This happened to B and me twice over. Once when we held a cleric to account for financial malfeasance and again when seeking accountability for pastoral predation.
Nothing could have prepared us for the cost.
Nothing.
We matter.
What happened to us matters.
The untold suffering,
the savage slaughter,
the slow spun,
carefully fabricated nefarious narrative,
and the deafening silence…
It matters a great deal.
We were sunk and silenced by clerical malfeasance before the #churchtoo movement was born. The traumatic trade winds had not yet changed. While we now sail our relational ship though calmer waters, but the wake of betrayal remains.
I suspect it always will.
I have NEVER, and I do mean NEVER, been more betrayed not only by a few abusive individuals but by an entire institution, than I have by Christendom.
You speak of Christ.
How dare you.
The sleepless nights.
The endless questions.
The malignant malfeasance.
The gangrenous gap.
The tearing asunder.
The public humiliation.
The searing, soul destroying shame.
The hemorrhage of harm.
The daily destabilization.
Long will I remember the ruin.
What do I want?
Accountability that won’t cost me
my health,
my marriage,
my home,
my career,
my peace,
my parenting,
and my personhood.
It shouldn’t cost this much to tell the truth.
