zondag, januari 20, 2008

Wie raakt me?

.....
The perpetrator of sexual violence commits two crimes through touch: first he steals the body, than he steals the voice.

It is an endless mystery that the shame the sex offender should logically and naturally feel within his own soul while violating the body of another is rarely if ever felt by him. Instead, the shame of this crime, its awful and crushing weight, is
poured into the body of the victim. Maybe that is why the victim, not the
offender, most often feels like the criminal and why it is so difficult for most
survivors to come forward.

Needless to say, too often, when victims do speak up, with their halting and barely audible voices, voices struggling to be heard and restored, they are unwelcome and unwanted, especially when the sex offender is a valued member of the community, like a clergyman or an adult family member. It’s not very mysterious why.

Almost always the perpetrator of these crimes is of greater social value than the victim so it is the victim who will first be charged, if not by words than by actions, with violating the peace and order of the family, the church, the community.

Indeed, there are so many psychological and social forces arrayed
against a victim speaking, especially a child, that when it does occur it is
almost always a miracle, a witness to what the great Christian philosopher and
mystic Simone Weil meant when she wrote: “At the bottom of the heart of every
human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes
on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed,
suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this
above all that is sacred in every human being.”
.....


Voice from the dessert,
Seeking an alternative to the authoritarianism and tribalism of Roman Catholicism

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