A shiny package

My fingers ran absent-mindedly over the passenger-side door buttons, and in my mind and body raged a war between my desire to curl up and escape into silence, and the small glimmer of hope that prodded me to, once again, present my case. Ron held my other hand, and waited, eating his cinnamon danish and drinking his coffee as we sat in the McDonalds parking lot on a gray winter day. I wasn't hungry. I thought about what to say and what not to say over and over again in my mind, sifting out the sadness that welled up along with the words, knowing that if I cried he would want to comfort me. I didn’t want his comfort. Finally, I began by saying “God is not happy. We have to stop.” Ron prompted me to continue, asking me to explain why I thought God was not happy. “What we are doing is wrong, and it makes me feel dirty and disgusting, and God is going to punish us if we don’t stop,” I replied.

I could feel Ron shift in his seat, turning his body toward me, as he softly said “Bud. Look at me please.” I didn’t move or look up, continuing to fiddle with the window and door lock controls. “Bud,” he again said, “I am going to wait until you look me in the eyes, and you know I can wait a long time.” I did know that he could wait a long time, and also knew that he was the one in the drivers seat. I sat there for a long time, knowing that I would eventually turn to him and comply, and then finely did. Before looking up I said “What?” My eyes met his, and as they did, his face softened and his face broke out into a fatherly/pastoral smile, sugary sweet, with an air of exasperated, long-suffering patience. He sighed pleasantly and said “Bud, you have so much to learn about God, and I am so glad to be the one to teach you. God has ordained something very special for us, and he is patient with you as you come to appreciate the gift that it is. God is not angry, and in fact is far from it. He created sex for your pleasure, and though it may not be all pleasure right now, this is an important part of the healing he has for you in this. Everything is going to be fine. You just need to trust me.”

My eyes fell, and I turned back to the door, grateful for the distraction. His grip on my hand tightened a bit, and he again called “Bud. I need your eyes again. I need you to tell me that you understand.” A wave of heaviness pushed on my body, and a wave of despair or sadness swelled briefly and then receded. I felt so tired. I did not agree and I did not understand how God’s gifts and healing could feel so horrible, but I did understand the futility of doing anything other than what I did next, which was turn my head, and look up just long enough to nod and flash a half smile to match his. Soon after, having been dropped off a block or so away from my house, I walked home, feeling numb and detached from the conversation, and the feelings and thoughts leading up to it. Even though his words had been “Everything is going to be fine. You just have to trust me,” and my response had been a nod of assent, the pit in my stomach knew that things were far from fine, and that he was far from safe. As I walked up my front steps, I put on my learned “everything is fine” half-smile, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

Clergy sexual abuse is especially egregious in the way it distorts such foundational realities as the very truth and reliability of God’s word. The person entrusted with the task of presenting the very character of God to me did anything but that, and those lies and places of betrayal continue to bob to the surface as recently as this week. The learned “everything is fine” half-smile that I perfected as an adolescent is just the bow on an entire coping package that I catch myself presenting far too regularly. Under the smiling bow is shiny wrapping paper flowered with intellectual conversation, frantic busyness, and disarming humor, and if unwrapped, though rarely, there is within, a deep learned place of loneliness and despair, born out of cries for help met again and again with sweet syrupy smiles that professed truth and benevolence that were anything but. Although me eyes are raised to God’s and my lips are curved in a compliant smile, veiled is the numb detached belief in the futility of such an exchange.

The real gift in this hard place is God’s willingness to gently and patiently show me these lingering places of despair, woundedness, lies, and distortion that he so longs and loves to heal. The good news is that I do not have to figure out how to remove the bow or unwrap the package, but have only to ask him for the strength and courage to allow him access. My part is to, with his help, see and hear what he is showing me, and then choose to, just one more time, risk looking up and, instead of pasting on a vacant, half-smile, tell him about the horrible things that have gone on, and ask him to remove the lies that he has uncovered, replace them with truth, and then comfort me, once I am no longer afraid to be comforted. And so God, I am looking, asking, and trusting, in what is, in itself, an act of worship of you as my Truth and my Healer and as the God of safe, real comfort.