GRACE investigation outcome rocks Bob Jones University to its foundations

After much gnashing of teeth, inside-intrigue and at least one publicly-threatened cancellation, the investigation of Bob Jones University by the independent religious organization called GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) has at last concluded. (pdf file here)

It was officially presented last week, and the Baptist community of upstate South Carolina was promptly thrown into convulsions.

There is nothing in this report that would surprise followers of religious fundamentalism, or those who intimately know how deep-fundamentalism works on the psyche. I first heard stories about how Bob Jones University shames victims of sexual assault, when I arrived in Greenville over 26 years ago and attended AA meetings here. Women who abuse alcohol make excellent victims, and I heard about the shaming of these women (for both drinking and then for having been victimized), up close and personal... over and over.

It has taken all this time for these stories to come to light.

The tales were rampant, and yet, I didn't really understand the authority of BJU and how these places work psychologically. Can't you just leave?!-- I would ask them, uncomprehending.

I might as well be asking the Amish to leave. I think that's a good comparison for the lack of preparation young fundamentalists (often homeschooled) have for the real world. They are frequently very unworldly, confused, overprotected, sheltered... again, the perfect victims, who will stay silent. And so they have.

Until now.

The much-awaited report came out last week. There are now several follow-ups from the Greenville News, suggesting legal action is not out of the question. (More here and here.) And hey, let's count it as a small miracle and nothing short of AMAZING that the once-reticent Greenville News is finally getting with the program. This is the same Greenville News that studiously and deliberately IGNORED all reports of questionable, hinky behavior from BJU since I first started reading it. As I have complained countless times, our local paper of record mostly talks about how WONDERFUL Bob Jones University is; lots of special-interest stories about alumni and their opinions, business ventures, gardens, whatever... not to mention their super-duper Arts Department, Music Department ... just one long GUSH GUSH GUSH.... you'd think it was freaking Oxford, the way they have constantly extolled the virtues of the place.

Sometimes I have felt like the Greenville News is one long combo education/travel brochure advertising Bob Jones University.

Well, not this week. A editorial gives them what-for, in no uncertain terms:

Bob Jones University will be challenged over the next few months to prove it truly understands the devastating nature of the findings from a two-year investigation into how the school for decades handled reports of sexual abuse on and off the campus. The school's response will demonstrate whether it is committed to helping vulnerable people failed by school leaders who handled sexual abuse disclosures in a manner that for many victims deepened their pain and stalled or made impossible their efforts to recover from traumatic experiences.

GRACE began its long-awaited, 301-page report that was released Thursday with a compliment to BJU for taking a "bold step forward" to examine "how it may have caused deep hurt in the lives of students who had suffered from the ravages of sexual assault." GRACE is a self-identified Christian organization based in Lynchburg, Virginia, and its full name is Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment. BJU under former President Stephen Jones does deserve credit for undertaking the independent GRACE investigation and agreeing to make public its findings.

Others deserve even more praise, however, and that includes the former students who have forced the university to acknowledge and address its failures when it comes to how allegations of sexual abuse were handled. Former students and even some current ones recognized the injustice that has taken place and have refused to back down even in the face of criticism and some hostility. The courage displayed by alumni and former students who insisted on the GRACE investigation is even surpassed by that required of the sexual abuse victims who participated in this study. They are the heroes here for agreeing to share their stories of the original abuse and then the revictimization that followed as they were struggling to deal with what had happened to them.

The two-year investigation produced an unflinching report into how BJU failed to provide a safe environment where students could seek help and begin the healing process after they arrived on campus dealing with childhood sexual abuse or were assaulted during their student years. Part of the investigation included a confidential survey, and in it more than 60 percent of the self-identified abuse victims who responded said the college's attitude toward victims was one "of blame and disparagement."

One of the most damaging findings was that key college leaders were slow, by decades, to understand their legal requirement to report alleged sexual abuse in many cases. Laws were developed more than four decades ago, and refined and sharpened over the years, to require adults in positions of authority to protect innocent children who are being abused. It is absolutely appropriate for Solicitor Walt Wilkins to begin his own investigation, which was announced Friday, into the way BJU handled the sexual abuse reports.

Wilkins has an opportunity to put an exclamation point on the brutal report by holding BJU officials accountable if his investigation finds violations of legal requirements to report sexual abuse. "If they were convincing individuals not to report crimes that could be considered obstruction of justice," Wilkins told Greenville News reporter Lyn Riddle. "We need to see if it rises to that level."

One key finding of the GRACE report stated, "The survey findings support a possible conclusion that BJU representatives may have sometimes discouraged the reporting of sexual crimes to the proper authorities." Although school officials have reported a different interpretation of some comments or counseling advice, some victims said they were told the abusers should be forgiven and not reported to law enforcement authorities, and that they would be selfish if they shared their experience with others and in doing so hurt the school.

Victims also reported how they were made to feel ashamed for what had happened to them, and they came away from sermons or counseling sessions thinking they had contributed to the abuse. "Women and girls were taught they must 'confess' the part of sexual abuse they enjoyed, that they probably enticed the abuser," was among the viewpoints expressed.

One victim reported she was abused by her grandfather from the ages of 6-14, according to the GRACE report. When she went for counseling, she later reported being asked, "Did you repent for your part of the abuse? Did your body respond favorably?"

Daisy interjects: OH GROSS.

Two school leaders were held out for especially strong criticism in the GRACE report: Bob Jones III, who led the school for many of the years covered by the investigation, and Dr. Jim Berg, dean of students during much of the period covered by the investigation and the man, who with an educational background in theology, helped develop the counseling program for students.

The GRACE study led to a number of recommendations, some already implemented, that include timely reporting of suspected abuse, a recognition that victims should never be blamed for abuse or assault, and an agreement to separate counseling services from the disciplinary process.

BJU President Steve Pettit and others who hold the university dear to their hearts now carry the burden of implementing GRACE report recommendations, trying to salvage the school's reputation, and reaching out to vulnerable people hurt first by their abuser and again by how their confidence was betrayed and their case mismanaged. There's more the school should do, too.

The extraordinarily damaging views about abuse that were uncovered in the GRACE report have hurt more than the victims who participated in this investigation. Those views were shared over the years with young men going into the ministry, with students preparing to be teachers or counselors, and with boys and girls who now have their own children who are venturing into a world that can be unsafe and downright cruel. A step toward redemption should include BJU's heartfelt and comprehensive effort to make its closest allies understand how much horribly wrong information was spread for many years and how critically important it is to change a fundamentally flawed view of sexual abuse.

I really can't add anything to that. I am proud of them for finally saying it.

And for my part, I wanted to rip the BJU administration a new one, but I figure I will save that for the radio tonight. (TUNE INTO WOLI AM/FM, listen live at 8pm!) But more than that... I have had an epiphany. (Kevin Spacey voice: I hate when that happens.)

The people who have given me so much grief over the years? These Bob Jones mavens who have written me up on the job and started fights about Jaysus (credit to Tom Wolfe for spelling) and made pests of themselves at the Black Sabbath concert and at the bookstore where I worked??? I now see that many were suffering. Perhaps, suffering greatly, and directing this pain outward was what they were taught to do, the only way they knew how to cope. And there I was, an available target.

Not unlike the way THEY were an available target.

And so, the pain is passed on.

I have decided not to do that this time. I want to be better than that.

It is my hope that fundamentalists will learn from this, that they have plenty of problems of their own to deal with, and they should probably stop pointing at other people and deal with themselves. I think plenty of people have figured this out in the past week--maybe more than I ever believed possible. And for all of you, I offer an olive branch. (holds up two fingers) PEACE!

Please speak out and share. And organize for change. My love to you all at this difficult time.


~*~

EDIT #1: One person already speaking out, sharing and providing excellent analysis is survivor Dani Kelley, who is doing a series on the GRACE report. Please check out her blog.

EDIT #2: My friend Camille Lewis offers some inside-baseball on the situation, for all of us to peruse: Bob Jones University rewrites recent history to ward off federal investigation, PART ONE and PART TWO. (The timeline featured in PART TWO, is indispensable for those who want the step-by-step of how the investigation came to be.)

Stay safe!

Wishing all my friends up north, my very best!

Do what they tellya to do, okay? (I know, its hard to take advice from the likes of Chris Christie, but on this one occasion, listen to him!) There is actually snow in the North Carolina mountains before Halloween! That may be a first!

Love ya and stay safe.




~*~

Still at Sea, Storm Drenches East Coast (New York Times)

Hurricane Sandy grounds thousands of flights worldwide (CNN)

Hurricane Sandy speeds towards landfall (CBS News)

Damage from Hurricane Sandy could be catastrophic (USA Today)

Tracking hurricane Sandy: As storm 'zigs', it's also changing dramatically (Christian Science Monitor)

Years added to Daisy's life!

The health care act has been UPHELD by the US Supreme Court. I did not expect this and thought I would faint.

More:

Actual text of decision (San Francisco Chronicle)

Key Quotes from Ruling (Politico)

Obama health-care law: Supreme Court upholds it in entirety (Christian Science Monitor)

Supreme Court upholds health care mandate (CBS News)

Obama wins big in Supreme Court health care ruling (Politico)

Ginsburg: "Congress Followed Massachusetts' Lead" (Mother Jones)

Legal Scholars React: 'Many People Were Stunned' (NPR)

Why The Individual Mandate Is Not A ‘Massive Tax Hike’ On The Middle Class (Think Progress)

Conservatives Freak Out Over Health Care Decision (Mother Jones)

PHOTO: John Roberts’ Wikipedia Page Vandalized: ‘Chief Traitor (Talking Points Memo)

Obama praises Supreme Court health care ruling (Politico)

A Buddhist Story about People and Cats

My cat Cyril, who has never bitten me.






About a dozen years ago, give or take, I was feeding a cat behind our apartment building. He was a very cute, squat kitty, white/tabby patterned with sweet golden eyes. He was dirty and bedraggled--a feral cat, to be sure; he would not approach humans. I fed him for months, and occasionally sat out on the terrace while he ate. As a stray, he was far too hungry to wait for me to go inside to commence chowing down. He ignored me, and I took advantage of this situation, to get closer. And closer.

And eventually, one day, I touched him. He instantly purred, rubbed against me, meowed happily. I wondered if he had always been feral ... or maybe he had simply concluded I must be okay, as his faithful food-dispenser. I pet him every day after that. It was about two or three weeks after I first touched him, that he suddenly lunged and grabbed my arm with both paws, full-on, and... crunch. He bit me. Hard.

Ouch. It was DEEP. (I still have the scar from it, a singular spot on my thumb-joint.) There was blood, and the pain did not readily subside.

Two seconds after he did this, he was purring again, rubbing against me happily. What gives?--I thought. I realized that he probably had an ear infection (or an infestation of ear mites, as most strays have) and while petting him, I had gotten too close to his ears. I could see that he wasn't mad at me, because he didn't run off. My mistake, I thought, this is what I get for petting strays. I cleaned myself with peroxide and bandages, and went to work as usual.

Within two days, I had a fever, and my arm was red... the redness appearing to climb up my arm. I was working at the dreaded call-center then, and even typing had become painful. I called my mother, and she basically shrieked at me to go to the doctor, that being bitten by a feral animal was a serious matter. Denial, I guess. I knew this intellectually, but didn't seem to think it applied to ME. Because I am a cat person!

It was serious... I already had an infection that was in danger of becoming systemic. I needed a huge dose of Rocephin and was running a significant fever. I was embarrassed by the whole thing. As a cat person, I was embarrassed a CAT had attacked me, feral or not.

But even more than that, it then became a government matter. DHEC has rules about feral animal-attacks. (Who knew?) They have to fill out government paperwork and call the Health Dept and everything. Was this an unprovoked attack?--asked the nurse. I couldn't readily answer. Was it? "Well, I was petting the cat and I think I got too close to his ears," I said, "so that is MY fault." She shook her head at me and disagreed; that is still unprovoked, in fact, that is exactly the instantly-unpredictable, random bad behavior they are looking for.

I certainly didn't think it was unprovoked, but officially, it was. They would have to trap the cat and see if it was rabid.

And get this: to check the cat for rabies, they have to cut off its head.

So, even if the poor stray feline in question doesn't have rabies, the poor cat has still lost its head. :(

I was reminded of those tests for witchcraft in the Middle Ages, in which some poor accused girl would have a boulder tied to her waist and was then thrown into a lake. If she was guilty of witchcraft, of course, she would float. There really is no way to win that one.

And it was the same for the poor kitty. I was horrified and felt terribly guilty. If I had never fed the damn cat in the first place, none of this would have happened. (I also thought of Star Trek's prime directive, and remembered that I had always believed it was a fine idea. Thus, I regarded this as the penalty for my direct interference in Feral Cat Civilization.) Mr Daisy said he hoped this was the end of "Dances with Cats"--for awhile, at least.

The DHEC guy brought the cage-trap and set it on my terrace. When the stray kitty came to eat lunch, as he always did, he was caught in the trap. The guy returned the next day (the cat sat out there in the trap, yowling the whole time, making me feel like a sadist and killer) and took him away. My then-teenaged daughter alternately sobbed and glared at me. I made a mental note to leave the feral animals alone forever after, and I have kept my promise to myself, regardless of how winsome and wonderful they appear. (As they all do, to me.)

The verdict? The stray kitty didn't have rabies, as I knew he did not.

~*~

I recently wondered why I felt so deeply about the cat, and experienced such guilt over his death, when I do not feel this way about humans who bite me. Literally or figuratively. I usually believe they get what they deserve.

Not only did I totally overlook the damage the cat inflicted on me, I somehow believed I had caused it. I was the catalyst for his actions, after all. I immediately sought the reason for his behavior, and in doing so, quickly figured out his ears were sensitive. I took all responsibility on myself. I only went to the doctor and reported it when I realized I was sick. I was ready to forgive and forget, and give him more food besides.

Some of the people I worked with thought I was crazy: "An animal bites me, I'll kill it!" Or at least kick it or do something. The self-defined cat people were more sympathetic, but not uniformly so. Feral cats are dangerous, they said. Many said they would have no sympathy for a cat that harmed them; good riddance.

~*~

Today, I realized... some people are as over-sensitive in various spots and at various junctures, as my stray kitty was about his ears. Get too close, and CRUNCH, they will bite you, big time. I'm sure you know what I mean; it has happened to you, too. And yet, for some reason, I don't excuse the people who bite me, the way I excused the cat. I do not take total responsibility for being the catalyst; I certainly don't fret that they are suffering on my account. I do not instantly search for the possible reason for their sudden attack, and as a result, feel more compassion.

Why do you suppose that is?

Because we cast ourselves in the role of caretakers of the animals? Custodians of the earth, etc? But doesn't that role extend to other humans? Why doesn't it?

Do we assume humans "know better"? And why (chuckle) would we assume such a thing? On one hand, we know humans are completely capable of acting like animals, and yet, on the other, we are always shocked when they do.

I thought of this story while asking myself if I am capable of compassion on a deep level. I doubted it, and then, remembered the feral kitty. I look at the scar on my thumb and remember the surprise of his sudden attack. And yet, in seconds, I forgave him. I was crushed when DHEC took him away.

I have resolved to attempt to replicate this consciousness the next time humans disappoint me, and bite.

I will look for the ear mites; I will attempt to figure out if I got too close, and if this person jumped in pure animal reflex as a result. I will try to perceive in what ways I was the catalyst for the bite. I will forgive and try to remain forgiving.

It's a tall order for someone with such a bad temper as I often have. And yet, if I can suspend my temper for an animal, it seems that I should be able to suspend it for a human being.

Perhaps I can even nurture the opposite emotion, compassion.

Although of course, it really is hard to compare people to cats. But for me, its a good place to start.

Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

Mark Twain

Cinco de Mayo!

It's been a tough week for blogging. But at least I saw another antique Chevy when I went out to grab a bite earlier in the week!




I am grateful I woke up this morning without any notifications of direct threats, as I did last Saturday. It is not a day I am likely to forget. Five people sent me messages as soon as I signed on, several making sure I TOOK THE SCREEN SHOTS. I obediently did as they told me to do, but I did not visit the hate-page after I initially took the shot, because I found it too unnerving.

I have spent the last week decompressing from disaster, even though I gained a parcel of new Facebook friends and radio-show listeners. At the same time, I have been extremely careful, looking over my shoulder. Is this what it's like to be well-known and controversial? Apparently so. I have been wondering if I am up for this.

I was blocked from Facebook for about 24 hrs. I am not sure of the specific reason, since all my requests for clarification were totally ignored. One of my comments was deemed "threatening"--which is pretty ironic under the circumstances (as stated above, there was a whole Facebook page threatening me physically), and my questions ("Why or how is this a threatening statement?") sent to the proverbial round-file. I have since learned that if your comments are deliberately targeted (as mine have been) and reported X number of times, THAT is what deems it offensive, not the actual content of the comment(s) in question. It's all about the clicks. The warnings and blockages are executed by Facebook-bots, not by actual people. This explains the wildly-varying standards: on one Facebook page, you can talk filth and nobody cares, but on another, a simple factual statement such as (for instance) Bob Jones University-affiliates are covering up for rape-apologists is considered "offensive."

The truth is now subject to censorship for being "too offensive" for certain overprotected, neurasthenic people to be able to tolerate. And their intolerance is what makes it "offensive."

I am suddenly reminded of a bone-chilling line in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by the legendary Philip K Dick, a line that (tellingly) did not make it into the screenplay of the film, which became Blade Runner. Paraphrasing: What proof do we have that empathy exists, asks the android, except the humans' word for it? Isn't it something they just made up to prove they have this special thing?

And the Bob Jones University-apologists similarly ask: What proof do we have that your truth exists, except your word for it? Isn't it something you just made up, to say something bad about us?

It's scary, isn't it? After all, they already say this about science and evolution, global-warming and gay people.

I've long been claiming there is no such thing as objectivity, and I think this whole debacle is proof of that. The word "offensive" is no longer about unacceptable cuss words and sexual terms; the word is now assigned to any statement that bothers you, for any reason. Whether the statement is "objectively true" is of no importance in this determination.

Empathy is next. What proof do we have that it exists? OOOPS, is that an offensive statement? BOOM, down the memory hole.

You should NOT have to read such disconcerting, disorienting notions.

~*~

I attempted a joke on my show this morning, off the cuff, and it bombed. Nobody's perfect. Better luck next time and thank you for playing!

Podcast of bad joke and other topics, is up.

And last night, saw another cool car and took another picture. My favorite color! I am not sure of the make/year of this very lovely, cherry-red beauty, but if you know, speak up.

Biographical aside: I used to work in the purty pink building, which is at the corner of Main and East North Streets in Greenville. It is now a clothing store, but was a GNC when I worked there.

~*~

Lots of interpersonal ups and downs in local Occupy groups, including mine, as well as groups in Spartanburg and Columbia. (I haven't yet checked the astrological charts, but I am sure something must be going on.) I shall refrain from bad-mouthing liberals and their inability to SUBMIT TO COLLECTIVE DISCIPLINE (Yes, Barack, I am lookin at you too) but.... well, they DO have a problem submitting to collective discipline.

Simply put, if a whole group votes that you are disruptive, stay your ass away. Is that too difficult to understand? People seem to get this concept in ANY endeavor but politics. It appears that some folks think they are just so wonderful that they deserve to be heard and listened to (including their sorry excuses) more than other people, certainly more than they have ever listened to anyone else. How does that work exactly?

In any event, I am once again reminded of my mentor, Steve Conliff, and his rule of thumb for the Yippies, that I know I have quoted numerous times previously, in this space: If you let anybody in, anybody WILL come in.

And yes, they do. The confused, the argumentative, the power-tripping, the lecherous, the whole Hee Haw gang is present and accounted for. I always take their presence as a given. I can easily accept these people, if they are aware of their personality-issues, as I am (mostly) aware of mine. I want people to cut me slack, so I cut others slack, too. But I notice many of these people do not think they have any personality-issues, in fact, they think they are just peachy-keen and wonderful. Unfortunately, that is often where the liberalism comes in: they have been believing their own press. They believe they are compassionate, aware and kind, just because liberals are said to be compassionate, aware and kind. (By contrast, radicals never get this kind of good press; radicals are dangerous, crazy, insane, outside agitators, etc.) Thus, when these folks go off the rails, you also have the attendant spectacle of other liberals going into catatonia: But I thought he was... NICE!

And there is often no evidence that this person was EVER "nice"--except that they agreed with us. We tend to assume a lot about the people who agree with us: they MUST be good, since (it goes without saying!) WE are GOOD!

Maybe the operative difference is, I don't think I am particularly good. I try, but I fail repeatedly. Thus, I assume others are trying and failing, repeatedly, all the time. And as we know, passing the kid who has consistently failed is ultimately a mean thing to do and sets them up for more failure. So it is with people who repeatedly fail us.

At some unavoidable juncture, it is time to send them back to Decency 101, that class they obviously missed. We tolerate their continued failures at our peril.

~*~

Greenville Occupiers, bringing the radicalism! Yeah!







There will be an Occupy Picnic in McPherson Park this afternoon, 3:30pm, be there or be square. General Assembly is tomorrow at 2pm in Bergamo Square; Main and Coffee Streets, across from Coffee Underground... which is especially handy for quick coffee-junkie fixes, also a very good refuge for bad weather, which has only happened a couple of times.

Bergamo Square is currently under construction; it will soon be the home of some monstrous new building, currently given the ominous title of PROJECT ONE. (Wasn't Kampuchea named that by Pol Pot?*) It is growing fairly enormous by the day, and we usually picket right in front of it.

The Greenville Antiwar Society used to have our yearly candlelight vigil exactly where the construction is now, but the small building with two giant flights of steps (where I took this photo from) is now gone.

Since we are standing there with signs, several people have asked us if we are protesting the construction.

They seem disappointed when we say no.


*Correction, that was THE YEAR ONE. I always get capitalism and communism mixed up, sorry about that. ;)

National Museum of the Pacific War

Back from Texas! And my internet was down upon my return, so a bit late in checking in. Sorry about that, sports fans!


Below, photos of the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas, birthplace of Admiral Nimitz.

Some of the displays can make you cry. :( The Pearl Harbor segment is loud and unnerving in the extreme, imitating what it might have been like for the residents that day.

Most photos are self-explanatory, but for the historically-challenged, photo #5 was a short film about the Rape of Nanking, too horrific for words, reducing our plucky narrator to sobs. Photo #8 was an account of the Battle of Midway, where we settled some hash.

Photo #6 is actually rather amusing now, especially when you are standing amidst all the artillery and gun-fetishism of central Texas. Really General Kanji, I hardly think so.

The next-to-last photo is of the SACO flag. And similarly, there were oodles of uniforms, flight jackets and other wartime paraphernalia, but unfortunately, those photos didn't turn out so well. (I don't know the makes and models of those fighter-planes, but if you do, speak up!)

Daisy concludes: War is bad.

Truthfully, I came to that conclusion before I ever went in.

~*~

Dead Air Church: Ex-fundies rock!

At left: A mere fraction of the copious religious propaganda that has been foisted on me here in fundamentalist Bob Jones University-land. My favorite is in the lower left of the frame, the million dollar bill with Charles Spurgeon on it. (Accept no substitutes!)





I recently discovered Stuff Fundies Like, when my blog was linked on one of their threads. Yow, thought Daisy, what kind of fundies quote ME? I was surprised, to say the least.

And now I know: These are the kind of fundies that quote me!

These are the EX-fundies. And it turns out, there are droves of them! Who knew? (Well, of course, the eager-beaver tract-distributors don't tell you about THEM, now do they?)

And... let me tell you: they are beautiful people.

Stuff Fundies Like (SFL) routinely gets hundreds of comments... and it is the comments and participation that drives the community. They are all over the lot, furious ex-fundies, funny ex-fundies (they are often quite hilarious in describing the lifestyle, creed, expectations), as well as those who desperately want to exit fundamentalism, but can't seem to figure out how to do it. Fundamentalist Christianity (and ALL fundamentalism, by extension) traps people; if they were raised in it, they don't understand the ways of the world. Everyone they know is like them. They have been told the world is evil and wicked, and they don't know which outsiders to trust. As a result, Stuff Fundies Like has become a warm and friendly surrogate family, extremely crucial and sorely needed.

Through this blog, I found a treasure trove of information... the next Bob Jonesoid that approaches me, will be sorry sorry sorry. On the other hand, I realize, I will likely be a whole lot nicer to them, too... I think I get it, now. It doesn't make the harassment any easier to take, but it does make me more compassionate. Buddha said if you want to understand your own suffering, focus on the suffering of those who make YOU suffer. (Something like that.) I often fail miserably at this, since when my enemies suffer, I usually giggle with glee, "Yeah, take that, bitch!" In so many ways, I am not the most spiritually-enlightened person, as DEAD AIR regulars have likely figured out by now.

However, I now know (for example), that the kids at Bob Jones are FORCED to meet "soul-winning quotas" (!) and the tract-foisting harassment is therefore required. They have "prayer captains" in every dorm room (does that give anybody else a flash of Grand Funk Railroad's "I'm your Captain"--conjuring up images of now-born-again Mark Farner with a Bible-shaped guitar in his hands?). The prayer captains tattle on you all the time, if you should stray from the Bob Jones path. And straying is inevitable, because the demands placed on these young people are incredible.

You are not allowed to face your accusers. The place runs on the gossip and whims of "prayer captains"--imagine your college if the goody-two-shoes were allowed to run the joint. Some of the ex-fundies were bounced out, in just this arbitrary fashion. Busted with AC/DC, there is nothing to do but plead guilty. You did the crime, you serve the time... and they first put people in lock-down, almost like prison. (To me, it sounds like a prison.) Demerits are given for all kinds of bizarre things, and the SFL commentariat like to give each other demerits in humorous fashion.

The blog and forum include everybody--the ex-fundies are best-represented, but the curious never-fundie and the fundie-victim (me) are also present and accounted for. Folks are diverse; some are still pretty strict Christians (notably, nobody cusses) and some are now atheists and agnostics. And they accept and tolerate each other, wherever they are. The tolerance is more than mere tolerance: it is 'capital t' Tolerance. Their tolerance is obviously a secular value that they have agreed upon; an explicit goal that they strive for, as part of their journey to find their own way.

As a result, they are far more tolerant than many liberals who pride themselves on "tolerance." No people truly grasp the whole meaning of tolerance more than someone who was never granted ANY, and fully understands what that means.

Learning the lingo of the blog/forum is somewhat daunting; they have more acronyms than the old Alphabet Soup of the Left. Some of these stand for the main colleges of fundamentalism--besides BJU, there is Pensacola Christian College (PCC), Hyles-Anderson College (HAC), and Ambassador Baptist College (ABC) among many others. They have their own culture, their own publications and their own entertainment, if you can call it that.

At left: BJU's Jonathan Edwards-themed coffee shop, Great Awakenings. (photo lifted from Mother Jones)






One of the most important terms necessary to understand is IFB, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist. This is the core "cell" of the movement. These are also known as "Bible Churches"--for whatever reason. (Implication: other Christian denominations don't really use the Bible, or in any case, don't truly understand it.) And "KJVO" stands for King James Version Only. (You wondered where the Catholic-hating would start, didn't you?) Sometimes they call this "King James Version Onlyism"--since it isn't just a preference, but a doctrinal point that has been stoked to a fever pitch.

I have been introduced to some amazing bloggers and some amazing Christians... some have courageously dedicated themselves to fighting for the victims of abuse. And the extensive abuse has only recently been publicly documented.

After 20/20 blew the IFB movement out of the water back in April, various websites and instructional videos (that make similar allegations look substantial) have been suddenly pulled in the dead of night.

[Warnings, triggers and so forth.]

Compassion or Cover-Up? Teen Victim Claims Rape; Forced Confession in Church

[Tina] Anderson was only 16 when she said she was forced to stand terrified before her entire church congregation to confess her "sin" -- she had become pregnant. She says she wasn't allowed to tell the group that the pregnancy was the result of being allegedly raped by a fellow congregant, a man twice her age.

She says her New Hampshire pastor, Chuck Phelps, told her she was lucky not to have been born during Old Testament times when she would have been stoned to death.

Phelps says that Anderson voluntarily stood in front of the church, but Tina says it was the first step of "church discipline" at her Independent Fundamental Baptist Church (IFB).

...

Her mother sought help from the pastor and they agreed to send her thousands of miles away to Colorado to live with another IFB family.

There, she said she was homeschooled and restricted from seeing others her age until she gave her child up for adoption.

And that was 13 years ago.

How did this come to light? Let's hear it for the INTERNET!

Thirteen years after the alleged crime, Matt Barnhart, a former member of Anderson's church, decided to write a post referencing Anderson's story on a Facebook page for ex-members of IFB churches.

The site supervisor, who runs an advocacy group for former IFB members, Freedom from Abuse, alerted Concord police.

Anderson, who at the time was teaching voice at the International Baptist College in Chandler, Ariz., got the police call out of the blue.

"Right now I feel completely overwhelmed," said Anderson. "It's been tough. In my mind, I didn't think he'd be arrested, and when I got the phone call I was completely shocked. My whole world has changed."

And that last sentence sums up the experience for all the fundies... all of whom have dealt with emotional and spiritual abuse; some have been beaten, and some have been raped. (And at least one, murdered.)

They are leaving, one by one... they take a look around, they decide to take in a movie or listen to music of their own choosing. They talk to the non-fundies around them. They take a deep breath, emerging from lies and subterfuge.

And in so doing, they decide to find out the truth... which as we know, will set us free.

Thank you for sharing your amazing journeys with me, and with all of us. You have shown us courage, justice and true Christian love.

Gone, when you find that there's no one sleeping

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Columbine shootings, and I meant to link my old post titled Me and Columbine. Sorry about that... posting one day late (and a dollar short). As I wrote in the post, it is also something of a spiritual anniversary of mine.

My thoughts and prayers are with you, Wayne Harris, Katherine Ann Poole, Thomas Klebold, Susan Yassenoff... as so many pray for the victims, I know they often forget to pray for you too, but I don't.

I wish you had your boys back, and I am so sorry.

(The song below is also in the original post.)

~*~

Gone, when you wake in the morning
Gone, when you find that there's no one sleeping
Gone, pretty Penny was her name
She was loved and we all will miss her

Pretty Penny - Stone Temple Pilots

Barbara Deming: On the necessity to liberate minds

This essay is a condensed version of a talk given by Barbara Deming in Palo Alto, California in 1970. It was excerpted in the anthology We Are All Part of One Another: A Barbara Deming Reader (edited by Jane Meyerding, forward by Barbara Smith), New Society Publishers, 1984.





Some months ago when I heard Cathy Melville tell the story of the DC 9's raid on the Dow Chemical office in Washington, one moment she described struck me with the force of symbolism. She told me how they had trouble getting in through the door and finally broke into the office through a glass wall. As they were going about their work in there, scattering files, pouring blood, a stranger appeared in the hall, looked in through the large break in the glass and asked, "Is anything wrong?" Cathy told him, "No, everything's all right" and he went away, apparently assured that everything was all right.

As of course it was -- for a change -- up in that office. Here was a corporation that had been making and selling the stuff with which babies are burned alive. Some people were trying to make it harder for them to do this. To most of us, I assume, that would clearly be all right.

The difficulty is of course -- the tremendous difficulty -- that to a great many Americans the act of those nine people who scattered Dow files was a much more questionable, much more disturbing act, than the act of Dow in making and selling napalm. So that the incident Cathy reported was like a war resister's dream: you are engaged in an act of interfering with the military-industrial machine -- a death machine-- and a member of the public asks you: Should I be alarmed by what you are doing? And you tell him no-- and he accepts your reassurance.

Yes, like a dream. Because in actuality, as we confront a social apparatus that seems to us flagrantly irrational, out of control in its blind quest for wealth, dealing out death both at home and abroad--dealing it out even to children, both abroad and at home, killing its own children now, clearly a machine that must be stopped---.

But I'll interrupt myself, because the imagery I just used is inadequate. If it were just that we had to stop a death-dealing machine in its tracks, this would be relatively simple to accomplish-- although we could count on being hurt in the attempt. In a society like this one, so dependent on technology-- sabotage is terribly easy. A relatively small number of people can cause a tremendous amount of damage, can throw everything into confusion. But our task is not to wreck. Our task is to transform a society that deals out death into a society that makes life more possible for all. To build such a new society, very many people are needed. So, as we strike at the machinery of death, we have to do so in a way the general population understands, that encourages more and more people to join us.

This is surely the great challenge to the movement: How to make the public understand that it's "all right" to attack the death machine--that it is necessary? How to free their minds to see this and join us?

And here is the preposterous difficulty. We are all living now in a society so deranged that it confronts us not only with the fact that we are committing abominable crimes against others--crimes we shouldn't be able to live with; it confronts us also with threats to our own existence that no people in history have ever had to live with before. And confronts every single member of society with these threats--even the most privileged, even those in control of things, or rather, out of control of them. Confronts us, in the name of "defense," with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Confronts us, in the name of "national profit," with the threat that our environment may be completely destroyed. The society is this insanely deranged. And yet--we have to face the strange fact that most people are very much less terrified of having things continue as they are than of having people like us try to change things radically.

For most Americans are in deep awe of things-as-they-are. Even with everything this obviously out of control, they still tell themselves that those in authority must know what they are doing, and must be describing our condition to us as it really is; they still take for granted that somehow what is, what is done, must make sense, can't really be insane. These assumptions exercise a tyranny over their minds. Those of us committed to try and bring about change have above all to reckon with this tyranny, have above all to try to find out how to relieve men of it.

I read this past winter of a specially painful example, read in the Times the story of Michael Bernhardt, who was the young soldier who was the first to talk about the massacre at Songmy [later known as My Lai]. He had volunteered for service in Vietnam, full of faith in the words he had heard from his leaders about what this country was trying to do over there. He found himself almost immediately in the action at Songmy. He didn't take part in the killing. As his comrades began to shoot old people, women, babies--the reporter quotes him: "I just looked around and said, 'This is all screwed up.'" But after the action it took him quite a while to come forward and talk about it. Because he quickly experienced the eerie feeling that neither those in command of the war nor most Americans would agree with him. There is an almost unbearable passage in the story where he is quoted as saying, "Maybe this is the way wars really were...I felt like I was left out, like maybe they forgot to tell me something, that this was the way we fought wars, and everybody knew but me." The reporter writes then that the clash between this experience he had at Songmy and his convictions about his country is still something he cannot resolve. "It became almost a question of sanity." But, he writes, "if he were forced to pick, he would choose his convictions over his experiences." He quotes him as insisting, "We hold out a hope, you know."

A terrible story, and one worth being very attentive to. Here was a young man who was exceptional. He did not take part. He saw the action for what it was: all screwed up. And yet-- he did not know how to cope afterwards with this vision. It just made him feel left out. Because he suffered from the bondage I speak of--the awe of what is, of what is done. He suffered from the anxious sense that if one isn't part of it, whatever it is, one is then nowhere. And so in effect he dismisses the insight he had. Or does his best to. He chooses not to accept the truth of his own experience but something he has been told is truth: that our country "holds out a hope."

The question is: How do we cure men of this bondage? And of course, how do we cure our own selves more completely? How do we set all of us free to trust our experiences of the truth that everything is all screwed up?

....

How can we release the minds of more and more men to be able to see this? See it not just as a nightmare suffered that one tries to put out of mind; see it as meaning that we have to act to change things altogether. How do we give people the courage to trust that if they name things-as-they-are insane, they will not in doing so simply find themselves adrift?

....

[In our radical acts] We must be saying: Don't be afraid of us. It is the system that we are attacking that you need to fear--that all of us need to fear. For it is reckless with lives. But we are not. Don't fear us. What we seek is precisely a new community of men in which we are all careful of each other--and of the natural world around us. And look, we are beginning to build that world right now, in our relations with each other, in our relations even with you.

Don't be afraid of us. We are trying to release men from their fear.

Please don't be long, or I may be asleep

Now if you ask of psychology just how and why aims that were peripheral become at a certain moment central, psychology has to reply that she is unable to account accurately for all the single forces at work.

--William James, Varieties of Religious Experience


I have always tried to be honest when it comes to spiritually-based matters. Even when it makes me look crazed or stupid. This time, however, has been especially difficult.

It seems I don't have the right words, the proper references, the easy approach. On some level, I find Westerners who claim Eastern religions to be pretentious and silly; tourists of the soul. And yet... I wrote about my beloved George Harrison for a reason. I made the case for him and people like him.

Of course, I realized I was also talking about myself. I knew this could all apply to me at some later date.

The date and time arrived, without any preparation, rather like an old rusty sundial that nobody pays much attention to. Time's up. The clock struck the hour, and as the book of Matthew tells us, no man knows the day or the hour, not even the angels in heaven.

I hesitate to call it a conversion. But I am stuck with Western words--words with their roots in Christianity. As I said in the George Harrison post: they don't do it like that, we do it like that. But then, I am talking about ME, right?

I do it like that.

~*~

My study of Buddhism has grown extensive. And just like those numerous TV detectives (or Greg House), I was in the middle of something else entirely when it happened. In a series of realizations, everything coalesced, made sense, lined up. I tried to fight it, because I knew what it meant. (I briefly wrote about that here.) I am frankly terrified at the idea of "leaving" the Church, even psychologically. (Physically, I have no trouble staying away for months at a time.) A creator God is an idea I can't overcome and can't shake; an idea that seems etched somewhere on my cerebellum. In addition, my deep love for the saints and the Blessed Mother is a palpable and real phenomena in my life. I don't want to change, I protested inwardly, I don't want to.

Then why are you reading all of this stuff? Why have you steadily prayed for compassion?

It was the graveyard. I asked the spirits of the dead to speak to me, and tell me what they know.

~*~

I decided to take photos of the German graveyard in Fredericksburg, Texas. These immigrants are the people my grandchildren descend from, my son-in-law's family. They came thousands and thousands of miles, to these hills that must have seemed so hot, so inhospitable, so strange. They left the "old country" and arrived in the land of coyotes and cactus. I thought of what it was like, never hugging one's parents again, crossing a huge ocean and knowing that you will never again see the place you came from, the land that nurtured you and formed your imagination.

I saw the gravestones, some of them the graves of babies. The whooping cough, polio and other diseases these babies likely died from, have been largely eradicated in the West. And yet, our pain, our suffering, does not diminish. We have all kinds of modern conveniences that these Germans would have found incredible, the answer to any number of daily problems; even a telephone would have been an amazing innovation in their very primitive, pioneer way of life. But what does the modern proliferation of phones bring us? I thought of the woman seated behind me on the plane, arguing on her cell phone in controlled tones... arguing with who? I tried to figure it out and could not: Husband? Boyfriend? Best friend?

I thought of the juxtaposition of the arguing passenger, and the German immigrant (lying here in this cemetery?) of the last century, who would have been so overjoyed to hear that her husband was merely late, not hurt or harmed on his long, muddy trek home by horse-drawn wagon. Telephones were once used only in similar emergencies, to notify Atticus Finch there was a rabid dog outside, and other scary stuff like that. But now we all carry one, like talismans to ward off the problems of modern life that materialize seemingly out of nowhere. And as a result, omnipresent telephones have also helped to multiply our distress.

I thought about my newborn grandson, my nearly-five-year-old granddaughter, and the pain I have experienced, not being able to see them as often as I want to. I know they will not die of these old diseases, causing me great pain, but I do feel the intense pain of separation, the same crushing pain these German immigrants felt. In that sense, nothing has changed. Our common humanity is the same, and we feel the same, even after the passing of a hundred years.

We have improved our lot, we are living longer, I thought, but we are still sad.

And tellingly, graveyards have not changed. We have not changed the fact of death, the end of our earthly existence.

~*~

I entered that area of the cemetery in which the names have worn off the stones. Who are these people?--I thought. Please talk to me. There were gothic-appearing cages surrounding the oldest stones, some very rusty. To keep the grave-robbers out? Frightening. (One might also say, to keep the dead people from escaping, if one were sufficiently spookable.)

I could always get through the first two Noble Truths pretty easily. I mean, come on, who can argue?

The Nature of Suffering (or Dukkha):
"This is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering."

Suffering's Origin (Dukkha Samudaya):
"This is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there, that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination."

I would even agree with the third one, but I just wasn't sure it was for an amateur like me:

Suffering's Cessation (Dukkha Nirodha):
"This is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, nonreliance on it."

And finally, the fourth, the stumbling block. Aye, this is the rub.

The Path (Dukkha Nirodha Gamini Patipada Magga) Leading to the Cessation of Suffering:
"This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is the Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration."

Yes, it folded in on me, very simply and honestly.

This is The Truth, and I have found it, after much seeking. I am now ready to accept it.

And there it was, one of the most intense moments of my life, strikingly similar to my two other conversion experiences, which have brought me to this point. (I love trinities; these kindsa things should happen in threes.) I then saw the gravestone that said "Our darling" (photo at left)--and that was it. I started to cry, right there in the old German graveyard, for the suffering of all beings. And I wanted so much, with every fiber of my being, to end it.

I reached out and touched the words: Our darling. I felt the keening, the tears, of the mother who asked for those words on the gravestone. I am so sorry, I sobbed, I am so sorry.

~*~

I promise not to turn this into a Buddhist blog. I wouldn't know how to begin, in any case. I am merely reporting the incident and the shift in my sensibility. My sense of peace and new sense of mission, has not abated in the slightest, and has only increased. I know this means I have to go further. It will be my task to correlate my old beliefs with the new ones, and to figure out what I need to do to fulfill these new convictions in my everyday life. This is called dharma, a word I don't use easily. As I said, the feeling that I am some kind of religious tourist, or worse, a cultural imperialist, is overwhelming, probably fallout from too much leftism. Still, I hope this feeling will keep me honest. And as I seek out a path for myself, I hope my spiritual reticence will prevent me from bloviating nonsense!

In the short run, the change in my life has been enormous. The truth shall set you free!

As always: Stay tuned, sports fans. :)

~*~

Notes:

:: I loved Kloncke's recent posts as Feministe, and highly recommend her blog.

:: And as we speak so honestly of suffering: While I was gone, a sometime blog-reader and good friend passed away. He was one of those very generous, sweet-tempered Christians who embody the Word, and would gladly give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. Rest in Peace, generous and loving soul, Gregg James Farrier 1947-2010. The fierce and beautiful kindnesses you left on the earth, stay behind to remind of us of what we are capable of becoming, if we try.

:: Non-Beatles fans might wonder: blog post title is from George Harrison's Blue Jay Way.

After all of these years, I finally understood the phrase.

How I spent Lent

First, I read Gary Null's book, Death By Medicine, which promptly gave me a kidney stone.

Well, okay, I know the book didn't, but it sure felt that way.

For those interested, my weight loss is going extremely well. I am told that actual numbers "trigger" people in various and sundry ways, so I will refrain from providing actual poundages. I will simply say that my BMI is now in the merely "overweight" category, and has exited the alarming "obese" category. I lost 10% of my body weight during Lent, which believe it or not, wasn't that hard. Now we are approaching the same weight I have dealt with my whole life, which likely will be hard. Still, I have to say, after being repeatedly guaranteed that a woman my age with thyroid disease SIMPLY CAN'T lose weight, I am glad to report that this is another myth. Yes, it is possible... and in fact (here's the dirty secret), I think it's far easier since I no longer have a surplus of estrogen coursing through my body, demanding that I eat to ensure the safety of my progeny. You know those deadly-serious cravings you get about 10 days before the end of the menstrual cycle? (I guess the time-span is different for everyone, but you know what I mean.) Well, I am happy to report that THE CYCLICAL CRAVINGS ARE GONE. Along with my estrogen, that is... which of course means there is a down side to everything.

And I feel great (sans kidney stone), and my left knee stopped hurting!!! (Right knee? A stubborn lil sucker!) I took the kidney stone as a symptom of rapid weight loss, as gallstones can be also.

After reading Gary's scary book, I decided to avoid doctors, since I knew exactly what they would say anyway (I typed medical records, including nephrology, for a good long while) and realized they would use this golden opportunity to test me to an obscenely-expensive fare-thee-well. No tests, no crap, no sirree Bob!

I figured: 1) it probably was a stone, from the symptoms and likely cause and 2) ain't nothing you can do about it except take their nasty toxic drugs and wait for it to flush out. (I also knew that I should go to the ER if I started running a fever, which was virtually impossible while sweating non-stop, as I was.) So, I opted for what I tell my customers: literally gallons of dandelion tea and magnesium citrate. It passed within a day, but it was um, quite memorable... and during this unpleasant time, I locked my keys in my car while it was running and had to call Mr Daisy away from work (he was unusually kind and sympathetic about my stupidity!)...

~*~

If you think it's easy for a big-mouth like me to shut up for 6 weeks, you are RIGHT. Thus, I didn't.

I commented here (Alas, a Blog) on the newest pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church, and called on the Pope to resign. Of course, no one seriously replied to me (as they never do over there)... but I needed to post that somewhere to get it off my chest immediately.

Easter Sunday, woke up to more infuriating news that the whole scandal has been reduced to "petty gossip" by the Vatican.

(((Daisy yowls for emphasis)))

~*~

One of my favorite spiritual books, The Joy of Compassion by Lama Zopa Rinpoche which I also posted about here. It's a wonderful study guide for the layperson to use!


I had two genuine moments of all-encompassing karuna during Lent, that took me by storm. I was startled and unprepared. They were only a few minutes or so in duration, but they were overwhelming.

I was reminded of a passage from the William Butler Yeats poem, Vacillation (and such a perfect title):

My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.

I felt great compassion for everyone on earth, even the people I dislike most. Maybe especially for them; I could suddenly see how they had become the people they were. I could see their suffering, and how they/we have bent ourselves into all sorts of unreasonable shapes and angles, to avoid that suffering (which of course, causes even more).

In both cases, in both instances, I was left very shaken by this awareness. I felt myself almost deliberately withdrawing from this consciousness in the last instance: But I don't want to feel compassion for bad people! And I was fighting my own awareness. Concurrently, I realized I was withdrawing my request for enlightenment by fighting the compassion. My ego, my innate desire to feel superiority to others, my desire (need?) to dislike others, all defilements rooted in the material world, fought my desire for enlightenment.

And I heard my deepest self's incredulity: But isn't this what you wanted?

Ego replies: I don't WANT to feel compassion for evil people, they don't deserve it!

Deepest self: Do you deserve it?

Ouch! I remembered the Eucharistic liturgy, and the specific request that God not grant us what we truly deserve. During the (endless) Good Friday liturgy, and subsequent Veneration of the Cross, I took note of the role of the laity in the liturgy: we are the ones who shout "Crucify him!"... it isn't someone else who does it.

Give us Barabbas, not this one!

Do we forget our role in the Passion? Why do we think it would be any different if He returned now? We would do the same thing, all over again.

Look around, we do it all the time.

~*~

Glad to be back. Hope all is well with you, and please take note of my new moderation policy, inspired by people who would tell me getting an abortion is majorly right-on and terrific, but chew me out over trying to prevent a heart attack. No more, folks. New sheriff in town, etc.

I loves you guys and I missed you!!! (((sobs)))

Me and Columbine

It's very hard to write about things that are so personal--the mere scratching of the itch to discuss them, tears huge pieces off my hide.

So, I speak in a roundabout way, and hope you will all forgive me for being so imprecise with the details. I invite you to read between the lines. At this point, my vivid, emotional memories overlap another person's very intense memories, and her account of these events will be radically different. (How to honor both of our accounts? Is it possible?)

I remember the date of Columbine very well, because it was on the second anniversary of Columbine, that my own teenage daughter ran away from home. (It was 2001, the year so much else happened to rock our universe.)

And already, she would phrase it differently. She would say she didn't "run away"--she needed space, she needed a breather from her parents; she needed to be somewhere else for awhile, blah blah blah. But of course, the disconcerting fact is that she decided this for herself, for the first time in her life. It was a decision that did not include us, the people who had been making all of her decisions up until that point. It was her decision as a separate, sentient human being. An adult decision, by one not yet legally an adult, but physically an adult, who will do as she pleases. As I did. As we all did, at some point, unless we were exceptionally-obedient teenagers, and I certainly was not.

In my child, I deliberately inculcated the desire to question, to think, to consider the deeper concepts and major ideas... and then I was furious when I was the first person she questioned, that she applied these values I taught her to ME, the one who taught them.

Of course, that is always how it is.

But my sense of failure as a mother, my feeling of abandonment, was overwhelming, all-encompassing, smothering and seriously disabling. I lost friends. I took anti-depressants for several weeks and then stopped. I starved myself intermittently. I also lost a job during this extended debacle. I lapsed into almost-delirious magical thinking. I began friendships with people who claimed to have seen the Blessed Mother in person; I venerated relics of saints, and had novenas going to virtually every saint in Butler's, even the obscure saints of the Middle Ages that nobody ever heard of. (The magical thinking wears ever on, as I remain extremely fond of the saints I believe listened and responded; I never lost this deep attachment to saints that I formed during this critical time. Without them, I believe I might have gone stark-raving insane.)

And I thought about those other parents. The parents of Eric and Dylan.

Why didn't they know?--the accusatory questions for the Harrises and the Klebolds came fast and furious, and have never really abated. The contempt for these "clueless" parents was legion.

And so: The two-year-anniversary of Columbine was under discussion and the yearly parental inquisition and finger-pointing was under way on Fox News, exactly when I got the phone call that would change my life, alter my thinking, forever making me unwillingly sympathetic with the bad parents of the world.

In a daze, I saw the TV, seeing but not really seeing. Eric and Dylan. Thus, their photos will always mean something very personal to me, but probably not what they mean to you.

They represent that which we have brought into this world, but can no longer control. "Your children are not your children, they are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself," wrote Kahlil Gibran. They will do what they think is necessary. Not what we think is necessary.

If we have taught them to think for themselves, they will come to different conclusions. It has been ever thus.

And they do. They will. They may decided to run away from home, or they may decide to shoot up a school. But that is nothing we wanted for them.

That is not our fault.

I crossed a line, that day. I was one of the parents who cried, who shakes their head, who doesn't understand what has happened. I was the woman in the Beatles song "She's leaving home"--I just plain didn't get it. Because it was another person's decision, what she should do with her life. It was not mine.

It was not the decision of the Harrises and the Klebolds, either. They did not make the decision that day. Eric and Dylan did. And that day, eight years ago, while the anniversaries played out on TV, my heart inexplicably pounded, as I knew I could never, ever judge their parents. Not now. Not ever again.

On the two-year anniversary of the Columbine massacre, I wept for the dead and injured of Columbine... and even more, even though I did not want to, I wept for the parents of the boys who went their own way. Who decided on their own, what they would do. The boys who did not stop to ask what mom and dad would think; and would not have cared anyway. The parents left holding the bag, shaking their heads, not understanding.

~*~

My family situation, over eight years, has worked itself out. There were several years that it looked dicey, but maturity and intelligence eventually manifested in my daughter's life, as she began to make the right decisions. Unfortunately, this cannot happen in Eric and Dylan's lives, which they decided to cut short. Their parents' suffering is ongoing, it will not pass, as mine has.

And on the ten-year anniversary, a few days ago, I wept again.

I pray always for those people forgotten in the carnage, the people who are hated and reviled for bringing these two lost souls into the world. I will pray for you always, Wayne Harris, Katherine Ann Poole, Thomas Klebold, Susan Yassenoff and the unique and unending pain you have endured. That day, I felt the connection with you, and I felt your consciousness merge with my own, as clearly as if you were standing right in my own kitchen.

And I am so, so sorry.

~*~

She's Leaving Home - The Beatles


~*~

Gone, when you wake in the morning
Gone, when you find that there's no one sleeping
Gone, pretty Penny was her name
She was loved and we all will miss her

Pretty Penny - Stone Temple Pilots