terror

It is a word that is being re-framed for me. Moving away from the dust bowl days of my native Kansas, and the Dorothy Lange photos of the Great Depression Era, to the experience of a ‘knowing’ of a Living God.

In one of the verbal ministries shared last Sunday, a young Friend reminded those of us gathered that “the only thing more terrifying than standing and speaking the message which has been given to you, is sitting and doing nothing.” I have been holding that ministry since it was given, taking it out of my belly and admiring the many facets and the clarity. Yesterday, once again, I was sitting with those words and this weeks query came to me.

Only the experience that came to me in answer to the query was not about the last time I felt that holy terror, but a time over ten years ago. Before I found Friends, before I could name Holy Terror, but in a time and a space where the Word of God rocked, set free to call us to more truth and more love.

It was in a group I was co-facilitating, multi-cultural, multi-gendered, the commonality a desire to flesh out the story of how childhood abuse impacted the way we chose to live today. I remember I was leaning back on two legs of my four-legged chair, I was bored….a fellow survivor, a man brave enough to be in the group with other members of his community, was telling us, in sly ways, of the many powerful people he knew in his community, that he broke bread with, and I experienced his words as a shield that were keeping me away from the heart of the six year old boy, the twelve year old tween, the adolescent who I had fallen in love the day before as he shared his story in spirit and truth.

So, I was leaning back on two legs of my four legged chair, and I found myself beseeching God, “Do something, we are losing ground here…” and then I felt it start. I had no words, at that time, to describe it. I did not recognize it as an answer to my request. We were sitting in a circle of very well-behaved people. And the words that started rising in my belly, causing me to quake as I held them in, waiting for them to fully form and waiting for courage to speak them, the words were rude, confrontive.

Suddenly, I was back on all four legs, leaning into the stagnation, I drew a deep breath, and as heads turned toward me, I released the pressure and nausea that had been forming in my belly, “I don’t give a rat’s ass who you know.”

There was silence. The energy in the room shifted. Some leaned back, some leaned forward. The man I was speaking to was speechless for the moment.

I spoke it again “I don’t give a rat’s ass who you know.”

He found his words “Don’t speak against God’s anointed! The last person who spoke to me that way died three months later. You do not know who you are talking too. Don’t speak against God’s anointed.”

The air was shimmering; when I look back that is what I see, but at the time, I was only aware of the force of his words that was like a physical slap. We were a room of sexual and physical abuse survivors. We knew that energy intimately.

I lowered my voice, spoke slower, none of it intentionally, - “I don’t give a rat’s ass who you know, who you eat with, what functions you are invited too. There is nothing in that man that appeals to me. What I care about, enough to speak these words to you and suffer the consequences, is that six year old boy who was abused, that twelve year old boy who was called names, that man whose heart I saw yesterday. He is worth fighting for, and I will fight the man who thinks his value is only in attaching himself to powerful people. I care about you, not who you know.”

Two weeks later, he sent me a thank you card.

Comments

[stephanie]

Speaking truth - it means you have to have listened deeply and heard beyond the surface first.
You have again, it seems to me, written about listening and how it changes what we speak.

[aola]

I knew I liked you :)

I have found myself more than once causing a scene in a church setting, saying things that needed to be said that no one else would say.. looking around at people nodding their heads in agreement and having them come to me later to tell me how glad they were that I had guts enough to say it.

[Hope]

I have read this post over and over again. It gives me hope and courage.

[Anj]

Hope - Hope and Courage; my favorite sisters.

Aola- Yes, I know that feeling!

Stephanie - Thinking about what you have written, yes, I am starting to realize how often I am listening deeply for the truth that wants to be make known.