A Time to Laugh

Friday the 13th is a sentimental and blessed day for me. Again. Thank you, Lord. For dragging me kicking and screaming toward your gift of freedom.

When he was 38 years old, Ernie Willis (allegedly) raped 15 year old Tina Anderson, his family’s babysitter. I say “allegedly” to cross all my legal Ts and dot my technical Is. She was already at risk — her stepdad was in prison at that time for sexually molesting Tina. And she found herself pregnant, (allegedly) carrying Ernie’s child.

When she and her single mother told her pastor — Bob Jones University Board Member, Chuck Phelps — his response was to put her in front of the church for “discipline,” shuttle her out of state to Colorado away from the investigation where she birthed her child and put her up for adoption. Willis admitted his own paternity of the child on the adoption papers, but the courts will sort through the rest of the details in good time. You can read the linked articles to catch up on the specifics. Phelps gives his version of the events here and here.

While we wait for justice, we who are close to fundamentalism are reeling. One friend of mine had to speak. She cannot use her name (yet). She is a working-outside-the-home mom who sees the effects of fundamentalism’s “hard patriarchy” first hand.

As a recovering fundamentalist, the Tina Anderson/Trinity Baptist Church case has had a particularly profound impact on me. It has taken me some time to figure out just what I found so compelling, however. It isn’t as though I haven’t dealt with poorly-handled sexual abuse situations in Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) circles before; in my current line of work I stumble upon them more often than I care to think about. While I cannot adequately express my sadness at what happened to her, her ordeal has finally opened my eyes to a deeper issue.

There is much teaching on the submission of wives to their husbands in fundamentalist circles. In extreme cases, submission is taught as complete floormat-hood for every woman to every man; in less extreme circles, it’s taught in a manner that does not appear to go beyond the biblical teaching – or at least not very far beyond it. Yet sermons on the topic have always bothered me, no matter how progressive the take on the concept. I struggled to uncover the problem, and I honestly couldn’t identify it. All I knew is that my heart would scream over and over that Something. Is. Not. Right.

The Tina Anderson case has finally revealed the reason for the struggle. Despite their assurances that what they were teaching did not mean that women were inferior in any way just because they were required to submit, in reality, the vast majority of IFB leaders do not truly believe that men and women are “equal but with different roles”. They say they do. Many probably even believe they do. Yet their actions consistently prove otherwise.

Again and again, when a case of sexual abuse or rape occurs in IFB circles, it is minimized, covered over, or in some other way hushed up. The woman involved is told to forgive, forget, and move on – or, shamefully, even to confess “her role” in the crime. The man is rarely disciplined or brought to justice – and if he is, the woman is also punished. If the woman struggles with PTSD flashbacks from her attacks, she is told she is indulging in pornographic thoughts. If she struggles with anger over the injustice of what happened to her, she is bitter; if she wishes to pursue justice via legal means, she is unforgiving.

Why?

Because the woman is not truly seen as equal. It’s the only explanation that accounts for the consistently bad response in these circumstances – a response that is then justified by misapplication of scripture. If you still don’t belive me, I invite you to consider your reaction to the concept brilliantly illustrated at Stuff Fundies Like. It was a revelation for me as well.

The reason the Tina Anderson case was and continues to be handled in an appalling way? Tina is a woman, and the rapist and authority figures in the case are men. It’s that simple. And now that I’ve figured it out, I will never feel guilty for my heart’s cry again.

We’ve got trouble, folks. In Fundy City and beyond. Trouble with a Capital T.

As I try on this new identity of “survivor,” I search for a vocabulary to make sense of my experience. Why did they do this? How did it happen? How can I make sure it doesn’t happen again — to me or to anyone I love?

And the best vocabulary — the one that nails it every time — is domestic. Lundy Bancroft dispels the myths of domestic abuse, fraught with empathizing with the bully and avoiding responsibility. We often say, with pity in our voice, that an abuser abuses because:

And research just doesn’t bear that out. That’s not why abuse happens. Bancroft gives ten proven reasons why abusers abuse:

• He is controlling.
• He feels entitled.
• He twists things into their opposites.
• He disrespects you and thinks he’s superior.
• He confuses love and abuse.
• He is manipulative.
• He wants to have a good public image.
• He feels justified.
• He denies and minimizes the abuse.
• He’s possessive.

How does the abuser do this? He:

• Changes his moods abruptly and frequently, so that you find it difficult to tell who he is or how he feels, keeping you constantly off balance. His feelings toward you are especially changeable.
• Denying the obvious about what he is doing or feeling. He’ll speak to you with his voice trembling in anger, or he’ll blame a difficulty on you, or he’ll sulk for two hours, and then deny it to your face. You know what he did — and so does he — but he refuses to admit it, which can drive you crazy with frustration. Then he may call you irrational for getting so upset by his denial.
• Convincing you that what he wants you to do is what is best for you. This way the abuser can make his selfishness look like generosity, which is a neat trick. A long time may pass before you realize what his real motives were.
• Getting you to feel sorry for him, so that you will be reluctant too push forward with your complaints about what he does.
• Using confusion tactics in arguments, subtly or overtly changing the subject, insisting that you are thinking and feeling things that you aren’t, twisting your words, and many other tactics that serve as glue to pour into your brain. You may leave arguments with him feeling like you are losing your mind.
• Lying or misleading you about his actions, his desires, or his reasons for doing certain things, in order to guide you into doing what he wants you to do. One of the most frequent complaints I get from abused women is that their partners lie repeatedly, a form of psychological abuse that in itself can be highly destructive over time.
• Getting you and the people you care about turned against each other by betraying confidences, being rude to your friends, telling people lies about what you supposedly said about them, charming your friends and then telling them bad things about you, and many other divisive tactics.

Being held hostage to his feelings, gaslighting, creating pseudo-good will, demanding pity for the powerful, outright lying, and shunning — that’s the tactical list. Plain as day. We all recognize it.

Bancroft summarizes research on abuse to further knock those myths out of the conversation (75):

• Abuse grows from attitudes and values, not feelings. The roots are ownership, the trunk is entitlement, and the branches are control.
• Abuse and respect are opposites. Abusers cannot change unless they overcome their core of disrespect toward their partners.
• Abusers are far more conscious of what they are doing than they appear to be. However, even their less-conscious behaviors are driven by core attitudes.
• Abusers are unwilling to be nonabusive, not unable. They do not want to give up power and control.
• You are not crazy. Trust your perceptions of how your abusive partner treats you and thinks about you.

I re-read that last one over and over. Because time and documentation have proven that my perceptions were right. Even while it was happening, I knew.

Finally, to those of us who have survived abuse, he advises:

When I work with an abused woman, my first goal is to help her to regain trust in herself; to get her to rely on her own perceptions, to listen to her own internal voices. You don’t really need an ‘expert’ on abuse to explain your life to you; what you do need above all is some support and encouragement to hold on to your own truth. Your abusive partner wants to deny your experience. He wants to pluck your view of reality out of your head and replace it with his. When someone has invaded your identity in this way enough times, you naturally start to lose your balance.

That fits. Replace “partner” with “employer” and/or “pastor” and that really fits. That scarily fits with my theory of sectarian romance. That fits with my other theory of fundamentalism as patriarchy.

So now what? If my role in my previous life was a kind of ideological “battered wife” to an masculine administration hell-bent on preserving the hierarchy, where do I go from here?

Healing from intense and pervasive trauma — whether from cancer or rape or earthquake or war — comes as you learn to call yourself a “survivor.” It’s a rhetorical move away from “victim.” When a victim can describe herself as a “survivor,” she:

no longer feels possessed by her traumatic past; she is in possession of herself. She has some understanding of the person she used to be and of the damage done to that person by the traumatic event. Her task now is to become the person she used to be and of the damage done to that person she wants to be. In the process she draws upon those aspects of herself that she most values from the time before the trauma, from the experience of the trauma itself, and from the period of recovery. Integrating all of those elements, she creates a new self, both ideally and in actuality (202).

Judith Herman

“Survivor” identifies autonomy. Personhood. It fully acknowledges the past trauma as trauma. It highlights strength. Rather than things happening to you (scene/victim), you are an agent. You act. You have power. You do stuff.

And fundamentalists hate it. They would say that using “survivor” is a petulant, ungrateful response to the lousy things God has done to/for you. They would say that you shouldn’t just “survive” but “rejoice.” Which means, as usual, “shut up and get back to work.” In fundamentalism, you should only “move” in deference to the whole. You can only “be” in the group. That’s how the ideology becomes god.

Fundamentalists don’t like autonomy. When they say we must “deny the self,” they mean it. But not like Jesus meant it. They mean that we must erase the individual in lieu of the whole. There are no boundaries between persons, just recalcitrant boundaries between sects. We must deny that the self even exists. We can never put ourselves as the agent. “I” should never be the subject of the sentence.

Don’t get mixed up and think that’s the appropriate “grammar” of all Calvinism. I think that’s where this new breed of “Young, Restless, and Reformed” are just finding new duds for an old, mean fundamentalism. A hipster Kesiedispiecostalism. Even Jonathan Edwards in his “Resolutions” talks about what he does. How he acts. How we join God’s ongoing work. We work because He works.

I work because He works.

How does Steve Brown put it? “I’m a Calvinist, so I know it’s all about God. But it’s about me too.”

That’s salvation. God doesn’t save us to be nothing. We weren’t once alive and now we’re dead. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, and He lifted us up and made us His children. The Church Universal isn’t a Borg ship. It’s a city! A Kingdom. A bustling, colorful, dappled, productive, noisy community.

And for now, until the Bridegroom arrives, we persevere. We “keep on keeping on.” It’s a race. We’re running!

I’m running. So let me try this. . . . I have earned a Ph.D. from a Research 1 university with two unaccredited degrees putting a permanent black smudge on my record. I have buried four children — one I carried past term — and have birthed two screamers. I have breastfed those two children — one until he was nearly four and one until he was well past two — and yes, that means I did tandem-nursing. I co-slept, nursed, and wore my babies right through their toddlerhood. Despite ongoing disciplinary action from my employer, I chose gentle discipline for my sons. I am a published author and scholar. I have endured shunning, betrayal, threats, job loss, and emotional, mental, and spiritual abuse from people I considered my dearest friends. And I persevered. God has begun this work in me, and He will perform it until He calls me home. And I join Him.

And if you want to take out your cyber-red-pen and correct the “grammar” on the above paragraph, you’re probably a fundamentalist.

I bought myself that necklace several months ago — right around the time I took my blog “sabbath.” I am wearing it until I believe it. Until I believe that I’m a survivor.

Through all the tumult and the strife,
I hear that music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul–
How can I keep from singing?

Hallelujah! The great storm is over!!

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Missing the Joy from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

I’ve been meaning to tell this story too. This is a little earthy, so if you’re uncomfortable with stuff and would rather assume I’m just a immaterial blog on a screen, skip this post. I won’t be hurt.

I hate doctors. I do. I was trying to explain this to my G.P. the other day, but I had strep throat and could barely talk. I’ve picked him because he’s not an alarmist and he’s pretty just factual about stuff. So it’s a good match for me. But I see that white coat, and I freak. Here’s why.

I’ve talked about my several-year-long journey through crappy doctors starting with the little gem who tried to tell me my foot didn’t hurt. I’m still incredulous at her abusive audacity. What kind of doctor tells a patient something doesn’t hurt? She did it several times about many different maladies, so it wasn’t a fluke, but a habit. Anyway, I got through that, and we started talking about starting a family.

We had one pregnancy begin on January 30, 2000 and end on March 3, 2000. We had another begin on October 1, 2000 and end on July 7, 2001. And in 2002 — around the year anniversary of Elise’s death — we had another little life begin. That little boy was not meant for this world. I know that now because he was Trisomy-10, but I had a sense then. I wasn’t just spotting early on; I was bleeding. Badly.

Because I was a special case after my stillbirth, my excellent G.P. sent me to Highlands. It was a disaster from beginning to end.

They did an ultrasound, but it was still too early to tell anything for sure. So they went for the usual HCG testing. They take a blood draw and see the levels of HCG, and then they wait two days and repeat. In a normal, viable pregnancy, the numbers double.

I saw Dr. Stoner. I’ll just sum up my impression of her with this: beware of the OBGYN with loooooong fingernails! She came into the room jabbering the usual line describing HCG testing. Mind you — I saw this little well-manicured genius in 1995 during my last go-round with crappy doctors. Then, when I asked her why I wasn’t having my periods, she said, “Because you’re not ovulating.” No kidding, Einstein!

And this time, in 2002, she was on heartless autopilot again. In the consult, I mentioned my previous two losses and specifically my stillbirth. And like something right out of a SNL skit, she tried to cover her ignorance about my OB history by sneakily thumbing through my records. And she continued blathering.

They took the blood and I went home, still bleeding. I came back two days later for them to get more blood. I asked them specifically, “When will I hear the results?” The phlebotomist assured me, “Oh, by lunch time. No worries!”

I went back to my summer job on the BJU campus. I worked in my office and Grant did too a few floors down. We both waited by the phone. Nothing. Still waiting. Nothing. I called them, and, of course, got nothing but the voice mail (they never picked up the phone). I left my name, my SS#, and my phone number.

Finally at 5:30, Grant and I decided to go home. Since Highlands was closed, we assumed we wouldn’t hear now for the rest of the night. Grant went to Lowe’s to get some mulch. I stayed home to get dinner ready.

And then, when I was alone, the nurse called. Dr. Einstein’s assistant. She said in a very chipper tone (and I remember every word), “Well, Dr. Stoner left the office before she could see your test results. But I have them here. And they don’t look good at ALL! So we’ll call you in the morning to schedule a D&C. . . . You okay?”

Read that again. Read it with a fake-happy tone. Now imagine being on the other end of THAT after all the terrifying stuff I had been through. The sum of her comfort was “You okay?” That was it.

No! I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t anywhere near okay. But what are you going to do about it? What do you care? What do any of you care? What kind of jerks are you over there? Have you even read my file?

I instead just said with all the sarcasm I could muster, “Oh yeah. I’m just greeeeat!” And hung up.

Grant came home and I told him the news. I gotta say that that’s always the worst part — telling those that you love that you’re going to go through Hell again. It was the worst part of Elise’s death — telling my parents. I didn’t want them sad. And now I had to tell Grant.

He was mad. Just mad. So, he did his therapeutic thing: he mowed the lawn. And I called Sarah, my sister-in-law. God bless her! Seriously, she did exactly what I needed. She went into nurse-mode and talked me through it. She reminded me of reality. She kept me sane. She said, “No. You don’t schedule a D&C. Those tests could be wrong. You wait. You get more tests. It’s not over yet. Do you hear me???”

So with a new persistence, the next morning I waited for the phone call from Highlands. I was going to tell them what Sarah had said. I waited. I prayed. And I waited.

Nothing. They never called. So I got on the horn and got their voicemail again and got huffy: “I have been waiting all morning for the phone call that you all promised. When are you going to call me? I have an unusual situation here that you all don’t seem to realize! I’m supposed to be getting CARE, and I’m getting NO CARE from you all. You’re causing me stress, not relieving it!”

Lo and behold! They called!!! But they called Grant. They said, “Hahaha — we were calling her social security number.” And I’m supposed to trust them to read test numbers when they can’t tell the difference between a Social and a phone number?

When I finally got to talk to a person, she said that Stoner had ordered more HCG testing (not the D&C that little Nurse Chipper had concluded). I said, “No. I don’t trust you all. I don’t need this. I’m going elsewhere.” Click.

Well, I had severed that dysfunctional relationship. Now what was I going to do?

And I’m not kidding you with this next part. This is exactly what happened.

I sat at my desk and prayed. Where am I going to find a doctor? I don’t know what I’m doing. God help me.

I pushed away to get up to get the Yellow Pages and the phone rang. It was my sister-in-law. She had talked to a friend who had also experienced a stillbirth. Whose niece babysat for a Maternal-Fetal-Medicine doc in town. And she had gotten me an appointment for that Thursday.

Read that all again. Did you see what God did? Did you see how He wrote that story? I was just getting up to get the phonebook to go doctor-diving, and He not only pointed me to one, He got me an appointment.

What followed was truly startling. Because that doctor — Dr. Chapman — treated me with professionalism and honesty. The news she gave me was the same as I got at Highlands essentially — my baby wasn’t meant for this world. But they had their eyes wide open to my past, they held my hand through the pain, and they treated me as an intelligent soul, not just a voice mail message.

God was carrying us through all that. I know it. Even now, however, I still panic when I see the white coats. I’m learning to get through that, but it’s hard too. It’s another instance of Jesus hugging me through the pain.

But enough. The amateur is vindicated; let me proceed with my other qualifications.

For the second one, put down that I like food. As a child, I disliked fish, eggs, and oatmeal, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. My tastes are now catholic, if not omnivorous. My children call me the walking garbage pail. (On my own terms, of course, I refuse the epithet: All that I take is stored lovingly in an ample home — it becomes not waste, but waist. On their meaning, however, I let it stand: I am willing to try anything more than once.)

Admittedly, there are some delicacies that give me pause — prairie oysters, for example, or the eye of the calf in a tete de veau. But since I have never tasted them, my apprehension may be only the disenchantment wrought by distance. Even the surf is frightening when you lie in bed and think about it. In any case, it is part of my creed that there are almost no foods which, given the right cook, cannot be found delectable. Just so long as they are not corrupt — no, that is too sweeping: It will cost me pheasant and venison — just so long as they are not gracelessly corrupt, there is, somewhere in the world, an eye that can conceive them in loveliness, and a recipe that can deliver the goods. I am convinced that even shoe tongues, if cooked provencale or a la mode de Caen, would be more than sufferable.

I hated eggs, too, as a child. I hated most breakfast foods, to be honest. I’d eat lunch for breakfast, if I could. And I have done so when pregnant, when you could justify every out-of-the-ordinary choice under the general heading, “craving.”

And meatloaf. I still hate meatloaf.

Grant hates ranch anything, pastrami, and baked chicken. My oldest hates broccoli. My youngest  hates . . . I haven’t met anything that he hates yet.

But I’m not a gourmand. I am not an adventurous eater. Yet I have had goat, squirrel, rabbit, venison, pheasant, and dove. I liked the pheasant the best, but I’m told the squirrel is nearly a Missouri delicacy. One I’ll never fully appreciate, I don’t think.

Yes, when it comes to food, I’d rather stay in my yankee-pot-roast or moo-goo-gai-pan suburban provincialism. I know I could never pass the food challenge in Survivor, and I’m perfectly happy in my rut.

But Capon gives us more here than just how to prepare a shoe leather sandwich. He’s relishing that all things are lawful. All things are edible. All things are pure to the pure in heart. It doesn’t matter what the movie means really or what the menu item contains actually. God’s mercy doesn’t depend on what sin we committed technically.

Grace finds beauty in every thing!

Or, conclusively, peel an orange. Do it lovingly–in perfect quarters like little boats, or in staggered exfoliations like a flat map of the round world, or in one long spiral, as my grandfather used to do. Nothing is more likely to become garbage than orange rind; but for as long as anyone looks at it in delight, it stands a million triumphant miles from the trash heap.

That, you know, is why the world exists at all. It remains outside the cosmic garbage can of nothingness, not because it is such a solemn necessity that nobody can get rid of it, but because it is the orange peel hung on God’s chandelier, the wishbone in His kitchen closet. He likes it; therefore, it stays. The whole marvelous collection of stones, skins, feathers, and string exists because at least one lover has never quite taken His eye off it, because the Dominus vivificans has his delight with the sons of men.

I just had my hands wrist-deep in chicken grease. The house is smoked up because a stray drumstick wouldn’t behave within its rotisserie prison. The counter top displays my weapons — shears and tongs and forks and even a dismantled coat hanger I thought I could bend into a skewer. I was wrong about that.

I could just throw the whole bird in the oven. But I don’t. My better half despises baked chicken. Hates it. And so I wrestle with the legs, cutting off what is misbehaving, splattering my party shirt with poultry goo, tripping over a licking-the-floor schnauzer, and opening windows upstairs and down. I dream up the broccoli salad he likes. The cole slaw recipe he prefers. The carrots my boys would choose. We’ll see if my efforts are successful in 30 minutes or so.

My kids think I am the best cook in the world. I’m not. . . . Well, I’m okay. I rely on pancake mix and low-fat turkey sausage enough to know that I’m no Martha. But I regularly get, “You make the best sausage in the world, Mommy!”

You have no idea how wonderful that feels. Because I know it’s not the food that they are enjoying. And it’s not just Mommy. It’s both. It’s the combination: the full tummy and the full heart.

My dear 86-year-old Dad insists that his mother was the best cook ever. My mom always retorts to me quietly, “She really wasn’t, Camille. She was terrible!” But Dad still goes on and on about the steak that was as tough as shoe-leather and the fried chicken Grandma made after she boiled the bird for its bone-broth value.

I realize that Mom’s right. But Dad’s right too.

Our world is an orange peel hanging on God’s chandelier. It’s good because He loves it and us. Just like boiled-and-then-fried chicken. Just like that dissected rotisserie project smoking up the downstairs. . . . at least, I hope.