People have told me some pretty strange things when I tell them my children were abused by their adopted brother.  One of the more offensive offerings is–at least your sons were not abused.  Huh?

I believe this statement comes out of some pretty destructive mythology:

opposite sex molestation is better??? NO!  All sexual abuse is criminal rape.

male victims of sexual abuse are more likely to offend?? No!!!  So much stigma is attached to abuse that statistics are wildly unreliable.  Pedophiles are shameless liars and their victims feel constrained to silence because of stigma.

Sexual abuse leads to homosexuality???? NO!!  Again, no reliable data and if you look at victims of abuse of both genders it is doubtful that they would say gender-attraction choices were attached to abuse either way.

So what does this have to do with Corey Feldman? 

I am extremely grateful for his candor.  I am glad he has spoken out about what happened to him and others because it helps to let other children, especially boys know that what happened to them was NOT THEIR FAULT.

And as for Sea?  He would self-identify as a heterosexual virgin even though he raped children.  He sexually abused both boys and girls and for the record molested babies and animals as well.

That is uniformly predatory and very difficult to talk about.

I am grateful for Mr. Feldman because he is one more person who has helped to break the silence.

there are a whole set of numbers in my head

good numbers

like the day i wed

or the days God gave me children

but there are bad numbers too.

the day my father crashed

the day he died

the day i lost veronica

and the day my daughters told me that they had been abused

the day Jesus died

today we remember His death

all my shadow days fall beneath this one day

when the world went dark

in grief and deliverance

Okay, so my plan is to highlight the stories of sexual abuse victims for the month of April.  If you are a private citizen and have told me your story, don’t worry, your story stops with me.  But I do want to honor every last celebrity who has identified being the survivors of rape or child rape as a part of their story because each one has given me strength to tell our story.  Tomorrow I will explain the story of how all that happened but today I just have one word, one name–

Oprah.  I would not have the courage to tell our story without you.  Thank you Oprah, for my voice, my children’s voices, for the knowledge that we are not alone.

Thank you

has haunted me ever since i learned that she was sexually abused by her half-brother(s).

she is forthright about it in a sketch from the past.  i believe this abuse was contributing factor in her struggles.

is April, terribly ironic considering she is a survivor of sexual assault.  She has taught me how to look bravely into the truth, into living through and past what was done to her and her community, her family and her friends.

In honor of this month and all the victims of sexual abuse, I would like to remember some of them each day.

For yesterday I would like to remember three sexual abuse victims from the Bible–Tamar, Dinah, and the unnamed concubine in Judges 19.

you could take a mirror and draw things on your face

smudge out lines,

erase gray hair

or add stuff

like that handlebar moustache you have always wanted?

what would you erase

or embellish?

and how would you face your heart with the truth

of all you had done

hidden

or defaced.

we are constantly required to make decisions, bread or soup? bus or vespa? helmet or baseball cap?

these decisions define us public/publically, private/privately.  the more public our lives, the greater the chances that yahoo will trumpet the strangeness of our latte choices (as in…j.lo, vente mocha chai, who knew?)

but then if our lives are private there are people we abide with who will not only know about the chai, they will know about our control issues, weakness for french fries, our flashpoints of anger.  in other words, our weaknesses, our sins.  they may not know all of them (who knew?) but they will know enough.

i have heard it said both that we are defined by who loves us and by what we love

Who loves you?  What do you love?

Palm Sunday