abate and lose it's power and the dark days will start to be outnumbered by the good days.... just don't give up.

But I also understand the soul weariness that says, "I'm done. I can't do this anymore." Bill Zeller, may God gather you in his arms and give you the true comfort and peace you deserve.

Don't Give Up & Other Random Thoughts.....

Hmm.... what a roller-coaster ride life can be.

I have been desiring for some time, to have clarity about the events that happened when I was 2. Last fall, I got a 'gut feeling' concerning the gist of it and touched on that in my post from October. But last night, while having an imaginary argument with my mom....

Me: Don't you understand how what you said to me - what you did affected my whole perception of God - made me feel like it was all my fault?

Mom: Well, it was your fault...

Me: What do you mean it was my fault? I was 2 freakin' years old! How was it my fault? I just toddled in on him while he was jacking off...


Then my brain shut down and I felt like I had been kicked. But the image of that moment was there as those words tumbled out and it is still with me. And I feel a little sick. I know there is more... but I have hope now that I will reach a place of clarity and resolve with this, even if I never actually talk to my mother again.

And then I wake up this morning to a debt collector calling.... and my car is in serious need of help.... and I still don't have a job... and unemployment benefits run out in about 10 weeks.....

And it is all very heavy. And yet, even writing about it, a little peace is seeping in. But the old familiar pain - the pain I haven't felt this intensely for a long time - is back, like a weight on my chest - ebbing and surging in waves.

Hmm... and through this, a steady conversation with God. And learning to relax in his peace and quit trying to "DO" something. Hmm... and that makes me think about how I have gotten to where I am with Him. It is definitely still a work in progress, but I realize that the past few years have not been about me trying to redefine who God is (Kripes, THAT is a tall and futile order). It has been about learning to let Him define Himself to me - not destroying what I thought I knew and building something else... It has been more a precess of peeling away the layers of definition piled on by Religion, family, society and getting back to what I knew as a very small child - getting back to WHO I knew as that small child.

And that has been a journey that requires willingness to look at my own history with honesty that alienates family and even friends (or so-called). It requires wanting to know what my mother said to me when I was 2 that twisted up that knowledge.

And I still struggle with GUILT, and FEAR and SHAME and all the usual suspects. After the phone call this morning, I had to fight through shear panic just to get showered and dressed and OUT OF THE HOUSE. Got some oil for my car and off to Starbucks to get online and look for a job and check in on friends and write....

And the only thing I am really sure of at this point is that, on a deep knowing level, God is real and the things I need will be on that path when I need them... and the only thing that is required of me is that I don't give up, don't quit - and to be clear, not quitting isn't about beliefs or religion - it is about living. Don't give up on moving down the path....

On Religion and Stuff...

Hmm... some of you may have noticed that I made a slight change to the banner - the subtitle. I think it more accurately reflects what my blog has evolved into.

Hmm.... I've been thinking a lot lately about religion and what it represents to me. It has been a process of 4+ years - letting go of religion. It started with letting go of the particular teaching I was getting at the cult (church) I was a leader in. But over time, I have let go of more and more of religion itself.

I guess I need to define what religion is to me. Well, first, maybe what it used to be. It used to be "the right way to be in God's favor." Really, although I didn't recognize this at the time, religion (what the church I grew up in and even more what my Mother said about God) and God were interchangeable. It took me a long time to realize that God and religion were two totally different things. When I began to see it, I was both relived and angry. Hmm.... angry at the deception and manipulation - relieved that God was not that.

Now, I see religion as a construct by and for men with the purpose of controlling men and of trying to define and control God and how He is viewed. And I also recognize that that is a bit of a simplistic and generalized statement. I realize that religion can serve a valuable purpose if it is kept in it's proper perspective and not worshiped as the beginning and end all of who and what God is. God is in religion. But He does not confine Himself to that.

It is interesting to me as I dismantle the religious beliefs I have held, to realize how nonreligious God is even in the Old Testament. An area that has been a mental camping spot lately is Job. The way religion interprets and defines what the Book of Job is all about really misses some points. We all try to find what it was that Job did that 'brought this suffering on him' so we might learn and avoid it - show me what not to do.... but, um, the text says that in everything Job said (including all the complaining) Job did not sin.... (I don't think sin is even the point). Even now, I am tempted to try and come up with an impressive reason why Job went through what he did. But in the end, I don't think that question is answered in the text. In the end, God showed up in person to answer Job's demands for an answer. And God challenged Job to understand who God was and in doing so caused Job to see more clearly that what was going on was not about crime and punishment....hmm....

And then there are Job's friends. There were actually 4 of them. Three older and a younger. They all came and sat with Job in silence for 7 days. Wow, that's is actually pretty amazing. I don't know many who would do that.... But then the 3 older ones took it in turns trying to get Job to admit that the reason he was in the mess he was in was because of some sin that he was hiding and not admitting to because God did not punish people without cause. Again, assuming it was about crime and punishment.... Job stood his ground that there was nothing he was hiding from them. Then the youngest one spoke and called the others out (including Job) for trying to speak as though they understood who God was.

And after God talked to Job, he turned His attention to the friends. He didn't say anything to or about the youngest one. But the 3 older ones... He told them they had lied on Him, misrepresented Him, disrespected Job... and they needed to ask Job to forgive them if they wanted to be forgiven. Hmmm.... interesting that He put that ball in Job's court. And I see Job's three friends as religious pillars who insist that their interpretation of God must be the correct one and if your life doesn't fit that, then YOU are the problem. Religion and those who are steeped in it haven't changed much.

Something else I see here.... for those that insist that every verse of the Bible is the "Word of God".... well, according to the text of Job, what those three friends said was NOT the Word of God and was, in fact, contrary to the truth about God. That being said, should we take the words those three friends said and put them forward as truth? Just some things I've been pondering....

Who Is God?

Hmm.... I've never participated in a synchroblog before, but this topic grabbed me. I've been on an interesting journey out of religion these last four years. It's funny how personal lives and religious beliefs are all intertwined and it requires untangling both to make sense of either.

I grew up in a Pentecostal home/church - a 'good Christian' home. Appearances, appearances. An emotionally, physically and sexually abusive home where it was an 'Event' if we missed a church service. Church doctrine was the Law (unless my mom disagreed with it, then HER opinion was the voice of God and trumped theirs in our home). Between the abuse and the church teachings, I was so afraid of God that... well, I really haven't found words yet to express the fear and even terror I felt when I was 7 or 8 or 9....

And this was all what people told me about God - who He was and how He thought and what He expected.... and it scared the hell out of me because I knew I was already disqualified by virtue of the things I had already done (translation: the things that had already been done to me).

And if this was all I had of God, I would not have survived. I'm smiling as I write this. The God I know is so much different than the one they teach us about in church. And He introduced Himself to me when I was very little - too little to even speak. Deep in my bones, I knew Him, even if I didn't understand what that was yet. When I was 1 and 2 years old, I loved Jesus....and He loved me back. And then life proceeded down a hellish path. I've struggled with the fact that He allowed this and where I have come to on this is a whole other post. But through the journey that my life has been - through every evil encounter and choices made out of pain and despair, He has never NOT been there. There were times that I couldn't conceive of Him being there, but I can see, now, that He was always there.

Something else that I see, now, is that the main thing that clouded my vision of His presence in my life was not the abuse that I endured in my family.... it was the teaching I received in the church. And through the process of disentangling from the familial abuse, I also have had to disentangle from the religious abuse. I have had to take everything I have been taught about God and throw it in a pile and sort through it and begin throwing away those things that do not fit with the knowledge of Him deep inside. Everything I thought I knew was reduced to a pile of rubble and ash. And that was a good thing - a VERY good thing. Because what I was left with was the necessity of examining what I really believe - and why.

And that brings me to the subject of the synchroblog. I don't believe that Jesus is real and alive and ever present because the church says so. In fact, I went to a 'women's meeting' with a friend a couple of days ago and got good and angry at some of the things that were being taught - things I used to believe because the 'people in charge' said so. And I was not confrontational. I was just able to listen to the teaching and hear what I heard growing up and say, emphatically, to my own heart, 'no! that is not what is true.'

The reason I believe that Jesus is alive and God is real and active is because of the ways He shows Himself in the details of my life - in unexpected and beautiful ways. He really is the father to me that I never had. And it is not just the way things always seem to work out (often at the last minute and in ways that defy logic) - it is also because I have seen Him. And that survives all doctrine and deconstruction of doctrine. It is where life is. It is where things are real and not theoretical. It has nothing to do with what any church teaches - many of them teach as if they have never met Him. It has to do with personal and close experience with the reality that is Him - a reality that is alive and ongoing with new epiphanies regularly. And nothing can take that away from me. And I think that is the point.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This post is part of a synchroblog: This month’s synchroblog’s theme is inspired by the season of Epiphany which begins on January 6 and ends the day before Ash Wednesday. The word “epiphany” is rich in meaning. Epiphany is derived from the Greek epiphaneia and means manifestation, shining forth, revelation or appearance. In a religious context, the term describes the appearance of an invisible divine being in a visible form. It can also indicate a sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something. An “epiphany” might refer to those times in life when something becomes manifest, a deep realization, a sudden recognition that changes one’s view of themselves or their social condition and often sparks a reversal or change of heart. In the spirit of Epiphany we invite you to share stories, experiences and/or thoughts about “The Manifestation of God”

Others participating in this synchroblog:

Mike Victorino - What To Do?
Beth Patterson - A Robust Universe Includes the Botched and Bungled
Jeff Goins - The Manifestations of God
Jeremy Myers - Pagan Prophecies of Christ
Mark Smith - Manifestations of God
Minnow - When God Shows Up
Alan Knox - A Day I Saw Jesus
Ellen Haroutunian - Stories of Epiphany
Liz Dyer - God Breaking Through Moments
Kathy Escobar - Orphans
Josh Morgan - The Manifestations Of God
Steve Hayes - Theophany: The Manifestation of God
Sarah Bessey - In Which Annie Opens the Door of Her Heart
Christine Sine - Eve of Epiphany - We Have Come, We Have Seen Now We Must Follow
Tammy Carter - Paralysis In His Presence
Peter Walker - Epiphany Outside Theophany (Outside Christianity)
Annie Bullock - God With Us
Jacob Boelman - Where God Shows Up

Update Redux...

Since several of you have asked.... and thanks for asking.... :-)

I have been collecting unemployment for about 7 weeks. I have applied for more than 50 jobs. I have been called in for an interview on 2. I did not get one, the other - I had the interview today. It went well and is promising, but I won't know if I got it until after the holidays. So.... thank God for unemployment benefits.

Things are tight, but I am okay. Getting a little help from friends here and there. :-)

Still working on a lot internally and have a lot I could post, but I still don't have internet access at home, so the time I have on a local coffee shop's free wifi is spent on job hunting....

Thank you all for asking how I'm doing.

Update....

Wow. Time flies. Here it is 3 months since my last post.... and I'm sitting in Starbucks again using their free wifi....

Well, I have been unemployed now for 3 1/2 weeks. Waiting for (hoping) unemployment to kick in - looking for a job... and finding myself emotionally back in the grinder again. Hmm... maybe while I was working, I didn't have the energy to think too much... haha.

Seriously, the fears of inadequacy - of not being good enough, deserving enough - have surfaced again. And I feel like I have regressed 2 years, and yet I am not as bad as I was then (most of the time). But I realized I still fight the feeling, when I go in to interview for a job or apply for unemployment or register with the local jobs agency, that I have a fear of being in trouble - being told I did it wrong, and therefore not getting any help. And I recognize that goes back to when I was little and the parental tendency to tell me that when I messed up, it was my fault - no help. No comfort, just a lesson. Recognizing it helps some, but it is still tiring. And I am in the place right now where I have just paid November's rent and now have no money and am hoping unemployment kicks in this week....

And, I am back to remembering things from childhood... when I was 2. And I recognize what happened and who did it and that my mother and his mother both knew and covered it up. And that my mom insured my silence by employing religious threats - by somehow making it about hurting God if I talked.... shit! I can't remember exact words or the complete thing, but there are enough fragments that I am mostly settled on the gist of it. And I don't know what to do with it. Part of me wants to look the young man (he was about 16 at the time) and his mother up - I know where she is - and just ask them what the hell happened. But that is a scary proposition.... so.... I will have to work up to that, I think.

Back to the means my mom employed to keep my silence. Talk about a foundational religious twisting - I can't tell anyone or God will be mad at me because it will hurt the church... or something to that effect. And a 2 year old is supposed to be able to process that shit. I think the only thing that really stuck was that I had been bad and God was mad at me.... and that has stayed with me my whole life.

It boggles my mind that these two women, knowing what had happened when I was about 2 1/2, would, when I was 3, have me participate in the defacing of pornographic pictures on the perpetrators bedroom wall. I just can't get my head around how they would think that was okay... in any way... even if nothing had happened....

Ah, well. So , in the midst of this, my mom was taken to the hospital and in ICU for a few days. And there was no emotion for that. Only sadness at the lack of emotion, if that makes sense. I haven't talked to her in about 2 years. And I really have no desire to now. A friend suggested I talk to her about the things that happened when I was 2, but I don't think that would be productive. I think she would pretend not to know and try to convince me that I was mistaken, as she has with so many other things I have brought up. So, I will just keep processing - and job hunting - and trying not to panic... ;-)

Hmm.... it's been a really long time. But... I'm still here.

I finally got a new laptop. Now I just need to get internet at home (I'm sitting in Starbucks at the moment, taking advantage of their free wi-fi).

Wow. What a wild winter - spring - into-summer it has been. Was told that I would really like the TV show "Saving Grace." So, being the "extremist" I can be... I got online and bought the whole series. Wow. At the end of the 1st season, I just laid on my couch and cried. There is so much in the main character that is familiar... including little revelations about God along the way.

Hmm... on July 5th, I passed the 2 year mark since I have seen my mom. Again, wow. She sent me a note in the mail a couple of months ago. She has made me her MPOA (Medical Power of Attorney). My therapist was shocked, wondered at my mom's sanity... :-) I was surprised. It never occurred to me that I could use that power badly - I would not abuse that position. Anyway, at the end of it, she wrote 2 simple lines. But let me back up. When I opened my mailbox and saw the letter, before I ever picked it up and looked at it, I knew it was from her. When I sat down and started oepning it, my hands were shaking and I started to cry. This is how much she can still twist me up after 2 years of no contact. Anyway, back to the 2 lines...

"I don't know why you have cut me out of your life, since you won't tell me. But I still love you and miss you."

Hmm... these 2 sentences really twisted me up. Still do, a little. To those who don't know her - or only know her 'public' face, it may seem innocuous enough. But that first sentence is an accusation that fairly drips with annoyance and sarcasm. There have been no calls or notes asking how I was doing or if there was anything she could do. Just this. So... on it goes. I did not respond to her. Just spent a few days (weeks) twisting and doubting myself and my choices....oy.

Well, today I was informed that I am being laid off and my last day is September 30th. I'm glad they gave me 60 days notice. Not as worried as the situation might suggest I should be. I have no savings or margin. But.... there is an expectant peace. As soon as I found out, I knew that the next step in this dance with God had arrived. Not sure what it's going to look like. I may move to California. (Hi, Tyler!) I may move to New York. I don't know. California is the highest likelihood from what I can see right now, but my vision is far from clear.

Not sure how often I'll be able to post. I was hitching a ride on a neighbors unsecured wi-fi (shhh) until this afternoon. He got smart and secured it. So, Starbucks or a local restaurant to use their free wi-fi.

Hmm... there has been so much I have learned these last few months, but I can't find the words right now. Maybe it's the setting. Ice clinking, blenders blending, jazz playing....