The Picture

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Elea Lee

The poster shows familiar faces–Oprah, Ashley Judd, Tori Amos. There are people in it I did not know were sexual abuse survivors. I was a struck by the stories I did not know as the dozens of people who were survivors who weren’t on the poster.

Each made a choice to tell their story. Each has helped me to tell ours.

Victims become survivors when someone shows them they are not alone. What happened to them has happened to others.

We need to speak out.

To heal
To save others
To break the power of silence

Frog Boils

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Elea Lee

For years now I have refrained from using the creepy and depressing frog in a pot of water analogy because I had been told it was not true.

Turns out it may be true. It could be true in the following ways:

1. The frog has been mentally or physically disabled. A brained frog or a frog with broken limbs will or can’t jump. Hardly proves anything beyond extreme cruelty.

2. The water is heated extremely slowly.

The “successful” experiments for this story were conducted by “scientists” in the 1800s. The quotation marks indicate my personal distaste for this kind of experiment. What normal person boils frogs in the name of science?!

The unfortunate truth: amphibians now have more advocates than babies. Imagine what PETA would do if NIH started boiling frogs.

But the children born as the result of incompetent abortionists (here I resist the quotes but must ask you to dwell on exactly what a successful abortionist does) are targets for medical murder.

Not only have abortion clinics been quietly snuffing out human life for years, now Planned Parenthood (recipient of tax funds) is openly advocating extending abortion to live human babies.

Who needs frogs when you can experiment on humans instead? Are you feeling cozy and warm in that pot? Check your limbs, check your cerebral cortex, and then find a way to jump. ‘Cause things are getting hotter here. One degree at a time.

The $100 Question

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Elea Lee

What would you do with $100?

What would you do with $10?

You get a gift, win a contest, you come into some legit but unexpected cash.

What do you do with it?

Answers can be posted here or on my Facebook link to this post.

Thanks.

5 a day

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Elea Lee

Last April I made a commitment to write about child abuse every day in remembrance of National Child Abuse Prevention Month. It was spiritually and emotionally painful.

This year I have committed to write about recovery. I don’t think most kids have happy, stress-free childhoods, but some experience more grief and trauma than others.

And then there are the five each day.

In the United States of America 5 children die each day from the fatal effects of child abuse. Beautiful little children like Toryn Buckman.

Imagine if it were 5 celebrities, 5 soccer moms, 5 athletes, 5 politicians. Any other group of people in this country gets killed off in groups of five or more a day and we would have a national crisis. It would be national news. It would be a scandal. Advocates would call for change.

But not children. Children in our country are second-class citizens. They have no voice. We have to be their voices.

When I contacted elected officials and bureaucrats to ask them to assist abused children to a man they said the same thing–this is not my issue.

Is it yours?

Forever

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Elea Lee

He says, I want to live here forever
Can we live here forever?
And I understand what he means–
We are close to heaven
Close to sanctuary

He doesn’t know
What happened to his sister
He doesn’t know
That everything
He does is a reminder
Of how very young she was
The ghost
Hurt my babies.

Easter

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Elea Lee

Resurrection
To rise from the dead
To lose your life
Then find it again
Rebirth
Renaissance
To walk out of a disaster and into
Life
Everlasting
The beginning and the end
Only this time
The end is a beginning
Home.

Hell.

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Elea Lee

Yesterday an atheist told me he thought it was “arrogant and offensive” to believe in Hell.

Funny, I thought, hell is hard to miss. It has left clues to its existence scattered throughout history.

Genocide is hell.
Pestilence is hell.
Racism is hell.
War is hell.
Abortion is hell.
Child abuse is hell.

These things are not hell in it’s entirety, just clues to it’s easy reality.

Here’s how I would put it–somewhere there is a garbage dump where my personal trash goes. Every week on a certain day a big noisy truck comes and takes away my garbage, my neighbor’s trash, the neighborhood garbage, the city refuse.

I have never seen the landfill, don’t even know where it is located exactly, but the trash, the cans, the truck, and my municipal payment for “garbage collection” all suggest somewhere there is a dump for our foul-smelling discards.

Hell means “garbage dump.” It seems to me the arrogant and offensive thing is to disregard the trash, the stink, the truck, and the brave Man who comes and takes it all away and refuse to see what is clearly apparent–I do not take away my own garbage. Someone does it for me.

Make no mistake. It has been years and years of faithful service and I have never taken the Trash Collector for granted.

How could I? I need him so.

A Simple Plan

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Elea Lee

This has happened more than once.

I sit next to an adult and give them a version of my reasons for writing and they share their story.

This one involved mental illness, alcoholism, a tragic death and an injunction against talking about the truth. Children were made to bear witness to a terrible story and then could never talk about what they had experienced.

Mind-bending. And the norm. Most adults not only do not allow children to verbally process traumatic events, they often suppress these stories.

Incredibly destructive. No matter how tough, embarrassing or difficult the event, every child deserves a voice–a safe place to tell their tale of woe.

Otherwise the wound itself is exacerbated by the additional loss of trust in the grownups whose job it was to protect us.

Imagine Injustice

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Elea Lee

Imagine human values were marsupial–clinging to each of our heads.

One man would walk from his house to his car with animal lust clinging to his shiny pate. Another would shuffle to the mailbox as pride monkeyed with his ears.

Sure, some people’s resident animals would be symbiotic–well-mannered love, or the singing bird of truth, but far more would stagger about assiduously nursing their prejudices, manipulations, and vice.

Now imagine you are a child–astounded and a little afraid. All these nattering animals clinging to the necks of grownups! You eye them warily. Maybe dare eventually to raise a question or two–who are they? Why do they stay?

When you do. When you do the parents, aunts, uncles, neighbors look at you blankly-what are you talking about? There are no animals here.

Carrying Light

Words for light

The Picture

Frog Boils

The $100 Question

5 a day

Forever

Easter

Hell.

A Simple Plan

Imagine Injustice