Reply to this thoughtful pastor

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thoughtfulpastor/2018/10/08/write-after-choosing-silence/

/ I didn’t want to hurt my father, who knew the young man in question. I didn’t want to see his anguish or experience his anger. I didn’t want him to go out in a murderous rage and bring disgrace on our whole family./

I had forgotten that one of the reasons I didn't tell was my father was a rageaholic and I knew at age 9, if I told, it would trigger him and there would be more drama/trauma!! 

Ours was a very sick household MHO. I walked around on eggshells. My community  was  in  shock from World War II and from before that the Depression. In the 1950s we all did the best we could to numb the pain of knowing civilization could end the moment they hit the nuclear button!!

 I knew at that tender age it would all come down to being my fault After I was raped.../a pattern of trauma, the event defined my life and ultimately sent me in the trajectory of becoming an advocate for people who are oppressed... it has become a vocation for me personally as a visual artist.
I am NOT my rape. 

As a child I was raped and it became my identity/ the filter I saw the rest of my life as The victim. In every social context I was the most hurting. My victimhood became my right to shout down everyone in the room. My history of severe abuse was identity. My obsessions/compulsions was my controlling  impulse to be out of control with dysfunctional relationships, behavior and addiction to substances. I am intimately acquainted with this pattern of abuse, vicious circle and have personally experienced.

 I have worked to try to understand, in the spirit, that God's love does not protect me from memories or from the event itself.

/ Thomas Merton / Parker J Palmer I have recently come to understand there is a mysterious sustainability of love from God and others in spite of vulnerability. 

Resentment is poisonous and made me sicker!! although a necessary stage of grieving loss so great!! 

Suffering is part of life and so is Injustice, oppression and power of the politically powerful and wealthy. They have the power to do anything they want we can't stop them from doing. That's what my rape and other traumas has taught me so far. Nevertheless "they" can't take away my love for others and the experiences I've had, that kindle deep empathy for others pain, of personally suffering multiple losses.

 I didn't kill myself so I am free to live life on life's terms extending the empathy of one who is in a 12-step program, worked through much chaos already, settling into the not knowing how it's all going to shake out in the end... So it be!!