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Monthly Archives: August 2013

Lay vs. Ordained

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I once saw a photo of a lay person distributing the ashes for Ash Wednesday. Now, the lay person was Sara Miles, so there is that. She is part of an Episcopal congregation in San Francisco and she is a writer about religious matters. This congregation also distributes the sermons on podcasts, so I’ve learned that she has delivered many sermons.

Wait. A lay person, someone who isn’t ordained, distributing ashes, and delivering sermons? This is in a denomination that licenses people to be able to distribute the wine at communion. In order to distribute the wine at communion, you have to be an adult member in good standing. That translates to showing up for service weekly, and paying tithes. Then the priest has to send a letter to the Bishop nominating you, and then you get a certificate signed by the Bishop to do this.

There are a lot of control issues in the Episcopal church. I suspect the same is true in a lot of churches.

Note this is just for the wine. Regular, un-ordained people can’t distribute the bread unless there is something pretty severe going on like the priest has hurt his back. And they certainly can’t bless it. You have to go to seminary to learn that trick.

Jesus didn’t go to seminary, and neither did his disciples. And they weren’t ordained either.

There is definitely a hierarchy of us and them. The lay people are told that they are ministers too, but they certainly aren’t seen as equal, and they certainly aren’t encouraged or taught how to deepen their ministry.

So this lady, doing priest things, really woke me up. I first thought how dare she? I then thought, I wonder if the Bishop knows? Then I thought why not? Then I was jealous.

It reminded me of all the micro managing that my old priest did. And that my old manager did. And it makes me wonder why I keep getting myself into situations with controlling supervisors.

And it makes me think that the worst kind of controlling person is one who acts like they aren’t controlling you at all.

We’ve been bamboozled. We’ve been deceived. We’ve voluntarily given over the care and feeding of our souls to people we thought we could trust. Even if the priest / pastor / minister is a decent human being and not secretly embroiled in a scandal involving money or sex, you are still being led astray.

Consider a teacher. You’ll only learn what the teacher wants to show you. You won’t learn anything about what you are interested in. The teacher won’t be able to answer all your questions and if you ask a lot of questions (as I did) you’ll get some surly reactions from said teacher.

People in authority don’t like it when you ask questions. It undermines their authority. It reveals what they don’t know. It proves they are fallible. It unmasks the guy behind the curtain. You may learn it is all smoke and mirrors.

Don’t give them your power. Don’t entrust the care and feeding of your soul to another person. Question everything and everyone, and if they resist your questions, get as far away as you can. Worse, if they welcome your questions but distract you and don’t answer them or show you how to answer them for yourself.

I was lulled into a sense of complacency with the church I was in. It was pretty progressive. Big on women’s rights, gay rights, equality for all. Open to other faith traditions. But there is still that division of lay versus ordained. There is still the training that ordained people get that lay people don’t.

The priest can’t be everywhere. Remember the idea of don’t put all your eggs into one basket? Don’t put all your ministry into the hands of one person.

What would it be like if Jesus had fed only his disciples with that bread and fish?

He didn’t. He gave thanks for it, and broke it, and it was distributed and fed thousands. This is what we are do with everything. This isn’t just about food, or money, or power. Nothing is for keeping or hoarding. If we build up for ourselves treasures on earth, we are missing the point.

But I don’t have time…

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You say you don’t have time to exercise or write that book. But you do. You have exactly as much time as everyone else. The only difference is how you choose to spend your time.

Video games? Facebook? Reading fiction? Getting drunk? Watching TV?

Time is time is time.

Notice how fast it goes by. It is already August. It is 2013. Every day, every minute counts.

You can’t get out of that 40 hour a week job. But you can write and exercise at lunch. Even 10 minutes of each is better than nothing. You can use your phone and write a “note” while you walk at lunch and be even more efficient.

You can get up an hour earlier and do 30 minutes of each.

Time is limited. Our lives are limited. Choose wisely.

Take all the “I can’t” excuses and look at what you can do, and do it. Start small. Don’t say you will exercise and write every day. You’ll get overwhelmed. This is like going from juggling three balls to six. Aim for once a week. Commit to that. . Then you will eventually work up to every day.

Everything worth doing has to start somewhere. Good habits are like bad habits. You just have to remember to choose wisely. Don’t let the bad habits win.

Meditation on snake charming – the eye of the storm.

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There are several people who complain, gossip, whine, kvetch, etc. at work. This is every day, all day. All day long, if they are saying anything to anyone who is not a patron, they are complaining. It is very tedious, because I can’t escape it.

One was in the habit of gossiping, all the time. I’ve told her repeatedly to not do this because I don’t like listening to it. Gossip is displaced communication. When you don’t feel safe talking to person A about your issues with them, you talk to person B. Meanwhile, the problem still exists with person A and you, and now person B looks at person A differently. Also, you have just spread your negativity around. It is very hard to carry around someone else’s burdens, especially when they keep pushing them off on to you.

If this was any other environment, I could leave. I could walk away. But I’m stuck with these people for 40 hours a week, every week, for what feels like forever. I’ve told them that their negativity is bringing me down, and one of them agrees. She said she’d try to do better. It hasn’t happened yet.

One, years ago, when one of them asked if I minded her complaints about another coworker (simply a prelude to a complaint, not really asking permission), I said, “Yes, I do mind” and she got really huffy. You have to establish boundaries – what you will and will not accept. This is the same coworker who thought it was OK to come up behind me and hit me (lightly) on the head every day. When I stood up to her then, she was indignant, and my boss laughed at me. She has a lot of issues too.

This environment is a little messed up. But it isn’t a hard job, and it pays OK, and there is health insurance and a pension. And I’ve realized that it provides raw material for this blog, so I’m using this as a transformative experience.

Somewhere in the middle of a rant last night, I had an epiphany. I remember the story where Jesus says that if you are in alignment with God, if you are doing God’s will, then snakes and poison cannot harm you. I also remember in Pastoral Care class that you can’t fix another person’s problems. Your goal is to just let them vent. Let them talk it out.

I’m a little torn at times about this, because I feel that I’m enabling the problem. If they continue to vent to me, then they aren’t facing their problems head on. But, then, it took me years to get strong enough to look at them head on. But their rants and complaints are like poison to me. I’ve told them I can’t handle it, and yet it goes on. It is a bad habit for them, and I can’t escape.

So in my meditation last night, I thought, perhaps this is part of the plan. I need to be able to endure this. I need to learn how to stand in the middle of the storm. I need to learn how to be Daniel in the lion’s den. I need to be calm and with God in the middle of this, and not let their poison affect me. Their poison isn’t directed at me. I’m just a captive audience.

Maybe it is healing for them to vent. Maybe they’d be better off going to a counselor or a therapist. Maybe they already do, and it isn’t helping.

But I can use this as a pathway to healing for myself. I can learn to pray and meditate during their rants. I can learn to stand there and not really be there, because they don’t really care what I think about their complaints. They just want to complain. I can see every time they complain as a reminder to ask Jesus into the situation, to be there, with me and with them, in that moment, in that painful time.

Why do I call this snake charming? Because their rants, their complaints, their gossip is poison to me. It is like sitting down at a park bench to enjoy your lunch, only to find out that stick next to you is a snake. When they come up to me, I actually wince, because I expect another tirade.

But using this time as an opportunity to pray transforms that snake back into a stick. It is yet another reminder to seek God in all situations, and to try to see God in all people. I’m now going to try to look differently at these times. It won’t be easy. But I’ll do it, with God’s help.

Pink. (better to look stupid than be dead)

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I’m reading a book called “Drunk Tank Pink”. It talks about the many things that influence human behavior, many of which we are unaware of.

One of the chapters talked about a number of studies that tried to determine what makes people act when something bad is going on. Some of the events were real and some were staged. The book cited the story when a woman was stabbed to death in 1964 in full view of many onlookers, as well as another case were a homeless man was attacked and died, also in view of a number of onlookers. Then there was a study where a student thought that he was talking to another student (in another room, unseen) who acted as if he was having a seizure. In another study, a student was waiting in a room with other students (who were in on the study) and smoke started to appear under the door.

What caused people to act or not? The determining factor was the number of other people. The more people, the more everyone thought that someone else would take care of it. The more people, the less happened.

People don’t want to cause a fuss. They don’t want to be out of place. They look to others to act.

Problem is, what if we all do that, and we all burn to death in that room? People die when nobody acts, or acts too slowly.

I had a thought when I was reading this – instead of doing a study to find out what makes people act or not, why not have a class that teaches people how to act in such a circumstance? Who to call, what to do? That kind of stuff. Teach everybody how to be a first responder. Teach everybody to be able to handle it on their own, rather than expecting someone else to take care of it.

Because if you wait for someone else to take care of it, someone is going to get hurt.

I was in a tiny restaurant that had big glass windows. A big storm came up. My husband and I were sitting by one of the windows. I asked to move, and we took everything over to a corner, as far away as we could get from the windows. The bathrooms were nearby as an escape route.

I had been in a similar situation once when I was a child. My family had gone out to eat and an equally bad storm came up. The storm broke the window at the table we were sitting at, and my brother’s head got sliced open by the glass. The rest of the evening was a blur as my parents drove us to the doctor’s office to get stitched up. I’m not sure why we didn’t go to the emergency room – but I suspect it was because we didn’t have health insurance.

But this time, at this restaurant, it caused a little bit of a fuss to move everything, and the other patrons decided to speak up. They started making fun of me.

I’m still angry thinking about this.

I’m moving to safety. I wasn’t telling them to move, nor was I preventing them from moving. There was no reason to mock me.

I’m glad I stood my ground and moved. Funny to say it that way, but that is how it is. I would have taken care of them if they had gotten hurt, but the only way to be able to take care of others is to be safe yourself. I saw no reason to take a chance with that storm and that window. It was a bad combination. Ideally, I wouldn’t have even gone out that night if I’d realized how intense that storm was going to get.

So maybe that is also part of why people don’t get involved. Not only do they not know what to do, not only do they think someone else will do something, but they have previously been chastised for doing or saying something.

Eh. I’m going to speak up. And I’m going to move. And if it means I’m going to look stupid doing it, so be it. Better stupid than dead.

“Do you trust me?”

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Sometimes, when I’m praying, Jesus says “Do you trust me?”

I say, I’d like to, but not really. I’ve committed myself twice. And now I’m talking to myself.

Or at least, that is how our society would label this. Lilly Tomlin said that if you are talking to God, you are praying. But if God is talking to you, you are crazy.

I’m afraid. I’m terrified of going too far and losing control. I’m afraid of going over the edge. I’m afraid of having to go into the hospital again. The last time was 12 years ago. Who wouldn’t want a nice break from work? But the bills don’t pay themselves. And mental hospitals aren’t that awesome. The last one I was in one of the workers tried to molest me. This is especially evil since I was on sleeping pills.

So when that little voice in my head says “do you trust me?” and I think it is Jesus, I don’t know. So not answering that question really is answering it. It is saying no. No I don’t really trust. Because I’ve been over the edge before, and I don’t like where I landed.

So why is it that all the churches I’ve been in (mainline Protestant, mostly Episcopal) don’t teach people how to hear from God, and how to know what is the voice of God and what is the voice inside your head? Isn’t that the point of church? The stories in the Bible are full of people who talked with God. They knew God was talking to them.

God asked them to do some crazy things. Take everything you have and pack it up and move to some place far away. Take your child and sacrifice him on an altar to Me as a test of your loyalty. Or, you are going to give birth to the Messiah.

You know, stuff like that. Crazy stuff.

Yet our entire faith is based on people listening to a voice in their heads telling them to do crazy stuff.

Our culture says that if you are saying that God is talking to you, you are crazy. Even my former priest (Episcopal) said that she thought I’d fail the psych exam for the deacon discernment process I was in.

Meanwhile, I’m properly oriented to day and time. I get to work on time, I get the bills paid. I have friends. What is “crazy” but simply not adapted well? I’m starting to think she is crazy for thinking that serving God is all about trying to raise money by getting more people in the church. I think that serving God is all about waking up the ones who are there to hear the voice of God.

Maybe that is what she is afraid of. Maybe she’s never heard from God. I find it interesting that I’m not the only person who feels this way.

I’d like to propose that it is crazy that when a minister finds out that a parishioner has a desire to help people and wants training and oversight, she then thinks that the person is called to ordination. Isn’t the desire to help people normal? Isn’t it part of what everybody in church is supposed to feel? And the training – that is to make the person better able to help. Isn’t that the point of church?

Or is the point of church to be a social club? My old church had a few social outreach ministries – Second Harvest and Room in the Inn. Both are very good things, the very things that church is supposed to do. I know that the first one met with a lot of resistance when it was proposed. Meanwhile, the normal activities, the stuff that takes up the majority of the time there, are book clubs (not all are religious), ice cream socials, outings to hockey and baseball games, and karaoke night with frozen margaritas.

I feel it is crazy for people who say they want to join together to serve God to be distracted with these kinds of activities. You can have fun and serve God at the same time. Instead of hanging out at a game, why not hang out at a widow’s house and help her with house repairs? Why not volunteer to teach an immigrant how to read and write?

And make sure that you don’t make a requirement of membership in the church for getting help from the church.

I asked for oversight because I’m bipolar. I want to make sure that what I’m hearing is the voice of God and not the voice of Betsy. But the more resistance I got from the priest, and the more I started looking around at the activities in the church, I didn’t feel like I was going to be lead anywhere there.

Now, I knew even from the beginning that I was going to not be a member of this church forever. I prayed beforehand, upon returning to church, as to if the Episcopal church was the right one for me, and God said that it was the closest there was to what I needed right now. So I knew it wasn’t forever. I knew it was going to end, I just didn’t know how or when.

When the priest attacked me for my blog post called “My Problem with Church”, that was it. April 17th, and I’ve never been back.

This is hard, and strange. I’ve identified as a church-going person for many years. I’ve been a confirmed Episcopalian since the late 1980s. Gone. There is a sense of freedom, and of fear. I’ve been asked by some members to come back to lead the way for others, to wake them up. How can I, when I’m silenced by the priest?

And more importantly, I don’t want to lead, or teach. I want to be fed. I want to learn.

So yes, really, I do trust Jesus. I trust that I’m being led in the right direction. I don’t know where I’m going, and I don’t know how I’m going to get there, but I’m in good company for that feeling. I know that if I was going to stay in that church I’d be even further from God’s path.

Playlist

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Remember this? This was popular as a meme on Facebook in early 2009. It is still amusing. It is like using your iPod as a crystal ball. I’ve put in my answers to this – feel free to copy and edit to produce your own list.

RULES:
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.

IF SOMEONE SAYS ‘ARE YOU OKAY’ YOU SAY?
“Rolling” – Soul Coughing

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
“I Know” – Barenaked Ladies

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
“Walk On” – U2

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
“Sugar Free Jazz” – Soul Coughing

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
(Came up as “Unknown” – it is a recording that I took of the sound of chipmunks at Grandfather Mountain) I find this hysterical – it is like God saying “It isn’t that easy!”

WHAT’S YOUR MOTTO?
“When Love Comes to Town” – U2 with B.B. King

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
“Buddha Rhubarb Butter” -Soul Coughing

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
“Ansari” – Tartit (From Mali, the name of the band means “Union”. Ansari might mean “supporters” It is the name of the tribe to which Tartit belong.)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
“Eha Ehenia” – Tartit (According to a description of this album on “Crammed Discs” – “this is a song about a woman who is a disgrace to her family – she’s a bad host to strangers and even to her inlaws”)

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
“Leather” – Tori Amos

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
“Freaky Hijiki” – Beastie Boys

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
“Scale Down” – Rising Appalachia

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
(another voice memo) I’d titled it “Flip’s Theme Song, it sounds like a superhero song. Cheery, a bit cheesy, like a 70’s TV sitcom theme song.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“When I Fall” – Barenaked Ladies

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
“So Thankful” – Nahko Bear and Medicine for the People

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
“Dramastically Different” – Beastie Boys

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST??
“Everybody” – Paper Tongues

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
“Same Thing” – Barenaked Ladies

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
“Collapse” – Soul Coughing

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?

“Beautiful” – Moby

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
“Casiotone Nation” (live) – Soul Coughing

Stained glass windows, part two

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I’m totally opposed to stained glass windows in church. I object to the idea and to the cost.

Having stained glass windows keeps the church members focused inward, not outward. Their view is of pretty pictures, not of the world they are called to. We are called to love and serve the Lord by loving our neighbors. How can we think of loving and serving them if we can’t even see them?

The windows are expensive. Maybe the church as a whole raised the money to put the window in. Maybe a parishioner donated the money in honor of someone who died. It doesn’t really matter how the money was raised – 8 t0 20 thousand dollars was just spent on a window – when there are needy people who need help. Jesus told us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless. He told us not to build up treasures for ourselves on this earth. Do you see the contradiction here?

The windows are most beautiful to those people who are inside the building. The people who are inside already get the message. It is the people outside who need it. And what is that message? That God loves us, and needs us, and wants us. God made us, every one of us, and we are loved beyond measure. It is the duty of people in the church to share that message to every person. These stories of love and healing and redemption are stories that everybody needs to hear.

I propose that each one of us needs to become a stained glass window. We need to let God into our lives and our hearts and let the light of God shine through us. We need to be the way that people see God. We need to carry the stories of love and healing and redemption with us by living them out. We need to bring them to life. They need to not be stories so much as reminders. They need to be touchstones to let us know we are on the right path. They aren’t stories that happened back then – the stories are happening right now. There are still people like Abraham and David and Moses and Jonah. There are still people like Sarah and Leah and Miriam and Mary.

God still calls us.

I propose that the purpose of church is to wake people up to this idea, and to teach people how to be servants of God. I propose that a church that is all about the building rather than the people has got it backwards.

Kay and Jane – on saying no.

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There were two ladies, Kay and Jane. Kay had been working on a project most of the day at a large table. This table was rarely used during the day. It was primarily used in the morning and in the evening. Jane had seen Kay working on this project all day, and had seen how involved it was. There were many pieces of paper and many folders to sort them into. As the evening came, it came to be the time when Jane would normally use that table. There were other tables that could be used, but they didn’t have quite as much surface area. Kay asked Jane if it was OK if she used one of those other tables for her (Jane’s) project.

Jane said OK. She took her project over to another table and did it. It took 20 minutes.

Then she complained to Brenda, afterwards. “If I wasn’t so tired, I would have told her no, move!”

But she didn’t. She held the resentment in.

Important to this story is that Kay and Jane have had extreme difficulty talking to each other for many years. Jane is Kay’s supervisor, but feels that Kay does whatever she wants. In a way this is true. Kay doesn’t ask for permission to do a new project – she tells Jane she is going to do.

Also, both were raised in abusive homes where they were not taught about proper boundaries.

So who is in the wrong? Kay for not seeing that Jane would want to use that large table that she was working at? Kay could have finished her project earlier, or moved it.

Or Jane? Jane could have said, “No, that is a problem and I’d rather use that table”. Or Jane could have noticed an hour earlier how long and involved this project was and advised Kay that she would like to use that table at 7.

It was a big project, certainly. It was very involved, and would have wasted a lot of time to move.

My take? Jane was in the wrong. Kay asked if it was OK, and Jane agreed. It is immature to acquiesce to something that you aren’t willing to acquiesce to. You have to stand up for yourself – because honestly nobody else is going to. Also, the other tables were certainly usable. They weren’t ideal, but they weren’t terrible either. It was more of an inconvenience to Kay to move than for Jane to move.

The funny/sad part is that even if Kay had not asked Jane if it was OK for her to stay where she was and for Jane to use another table, Jane would have been upset. Jane is like that. And she would have complained to Brenda, who has no control over the situation. Venting to a third party never fixes the problem, and only brings the third party into your own personal mess.

I once read a great story about two guys who were trying to figure out what they were going to do that weekend. Bob asked Frank if he wanted to go fishing. Frank didn’t really want to go fishing, but thought that Bob wanted to go, so he said OK. Turns out that Bob didn’t want to fish either, he thought Frank did. So they both went fishing, and they both were miserable. It would have been great if they both had been honest. They could have had a really good time together if they hadn’t spent so much time trying to second-guess what each other wants.

I had a friend who stopped by my work one day. I asked her if she wanted to go to a frozen yogurt place for a little bit as I was about to get off of work. She said no, and said we’d need to arrange something later. A coworker thought this was very rude. It isn’t. She had other plans then that I didn’t know about. She was about to go out to supper with her husband. Also, she didn’t like to eat frozen yogurt right before a meal – both things that I didn’t know. She was taking her needs into consideration.

I’d rather her say no than say yes and feel resentful.

To agree to something just to make somebody else happy isn’t honest. If your agreeing to it harms you or is an inconvenience to you, then you have to speak up. If two people are involved in a situation, both people’s needs have to be met. Sometimes a compromise is involved. Sometimes neither party will get her way and nothing happens at all.

It is difficult to say no. We are taught to be people-pleasers. We are taught to keep the peace. But it is very important that we don’t become doormats.
Better to say no and feel guilty than to say yes and feel resentful.

It helps to analyze why you feel guilty to say no. Were you taught this by your parents or teachers? Were you taught that to speak your mind was bad? Were you taught that to stand up for yourself is bad? Perhaps they taught you this way because their parents or teachers taught them the same thing. Perhaps they feel a need to control others they feel are lesser than them.

Be a good little girl, and finish your meal.
(But you are full)

Don’t talk back.
(But what they are asking you to do is wrong)

Don’t marry this guy, he’s not the same race as you.
(But we love each other)

Don’t be friends with her, she’s lower class.
(But the upper class girls are rude.)

Awaken.
Awaken.
Awaken.

On stained glass windows – part one.

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I read a meditation recently that said that stained glass windows are made of broken and imperfect pieces, that when put together make a beautiful picture. The meditation went on to express that this is the same as us in the hands of God – that we are broken and imperfect, but when we join together, God makes us into something beautiful.

Except it doesn’t work like that. Stained glass windows aren’t made from broken and imperfect pieces. There is nothing random about what happens. Each piece is specially cut for the job. The entire picture is known at the beginning, and each piece is planned out by a master craftperson. The pieces aren’t broken. There are no accidents. They may look irregular, and only make sense once they are assembled into the whole, but there is nothing random about the pieces. They were cut into that shape for a reason.

Each one of us is odd, and has irregular edges. We are sharp in places, emotionally and mentally. We are round in places too. We are weird and random sometimes. But we are made that way. We were created, each of us, to be exactly the way we are. When God joins us together we can be shaped into something pretty amazing.

But then there is more to stained glass windows. They come alive when light is shining through them. This, metaphorically, is the light of God. The windows can have a beautiful picture of an instructive scene, but it doesn’t catch your eye and inspire you until it is lit up with sunlight. We too are the same. We transform when we are lit up by God.

When we allow God to get involved in our lives we are changed. We are stronger, better, brighter. We can join together to defeat hunger, cure diseases, and make the world better. We can join together to stop war. God (or the Creator, or Spirit) is the light that sparks us as individuals, and the glue that holds us individuals together.

So sure – go with that stained glass image. But know that there is nothing accidental, and that the pieces aren’t irregular or broken. We are made the way we are because that is the way we are needed.

Shame

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Why is it that the person who has been attacked feels shame? The person who was abused by a parent wasn’t the person to blame. The person who was raped was the recipient, not the aggressor. The person who is the recipient of violence is most often female, but is sometimes male. Abuse isn’t exclusive. And the abuser or rapist isn’t always male. Physically, emotionally, sexually, abuse is abuse.

For the sake of simplicity I will say “she” for the person who is abused or raped and “he” for the abuser or rapist. I’m concerned I’m perpetuating a stereotype, so I want to be sure that it is understood that anybody can be attacked, and anybody can be the attacker. But our language has no appropriate third person singular, and saying “his or her” all the time is tedious, so I’m doing it this way.

I’m also making a point of not using the term “victim”. That is part of this. I believe that if she identifies herself as “victim” then she is perpetuating the violence that was done against her. More often though, the person who was attacked feels shame. They act as if they did something to deserve this. They feel shame so they don’t go to the police. They feel shame so they don’t go to the hospital or to a counselor.

Shame is another word for guilt. When a person feels shame, she feels as if she caused the problem. She feels that she brought it on herself. She feels responsible.

This is so totally backwards. The abuser, the rapist is the guilty party. The one he attacked is passive.

You do not cause someone to attack you. It has nothing to do with what you wear or what you said. Now, yes, I’ve recently written a post saying that women should dress modestly to protect themselves. I also think it is a good idea to get a handgun carry permit and take self-defense classes. Prevention, you know. But sometimes you can’t get out of the way of a problem, and there are a lot of damaged people out there who are ready to cause a problem with you.

One thing to notice is that the attacker is giving control of his emotions and actions to everyone else. The attacker blames other people for his losing control.

When Dad gets home from one of his many business trips, he has no right to beat his child for breaking something. His child is a child, and it was an accident. He has no right to yell at his child. His short temper is his fault, his failing.

Eleanor Roosevelt said that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

The same is true of anger.

But how is it that the person who is attacked feels shame, feels guilt? Do we teach that in our society? Is that normal? Is it something that is part of being attacked?

It certainly isn’t helpful. It renders the person who was attacked open to more attacks. It opens her up to abuse from not just the original abuser, but new ones. Bullies can spot weakness.

Again – that is not the fault of the person who is bullied. The bullies need to be responsible for their actions. It is not the “weak” kid’s fault that she gets her lunch money stolen from her – that is the fault of the bully. It is important to remember where the blame goes.

The odd part is that bullies themselves were often abused. Instead of feeling shame however, the bully learns that abusing others is normal. The bully patterns his actions on this warped lesson. The way to feel bigger is go make another feel smaller.

Stop bullying. Easy to say. Tell us how to do it.

Stop feeling shame for being abused. Stop thinking you are a victim. Again, easy to say. Hard to do.

I think there is something to teaching everyone that it is important to say no, to establish boundaries. That this is what you are willing to take, and this isn’t. Perhaps there is something to learning how to dialogue, versus debate. It helps if people can express their opinions without having to be “right” or “wrong” – but just be different.

I used to feel guilty for saying no, for telling someone that I wasn’t OK with what I was being asked to do. I’ve spent too much of my life feeling resentful that my life wasn’t my own. Even reading books about how to find my own voice, how to establish boundaries, I felt awkward. How dare I stand up for myself.

It was painful to read those books. It was like having to re-break a badly-healed leg. Emotionally, it was as if my family had broken my legs and because I’d not been allowed to get treatment, they’d healed badly. I was walking with an emotional limp. I just got used to it. It became my “normal”. Reading those books made me have to look at that wound again, and realize how it was affecting my life, and every relationship I had. I had to re-break those bones and let them heal again.

Emotional wounds hurt just as much as physical ones. And they are harder to spot. A broken leg – that sticks out. A broken spirit? That is much harder to spot. The damage runs deep there, and affects every part of your life.

But somewhere in the middle of reading those books, I was standing up for myself, and realizing that I wasn’t a victim, and I wasn’t to blame. By reading those books I was taking control of what had happened.

There is no shame in being abused. There is shame in being an abuser. You aren’t to blame for what happened to you. You are, however, responsible for what you do afterwards. You are responsible for your own actions, not the actions of others.