Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes 33

I am recalling this fundamentalist American Presbyterian church , called Grace Vancouver, I attended for two years till 2005. Now, you may be wondering, Gentle Reader, just how someone with my perspectives and kind of theology would end up with people like that. There is a bit of a story. I was feeling isolated and in need of community, and the fundamentalist Christian managing my building at the time was trying to weasel the tenants into joining his church. We were poor, wounded and needy, and oh, such an easy target. He was happier than a piggy in you-know-what. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. The bait for me? An art show I was invited to participate in. They seemed to love my art, but who knows what they were really thinking? And it was a lovely wine and cheese affair, just like a secular art opening, and it was real wine. I started attending. The pastor seemed to see everything in tones of black and white, naturally, and often they were exquisite, Escher-esque arabesques of black and white, but nevertheless, it was all black and white. Unlike my paintings, which tend to be very colourful. After a few of his sermons I began to feel like I was tied to a chair with a bag over my head while being beaten by thugs. His church's condemnation of same sex marriage was the last straw for me and I left during the sermon and have never returned nor even thought of returning. A lot of the people there were very right wing, with ties to the Republican US South in Georgia, Tennessee, and I think Alabama. They were not white supremists, and certainly not racists. They were very neo-liberal in their economics and diehard political and social conservatives (my building manager was all aghast when he learned that I had no intention voting for the Conservative Party) and I was quickly branded a socialist, or worse, and only because I was suggesting that maybe if the rich were more inclined to share their largess with the rest of us then we might find some solutions to poverty and homelessness. When I tied this to some significant passages from the Gospels and the Book of Acts, some of them got really mad at me. When the pastor's son tried to get me to out myself as a predatory homosexual and I refused to, they got downright livid. So, here I was, a suspected socialist, or worse, and a purported homosexual, an unrepentant one. But no one heard or had any evidence to pin on me, there was no closet for me to come out of, and whether they liked it or not (and I'm sure that some of them didn't!), all their sons were perfectly safe around me, since none of them had anything to do with my being in their church. Yesterday I had coffee with a dear friend of mine. Like me, he is an anti-poverty activist, but a lot more active than me, and I always thank him for keeping me from getting too comfortable and complacent. This man, like me, is a Christian, and like me, feeling somewhat disenchanted with church. We could say that if Grace Vancouver occupies the extreme Christian right then we would probably be somewhere way over on the left. It's an awkward place to occupy since people tend to love easy categories and sweeping generalizations, but really, Gentle Reader, life, reality and human beings are way more complex and far more nuanced than that. It is very easy for us on the left to say, dismantle the corporate power systems, and let the poor be exalted and the rich be brought low. Well, who wouldn`t want to see that happen? But we already know that it won't. That every time in every revolution where they have tried to make it happen there have been rivers of blood and much of that coming from the most vulnerable and the most innocent, as well as the most skilled and educated being killed, imprisoned or having to flee into exile, because as corrupt and unequal as our political and economic systems are, the interests of the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of society are going to be affected. They are dependent on the system for welfare, pensions, disability payments, housing and health care. Even though none of those services are adequate, and even though they do much to keep the poor in their place and reinforce the status quo, to overthrow that same system would create not simply anarchy, but a massive and lethal chaos that would make the most Darwinist cesspit look like a work of mercy. Yes, we need justice and not charity, and we have to keep fighting for justice. This is a work of love, as well as being what I like to call the power of not shutting up, and my friend and I agreed yesterday that love and the power of not shutting up are actually first cousins. But we are also mistaken if we believe that we can accurately predict and forecast how everything is going to turn out, or that we actually know how it should all work out. What we have to settle for is often going to be far less than what we need, deserve, want or feel entitled to. Scraps and little toys from the One Percent to keep the rabble quiet, anyone? Better than nothing I suppose, and there is also the very practical wisdom implied in the saying: "Don't offend those who have the power to hurt you." I say, let's say thank you for the scraps and trinkets and toys. But let's not stay quiet. We will say "More, please." And we are not going to just say it, but we are also going to take it, if we have to. But we still have to learn how to do this nicely, politely, elegantly and beautifully. Dare I say creatively? Artistically? With intelligence? This isn't to say that we won't be offending their lordships. Look what they did to Jesus? But then, Jesus went right ahead and overturned and conquered death. But please, fellow activists, let's conduct ourselves as gentlemen, please. Regardless our gender. If we just scream and yell and break windows, they are not going to hear our words, just our screaming and yelling. We do have some responsibility for how we are heard.