January 28, 2012 - Posted by Christy Caine - 2 Comments
"Forest Floor Spring Ferns" used in agreement with www.ForestWander.com
I have always been weird. I know this. I just don’t struggle against it anymore. I don’t care that I’m weird. I LIKE being weird. It says more about others whom it troubles than it does about me that it does not. I think.
However, if one is going to be weird, then own it and BE WEIRD; revel in all its finery, in all of its bibliophilic, philosopher-quoting, poetry-reading, theologian-studying, humanity-observing, people-connecting, deep heady existential mystical angst-ridden weirdness. Be that. And be it well. If that’s who you are, and it’s not hurting anyone, then this is what you were born to. Revel in your youness.
Must there be a pegboard of “normal” in which we try to pound everyone? Is any one person more “normal” than any other? What is that? Must I conform to it? Who says college, marriage, kids/career, career/kids, kids to college, retirement is living? For some it seems more like a powerpoint presentation for death. How boring. How mundane. How typical. Is this how we measure and punctuate life? How do we find meaning in something so proscribed, presumed, optimized? Is meaning not ultimately personal? How can the journey be personal if we are only stepping in the imprints of another’s footsteps? So carefully watching the ground so as to tread appropriately that we miss the entire journey. Lift up your heads! Look around! This. THIS is the life you are missing. Not one day. Not some day. Not when I. Now. Today. This instant. This is your one wild, crazy, beautiful life. Are you living? Or are you trying so hard not to step outside the footprints on the ground? Look up! Make your own path in the forest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
- from The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Original composition date: November 2010
Copyright © 2012. Christina Caine. All rights reserved.
November 11, 2011 - Posted by Christy Caine - 6 Comments
All experience is learning.
This is not about football.
During my tenure at my alma mater, I spent three years in the employment of the Vanderbilt University Office of Housing and Residential Affairs as a Resident Advisor: one year as a Resident Advisor (RA) and two years as a Head RA (HRA). One RA was assigned per floor, one HRA per dormitory, and one Area Director per housing area. RAs and HRAs were primarily undergraduate students; there existed the rare grad student. Most of us were between the ages of 20 and 25, at the most. Area Directors were adults: real grown ups, often married (or not), in their mid to late twenties (or older) but responsible for all of the RAs, HRAs, buildings, and students in their housing area. This was their full time job. RAs and HRAs were full time students who received free board and a private room in exchange for their work, which was often a reason many of us took on this rather challenging, time consuming, sleep interrupting, frequently frustrating, valuable, important, rewarding, fun job.
We received in-service training for a few days prior to the beginning of each school year, arriving before the rest of the student population to ready the dorms, get organized, learn about student services, responsibilities, chain of command, and handling difficult situations. In-service training included role playing activities designed to challenge us with everything from the inane to the awkward to the illegal. More than advice, our job was to be present and aware.
My first year was fairly typical in an all girls freshman dorm: noise, trash in the hall, and roommate problems. The most difficult situation I had to deal with that year was navigate a roommate dispute between an inner-city African American girl from Harlem who was a night owl and her Caucasian small town roommate from the deep South who was not, who happened to share the smallest room on the floor. The only reason I mention their race is because it was an issue for them, not for me. The young woman from the South ultimately left, honestly admitting that if the people in her hometown found out she was sharing a room with a black girl they would have a fit. Coming from the Midwest, I had anticipated encountering some racial issues but was still surprised and pained to encounter this.
My second year, I was the Head RA of a coed dorm: two floors men, two floors women. This year proved to be more challenging with a few more pranks and frustrations like a 1,000 or so golf balls poured on the lawn, a mountain of lounge furniture in the lobby, and a couch stuck in the elevator. But there was also the girl who came to find me because her roommate had taken too many antidepressants and she was worried about her, whose vital signs I checked and then immediately took to the Emergency Room where she was admitted for being suicidal, as well as the guy from one of the floors below who was pretty sure a guy on his floor had been holding a mirror under the shower stall door to get a peek. Those were quite a bit tougher to deal with, but they were taken care of in the moment and swiftly.
Which brings me to my final year. At the age of 22, I was the HRA in charge of a large women’s dorm and five RAs. On a Sunday morning I will never forget, while I was getting ready to go to my off campus job providing childcare in a church nursery (because I was really broke and the Presbyterians paid really well), one of my RAs knocked on my door. She was disheveled and looked like she had been crying. We were not close, and we did not socialize together. She came to me because we learned this in our in-service training. We sat down. I listened. She had been out the night before with friends. There was drinking. They went to a house off campus. She didn’t know the house or the people who lived there, but she was with a group of friends who knew someone who was friends with….. She’d been talking to this guy….
She woke up in a bed. She was naked. She couldn’t remember. She didn’t have a good feeling about it. She had a boyfriend she cared for back home. She was confused. She walked here. She didn’t know what to do….. She needed help. She came to me for help.
More than advice, our job was to be present and aware……and act.
We had been trained if there was a rape on campus we were to call metro police, not campus security.
We had been trained if there was a rape we were to take the victim to the public hospital, not the university hospital.
We were trained to take care of the situation before us to the maximum of our ability and when it was more than we could handle by ourselves to ask for help.
I comforted her. I told her we needed to call the police. She agreed. I told her we needed to go to the hospital and which one. She agreed. I called the police. I told them where we were going. They told me to tell her not to shower or comb her hair or change her clothes. But to bring a change of clothes, because they would need to keep hers and where to go and someone would talk to her at the hospital. Then I called campus security to transport us to the hospital. I waited with her. Someone took her into the inner sanctum of the hospital to care for her.
Eventually, from the ER, I called the church where I was supposed to be and got in trouble for not showing up. I called my Area Director, who was my direct supervisor, and told her what was going on and where we were. She or the Area Director on call eventually came to the hospital. Somehow I got home. I wrote and filed my report.
On the day of the in-house hearing for the official university investigation, I was present as support for my colleague and aware of how things weren’t going in her favor, yet was always glad I acted when and how I did.
This is not about football.
This is about knowing what needs to be done and doing it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
~ Edmund Burke
Copyright © 2011. Christina Caine. All rights reserved.
October 13, 2011 - Posted by Christy Caine - 9 Comments
Photo credit: Ian Britton
Have you noticed the moon the last few nights? It’s been amazing. Full, orbital, voluptuously round, and vivid. Crisp. Grand. Mesmerizing.
As I drove my youngest to school this morning, the 9 to 2 o’clock portion of the sun was filtering its way up through the early morning mist, drawing me in – golden, hazy, emerging.
“Don’t look right at it,” I told him. “It will hurt your eyes.”
He obediently averted his peepers. But I wanted to look at it. I wanted to see it and feel it. I wanted to take it all in. I swept my glance back and forth across the Eastern horizon. It was stunning. Perfectly round, rising out of the haze, liquid…. warm….enlivening.
I dropped him off, watched him disappear through the front door, struggling: Bionicle in one hand, Batman backpack slung upside down over the other arm, careening him off balance. I pulled out of the parking lot, turning on the radio. The strains of Mozart’s Requiem filled the car as I meandered through the neighborhood back to the main road.
Retracing my route, the sun now behind me, the flow of traffic carried me toward home; my mind drifted, wandering, lost in the chords and notes and octaves until I reached a point near our home where the wider road narrows to a tree-lined street, and the way ahead reaches an ever so slightly noticeable high point, and the horizon widens; and, as if on que, the CD advanced to the next movement, and the path before me drew me out of my daze, and I became aware of the autumn foliage in peak color and how the leaves seemed to slow in mid-air as they drifted to the ground. And in an impossibly uncontrollable synchronous moment “Sanctus” reverberated from the dash, and the moon was before me. Full and glorious, soft and white, pock-marked in the Western sky. The sun behind me. The moon before me. One hundred eighty degrees of celestial light…..and Mozart.
The science geek in me wondered how many times this happens: A full moonrise in early morning, and how many more days and nights of a full moon we would enjoy before it disappeared for another cycle. The Aquarian in me wondered if there was any astrological significance to the sun and moon rising in the same sky. But the mystic in me knew none of these things mattered more than being present in this moment and taking notice of the noticing.
My skeptic friends, would say this morning’s events had no meaning. But, frankly, these experiences happen far too often to believe that they do not. Sometimes we don’t have to go looking for the Sacred – it finds us. By being open to what is and paying attention, we notice more. By noticing, we pay attention. With intention we can both encounter and be encountered. “Sometimes,” Anne Lamott writes, “heaven is just a new pair of glasses.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“There are only two ways to live your life,” Albert Einstein said. “One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.”
Photo Credit: Ian Britton
Copyright © 2011. Christina Caine. All rights reserved.
October 11, 2011 - Posted by Christy Caine - 8 Comments
I’ve changed the title of this piece twice. Mostly out of fear. The initial one was “I Survived a Fundamentalist Cult,” but that seemed too dramatic for a Tuesday. I thought I had toned down the second one a bit with “Surviving Fundamentalism,” but it’s still wrought with trigger words, and, frankly, I have a primal fear of retribution that still plagues me from those with whom I share biological and theological DNA. From where I come, “Thou shalt distrust anyone different than thyself ” was the Eleventh Commandment.
Before you choke on your afternoon fix of Diet Coke and chocolate or delete your email address from my subscriber list, this is a movie review – of sorts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Over the weekend, I visited our local independent film house with my dearest friend to see a film she had suggested. When she pitched it to me, she knew little about it including the title; so, I could honestly say I hadn’t heard of it. But as I later went searching for theater listings and show times, explored the film’s website, and watched the trailer, I emailed her back after the third time through the preview with: “YES! A resounding Yes! Yes! Yes!”
You can watch the trailer for the film here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I spent the first eighteen years of my life physically and theologically embedded in a trifecta of Fundamentalism: church, private school, and home. In those years, I was never more certain of the rightness of everything I believed. In the twelve years that followed, I was uprooted physically, though firmly planted mentally, in the theology of my youth even as I went away to college, earned an advanced degree in a science-based field, married, and moved far from home around the country and around the world. Things, people, communities, churches all changed, but what I carried with me, locked in my heart – my convictions – had not. Thus, by 30 I had fulfilled the prophecy from the Book of Proverbs that says if you train up a child in the way they should go, when they are old they will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)
Deep thoughts were not foreign to me; I enjoyed thinking them – figuring things out, and my less churched spouse tolerated my absolutism far more than I give him credit for. It wasn’t until our first child was on his way that the scaffolding of my moral certainty and Fundamentalist foundation began to sway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Higher Ground” is the directing debut of Vera Farmiga, who also plays the lead role as Corrine. It is about one woman’s spiritual journey in her search for God from her early childhood commitment during vacation bible school, through a near miss crisis in her young married life, to her fervent immersion in church and church life, and her subsequent disillusionment and doubts. Based on the spiritual memoir by Carolyn S. Briggs, originally entitled “This Dark World,” Ms. Briggs wrote the screenplay for the film. As The New York Times film reviewer notes: ”[Higher Ground] presents the subjective facts of Corinne’s life as precisely and clearly as it can, refusing to condescend or sentimentalize anyone, and inviting you to sift through the nuances and find the answers for yourself.” It is touching and startling and worth 120 minutes of your life to see what so many others have spent a lifetime wrestling. It remains truthful to its subject matter as only one who has lived it can know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of course, I knew infant Baptism was wrong. Everyone knew that. We’d been taught in our Baptist school and from the pulpit that a good test of anything questionable was that if it even so much as smelled of Catholicism, you could be sure it was heresy. So too was sprinkling – especially babies. In an Independent, Fundamentalist, Bible-preaching, hell-shunning, Devil-hating, God-fearing, Pre-millinial, Pre-tribulational, Rapture is coming, Better get ready, Dunk you when you get saved Baptist church they don’t call it believer’s baptism for nothing. In order to symbolize the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, there was no room for only dipping in a toe. The Holy Spirit is far more than ankle deep; spritzing was viewed as about as authentic as French cuisine was considered a hearty meal. It was full immersion or you were in the wrong church. Thus my moral dilemma when I found myself great with child and attending a Presbyterian (USA) church. What to do….
That was the question that started the Fundamentalist underpinnings of my long held and oft regurgitated theology shaking. I didn’t take it lightly. This was a big deal. What if I made the wrong choice? What would happen to my soul and that of my child? Which decision expressed my faithfulness to God and which would grieve and disappoint? Not only God, but my family?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not being reared in Fundamentalism herself, my friend was curious how the movie made me feel.
“The dogma and the ideology and the focus on the outside of the cup are true to life and are what anger me.”
“You feel violated,” she queried.
“Yes. Absolutely.” And it pains me to know that it continues today – that other people are abused and violated in the exact same way. Fervent hearts can be well-intended and still inflict an incredible amount of pain and suffering.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When old wounds resurface in my present life and trouble me, this same wise and dear friend has had the insight to ask, “Does it help to know they aren’t doing it on purpose?” And my up until recent answer has always been, “Not yet.” But as a deeper understanding of human nature in me grows, I am approaching a place where I can look for the good even in the midst of the bad and to feel compassion for those who can and do inflict such pain……for truly, they know not what they do.
In 1978, while American Fundamentalism was taking root and flourishing and many others like me were in private Baptist schools around the country learning of the ills of psychology and indoctrinated to read nothing but the King James Version, M. Scott Peck wrote “The Road Less Traveled,” his renowned and transformative work. In it he wrote:
To develop a broader vision we must be willing to forsake….our narrower vision. In the short run it is more comfortable not to do this – to stay where we are, to keep using the same microcosmic map, to avoid suffering the death of cherished notions. The road to spiritual growth, however, lies in the opposite direction. We begin by distrusting what we already believe, by actively seeking the threatening and unfamiliar, by deliberately challenging the validity of what we have previously been taught and hold dear. The path to holiness lies through questioning everything.
Peck goes on to say:
There is no such thing as a good hand me down religion. To be vital, to be the best of which we are capable, our religion must be a wholly personal one, forged entirely through the fire of our questioning and doubting in the crucible of our own experience of reality.
In my own spiritual journey his words have surely fleshed out to be true.
Somehow I still hold on to the good, while having learned from wise guides to let go of so much that was bad. I’ve never second guessed leaving Fundamentalism, but I have looked back. And I’m trying very hard not to turn into a pillar of salt: bitter and hardened. Someone very close to me recently said, “You are poisoned by it.” After my initial negative reaction simmered down, I replied, “If I am poisoned by it, it is with the knowledge that red mushrooms are dangerous, and they will hurt you if you eat them.”
May those of us who know, wrestle with the Fundamentalist demons we have inherited, and, emerging, find the One who loves us beyond all imagination – whom we never knew – cheering us on and welcoming us with open arms to higher ground.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’m pressing on the upward way,
New heights I’m gaining every day;
Still praying as I’m onward bound,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”
Johnson Oatman, Jr., 1898
Click here to play the hymn “I’m Pressing on the Upward Way” (Higher Ground)
Copyright © 2011. Christina Caine. All rights reserved.
September 29, 2011 - Posted by Christy Caine - 3 Comments
Click here to hear Van Morrison sing “Precious Time”.
Ever notice how what you thought was one way actually turns out to be another?
How what you thought sounded like a terrible combination of ideas, becomes the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted.
How you can be in a large group of people and still feel alone, but when you are alone you can feel the most deeply connected to someone.
How what you once were absolutely certain was true, turns out to be the biggest lie of all.
How poets and artists, who so many find to be “out there”, are really among the few who actually “get it”.
How writers struggle to find words for what they only came to know through experience.
How the least seeming religious people – like rock stars and musicians – can end up being the closest to God.
How you use Kosher salt to make seafood chowder.
And how those with nothing have a gratitude far exceeding those who seem to have everything.
If you’ve never noticed the paradoxes in life…….keep looking until you do.
Copyright © 2011. Christina Caine
September 27, 2011 - Posted by Christy Caine - 0 Comments
Los Angeles, 2010.
A year ago, Los Angeles experienced its hottest day on record, and in it the world lost a gifted, creative artist; her family lost their world; and her friends, who loved her well, began to hold on to wonderful memories that comfort them still.
I worked on this for days through the chaos and the fog……because I needed to get it right, and I edited right up until we left for the service…..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The most beautiful aspects of life transcend words. Attempts to describe them limit their meaning. Like great art or exquisite music or The Divine, some things can only be experienced. These ineffable forces affect us deeply; they move and change us. Our words lack the chi that is the essence of life, but that essence lives on in each of us who have been touched by Sally. She gave of herself. These gifts will help us carry on as we attempt to live as she did, full flowered.
We learned from Sally that the most valuable things in life are truly not things. The intangible cannot be bought or sold – only freely given. And that life. is. difficult. – a cycle of intense beauty and deep despair. It is our job to embrace it fully – in all its mess of emotions – for fear of losing will keep us from fully enjoying the riches of love and friendship. To love and be loved is an act of trust and courage. Fear often holds us back, keeping us from sharing ourselves and our gifts with the world and loving like we’ll never get hurt. Sally lived it to the full. We honor her by living out what she taught us about a life well lived.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
To the rest of the world she was Quentin’s enormously talented editor. But to us, she was home…….in all the ways that home should be. We were always proud of her work, cheering in dark theaters when we saw her name in the credits. A gifted, creative spirit – yes, but equally a remarkable mother, wife, friend, and human being.
I met Sally and Dean at our wedding 16 years ago when I joined the Menke clan. They are a matriarchal group. When Scott lost his mother, Sally’s oldest sister, eleven years ago, Sally became a dear friend and a surrogate, filling the enormous hole that was left by Scott’s mom when she died so young and unexpectedly before grandchildren had joined the family. Sally did what mothers and grandmothers do: sharing recipes, sending care packages, and loving our children. We loved her back.
We have shared as many or more holidays with them as we have with our own immediate families. I have watched how she has been the glue that often held the family together. We have learned a great deal about unconditional love by observing her compassion and grace in action.
She and Dean have become synonymous with our sense of home and comfort. They are generous and kind people who have taken us under their wing and insisted we stay close and be not merely relatives, but a part of their lives. They are amazing parents. Much of what we learned about rearing healthy, well adjusted, breathtaking children we learned by watching them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Holidays often began with Dean picking us up at the airport. It would be perfectly normal to come in the driveway side door and find Sally standing at the Viking caramelizing onions, most likely because she had awakened with a craving for a favorite soup or had found a new recipe she wanted to try.
So many fond memories involve food and cooking together. Like the Christmas she made beef wellington, and I made Grandfather’s famous sticky buns. Or the Thanksgiving in Banff when we cooked all day in our pajamas, she attempting to rescue the overexposed turkey that had been brining and defrosting at room temperature for far too long prompting an emergency run to the grocery store by the men to find a replacement on Thanksgiving morning. Which, in theory, might be tricky, but not impossible, had we been in LA. But we were in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies where it wasn’t Thanksgiving and 20 pound turkeys are not a common weekday meal. We laughed and talked and shared.
She introduced us to things like Joan’s on Third and the Getty. Peet’s coffee and Jamba Juice. We learned from them that showers and hair combing before leaving for school and work are completely optional. She taught us how to make cappuccino. She said we helped keep her grounded. We griped about family and grumbled about politics. We shared joys and sorrows. We kibitzed about raising children.
A few years ago, one of the things I realized I had learned from the experience of losing Scott’s mom was that life is far too short to continue on in the WASPY ways of my youth. So I began to tell the people in my life that I felt a fondness for, how I felt: that they were important and how they made a difference. Sally was one of those people. Just over a year ago, I wrote to her following a phone conversation about shallots:
Hey,
Just wanted to say thanks for letting me call you with my cooking questions the other day. I’m grateful that you let me do it, but part of me is really sad that I have to ask you questions like that. My mom hates to cook. I used to call Scott’s mom with these questions…..and then your mom….and it feels a lot like being adrift not having someone to turn to for woman wisdom like this. Ungrounded and wobbly. Maybe you know what that feels like too…..
You’ve been through more than you should have had to endure these last several years….and yet you press on. I admire your determination. Weaker souls would have given up long ago.
We appreciate you more than you know. And we love you too. Thank you for all that you do to give us a sense of bearing in our lives and to help us feel not quite so lost.
She replied:
Hey there,
What a lovely letter. Thank you. I don’t know quite how to respond, except to say I have a lot of cooking tips and it is essential you call me. But, seriously, thank you. Having just walked into my house from exercising and thinking, of course, thinking… that dreaded thing I try to avoid, I realize I too feel adrift. It’s very hard to incorporate this last year of tragic, god-awful events into a calm, resolved life. So your thoughts mean so much to me. To know that you are there, is plainly and simply wonderful. It seems that with my accumulation of years, I always demand that I be stronger, more stoic. But really it is such a burden, cause it’s just too hard to be stronger all the time. Something has to give, and I think the idea of going alone – to quote a politician I really can’t even believe was our president – is a stupid idea and has to go.
So thank you for being there for me, and I always want to be there for you. I also understand the different ways to slice garlic. =) It’s important to know there are people who love you and will support you without conditions. So, ditto.
I was certain that in her accumulated years and wisdom, she had learned quite a bit more than the various ways to slice garlic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A life interrupted reminds us we must not forget to live. The creaking in our knees and the aching in our hearts are reminders that we are alive. It is not a warning to stop. We must make them creak everyday, for the most despicable thing about the unforeseen is that it gives no warning.
Sally and I often spoke to one another about dealing with grief, as it had become such a frequent and unwelcome visitor to this family. “Grief is the price we pay for love.” The deeper the love, the more vivid the pain.
There is a phrase from the book Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos that I have come to love for its vividness. She writes, “I am poured, I am poured out, I am poured out like water.”
Gordon Livingston knows the grief that only a parent who has lost a child can. Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart is a book that Sally and I shared. He says: “To lose that which means the most to us is a lesson in helplessness, surrender, and survival. To experience fully the sadness and absurdity that life so often presents and still find reasons to go on is an act of courage. To cope with inevitable loss, to face life in all its confusion …… and still retain the capacity for joy, laughter, and a belief that our struggles have meaning – this is to prevail.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We were last together in March. It was a short visit, but most of what is good in life is best measured by quality rather than quantity. I sent her a note of thanks when we returned home. In it I finally told her what we had been feeling for so long…..
“If we have never told you before, or even if we have, being there with you all…..feels like home. Safe. Warm. Comfortable. Nurturing. Loving. It’s the way home should feel, and it does. Thank you for letting us feel that with you.”
Much of our relationship was lived out over holidays, phone calls and email. In one of my last personal notes to her I wrote:
“You said you had a lot to talk about. Let’s get a glass of wine and sit on the back patio and you can do the same…..it won’t be the same as being together, but it’ll be pretty darn good.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We come together today to remember a friend and hold her close – to celebrate a life well lived. Sally was a gift and we loved her well. To surround ourselves with those who know and love her best, to share her gifts of compassion and patience and love with each other and the world – will not be the same as being with her, but it will be following her example and it will be living well.
Copyright © 2011. Christina Caine. All rights reserved.
September 16, 2011 - Posted by Christy Caine - 4 Comments
Recently, my husband asked me why we were so tired.
“Sleep deprivation,” I told him.
“Still?” he asked.
“Yes. Still. For the past ten years we’ve been accumulating a budgetary sleep deficit.”
“Ah,” he said.
“And it won’t be rectified until we offset it with a sleep surplus.”
“How do we accomplish that?” he asked.
“Simple,” I replied. “We have to raise napses.”
Copyright © 2011. Christina Caine. All rights reserved.
September 12, 2011 - Posted by Christy Caine - 5 Comments
I was never angry, though I remember how the sky was quiet and how startling the sound of an airplane engine was when I heard it again for the first time….and my profound sense of grief. And the next day, I confirmed, what I already knew to be true; and that truth, seven months later, turned out to be a boy.
Copyright © 2011. Christina Caine. All rights reserved.
May 25, 2011 - Posted by Christy Caine - 16 Comments
Susanna and the Elders, 1610 by Artemesia Gentileschi
Artemesia Gentileschi. I didn’t know who she was either until I heard her story last year, a story that has recurred far too often in the course of human history and continues to be all too common today. The daughter of a Tuscan painter in the early 17th century, she was born in Rome in 1593 and went on to become one of the most talented Early Baroque painters influenced by Caravaggio. She is best known for her themes depicting strong or victimized women. Her first work, shown above, was completed at the age of 17 and depicts the Biblical account of Susanna and the Elders. It is noted by art critics that she is one of the few artists who chose to depict the horror of the event which is often attributed to her female point of view. I’d never heard of Susanna either since her narrative, along with others, never made it into the Protestant version of scripture. All the more reason to have gifted storytellers like Kaye Lindauer of the Chautauqua Institution making it their passion to retell the accounts of historical and mythical women so that the truth of their stories is not forgotten.
As it was not customary to educate women at the time, Artemesia was denied entrance into the all male art academy, despite her talent, therefore, her father hired a private art teacher to tutor her. The teacher took advantage of the young Artemesia, raping her. Her father sued the man for damaging his “property.” In the course of the trial Artemesia was forced to undergo torture by thumbscrews, since the testimony of women was doubted to be credible. The court believed that if a defendant could retell their account consistently while undergoing torture, then their testimony was deemed to be trustworthy. Artemesia’s rapist was found guilty yet never served his one year sentence.
So incensed was I when I heard this story that I shot my hand up and asked, “Why have we allowed them to do this to us for so long?”
It’s no wonder Artemesia returned to the subject of Susanna more than once. Susanna was a virtuous married woman who was the victim of voyeurs as she bathed in her garden. She was accosted by these same men as she returned home where they propositioned her, threatening to lie that she had been with a lover in the garden if she did not submit to their unwanted sexual advances. She refused, and they made good on their false accusation; she was charged and tried for promiscuity and was in real peril of being put to death. Ultimately, the truth was revealed and the men were executed. Surely Artemesia could relate to Susanna’s experience of being put on trial even though she herself was the victim.
Had Artemesia been alive today she would have likely painted similar tales of modern day women. Sadly, patriarchy has changed very little in the last 400 years. Tina Anderson was 15 in 1997 when the father of the children for whom she babysat, a fellow member in her Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church, raped her. When she realized she was pregnant, she told her mother who sought council from the minister of their church. What he did should shock, baffle, and horrify you. The minister expelled the child from her affiliated Baptist school and required this 15 year old girl to go in front of the congregation to confess her “sin” of getting pregnant and ask forgiveness for allowing herself to be in a compromising situation. The accused man had to confess in like manner the sin of adultery, but no one ever called it rape nor connected the dots for the congregation that the two confessions were linked. The accused, who was married and 39 at the time, is on trial this week 14 years later and claims that the sex was consensual. At the time Tina was sent out of state to live with another family during her pregnancy, and the police were never able to find her in order to follow up on the crime until last year.
It seems almost unfathomable that such a thing could occur in the 20th century, especially at the expense of a child. Except that nearly the exact same thing happened to my friend at her Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church when we were children. The sexual assault, the babysitting, the church member dad, the minister requiring my friend and the accused to ask for and offer forgiveness to one another, the sweeping it under the rug, the keeping it a secret, the lack of an arrest so as not to disrupt this man’s family and his life, the distant mother, and the overwhelming sense of injustice. We were 13 when my friend told me what had happened to her. “Why have we allowed them to do this to us for so long?”
This week the Kansas State Legislature debated whether or not to permit abortion coverage in the case of rape within general health care policies offered by private health insurance companies within their state. Rep. Pete DeGraaf (R), who is also an associate pastor at an evangelical church in Kansas City and opposes abortion under any circumstance other than in a life threatening situation for the woman, suggested that when it came to pregnancy caused by rape women should do a better job of planning ahead. When challenged by a female representative on what he was implying by his comment, he retorted,”I have a spare tire on my car. I also have life insurance. I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”
In this scenario it doesn’t matter what your feelings are about abortion. I know how I feel about rape, and it is nothing at all like getting a flat tire.
“Why have we allowed them to do this to us for so long?” Indeed.
There is truth in the cliche’ that the more things change the more they stay the same. What can’t stay the same is the silence and the lack of accountability for criminal behavior. One in ten men and one in six women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime in the United States. That’s more women than will get breast cancer, and we run races and raise money and have an entire month dedicated to fighting that. If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual abuse, tell. Tell your significant other. Tell your daughters and your sons. Tell your friends. Tell your story. Speak out for the voiceless. Warn the naive. Protect the weak. We must tell our story so that the truth is not forgotten. We must break the cycle of silence.
For more information about rape and sexual abuse please visit The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network.
Click here to hear: This One’s for the Girls ~ by Martina McBride
Copyright 2011. Christina Caine. All rights reserved.
May 14, 2011 - Posted by Christy Caine - 0 Comments
I spent this past Mother’s Day at what is fast becoming a cherished event with one of my favorite people doing some of what I enjoy most. It was this time last year that I made my maiden voyage to the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York with my dearest friend. This year was an encore visit for the same women’s retreat with the same wonderful, gifted speaker which was well worth the trip. There were many new faces, some familiar ones, as well as news that one of us from the previous year, whom I had hoped to see again, had sadly left this world in the space since our last gathering.
It felt different this time. Familiar. Comfortable. The heady newness and dinner plate-eyed wonder was noticeably absent on this visit, and I rather missed it. I was more settled, like returning to the arms of a long time lover rather than being in the throws of a budding romance. Regrettably, we can only see with new eyes for the first time once; no amount of trying can repeat that initial experience. Yet, happily, once insight has occurred, it remains with us, and, because of it, we learn that by paying attention we are able to encounter the firsts of “A-ha” again and again.
The holiday bound our group together in ways we might not have taken as much notice of in the past. While the speaker’s focus is always on the stories of women, and we were clearly connected by gender, this year our roles as daughters and mothers were more pronounced.
Through no effort of our own all of us there were daughters; many, if not most, were also mothers. Some of us longed to hold the never conceived, the unborn, or the born long ago, while others longed for a mother to still hold and nurture them. Loss is not something one normally thinks of binding us together on Mother’s Day, yet, for those paying attention, it was undeniably present. No matter our age, nor that of our children, we mothers still carry within us the hope that our children are safe, happy, fulfilled…loved. I learned this as I listened to octogenarians express worry and concern over the health and well being of their children in their fifties, mothers in their sixties concerned for the marital happiness and career fulfillment of their thirty-somethings, as well as my own inner voice as I wonder where my children’s road will lead and which will be the most helpful ways to guide them.
We hope, too, that we are loved in return; yet, if we are honest, in a selfless, maternal way, we will gladly defer our own happiness for that of our offspring. Our own need for nurture by a mother figure is often kept deeper, further from the surface…and, yet, for some, it is patently obvious: like the psychologist from New York City who became motherless at age 15, or the women in their seventh decade who mourned the loss of their mother last year, or in the lives of women who influenced our own whose names we shared in a ceremony of remembrance around a significant memorial tree.
We need the nurture and care of others, whether they share our DNA or not, both for the care they give us and for the opportunity to care for them. The idea that we are maternal to our progeny alone or share an attachment only with those with whom we have a genetic link is indicative of a literal interpretation of motherhood, yet the emotional connection that binds us to our kin also connects us all.
Recent research in the field of stress and its affects on human health found that oxytocin, the hormone that is released by nursing mothers as they breastfeed their children and responsible for the bonding that occurs between infant and mother, is also released by women during the stress response and offsets some of the hormones responsible for our fight or flight reaction. It is believed to play a role in what encourages women to foster and nurture female friendships. While men typically respond to stress by isolating themselves, women seek out the company of other women. And while men also release oxytocin at times of stress, their high levels of testosterone diminish the beneficial bonding effect while women’s estrogen enhances it.
This phenomenon was labeled “tending and befriending” by the researchers, who were themselves both female. They found the more women engaged in tending and befriending activities, the more oxytocin was released, and, in turn, the greater the health benefits of lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and lower heart rate were observed. It contributed to a greater sense of calm, even in periods of stress, as well as a higher sense of general well-being. Close friendships among women, the study found, made women more resilient to disease and emotional loss, and helped them live longer, healthier, happier lives. Perhaps next year in its marketing materials the program description could include the added health benefits of a weekend surrounded by and engaged with nurturing women.
Those of us who have been fortunate enough to experience such valuable relationships didn’t need a research study to prove what we already knew: that we are bound by more than we know, in ways beyond the obvious and if we are open to a broad view of motherhood, and the nurture inherent to it, we have the opportunity to enhance the human experience, and, in so doing, nurture not only those around us, but also ourselves. To recognize this opportunity and act on it honors our human potential and the gifts we innately carry, and, in this regard, every day can be Mother’s Day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There’s something in the way she moves,
or looks my way or calls my name,
that seems to leave this troubled world behind.
And if I’m feelin down and blue,
or troubled by some foolish game,
she always seems to make me change my mind.
And I feel fine any time she’s around me now, she’s around me now
almost all the time.
And if I’m well you can tell she’s been with me now,
she’s been with me now,
for a long, long time,
and I feel fine.
Something in the Way She Moves
~ James Taylor
You can learn more about the research of Taylor and Klein at: http://www.learningplaceonline.com/change/women/stress-friendship.htm
You can read a brief bio about the Chauatuqua Institution Instructor, Kaye Lindauer, at http://www.jungcleveland.org/jung-cleveland-events/the-metaphoric-journey-toward-individuation-featuring-kaye-l.html. If you would like more information about next year’s retreat, please contact me. I would be happy to tell you more about it.
Copyright © 2011 Christina Caine. All Rights Reserved.
