I have an assignment. I don’t want to do it—but then, I didn’t want to become a priest, either, but I am what I am and reality is reality.
I am cutting and pasting from some of those other sources for the reason explained within the "pasted" post itself. While reading, understand that my own emotional and financial states have continued to improve, but I remain a daddy without children, a Father without a parish, a husband without a wife. My own parents told me back in 1996 that they would never have anything to do with me again-- not as long as I was still "married to that witch" I'm not married to her anymore, but I learned my parents cut ties with everyone in the family at about the same time, so I am not surprised to have never heard from them again. I am, therefore, also a son without parents.
If you do read the whole post, you will understand my meaning if I tell you that I would like to see my Dad again-- that I understand what he is going through; that I learned from him the same sad skills my children are now having to learn.
It seems like a lot of people who knew my ex-wife, knew what her problem was. It seems that no-one cares that she now has my children to destroy-- as long as I continue paying child support the courts are happy--now that she has me out of the way, and that they my beloved children now have no one. I cannot even find my children, much less get my visitation rights enforced.
So here is something I wrote about eighteen months ago...
Excerpt (posted on an abuse victim site, and that with an excerpt from a father’s rights organization I read for a couple of weeks, only to find it nothing but hopelessness bemoaned by those who had gone before me-- if you, yourself have need of resources, I will email some privately):
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Okay, you probably already know this is going to be long, but a word about context.
I re-live this stuff all of the time. I journal a lot, and that helps, but to try to go through the major trauma in such detail is draining.
(and I don’t even touch on all of the day-to day stuff like being woken in the middle of the night on a regular basis to be yelled at as a normal occurrence, and I almost ignore the abuse our children suffered and continue to suffer)
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| Mommy's home! |
I just went through that painful and exhausting detail and made myself physically sick and so upset that I barely functioned for several days. I’m not up to doing that again so soon. So I am cheating and using my two posts I wrote on another site in the last week or so.
I am not an activist, and I was posting to a site in which many activists blog, but in response to some views that I thought missed the point. A reply I received directed me to several sites he thought might be good for me-- and this site was one of them. I suspect he wanted me to find the faith section here.
My story came out like this (oh, and note how I started telling my story in the third person and then awkwardly realize I have to claim it —there’s a sign of an open wound!) in two posts:
MH wrote, “I don't like the emphasis on victimhood.”
This explains your view, MH, that violence that results in injury is worse than non-marking violence in the same way that murder is worse than injury.
A thousand or more “minor incidents” over sixteen years, where the stronger man is only occasionally receiving obvious marks are not forgotten by him at the start of each subsequent incident. He is a victim, feels like a victim, and is exhausted by the fear, the humiliation, and his powerlessness to stop it. Being stronger and showing self-control is what allowed it to go on for sixteen years; and the change from, “I am big and strong enough to take it” into, “I must deserve this” is slow and subtle and happens without notice.
At some point, he simply knows he realizes he acts like a victim – the adrenaline rush when her car pulls up, the way the children wordlessly stop their play and retreat to their rooms before she comes inside.
Two or three nights a week, for years, it goes like this: It starts with the yelling. No he cannot use his strength just because of that. By the end of dinner the yelling is now cussing, wild accusations, and deeply hurtful characterizations. No, he cannot use his greater strength to do anything about that. She throws his treasured item across the room and it turns to dust when it impacts the wall (a china baby cup, an antique chair, his hand-built radio controlled airplane model, etc.). She yells, “What are you going to do about it? Beat me?” No, he cannot use his greater strength to respond—especially given her taunt. He goes outside, gets in the car and goes to the store until He believes she is likely to be asleep. A slamming door at two in the morning wakes him; she opens it again and stomps to the bed. She shoves him roughly, “I hate you! I hate your parents!” He gets up, wordlessly, taking pillow and blanket in to the den to go back to sleep on the couch. She knees him in the groin when he stands. It hurts, but he is not “injured.” She slams the door before he is through it, and that generates the fight or flight impulse. The blanket he was carrying is caught in the slammed door. He stands there, listening to her fumble with the lock on the bedroom door. He is angry, he is capable of defending himself, and he is capable of “explaining” to her -- with one blow – why she needs to change her behavior, and he knows that if he opens that door before she gets it locked, he is likely to teach her that lesson. But, because he is self-disciplined and because he is smart enough to know that he will go to jail if he so much as restrains her (and soon enough, he will prove that assumption as fact), he leaves the blanket caught in the door and goes to sleep on the couch.
He’ll go through this again in two or three days. He knows it, the kids know it, and the wife knows it.
Sixteen years.
This impacts his self-identity, the way he views the world, the way he interacts with other people. It is a powerlessness, but those few to whom he may share his predicament praise him for his self-control. His only praiseworthy strength has become his ability to be a victim. His most trusted and wise adviser comments, “You know, you should leave, but I think you have a moral obligation to protect the children. If you are not there, what will happen to them? I think it is foolish to assume you have any chance of getting custody without a huge legal battle that you don’t earn enough to wage. I am sorry, but I think you have to stay and the best you can do is try to get her help.”
If he leaves, he is weak, because he forsakes his children. If he stays, and” takes it,” he is strong. That, sir, is a victim. He hates the word, but he knows it applies. The culture expects this of him. A victim does not dream of a better life, because it is not the next incident that stops him from dreaming, it is the knowing that there will be hundreds if not over a thousand more of them before his children are grown and he can escape. He knows, too, by that time, he will be unable to see himself as strong, as virile, as healthy… That is no dream but it is all he has, so he does not dream.
Oh, and in all of that, it never once occurred to him that the reason no one approached him to offer sympathy and comfort when he showed up to work with black eyes or scratches on his face a half dozen times in a year or two is because, he later learned, that they assumed he deserved it. Women, you see, do not abuse their husbands, so if she did give him the black eye, he was probably caught having an affair—or worse—his co-workers can only imagine. And they do imagine. In reality, men, you see, do deserve beatings.
I am not saying I am that man, but I am saying that I know, absolutely KNOW, that I deserved it. I have no idea why I deserved it, but I did. It is the only explanation—and even my family asks me what I did that caused her to behave that way. I also know that I did not deserve it, that my ex-wife is every bit as deeply disturbed as I am now permanently broken, but that knowledge is of no matter, because it is but a lone and weak voice.
Which is it that is worse? Is it getting punched in the eye once, or the long term, cumulative effect that destroys the self, strips from him his children, his career, his home, and stops the ability to dream?
I read this [father's rights] blog because I want to believe there is hope and that things can change, but I know that such is an delusion—a necessary delusion that allows me to forget that I have no purpose, no family, no respect, no friends, and no future. When I am not exercising in this delusion, I have another which is the one most others share: It didn’t happen, having two children who loved me and counted on me for protection and comfort and above all, love—that was just a dream. Dreaming must stop because dreams that cannot be true are worse than nightmares. I don’t dream, and I must stop remembering.
(NEXT EMAIL-- RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS)
I sat on this email for a week because I got so depressed re-living it last Sunday that I decided not to look at it again, but the post from George Rolph hit so close and heartened me because it just helps to know that someone else knows, that I decided I should do a spell check and send it…
Questions asked by Lance:
1) I guess I am wondering, why did you not try to build cases against these women?
2) But how are we as men to fix the problem if we don't start building solid court cases against discrimination, violent/evil women, etc?
3) And George and Crews, one last question, have either of you considered writing a book or contracting with someone who can write your stories?
Crews’ Answers:
Funny, as writing has been a large portion of my professional career of my past, I know that I will usually write six pages (nor more, no less) on any subject upon which I am asked to comment. After finishing this, guess what I found this answer to be in length?
If I write briefly, I believe it appears merely trite and bitter. To me, it is my story, and there is nothing trite about it. I am beaten and I do not want sympathy. Help would have been a Godsend, but there was no help, is no help, and will be no help. Sympathy, when there is no possibility of help is useless and adds insult to injury. The only benefit in telling my story is because it is consuming me, and getting it out helps for a time. It is consuming because I keep trying to find what it is that I did or did not do to deserve a lifetime of punishment. Losing my children forever (although I have joint custody, but enforcing it has turned out to be an impossibility), torments me daily, and cripples me, now that I have lost hope of ever recovering, and so I dwell on this life changing, life breaking, life destroying time of my life from which there is no new beginning.
Maybe it will prevent someone else from trusting, as I did, when the signs of treachery were there to be seen; but I ignored the signs because I loved my wife and thought my patience and attempts to understand would eventually result in her getting better. So knowing what I know, I would still do it again, because I made the right decisions for me, that is, for my conscience. Probably, so would anyone else whose heart rules them.
I am far more despondent than I am bitter, but it is my nature not to be bitter. So, excuse me, but I am only willing to respond at greater length than anyone is likely to be motivated to read.
First Question’s answer: My ex threw away three answering machines and our home computer. The answering machines went away because she believed that they were secret devices of my employer monitoring our household. The computer, because she believed (and she was correct) that I kept a journal which included descriptions of the incidents. I suspected Bi-Polar Disorder, and/or Borderline Personality Disorder. There is some documentation on the effect upon spouses who live with such a person, and my own behavior follows the typical pattern. I became hyper-vigilant, always looking for cues which would signal an event in her, and using those cues to check my own behavior (God! I have dinner ready, and the vacuuming is done, but did I put the lawn mover in the shed! Oh, No! Maybe she didn’t notice.) I was not in any frame of mind to take such a risk as to be caught gathering evidence.
Second Question’s Answer: My life after leaving this marriage has been such an incredible series of unforeseen tragedies that I am the one who will sound like a paranoid schizophrenic [e.g., the prosecutor “lost” my application for legal representation; having lost my job, I did not get legal counsel for the divorce papers, so when she withdrew them, I did not know that I did not have to be (nor was I) notified of a hearing when she resubmitted them, so I lost everything; I lived in my car for fifteen months; paid 60% of my meager income in child-support waiting for the papers I filed for enforcement and amendment to come before the judge—they never have, and I cannot afford legal counsel to find out why; and the list goes on and on]. As it was, I found myself emotionally and financially crippled, alone, falsely accused and assumed, by what otherwise might have been a support group, as guilty).
So to try better to answer that second question…
As my survival mechanism, I have spiritualized everything and accepting what is, as what is— which rather precludes any attempt to make it different than it is. Since I believe that such a point of view is necessary to my survival, I will not give it up no matter how much of a fantasy it may be. There is no life-line, no hand-up, no life raft. I tread water. When the people who knew me best say, “You really got a raw deal, but since this keeps happening to you, have you considered that you must be doing something to cause people to behave this way toward you?” such does not support you to take up the battle. I have lost and I know it. My family member who said that to me this year is probably right— I am probably so broken that there now is something about me that brings out the worst assumptions of me and the worst behavior in others towards me. I am in denial—even though I really have no idea at all what it is I am denying. That is hardly a place from which you can recover.
[Editors note, November 2010: A homeless woman flagged me down two weeks ago, as I was running an errand for an elderly friend, using her car. The homeless woman asked me if there was an inexpensive place to eat I could drive her to. I told her to hop in and drove her to strip of fast food restaurants. She explained that she was homeless. I said, "I know." She said, "You've been homeless." I answered, "Yes. Last night, I looked in the mirror and looked away. I can see it-- the brokenness on my face and in my eyes. It will be there for ever-- a permanent scar." I fear, what I see and what I recognize in others, is what some call the "thousand yard stare" a reference to the look of persons with PTSD.]
An experienced therapist took me on for a weekly token payment. He was outraged for me. He said that the bad news is that I suffer from hyper-vigilance but that I use it, now that I am out of the relation, in health ways—really meaning nothing more than I am more perceptive and alert than most other people. If I wanted, he added, he was certain that I could be diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, if I thought a formal diagnosis would be of any use. Given my former (public) profession, for which he believed I would return, he advised not making any formal diagnosis. The good news, in his opinion, is that I had retained my good character, the bad decisions I made were for the right reasons (my heart); my patience exercised beyond any reasonable expectation; and that, as a result, I was rather extraordinary in my ability to function and cope under extreme circumstances. Like pretty much everyone else, he believed that the legal actions and time would ultimately resolve the horrible state of affairs, and that I would eventually heal to the point that life again would hold excitement and joy for me.
So, with the emotional and reasoning “check-up” passed (it was a year and half long check-up), I now turn to the practical application
Some meager, but affordable attempts to build that case are as follows:
a) The time I called 9-1-1, when she pulled a kitchen knife on me and held my son hostage at knife point. A request for the police report did not even produce an indication that the call ever took place. I have no idea how that can be. The police tried to show me the wisdom in pressing charges that night, but I declined— I even talked them out of taking their own initiative. Why I did that makes perfect since to me, but I doubt it would to anyone who has not lived it. But again, what happened to the police report?
b) I went online to get a phone number of the hospital where my ex took my children after accidentally (I am tempted to put that last word in quotes, but I do not know if it was or was not an accident) putting a squirt gun style defoliating agent applicator next to their kool-aid cups and then going around the building to continue her gardening’ and, again, when the children accidentally got into the rat poison she had in the kitchen one day while I was at work. The small-rural, hospital no longer exists. I have no idea how I might find the records.
c) My current employer provides 30 minutes of free legal advice with a volunteer attorney. I had already had the papers drawn up for amendment of child support and enforcement of custody rights, paid to have them filed and served (twice!) and yet they never were set for hearing. The attorney I was provided to answer that one question, a woman (if that is relevant), said, “I could be disbarred if I advised you wrongly on what you have to do to get the judge to hear your case”. The clerk’s office told me, “We are not allowed to give you legal advice and that includes how to fill out our forms requesting a hearing."
d) The fourteen bank accounts and $6,000.00 of credit card fraud she was proven by the bank to have illegally created in my name— even after the divorce, would not be addressed by the local police as a crime, saying, “We are not getting involved in a custody battle.” The credit card companies, however, did file charges against her and then dropped them when she agreed to pay restitution. Lesson? It is not a crime to defraud an ex-husband, but it is a crime to defraud a bank.
Result?
At some point which I have long since reached, you stop saying to yourself, “I will redouble my efforts” and convince yourself that “You are not supposed to win.” Just because I know the difference does not mean I can summon what is necessary to do anything about it. I cannot explain the pain that cripples me now. I am exhausted, and so scarred— no, scars come after healing, but I am mass of open wounds-- that I live in a survival frame of mind. If anyone sees the rage I have now (disciplined and controlled as it is), I will simply confirm to them that I am a violent person deserving of anything and everything that befalls me. I know that I am no more allowed to be angry at injustice in our culture than I was allowed to be angry at the injustice in my home. Such persons as me need to be hidden.
Third Question’s Answer: Who would believe my story? Who would publish it? And even if published, it would mean that I have asked to be a target of more accusations from a culture which will not be swayed by the truth— not when it runs against its comfort in believing that women cannot be violent, treacherous or plotting, much less truly evil. The day I pinned my wife to the floor after she could not stop herself from scratching at my face, punching me, and kneeing me in the crotch and for which I was arrested, proved that reality.
Oh, and another thing. If I had $30,000.00 like the man in London, I would use it as did the man in London. The other side is true, if I had a gun, I probably would have used it on myself by now. Fortunately, I read on a father’s rights site about the dozens of cases where men who have long since given up hope for their hearts, much less justice, have made the act of a bullet to the head as an attempt to gain publicity for the other broken fathers. Not one was reported by the press, the web site made it clear, as having anything to do with a state-sponsored and culturally-driven destruction which the men could not find it in them to survive. Suicide as a meaningful protest is guaranteed to be ineffective and that is probably a good thing.
I was, once, strong and willful. It was beaten out of me by my ex-wife. What chance I had of finding a purpose for regaining that part of my character, was stolen from me by the courts without my being invited to the hearing. When I read what I have said about the courts, I realize another may take that to mean the injustice of the false charges against me. No. That matters little. Or you may think it is the injustice of losing everything I owned even before I met that woman. That matters little. I mean that I have seen my kids only twice in the last two years and am “lucky” if I am allowed to get thirty minutes on the phone with them one day a week. My kids were legally kidnapped from me, and the person who they live with is insane. Try living with that every day!
According to the state, it is in the “best interest of the children” that I be punished for something I did not do and was not even tried for doing, and there is no limit to what punishment is fit for the likes of me. They must be right—it is the law. I have joint custody, but while illegal, it is not enforceable, and certainly not punishable, that: my ex-wife beats the children with a leather belt, that she defrauds for her own financial gain, that she moved hundreds of miles away without ever telling the court (much less me) where my kids are, that the state garnishes what has now become over 50% of my paycheck (twice the legal maximum for two children in this state)— that I have only seen my children twice in the last two years, and that she will not allow them to return my calls. Of course, I must have done something to make that reasonable, so there is no need to ask if is acceptable.
I drove five hundred miles and went school-to-school for hours until I found my children last February. The principal only let me see my children after she first called my ex-wife and got her permission. The office staff personnel at each school I visited were amazed to find that a woman would deny her children’s father custody and use such deceit to hide them from him when seeing the court custody documents. I made no comment or accusation, but it probably made quite an impression when I asked if they could share the school records so that I might learn their address. I am sure the amazement was soon replaced by a thought to the effect, “Well, there must be more to this story than is apparent—the man must deserve it.” That is, after all, our deeply beloved cultural myth.
Oh, my children? I took them to dinner and a park after school. They could not stop touching me. They glowed with delight that I was in their arms and they in mine. Before all of this, I was professional with a professional degree and very public position. I officed at home because I knew it was unhealthy to have her care for the children, so I was an at-home Dad for the six years prior to the incident in which I used force to protect myself. They thrived under my care, and fear their mother.
Because of the accusation of abuse, I am now unemployable in my profession. I do not hold a job that considers family matters to be more important than showing up for work, and does not pay well enough (after child support) to have access to transporting myself and my children such a great distance for my visitation. When I save up enough for one trip, my ex-wife has begun disappearing with them. That, or course has been documented and filed with the court, but why would the court care?
The Attorney Generals Office representative I met with said, “It is not possible that we are garnishing your wages beyond the legal maximum of 25%.” I hand her a stack of pay stubs. She looks at them and in genuine horror, exclaims, “That isn’t supposed to be possible! You must get a lawyer immediately because we are not able to make any changes without a judge’s order.” I said, “I filed almost two years ago. Looking at my check, Miss, would you want to guess how long it will take me to save up enough for a lawyer?” Her answer? “I wish there was something I could do, but we are forbidden.”
Fear drives me now. To rally is a matter of life and death for me—truly a decision of my own survival. My experience is that if wounded again, I will be left for dead. There is no such thing in our culture as “No man left behind.” No one even was sent to look for me. The first wounds did not kill me, or haven’t yet; but in truth they are not scars, yet, either. I am in no shape for battle, behind enemy lines, weaponless, and hunted.
People (and I am one, so I know) need stories with endings which satisfy— not necessarily happy ending, but at least satisfaction. My story does not have that satisfaction and human nature is to make one of it. The only way I have seen that to happen is to deny the truth and decide, “The real part of this story is that he really did deserve this.” I need that satisfaction, too, but it isn’t there, so a I dwell on it, and go over the story again and again.
My therapist that I saw a couple of years ago told me the main thing for me was to make sure I stood up for myself and never allowed anyone to place me in a position of having to “take it”. I admit I am feeling my way in this, but soon had some opportunity to practice. I was put in a position at a job to do something illegal for another or lose my job. I went to Human Resources who said I was doing the right thing, but ended up losing my job, but was told by HR that I had done a fantastic job, and that they had done as best as they could to protect me.
This spring, a mentally unstable man somehow got upset with the company for whom I worked. For weeks, he was reported to have been telling anyone he knew who did business with the company that he had been stealing from it. Then, while I had nothing to do with any of his anger, he went out of his way to threaten my life. I had to ask someone to point him out to me, since I did not know him when I heard about the threat. It turns out that he was unaware of his comments and of the threat on my life most of the time. Obviously, he was a troubled man. He showed up at my place of work and I called the police as the police had advised me to do, and as management had agreed was the best approach under the circumstances. I was fired before returning to work for having called the police. That, by the way, was the subject matter when my own brother told me that I must be doing something to cause people to treat me this way. That, I know, will sound familiar to abused husbands.
It is quite clear that I will be punished if I stand up for myself, so I simply tell my story.
I am a practicing Christian, old style, and a man of great faith. I have a strong work ethic, and great discipline, so I have been able to survive thus far. I have been working two jobs to allow me to me to have a roof over my head and food, but little else. In this state, it is illegal to garnish beyond 25% or net earnings, and it is illegal to garnish from more than one employer. Both of my jobs are garnished at 50% of gross income, and of my moonlighting job pays very little but allows me to keep a hand in my former profession, so the garnishment is really about 60% of net. Having lost a job (without cause), I am hanging by a thread emotionally and financially, and facing having to go back to living in my car— my new job not beginning for three more weeks. I pray, but I no longer hope. I have asked for fish and eggs, and been given serpents and scorpions (a scriptural reference that I have stopped trying to reconcile with my experience).
I called my children on Father’s Day, but got an answering machine and no return call. As I write, it is my daughter’s birthday and I expect that my call will not be picked up by my ex- and the children will not be allowed to return my message.
I never get drunk, do not do drugs nor have any other such vises, have no criminal background (couldn’t imagine intentionally breaking a law), and have no mental nor emotional disorders. Other than such people, I have no experience that prepares me for such a failed life. I’m honest, descent, compassionate, friendly, gentle, well-mannered, have a high IQ, a bachelors and master’s degree, a healthy body, and the “looks descent truck, didn’t pass me by.” I swear to you that I am convinced that if I were in prison for life as the worst of criminals, my life would be easier and more hopeful than it has been for the last four years. I believe, I would be better treated as such.
Anyone else who is having it this rough and for so long, I’ll give you my few survival tips: I found a hobby that allows time to pass without my being aware of it: Carving wood in relief and for fine furniture reproductions. I read novels as well as textbooks which interest me. I ride my bike or swim (one or the other for a season), and walk for exercise. I have a sort of “Cheers” in my neighborhood where I can stop by and have a couple of pints and play pool with friendly people who think I am special, although in my current depression and financial crisis, I have not been there in a couple of months which is probably the worst decision in that I am isolated and lonely—so get involved in something where you are around people who like you. When my eyes start leaking, I have found that Sudoku puzzles (after the first hundred or two, you do them in ink while talking on the phone!) and other logic/mathematical type mental distractions are excellent triage care. Four years into this, my pain in missing my children has not lessened, so leaking eyes are still a regular problem and for that, I always carry sunglasses (to make an escape when in public) and a cigar (to make an excuse for going outside). Finally, in the “not practicing what I preach” category, I recommend praying for the relationship with Someone greater than you, but I do not recommend expecting the prayer life to have any effect on the situation. That expectation is getting hard to live with because it always disappoints me.
If you got this far, you must be relating, and I am terribly sorry that is so. I am sure many have it worse than me—maybe you; but few, I think, take it harder than me. I don’t know how it can be harder than having no hope and know I will wake up in fear, spend the day grieving and go to sleep wishing I could forget the children I once had because that part about “it is better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all” is a lie when it comes to your children.
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I have learned a lot in the last eighteen months, since I wrote that first post to the (secure, and member's only website). Prior to that-- dating right back to the separation, I was a contributor to a survivor's site for spouses and children of persons with BPD. There I found my own story told by hundreds of others in various ways, but I also found that there is no hope for my spouse, and probably none for my children unless I can rescue them
I am forcing myself to watch "Mommy Dearest" having just learned Christina Crawford shared the same fate my children have been doomed to live, and that I share with her the hostile and accusing denial of reality that usually comes in the form as "we don't know what he did, but he must have provoked her and deserved it." Nope. She is so messed up by the disorder that paranoid delusions, no matter how fantastic, are her reality; and no matter how vicious her lies, they are justified in her mind, because she, although unable to name a cause, is certain that I and my children deserve it.
For the record, and God knows I tell the truth: I never hit that woman. I frequently defended myself and my children and our possessions by subduing her and holding her still until she stopped her violence.
I learned, early on, that her accusation to the contrary was enough for most of my friends to disown me, count the many black eyes I WORE, as only a sign that Becky "fought back" and that it so easily explained why I was so
down and quietly angry. Nope. She just fought-- I assume still does-- just without me to protect my children. My anger was and remains the result of sixteen years of hell, that I endured, because I believed love and truth would conquer.
It didn't.
That is the end of my assignment, and it is posted where I was asked to post it. My therapist says it is unfair of me not to defend myself with the truth and give others who know me and care for me the opportunity to react.
This whole blog is about this theme of spirituality and abuse, but it exhausts me to continue the chronological record, because I am frankly taking as much of what I have to admit happened to me as I can take just now. It is all much worse than I have shared so far, but to retell it, requires me to relive it. Besides, the need is lessening to say anything as more answers have come.
A little anecdotal fun. This post and my therapist's work have in common, my learning to stand up for myself, when my life began with learning how to endure. A year ago, on Thanksgiving night, I was hanging out with several good and dear friends. After dinner, I had gone off by myself as many others missing family were doing from time to time. A complete stranger came in, he was drunk and told his friends he was looking for a fight. He picked me. I was caught so off-guard that the fight was about over before I knew I was in one. Sixteen years of unrequited rage (or maybe 47 years of it?) were unleashed on that bully and his three friends. I didn't even know I knew how to fight-- apparently I am pretty good at it.
Not long after getting my window shot out on the city bus I was driving, I tossed more than a dozen inner city bang-gangers off my bus. One was reported to have been carrying a gun. I am not sure if he was the same one that came charging down the aisle at me or not. I stopped the bus, and just locked eyes with him in the big rear-view mirror. He froze, and then took his gang members off my bus-- leaving through the
back door-- farthest from me. His girlfriend, going out the front door, said to me, "You are either the bravest bus-driver in the world, or you are insane."
I drove off smiling at those yelling threats (threats which I had just proved to them and to myself that they did not have the courage to carry out) and thought to myself, "Neither brave nor crazy-- just had worse and more real threats every night when my wife came home-- I don't scare easy." The gangbangers still ride my bus. They call me "Sir." Their parents call me "Old-school." I like that one best-- it reminds me that I am still me. I first heard that nick-name from one of the kids, telling me his Dad had said that I was the only bus driver that
read when on break-- and not only read, but read from a prayerbook and a Bible.
I left the hospital chaplaincy because the hours became incompatible with my bread and butter secular work. I never have made a deciosn for service based upon dollar signs, only vocation-- but I do have to eat.
Meanwhile, I have come to become acquainted with many homeless persons who ride the Austin city buses. I know where they live, hangout, and which intersections they work with their cardboard signs. I know how the are treated by store owners and police. I know which ones are there because of insanity, which because they prefer drugs, and which because no one cared when disaster upturned their lives. Their churches are wherever they can get food or a few dollars, but there is no ministry to them except rehab centers. Raised in suburbia in a upper middle class family breaking into the upper class, I have become
street-smart, and think I look it. There is a bit of Saint Paul behind that-- I am being like those to whom I minister.
The last bit, as I close, may be a tad narcissistic, but please pardon me if I take some energy to remind myself that I did not deserve to be punished, because I am, and always have been that person who seeks to do what God gave me to do, wherever I am and with whomever I find myself. I am also in a unique position (unique, as far as I can tell), to be tough enough to survive a dangerous ministry, and gentle enough to minister. And since I am not smart enough to put together the finances to make it a formal ministry, I drive city buses and do what I can, informally.
Still, it would be nice to...
Ah, never mind.
Crews
