I think that reality is good. Although, I am not so good at accepting my reality right now.

As you know spirituality is one of my biggest struggles, rather one of many struggles at this point :) (as I took a break from writing in my journal).

Discovery of the hidden trauma in my life has shaken me spiritually. I have fallen hard and far. That part alone is troubling.

I will share one of my biggest issues with God. If children are supposed to be God's children, then how can horrific things happen to them. Where was God? Alright, I will say that if you accept the free will and people have the choice for good or evil, then those adults chose evil. I am not sure where I sit on the free will thing yet.

I can also say at times that God gave me the ability to dissociate to protect me from the horrors.

I have another one that I question. Where is God when I have live it once and then, to get better is pure hell?

I hope that you don't mind my own thoughts and questions here.

Finally, I have found your posts to my religious issues quite helpful. I think that these horrors make you question God in way that you never thought that you would. I know that I will reread that post many times.

I'm not claiming to be some profound religious thinker, but I do see a lot of these issues coming up over and over. My challenge will be to keep the book diverse in its spiritual content, so that it includes ideas that welcome many faiths to the dialogue: Christianity and the teachings of Jesus, Judaism, Buddhism, and I even tell stories about Native American points of view on these issues.

My premise is that God is actually on the side of wounded people, which is startling because wounded people tend to feel the most disconnected from God.

I think that book is one of the ones I skimmed through. Gag.

Well meaning Christians, people quite close to me, have given these gems of advice:

"Just put all those painful memories in a box and give them to Jesus."

"You need to claim victory over your past."

"The Bible tells us to let our minds dwell on good things. So why even think about anything negative?"

"You need to forgive and forget."

My new response to these nonsense platitudes is to look at the person intently and ask, "How? Tell me exactly how I should do that?" Actually I've only done that once, and the person kept repeating, "Just put it all in a box..."

It's bad enough to be asking the "Where was God?" questions, and feeling angry, guilty and estranged from Him, without also feeling like a complete spiritual failure because of an inability to pack things in boxes, claim victory, forgive, forget, and sing happy praise songs while skipping down the street.

I'm really looking forward to your book, Matt.

I think that you are right that the important thing on a book about spirituality is the commonality and universality that we as a group face independent of our base religion. It seems that there are common themes, reactions, and questions.

Additionally, I think that diversity is important because people can learn from other religions as well. I am Jewish, but reading "The Shack" (it is about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit). It is slow going for me. However, it addresses this topic.

Is trying to be inclusive of every tradition really the best way to share hope? Or is finding the core human themes in your Native American tradition? I'm Jewish and I really enjoy hearing voices from other religious traditions - especially thoughtful ones. Paradoxically, our particularity can be the vehicle for that which is universal. The power of the story of the Exodus doesn't come from being a general story about liberation for all people, but rather from it being the story of a particular people caught up in slavery with a particular Pharoah. Through this very particular story, Jews learned the dignity and freedom that belongs to all people and shared that with the world over.

However you choose to approach the topic, I am glad you are writing. Ever since my own rape (by a total stranger) on the Jewish New Year (Rosh HaShanna) just over 14 years ago, I've felt the the lack of really good religious dialog. Some think stranger rape is less bad - it isn't it just raises different questions, often I think of a much more philosophical nature. When a stranger attacks "from nowhere" one's relationship to the world at large is called into question and even the entire fabric of human relations. I didn't have to worry about what I did or didn't do or whether someone would believe me or how someone I trusted betrayed me. But instead I had to come to terms with the fact that sometimes you can really do your best and still really awful things and impossible choices happen (Gee - do I want to be kidnapped today or do I want to be dead - choose one). And because it was a nameless stranger and I was a random target I couldn't just say - if only I had... all it would have meant was that someone else would have suffered that day instead of me.

Judaism does better than some other religious traditions when it comes to rape. There's even a discussion of whether or not it should be considered rape if the woman is aroused and "enjoying" the experience - the answer is decidedly - it is rape - rape (whose Hebrew word literally means compel) is about compulsion, not sex. But even in Judaism all of the discussion is focused on the experience and punishment of the rapist - how much damages he has to pay, what his on-going financial responsibilities are (he is responsible for supporting the woman for life). The victim's story is silent. (Sound familiar?)

That doesn't mean there aren't useful texts to think about and relate to rape. Most of the material written to date focuses on the rape stories in the bible, trying to fill in the story from the woman's view. Jewish feminists are fortunate that there is a long tradition within Judaism of filling in the back-story of biblical text.

But what interests me most is the texts that speak to core issues. We need to connect the dots between these texts and the experience of trauma. For example, many people feel "unclean" from rape and there is a tendency to assume that feeling is coming from the mixed up and contradictory messages about sex in our society. But is it? The Hebrew word tameh (usually translated as "unclean") actually means a condition of being set apart, outside of the camp - exactly the psychological and existential starting point of the survivor. On the other hand the word for holy/clean, kasher, also has connotations of being set apart, but kasher something that is holy is set apart by being placed in the very center of the community - much as the holy of holys was placed in the center of the temple mount. In many ways the journey of healing truly is a journey from tameh to kadosh - from feeling set apart because one has seen what one should never see to feeling set apart by having the courage to seek out and share in some fashion what is authentically human even in the most extreme and inhuman experience.

Best of luck with your book!

So you're saying that the concept of being "set apart" has two meanings that should be distinguished? A transition from feeling outcast to feeling consecrated? If so, I like that idea and would like to include it in my book. Please let me know if that would be okay!

Exactly! And I really like your word choice: outcast to consecrated is a very nice way of putting it. You are more than welcome to use the idea in your book!

Thanks for your post Halishava, your last paragraph really speaks to me.

Just last week I had composed an three page email to a friend and it was really amazing it was like the beginning manifestation of moving towards bringing together the being outside to being a sharer authentically. I was amazed with it and then at the last minute I clicked a wrong button and it was erased. Hadn't made a draft...just gone.

I have realized that it was no accident...it was the unconscious part of me noticing that I was about to truely share not just with other survivors but with friends and I believe it was part of a book.

I had looked at the refresh button as an undo button ... but I know that's refresh. They are both arrows. I think that the interesting part is that here you have two similar looking things that are totally different... I wonder if that's like part of my experience with rape still not totally distinguished.

The email was about being outside the circle and coming back into the circle of life, bringing my two worlds together by authentically sharing.... I felt like a writer and it was pretty good and then there's a part of me that still just doesn't want to share maybe.

The Jewish mysticism says that part of our souls' life lessons is how to share. And I hate to say it but when I was raped in high school that's what in my anger I had thought to myself was that I would not share my gifts with the world...I was upset that I, a perfectly giving human being would be so desecrated by this boy. Gosh that sounds so silly to me now ... but I'm afraid that I still havn't broken free from that practice completely yet. He doesn't represent all the good people in the world. We must share ultimately to be honest and true humans.

What is the meaning of consecrated:

1. To declare or set apart as sacred: consecrate a church.
2. Christianity
a. To produce the ritual transformation of (the elements of the Eucharist) into the body and blood of Jesus.
b. To sanctify (bread and wine) for use in Communion.
c. To initiate (a priest) into the order of bishops.
3. To dedicate solemnly to a service or goal. See Synonyms at devote.
4. To make venerable; hallow: a tradition consecrated by time.
adj.

Lately I've been investing a lot of time studying mysticism in mythology and legends, Joseph Campbell style, and finding that one way ancient legends helped heal wounded people was to propose that in an act of betrayal, it is the PERPETRATOR who becomes desecrated and loses his place in the circle/web of life.

Somehow our culture has turned that backwards, convincing the victim/survivor to feel desecrated and outcast instead. Spiritually, we have a lot of recovering to do as a society.

Catroot, while I was writing a reply to you, the same thing happened: the browser ate my words! But I'm going to try to recreate them. The exercise of remembering them and retyping them is a way to take ownership of my thoughts, but maybe they will help you as well.

I really like the connection you drew between consecration and sharing.

In the Eucharist, the priest consecrates bread and wine to share it, saying "This is my body, given for you". And when the bread is shared, in some traditions, the priest says the following words to each person to whom he or she gives it: "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in everasting life". Jesus became broken bread on the cross to share what was most himself â life.

Sharing and connection is also important to the Jewish notion of consecration. In Hebrew most words are formed from 3 letter roots and one way to meditate on a concept is to find all of the words that share the same root. Sometimes words with roots that âsound alikeâ are also considered. Biblical literature, and the later rabbinic interpretive tradition (midrash) often relies on word play between sound alike roots so this kind of meditation is important even if it can't be justified by phonetic shifts or linguistic history.

The word most often used to express consecration in Hebrew is "kasher" â something that is kasher or kosher can be shared but only for a very specific purpose. To be consecrated is to be set aside for a specific purpose, bound if you will to that purpose. It is forbidden to use something that is consecrated for any other purpose. For example, at Chanukah, Jews light candles and place them in a special holder called a Menorah.. We can enjoy their light, sing songs around them, laugh and eat potato pancakes in memory of Chanuaka and all it means. But we are not allowed to use the candles in the Menorah to read the newspaper or light matches.

Other words with the same root also are connected to purpose: l'haksher (caf-shin-resh) â to make fit for a specific purpose, casher â to be fit for use, hksharah â training or preparation. For example, you might âm'ksharâ (prepare) a field for growing vegetables or make someone pass a fitness test to see if they are âkasherâ (fit) for army service.

If we look at the sound alike root (kuf-shin-resh), the predominant theme is connection. âkesherâ means a knot or simply a connection. âb'kesherâ means to be in contact with, get together with, e.g. Great! We be in contact (b'kesher) next week. âl'kshorâ means to knot, tie, or bind. âkshur l____â means to âconnected toâ or âin connection withâ or âvery close toâ e.g. Miriam is very close to her parents. A âkasherâ is a liason, a person who connects one group of people to another, deciding what information should be shared and what should not.

You say that after the rape, you decided you didn't want to share. You seem critical of yourself for that, but I wonder whether or not that feeling contains an essential truth? Maybe something about that experience was so sacred, so holy, that you had to be careful how and what to share it?

It is odd, but even though being raped was like being murdered alive, it taught me more about the sacredness of human life than almost any other experience I've had. I'll probably spend the rest of my life trying to share that. The hardest part is figuring out how to explain it without trivializing it. It is so hard to explain how extremes can co-exist without downplaying one or the other.

Beth

All those wierd symbols ( â ) are supposed to be dashes.

"When a stranger attacks "from nowhere" one's relationship to the world at large is called into question and even the entire fabric of human relations. I didn't have to worry about what I did or didn't do or whether someone would believe me or how someone I trusted betrayed me. But instead I had to come to terms with the fact that sometimes you can really do your best and still really awful things and impossible choices happen (Gee - do I want to be kidnapped today or do I want to be dead - choose one). And because it was a nameless stranger and I was a random target I couldn't just say - if only I had... all it would have meant was that someone else would have suffered that day instead of me."

WOW! That is a great way to put it...(by the way, WELCOME TO RAR). I am kind of a weirdo oddity when it comes to stranger/acquaintance rape. I "had met" this man who would later rape me along the roadway, but never knew his name or where he lived or came from....so, stranger is where I land on my definition of what 'type' or rape I suffered. But you make a valid point here, I believe. The challenge of thought has been tossed about. Is it 'worse' if you knew your rapist? Some would say yes, some would argue. But you leave that as a mere sideline to the actual issue...."I was raped". Raped because I knew someone? Raped because I made bad choices? Or raped because someone else made bad choices. I like how you arrive at that conclusion. Your final comment in that paragraph sums it up nicely....you can do your best...live a good and decent life...and someone else's behavior can still enter in and effect your life.... "awful things and impossible choices..." (I like that phrasing).

"And because it was a nameless stranger and I was a random target I couldn't just say - if only I had... all it would have meant was that someone else would have suffered that day instead of me."

I too battled with that reality. These people who came into my life meant me harm...well, they meant "to" harm...I was the "random target", but I found every conceivable way to say..."if only I had"...and have been working against that in therapy for some time. But that it was you....your summary is probably spot on -- all that might have changed had it not been you, was that someone else indeed would have suffered that say, instead of you.

I'm sorry for us all that anyone suffered at your rapist's hand.

The last paragraph actually reminds me, in a much more eloquent way than I will be able to do justice...to Matt's explanation of the moontime and woment not being 'allowed' to participate in the sweatlodge. It was, as I recall, NOT a punishment for being on one's menstrual cycle...but THAT one is honored by one's Creator with that 'gift'. Women tend to recognize the curse aspects to menstruation..but, in reality, it is a gift from God that we, and only we can receive. I am a mother because of that gift. Does that mean I accept the inevitable reality of month to month bleeding as a joyous event? Nah...but, should I?

I love the ability of a language, that has specific words for nuances of difference, to communicate an exact. The Hebrew does that here, and I love the distinction. Outcast seems negative, because of it's common usage...but, in your definition, or Matt's explanation of the reason for being set out from the sweatlodge...the act of being outcast is an honor...and likewise, to become consecrated as a natural progression from being outcast. WOW! May I say your words today took me to a different level of understanding, and I am glad to have read them.

Matt,

I agree that it is the PERPETRATOR who is descrated, but I think anyone who has to witness self-descration feels tainted by it. I know I did. The difference is the the perp wilingly chooses his own desecration and can never become whole again until he repudates his own acts and effectively becomes a new person who can never do such an act again.

On the other hand, the victims have desecration forced upon us. We become whole by acknowleding the sacredness of what the rapist tried to destroy and placing responsibility in the right place - the rapist's willful choice.

Likewise, society cannot become whole until it owns the values that the rapist tried to destroy and rejects any willing participation in that destruction. This, by definition, means accepting the victim rather than silencing her (or him).

Beth

That is almost exactly how I describe the process in my writings, so I think we're very much on the same page. The victim, for example, is forced to endure her own dehumanization, whereas the perpetrator is not forced; s/he does so willingly, and even feels powerful as a result. The act of being desecrated does not FEEL like desecration for the perpetrator, who does not have to suffer the grief of their desecration. The victim, however, has to feel the wounds that do result. Knowing that they are not desecrated is perhaps small comfort when they still have to endure the psychic and spiritual wounds of the trauma. However, I still think some progress toward healing can occur by beginning to reconsider just whose humanity has really been obliterated, and to contemplate that it is not your own, but your perpetrator's.

I like your last two sentences because they promote a classic feminist perspective, plus they fit in with my spiritual/moral concepts about social justice. What you are writing sounds almost like echoes of words for the book I am composing. :)

This is a pretty powerful thread to me. I absolutely agree with all the points being made here... I have put some to use prior however I also see that they are very pertinent to where I am today.

I think it is a very effective healing technique to begin to realize that all the negative feeling that a victim walks away with are actually belonging to the perpetrator. Ask most victims they didn't feel that way prior...and as one sees "the shame is not your's" or the you name the emotion it's not belonging to the victim. However it is the victim who must begin to see the lie of taking on any of those emotion. We have to do that. It would be easier if society were healed. I think we start to take it on more because of the lack support than an immediate emotion.

So now that the topic of consecration and desecration have been written about I see something more clearly.

Yes I too seemed to understand the nature of sacred in a way I did not prior to rape. For one I had had sexual relationships prior. Only after rape did I understand that I had been sharing a Gift. and I am now realizing that this is one emotion or idea effect of the rape that I haven't exactly worked out yet. It wasn't that I didn't want to "share" or talk about what he did...I did I wanted someone to go to. Unfortunately the peopel I went to were not helpful. It was good stuff I felt like I didn't want to share. And maybe you are right that in such confusion I considered these things holy and no longer felt certain about where and who was safe or deserving even on a societal level. The feeling, the reason that I must have decided that I could no longer share my gifts (and I didn't just think sexual, it was the idea of any gift...writing...thinking ... making the world a better place ... type of thing). after rape I knew the world was different than I thought I did not think that anyone who could choose the right thing would do anything but that ... I still I think have to deal with that ... it's hard to understand we all have consciousness ... I could tell he choose to do this...so in this this would be desecrating oneself. Oh my gosh yes now I understand!!!

Does part of me feel that I was desecrated?! This is the holy part. I do recall my anguish being that he had done this to me and also I felt it was done against God.

I wrote to a friend recently that rape should be called an "antisex crime" instead of a "sex crime" and maybe society wouldn't be so confused in it's reaction.
As you wrote:
<<, society cannot become whole until it owns the values that the rapist tried to destroy and rejects any willing participation in that destruction., society cannot become whole until it owns the values that the rapist tried to destroy and rejects any willing participation in that destruction.>>>>

I am so glad for this discussion. If I say to myself how he has desecrated himself I realize it is loosening on me.

On another but similar note:
I saw the Rhianna interview with Diane Sawyer ... at the end of interview Diane says to Rhianna "People were so surprised .... they say she WAS such a strong woman" I was amazed by Rhianna's ability to respond ... she said "I AM a strong woman.. I did not do this to myself" . Diane Sawyer was saying people say how could this have happened to her; that she was less a strong person because she was attacked and beat up. And Rhianna was able to keep it straight!