YOU ARE GUILTY!
Guilty of what you ask? Daring to speak up and bring attention to the abuse, hurt or pain you have suffered at the hands of another.
They declare your guilt with wrath, indignation and fear.
The former because your insistence on speaking your truth makes them uncomfortable.
The latter because the more you speak, the more inner searching they will have to do to uncover why they are uncomfortable, and that in itself is scary.
Too close to home perhaps?
Or perhaps it strikes a chord of the part they’ve played in the incredible mess at hand?
Evidence of the jack that’s out of the box and now refuses to be shoved back in easily.
Or God forbid it brings to the surface
that feeling, thought or memory they’ve tried so hard to forget, deny, or convince themselves and others that it has nothing to do with them.
We are a horrible society that supports and upholds the tradition of silencing, mocking, or putting down victims to protect those who have hurt them.
Are we such cowards that we can no longer call a spade a spade, differentiate between right and wrong, love a person but still hold them accountable when they are wrong?
Are we so eager to deflect from our own insecurities that we reward and enable bad behaviour from our husbands and wives, children, leaders and those in authority, men of God, and punish those they have hurt to curry favour or uphold popular religious sayings that don’t speak or honour what Jesus would do?
For what? Tell me, for what?
BEWARE OF BIBLE QUOTERS
Before you wave an out of context bible verse at a victim, give audience to his or her heart, story, consistency and evidence. What is that person’s true character and pattern, what does he or she have to gain from telling their story?
What is the perpetrator’s true character and pattern? “He who is without sin cast the first stone”, Jesus said. In that story he protected the victim and turned the attention to those society was accustomed to ignoring and giving a pass.
After all it’s easier to kick someone who’s already down, instead of squaring up to the bully who can buy you off or increase your socially accepted definition of discomfort . I doubt Jesus would be pleased that we aren’t taking his example, but instead acting like Pharisees.
Declaring victims guilty by virtue of their victimhood.
Victims are dying in plain sight, and not only are we watching it happen.
We are also cheering it on through our compliance with the culture of victim shaming and blaming.
The narrative has to change.