{"id":18481,"date":"2018-10-09T09:12:32","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T16:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=18481"},"modified":"2018-10-09T09:12:32","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T16:12:32","slug":"tidal-waves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/tidal-waves\/","title":{"rendered":"Tidal Waves"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Sue Magrath, MC |\u00a0Sacred Mountain Ministries<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n

For thousands of survivors of sexual abuse and assault around the country, the past two years\u2014and especially the past couple of months\u2014have been trying times. Memories and emotional wounds that had been \u201cin remission\u201d have been reawakened by the overwhelming number of women and men who are coming forward with stories of harassment, sexual abuse, and sexual assault by men in positions of power.<\/p>\n

Social media is exploding with a tidal wave of posts as people on all sides of this issue struggle to make sense of recent events, and some of the comments will trigger victims even further. Some victims\/survivors are sharing their stories of abuse for the first time after years of silence. As clergy, this means the chances are high that you will be the recipient of a disclosure, perhaps more than one. These are not easy conversations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As a spiritual director, I recently experienced one such conversation. Just a few days ago, a former rape victim came in for her monthly session. When I asked my usual opening line, \u201cHow is it with your soul?\u201d she immediately began to cry. She gestured widely with her arms, and said, \u201cBig.\u201d Eventually, I came to understand that this meant overwhelming. She was experiencing so many big emotions that she couldn\u2019t contain them all\u2014anger, sorrow, compassion, frustration. She was being hit by a tidal wave of her own memories and the memories of other women she knew who had shared past experiences of abuse with her. I listened and let her process, validating that everything she was feeling was natural and to be expected. After a while, I asked her another of my frequent questions, \u201cWhere is God in this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think He\u2019s really pissed off,\u201d she said and then put her hand over her mouth as though saying such a thing were a sin. Actually, I agreed with her, which led to a deep conversation about God\u2019s anger at this kind of violence against the most vulnerable of God\u2019s children, male or female, young or old. We talked about the nature of justice, God\u2019s and ours, whether God forgives sexual predators, and whether they will ultimately go to hell or not. We even explored the more tricky question of what hell is and isn\u2019t. I didn\u2019t claim to have all the answers, or even any of them. Ultimately, we had to acknowledge that the answers to those questions are elusive at best, but whether we could sense it or not, God was still present in the midst of the turmoil.<\/p>\n

This conversation points to a couple of the essential elements in any discussion about personal experiences of sexual abuse or assault\u2014compassion and listening. It is vital that you indicate by word, posture or affect that you believe the person as they tell their story. It\u2019s really that simple. You don\u2019t have to know all the answers, and you don\u2019t have to be \u201ctherapeutic.\u201d You just need to be a caring presence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>However, conversations like this might be difficult for clergy who are dealing with memories of their own sexual abuse. They too are being triggered by the non-stop news cycle, the \u201che said, she said\u201d bickering, and the accusations and minimizing that are thrown around by some of our politicians. For these clergy, self care is imperative. Talk with someone you trust. Make an appointment to process with your therapist or spiritual director. Get enough rest. Go for a walk in a peaceful environment\u2014a park, the woods, the beach. Take a break from the news and social media so that you aren\u2019t continually bombarded with the messages of disbelief and blame.<\/p>\n

It is only when you are grounded in your own healing and truth that you will be able to be present to those who might come to you for spiritual guidance during this time of crisis.<\/p>\n

But then what? What do we do when anything we can\u00a0<\/em>do seems like sticking our finger into in the dike in an attempt to fend off a tidal wave? As God\u2019s messengers of social justice in the world, we are called to action. One thing that feels essential to me is for victims\/survivors and their advocates to raise their voices against misogyny, injustice, and physical and sexual violence of any kind. The vast majority of victims\/survivors know what it is to be silenced, and the #metoo movement suggests that they have had enough silencing.<\/p>\n

So now is the time to speak up and speak out about the massive consequences of sexual abuse and assault and the need for sweeping social change. This means creating environments in which boys grow up learning to respect women, and girls learn that it is okay to say no, loudly and vociferously. It means refusing to accept the voices that say \u201cboys will be boys\u201d or claim that a stellar reputation is an acceptable rebuttal to allegations of rape or abuse. It means fighting for stronger sentencing guidelines for perpetrators.<\/p>\n

We can all use our voices to raise awareness of this scourge on our society. When we do what we can where we are, we create a different kind of tidal wave, a tidal wave of love, compassion and hope.<\/p>\n

Clarissa Pinkola Estes says, \u201cOurs is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.\u201d With God\u2019s help, may it be so.<\/p>\n

\n

Sue Magrath<\/strong> is a spiritual director and author of the book, <\/em>Healing the Ravaged Soul: Tending the Spiritual Wounds of Child Sexual Abuse.\u00a0Her previous career spanned fourteen years in the mental health field, where many of her clients were victims\/survivors of child sexual abuse and\/or sexual assault. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“What do we do when anything we can\u00a0do seems like sticking our finger into in the dike in an attempt to fend off a tidal wave?”, asks Sue Magrath reflecting on the surge in victims\/survivors of sexual assault who are sharing their stories, some for the first time. She shares that clergy should prepare themselves to be present to listen to those who have been harmed, to advocate so that they are heard, and to fight for sweeping societal change for a better tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":18483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[482,475],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-clergy","8":"category-clergy-wellness"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/danger-sign.jpg?fit=1200%2C627&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-4O5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18481"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18491,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18481\/revisions\/18491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}