Spirit Face; Rocket Pants

One of things I struggle with most in life is the time I spent trying to live as an Evangelical.  I'm still working to integrate that part of my life into the larger whole of my personal history.  Even worse than discomfort I feel about this history, however, is the discomfort I feel when remembering how unkind I was toward the Evangelical church when I was working to extricate myself it.

I remember very clearly one Sunday morning, sitting in worship, and the preacher that morning was telling a story about his five year old daughter.  They had been out for a drive, she was strapped into her car seat in the back seat of the car.  It was early spring and as this little girl looked from the bright blue sky to the melting snow in the ditch she exclaimed, "The sun has power!"

After telling this story to the congregation, the pastor asked with passion, "Do you know this means!?"  From my seat four rows from the stage I shouted out, "That your daughter is developmentally normal for a five year old!?"

Whether he didn't hear me or chose to ignore my remark, I'll never know.  Instead, he went on to share about his daughter had spoken this deep, theological truth, that the "Son" has power, referring to Jesus.  While it's true that the person doing theology in the recalled exchange was this man, not his five year old daughter, it is equally true that my pointing this out mid-sermon was unkind and rude.

I was really angry with the Evangelical church at that time.  This does not excuse or justify my behavior in anyway.  I behaved awfully.  A lot.  For a really long time.  There was a lot of fringe in the Evangelical context in which I tried to make myself fit - and the fringe just didn't work for me.

I finished my last post by stating that all the fringe doesn't matter.

This still holds true for me, but it warrants a bit more exploration.  The material nature of the fringe doesn't matter so much, but the fringe itself serves a very important purpose.

One of my friends is a motorcycle rider, which provides me an entertaining mental image as I know this man pretty exclusively in a professional context - dress pants, button down shirt, sports jacket more often than not.  Really shiny leather shoes.  A 6'4" dutchman with a shock of white hair and blue eyes.  The idea of him riding a motorcycle just isn't something I would have imagined when I first met him.

One day, he came into the office talking about getting decked out in biking leather from head to toe and mentioned the fringe on his bike gear.  I honestly cannot imagine this man wearing that much leather, let alone fringed leather.  Until he explained the value of fringe - with much more significant than hailing the glories of terrible '80s fashion trends.

"It makes the rider more visible to other motorists," he said.  The fringe draws the eye and the attention of what are otherwise too many distracted-by-boredom-on-the-highway drivers.

This got me thinking about all the fringe we attach to our faith traditions and experiences.  The fringe is profoundly unimportant in its form.  The material nature of the fringe does not matter.  What the fringe does - catch the attention of those of distracted-by-boredom-on-the-highway-of-life as we go about our daily routines on auto-pilot - is pretty spectacular.  It catches our attention, sometimes only for a moment, and directs our attention to something more.

When my friend the philosopher died several weeks ago, I was visited by a deep and profound sadness.  I miss him and I miss our conversations.  I miss the moments of clarity that pointed me to something more in our dialogue.  I remember the last time I saw him, this philosopher friend of mine.  I said my good-bye, gave him a hug, a kiss on the temple, and then I stepped back and looked at him. He looked at me.  I wanted him to know that I saw him, that I saw him, and that I love and value who he is and everything our friendship is.  After several moments, he gave me a wink - he knew.  Nothing more was said.  I left and he died 9 days later.

A memorial service was held for my philosopher friend three weeks after he died.  There was a strange confluence of events in the course of the service; rather a lot of fringe, if you will.

The pastor of our church was asked to lead the service.  I was asked to offer the pastoral prayer and lead the Lord's Prayer.  There was no discussion of themes or topics, though in preparing the pastoral prayer, I did read the reflections that would be shared by family and friends.  The pastor opened the service with a eulogy, weaving Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day" through a review of the philosopher's life.  And then beautiful scriptures were read and stories were told.  We came to the end of the service, the pastoral prayer and Lord's prayer before the benediction and postlude.  I read Mary Oliver's "Messenger" as the prayer.  An interesting confluence.  Some fringe.

On the inside cover of the service bulletin, the philosopher's family had included a prayer offered by his three year old granddaughter and a picture of the philosopher created by his four year old grandson.  The picture included the grandson's description of the philosopher - "His face is blue like the sky because he has a Spirit Face now; and his pants are orange like a rocket to help him get to heaven."

Spirit Face; Rocket Pants.

Fringe.

It caught my attention.  It directed my attention to the Truth of things beyond, something more.

I still struggle at times with immediate discomfort in the context of Evangelicalism.  The form of their fringe is discomfiting.

And....  Their fringe does not point to something more, for me.  And it does for others.  What the fringe does is so much more important than what it looks like.  Because sometimes it looks like the drawing by a four year old who describes Spirit Face and Rocket Pants - a deeper Truth.

Was Jesus a White Supremacist?

Reflections on Matthew 15:10-28

Sunday, August 20, 2017

When my maternal grandmother died five years ago, my aunt made certain that I received the family bible.  It had been my great-great-grandfather’s initially and was printed in Boston, MA in the early 1890s.  It contains very little by way of genealogy.  On the inside of the back cover is the name and birthdate of my great-great-grandfather and the name, birth, and death dates of my great-grandmother.  Tucked between pages at various points are a few pressed flowers – once pink carnations, now a brittle brown-tinged chiffon.

Within the bible itself are a few interesting pages that betray its age:  a fill-in-the-blank style marriage record for nuptials which took place “in the year of our Lord, 18__”; a “Temperance” pledge with signatures lines for all members of the household who solemnly promise to abstain from the use of “intoxicating drinks as a beverage.”  With good humor, I pointed these things out to my partner, David.  It was with similar good humor that I began leafing through the pages, looking at the artwork in the bible – painting after painting after painting illustrating scenes from the text.  With a bit of wry humor, I remarked on just how white the Israelites were, back in the day.

Today, the truth of the whitewashing of our faith heritage is more cutting than humorous.  Today, the truth of how white American Christianity has become angers and aggrieves me.  Today, with mounting frustration and rage, I am disgusted by the ways those in power have co-opted the Gospel message for their own sick purposes, grabbing power and destroying lives in the process.  And without a careful reading of a text that is 2000 years removed from us in both language and culture, it’s not hard to see how these gross and grotesque distortions come about.

In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus makes one thing really abundantly clear:  nothing we take into our body has the power to defile our soul.  In an anatomy and physiology lesson, Jesus tells us that anything that we eat moves through our digestive system and is removed by the sewer system.  Rather, it is what comes out of our mouths that defiles us, Jesus says – for what comes out of our mouths proceeds from our hearts.  Defilement looks like this:  evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.[1]

The Canaanites were a people group living in the same geographic region as the Israelites in the time of Jesus.  From early in Jewish history, there was discord between the Israelites and the Canaanites.  The Canaanites were seen as culturally inferior, socially inferior, morally inferior, genetically inferior, spiritually inferior.  The Canaanites were listed in the book of Joshua as a people group the ancient Israelites were to exterminate.

In a world split into the “haves” and the “have nots,” in a world marked by the belief in scarcity rather than abundance, in a world where might made right, the Israelites decided that there wasn’t enough to go around, that they needed to lay claim to the goods (taking them forcibly if necessary), and that their ability to do so gave the right to do.  All of this was packaged up in the form of religious mandate and tied together with a bow of cultural and spiritual superiority. 

The not-at-all-subtle message of the oppressed turned oppressor became, “God is on our side.  We are trying to preserve what we have.  We want to preserve a future for our children and for our culture.”  And all the while, they seem to have forgotten both that a Canaanite is “one who comes from the land of Canaan” and that the Israelites, as a people group, were born in the land of Canaan.

And so, after telling his disciples that eating with unwashed hands does not defile a person (rather that it is the evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, and slander coming from the heart and spewing forth from the mouth which defile a person) Jesus and his disciples leave Jerusalem.  They head down from the literal, physical lofty heights of their mountain of metaphorical cultural and spiritual superiority.  They leave Israel behind and head north.  They walk into the land of Canaan and settle themselves in the region between the towns of Tyre and Sidon.

The ideology of settlers who created a grand new thing in Israel and the cultural investment in the notions of superiority and exceptionalism follow Jesus and his disciples back to the land of Canaan.  For in the land of Canaan Jesus and his disciples are met by a Canaanite woman.  This unnamed woman who has heard that Jesus entered her town calls to him:

“Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”  But Jesus did not answer her at all.  And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting at us.”[2]

Object lesson number 1 in our text today:  Jesus’s acclaim as a healer is growing in the regions around Jerusalem.  As he travels about, this woman pleads with him to heal her daughter.  And from the mouths of his disciples come their unjust pleas to send her away – despite the fact that they are the ones who have settled into her town for the day.  Settler mentality – we can go where we want, do what we want, say what we want, and there should be no consequences for our actions.

[Jesus] answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”[3]

Object lesson number 2 in our text today:  Jesus, having seen the sickness in the hearts of his own disciples, amplified their voices.  Jesus chooses to capitalize on the theology of scarcity.  “Sorry,” he tells her.  “Sure, I’m God.  You know that.  You’ve called me ‘Lord.’  Sure, we are cousins, hailing from common ancestors.  But, there just isn’t enough to go around.  I’m here for the house of Israel, not other Canaanite peoples.”

But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”  He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”[4]

Object lesson number 3 in our text today:  The assumed cultural superiority of those in positions of power.  This is the root of the evil intentions that come from the heart.  All those who are disadvantaged by systemic oppression are considered “less than,” “inferior,” “a threat to” those who directly benefit from systems of oppression.  “We are the ‘haves,’” Jesus tells this woman, “and it would be unfair to give our resources to the ‘have nots’ who are clearly inferior to us.”  We begin to slander those we see as competing for our resources – unclean, vile, dogs, worthy of ridicule, deserving ostracism.

She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith!  Let it be done for you as you wish.”  And her daughter was healed instantly.[5]

I imagine Jesus sat there waiting for his disciples to figure this thing out.  I read this text and I can feel his mounting frustration as his disciples miss object lesson after object lesson, forgetting that what makes people unclean isn’t what or how they eat (one of the biggest markers of who was a Gentile and who was a Jew), but the stuff that comes out of their hearts.  This Canaanite woman demonstrated a heart of humility, pleading persistently for what she knew was right.

And his disciples, having given up their hope that Jesus would rebuke her and send her on her way, sat silently by and watched him challenge her right to exist and compare her to a dog.  They stop their open insistence that Jesus send her away.  And they continue to be silent about the injustice of the conversation unfolding before their eyes.  Not one of them is willing to use their voice to speak truth to power.

There is much in today’s Gospel lesson that is being echoed in our world today.  Just over a week ago, white nationalists marched on Charlottesville, Virginia with shouts of, “You will not replace us” and “White lives matter.”  A second march took place the next day, organized the by the same people, in Seattle, Washington.  These were followed by marches in New York City, Boston, Massachusetts, and Durham, North Carolina.

One protester from Virginia is quoted as saying, “As white nationalist[s] …. We … deserve a future for our children and our culture … we just want to preserve what we have.”  And another, “The goal is to ethnically cleanse White nations of non-Whites and establish an authoritarian government.”

These are not the sentiments of “fringe” members of our society.  These same people and their ideologies are supported by doctors, nurses, social workers, police officers, lawyers, journalists, judges.  They come from all walks of life and they are maintaining the unjust system of oppression we call the United States of America.  And millions of well-intentioned people continue to sit silently by and watch it play out, saying nothing as the events taking place are far removed from their comfortable lives in other areas of the country.

How did we get here?  A Yale university social psychologist, Jennifer Richeson, says, “In some ways, it’s super simple.  People learn to be whatever their society and culture teaches them.  We often assume that it takes parents actively teaching their kids, for them to be racist.  The truth is that unless parents actively teach their kids not to be racists, they will be….  It comes from the environment, the air all around us….  Everything we’re exposed to gives us messages about who is good and bad….  The rhetoric for racism is still in place.  The environment for racism is still there.” [6]

The environment of racism is the air we breathe, the water we drink, the very fabric of the society in which we live.  It’s in the history of pastors and theologians who used biblical texts to justify slavery.  It’s in the founding of the Ku Klux Klan which claims to uphold Christian ideals.  It is in the representation of biblical figures such as Moses, the Hebrew people, Abraham, David, Solomon, Job, Sts. Peter, John, Matthew, Nathanael Bartholomew, and the women at the tomb as white.  It is in the fact that one version or another of Warner Sallman’s lily-white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus hangs in nearly every church in America – a nation that equates Christianity with whiteness and whiteness with superiority, rightness, and righteousness.

The only way to rid the world of the evils of racism is to dismantle the structures that support it.  And this means getting clear about how we benefit from its continued existence.  It means educating ourselves about how it functions in our society.  It means enhancing our awareness of how it exists in every segment of our society – it’s in the air we breathe; it’s in the water we drink. 

And when we start getting woke to these things, we have a choice.  Like Jesus’s disciples, we can sit idly by and let others engage in the hard work of dialogue; of confronting prejudice; of dismantling institutions and ideologies; of intentionally choosing to live integrated rather than segregated lives in our homes, our neighborhoods, our workplaces.  Or, we can start to speak up and speak out.  We can start to do our own work to rid our hearts of the things that defile us:  evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, and slander.

Jesus tells his disciples at another point, “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do greater things than these.”[7]  It is well past time we, as a church and as a culture, do what Jesus did in his object lesson to his disciples – acknowledging the sin of racism and its effects.  It is well past time we, as a church and as a culture, stop thinking it is sufficient only to feed table scraps to those we deem beneath us.

It is well past time we welcome all peoples to the table as full human beings.  And if the table we have constructed is too small for everyone to fit, it is well past time we tear it down and build a new one.

---

[1] Matthew 15:17-19

[2] Matthew 15:22-23

[3] Matthew 15:24

[4] Matthew 15:26

[5] Matthew 15:27-18

[6] http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2017/08/why_are_people_still_racist_he.html

[7] John 14:13b

Love. Forgiveness.

I seem to be having nightmares more frequently of late.  Last night I wasn’t hungry, but I wanted to eat.  I didn’t know what I wanted.  I knew what I didn’t want – I didn’t want protein, carbs, fat, or sweet treats.  I didn’t want food.  But I wanted to eat.  I did not eat.  Instead, I watched an episode of Babylon 5 with David and went to bed after a glass of milk.  This was a compromise on my part – I was no longer full from dinner and it tasted delicious.

 

And last night I dreamt again about my sister.  This time it was the tennis ball.

 

I must have been 12 or 13.  It was after she moved home from foster care and before my parents reunited.  And some stupid fight broke out over a tennis ball.  A tennis ball that didn’t have an owner and with which I was playing.

 

And of course, this was utterly unacceptable to her.  And she demanded that I give it to her and to the neighbor who was her best friend at the time.  And I refused.  I knew she would try to take it anyway.  She always demanded anything she wanted and if she wasn’t given it, she simply took it.  Always.

 

So it was with the tennis ball.  She demanded it.  I didn’t want to relent this time.  I wanted to stake my claim.  It didn’t belong to anyone.  I had been playing with it first.  I wasn’t done with it.  I had been enjoying myself.  I wanted to continue to play.

 

When I wouldn’t give it to her, she hit me.  And she kept hitting me.  She hit me until I was lying on the floor in the fetal position, curled around that tennis ball, unwilling to let her take yet one more thing from me.

 

And so she left.  She and her friend left the house.  And just for good measure, she kicked me in the eye on her way out.

 

And she kicked me so hard that the blood vessels in my eye ruptured.  And the white of my eye was stained with ruby spots of blood.  And my mother was at work until 11:00 that night.  So, when she returned home the next morning and I told her what had happened and had her look at my eye, of course it was my fault.  I should have just given her the damn tennis ball.  And besides, what was I talking about?  My mother couldn’t see anything wrong with my eye.

 

But I went into the bathroom and looked again.  And there they were – those red dots of blood.  And sure enough the neighbors asked what happened to my eye.  And people at church on Sunday asked what had happened to my eye.  And no matter how many times I made my mother look at my eye, she couldn’t see it.  There was nothing wrong.  Why hadn’t I just given my sister the tennis ball in the first place?

 

My sister continues to do the same thing today – always striving to take from others what she wants, believing that she can’t truly have it for herself if she does not have it all.  If I am happy in my relationship, she finds some way to disparage it and to claim that her own happiness in her relationship is greater.  If I take pride in my academic accomplishments, she insists that they amount to nothing of value in this world and that she has accomplished what truly matters in life – reproduction.  If I take pride in my vocation, this sacred and holy work that I love, she declares that my faith tradition is invalid and she alone has divine knowledge that is worthy of being held.  If I hold to my faith and tell her with all genuineness that I am happy she has found a faith tradition that is meaningful to her, she switches faith traditions, enters into my own, and declares how much more she is getting from this community than I ever did.

 

And I’m tired.  I am not in competition with her and I’m tired of being set up for a competition that I have no interest in.  And I’m tired of the continual reworking of the story when I tell her I won’t compete and I’m happy that she’s happy and that nothing in my life is a poor reflection of her, just as nothing going on in her life changes my own experiences.  It still never stops.  She still demands all the tennis balls, never mind that she has no tennis racket and never learned to play the game.

 

I woke up this morning with an idea in my mind that was, all at once and in equal measure, both wonderful and terrifying. 

 

It was this: I never have to see my family again.

 

I never have to see my family again.

 

I never have to see my family again.

 

This, of course, breaks the first rule of my family – loyalty to your family is everything.  It also means stepping outside the bounds of the second rule of my family while appearing to keep in holding with it – inside the family, every man, woman, child for themselves only.

 

I have my own life in a place far away.  I have a new family that I am building with D – one built on love and respect and the belief that there is enough for everybody and nobody needs to hoard it all or to deprive everyone else.  I never have to see my family of origin ever again.  Though I would, in fact, happily spend time with my mother or either of my brothers circumstances permitting, of course.

 

There is something liberating in this truth and yet the power to make such a bold decision overwhelms and terrifies me.

 

It used to be that when I meditated, I focused on the movement of my breath.  “In.  Out.  In.  Out.”  Lately I have been trying something new.  Two thoughts that carry on, distinct and separate, but wholly entwined and dependent on one another.  “Love.  Forgiveness.  Love.  Forgiveness.

 

I have been focusing on these ideas as I try to enhance my capacity to love others and to extend forgiveness to those who have hurt me.  Today, I breathed in love and I breathed out forgiveness.  My mind was drawn to the possibility (the glorious possibility) that I can choose to never see my father or my sister again.  I brought my focus back to my breath.

 

Love.

 

Forgiveness.

 

And I began to cry.  Choosing not to allow abusive and bullying people into my life is an act of love for myself.  When those bullying and abusive people are family, I would have to forgive myself for breaking the family rules.  Love.  Forgiveness.  In.  Out.  Love.  Forgiveness.

 

And the possibility that just maybe there are tennis balls enough to go around.

An Autobiographical Reflection on Suffering

TW for sexual violence.....

It was Halloween, October 31, 2007.  I had just started my last year in seminary.

Seminary was a difficult time for me.  I didn’t really fit in at Union.  I was a conservative Evangelical, attending a conservative Evangelical church, going to a small group Monday nights and helping out at services twice on Sundays.  I was a student leader in an internationally known, conservative, Evangelical student ministry and was attending meetings and leading a bible study every Friday night.

Every morning I would get up at 4:30am and go running in Riverside Park.  I would return home, shower, eat breakfast, and have my morning devotional.  By 6:00am I was studying and doing homework.  I had classes in the morning, clinical hours at the hospital in the afternoons.  I was in bed every night by 8:00pm when I wasn’t at a small group or church or leading a bible study.

I was also depressed and feeling isolated.  My colleagues were going to dinner at the time I was going to bed.  They didn’t read their bibles or attend small groups.  They were liberals who supported pro-choice legislation and marriage equality.  Apart from attending the same school, we had nothing in common. 

I had good fellowship with the student ministry I was serving across the street, but I only saw them once a week, on Friday nights, when I was particularly exhausted at the end of a long week and wanted more than anything to just crawl into bed.  I was treated with suspicion at church in spite of my service and confession of faith because I attended that liberal “cemetery.”

This particular Wednesday night, I went out with some friends from the hospital after my clinical hours.  I had been recently developing a closer friendship with one of the unit assistants and counseling her on the inappropriateness of her living with her boyfriend – particularly as she considered herself to be a Christian.  This particular Wednesday night, we went to a local bar, for some drinks and revelry.  It’s like an Applebee’s – but with better food and karaoke set up in one corner.  I've never been one to drink much or often, so I stuck to club soda.  

A clarification:  That I was drinking club soda is not included to indicate that women who do choose to consume alcoholic beverages and who are assaulted have contributed, in anyway, to their victimization.  It is merely included as fact of the evening.

At the bar, there were a lot of people, wearing a lot of different costumes; it was Halloween, after all.  I went as a chaplain – last year of seminary, a CPE student; see how that works?  There was a man in the bar who was not unattractive, and who struck up a conversation with me. We talked for a bit, and decided some kissing might be a pleasant way to pass a few minutes.

Frankly, I prefer not to do my kissing in front of other people.  It's personal and intimate, and no one really wants to see me sucking face with a total stranger anyway, so we headed somewhere more private.

As I lived just up the street and he was visiting friends from out of town, we headed to my apartment.  I made clear up front that I was interested in kissing only.  He agreed that this was acceptable.

We made it back to my apartment, and I showed him to the restroom.  When he re-entered my room, he was stark naked and standing between me and the only door.

He proceeded to forcibly remove my clothing, shove me up against my bed, and force me to lean over the bed.  Using one hand to hold my torso down and yanking my hair back with the other to the point that my airway was constricted and I could barely breathe, he forced my legs apart and he raped me, penetrating every part of me.

When my dog, my five pound Yorkshire Terrier, Willy Wonka attacked this man, he stopped, let me up, grabbed my dog, and threw him into the wall across the room.  Willy Wonka slid down the wall, stood up, shook his head, and renewed his attack.

Seeing this man lunge for my dog again, I called Willy Wonka quietly to me and locked him in his kennel where he would be safe.

The attack continued, and I was pinned to the bed, on my back.  Blissfully, I could breathe again.  In theory.

In reality, I was crying so hard I could barely catch my breath, as I pleaded and begged this man to stop.  "No," I said.  "Please, no.  Not that.  Please, don't.  Please, stop.  I don't want to do that."

This is not suffering.

This is horrible.  This is horrifying.

This is violation.

This is violence and invalidation and pain.

This is hours of desperation to survive.

This is not suffering.

Suffering comes later.

Eventually, he left.

I am alone. 

Not even God can enter this place and touch my fear and pain and trauma.  God is as absent from this place as I am broken.

I sit in the shower crying, scrubbing my skin raw.  I crawl into bed, my skin and hair still wet.  I stare at a wall.  Willy Wonka curls up by my feet.  I hide from the world.  I try to hide from myself.

Rinse and repeat.

I called my best friend the next day.  I cried.  I told her it was a one-night stand.  Who would believe that I had been raped?  I had spent the evening in a bar, where I met a man, and a few hours later, invited him back to my apartment for some private kissing.  What did I think was going to happen?  Did I really expect that he would listen to me when I said kissing was all I was interested in?  He'd left the bar and his friends and traveled to my neighborhood.  Did I really think I had a right to expect that he wouldn't pressure me into sex, or take from me what I had clearly told him I would not give him?

A digression:  Rape culture tells women that if you go to a bar, meet a man, take him home for some casual kissing, and you are raped, it's your fault, because everyone knows that going home with a stranger is the equivalent of consent.  Except it is not consent.  Rape is never the victim's fault.

Rape culture convinces women to believe this lie.  I bought into for nearly a year.

Suffering comes the next day and every day for the next month as blood pools in the toilet every time I have a bowel movement.  Suffering comes every year for the next six years when, for two weeks every year – one week on either side of the anniversary – blood pools in the toilet every time I have a bowel movement.

Suffering comes six days later when I have consensual sex with the lawyer.  I did not want the assault to be the last time a man ever touched me.  I knew this would be the last time a man ever touched me.  I feel contaminated, tainted, dirty.

Suffering comes sixteen weeks later when I go to the doctor to be tested for sexually transmitted infections.  “Why did you wait so long?”  Most sexually transmitted infections can be cured.  Herpes cannot be.  It’s uncomfortable, but there’s nothing to be done about it.  HIV cannot be.  It’s deadly, but it takes eight weeks for the viral load to be detectable in the blood.

“It’s been longer than eight weeks.”  I couldn’t get out of bed.  I’ve been depressed.  “Because of this?”  No.  Because Tim’s death superseded this.  “Who was it?”  Somehow “Spiderman” seems like an inadequate response.  I hadn't gotten his name, and it's not as though he left a business card or phone number when he left.  I tell my doctor, honestly, that I do not know.  Why does no one believe I do not know who did this to me?

"Was it someone you met in a bar?  Someone who works at your school?  An acquaintance, perhaps?  This was date rape, wasn't it?"

A digression:  date rape is a bullshit made up term for the purposes of minimizing the horrifying experience of being violently sexually violated by someone you know, because it does not fit the cultural (mis)conception that rape is an act that is committed against a certain type of woman, committed by a certain type of perpetrator.  

Date rape is a bullshit made up term used to communicate to a woman that her experience of violation and assault isn't really rape because if she knew the man who assaulted her, she must have done something to indicate she was okay with it.  Something like inviting a man she'd recently met in a bar back to her apartment for a little bit of kissing in private after making clear the expectation that kissing was all that was going to happen.

Suffering comes a year later.  My therapist is on maternity leave and though I was confident I could manage for six weeks without an appointment, the first anniversary comes and I am overwhelmed.  I am bleeding.  I am terrified.

I make an appointment with the back-up therapist she’s given me a number for, her office mate.  “How do you know it was rape?”  I said no.  I begged him to stop.  I pleaded for him to stop.  I cried the whole time.  I said no.  “Maybe to him it was just rough sex.”  Why do I have to keep justifying the validity of my experience?

Suffering comes when I say the word “rape” because I am immediately in that space again, terrified, choking, hoping merely to survive.  I use the more generic term, stating vaguely that I’ve been sexually assaulted.  It softens the reality of the brutal attack on my body and lets me pretend that some part of me is not irreparably broken.

Suffering comes six and half years later when I try to do CPE again.  Being in a hospital ED is at times terrifying.  I talk to my supervisor.  His slow, southern drawl can be comforting.  I explain how I had been out with friends on Halloween.  I had been depressed for some weeks and was trying to find ways to connect with others.  We went to a bar in Washington Heights – a local joint.  “I bet you never made that mistake again.”  There were a lot of things I stopped doing after it happened.

Suffering comes when my family members and friends learn of this and become angry with the man who did this to me.  Why has it suddenly become my role to comfort and reassure them that I am okay?

Suffering comes seven years later when I meet my partner and I continue to have flashbacks. 

Suffering does not come when, early in my relationship, I ask my partner how he can be so okay with this and the fact that it impacts our relationship.  “It happened.  And it happens way too often.  It does no good to pretend otherwise or to punish you for the way it affects you.”

Suffering comes when my partner touches my hair during intimate moments and my neck and shoulders tense as terror floods my body, tears begin to pool at the corners of my eyes, and I silently remind myself that this is not the same.  My partner is touching my hair gently.  My partner is not pulling my hair.  My partner would never pull my hair.  My partner will not hurt me. My partner will not harm me.

Suffering comes when I say nothing to my partner in the moment because I do not want him to think he’s done something wrong. 

Suffering comes when I work through it alone, in the moment when I am least alone, because I do not want to let what happened then affect the life I am living now.

Suffering comes when I consider cutting off my hair because maybe then I can cut this memory out of my life – this memory that lives in my skin, muscle, sinew, bones.

Suffering comes when I miss the waist-length hair I had the day it happened and I remember that cutting it off once before did not work.

Suffering comes when, two weeks later, I finally work up the courage to ask my partner, “When you touch my hair in intimate moments, you would never pull my hair, right?”

Suffering comes again when he answers, “Of course not.  I just like feeling your hair between my fingers.” 

We are lying in bed; I am curled up against his side.  Though I prefer to rest my head directly on his chest, his chest hair often tickles my nose.  He refuses to shave the line of my profile into his chest hair.  I’ve asked.  The duvet rests between my cheek and his chest.  I am grateful because I know he will not feel the tears that roll down my cheek and fall to the cover.

“You know I want you to tell me if I ever do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, right?”

Suffering comes when I tell him yes and know that I will not, when I realize that I will deal with this alone, just as I lived through it alone, just as I survived it alone, just as I have dealt with it alone since it happened.