Monday, May 13, 2019

Mi hermana



Faces are blurred for privacy and security.

© 2019 Christy K Robinson 

 I don’t speak much Spanish. Never did, even in the two years of high school Spanish class (back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth). I could read news articles fairly well, and at one time had at least some vocabulary squirreled away in my brain, but conversation was never my forte. (Wait. “Forte” is Italian. I know lots of Italian terms, some of which are cognate to Spanish, because I use them daily in music.)

Living in Arizona and southern California all my life, I have a few phrases to get me by in a pinch, most of which begin with “No comprende, pero…” or “Mi espaƱol es malo.” I also know quite a few words connected with food, since that’s what I need when volunteering with an interfaith ministry that helps refugees fleeing from the horrors of Central American drug cartels and gangs.  For instance, I can ask if they want red or white rice on their plate: “Quieres arroz rojo o blanco?” I even Googled how to say Rice Krispy Treats so I could distribute dessert: “Tratas de arroz y marvavisco.”

One of our Spanish-speaking volunteers told me that some of our guests don't use Spanish that they can understand, but may be speaking an indigenous dialect.

The menu includes beans, white or red (Mexican-style) rice, rotisserie chicken, tortillas, chips, bananas and oranges, and cookies or Rice Krispy Treats, plus lemonade, milk, apple juice, and bottled water. On the tables in the background, volunteers assemble ziploc bags of apples, juice boxes, chips, cracker/cheese sandwiches, jerky, and cookies for the next stage of the refugees' journey to family or sponsor homes while they wait for their immigration court dates.

We served nearly 100 young men and women, most with children and babies. Two of the mothers sat on a bench in the shade and nursed their babies without shame (for there is no shame in feeding one’s child). One of the babies had a fever and cough, and with the help of a Spanish speaker, I asked if the baby was sick. The mother said when she was detained by immigration after 15 days of walking through Mexico without chance of a shower, and with little food or water, she and her baby were put in what the detainees call the hielera or “cold room,” where it’s refrigerated for some reason that the US agencies will not reveal. This is a regular practice of Customs and Border Patrol that takes place in Texas and California, as well as here in Arizona. Instead of two to three hours, she was left there for five days with only a foil blanket and the concrete floor before she could enter the system of cots and food in the for-profit detention center.

I've obscured faces for privacy and security.
The conditions inside of hieleras [what detainees call "the icebox"] are notoriously bad.
According to a February 2018 report from the Human Rights Watch, the conditions in the detention run by CBP centers are abysmal. In addition to the frigid temperatures, migrants are reportedly subjected to intense overcrowding, forced to sleep on concrete floors, and denied showers, soap, and toothpaste. The first photos of a hielera were only publicly released in 2016; they show over a dozen people sharing a tiny, concrete room in a Tucson facility, huddled under foil blankets. “They took us to a room that was cold and gave us aluminum blankets,” a Guatemalan woman who had been held in an Arizona detention center in 2017 told Human Rights Watch. “There were no mats. We slept on the bare floor. It was cold, really cold.” The Iceboxes at the Border in The Cut
This worried mother had seen a doctor before coming to the host church, without any medication administered to her baby, and she expected to be reunited with her husband in California tomorrow. As she talked, she touched the back of her hand to her baby’s forehead and petted his damp hair. My heart broke for her.

Today, after we volunteers had served every morsel of the food and drink we’d prepared at home and brought to the host location, we were standing around in the 90-degree shade, cleaning up and socializing. I looked up to see our guests silently gathering around us in a semi-circle in the hot sun.

One of the women in the group spoke in Spanish, which did not contain words like rice or beans or cookies. It was not a slow speech that I could translate at my comprehension speed. But I did hear words for God’s hands and feet, heart, blessing, thanks, smiles, and God. I also heard words that might have meant that they’d been mistreated on their journey, and they’d feared the gringos (Americans), but with our food and our hospitality they had been surprised.

I leaned over to Mike, who speaks fluent Spanish, and whispered, “I’m going to need a transcript later.” He answered, “I think your heart understands.”

The woman gave her impassioned speech and then fervently prayed for her fellow refugees and gave thanks to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the volunteers. The group of men, young children, and women with toddlers or babies on their hips filed past us and hugged us or shook our hands, saying “Gracias. Dios los bendiga.” (Thank you. God bless you.)

You know what? God has blessed me beyond measure, and continues to surprise me with new adventures in loving and being loved. When a penniless, homeless refugee has the corazon to bless me and love me in a foreign language, I’ll take it as God’s voice.

I don’t know her name, this kind woman, but she’s my sister, mi hermana. Godspeed her to safety, security, and a peaceful, happy life.



The video below was posted about one of the host church locations were I've volunteered. I love what they have to say about why we do what we do.



*****
Christy K Robinson is author of these books:
Mary Dyer Illuminated Vol. 1 (2013)  
Effigy Hunter (2015)  

And of these sites:  
Discovering Love  (inspiration and service)
Rooting for Ancestors  (history and genealogy)
William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)
Editornado [ed•i•tohr•NAY•doh] (Words. Communications. Book reviews. Cartoons.) 



Monday, May 6, 2019

Real Christians, real Jews, real Muslims, real God-followers



© 2019 Christy K Robinson 

Have you read comments on social media? They're pretty embarrassing for those of us who call ourselves God-followers or "spiritual" people. Some of that verbal abuse is deserved. I don't have to repeat it, because you've seen it and heard it.

There are people who claim to be Christian, but support the separation of children and parents in concentration camps, or call legal asylum seekers "illegal aliens" and demand that they be deported. But there are also people who, from the abundance of divine love in their souls, are doing the work of God.

The friend of a friend posted this graphic, criticizing people of faith (faith he doesn't have) for being hypocrites. 
 

Our mutual friend chimed in, saying "I know groups in Arizona that are there to help asylum seekers who arrive. The good ones are definitely there helping."

She messaged me, saying "Totally mentioned you without saying your name."

Since her friend had a public setting on his Facebook post, I wrote an answer, which he immediately deleted, probably because it didn't fit his agenda that Christians ought to be "doing something" to back up their "pro-life" rhetoric.
Volunteers form a line of human shields along the police
caution tape, as they welcome refugees and asylum seekers
coming off the Homeland Security buses. How's that for meeting
the caravans with food, water, clothing, etc?


I work with an interfaith group that does what the meme said, and much more. The volunteer coordinator brought her fellow members of a synagogue or two; there are mosque members who serve the refugees on Passover/Easter and even during their own Ramadan fast, numerous Protestants (Methodist, Baptist, nondenominational, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, etc.) and Catholics (Catholic Charities welcome volunteers of many faiths); and yes, people of no religion who are compassionate, kind, and merciful.


The network of volunteers are not often seen or known to the public because of racist and militia vigilante types who picket, scream at, and threaten violence to our refugee guests and us. The Department of Homeland Security buses bring the refugees to host churches around the Phoenix-metro area, hundreds (perhaps thousands) per week, and drop them with court papers and ankle monitors. Out of our own pockets, and what we solicit from our home church choirs or Bible study groups, we provide showers and cots, hot food, bottled water and milk/coffee/lemonade at the meals, bags of snacks and fruit for travel to their sponsor homes across the country, diapers, clothing, shoes, a doctor if needed, etc.
Volunteer climbs over storage boxes to
reach bags of rice.
It's wide-scale, we have a charitable designation, and we're working with DHS. I'm told that there are similar groups in California, Texas, New Mexico, etc. But we have to do it quietly for security's sake. Some of us have had to be human shields to protect our guests (young parents with babies and toddlers) from screaming racists and vigilantes.

Beyond groups like ours, there are non-religious organizations that make water and food drops in the desert trackways to save the lives of migrants. Some are serving prison time for helping. I read a comment recently that bragged about "shooting holes in the water jugs to save the cactus and trees" rather than save the lives of human beings.


You want to know whose faith is real? 
That is where the real Christians are, and not only Christians, but real Jews, real Muslims, real secular humanists: doing it generously, quietly, and secretly with open arms, open homes, open bank accounts, unlike Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr., spewing hatred for the refugees within our borders, and raking in donations by the tens of millions every year.

"To be sure, some evangelical leaders, such as Franklin Graham, the president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, voiced criticism of the Trump administration’s policy of separating asylum-seeking children from their parents at the border. Yet evangelical leaders have shown no signs of ceasing to give Trump their full support, while Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, both right-wing Protestants, defended his immigration policies as “biblical.” Indeed, in criticizing the “zero tolerance” policy, Graham deflected the blame from Trump and attempted to place it on former President Barack Obama."   White evangelicals have turned on refugees, Foreign Policy  

Volunteers from several religions bring food and drink
and other life necessities to a Baptist church where
Homeland Security drops 100 young parents and babies
several times every week.
 
"Graham’s willingness to abandon Christian principles when it’s politically expedient has cost the church dearly. It’s hard to think of a single prominent American Christian who better illustrates the collapsing Evangelical public witness than Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son. His commitment to the Christian character of American public officials seems to depend largely on their partisan political identity." Franklin Graham and the High Cost of the Lost Evangelical Witness, National Review

Woe to you ... hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides. ... For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."    Matthew 23:23, 24, 27, 28 ESV  

The "evangelical" Christian participation in politics is not furthering Christianity or the good news of God's boundless grace. It is a testimony to greed, isolationism, fear, arrogance, racism and nationalism, and discrimination. You, personally, may not notice it, but countless people around the world see it and are disgusted. Evangelical used to mean that we told the good news of God's love and salvation. Now, many of us avoid the negatively loaded word and call ourselves Christ-followers or God-followers.

What is the remedy? It's very simple.
You want to find a REAL godly person? 
Roll up your sleeves, get involved in an other-centric project, and you'll see that godly people are all around you. No one will preach at another, ever, because we believe that God's Spirit is there in our midst.

When we die, there isn't some final exam on pre-millennialism, imputed or imparted righteousness, prophetic timelines, or a host of theology-speak terms. There are only a few requirements, and they don't involve the Ten Commandments or any other list. Through the ages, people of many cultures want to know how to be right with God, and what he requires of us. It's very basic, so everyone can understand. "Love one another."
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8 ESV

And the people who God brings into his kingdom? The ones who fed and watered the hungry and thirsty, welcomed the foreigner, clothed the naked, visited the sick and the prisoner.  Matthew 25:40 

In other words, those who love and give up their own comforts sometimes, to help others.



*****


Christy K Robinson is author of these books:
Mary Dyer Illuminated Vol. 1 (2013)  
Effigy Hunter (2015)  

And of these sites:  
Discovering Love  (inspiration and service)
Rooting for Ancestors  (history and genealogy)
William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)
Editornado [ed•i•tohr•NAY•doh] (Words. Communications. Book reviews. Cartoons.)

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Telling My Secrets


© 2019 Christy K Robinson

Sexual assault, in whatever form it takes, is not about sex.[i]

It’s about violence, power, and betrayal. Keeping the secret that one has been violated can prevent healing and recovery.
It happened to me when I was learning to walk, at the age I was coloring Noah’s animals in Sunday school and learning to ride a tricycle.
I had to be mature far too quickly. I didn’t learn to play or dance or be silly. Adults praised me for my maturity, for having such polite manners, and for being a caregiver to my chronically ill mother when my father was at work. When she was having an asthma attack and struggling for air, I pushed a chair up to the five-foot-high oxygen tank, climbed up and turned the valve, then put the mask on her face. I wasn’t yet 2 years old.
I was sexually molested by my mother’s uncle from a time before I could remember. He lived in Los Angeles, and we lived in Phoenix, but he’d come to visit for holidays and long weekends. He was a veteran living on disability for his arthritis, so he came often. 

He groomed me with a Pixie doll and took me to the drugstore for decaf coffee at the soda counter. (Yes, I drank Postum and Sanka as a preschooler because my parents, and Uncle John, were from Minnesota, where coffee was the elixir of life.) For years, I remembered only that he had touched my private areas, and that was bad, and I hated it.

Reporting the Molester
One day when I was in fifth grade, I told my mother that Uncle John was touching me, had done every time he visited, and I was very uncomfortable about it. I had been embarrassed to tell until I wore my first flat bra and John invaded that space, too. Perhaps John threatened me: I don’t remember. A lot of things have disappeared from memory.
My parents had a terse conversation outside with John and banished him. They called the police, and we were sent a female officer who was probably a secretary or dispatcher, since there were few female police officers in the late 1960s. She asked a few dispassionate questions of me, took a report, and that was it. Since I held back on how intrusive Uncle John had been, saying merely that he’d touched me under my panties, neither my parents nor the policewoman considered it a sexual assault. Uncle John was a “sick” man with a dirty mind, and we didn’t discuss it again. They probably thought I’d forget.
What John did to me is what the Stanford swimmer, Brock Turner, did to a woman--and served only three months in jail. John molested me (technically, it was rape) on every visit, until I was almost 11 and on the verge of puberty. Using his superior authority as an adult, he used his adult power to overwhelm my own self-worth and right to privacy and dignity and personal space.

Lingering Consequences
My mother and father tried to protect me from the fallout, not wanting to put guilt on me, but my experience affected the whole family. When they reported my molestation to police, Uncle John’s siblings (the aunts and uncles who had helped raise my mother) gave her the cold shoulder, and while the police were half-heartedly looking for John, his siblings sent him to Hawaii to live for a few years. This wounded my mom very deeply, and she wept about it. One of John's siblings was a law-enforcement officer. 
My brother remembered that our family had an anonymous bomb threat, and that Uncle John may have stalked our neighborhood once or twice. He’d injured his back years before, and arthritis had given him a deep hunch, so he was easy to spot. As an 11-year-old, I would stand in the dark behind the sheer curtains of my bedroom window and watch the street and sidewalks under the streetlight, fearful that one of those neighbors walking their dog might be him.
My parents did the best they knew to do in those days. Our denomination believed that psychologists and psychiatrists could control your mind and implant in it ungodly things—or urged false memories. Only recently have we learned that sexual abuse lies dormant or festers for years or decades if not treated in therapy.
In school I was a serious child, not one to play with the other kids much, because I wasn’t good at playing games and was afraid of not being good enough. Several teen girls asked if I was pregnant, because I was one size larger than they were. I heard them in the restroom, saying I was stuck up. I changed for physical education in the restroom stalls, from elementary school through college. And because these schools were conservative Christian schools, I never learned to dance.
I didn’t understand it until I was 40-something, but I never learned to play. I mistook play for practicing the piano and reading books. I wasn’t interested in making up stories about dolls or toys, and I didn’t play sports or even enjoy board games.

 Considered Easy Prey
My mother warned me to never tell family secrets—not to friends, not to other relatives, and definitely not to people at the school or church. But I’d already had a sense that knowledge was power and that revealing my secrets would render me powerless. I kept a stoic face when teased or criticized, and I never let a tear fall that might give away my pain and let someone dig deeper. Telling sexual secrets would make me appear to be damaged goods, or a slut, in the eyes of a potential husband.
When I went to a new high school, I had to have a physical exam. Because we didn’t have much money that year, Mom took me to the county health clinic instead of our family doctor. I was only 13, but the male doctor did a “breast cancer exam” and said something derogatory about my areolas as he pinched my nipples.
In later years, health providers taking my medical history would ask about physical or sexual abuse, which I denied because I discounted, even to myself, Uncle John’s assaults as “molestation” since he hadn’t raped me with his penis.
Imagine my shock when I learned recently that Uncle John had not only finger-raped, but also penis-raped several of his nieces and great-nieces and their friends, from 1947 until at least 1969, when my mother blew the whistle among the family members. We don’t know if he continued to prey on girls outside the family, because only one woman will talk about it. She was 6 years old when John raped both her and her friend. “He was inside my body,” she said. Her little, innocent, first-grader body. 
Her mother was one of the siblings who sent John to Hawaii to hide from police. This cousin grew up to be promiscuous and had strained relationships with the enablers. At age 78 now, she has no desire to forgive John, who has been dead for 30 years.
Today, perhaps because of the #MeToo movement, sexual abuse survivors have come forward by the millions, and there’s power in numbers. 
There’s also a lot more enlightened sympathy, for what it’s worth. But misconceptions persist. In 2017 and 2018, the women who made allegations of sexual assault by Judge Roy Moore and Judge Brett Kavanaugh were ripped apart for not reporting their assaults decades ago. Yet at that time, in the ’70s and ’80s, keeping secrets was the sensible thing to do because abusers prey on the vulnerable—women and children who are already traumatized or helpless. If the victims had reported the attacks back then, they’d have risked further harm to themselves or their families; they would likely have been shamed for leading a man on; and other abusers would have found them easy prey. Telling the secret is why many assault victims are abused again.

 A Self-Protection Tactic
A kept secret is like a thin blister of skin over an abscess. Keeping the secret meant that I couldn’t heal and grow. It meant that in order to protect myself, I gained weight. A lot of weight, despite constant dieting, fasting, and using artificial sweeteners. When you live a temperate Christian lifestyle, you don’t self-medicate with alcohol or drugs, you comfort with food. It doesn’t have to be a lot of food or fattening food to gain weight.
I didn’t want to be fat. I prayed for healing. I wanted to be beautiful and intelligent and desirable. I wanted to marry a godly man and have children. But I gained anyway and, as a consequence, was not asked on dates. I was told I had a pretty face (implying that the rest of me was not pretty) and that men thought of me as a sister, but not a girlfriend or wife. The jobs I might have been offered were given to others who “fit in” with societal norms of beauty.
Peer-reviewed medical research has shown that adult “women with documented histories of sexual abuse were more than twice as likely to be obese as their non-abused peers.”[ii] Based on a meta-analysis of 23 studies with a total of 112,000 participants, one research team calculated that “the risk of obesity was 34 percent higher among adults who had been subjected to abuse as children than among non-abused adults.”[iii]
Medical research also shows that childhood sexual abuse survivors often have lifelong sexuality issues (promiscuity, celibacy, fear of intimacy), substance abuse problems, and eating disorders (self-medicating with food is part of it). It’s not because we’re lazy and eat a dozen donuts every day. It’s because some part of our brain packs on the weight and refuses to let us lose it, despite our best efforts. Stress adds pounds. Actress Rosie O’Donnell realized, after her heart attack, that she had gained weight as a result of being raped by relatives. Over her vulva was a fold of fat called an apron, which she felt protected her from later assaults.

 Our Deepest Desires
Keeping family secrets repels love and acceptance and makes abuse victims feel that we must please others at all costs. I’ve spent most of my life trying to compensate for not being “enough”—whether that meant being the popular girl in school, or a wife to be chosen and cherished, or a high wage earner, or the best church musician, or the best author—the best something.
I worked my way through university with long hours and academic scholarships. After a serious injury, I began teaching and freelancing from home. When my mother died and my father remarried, he devoted himself to the new wife and put his and my mom’s estate into the new wife’s name, disinheriting me and emotionally distancing himself from me because I’m so much like my mother. I worked longer hours and earned less pay than a man in my position, and the chairman of the board still wanted to know which man I was related to so he could place me in a niche. Rejection and not being accepted (or hired) because of physical appearance is part of the experience of abuse survivors.
Keeping secrets also makes survivors of abuse try to prove ourselves useful and lovable in human eyes—and in God’s eyes. As a single woman, I was lectured again and again on the verses in Psalm 34 about delighting in God and then being given the desires of one’s heart, as if God is holding out on me until I attain some benchmark of faith.
Dutch professor and theologian Henri Nouwen wrote in Life of the Beloved: “Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: ‘May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.’”
My deepest desire has been to be cherished. To be loved for every reason and no reason.

Finding Health and Healing
Donald Trump’s tape boasting about his grabbing women’s genitals and trying to “f---” a married woman gave me waking nightmares. Comments by those who affirmed his speech and actions filled me with anxiety, fear, hatred, and physical pain. I suspect it was a form of post-traumatic stress. This brought back memories I’d banished for 45 years.
Then, as I was making my low-calorie breakfast one morning, I had a momentary vision of a grizzly bear standing on her hind legs. God spoke to me in that flash: I’m a grown woman now, strong and fierce, and I can fight back attacks. I can protect my tender, wounded inner child. I no longer need the body armor I’ve put on since my teen years.
I began to tell my secret to a few close friends, then a few who were also #MeToo survivors. There are millions of us, men and women.
Although I didn’t realize it then, I began to lose weight. I wasn’t trying any harder than I had already. I didn’t weigh myself for two months, by which time I’d lost 20 pounds. After age-related medical tests and some serious oral surgeries that required a high-protein liquid diet for several weeks, I lost another 20 pounds. With most of my medical issues resolved, my meds were reduced or eliminated, which let me lose more weight.
I continued to tell my secret, and friends have congratulated and validated my weight loss progress and improved health status. Although I keep hitting plateaus, my doctor is pleased with my overall progress. I’ve lost the equivalent of an adult person’s weight, and I still need to lose a child’s body weight.

Empowered to Help Others
One of the many debilitating effects of childhood sexual abuse was my perceived disconnect with God. I didn’t know how to love him or other people. I vowed that I would obey God and honor him the best I could, though my emotions were drained. He slowly healed that problem, however, as I volunteered with an interfaith group that helps Hispanic refugees, and as I donated plasma and platelets to strangers, and as I got involved in other outward-focused activities. I’ve cultivated gratitude for the many ways my friends and my God have blessed me, and that has brought me to a place where I can add passion to being a blessing to others.
The following scripture contains a powerful promise from God:

You survivors in Israel,
    listen to me, the Lord.
Since the day you were born,
    I have carried you along. 
 I will still be the same
when you are old and gray,
    and I will take care of you.
I created you. I will carry you
    and always keep you safe. Isaiah 46:3-4 CEV 


I’m a cherished daughter of God who can think and act for myself, and can be fierce as a bear. My God-given talents and intelligence are “enough.” I can, by telling my secret, help others heal and learn to protect themselves. That, in turn, strengthens my own recovery.


[i] Lyn Yonack, “Sexual Assault Is About Power,” Psychology Today (Nov. 14, 2017). Online at www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychoanalysis-unplugged/201711/sexual-assault-is-about-power
[ii] Aaron Levin, “Obesity, Childhood Sex Abuse Show Strong Link,” Psychiatric News (Aug. 3, 2007). Online at psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/pn.42.15.0023.
[iii] Erik Hemmingsson, “Childhood Trauma Could Lead to Adult Obesity,” Karolinska Institutet (Sept. 2, 2014). Online at ki.se/en/news/childhood-trauma-could-lead-to-adult-obesity.
 
 This article appeared in the May 2019 issue of Adventist Today magazine.


* A few of dozens of peer-reviewed articles on childhood sexual abuse and obesity:

COMMENT MADE THROUGH MY WEBSITE CONTACT FORM: 
"What power you possess, Christy. You deserve every good thing God has for you. Live well. H.A."




*********
Christy K Robinson is author of these books (click the colored title):
Mary Dyer Illuminated Vol. 1 (2013)  
Effigy Hunter (2015)  

And of these sites:  
Discovering Love  (inspiration and service)
Rooting for Ancestors  (history and genealogy)
William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)
Editornado [ed•i•tohr•NAY•doh] (Words. Communications. Book reviews. Cartoons.)

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