Letter to St Vincent #4

Fri Feb 15, 2013

Dear St Vincent,

Our prayers go out to our dear sister Carol, committed to hospital last week with wounds inflicted during an hour-long assault by a masked man. The pain and trauma from that one hour will affect not only her, but all who love and support her. A great challenge lies ahead – to transmute the pain and horror to compassion for all those who suffer at the hands of abusers.{{more}} Where intimidation thrives, there is always someone suffering in silence. Compassion means allowing those who suffer to be heard.

Women, children and the elderly are targets for abusers who perceive them as vulnerable and unable to fight back. How are the most vulnerable protected in the society? Before sophisticated security measures were the norm for those who can afford them, they used to be protected by a community moral ethic. But as community has broken down into arguing factions and isolated posts of material comfort, few look out for others beyond their immediate circle. This has given rise to acceptance of abuse going on behind closed doors, incurring untold costs of suffering.

What about the victims using their voice? This requires enormous courage, as those to whom we carry our complaints in confidence may be abusers themselves and provide a source of further intimidation or, at the least, dismissal. Our suffering is trivialized and we are made to feel weak. The abusive pattern unfolds all around as we are shamed if we speak out about what makes others uncomfortable. Where did this acceptance of shame come from? Where did we get the idea that we must suffer at the hands of another (male or female) without expressing our anger and pain at the injustice? Where did we learn to sit down and keep quiet? Where were we slapped into silence for asking a question? Where are we judged by how we look and not by the significance of what we express? By answering these easy questions we will identify the source of the silence that feeds the abuser.

It’s the same silence borne of fear and shame that subordinated us to a minority of master abusers during centuries of the greatest injustice to our humanity.

Thinking we had emerged from centuries of silence to proclaim our dignity, we have not yet learned that our collective fear is an abuser’s banquet and the victim’s silence is the screen behind which they gorge themselves.

My dear sister Carol, and all those who pray for her, let not your pain become fear to feed the perpetrators. Starve them with your courage and expressions of suffering, let your burden bring you closer to the many who suffer in silence, so that the light of community awareness that once protected us will illuminate our land and reveal it to be truly Blessed.

With love and light for your healing,

Vonnie