Leaving Again

We are already leaving the country again. It will take us a while to get to Belarus this time. We are going through Dublin, Vilnius, and then to Minsk.
We arrive on the 13th and will be there for about 5 weeks. Our plan is to work with the kids at Kletsk and Anya too.
Then on to Romania to ship our stuff from last year to Australia. Not much else to say other than that. More to come at a later date...

Spare the Child

I (Karen) am currently reading Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse by Philip Greven.

It has brought up so many interesting points that relate to fundamentalism and abuse. It can be harrowing to read.

After discussing some of the thoughts in the book with Anita, we began to trace our own journeys from believing that violence toward children was acceptable and even necessary to holding an openly strong stance on non-violence in the home. We both realized that we started out typically callous toward children even though our own pasts were spotted with and/or lined with harsh punishments and unfair discipline.

I hear many church goers speak about children with this same callusness, in America, in Europe, and in Australia. It makes me cringe and it makes me weary of christianity. I feel happier when I am in the homes of the unchurched for many reasons and this is one of them. I feel relaxed that they will not abuse their children in the name of God or talk about it casually or make joking references on the subject. Even the most gracious churches seem to hold the view that hitting children is necessary, as I learned one Sunday while in a bathroom stall- trapped while listening to a mother spank her child. She told the child that she hit her out of love and I could not help but think that the little girl would grow up and continually think that love=pain, that love=terror, that love=helplessness. It made my own past clearer, and why now I have a difficult time believing that there is such a thing as "love".

"Love" means helping someone else survive and that is the clearest and most meaningful definition I can come to. Jesus thinks so too. How about the Good Samaritan? A despised Samaritan takes the time to help a fellow human being survive, to pay out of his own pocket to make sure that the man was safe and cared for. This is simple and it does not include power games, breaking the will, unquestioned control or anything else that I have experienced in the name of God and in the name of love.

So what brought both Anita and I from a state of callusness to a state of sensitivity to children? It was, we decided, looking into the eyes of some of the most ill treated children on earth. To work with babies who taught themselves to sit up, to walk, to talk. Who drank from a bottle propped on a pillow. Who were force fed when they hated the food. Who lived weeks and months without positive human touch. Who heard every day how worthless and ugly they were. Who were scorned and laughed at because of fetal alcohol syndrome which makes them hasty, uncoordinated, and careless. Who were sexually abused over and over without recourse. Who were shut up in closests, stripped of clothes and beaten, or starved. To begin to understand the depth of abuse and neglect that was permeating their lives and to be able to do so little about it made me stand back and think about everything concerning children. It made me look at my own controlled, isolated, and insecure past and left me wondering where the church fit in, as they only seemed to make things worse, not better.

Many times I have witnessed child abuse and have had little recourse to change the situation for the children being hurt. In this, my soul became aware of the great value of the child and the emphasis Jesus put on valuing their lives. And it made me realize that if I was able to be in the company of children who were well taken care of and loved I was experiencing a rare moment in the world. I treasure those moments. I collect them.Unfortunately, these moments are not the current condition in our country or overseas.

Unfortunately, it is not the case in our churches either...which again makes me question the purpose and sanity of such an institution.

Stray Flapping Thoughts

Stray Flapping Thoughts can be difficult for me to pin down so I don't often try. At other times something comes that could be worth reading. This is something I wrote recently, while in Belarus.

It is for Belarus. Written by Anita
"There is no simple way to describe you. Your cold is more then just the weather, your harshness is more then just the environment. Your buildings in their sameness ring true of all that is here. An emptiness that creeps into the core of every being and all those who come to your grey land. The pain of loss has become a way of life that drives everyone to destruction. The destruction of self, the destruction of others seems to be the only form of interaction here.

What will lift you out of this bottomless self pity? You exchange one form of oppression for another as if the fear of being oppressed drives you from escaping it. Survival in this grave lies only in the ability to dig another grave. Your people have no individual form and no colour to draw them into life..."

Stray Flapping Thoughts Part Two

This is for Belarus. By Anita.

"...Only weary bones that wake and move underneath their frozen exterior. What longing do you possess that will thaw this deathly cold that grips your heart? What warmth will come to your baron breathing land in the form of hope that will wake you from your desolate sleep?

The hands that reach to you, you hold for a moment in loving gestures, longing for an experience of life. But soon fear rises and you scratch, bite, break and discard the good that was. The moment is gone, leaving only gaping wounds of loss and pain. As is gaze across your land I ask again what can wake you from your death?"

my friend who I'll call E.

I have a friend who I'll call E. who also lived in Belarus. Today I thought about her and how she told us a story when we were visiting her recently. She told us a story about her time in Belarus and how she didnt feel that much of her time spent there (four years) was meaningful. I asked if she found anything at all meaningful and she said that when she took photos of the kids at a shelter and later looked at those photos she saw something called beauty, not just beauty but also a glimpse of what God sees when He looks at us. And that was the most meaning she got out of her entire four years spent there. I think I have had a similiar experience. I went to a different country hoping to make a life there. What I found instead was just one glimpse of God's ability to see. And so I pray it stays with me but fear I have lost it.

I fear I have lost it because while I caught the glimpse of God's vision I also caught a glimpse of humanity's utter cruelty and bitter hatred. In the midst of that God seems utterly silent and absent. And maybe I ingested some of that toxicity.

I know E. also had this encounter and exposure to cruelty. You cant live in Belarus more than a year and not be faced with it. She told me a second story. She said that there was one little girl at the shelter who was incredibly withdrawn. She had been abused by all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. She wouldn't even look up. After a while she started to feel a little more comfortable and began to make contact with E. when she would visit. For reasons unknown she chose E. as her "safe person" and she began to interact cautiously and shyly and slowly. After a while she went away to summer camp as was required. When she came back she was in the same withdrawn and traumatized state that she had been in on her arrival. E. tried to talk with her but she made no attempt at interacting. Something had overwhelmed her. Eventually things got worse. The little girl became aggressive because she felt so trapped.

E. still doesnt know the full story but they ended up taking the little girl to a psychiatric hospital. They treated her with medication and post soviet psychology. In a short time she was reduced to a staring and fearful zombie. E. watched this small life wither and could do nothing about it. She had no rights as a foreigner to intervene. She had no way of comforting the child that she began to love. She had no ability to make things better or fix things that were very very screwed up. She watched the child suffer and some part of her died with the child.

It has been my experience too. Different situations of course. I still dont know how to make sense of things. I still havent framed it all up and learned anything that I can say "God taught me blah blah blah".

I suppose those types of people have never seen the brand of cruelty that I am talking about. That they are still in church somewhere. Afraid to see it. I guess I am too now but I dont hide in the church anymore.

happy 2008

Norway. November 17 2007.

A great memory for this year. My 33rd birthday in Norway. It was worth it to go there to see a part of my own history. Some idiosyncracies now fit together. The reluctance of the Norwegian to make human contact is written all over me. It was a sense of home that someone once told me I would never you find, but maybe that is just because he had never left America. Nothing wrong with America but it is sterile in the area of longstanding ancestral ties. There is some truth and some hope that a particular place does hold more promise or history than others. That trip was my high light of 2007. I was waiting for it for a very long time.

Minsk winter photo

Minsk winter through the bus window.