Category: FALC

A dysfunctional childhood is hard to articulate and explain to others – you feel it is normal – when there is nothing normal about it.  You can't know the difference, when it is all you have ever known. You simply call it family.

Looking back into my childhood and even into adulthood – I don't recall anyone telling me we were messed up – that our family was insane and had abuse cursing through so many generations.  

My mother – who is not mentally well – I saw as one of high morals and values. I failed to appreciate the mental illness of her religion that created a fake reality we called normal.  I didn't see what she forgave – I only saw she was forgiving.  I didn't see what she allowed with each sin she overlooked.

Even typing this it freaks me out.

She was as evil as my father – for not reacting to his sexual abuse – by leaving and protecting the children.

The ideals I had in my head about my parents and their religion were all kind – hardworking – with truth and morality baked in. In my head – I had a normal family – but on paper and in reality it was far far from the truth.

Reality is my father on the front page of the paper with the headlines "Criminal Sexual Assault".  That is something you can't forgive and make go away.  It is.  It is more insane to believe a normal family surrounds this man. In any way shape or form.

If you were raised in this home, you are messed up.

Our discernment of truth and fiction is all twisted up and backwards.

What is up and what is down – what is right and what is wrong?

As I see my family continue to gather, I know that these sleight of hands are still at play.

There may be new individuals; but the act and drama of dysfunction are still playing along.

A new perpetrator(s) and one(s) who supports him/her.

It can be no other way.

Sexual abuse within families flows from generation to generation. IT does not die when one abusers dies.

There are new relationships in the old family traditions. 

The same sentiment is there – where we are kind, we are family, and family gathers.

Where relationships are built beneath the forgiveness model where reality can and will be swept away.

Not speaking the truth or being real or seeing evil is my family's strength.

My mother's blindness defined her.

The mental dance and drama of dysfunction is just normal life.

The paper and the headlines are long forgotten, rarely talked about or mentioned. Mother and her offspring still gather in the name of family. She perhaps still speaks of being "grateful we are all here together" and she is.

Each one who continues on 'playing normal' make her normal and not insane.

I – who stand outside of this drama trauma dysfunctional play – am seen as weird, odd, mental, cold, mean, unforgiving and unkind.  

Oddly, I represent the truth of what lies beneath our family. The sentiments they place on me – aptly describe our family.  

I was that – until I became aware.

I am wanting to spare a child – to spare a mother – a father – the pain of not knowing – that our family isn't right.  I don't want them to feel it is okay to bring children into our family. I don't want them to only see a large family of 'nice' people. I want our mental health and emotional brokenness to be known.

The first thing any new person into our family should know is what the headlines read – how traditionally the children are abused when we gather.

I have the clippings. I have a file full of 'evidence' of our truths that live in our family tree.

I wish I was told this when I was young.

I wish the family albums showed abusers.

I wish they showed why the ones who left and didn't gather, why they left.

Instead they were made out to be the cold and indifferent.

And, then the abusers and their supporters, kind family members. Really Kind???

Too many families pass on heirlooms and treasures – when what they really need to do in order to make healthy generations, is to pass on awareness and boundaries and truth of what is. Abuse of past generations needs to be talked about – shared loud and often.

It seems like a major cruelty to bring in new little ones under the auspices of family fun time.

When the likelihood of abuse is incredibly high.

There doesn't appear to have been any child spared thus far.

I am the outlier – the aunt and sister who stays away.

I can't know what they say about me – but I know what they said about the generation before me.

"She is cold and bitter and doesn't attend family functions."

 "Very self centered."

"Who does she think she is."

I don't believe we are mourned or even thought too much about – mostly what they want/need is for family to be family and not to be the story in the headlines. 

I recall many family reunions on my mother's side – I never once recalled a whisper about abuse that lived there. I am not the silent aunts who didn't arrive at the reunions. I am trying to speak to the next generations.  Abuse can only thrive if it is kept quiet.

One little choice can change your world, who you are, what you stand for, and the path you take.

One little liberty of refusing to wear a mask – has a snowball affect.

I wonder how many really looked at the outcome of not wearing a mask. Not the daily view; but the one that led to the Capital building.

If you stand up for your liberties by breaking the rules, in order to keep standing, do you have to keep breaking the rules?

When does it stop?

I am in shock and awe of the First Apostolic Lutheran church members and how many have take this route.

How being lawless and supporting those who are, is now a good thing. 

A patriot thing.

An American thing.

My head hurts trying to make sense of the senseless 

I just can't figure out their choice making, or the things they rally for, or against.

Yet, mostly, I am affirmed.

My experience with some folks within the church(es) has been one of sheer confusion.  And, maybe it was my naive or innocence in who I thought they were, compared to who they really are.

Just as it seems like a no-brainer to wear a mask and help reduce the spread of the virus and help business stay open, they go on the opposite end; assuring longer closures and more spreading.

They speak of their liberties – like they have full power of their lives, their bodies and minds. When in fact, the mask wearing was the least among all the liberties they had to lose.

It is to be standing naked and appalled being asked to take off your hat.

It is hard to see where their minds are and what causes them to act the way they act. Hard to understand the choices they make given the options available.  Whether to align with the laws or go against them.

When I first discovered my sexual abuse, I discovered church members knew and did nothing. No thing.

The very thing you think they would be up in arms about, they sat silently and often worked to keep it quiet.

So, in our minds, we believe that "good" christians will act this way and be on the side of the law.

When in fact, the opposite is more true.

Some will dispute this; but we are seeing actions that are showing us who they are.

As Dr. Maya Angelou says, "People show you who they are; believe them the first time."

I did.

I am not so in shock of how they are acting; maybe more in shock of the public displays.

The boldness and arrogance in which they are going against the rules and laws.

What appears to be anithkical to their religion perhaps is actually the core of who they are.

What is the character of their religion, IF it is okay with rule breaking, or turning a blind eye to the crimes against children?

A friend suggested that they confuse "leader" with abuser.

That seems right. That they can't tell the difference from an abuser to a leader Or that their leaders are abusers. So, to them an abusive leader is a leader.

And, their choice making reflects their confusions.

Again, I am certain there will be many who will dispute this and tell me they know exactly what they are doing and what they are standing for.  That they are being patriotic and stand up for the liberties of all.

There is a sleight of hands in all of this. A place where it switches from standing for liberties and breaking the laws.

A place where the knifes edge changes the side you are standing on.

The place where you slip from a law a biding citizens to a law breaker.

I have to wonder how many folks who break the law ever feel that they are in the wrong.

How many break laws every day, believing it is their right.

So for the many who feel I am in the wrong; perhaps you and I don't see eye to eye and for that I am grateful for.

I used to see the world with your mind.

This may seem very confusing and the ramblings of a mad woman, who is mixing my experience with the church members and how they are acting in a pandemic. I had to write the things that hurt my head.

What hurt my head, and even my heart are members of a church acting so unkindly.

I am thankful I am no longer a member.

I am grateful that I made the choice to mask up, to follow the guidelines and to be on the side of history where I don't have to break laws to keep standing up for my choice.

And each time the question arises, when we step out in public, we make the same choice OR we can choose again.  

I also wonder where the other leaders of the church are, the ones who have to be sensing the demise of their reputation as church of morals and values. No one else is speaking up, but allowing the loud group to be their voice. Is it the voice they want to represent them?

How is that quote. "It isn't the actions of our enemies; but the silence of our friends."

It feels like many christian organizations or religions who are condoning the no masking, will all lose their morals and values with this pandemic. They will lose being the heart of our communities.  They are instead the ones who are rallying against the agencies who are striving to keep us all safe.

At the end of the day, we all are going to be seen by how we act.

You may act as a group, but we all choose alone.

And, our choices become part of our history.

"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." Cesar A. Cruz.

What is the role of artists in a land that is fueled by division?

What can we as individuals do to balance the imbalance?

When things seem the most insane, what is the sane thing to do?

How can we knit together a human moral and value system that includes all?

My intentions are to support those who are trying to evolve humanity.

Or, even more themselves.

Each of us have one life and live in close proximity with our own truths.

I celebrate those who have adventured into new territories from that which they were raised.

Explored different pathways and byways.

Sought and created friends from different walks of life.

All of this will create a beautiful tapestry of difference; where it will be harder to see the other as 'evil'.

What seems like "evil" is often another way of life.

Another's journey, that we know nothing about.

We can't know where they have walked, and the choices that were available.

Let us all be reminded we are more alike than we are different and help each other out of their complacency of systems that were designed to exclude huge segments of humanity.

As an artist, I will strive to disturb the comfortable.

We see the world through our beliefs, our fears and often our guilt, and even our wishes.  

It is hard to get a clear view of reality.  

A reality that is stripped of everything but actions.

Reality is often divided into those who see, and those who are blind.

Or more, those who believe and then the nonbelievers.

In my experience, it is near impossible to change someone else's mind.

Or, to clear their vision.

The believers believe in that which they have been programmed to believe.

Actions will not sway them, facts will not be allowed to enter into their already made up minds. 

Reality doesn't care what you believe or what programs you have running in your head.

Reality is.

And, wins only but 100% of the time.

There is no point in fighting, fearing and arguing with it.  The sooner you can come to peace with reality, the more conscious your choices will be.

As a wise woman said, "In the moment of a crisis, you are only given a few choices."

In the case of this pandemic, we only have a few choices. We are either part of the slow down or part of the problem.

What has been so interesting to me, is that the folks who belong to a very strict religion, a religion who has been telling them what to believe and directing their lives since childhood, are now up in arms about the government "TELLING THEM WHAT TO DO!

I am perplexed by their response.

And, then not.

The religion dogma or conditioning is a sleight-of-hands, in which they have been brainwashed; but feel they have free will.

This is very hard to understand or for me to articulate.

Brainwashed controlled folks, acting like they are free, and that the government is trying to control them. They don't want to have their rights taken away, when they have already given them up to the church.

What free liberties do they truly have?

The women do not have rights to their own bodies.

The things they are not allowed to do – sins – control them in ways they cannot see – BUT they feel they are free.  Freely choosing to not do this or that.

It blows my mind, and not. That the most controlled folks are now up in arms about the government telling us to stay home for the health of others.  

They are more concerned about their rights and being controlled, then infecting others by their actions; or non actions.

Their fear of losing their power, which is already gone, is what is causing them to act irrationally.

Perhaps it is their subconsciousness making them revolt. They can't afford to lose whatever small freedoms they have left.

It isn't the Covid 19 that has them in fear.  It is the way the government is choosing to slow down its spread. They are unwilling to lose their freedom to save the life of someone they don't know.  

And, I am sure some are afraid of the loss of their jobs, money and what it will do to them financially. But, what I hear most is the conspiracy and how the quarantine is infringing upon their rights.

Mostly, it is complicated. We are all coming from different walks of life, being asked to do the same thing.  

Being one that still has to work, my circumstances feel different.  We try to follow the rules while being out and about.  

I respect the virus, and I fear those who are revolting against it.