I am Forbidden

This post is inspired by I AM FORBIDDEN by Anouk Markovits. Though not sisters by blood but through their Hasidic faith, Mila and Atara views the rules and structure of their culture differently. Mila seeks comfort in the Torah while Atara searches for answers in secular literature she is forbidden to read. Ultimately each must make an irrevocable decision that will change their lives forever. Join From Left to Write on May 8 as we discuss I AM FORBIDDEN. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

This ancient story of trying to control others through religious laws never gets easier to understand. I find it particularly challenging as a woman and as ordained clergy. I also find it particularly obnoxious in the 21^st Century and yet, we have seen a rise in the practice.

In ancient times the miracle of birth seemed more than miracle, it was mystery and it was particularly mysterious to men. Therefore, women must be controlled and an effective way of controlling anyone was through their faith. All power rested with men so it was not difficult to use this power to control women with religious laws.

The example of this as lived out in the Hasidic community of the novel, I am Forbidden, reveals the gut-wrenching choices women often made and the illogical knots people of faith had to tie themselves into to conform. For examples in today’s world, we need look no further than the recent controversy between Catholic nuns and the Catholic hierarchy. For the full story of this conflict go to   http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/american-nuns-stunned-by-vatican-accusation-of-radical-feminism-crackdown/2012/04/20/gIQAi4gkWT_story.html

I also commend to you a Lexington, KY Letter to the Editor on the subject of the Vatican vs. the Nuns: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/05/04/2175073/letters-to-editor-may-4.html (Scroll down to Nuns Know Best).

As female clergy, I know well the fight that many of my sisters of the faith have fought in their various religions and in most all Christian denominations. Progress has been made in the 20^th and 21^st centuries but as the Catholic situation indicates, there is always the possibility of going backwards as well as forward.

I commend to you this well-written novel as an experience of how painful the results can be when we try to control others through faith. 

Sexual Abuse

Brenda at age 5

According to Wikipedia, the Genogram, based on family systems theory, “is a pictorial display of a person's family relationships and medical history. It goes beyond a traditional family tree by allowing the user to visualize hereditary patterns and psychological factors that punctuate relationships. It can be used to identify repetitive patterns of behavior and to recognize hereditary tendencies.” (Genograms were first developed and popularized in clinical settings by Monica McGoldrick and Randy Gerson, with the publication of Genograms: Assessment and Intervention, 1985, now in its Third Edition, 2008.)

I replied to Jim, “I’m game. Oh, buddy, do I have a family system for you!”

The assignment directed us to ask a question (as a therapist would) which needed resolution in my life. I told Jim, “We’ll have to make up one because I’m in such a good emotional space about my life, I don’t have any problems that need answers at this time. The question I’m thinking of is genuine, I just don’t have a pressing need to answer it. It light of what I have lived through it seems a trivial thing to ask.”

The question: “Why, if I have little or no anxiety about public speaking, acting, dancing or teaching, do I sometimes have all-consuming anxiety when I sing publicly?  I’ve had as much or more training in vocal performance as any other skill.”

The methodology of the Genogram involves creating a family tree. For ease of illustration, let’s say the family tree has circles around all addicts, squares around all abusers, triangles around those who were abused, trapezoids around mentors and so forth. My family tree is a geometry teacher’s dream. We filled it all out and ended that session.

Jim returned days later. During the casual visit, we were sitting at the breakfast bar at my house on Summershade Court. He gently asked, “Tell me more about the aunt who taught you a song and prepared you to sing in public for the first time when you were five years old.”

An electric shock radiated from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I could barely form the words, “Oh my God, she also sexually molested me on a regular basis that same year.”

I have known this fact all my life. The path to the long, narrow, cold bathroom at Grandma’s house led between the pot-bellied coal stove and the cabinet where the black desk phone rested, number Harrison 48595. The click of the sliding bolt lock. My aunt telling me to lie down on the towel.

“I was five. I didn’t know I had a right to say ‘no.’ I didn’t suppress the molestation. I felt guilty about the incident all my life. And yet I pooh-poohed the significance of the actions and certainly did not name it abuse or connect it with singing. I excused her because she was just a teenager at the time. I thought it didn’t count as sexual abuse because she was female.”

Jim listened intently as I continued to think about the abuse. “I remember when I was studying voice with Dr. Noemi Lugo in the Nineties at the University of Kentucky. Something she said makes sense to me now.”

“Brrrrrrrrrrrrenda,” she would say rolling her R’s with delight, “you have this beautiful sound that you refuse to let out. For some reason it seems contained, locked up tight.”

“Now I understand when, where and who locked the door.”

Sexual Abuse of Children

Brene Brown has been my heroine for some time now. I have written about her work in this space on several occasions. Concerning the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State, she speaks my mind. No other words necessary.

http://www.ordinarycourage.com/my-blog/2011/11/14/thoughts-on-penn-state.html

Perhaps this scandal will give me the courage to post about my own sexual abuse at age five. Stay tuned.

Ashley Judd's memoir, All That is Bitter And Sweet

Ashley Judd’s new memoir, All That is Bitter and Sweet, defines recovery and bravery. Recovery from traumatic childhoods takes bravery for each of us walking that journey, but when you must do it in the spotlight of fame, the bravery must be kick up a notch or two.

Judd’s memoir doesn’t rest on her laurels of fame. And it’s not easy reading or a gossip mag for Hollywood voyeurs. Much of the book recounts her international work with poverty, women’s issues and sexual slavery. But her work is layered with the story of her neglect and abuse at the hands of her very flawed parents. Her story reveals how the need to do this work grows out of her own experiences of childhood.

As I have struggled these last three years to write my own memoir, I have come to the conclusion that you can survive and even thrive after a scarring childhood but the tenderness of that scar will always be with you. Ashley and I and millions of others will always be questioning life. Is that normal? Should I feel this way? Is it okay to be like me? What will others think? Do I have to care what others think? Am I free now to be and do what I want to be and do?

I also resonate with Ashley’s experience of how family responds when one of the family chooses to get off the dysfunctional, crazy-making merry-to-round and walk on the solid ground of mental health. Note to others who decide to “get well”: your family will not be sending you congratulatory notes or thank you notes. And Katie-bar-the-door if you are so bold as to tell your story.

This is Ashley’s account of when she dared to tell her Truth when her family came to her in-patient treatment Family Day:

“Giving voice to my reality, such a powerful theme in feminism was the empowering part. The scary part was that I had to accept, and yet take the risk anyway, that some people who were listening might never be safe or healthy and therefore might never be able to regard my story for what it was: my story, something to which we each inherently had a God given right. I knew that particular parts of the pain I was in growing up, and the thoughts and behavior born of that pain, would be ridiculed, rejected, pathologized, and held against me, maybe until the day I died. Unfortunately, I was right. Certain things I said were isolated and thrown back at me in the years since that day. But I do not regret standing up and saying, “This is what it was life for me.” 

Tell your Story, your Truth to someone today. It will start you on a journey of healing you will never regret.

The Value of Persistence

Persistence in Art
Photo by John Lynner Peterson

When I taught at Franklin County High School, Frankfort, Kentucky (my first job right out of college), I agreed to have my Advanced Drama class participate in a program the guidance counselor wanted to try with a small group. One activity consisted of affirming a positive characteristic that you saw in each class member--similar in nature to my departmental meeting story mentioned earlier. Since the counselor asked me to participate, my turn came to receive the affirmations from my students. Independent of each other, ten out of twelve identified in me some variation of persistence--stick-to-itiveness, never give up, up for the challenge, tenacity--you get the idea. In my mid-twenties then, my self-knowledge still developing, I gasped that the outside world, especially my students, knew this about me. I knew I persisted on tasks and why I felt I had developed this capacity. I didn’t know the trait paraded around so obviously that even teenagers recognized it. Once again, someone held up the mirror for me to see myself.

Upon reflection, I determined my development of persistence was probably--like most skills--part nature and part nurture. Life circumstances demanded persistence and, fortunately, I seemed biologically bent in that direction. But I also maintain if you value certain skills you can learn and polish the competence. Certainly some skills will come easily to some people. I recall a man who vowed to “plan more spontaneity into his life.” He might get there; it will just take him a bit longer than others.

In fact, those less naturally inclined toward a certain skill might even turn out a better “end product.” My voice teacher complained to me, “You have been gifted with a nice instrument so you expect everything about singing to come easily to you.” Others with less ability may work harder and get a better final product. There you have it. We can choose to be persistent or not in a given area. Perhaps if I had confided to my teacher about the conduit between singing and being sexually abused, she could have moved me beyond the crippling layers. Persistence sometimes needs to intersect with courage. I chose not to have courage in revealing myself to voice teachers.

On the occasion referenced earlier about terminating my half-sister Vivian’s parental rights, I had to mix courage with persistence. Mom and I decided we had to file suit after learning of abuse and neglect of Vivian’s daughter. Terminating parental rights, as it should, involves climbing steep legal mountains. At one point, we were due in Louisville for a hearing. We needed to make an early morning, ninety minute drive on extremely icy interstates, down to one lane each direction. Our presence, though not mandatory, would speak volumes about our commitment to the suit. Mom immediately suggested, “We just better stay home and pray.”

I was flabbergasted; grabbed my car keys and sassed back, “You stay home and pray. I’m showing my face in that courtroom today.” So I did.

Sometimes persistence benefits a bit from naïveté or just plain ignorance. Around eleven years of age, my neighbor and I played in her shed creating a clubhouse. The friend asked her dad to help by pounding a sixteen penny nail into the wall. He replied, “You can’t use a nail that big in that kind of wood. I’d wear out before I got it deep enough.” To which his daughter snapped, “Brenda did one already. Can’t you do the other one?”

That same naiveté was at the root of my persistence in talking my way out of traffic tickets several officers of the law wanted to write for me on occasion. Taking Mark and one of his friends to their gifted children’s program at the University of Kentucky, I noticed flashing lights behind me. I pulled over. The young friend in the back seat got nervous and scared. Mark assured him saying, “Don’t worry. I have never seen her NOT talk her way out of one of these.” Persistence pays dividends. I did not get the ticket and Mark’s little friend was impressed. (After so many flashing lights I finally have learned to monitor my driving habits.)

I suppose my natural bent toward persistence constitutes the most significant characteristic for surviving what life has dished out. Remember the old parable of the mule who fell into the well. After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth saving so he hauled in dirt to bury the mule in the well. As the workers shoveled the dirt on the mule’s back, he shook it off and kept clambering up. Blow after blow his reaction continued. Shovel after shovel of dirt miraculously accomplished what the mule could never have done on his own. Battered, exhausted but triumphant the mule stepped over the wall of that well.

I didn’t choose with intent for persistence to be my motto for life but it has served me well.