Sunday, July 21, 2019

Reclamation - For those who have endured sexual abuse


Reclamation

A voice comes through the overhead speaker, “A cell phone has been left at airport security. Please return to security to reclaim your phone.”

When things have been lost, and then are found: Reclamation.

When things are stolen, and then recovered: Reclamation.

When things are taken that can’t be seen with human eyes, when those things can’t be found or recovered because they are intangible. Something must be done.

Who took your innocence?

Who took your womanhood?

Who took you childhood?

Who took your security?

Who took your soul?

A putrid person took your personal things.

It’s easy enough to reclaim your phone at airport security. It’s easy enough to reclaim the textbook you left behind in class. It’s easy enough to reclaim your scarf that ended up in the Lost and Found box. It is satisfying to reclaim your personal things.

Have you seen putrid people on television lately? The ones who steal, grab, take, snatch, force their prey to give up, give in?   They devour, laugh, and devour again.

There are places for those putrid people to go. When justice works, they are put away so they can’t steal from the innocent anymore.

When justice works, they hear:

“You have the right to remain silent.” Forever.

Then what? The putrid people are put away (if justice works) but you are left without so many very personal things.

They don’t get to win. They don’t get to keep what they stole. They don’t get to keep your soul.
Reclamation is the process of claiming something back.

Or…

Reasserting a right.

You have the power now.

I know, I know. You are…

Tired.

Angry.

Sad.

Scared.

Lost.

Not believed.  

Not worth it.

NO! STOP!

You are not a putrid person. If someone told you that, or looked at you that way, or if you told it to yourself, it’s just not true. Truly. Not. True.

You have the right to live. You have the right to love and be loved. You have the right to feel everything. You have the right to yell and scream. You have the right to cry and grieve. You have the right to honor your preciousness.

For you are a precious person.

A voice comes through the overhead speaker (or possibly a gentle whisper in your ear):

“Hi you! Guess what? You have found your personal things. Yes, You. You may feel the satisfaction of being whole and healed and loved and precious. You don’t need to go back to fetch anything from anywhere anymore (unless you leave your umbrella at Starbucks again).”

You may accept appreciation for what you do. You may accept praise and admiration. You are allowed to set self-doubt outside with the recycling. Self-doubt will be recycled into self-acceptance.

You felt lost, but now you are found.

Reclamation.

Saturday, July 6, 2019

Dear Mr. President - July 2019 - King Donald


Dear Mr. President – July 2019 – King Donald

It’s July and the outrage of what is happening on our border is boiling over. You and your abhorrent administration have gotten what you wanted: Families brutally separated, babies dying, children languishing, no toiletries or decent food for any of them. They are concentrated and overcrowded in small spaces. They are desolate.
Their crime? Trying to escape abuse and death in their own countries. Desperate people who thought coming to America might be a safe place. A place where they could have a life with their children and be part of a great society. You have thrust them into hell.

Because you are a bully and a coward, you say it’s their fault for crossing the border. Their fault. That’s called victim shaming. I say this to you, DON’T EVER BLAME THE VICTIM. EVER.

It’s amazing how silent your evangelical pro-lifers are on this subject. They seem to have turned pro-choice. Brown babies can suffer and die along with their mothers and fathers. Second-class lives, apparently, or less than that.

I told a friend of mine that I was timid when I first became a pastor. I was easily cowed by people’s comments and criticisms of what I said from the pulpit. (FYI, a pulpit is in a church and the place where a pastor stands to preach the Word of God. It doesn't seem like you are in church much). I have gotten over my timidity. I have gotten over my use of safe words. You are the Emperor of Hatred and Hell. You feed on the suffering of innocent people. You delight in turning people against one another. You are a predator and you are in our White House.

Since you became President, you have done nothing but take from the American people. Your tax break for the middle class somehow made the richest white folks even richer. That’s some magic trick you pulled off!

Many people know what it is like to be on the receiving end of someone else’s greed or power. Whether it’s someone who stole our lunch money, our new bike, our hopes of a new job, our virginity, our childhood, our dreams.

As a predator, you know how to take without permission. You “grab women by the pussy.” I won’t bleep out that word as so many people do. It’s a raunchy word and it’s your word.

You can, “do anything you want to [women] because you’re famous.” Your words.

What words have you been saying in the White House about how you will continue to take from us, the American people? We pay for you to fly on Air Force One every weekend to play golf. You make money from your hotels by “encouraging foreign guests” to stay. You and your children are pickpocketing Americans through your businesses and business deals with MBS, Putin, and now maybe Kim Jong-un. Ahhh…Trump Condos on the North Korean shore. Awesome.

What other dirty deals do you have planned?

We know you don’t pay back the states where you throw campaign rallies for yourself every other second. If we, regular citizens, don’t pay our bills, we will have our electricity or water shut off. We will have our homes put into foreclosure. But you continue to take and grift and rip off your own country. What a patriot.

On the Fourth of July you threw yourself a drippy little party in front of the Lincoln Memorial. We the people, and the national parks paid for that, too. You wanted a military parade. You wanted to be saluted by soldiers and have tanks drive past and planes in the sky above. But it rained on your parade. From your badly written, and poorly delivered speech, to the meager crowd, and a less than grand showing of tanks, your day of self-aggrandizement was a bit of a bust.

You want to be King? Emperor? Master of the Universe? No title is big enough for your massive narcissistic ego. No amount of riches can fill your empty soul or bank account.

Interestingly, I have found a King I think you can relate to:

“When [King] Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under….” Matthew 2:16

May wise men and women continue to “trick” you by doing what is right and good in this world. May you be stopped from the torture you inflict on so many innocent people. May you finally be toppled by those who will stand up for the truth.

As you continue to ruin the environment, people’s lives, and the greatness of America, the majority of us will continue to do all we can to fight against climate change, donate to organizations which help the children of God who are concentrated in camps at our border, feed the hungry in our communities, care for the homeless, and do every good thing possible within our power. We will do the work of Jesus and not just talk about him.

We will not blame the victims.

We are stronger than you are. Our superpower comes at the voting booth. Russia won the  last election, but we won’t let that happen again.
We the people have been happily kingless since 1776. We’re not going to start now.

With blazing righteous indignation,

Pastor Barb