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Healing the Church Wound
For a long time I just didn't think about it much. I certainly
didn't feel it. I didn't deal with it. I could not put it
in perspective. I was intellectual, not emotional. Intellectually
I could understand what had happened and I thought that
should be enough. Emotionally I just pulled the plug.
Unfortunatly, in order to maintain this emotional disconnect,
I had to keep myself pretty sedated with drugs, alcohol
and too much work. For about 15 years.
I can't really remember why I decided to get sober. I think
my friend Kara suggested that it might be a good idea. I
would have listened to her, even then.
I'd been sober for a little while when I attended a workshop
(part of the National Women's Music Festival Spirituality
Series - the NWMF is a lesbian cultural festival held yearly
in the Midwest) led by a woman named Kitty Unthank.
She was a mental health professional and a Christian. She
had just written a book, Riding Wild Horses Home: A Conservative
Christian Apology.
Kitty had been deeply involved in her church, and she had
been forced out when it became known that she was gay. She
didn't deal with it by checking out emotionally. As a mental
health professional who specialized in trauma, she remained
very conscious of what was going on emotionally.
She started her talk, I can still remember the scene so
clearly, by taking us through what had happened to her.
She described her shock, disbelief, rage, depression, a
whole range of emotions.
Kitty went on to say that the best way to understand what
she had undergone, is to think of it as "spiritual
rape." I was stunned to hear this term applied. She
explained that her response to the trauma of losing her
church, being shunned by former friends and mentors, being
considered tainted in some way, was best described and understood
in terms of a post-traumatic stress response to a rape experience.
She took us through what is understood about the psyche's
response to a severe trauma and the ways in which mental
health professionals try to help the victim heal.
Everyone handles severe trauma differently, she said, but
one of the things many traumatized people do is to emotionally
disassociate. They don't think about the event, perhaps
even deny that it was anything important, and they do whatever
they can to keep any emotion at bay, including sedating
themselves. Mental health professionals start by gently
trying to get the person to acknowlege the injury and the
resulting emotions.
I couldn't tell you anything else she said, because I was
just sitting there with my eyes wide, thinking about everything
that had been going on for half my life.
She was saying that what happened was a powerful trauma
that had injured me emotionally. She was saying that what
happened, shouldn't have. She was saying it wasn't my fault.
But she was also saying I had to feel it.
So my friends, listen intently.
If, when you let it be known that you were gay, lesbian
or transgendered, you were summarily shunned, kicked out,
asked to leave, ostricised, or in any way told you were
less than equal to the other people involved in the church...
You have a church wound.
And if you have a church wound and you are drinking, drugging,
or using any other means to keep you out of touch with your
feelings, it's absolutely understandable. But you are just
hurting yourself, and you've got to stop! Stop running from
your pain, start getting help.
Being gay, lesbian, or transgendered makes you no less
worthy of ANYTHING. You are a beautiful expression of All
That Is. You have unique talents and gifts to offer. Anyone
who tells you anything different is simply confused and
afraid. Anyone who tells you that your life is not compatible
with their religion is not talking about any kind of religion
you want to be a part of anyway.
There are people, many of them, who will welcome you into
their church.
You are the only one who can choose to stop running away
and start healing.
I don't mean to make it sound easy. It's a long journey,
it's challenging, and you'll need some help. But you won't
believe how strong, how blessed, and how precious you are
until you open yourself to this healing.
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