On Purity & Perversity

"'t'will out! 't'will out!" (Othello  V:ii)

*

There is a point where the pure

meets the perverse,

and that is the place

                   of secrecy --

The place of hushed whispers

and slapped hands,

the place of shame

                                      and private penance.

The insiduous shadow of sin

creeps in

when childhood curiosity

meets adult greed, revenge

and guilt.

Come here,

little boy or gilr,

come here.

I know you just discovered

the feelings in that part of you

that no one ever talks

about.

You can talk about it --

             you can show it

                                        to me.

and I'll show you

            what I have, too --

just as someone

once had me do,

              I'll do

                   unto you.

But keep it quiet.

No one will know.

We live in a world,

                                          after all

where we all are led to believe

that only what we see

is true.

There is a point

where the pure

meets the perverse,

and that is the place

                         of secrecy.

* *

( pennstatecentral )

I woke up this morning to this story on the radio:

(click on radio for story - thanks to
NPR Morning Edition)

The recent revelations that a university football coach could abuse a child have yielded more admissions of childhood abuse then the pedophile priests ever did.  More and more men (and women) are coming forward with stories of how they, too, were abused -- by coaches, troop leaders, neighbors, uncles, friends.  Why does this incident spur this wave of admissions when pedophilic priests did not?

NPR claims that having this vice discovered in a college football locker room brings it into a more familiar realm and treads into the domain of what I would call secular manhood -- a sacred domain all its own.  In the USA in particular, the altar of the Sunday Football Game is visited far more regularly than the corner parish, and the communion of beer and chips shared with more reverence and passion than a thin tasteless wafer claiming to be the body of One Who Died For Our Sins.  Instead, the average American male opts to view the carnage of their favorite sport, again and again, sanctified and revitalized by those who live through it, week to week.

The Penn State story tears a hole into the ritual of manhood and carnage we call American Football, and this NPR story seems to suggest that, thanks to this, during those commercial breaks, more men, women, boys and girls are finding words for secrets they've hidden far too long.  In some cases, these secrets may have festered and produced self doubt and castigation, and ultimately created more victimizers, and more victims.  Seeing not only the perpetrator but also other coaches and a university president pay the price for this indiscretion helps the victim see that they were indeed a victim, and that society will sympathize with them.  There is something terrifically refreshing about this, because once a victim can identify his own victimhood, and realize that those who victimized them were indeed wrong, then that individual can take positive steps down the path of healing.

Meanwhile, as the NPR story says, there was little to no retribution in the church.  Pedophile priests were "outed" and for a day or two, they were the talk of the town, but then they were shuffled back behind the sacred veil of secrecy and silence.  Some returned to active congregations.  Some may have been defrocked, but no charges were filed.  Most recently, the Vatican initiated liturgical reforms that some argue reinstate language that takes steps back towards obscuring what is happening in the mass.  Language itself can be a barrier to hide behind: cryptic language makes true understanding and personal interpretation less possible for the average church goer, and restores the power of translation and interpretation to the priests, thus diverting attention away from those nasty little stories about priests and altar boys and replacing it with a reverence for the priest's specialized access to sacred knowledge.

~ ~

( christmasideas )

Meanwhile, a wounding contradiction festers.

At the core of Christianity is the fetishization of innocence
and purity :  the return of the child who can save
the world.  The story
that is so adored
and repeated because it is adored
looks to the Innocent - to a Child - for redemption.

Honestly,
the Christmas story is a beautiful vision,
for only in our children can we find
our better selves.

So why must we maintain this secret place where, even as the innocent is adored,
it can be defiled?  If the great men of football can man up enough to punish those who hurt our children
then why can't the Church?
So much healing could begin, if the cycle of abuse
in that oldest of abusive institutions in the world could be broken.  Both abusers and abused (many of whom may be one in the same person) would benefit from a public confession and atonement.


Notably,
with every new story of abuse that we learn of,
the finger points back to the abuses that have yet to be punished.
The truth will out, for
the secret is tired of being kept --
Every secret ultimately longs
to be told, and

purity is demanding its time again

The Sins of the Father

*

The sins of the Father

do not have to be

inherited

by the son,

no,

not if the father

will take responsibility

and amend

make a mends

put an end

amen.

* *

I have been in abusive relationships

more than once

more than twice

more than 1,000 times.

In every lifetime,

I've been abused.

In this lifetime, it started

with my first boyfriend,

the one

who took my virginity

chewed it up

wrapped it in an old

Dentyne wrapper

and threw it

out the window

of his orange

Dodge

Dart.

His abuse was silent,

controlling:

I saw him on Saturdays,

talked to him

on Thursday;

I was not allowed 

to call his house.

He called me.

We would go out

to movies

every week.

I saw movies,

forgettable movies,

and then

we'd go for pizza.

Rather,

he'd go for pizza;

pizza was a spectator sport

for me.

I was not allowed 

to get fat.

Needless to say,

I went through my anorexic stage

that lasted

five years or so,

long after he was gone.

My 2nd boy

friend

was a 

great friend

until I got

pregnant, and then

he beat me, until

our wise baby

departed

in a flood 

of blood.

My husband,

20 years my senior

and gentle

(or so it seemed at the start)

remained silent

for 14 years

refused me access

to his thoughts,

to his heart,

to my old friends,

to any new friends.

For all that time

I remained

hermetically sealed

and awaiting permission

to live.

I wanted to replace

that child that I lost

He refused me

by 

refusing me.

I left him,

                    and yes

it was all my fault.

( kroger )

Intermittently, I've been

the lover

for married men,

the fantasy

they never told,

seduced

by lies

No more of that.

I won't talk about

the last one,

the One

I loved the most,

the One

who still makes me

smart and cry.

But that was the One

who helped me see

the pattern of my life

with men.

That was the one

who made me see

that abuse

is inherited,

                       as is victimhood.

ENTER: my mother, the eternal victim,

her mother, too, 

and hers before that;

                    my father's mother -

                 too strong for that;

            and she

decided

                              I was my mother's daughter,

and let me be.

And the abusive men:

whose fathers abused

in secret

because

their fathers abused

in secret

because

their fathers abused

in secret

because

one of their fathers 

abused

in public

and everyone shook their heads

and muttered about

his saint of a wife.

They abused because they did not know

how to do it:

how to be a

man.

( lemaze )

* * *

Before God expelled

man and woman

from the garden,

their punishment

was made clear:

to the man: you will toil on the earth,

and you will die.

to the woman: you will wail in pain with birth

and must

obey him.

A bitter pill

for both, both who dared to think

they could be 

gods

when in fact,

they were only

like gods --

always a shade away

from being

the All,

and the bitter pill:

God to Man:  You want to be God?

fine!

                         I'll put you in charge

                           and leave you to fend

           for yourself.

Ha!!

God to Woman: You want to be God?

fine!

                            You will be the source

            of creation,

and 

                          it will tear your body

          with agony

      and you

       will also,

            by the way,

               have to obey

him.

HA!

Two clueless children

in the wilderness

were they

and immediately

the sins

compounded

and the sons

inherited

the sins

and believed

that they were truth.

but now,

oh now,

we can see

the sins of our fathers

are the sins

of children

who had no clue.

( hollywoodgo )

* * *

The sins of the Father

do not have to be 

inherited

by the son,

nor the sins of the mother

by the daughter

NO

Not if the current father

and mother

will take responsibility

and amend

make a mend

put an end

to this nonsense

by admitting

we were never meant to survive

alone.

We need the Other.

We need Each Other

We need to say

I'm sorry

We need

to admit

we didn't know,

never knew,

just did it that way

because someone else 

told me to.

We never listened 

with our hearts.

That's right.

In the end

all you need is love,

pure love

amen

An Abuser is. . .

1.
An abuser is a one who has been abused.
It is a one who has been held in violent positions
and had violent things done to them.
.  .  . . .things that tore away at the very core of their being.

And if the core of the abuser's being is good,
(which most likely it is,
because all humans are essentially
good)
So if the core of their being is good,
the abuser will hide the abuses they commit,
because they understand
what goodness truly is.

And sometimes they get angry at goodness, and want to do
horrible things to it
because the abuser's good core has been abused
and he wants everyone to be as bad
as he or she
perceive
himself or herself
to be.

That is the logic of an abuser.
It's hard for us to understand
that his intents have
always been good.

Always grounded in the good.

How much an abuser can or will abuse is directly proportionate to how much
the abuser has been abused.

So if the abuser has been damaged
torn to his very core
by the abuse of another,

he doesn't even remember
what goodness is.
He has to imitate it
and hope
he gets it right.


2
After living as many centuries as I have,
I know this well,
for I am a woman.  And
most women
spend a large portion of their lives
involved
with abusers.  Abusers masquerading as men
and scared to death that someone will find out

that 
they were abused.
Because to be abused is to NOT be treated as
human.
To be abused is to NOT
be treated as equal.
To be abused is
NOT
to be treated
as an equal part,
NOT
to be treated
at all
but rather to be insulted
to be ignored
to be
or perhaps
not to be

That is what it is
to be abused.

And only someone who has had that script
committed to their bodies,
committed to their brains
could in turn abuse with such intensity,
could abuse so much
that they would like to kill.
For killing is the response
to the ultimate abuse.
In other words:
if one has been
so abused
that they wanted to die
they will abuse til
their victim wants to die
or until
they are
dead.

3.
So think of it this way
like a palindrome,
and our bodies
are the template
for our thoughts
and our souls.

And the actions
that are performed
on our bodies
are the actions that
are inscribed onto our souls

which are the vessels of thought.
Thought is the matter that is produced
when the body and the soul
intersect.

Thoughts guide our bodies.



Now this is a huge logical chain that you really have to be following with me.
The way I'm writing this is so
antithetical to the way
a person should write on the internet. 

So if you've been with me this long
and you still understand, I wonder
 if that means you would say I'm smart

Or am I crazy?  Am I walking so close to the edges
of my brain that I've produced another reality
completely?  Isn't that what it is,
to be crazy?  To live so fully in another
reality, that you don't realize any more that
it isn't real?

Is that crazy?


4.
It's kind of strange because I see another palindrome
in that too.   And this one is pushing outwards
because the brain has two sides, you see.
And at the center of the brain
is a thin shimmering line
that is a mirror.

A mirror is a technology
(and an old one at that)
that imitates the mirror in
our minds.

at the center of our minds
is a primoridal mirror
that helps
us witness
the continual repetition
of god's initial encounter
with god's self. 
or rather, it helps
us witness
the continual repetition
of the initial encounter between
God's two halves.

And it will keep functioning that way
until we recognize that
that is in fact
what we are supposed to be doing.

At the fall of man
we were torn asunder.

Our downfall was that we wanted
to see ourselves.

Our reparation comes when we recognize
that this is true.

Let me tell you the story
of the Fall of Man,
according to Makropoulos:

(that by the way, is the blog entry that precedes this one, and I beg you to refer to it to maybe even help you understand this one.)

When God saw himself, we saw the physical form of
the woman, which is by far the more beautiful
half of humanity, because she has the responsibility
of imitating god
she has the responsibility of
imitating
the creator
she is the face
 of the creator

woman is the creative force

the ALL

that you see and desire to see;

the man IS the mirror,

the one with

the capacity to reflect

half of

God.


In addition

. . . . the man is also

The Other Half

of God,

the element he produced so

He could

reproduce himself.


This is not to put down

men

or mirrors,


but rather it is to make it clear that

the male half

has a few different functions:

it helps the female half

see how extraordinarily beautiful

she

that is . . . the beautiful thing that is God

is. 



But also,
since god is imperfect as long as she is divided
and looking at herself,
it was most efficient to produce a mirroring device
that had two functions.


God does, after all, have a little German in him; she is quite economical in design concepts.

So the mirror also had the physical capacity to reproduce the disparate body that was once

the double of God,

until the two of them figured out

what the hell is going on.

Why are you over there

and me over here?

And why am I

a woman?

why am I

Makropolous,

why was I

chosen


to live


this



long



?



Because I have to tell this tale.