Deep Memory, Maggots & The Manger

Deep memory wakes me in the night, like wormwood – when the bitterness you left behind seeps through the unguarded chinks in my mind. Your seed, the one with which you inseminated my soul; is rotting and wriggling like maggots from their parasitic placenta. In my slumber, you and your many faces come to me. You charm, coax, rub, hope, cajole, invite, entice, expect and enter. I avoid, explain away, rationalize, minimize, make excuses for, give in and finally open myself to the decay of you. I panic and wake myself, feeling the movement of imaginary maggots that I am certain must be there.

Give Us Barabbas!

hu·mil·i·ate (verb)
make (someone) feel ashamed and foolish by injuring their dignity and self-respect, especially publicly.

The Foam of Your Shame

“They are… wild ocean waves leaving nothing on the beach but the foam of their shame.” Jude 1:13

The Judgement Room

The Judge: “State and spell your name please.” 

Me: Mrs. Lori Anne Thompson 
L-O-R-I  A-N-N-E  T-H-O-M-P-S-O-N

The Judge: “What would you like me to know?”

Social Media Disclaimer

Where social media is increasingly being used for social justice, I heartily applaud. It is also a parallel reality that social media is being used for predation, traumatization, victimization and repugnant PR.

Cunning, Calculated Compassion

I naively assumed that a man’s deposit of warmth, tenderness, interest or compassion was authentic. It never occurred to be that compassion could cover the exoskeleton of a hardened heart or become a means of personal gain.

His Silence

After a lifetime of sexual violence and victimization without justice – I can sit quietly and accept the justice of God for mumma me. It is His silence now I struggle with. There are times when silence can feel like betrayal.

Nobody

“Belief in the existence of a human being as such: is love.” – Simone Wiel

A Strange and Peculier Country

There were no balls however in this land, not even a full deck of cards, or checkers with which to pass the time, it was the children themselves who were the ball to throw, or the cards to play, or the checkers to jump. A cruel land, with cruel inhabitants it was.

A Person To Whom Things Happened

WooIf was lifted at age six up in front of the hall mirror in her home by her half brother and fondled. She would later go on to be molested nightly by another half brother for a season. She understandably suffered from what she called “looking glass shame”, an aversion to seeing her image in the mirror. “It is difficult,” says Woolf, “to give any account to the person to whom things happened.”

Holocaust

It has been a long road back to personhood, to freedom and to feeling. I have had to relearn it slowly.

The Shoes on The Shelf

Of the seven sets of soles, I see one man type; work boots worn, requiring replacement from the relentless running; running to serve, running to provide, running to protect, running to care.