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Ruffled Feathers

30 Monday May 2016

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I don’t have stars in my eyes when it comes to those in leadership. I don’t know why; it just seems to be how I’m wired. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I come from a long line of very strong-minded, independent women, which can be hell on earth during holidays and hot flashes, but otherwise is a legacy for which I am usually (but not always) thankful. We don’t let anyone do our thinking for us, and I think it’s what has saved my life on more than one occasion. I’ve always had a very strong mind, and a very strong sense of identity and purpose. I know I am often not perceived as a strong or confident person, but, as someone very wise once pointed out, there is hidden gold in being both under-valued and under-estimated. It gives you freedom that those in the limelight seldom get to enjoy. I think very clearly (more so when I’m angry, or feel very strongly about an issue) and would rather stand alone than compromise what I believe to be right and true in order to be accepted by a group. Or an individual, for that matter. I do not think I should have to apologize for this.

I do quite often have to apologize for how I say it, though.

The diamond dust surrounding leadership lost its glittering effect on me way back in the early 1980’s. While I enjoy and appreciate good teaching, I’m not mesmerized by it. I grew up in the local church and have been involved in it for many, many years. All my life, really. I have seen church leaders at their best, and also at their worst; the human side, that few in the pews ever get to see. They are people, not gods, or even demigods, except in the sacred space between their own two ears. They are certainly not celebrities, although quite a few of them have an affinity for red carpets and paparazzi, especially in Western culture. Rather, they are the very human individuals who make up our spiritual family. Their role as leaders does not guarantee them immunity from the consequences of being human, but only serves to heighten their responsibility. They have the same faults, problems, desires and dreams as the rest of us. They bleed real blood and cry real tears. They struggle with the same issues everyone else does, whether it’s controlling their tempers, or feeling nervous and awkward in front of a crowd. Some people marry into leadership, but are never truly comfortable living in the spotlight, and some people are just born into it, as in the case of the stereotypical “Preacher’s Kid”.

I have often thought that church is like high school all over again, but with better clothes. (And cars). In high school, you have the in-groups and the out-groups: the cliques, the clique-less, and the generally clueless. The athletes, cheerleaders, brains and bullies all grow up together. There are the ones who demand all the attention from the teachers, and the ones who fade into the background and try to disappear.  But most of them grow up and go to church, and the more charismatic ones are quite often chosen to be leaders. More often than not, this has more to do with their ability to attract attention (and therefore a following) than it has to do with their sane and stable character traits. The drama queens and cheerleaders in high school are the drama queens and cheerleaders in the sanctuary. Those who use their size, money, looks, and/or popularity to exert power and control over their peers in high school will do the same as adults. They become well-dressed, smooth-talking bullies.

There are those who call me stubborn and those who call me steadfast. I think they’re two sides of the same coin. I can tell you neither one goes over very well in therapy. When I was going through my divorce, I went to a pastoral counselor; I knew I needed to talk to somebody and not have to keep everything inside, because doing so was quite literally making me physically ill. The counselor drew a picture of a pressure-cooker with a tiny little stick-figure person on the edge of the lid, and said “This is you, and you are going to blow up if you don’t open up and talk.” I knew when she said it that she was right, and it’s why I kept going, week after week, to the appointments. I carried that little scrap of paper with the picture of the pressure-cooker in my wallet for years, to remind myself not to let things build up in my head. Life as a single mom is unbelievably stressful; even the happy moments are frequently tinged with worry and sorrow.

People think a blog is a tell-all space where all of your life is out in the open for all to see, but that isn’t the case. Like all writers who write about their own lives, I get to pick and choose what I decide to write about. While I may at times regret having written something, please don’t think for a moment that I’m saying everything here that I feel like saying. Believe it or not, I do hold back a lot. I have a very busy (and therefore often very tired) mind. Something about turning 50 last year made me extremely irritable. My doctor assures me this isn’t hormones, as I no longer have any. I am just too old and have been through too much to be manipulated or bullied by a church or anyone else. Women who have suffered and survived abuse can smell manipulation a mile away. After a certain age, you’re no longer afraid to say so.

So here we are.

There are two things I will not write about on this blog – no, three:

  • I will not write what I do not believe to be true, and if God shows me otherwise, this is the place where I will say so.
  • I will not write embarrassing things about my family, mainly because I have to eat with them on Christmas and Easter, but also because I love them. Their stories are their own to tell.
  • Like all of you, there are personal aspects of my life that are only appropriate to share with God and my counselor. That isn’t denial, it’s discretion.

It’s entirely possible that more than a few people in the church are not happy with me at the moment, but I had braced myself for that accordingly after my last post. Life has well-prepared me for flesh wounds, and I am not easily dissuaded, discouraged, or defeated. Although I never intended to hurt or offend anybody, I am aware that I offended at least one, and for that I am truly sorry, and I do apologize. If this mess is ever straightened out, I can assure you I will write much happier posts. As icicles will probably form in the lower regions of Hell before that happens, however, I will continue to hold the conversation here. As I said, sometimes we have to settle for a partial healing.

 

Timeout

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

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SAM_4068We’re going to take a break here for a minute from all of the soaking, sozoing, and shabar-ing we’ve been doing lately, so grab yourself a towel and sit tight.

A week ago today, the March issue of Good Housekeeping hit the newsstands. I, along with five other women, were interviewed by a journalist for a story the magazine wanted to do on domestic violence. I’ve never been interviewed for a national magazine before, and I have to say it’s been an interesting experience. The whole process took about six months from beginning to end.

I wrote a lot, not just about my own situation, but about domestic violence in general, and emotional abuse in particular, which is what the term gaslighting refers to. It’s taken from the 1944 movie Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Other terms for this kind of abuse are mind games and crazy-making. They’re tactics used by an abuser that are intended to make you question your own reality, or worse, make others doubt your reality. It’s a ploy designed to isolate you, and cut off any means of support or help. It deflects attention away from the behavior of the abuser and onto the person they’re abusing. The behavior itself isn’t addressed; instead, the mental stability of the person being abused becomes the focus (yes, gaslighting occurs in counseling, and frequently results in collusion) and this is why you do not ever counsel both spouses together when there is domestic violence going on. It’s a dangerous (and in my case, almost deadly) mistake, and one that Christian counselors in particular frequently make in their zeal to “save the marriage”. But untrained and uninformed people can do a lot of harm, even when they mean well. Domestic violence is not a matter of anger management. Abusers manage their anger very well, and can stop on a dime and turn on the charm when they want to.  Most churches, at least the ones I know of, never have a domestic violence agency come in and train their leaders. This is why most of the people in the pews don’t bother reaching out to church leaders for help. It isn’t there.

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Anyway, I thought I had made myself pretty clear, both in what I had written and in the phone interviews, but I think that in the end the editors of the magazine tried to make my story fit their story. I think that what they wanted was a part on spiritual abuse, and pulled bits and pieces from what I had written and said about my own experience in order to do so. The problem is that while my husband was emotionally, physically and verbally abusive, the spiritual abuse, if any, came from the church, not him.  (I personally don’t consider my disappointment about not being able to go to Bible college to be abuse at all). They completely missed the fear and danger of what my daughters and I went through.

The part about what the elder’s wife said is true, unfortunately, but that is not the point at which I “quit reaching out and started praying I’d find a way out.” The truth is, I never did actually reach out to begin with; help found me, first from my primary care doctor, and then from a pastor at a different church than the one we were attending. The part about my pastoral counselor isn’t true at all; she never said that, or even implied it. All I said in the phone interview was that I made the mistake (huge mistake) of having my husband go along with me to my counseling in the first place, and that he controlled the whole thing from the beginning. But my counselor was never his counselor, and we didn’t go to her for marriage counseling.  Looking back, I can see that maybe I didn’t make that clear.  I thought I did, but I was so upset at the time that it’s possible that I didn’t.  I had to look over all of the notes from the police reports and court appearances in order to send the facts of the charges and orders of protection for the magazine, and in reading the court reports I can see that the counselor honestly thought we were there for marriage counseling, when, in fact, the counseling was for me. I knew I needed a witness and an advocate, and help with the grief and anger I was trying to deal with on my own.  I knew that whatever I was facing was going to be too heavy – too difficult – for me to handle by myself. Friends and family can love and support you, and they did, but they can be too emotionally involved sometimes to be of much practical help. I just needed the facts regarding adultery, from him, because those were the facts I believed I needed in order to decide what to do about divorce. I didn’t know that it was okay to leave an abusive situation if you were a Christian; I was never taught that. He went, because he wanted someone to validate him and protect his reputation; and to make sure that my counselor didn’t believe me.

I also wanted to make it clear to the editors that I, like most women, didn’t stay in the marriage because of “low self-esteem”. The average woman will leave an abusive situation an average of seven times.  The church leaders (at the time) had a “three-times-and-you’re-out” policy, meaning that they would help and support you no more than three times, and if your situation didn’t improve, then they were done with you, and you were on your own. There was absolutely no knowledge or awareness of domestic violence, or how to help people in crisis. The most dangerous times for any woman in a domestic violence situation are when she is pregnant, or during the first six months after leaving.  Another huge reason woman stay, and something I stressed to the writer, is the issue of finances. When women leave an abusive situation, they, along with their children, quite often fall immediately below poverty level. If all you have ever been is a stay-at-home mom, and in my case, a home-schooling mom, and all you have is one car, which he is going to get to take with him; and no viable means of getting employment and health insurance, you’re going to do your best to make that marriage work. Losing your house is not a small thing, especially if you have children; in our case, it has resulted in years of moving and instability that have only made things worse, not better.  I’ve never had the chance to get better, because I’m always trying to keep a roof over our head and the lights on. I can’t remember a day that hasn’t been clouded by grief and worry for over fifteen years. There are no ‘happy’ days, although there are happy moments, albeit few and far between.

Having said all of that, years of physical and verbal/emotional abuse do take a toll, and yes, your self-esteem suffers. When all you hear, day after day, is “No one will ever love you – no man in his right mind will ever want you – even your counselor is going to see what you are and reject you” (and she did, in the end) it hurts.  You don’t feel attractive, you don’t feel pretty, you don’t feel wanted. You feel pathetic. Rejection and fear are the feelings you learn to live with on a daily basis. The physical abuse is simply too embarrassing and too difficult to write about, to be honest. The whole thing is humiliating.

The one quote in the article that is exactly what I said is that “divorce doesn’t end abuse, it merely changes it. It may not be happening in your living room any more, but it happens on the phone, in the driveway, at school events and soccer games.” The church still shuns you, although they let you know in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that they are “praying for you and hoping you come back to the Lord.” I didn’t fall away from the Lord however, or ever lose my faith in God, although I’ve lost it in people. On the contrary this experience has deepened my faith in God. The person who actually helped, in the end, wasn’t my own pastor but was Pastor John Carter, from Abundant Life Christian Center in Syracuse, N.Y.  He is the only person I actually ever saw confront my husband about the violence in our home (on the midway at the State Fair, of all places) and I will forever be grateful for that, and for his help and counsel.  I went to Abundant Life after the divorce because I felt safe there. The counselor helped in that it she provided a safe place to go and try to deal with all of it. Sometimes we need to pay someone to just sit still and hear us.  To be both a presence and a witness to our grief, and sometimes, but not always, a friend.

Anyway, I thought that everything I said in the interview was all very clear. The problem, I believe, lies with the magazine editors, not the writer of the article. She seemed to understand what I was saying, and as a counselor myself, I know how difficult it can be to try to write a verbatim account of everything that was said in an interview, especially if you don’t know them personally.  It’s easy to make a mistake, or to get a wrong impression, no matter how hard you try to be accurate. When the ‘fact-checker’ editor from the magazine called me, I did tell her that she did not have the facts quite right, and tried to correct her, but she seemed to already have the story written as far as the magazine was concerned. I told her that the quote from my counselor was incorrect, and asked that it not be included, but for some reason, they wrote it into the article anyway.

I am horrified to see that they quoted her as having said something she did not ever say, or even imply, and to see it when I got my issue last week was extremely upsetting. I can’t fix it, no matter how sorry I am, and have had a difficult week worrying about it all of it. Any relief I had from finally being able to tell my story has been ruined by the error, however unintentional it may have been. After six long months of waiting for this story to come out, I don’t think I’ve done anything but cry since it did. Believe me when I say that I haven’t slept in a week. I am just so disappointed.

What I learned from this whole experience is that the story that results from an interview is not necessarily going to be written at all the way it was said. I will never read an article again without thinking I wonder if that’s how it really happened? I learned that from now on I will write my own articles, and tell my own story.  I may not get it all right, but at least I will know why, and where the problem lies.

 

Refuting the FAQ’s

14 Sunday Feb 2016

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SAM_3670The more I look into this, the more odd and unhealthy the whole thing gets. According to the FAQ’s as posted on Bethel Sozo’s website, a Sozo session is “framed” with the Father Ladder (a method of interviewing the client) or the Four Doors (supposedly four key areas of sin through which demonic possession or oppression can occur, boldly ignoring all of the other sins listed in scripture, all of which are of key concern to God). According to the FAQ’s page, a Sozo session will contain elements of these Sozo tools: Father Ladder, Four Doors, The Wall (think resistance, or more specifically, an emotional or psychological blockage) and Presenting Jesus, and states that other tools may be used, but “will not dominate the ministry time.” These are only four of the ‘tools’ used in a Sozo session; the others are considered Advanced Tools, namely, Trigger Mechanisms and Divine Editing. In addition to that, and for an additional cost, there is Shabar, for those who are beyond the scope of deliverance available through ordinary, entry-level false teaching.

“Presenting Jesus” has to do with conjuring up an image of Jesus in your mind (this is akin to divination, which is forbidden in scripture) and ‘re-writing’ the script of past abuse (real or imagined) by picturing him as being present in the memory. This tool is actually derived from the teachings of Dr. Ed Smith, who invented Theophostic Prayer Ministry, and even earlier from the teachings of Agnes Sanford, who began the ‘inner healing’ and ‘healing your inner child’ movement. Nowhere in scripture are we told to do this, however, and if an image representing ‘Jesus’ appears to you in your prayer session, it is in all probability either a figment of your imagination, or even worse, it is a spirit most assuredly not of God. The ‘freedom and deliverance’ movement itself is based largely on superstition and magical thinking, not on faith and reason.

The purpose of these tools is to dig for repressed, or forgotten memories of past abuse and emotional wounds; they are psycho-therapeutic techniques long since discredited and no longer endorsed by mainstream psychotherapy. Worth noting is the fact that neither of the two women who created Sozo are professional therapists, and apparently know little of mental health and evidence-based theories and therapies. They also, by their own admission, have no formal training in biblical doctrine and theology.

In answer to the question “When is a Sozo/deliverance finished?” the site states that the session is finished “when you [the counselor] discern that the ‘strong man’ has been defeated” or “when you or the ‘sozoee’ feel that you are finished.” (Emphasis mine).

Let’s be clear: anyone with even a shred of discernment or biblical knowledge should know that the ‘strong man’ in a true Christian is God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, and that the devil and God do not occupy (dwell in) the same space (house). Do you really want to cast the strong man out of a believer? Those who are advocating for deliverance ministries in the church will be quick to acknowledge that while a Christian cannot be possessed from within, a Christian can be ‘oppressed’ (demonized) from without. This is the justification generally given for allowing these ministries to operate within the church, and as a result, many people are lining up in churches and conferences around the world to have their particular thorn in the flesh removed. And they’re paying a pretty penny for it, too.

They will also be quick to point out that some of the people Jesus delivered [cast demons out of] in scripture were in the temple, ergo, they must have been Christians. Just because you find it in the cookie jar, however, doesn’t mean it’s a cookie, and you couldn’t then and cannot now make the assumption that every person in the church or hanging out on the church property is a born-again, Spirit-filled, bible-believing Christian.

In answer to the question “In a Shabar session, when do you know when to quit if complete integration is not accomplished?” the somewhat lengthy answer is that if you can’t get the client completely integrated, you are to focus instead on providing information, hope, and at least some integration, along with an admonishment to not force the person or ‘parts’ to talk to God. These clients are to be given time to see “if they like the parts being gone” and whether or not they want another session.

This alone should be enough for you to stay clear of any ministry using Sozo. It is a blatant reference to Multiple Personality Disorder which, as I wrote about several weeks ago, is not a legitimate diagnosis, and therefore requires neither treatment nor ministry. They don’t seem to have access to this information on the West Coast however, and so are accepting payments in order to deliver people from a problem they don’t – and can’t – have because it doesn’t exist. The sheer lunacy that forms the foundation of these ‘deliverance ministries’ pales in comparison to the ethical concerns.

Think about this: even Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, eventually died and stayed dead. The Bible doesn’t say that he lived the rest of his life in perfect health, or never got sick, or experienced problems that could be interpreted as ‘being oppressed’. And nowhere in scripture did Jesus partially heal someone and then send them home to wait 3-6 months to see if they were ‘okay’ with living partially healed, or if they wanted to come back later, check in hand, in order for him to completely heal them the second or third time around.

Further down the FAQ’s page, the question “Can one Sozo session actually heal a lie that has been believed for many years?” is answered in the affirmative. “Once the Lord heals the first time the lie was settled into your spirit, the rest of your life experiences based on this lie will realign to His truth.” The real answer, however, is that Sozo itself is based on lies, and no, you cannot be ‘healed’ from your painful memories in just one session. Spiritual and emotional healing comes from many hours spent in the Word of God, along with time in prayer alone; your life experiences will heal and ‘realign’ as you study His Word and apply it to your life, meaning that you will begin to see the events and experiences in your life in light of a greater picture (from God’s perspective). It doesn’t miraculously happen in one or two facilitated Sozo or Theophostic prayer sessions. The idea that all of your problems are based on believing lies is a recent trend that has infiltrated the church through books like “The Search for Significance” and “The Bondage Breaker.” Your problems aren’t caused by believing lies, however, they’re caused by sin, whether your own or someone else’s.

This is a subtle deception that has crept into the church through the recovery movement, eroding the clear message of the gospel and our need for salvation through Christ alone. You were “sozoed” when you became a believer; when you first believed that Jesus is Lord, that He died on the cross for your sins, and that He delivered you from eternal death by taking your place. This is deliverance for the Christian, and if you are one, then you have already been delivered. The real bondage breaking happens when you break free from all of the superficial, superstitious nonsense that is passed off as normative post-modern Christianity, and begin to seek and follow Truth as it is portrayed in scripture.

Another noteworthy find on the Sozo ministries FAQ’s page is the question “How do you minister to someone who received wounds while in the womb?”

Yes, it actually says that. And yes, they actually attempt to do this.

Are we really that gullible?

A popular misconception currently sweeping the churches is the idea that trauma and abuse ‘open a door’ to demonic oppression, but this is pure superstition, plain and simple. Trauma and abuse are terrible actions perpetrated by human beings who act out their sinful natures and evil tendencies on those who can’t defend themselves. They are not ‘entry points for the enemy’ or sources of demonic oppression, and you don’t heal these things by subjecting already wounded and traumatized people to a ‘deliverance’ session. Nor, for that matter, do you need healing for wounding that occurred while you were in the womb. Your mother might, but you don’t.

The FAQ’s page also states that “the leaders of your team should be the ones sozoing the leaders of your church.”

If someone is “sozoing” the leaders of our church, then we have a much larger and different problem – one that involves leadership, and their responsibility to keep false teaching out of the church, not to participate in it.

Can I lead someone to freedom if I don’t have any myself? would be humorous if it weren’t so disturbing.

Having said all of that, there is one guaranteed way to be delivered from demonic oppression that doesn’t require shelling out your hard-earned cash for a thinly veiled exorcism. Calling it ‘deliverance’ is merely a matter of semantics.

The one sure path to deliverance from demonic oppression is to abandon the Christian faith.  Because if you think you’re going to attempt to live the rest of your life as an even remotely mature believer, and think the enemy isn’t going to be a constant thorn in your flesh while you do so, you haven’t really studied your bible or the history of the church.  You can expect to be oppressed, tempted, persecuted and tried from the moment you set your mind to live a righteous and holy life. You can’t cast out consequences. There are demon-possessed people out there, but they aren’t spirit-filled believers, and odds are they aren’t holed up somewhere with a bag of chips, desperately searching websites for the nearest church performing exorcisms.

I can’t say this strongly enough: stay away from Sozo and Theophostics, and all of the other ‘inner healing’ and ‘deliverance’ ministries, especially those that utilize elements and techniques of recovered memory therapy. They are not healthy, they are not biblical, and they are not necessary.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is the spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.      1 John 4:4

 

 

A Collage of Many Colors

11 Friday Apr 2014

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CIMG0396In order to tell the whole story, I have to go back to how I met my counselor in the first place.  On July 8, 2000, I was invited to an event by a friend, who was, at the time, attending the church I go to now. This all came about because of something that had happened at my old church.  When my marriage fell apart, I started meeting with one of the elder’s wives.  This was not for counseling, but for spiritual guidance and accountability.  I made it clear in the beginning that this was all I was looking for.  I did not want to become somebody’s ‘project’ and said so.  My doctor had suggested that I talk to her, because I refused to go to a counselor, and I finally agreed.  I found out much later that this woman was in training to be a counselor for the church, but I didn’t know this at the time, and she never mentioned it.

It turned into a nightmare.

Somehow, she got the idea that the extreme grief I was experiencing as a result of what I was going through with my husband was really because I had been abused as a child;  specifically, ritual abuse.  (If you’re not familiar with this, bear with me, as this could all sound a bit odd.  If you are familiar with it, well, I’m sorry.)  It all culminated with a meeting in the Pastor’s office one day, when he was out of town.  I had thought it odd when she said that she wanted to meet there, instead of in her office, as we usually did.  When I got there, my best friend was already in the room.  I found out later that she was also being mentored by this woman as a counselor-in-training (I hadn’t known this, either) and, lo and behold, I was the person they were practicing on.  I have no idea what transpired between them, or how or why my friend came to be in the room that day, and had no idea what was about to happen.  As we sat down at the table, the elders’ wife said, with a nervous laugh, “If he (meaning the pastor) only knew what we were doing in here today, he would never allow it.”  That should have been my cue to leave the room.

I don’t know what made this woman think that grief from a broken and abusive marriage warranted a ‘deliverance’ session, but apparently she believed it did.  It was a humiliating and painful hour;  I sat frozen through most of it.  I could not look my friend in the eye, and the friendship ended soon after.  I had never, to my knowledge, told her anything that would have led her to participate in such an event, and could only imagine the talking that had happened between the two of them behind my back.  At one point, before they started praying and ‘casting out demons’, the elders’ wife put a wastebasket next to me, as she had heard that “people sometimes throw up when the demons come out.”  Really.

To my knowledge, the pastor never did find out what happened in his absence, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell anybody.  I did, finally, tell the elders’ wife that I had heard that she was in training to be a counselor for the church, under the leadership of the person teaching our biblical counseling class.  I only found this out when I signed up for the class myself;  the unwitting secretary had told me, and suddenly, everything made sense.  So, when I asked her “Do the other church leaders think that you are my counselor?” she became very angry, and said she would no longer meet with me, or help me in any way.  And so, we were done.  Immediately.  And she stopped speaking to me completely, even in church.  But, she kept something of mine, and hid it in her husband’s office without telling me, or asking if I minded that she put it there.  (Since my husband golfed with her husband, I would have minded very much.)

At one point in meeting with this woman (before the casting-out party) she had asked me to make a collage;  it was a project from a book that she had ordered for the bookstore.  I thought it was somewhat juvenile when she suggested it, but went home, borrowed some of my daughters’ glue sticks from her home school supplies, and sat down with a pile of magazines and a pair of scissors.  I started cutting out pictures, and little snippets of headings, and parts of sentences.  I couldn’t find anything sturdy enough to use as a backing, so I took the cover off an old copy of the church directory, and glued the pieces around the logo of the church.  So much of my pain was about the church, and my experience there, that it seemed fitting, and made the finished collage make sense.  To the right of the center fold was everything about the church and my divorce, and my adult life, and the left was about my childhood and growing up.  (For the most part).  This wasn’t really planned, but is just how it worked out.  I worked on it for at least three days straight, and did very little else during this time.  The collage really created itself, as most artwork does.  I can remember it clearly, if I think hard enough, but it, too, is gone now.  I cry about that, a lot.

After I finished the collage, I took it to her, and we did talk about it a little, but it seemed to be a bit too much for her, so we put it away.  Actually, she put it away, and that was how it ended up in her husbands’ office.  When I finally asked for it back, she told me where it was, and went down the hall to get it.  But it was ruined;  without even so much as asking me first, she had put it through the laminating machine in the office.  She said she was worried that all the little pieces of paper would come unglued, and she had hoped it would come out of the machine okay.  Then she said that she was going to use it to show to other people she was meeting with.  There was nothing about ritual abuse, only a lot of hurt and confusion, all poured out on paper.  Some of it was spiritual, and some was about abuse, but none of it was intended to be about the things that were in the books she was ordering.  (About ritual abuse, which I had never heard of until I met her, and started reading these books.)  I have no idea how many people in the church she showed it to, without my knowledge or consent.  Only God knows.  To say I was embarrassed is an understatement.  So, this is how it came to be that my friend, out of sheer desperation, said she wanted me to meet this counselor, who went to her church, and was going to be speaking at a women’s event in July.

I don’t believe that all therapy needs to be an intensive archeological dig, but mine did, only because of what I brought with me.  I brought my collage, and wanted my counselor to help me make sense out of it.  I desperately needed help.  I was a confused, depressed mess.  Although, come to think of it, that is how most people end up in a therapists’ office, so I guess there’s nothing all that strange about that.  What is strange is how it all ended.  But we’re not making a collage of that.  Or anything else, for that matter.

 

 

Scattered Pearls

15 Saturday Mar 2014

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IMG_299554994445707My husband always bought me Chanel No. 5;  he started doing this when we were dating, and continued for about ten years into our marriage.  To this day, I can’t walk by and see it on a department store counter without feeling a certain kind of pain.  And then, one year, I opened a bottle of Elizabeth Arden’s 5th Avenue on Christmas morning.  I wondered why the sudden change… until I discovered that he had bought two identical bottles of perfume that year.  Shortly after that, I found several other receipts, for gifts I didn’t receive or open.  Smart man, yes?

No.

There is so much shame and embarrassment that comes with divorce.  It would be nice if there was a safe, quiet place where we could go and heal.  Divorce also comes with a lot of upheaval;  we lost our home, and every place we’ve rented since has been sold by the landlord almost as soon as we unpacked and got everything set up the way we want it.  Suddenly, it was all gone.  There is a saying that “God is a God of second chances.”  With God, we get a clean slate, so to speak.  Not so with people.  Sometimes they’re just gone.  Sometimes we lose our place of hope and safety.  Or we lose our voice, instead of finding it.

In the very beginning of counseling, I had an extremely difficult time trusting that my counselor was honestly not going to just quit and disappear.  After everything I had just been through with my husband, I just did not believe that she wouldn’t do the same thing, and I wasn’t about to go through anything like that again.  I was already extremely sick, and tired, and it just seemed like to much effort to go digging into the past.  Nor did I want to dig it all up, and then risk being left alone with all of it.  I told her that I was afraid I would ‘come apart’, and all of the pieces would scatter, and I would never in a million years be able to get it all back together.  When I said that, she did the most wonderful thing;  she left the room, and then came back with a small package of Skittles.  She opened the bag, and let the candy fall all over the floor between us.  Then she got out of her chair, and knelt down, and started picking them up, one at a time.  She looked up at me and said:  “And if that happens, we will pick up every one of those pieces, together.”  When she had them all, she sat back down.  She had heard me.

Some time after that, she gave me a small, beautiful bracelet made of pearls.  She said that she was giving it to me so that I would know that I could trust her, and that she would never just quit and give up on me, and walk away.  She said that she understood that I had a hard time believing her, and that I would learn over time that she could be trusted.  I loved my bracelet, and I finally believed her.  I did wear it, and it did help.  Had I known what would happen in the end, I would have handed it right back and left the room, but at the time, I really did believe her.  I think she did, too.  Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out the way she promised, and now all of those little pieces of my life are scattered everywhere, like little beads from a broken bracelet.  Most of this is all my own fault.  I wish I could go back, because there is so much I would do differently.  For the last couple of years, I have been trying to pick up all of those pieces by myself, without a counselor.  It isn’t going very well, mostly because  I didn’t get to take them all with me, the way you normally would when you finish counseling, in some kind of integrated whole.

After the horrible day in her office, the day she was so very angry because of my email, I waited and waited for her to call and say that what she did was wrong;  that she had made a mistake, and we would talk it out at my next appointment.  Instead, she called, and said that she would meet me at Panera Bread when she got out of work one night.  Why we met at Panera Bread, I will never know.  None of it made any sense, and still doesn’t.  I don’t know what the purpose of any of this is, and it’s all still such a confusing mess.  It hasn’t served any purpose, Godly  or otherwise, other than to make me wish I had never asked for help in the first place.  When we got there they were closing soon, so we didn’t have much time.  She explained somewhat hurriedly over coffee that she had read something in her devotional that morning, and that she took it to mean that God had given her an ‘out’ so to speak.  (That is not how she worded it, but is in essence what she was saying.)  She had brought a copy of it with her;  I read it, but didn’t see what it had to do with what had happened in my session.  I still don’t.  I felt like I was watching our conversation from the ceiling, or another part of the room;  the whole thing was surreal.  When she was done saying what she had to say, she promised that nothing would change, she “would still be there” (I haven’t yet figured out where) and that we would be friends, and have coffee, but we just wouldn’t “do therapy.”  And just like that, she was free.

She kept a part of her promise, for a while, and even sent an email on my birthday.  We were actually going to go for coffee (she said) but before that happened, she read a couple of the posts I had written about how hurt I was.  I regret it, but don’t know what to do about it.  There’s nothing anyone can do.  Needless to say, everything has changed, and all I want is to go back and finish my therapy.  It’s not about her, it’s about me.  I want a second chance.  Now we are not even friends.  She just disappeared.

I was heartbroken when we left Panera Bread.  I also sent the bracelet back to her, but can’t remember if it was before or after Panera.  She told me that as she took it out of the envelope, it broke, and the pearls scattered.  She said that she took it as a sign that the counseling just “couldn’t stay together any more.”  As though it were proof that God had let her off the hook.  I took it to mean that she had broken her promise, and that I was right in the first place;  it was a sign that she really couldn’t be trusted after all.

Do you know what it was a sign of?

That if you wear a bracelet every single day, for years, but never get it re-strung, the elastic will eventually break, and the beads will go all over the place.

That’s all it means.  Nothing prophetic, overly spiritual, or profound.  It’s not a sign from God that it’s okay to break a promise, it’s just a sign that you shouldn’t send fragile items through the mail.  It’s a sign that you can’t trust a piece of jewelry to keep a human being from acting like a human being.  They get angry, they blow up, and they hurt the people they say they love.  And then they leave.

That’s all.

I miss my bracelet, and I want it back.  And if I had honestly thought for a moment that she would keep it, I wouldn’t have sent it to her.  I only meant to remind her, in a not quite so harsh and hurtful way, that she had made a promise.  If I hadn’t sent that email, none of this would have happened, and things wouldn’t be as they are today.  It really was a pretty bracelet.

I will never see that again, either.

My Brethren, These Things Ought Not To Be…

25 Monday Jul 2011

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Christ's Charge to Peter by Raphael, 1515. In ...

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I went to a wedding a few weeks ago.  The bride, whom I love dearly,  was beautiful.  What was disturbingly not beautiful was the behavior of some of the church leaders.

At the wedding,  the pastor and his entourage went around to each table, greeting and visiting with the wedding guests, who were pretty much divided around the dance floor.  At our table there were two women who had recently fought cancer, a woman who is currently going through a divorce, and my daughter and I.  My daughter has been asking God for a chance to speak to the pastor, because she is struggling with coming back to the church.  The group surrounding the pastor stood at the table next to us for a while, and then, without even acknowledging any of the women at our table, moved smoothly to the next table.  I am not sure if we were being shunned as a group, or if it was meant to exclude a specific person.  Moments before, on the other side of the room, the pastor was saying to a friend of mine something about the importance of the church reaching out to those in the world who are in need, and our responsibility as a church to care for the poor, and unloved.

My point is,  that as beautiful as the wedding was, the event was marred by behavior that was  both inexcusable and childish.  I was embarrassed and ashamed of our leaders, and ashamed to be associated with them.  As a woman, one of the things that had so impressed me with this church, was the way women seemed to be honored, and respected.  Coming from a situation of  domestic violence, and spiritual abuse, it was so unbelievably healing for me to come into what appeared to be a safe place.  Any counselor who deals with trauma knows how important it is to establish safety  and trust before any true  life change can occur.  The intense grief I feel,  when I think back to how happy I was in my early days in the church, is overwhelming sometimes.

As a single parent in the church, I have been through hell.  My divorce shook my faith; my experience within the church has all but destroyed it.  I was told by my counselor that although I am more than qualified to teach in the church, I can’t be “sold” to the church because . . . “Well . . . you know . . . you act funny”.   Really?  Well, let me be clear:  I cannot be sold, bought, traded, or trashed, period.  To the church, or to anyone else.

But sometimes I do act funny.  I get nervous in a crowd;  I’m horribly shy;  I have absolutely no social skills whatsoever.  I would be perfectly happy to be exiled to an island with nothing but pen and paper, to have visions of heaven and write letters to the churches.   But God . . . has called me to live here, in this time, in this culture, in this city, and to love people.  Yes, even these people.  No matter what they do, no matter what is said about me.  For years I have carried this quote in my wallet:

“The demands of holiness are the same regardless of circumstances.”

So what do we do?  We come with grace, and mercy.  We love those who persecute us, whether in or out of the church.  We love those who treat us wrong. We learn from the horrible experience, and hopefully, when we are called to lead, we remember to do so differently.  And more importantly, we forgive . . . because they know not what damage they do.