Peace Pentecost 1990 focused on the theme Breaking the Silence: A Call to End Violence Against Women. Church groups and communities across the country organized events to draw attention to the alarming rates of violent actions aimed at women.
In Washington, DC, Sojourners planned a worship service and march that culminated with an outdoor rally during which testimonies were offered as part of the effort to break the silence. The following reflection was one of the testimonies offered that day.
Judith Floyd, a member of Sojourners Community for many years, was a nurse practitioner at Columbia Road Health Services in Washington, DC when this article appeared.
-- The Editors
PENTECOST IS AN ANNIVERSARY time for me. Twelve years ago, I was assaulted and raped. It happened in the daytime, in my apartment complex, in another city. The man was a stranger to me. He was armed with a weapon. I feared for my life. I consider myself fortunate to have survived relatively unharmed physically. The emotional wounds, however, were devastating. It affected my life, and my faith journey as a Christian, in many ways. I would like to preface my story with the words of a Native American woman, Agnes Whistling Elk, taken from a plaque I keep on my desk:
If a woman makes an act of power, she's created something like a work of art. It changes her forever. It gives her new vision on this mother earth, teaches her to see. Teaches her to know what she feels and teaches her to feel what she knows. When that happens, she can recreate herself.
I am here for my sake today, to make an act of power, to take another step toward healing. I hope, in the process, that my words speak something to you and further the cause for which we are gathered.
Being raped changed my life -- it changed me -- more than anything I have experienced before or since. I saw myself change from a relatively independent, adventuresome woman to what felt like a raw bundle of nerves and fears. To be so emotionally fragile and out of control was extremely discomfiting. At times I questioned my sanity.
In some ways, the psychological aftermath has been as traumatic as the actual incident. The name for all that is post-traumatic stress syndrome.
I am not the same person I was before I was raped. Part of me died that day, never to be recovered, and I grieve the loss. But just as rape changed my life, so too has Jesus changed my life, as he has walked with me through that experience and its aftermath.
I have experienced much healing -- otherwise I wouldn't be standing before you today -- healing that comes with the passage of time, that comes with much inner work, that is mediated by the prayers and support of my community and friends, that comes from being in an environment where I could openly share and seek support as I needed to. But healing is a long process, and I am painfully aware of how far I have to go yet.
There is much unhealed. I expect I will be dealing with this, off and on, for the rest of my life -- as I face my brokenness in relationships and my difficulty with trust and intimacy, as I struggle with my fears, as I work with issues of dependence and independence, as I react hypersensitively to other forms of sexism, some more violent than others (street harassment, obscene telephone calls, the objectifying of women in media and advertising, and sexist language, to name a few trigger points).
Sometimes it seems overwhelming. But as I look back, I can say with thanksgiving that I have come a long way, that God has brought me a long way, and that gives me courage for the long journey ahead. I am confident that God will bring to completion the work of healing already begun.
AS A CHRISTIAN, I BELIEVE in the redemptive value of suffering. That is not to say I believe God wills us to suffer. I do not believe God willed me to be raped. Nor do I believe I did anything to provoke it. It was an unwarranted act of violence. But I believe in God's ability to redeem our suffering. That has been my experience. God has taken my suffering and used it to work good in my life. In many ways, I consider myself a better person for it.
I am more open and vulnerable now. I know my need for other people and for community. I am emotionally healthier for what I have worked through. I am also a more compassionate person because of what I have suffered.
I am a better health-care provider for it, as a nurse practitioner working primarily with women, many of whom have experienced much hardship and trauma in their lives, whether they grew up in the inner city or have recently arrived as refugees from Central America. This experience calls me to stand in solidarity with women (and men and children) throughout the world who have suffered much, and continue to suffer much, from oppression, injustice, and violence. I share in their suffering, and in their hope for a better future.
Being raped by a black man in a way sensitized me to the rape of a people. I know no better way to relate to what has been done to African Americans, and Native Americans and their lands, by my ancestors and contemporaries. While I continue to struggle with my fears (one of the negative effects of my experience), I am also more sensitive now to the other side of the story (one of the positive effects of my experience).
Racial reconciliation has become a personal issue.
I am certainly stronger in my faith because of what I have gone through. My neediness has caused me to reach out to God, and for God's grace, as I otherwise would never have done. I am stronger in my faith; I have a stronger sense of God-with-me; and I am learning to share that with others.
I do not know what my life would have been like if I had never been raped. "What ifs" are futile. It happened, and it cannot be undone. It is part of my life history that I have to live with. I have dealt with it the best I could, and I have grown tremendously in the process.
I hope I never have to go through anything like that again. I hope no one does. But I have no regrets for the growth I have experienced through it all. I give thanks to God for all the good that has been worked in my life, and I hope through my life to touch others, as a result of what I have been through. My suffering has been amply redeemed, and I trust that will be true for the suffering yet to come as I continue this journey.
THE FIRST FEW YEARS AFTER I was raped, I was plagued by nightmares; I couldn't sleep with my back to the door (it was too vulnerable a position); I was "on edge" all the time; the world seemed a frightening and threatening place. I was angry at God. In my search to find meaning in my suffering, I had found no satisfactory answers. The questions foremost in my mind were, Why me? and, Where were you when I needed you?
But one of the ways Jesus has touched me has been through dreams. Certainly Pentecost is an appropriate occasion for sharing dreams and visions! I would like to share a dream from the past and a dream for the future.
I had been in Sojourners Community only about a year when I had this dream: I was on a stage. I was thrown down in one corner of the stage and raped, then thrown to another corner and raped again, and again, and again. Repeatedly.
I woke up crying, trembling, frightened (as I frequently awoke from my dreams during that period of my life). But I was soon comforted, because I was given an understanding of the dream. I was experiencing the Stations of the Cross.
That was 10 years ago, the night before Easter. Resurrection broke through to me that Easter, for that dream was a significant turning point in my healing process. It was the first time I knew (really knew in the depths of my being) that Jesus was with me in my suffering, that Jesus had actually taken on and experienced my rape with me.
It cut through my anger and alienation and self-pity to turn around my question from, Why me? to, Why not me? or, Who am I to consider myself immune to such suffering? It helped me to find meaning in what I had experienced. To know that Jesus so identified with me in my suffering in turn enabled me to identify with Jesus in his suffering, and to identify Jesus in the poor, the oppressed, the suffering of this day and age, in a way I had not been able to before. That one dream has profoundly shaped my life.
I also have a dream for the future that shapes my life. I dream that someday I will be able to walk down any street in any neighborhood in this city (or any city), at any hour of the day or night, and encounter any man (whether he is alone or in the company of other men) by looking him in the eye and calling him "brother" -- without fear, without guardedness, without threat to my safety -- with only mutual good will.
I long for that day. But I can't get there alone. I need your help. And that is what this Peace Pentecost gathering is all about. Breaking the silence is an important step in the process of making that dream a reality for us all.
It is only as we come out in the open -- with our experiences, with our pain, with our fears, with our outrage, with our hopes, acknowledging the obstacles in the way -- it is only as we come together as people of God that we can truly open ourselves to God's spirit. And it is the Spirit that can fill us, empower us, use us as she will to make this world a better place for us all.
Holy Spirit, come.
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