[What follows is a very personal and painful reflection about my own experience of being sexually assaulted. Graphic details are included. For a number of reasons, explored below, this was extremely difficult to write and to share. If you know me, I expect it will also be extremely difficult to read. You don’t have to read it. If you do read it, please don’t feel obligated to comment on it — although you are also welcome to comment. Please know that I’m okay (for the most part). I’m a survivor. Mostly, I have decided to go public with this for two reasons: (1) personally, I don’t like feeling afraid and I think secrecy facilitates fear and other misplaced feelings like shame, so, for me, this is a part of confronting my own fears; and (2) mainly, I hope that sharing the following will also help others who have experienced sexual violence and who don’t know how to feel or think about it and who have remained silent. I hope that the following will be helpful to these people. Perhaps it will help folks to negotiate their own confusion or their own sense of isolation. Because of this, I hope that you will consider sharing or linking to this on your own social media as I think the more people this can reach, the more potential there is for it to help in the ways I hope it to help.]
This is the first part
It is difficult to know how or where to begin this reflection. I have tried to write it several times already and ended up deleting each previous attempt at some point in the process. I have taken breaks of days and months and years in between efforts. I did once manage to write a fair bit about all of this in another piece but I don’t feel that I can stand to go and read or rearrange what I wrote there.
They say that survivors sometimes tell and retell their stories as a part of the process of working through everything that happened… a part of “making peace with” or “moving on” or “healing” or “accepting” or whatever other terms people use so easily in order to speak about the unspeakable.
~
Sometimes I am triggered by events that go on around me or things I see or hear as life goes on – although I am never noticeably triggered, at least I don’t think I am, and I am far less frequently triggered than a good many other survivors I have known – and so to try (again) to sit and dwell in the memory of what was and what still is, to try (again) to put it into words, to try (again) to conceptualize it (to literally transform a trauma into a concept) is very difficult. I tried recently, after I wrote my last post about representations of female sexual desire, because I realized I was walking around for days in a triggered state of increased anxiety while I was writing what I wrote. I got about four pages into my own personal reflection and then I stopped and deleted it and sat on my bed in the dark trying to suppress the feeling of nausea that was rising in my stomach and throat and the feelings of anxiety and panic that were building up in my chest and head.
~
Thinking about where to begin now, I almost wrote that this is a reflection about something that happened to me. But I feel like that makes me too passive. I was involved in what happened. Things were done to me, but things were also done with me.
Is it still rape, if I let myself be raped?
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Gospel Fragments
Once, while dining with the Pharisees and Tax-Collectors, one of the elders seated at the right hand of the host began to question Jesus about the sayings attributed to him.
“Teacher,” the elder said, “you have told us to love our neighbours and you told us who our neighbours are. I have heard that you have also told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. But you have not been so clear as to who our enemies are. Tell me, teacher, who is my enemy, so that I may love him? Who is the one who persecutes me so that I may pray for him?”
In response to this question, Jesus told the following story:
“Once there was a man whose wife had died and who had been left alone to raise a single daughter. In order to raise her up and protect her and educate her and put money aside for her dowry, this man worked very long hours doing backbreaking work for a thankless taskmaster. Yet he always greeted his master respectfully, he smiled and nodded and laughed at his master’s jokes. He rose when his master rose and only sat when invited to do so. He never complained when he was beaten. He didn’t interrupt and he always thanked his master for his pay and for the opportunity to work for him. Sometimes, when the master patted his shoulder or shook his hand after a job well done, he expressed a particularly great delight. But the work was hard and he was often weary when he got home. If his daughter did not have dinner prepared, he would be short-tempered with her. If his work clothes were not properly washed and laid out in their place early the next morning, he would yell at her. Sometimes, if he were particularly sore or tired or had been beaten by his master, he would hit his daughter. This went on for some time until the man became injured at work. He was unable to fulfill his normal duties and hoped that his years of service would incline the master to give him a different role. Sadly, this was not the case and the master threw him out. Unable to find other work, he was reduced to begging. The little money he was able to raise begging in the streets with his daughter – who now joined him there – was not enough for them to survive and so, weeping a great many tears, he did what many others did before and with and after him. He sold his daughter into slavery and that was the last he saw of his only child.”
There was silence around the table when Jesus finished his story and so he asked a question:
“Tell me, who is the enemy of this man?”
Without hesitation, the elder who had initiated the conversation responded, “Surely the taskmaster is the enemy! Surely he is the one the man is called to love!”
“Oh, you blind and foolish fellow,” Jesus responded, “no wonder you are seated where you are at this table! The taskmaster is not the enemy of this man – for he always greeted him as a friend and he always was respectful in his presence and he always showed delight in his company. No, the man treated the taskmaster as his friend and so he was, regardless of how the taskmaster treated him. The true enemy – the one the man treated like his enemy – was his daughter. She was the one he was short with and yelled at and beat and ultimately sold into slavery, regardless of his feelings for her. Those whom you harm are the enemies you are called to love in deed and in action for love is a doing far more than a feeling. However, the taskmaster was the one who persecuted the man. I do not say that it is necessary to love such a person – has he not already been treated as a friend, even by those whom he abuses? – but it may be worthwhile to pray for him. Perhaps my Father in heaven will hear your prayers and make him into a good master instead of a cruel one or, if that proves to be too difficult, perhaps my Father in heaven will hear your prayers and strike him dead.
Your enemy is not the one who harms you, but the one you harm. And so I say this: do no harm. As for the one who persecutes you, leave that one in the hands of God. Rome crushes you – whom you treat as a friend – and you crush the people – whom you treat as enemies although they are flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood. You cannot stop Rome but one day Rome will be stopped. Whether or not you are also stopped at that point will depend on whether or not you have ceased to do violence to those who are less than you. If you do not learn to actively love your enemies, when judgment falls on Rome, those whom you have treated as enemies may decide to accept that designation and rise up against you. They will be singing songs of freedom as they beat plowshares into swords and they will cut you down like the harvest and not one of you will be saved.”
When Jesus finished speaking, several of those gathered at the meal decided it was time to get serious about their plot to kill him.
A Eulogy
For a few days, there was a pretty terrible smell in the hallway by the elevator near the entrance I use to get in and out of my building. Then the smell was gone and there was a whole bunch of furniture stacked up by the garbage bins out back. Apparently the forensics unit had stopped by somewhere in between the disappearance of the smell and the appearance of the furniture but I hadn’t noticed them. Or maybe I had — I often see the police here, I just don’t pay close enough attention to them to see what units are showing up. To be honest, I didn’t even notice that the cat who is usually sitting in the window of the apartment by the entrance had vanished. It was only when a neighbour pointed in the window that I noticed that the cat was gone and the room was half gutted.
They say she killed the cat before she killed herself.
One of my neighbours said that he once found her crying on the front steps of the building. When he asked her why she was crying she said she was hungry and had no food. He asked her if she had any parents who might help her out and she had told him that they wouldn’t help her anymore. They said maybe next month. They said she had to be more responsible. He was appalled and put together a big box of food for her.
She wasn’t all that old. Younger than me by half a dozen years, I reckon. She wore glasses and had short red curly hair. I think she had some sort of developmental disability. She was always friendly with the kids and I. I know another woman in the building was bullying her. Everyone else knows this other woman. Most, except for a few of the hardcore drinkers who are always lounging around out back, avoid this other woman as much as possible. The last time I spoke with the girl who is said to have killed herself and her cat, she told me that this other woman had threatened her life and told her not to talk with any of the men in the building. The girl who is said to have killed herself and her cat said that the other woman wanted all the men to herself.
I remember thinking, “Why would anybody want to bully you? How could anybody feel threatened by you?” And I felt sad and angry and helpless.
Sometime around the time she stopped being who she had been, sometime around the time she stopped being at all, we were laying in bed, all mixed up together — limbs and heat and breath and thoughts and silences all tangled up together — and I was tracing the lines on your face. The curve of your brow, the dip of your temple, the line of your jaw, I was tracing you in space, when you asked me to tell you a story. I didn’t know what story I would tell, I did not know this story until I told it, but this was the story I told:
Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in the forest. He made a house out of cans he had found but every night the wind would blow the cans down. They would fall with a crash around him and wake him up and then he would lay in the dark, exposed to the night and its creatures, too scared to move. He would cry until the sun came up. When the sun came up, he would set his house of cans back up and then go looking for food. By the time he came back, the cans would have fallen down again and so he would set them back up in the evening before he fell asleep and before they fell down around him and woke him up and left him crying in the night. And this went on and on, day after day, night after night.
Some days, he would walk to the road that passed through the woods, and ask the people who traveled on that road to help him or feed him or take him away with them. But they never seemed to see or hear him. They passed by him like the wind and he was less than the air the wind passed through.
Other days, when out looking for food, he would discover families of people who did not live in the forest, who had stopped in this or that clearing in order to have a picnic. Sometimes they would throw scraps to the animals — a piece of fruit for a bird, a nut for a squirrel, bread crumbs for the ants — and he would try to snatch the scraps away. But the people would throw rocks at him and beat him with sticks. “This food is for the animals! It is for the bird, and the squirrel, and the ants! Go away!” And he would go away, sore and hungry, and back to his house of fallen cans.
One day, he decided that he would go onto the road and follow it out of the woods. He walked and he walked and he walked until his feet were sore and blistered from the pavement. But the woods were still all around him, so he continued walking. He walked and he walked and he walked until his blisters had burst and his feet were trailing blood. But the woods were still all around him, so he continued walking. The sun began to set and the night, along with its creatures, began to awaken and, finally, he was unable to walk anymore. He could not stand and so he crawled to the side of the road. He was a long, long way from his house of cans. But the woods were still all around him. Night came. The wind blew. And he was less than the air the wind passed through.
The End.
Love and Death
I recently watched a documentary about a fellow who spends some time with children in an AIDS orphanage in India. One of the boys becomes very ill. His body becomes covered in sores and blisters that burst and stay open and seep and make him look like his skin is peeling away from his body. The doctors say the same thing is happening to the membranes and tissues inside of him as well. His lips look like God or the devil has taken a potato peeler to them. A compress is kept over his eyes, blinding him, in order to try and prevent infection from spreading there. He frequently spits or drools out blood and mucus and, I don’t know, the kind of fluid you think oozes from wounds.
He is in a lot of pain.
His name is Surya. He is about the same size as Charlie. Charlie, my son, Charlie, my beloved, Charlie my beautiful one whose hair smells like sunshine. Charlie who takes me by the hand and looks up into my eyes and tells me that I am beautiful and that I make his heart feel happy and then asks if he can sit on my lap and watch a movie with me. This Surya, he is also somebody’s son, it’s just his parents died, ya know? He is also beloved, it’s just that the people who love him aren’t wealthy or influential or connected, see? And I’m sure his hair also smells like the wind and childhood and earth and the wonder, and when the person who was with him got up to leave and use the bathroom, he also took him by the hand and, speaking for the first time in days, said, “No!” This Surya, this Charlie, this boy, this beloved child, he said “No!” because he was afraid that he would die in those moments when he was alone.
I watched all of this far away from where Suryas are too numerous to count. I watched it play out as a movie on a flat screen HDTV. And I cried awhile, and the gal who was with me, who loves me and whom I love, she cried awhile, too, and we held each other and later that night we made love and then the next morning the alarm went off on my smartphone (which, like most things I own, is made by children like Surya who live and die like Surya) and I went off to work and she went off to school.
And life went on.
And death did, too.
~
A year ago, I would have laughed at the idea of referring to sex as “making love”. Who talks that way? If sex was transcendental, it was simply because the nearly pure physicality of it could permit sad and lonely and broken and lost and angry and weary people — people like me — to momentarily forget all of these things. In sex, you can lose your self in touching and being touched, in giving and taking, in caressing, and in fucking. You can give yourself away, you can become absorbed in another — just as another can become absorbed in you — and in that forgetting you can also forget that this life doesn’t seem worth living. But, hell, all the reasons for dying seem like bullshit, too, and so, in this limbo between the living and the dead, there is, at least, la petite mort.
Funny just how much can change in a year.
~
In the documentary that featured Surya, the Charlie covered in sores, there was also a young girl who becomes very ill and comatose and is on the verge of dying. The father eventually tries to rush her to the hospital — he is sitting on the back of a motorbike, holding her in his arms — she is naked but for a blanket — and they get caught on the road waiting for a train to pass at a rail crossing. She dies then. We see her die — her head falls back, her mouth open, everything totally limp and the father cannot close her mouth. He takes her in his arms, the blanket falling from her body and turns and starts walking back into the night with her. “I am taking her home.”
What was her name? I don’t remember her name. But the film makers thought the scene was dramatic enough that they decided to include it twice — once at the beginning, without any subtitles or talking (what better hook for those of us far way watching this movie on HDTVs, right?), and once later one within the context of the story and with a voice over. I do remember this though: wrapped in a shroud, her body looked tiny, as did the grave they buried her in. When she was buried, she didn’t look any bigger than my Ruby, my beloved, my beautiful girl who isn’t afraid to say, “No!” to me when I tell her it is bath time, and who asks me to be a monster so she can sit me down and bring me presents in the closet, and who want to hold my head on her stomach when she is falling asleep. I watched the dad bury this little girl, I watched him weep and hit himself in the forehead when he looked at pictures of her, I watched him love his Ruby and lose her. Forever and ever and ever. And this is not uncommon. To cite just one, from any number of possible examples, around 2000 children under the age of five die every day from diarrhea-related disease. That’s two thousand Charlies and Rubies every day. That’s more than one every minute. Gone forever and ever and ever.
Welcome to the world we live in. Things don’t have to be this way. We all know that. It’s just that we haven’t wanted to love one another at least well enough to prevent the needless suffering and dying of children. And we never will. Things will always be this way with us. We know this, too.
~
Last weekend I went to my father’s wedding. I missed the first (wasn’t born then) and the second (wasn’t speaking with him then) but I made the third. It was a small ceremony in an old stone Anglican church with beautiful wood floors, and candles, and stained glass windows, and a pipe organ that I loved as much as all the other parts combined. Ruby thought we were in a castle, she thought the priest — who was wearing a white robe — was a ghost, and she thought the bride was a princess. She was pretty excited about the whole thing and stood on the pew the whole time so that she could “see the princess.” Charlie was a lot less excited about the actually ceremony but he played games on my phone and it kept him still and quiet.
And me? I don’t know what all I was feeling. Or maybe I do but I don’t think I can talk about the way it felt without, in that very act of talking (or writing), retroactively changing what happened. So I’ll say no more about that.
What a mess life is, eh? How often we hurt when we desire to help, how often we betray when we desire to love, how often we curse when we desire to bless. It is very hard to know what we are doing, regardless of what our intentions are.
And how often we get bogged down in our own wounds, our own cuts and scars and insecurities, and never see anything beyond ourselves. Even now — I watched a movie and I feel things about characters therein by comparing them to my own children, whom I will continue to love in practical ways (just as I will continue to ignore or oppress the Suryas and the girls whose names I forget in practical ways), so, really, am I even seeing anything beyond myself here?
~
After I watched this documentary, I wanted to be more kind. I wanted to never be angry at another person again. I just wanted to love… and be loved, too. I’m weary of anger and frustration and pettiness and violence, violence, violence everywhere. But, you know, after I went to work the next morning somebody was rude to the fellow who helps me out and makes coffee in the Resource Centre I supervise and so I decided to be rude back to the fellow who disrespected my helper. I didn’t say anything rude in words — but in my tone and in my body language, I basically told the fellow that he could fuck off and I didn’t give a shit about anything he might have to say about that. Then, that night, Charlie and Ruby were refusing to go to sleep and I felt frustrated, even after reflecting upon Surya and the girl whose name I forgot, even after thinking how I failed that fellow at my work, even after recognizing these things in the midst of feeling frustrated… I still felt frustrated and, after sternly telling the kids to be quiet and go to bed, I went to another room and dropped a number of whispered eff bombs as I washed the dishes (in an overly aggressive manner… fucking dishes).
Do I ever learn anything at all? Woe to me if I can watch a documentary like that and go on unchanged and unchanging.
~
…
~
But I will tell you a secret. A very exciting one. One wholly unanticipated. One I stopped believing in a long, long time ago. Are you ready? This is the secret:
I have already begun to change.
Ain’t that something? Because I was dead but I am now alive. And that breaking process, that slow inexorable shattering that drained me of my insides and filled me up with darkness inside? It wasn’t the final word. My pieces are coming together again. But I am not going back to being who I was before. I am being made new. I, too, have experienced the resurrection of the dead. Here and now, I have been born again — this time from the dead.
This is what love has done with me. How about that, eh? I wouldn’t trade this love for anything in the world. Not that I could trade it even if (for some unimaginably absurd reason) I wanted to do so. This love after all, is something I am in, not something I produce. It is more an event and an environment than a choice. At least for me. Perhaps the one who loves me, who introduced me to this love in which we are now situated, perhaps for her it was a choice. For me it was not. The dead don’t make choices. They’re simply dead. I could not choose myself back alive. I could not heal myself. My heart felt as though it had been broken into pieces, and the pieces had been burned, and then the charred remains had been wrapped all around with barbed wire. But when she first laid her head on my shoulder, when she first held my hand, when she first said to me, “I love you,” everything changed and the wires were cut and the ashes were swept away and the pieces came back together and, just like the motherfucking Grinch, my heart grew three sizes that day… and it hasn’t stopped growing since. I’ve got a long way to go yet, my hair still stinks like the grave and I’m a bit of a mess and sometimes old feelings or reactions still surface, but a resurrection is more like an insurrection than a makeover. It takes times but, baby, it runs all the way up and all the way down and the fruit that it bears are a lot longer lasting than a tan and botox injections.
~
And the girl, the Ruby who died? Her name is Vembadi. I will not forget it again. She died but our time with her has not ended. Because we know her story now. We are responsible for it and we our responsible for ourselves and how we will live in light of it.
Whether or not this proves to be a responsibility we can handle will be determined, I think, by whether or not we are in love.
Thoughts I had while waiting for a bus that never came
First Thought:
“Is there a triangle in this sentence?”
Second Thought:
What is this?
Third Thought:
What is this?
Commentary
I encourage you all to come up with your own answers before reading what follows.
First Thought:
It seems to me that whether or not a triangle is contained in the sentence quoted, depends upon what a triangle is and if a triangle is and what the relation is between this supposed triangle and the name given to it (i.e. “triangle”). If a triangle is something that exists outside of language and apart from the name we give to it (does anything exist outside of language? How can we talk about it then? And if we can’t talk about it, how can we know it?), then one could argue that there is no triangle contained within the sentence. But is a triangle divorced from the name “triangle” still a triangle? If it is not then the name “triangle” itself contains or is a triangle, in which case there is a triangle in the sentence.
Second thought:
I came up with the following although I’m sure answer could be multiplied endlessly:
- A tetrahedron;
- Four triangles;
- A quadrilateral divided into four uneven parts;
- A quadrilateral divided in half;
- A symbol;
- A shape;
- A thing;
- The representation of something else;
- No( )thing;
- An empty signifier;
- Modern art;
- Not a pipe.
Third Thought:
- Me;
- A picture of me;
- A simulacrum;
- A series of tiny coloured dots displayed on a computer monitor;
- A singularity;
- One in a series;
- A multitude;
- The same thing as that explored in the Second Thought above;
- Something different than that explored in the Second Thought above;
- A stunningly attractive and intelligent young man;
- All of the above;
- None of the above.
And you all? What answers did you give to these questions?
The Pianist (A Fairy Tale)
I’ve seen her at the pub before. She is young, especially for a place like this, and one of the first things most any fellow would notice about her is how full her lips are. Generally she is sitting at the bar drinking with an older fellow – not the same older fellow – but different men who look almost but not quite old enough to be her father.
She doesn’t smile very much. Her posture and her expressions remind me of the way a person drinks at a work function.
Another gal I used to drink with at this pub once told me that she is a sex worker who picks up clients here. Perhaps it is the formality with which she drinks that led to this conclusion… perhaps it is the ever changing older and far less attractive men around her.
I don’t know if this story is true. Maybe she’s just socially awkward and, let’s be honest, it’s pretty much only older folks who drink at this place so if a pretty young gal shows up here, there’s bound to be any number of daddies creeping on her. And, who knows, maybe the gal who told me this story was just feeling insecure or jealous of her beauty.
But, honestly, I don’t care either way. If a person chooses to be a sex worker, I reckon that’s no better or worse than choosing to be a social worker or a construction worker or any other kind of worker.
~
When she sits down beside me, I thought I had a pretty clear idea of where our conversation might go. We are both fairly drunk – her more than me, I think, as she keeps repeating the same questions or makes the same statements multiple times. She begins by telling me that she is a registered nurse but later states that she’s actually a nurse practitioner – it’s just most people don’t understand what a nurse practitioner is, so it’s easier to say she’s an RN. On weekends, she goes to Toronto and is a “Bud Girl” at special events. She does a mock performance of how she gets the fellas to buy beer from her. She is quick to call me “honey”. Mostly, I only like it when the older servers at the bar call me that. They’ve spent a lifetime waiting tables, dealing with drunks, putting up with pricks and I reckon they can get away with calling people “dear” or “honey” or “sweetie.” Whenever the younger servers pull that on me, I feel like they’re trying too hard. Let’s not get carried away, okay?
But she calls me “honey” and she touches my arm a lot when she talks to me. She asks me if I’m single and I say that I am. She asks me why and I am honest and say that most everybody I meet bores me – I don’t really give a fuck about hearing somebody talking about her favourite TV shows or her favourite kind of music or the fact that she really digs guys who can make her laugh. Wow! Who knew? God, what a bore. She says she understands and feels exactly the same way about the guys she has met since moving to Ontario when she was twenty-four. That was three years ago – she came here from B.C. – and started a new life for herself.
I don’t mention that I’ve already decided that she is boring, too.
~
She gets excited when she learns that I play piano and have a keyboard. Turns out she is a classically trained musician – piano and vocals. She asks if I have all eighty-eight keys and if they are pressure sensitive. It is imperative that they be pressure sensitive. I say that they are but that I don’t have a full range. She asks if I have drinks at my place and if I like to party. I mention I have drinks but I don’t party much these days. But, hey, I don’t care if she indulges.
~
She asks about going back to my place.
I say okay.
Getting into her car she says, “But we’re just doing this as friends, right? This is just a friends thing, okay?”
I say okay.
~
My place is a bit of a mess from having kids for the last four days. I tidy up quickly and mix a drink for her as she settles at the keyboard. She plays some songs from memory and some songs from sheets that I have. I play a few songs and she sings in the background. She has a decent voice but she is an exceptional piano player. When I play, she pauses to powder her nose… a few times. And then she plays one of the most beautiful renditions of the Moonlight Sonata that I have ever heard.
When she finishes, she says thank you very much and, gosh, it’s hot in here, and I escort her to her car and say goodnight. I smoke a final cigarette out back after she drives away and then I go to bed.
~
A friend tells me I should be looking to get laid. She points out that the mock profiles I set up on an online dating site – one to see if I could get rid of an old toaster, one pretending to be a total D&D nerd dressed up like a banana, and one pretending to be a circus bear – aren’t actually very conducive to meeting people and she reminds me that, really, I should be more serious about dating or at least picking people up. She says it’ll make things easier.
I’m not so sure. The story of lonely people meeting in bars and going home to lose themselves in the embrace of strangers seems a little overplayed. I met a girl at a pub. She came home with me and played my piano and then she left. I never touched her once. And, that, I think, made this whole encounter much less boring than I thought it was going to be. I was laughing to myself about it as I fell asleep.
~
I hope I don’t ever see her again.
A Call to Abundant Life: A Manifesto Against Death
[What follows is the transcript of a paper I presented at the theology pub night hosted by Nexus, a church of sorts, in Kitchener. The conversation that followed was gracious, thoughtful, and enjoyable, so many thanks to those who were willing to engage in this subject matter with me. Truth be told, although much is abbreviated here, I feel that what I express here summarizes a lot of what I have come to believe based upon my education and experiences over the last twelve or so years. I also believe that it points the way forward in terms of the avenues that I believe are most worth pursuing if (a) one is committed to the pursuit of life-giving change or (b) one somehow identifies with the Jesus movement.]
A Call to Abundant Life: A Manifesto Against Death
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it (MK 8.34-35).
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being give up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you (2 Cor 4.8-12).
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Tips for Those Wanting to Work with People Experiencing Homelessness (Part Two)
Continuing on with further tips for those who want to work with people who are experiencing homelessness. In my last post I talked about topics related to personal transformation (faking it versus working on changing) and ways in which a person can learn when they are new on the job. Here, I’m going to offer a few points that may seem obvious but, sadly, are lacking all too often. I’ll probably have one more post after this one and that’ll wrap up this series.
(4) If you say you’re going to do something, do it promptly and do it well.
People who are clients of social services regularly deal with staff members who say one thing but do another. This occurs for a lot of reasons: social services are underfunded, workers end up with “case loads” that are absurdly large and so, all to often, workers end up simply prioritizing what they take to be the most “life-and-death” matters and end up in perpetual crisis management (which means the chance of the worker looking up what your rights are with welfare, or helping you work on your resume and train for job interviews, are pretty slim… even though these things can, at times, be “life-and-death” for people). Other workers are simply burned out. They avoid clients. All they want to do is get through the shift and go home. Other workers didn’t take the time to do the learning I mentioned in the last post, so they don’t know how to help you and — since they didn’t bother learning how to do this in the first place — they probably won’t learn it now. Instead, they’re going to try and avoid you or say things like “Yeah, I haven’t been able to find out anything about that yet but I’ve been looking around and will get back to you when I do”. Or they’ll claim that there is no help for your situation, even though they haven’t determined if that is or is not the case.
As for those who are overwhelmed, when they finally do remember that they had committed to doing something, they are probably remembering because you are sitting in front of them or are scheduled to meet with them in the next ten minutes… so they’ll rush through something, do a half-assed job, just to get it done so that they can move on to the next 10,000 items on their to-do lists.
All the clients are very aware of this treatment. In many ways, it is actually the norm. That doesn’t mean people are happy about this. It’s part of the reason why clients conclude that workers are useless fucks who don’t actually care about the people whom they are claiming to serve. In my opinion, this is actually a pretty valid conclusion. “Care” isn’t an emotion somebody feels or a story people tell themselves about themselves. Care is what people do. If you do nothing, it doesn’t matter what you feel — you don’t actually care.
This means a few things. First, don’t say you are going to do something and then not do it. And don’t do a half-assed job when you do it. You’re supposed to be a professional, right? Second, if you follow through on what you say you are going to do — if you promptly and professionally follow through and your commitments, you will quickly gain the respect and trust of the clients. It’s kinda sad that something so basic — that should be taken for granted — ends up being one of the things that sets the really good workers apart from the others but that’s the fact of the matter.
Of course, if you commit to helping with something, doing something, or looking into something and you are not sure how to progress it’s okay to ask for help. That’s part of the reason why you work on a team. Maybe you’ve got one team member who knows welfare legislation really well, another team member who knows tenancy rights really well, and so on. That means that you don’t have to become an expert in all areas (although you should have a working knowledge of all relevant areas and, more importantly, know where you need to go to learn more about specific situations). This leads to my next point:
(5) Be a team player.
Okay, so this is something of another truism in any work environment but it doesn’t actually translate into practice in a lot of places and when you’re working in an agency where emotions will run high and, at times, crises occur, I need to spell out a bit of what I mean by this.
In my last post, I already talked about the importance of being open to criticism. This is an important part of being able to work as a team. Beyond that, you need to be able to disagree with others and have others disagree with you — sometimes passionately, even — without that causing you to lose respect for others and without that causing people to hold back and withdraw from conversations. For me, vocal passionate disagreement is one of the things I look for in a healthy team. Some teams are dominated by one or two people. Some teams are scared to go against management or speak in a way that challenges them. Both of these scenarios produce an artificial peace and the illusion of cohesion. True team work is being able to disagree with one another and, even if disagreements still persist after a discussion, being able to respect one another regardless of the final outcome or the positions taken by various members.
Here’s something I needed to realize along the way: the agency actually runs far better because there is a diversity of opinions here. If everybody thought exactly the same way as me, this place would probably go down in flames.
I think that’s true of any one perspective. Nobody has this shit figured out perfectly — maybe one person knows how to run a smooth operation but the cost of that is not meeting the identified needs of the clients, maybe another person is actually client-centred (a rare thing to find despite all the contemporary rhetoric being pumped out about this!) but doesn’t know how to make that work in a community setting, and so on and so forth. We need one another and we need to disagree with one another. We need to know when we’re wrong and, at times, we need to bow to the opinion of others even when we think we are right (notably, to those older, more experienced, well-respected workers I mentioned earlier — and, for the record, the generally excludes management, so I’m not talking about bowing down to them simply because they’re the bosses).
Essentially, being a team player means treating your team members with the same respect you claim to have for clients. It means caring for one another. If somebody is having a hard time, it means taking some of their work on. If somebody is breaking down, it means pooling together to buy him or her a spa day or a massage or something special. It means having one another’s backs. And trusting that others have your back as well.
It also means resolving conflicts amongst yourselves as much as possible. It means thinking about which team members are best for the clients and prioritizing that, rather than thinking about which team members do or do not follow all the rules (more on that later).
(6) Show weakness, be vulnerable, admit mistakes. Be human.
Okay, I know that I’ve stressed a need for “professionalism” in some of my earlier points. You need to know your job and you need to do it well. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes along the way. You will. Everybody does. When you do make a mistake, admit it to the client. Don’t make excuses and don’t avoid the conversation. You may think this will cause you to lose respect (and, hey, if it happens EVERY time you try to do something, it will produce that result, but maybe you should be looking at another job if that’s the case), but it will actually cause people to respect you more. It will turn you from a flawless robotic professional (which we all know is an illusion anyway) into a human being. It will show people you respect them enough to be human with them — and when you show that kind of respect to people it tends to be returned. Show vulnerability. Be honest. For some reason, everybody thinks being a “professional” means lying to clients (“it’s in their own best interest,” blah, blah, blah). Don’t do that.
That said — if a person responds to your admission of error with anger, don’t lash back and don’t try to take back what you said. You screwed up. Own it. Giving a person a space to be angry (with you in this case), can also be a really wonderful bridge to a better relationship (this was one of the things that surprised me the most when I started in this field — see here for more about that… wow, can’t believe that link is seven years old already…).
Tips for Those Wanting to Work with People Experiencing Homelessness (Part One)
Bit of a digression from the usual mix of topics I write about but some recent happenings have made me want to jot this down. What follows are a few tips for those wanting to work with people experiencing homelessness in some sort of charitable institution or social service agency. This will be the first in a short series of post.
(1) Don’t pretend to be somebody you are not.
Maybe you haven’t been street-involved, maybe you’re just a kind person, a religious do-gooder, a social work student just coming out of school, or a person who got tired of the rat race and wanted to switch to a job that felt more “meaningful.” That’s okay. Don’t feel intimidated by co-workers that have way more professional experience, relevant knowledge, or who have had life experiences that are similar to those of the people whom you desire to serve. You may feel like you need to put on a front and pretend that you’re “harder” or have more “street smarts” than you actually have. Maybe you’ll even start talking all the street or prison argot like you know what you’re talking about. Don’t do that.
Faking who you are is one of the worst things you can do. A lot of the folks you are wanting to serve have learned to read people really well — when you’re on the street, in and out of jail, have spent a lot of time interacting with various social services and their staff members, or coming from various experiences of violence, marginality, and vulnerability, you can develop a good instinct about who is sincere and who is not. If you’re a faker, you’re going to lose the respect of the people whom you are trying to serve and they’ll put up with you but they won’t want to be around you (and your co-workers might feel the same way, depending on their patience level).
(2) Don’t remain who you are or have been.
Change. This is different than faking things. This is learning to be a different kind of person. Learn to be in relationships with people who are different than you and who (previously) may have made you feel awkward, annoyed, or scared. In fact, seek out the people who scare you and prioritize getting to know them. Doing that, you’ll learn about stereotypes that are embedded within you, even though you think you’re a wonderfully open-minded person. For example, I remember when I first started working with street-involved young people in Toronto — I realized that I was “naturally” gravitating towards the white gutter punk kids, and was more standoffish with the Jamaican soldiers or the aboriginal gang-bangers. I realized that I felt intimidated by them… and I realized that there were some race-related fears I carried within me even though I always thought I had no prejudices or anything like that related to race.
[A bit off topic but here’s a thought experiment for you: if you’re walking down a lonely street late at night and you see two white boys dressed in preppy clothing walking down the sidewalk towards you would you have a different internal reaction than if you saw two black fellas dressed in hip-hop clothing walking down the sidewalk towards you? What about two aboriginal guys covered in tattoos? Notice that the only basis for having a different reaction would be the appearance of the guys — their skin and clothing — and nothing else. Hmmmm…]
Also, there’s every chance that you don’t really know how to care about people and serve them in the ways in which they truly want to be served and in the ways that would really help them to attain the goals they have set for themselves. A lot of people will tell you what’s wrong with “the poor” or “addicts” or “juvenile delinquents” — from social service schools, to charitable organizations, to churches — and a lot of people will think they have “the answers” or “the solutions”… and a lot of those people will be wrong. This means that even if you don’t hold a lot of negative stereotypes about people who experience homelessness, you still might adhere to a model of service or of care that does a lot of harm. So, you may think you’re helping people but you’re actually hurting them.
This means that, if you get into this work, you’re going to have to be open to asking hard questions of yourself about yourself. You’ll have to be open to the criticisms of others. If somebody you are trying to serve flips out on you ask yourself: am I doing what is best? How can I do this different? Don’t just retreat to excuses like “Oh, he’s in psychosis” or “Oh, she’s mad but I’m just doing things by the book.” Step back and examine yourself. Same goes from criticisms you receive from co-workers — and you really need to invite those criticisms (I know I still need to do that… it’s probably a life-long thing). Don’t just think: “Oh, he’s burnt out” or “Oh, she just had a bad day.” Step back and think.
(3) Learn everything you can from everybody you can and apply it in your own way.
Listen, first and foremost, to the people whom you are claiming to serve. Listen to them as people. Like you would listen to your friends. Or family. Or teachers. Or anybody else. If you’re listening to somebody like she is a problem you are going to help solve, you’re not listening very well. If you’re listening to somebody like he is a charity case and you are doing him a favour, you’re not listening very well. Learn to be a good listener. Don’t just think about the next thing you’re going to say or how you’re going to fix everything up. Think about if things were reversed and you were doing the talking.
One of the most helpful initial things you can learn from the folks whom you claim to serve is who the good workers are (learn this from observation more than anything). What staff members are respected by the clients? Who do people go to when they really need to talk? Who do people go to for help with solving a problem? Why do they go to these people? Watch these workers. Learn from them. Ask them lots of questions. Questions are good and there is nothing wrong with asking them. Don’t feel shy — it’s massively refreshing to meet new workers who ask good questions (and if you are listening and watching like this, you will be asking good questions). Ask if you can join them in some of their conversations or in some of their tasks, projects or groups. Don’t feel offended if they say no. As they get to know you more, and as you demonstrate your caliber and character, you’ll receive more and more invitations to join various things.
Also watch and see what staff members are not respected by the clients? Who do they “put up with”? Who do they dislike? Why? Don’t be like them. By saying these things — I’m not saying that this is some sort of popularity contest. Respect is a deeper thing than popularity. Some people will say “Oh, the residents/clients/whomever don’t like me because I enforce the rules” or “because I tell it like it is.” Bullshit. I know people who enforce rules but whom are well respected (because of how they go about doing that) and people who enforce rules that are despised (because of how they go about doing that). And there are plenty of different ways to “tell it like it is.”
Same goes, by the way, for the staff members who are respected by the people whom we claim to serve. Some people will say: “Oh, they just like that worker because she’s hot.” Bullshit. I’ve known plenty of hot workers and some were loved and some were hated.
One point of clarification: when I say that you should learn to be like certain co-workers and not like others, I’m not saying you should try to be somebody else or somebody you are not (i.e. I’m not saying you need to be a faker). What I am saying is that you can learn basic characteristics or skills to apply or avoid and then find your own way to apply those things and your own niche.
So learn from the folks you want to serve and learn from your-coworkers. But you also learn about where you work. Learn what you can and cannot do there. Learn what other people do there. Know what is expected of you. Learn what other services are available in town and learn how to network with them. Learn the relevant legislation and learn about the broader socioeconomic, political, and cultural dynamics that are relevant to your work. In other words, learn to do your job and learn to do it well. You are getting paid because people are homeless — so everything you buy is bought with money you gained from being in a situation wherein homelessness exists. This means that, out of everybody in society, you’ve got a massive debt to people who are homeless (this is why some folks refer to social services as poverty pimps — people and agencies who have learned to exploit the context of homelessness for their own advantage and comfort… but more on that later).
Of course, all this learning takes time. And that’s okay. Just dive right in. The water is warm, and you will very quickly gain respect from your co-workers and from the people whom you desire to serve if they see you learning everything you can.
A Note on Derrida's Reading of "Counterfeit Money"
[A thought that occurred to me when I read Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money. I feel like I might be missing something so I’m throwing this up here hoping that those who know more about these things could expand on this.]
Given all the different angles, options, rabbit trails, and possible readings he explores, there is one reading of Baudelaire’s story (Counterfeit Money) that came to my mind fairly early on but that Derrida never mentions. It is this: what if the friend of the narrator is giving gifts to the narrator (not just one but two gifts)?
The narrators states that “You are right; next to the pleasure of feeling surprise, there is none greater than to cause a surprise.” In response to this the friend immediately surprises the narrator both by the words he says (“It was the counterfeit coin”) and the way in which he says those words (“he calmly replied”). This then sparks a series of thoughts in the narrator’s mind — as he tries to make sense of this surprising revelation — which is then interrupted by an even more surprising (and “appalling”) revelation from the friend of the narrator — he repeats the first statement the narrator made (albeit with a few alterations): “Yes, you are right; there is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for.”
Notice this: the friend does not say that receiving a surprise is a greater pleasure than giving a surprise (as the narrator asserted). And he is more specific about the kind of surprise that creates pleasure in the one who creates the surprise — giving a person more than he or she hopes for. Is this not precisely what the friend has now done with the narrator? He surprised him (twice!). And this was more than the narrator hoped for — instead of causing him pleasure it appalled him and, rather than making him feel gratitude, it caused him to feel that his friend had committed an unforgivable offense!
One wonders, then, how Derrida neglected this reading for doesn’t it offer us something closer to an example of the “pure gift” he speaks about throughout this text? A gift that cannot be recognized as a gift, a gift that does not create any sense of debt, exchange or obligation, nothing is given back in order to annul the gift, it disappears in a flash (although that does not mean what has transpired in this event has no longer lasting impact) and so on.
If this is the case, one is left questioning the value of pure(r) gifts. While Derrida is certainly correct to observe how that which has been named “gift” (by Mauss and others) can very easily cause as much or more harm than help, one wonders if a more pure gift fares any better. The recipient is appalled and offended. The giver is judged and condemned.