How is Everyone Doing?

“How is everyone doing?” Many kind people have asked me this question these past few days. Following the untimely death of Michelle Mueller-Hinton, our beloved Director of Christian Education and Learning Ladder Preschool, everyone- friends, teachers, children, church members, staff, and family, especially family- everyone is grieving. Grieving itself is a good gift of God, and it is a part of becoming whole, even in the grip of loss.

How is everyone doing their grieving has been powerful to see. I’ve seen it on Sunday morning in worship and Monday and Tuesday mornings in preschool. Of course there are tears, and there are those hugs that are actually a way for two people to hold each other up. There are loving conversations in homes and in hallways and in grocery stores and everywhere else. There are circles of people praying in our classrooms. There are people coming down the Sunday school hall to say, “Here I am. Do you need me to go teach or just help somewhere?” (We did.)  There are staff members who are putting in long hours to do double and triple duty to make sure everything is covered, even as they are grieving deeply themselves. There are so very many acts of kindness, big and small.  These are assurances that we will all get through this grief together, and we will.

One of my favorite acts of kindness that I’ve witnessed was the person who brought donuts to the Learning Ladder staff, saying “Food is my love language.” Even when people don’t know exactly what to do, I keep seeing people do what is exactly right. People have offered and continue to offer to help the church, the preschool, and each other get through this time. Thank you. You are truly making a difference.

There is laughter, too, and that’s good. There are the moments when something comes up, and we’ll say automatically, “Oh, let’s ask Michelle. . .” And then a rueful smile, or a tear, or a chuckle. All of these things are a part of how we grieve, and they are along the path to healing.

How are the children doing? Mostly, they are doing what children do, which is play together and process things at their own pace in their own manner. When Michelle would be asked by parents how to help their children deal with loss, she would recommend the book The Fall of Freddie the Leaf, by Leo Buscaglia. It’s a good book for all ages, and I join Michelle in commending it to you.

On Saturday, we’ll celebrate Michelle’s life with joy and laughter, along with tears. All of these things can coexist at the same time in grief. 

How is everyone doing? We are doing this grief together, which is the best and only way that it can be done. Which is exactly how Michelle would do it, too.

An Election Day Prayer

Dear God,

I pray to you for my beloved country. Today, I will get to live out the freedom with which I have been gifted as I cast my ballot. Grant me wisdom and discernment, so that my choices may reflect your call to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with you.  May my vote ennoble my community, and may it help bring into reality my prayers for peace on earth.

I thank you, O God, for those persons who have offered themselves in public service. I am humbled by their willingness to serve, even at great personal cost, so that they might be in a position to make tough decisions on my behalf. Protect and uphold these persons, even the ones for whom I do not vote.

Forgive me for the times I have judged someone harshly simply for holding political opinions which differ from mine. May I treat persons of other political stripes the same way that I would have them treat me. Give me a patient persistence as I wait in line to vote today, coupled with the vision to see your image reflected in the poll workers and the people standing in line around me. Transform my natural impatience so that I may be a joyful and peaceful presence to others as I wait for the privilege of casting my ballot.

When the election results are known this night, allow me a generous grace when the causes and candidates I support are victorious. Strengthen within me an enduring hope when my causes and candidates fail. 

At the end of this day, just as at the beginning of this day, you alone are God. Your steadfast love for all of creation, including this creature, persists. Grant me an abiding trust in your love that will allow me to sleep peacefully tonight. And in the light of tomorrow’s new day, give me grace to pray once again for my beloved country in which I am blessed to dwell.

Amen.

What Almost Happened to Me, Too

How to know who or what to believe has been in our national consciousness a lot these past couple of weeks. It feels as if we’re standing alongside Pilate when he asked Jesus, “What is truth?”

Here is my truth.

My “what-almost-happened-yet-thankfully-didn’t” incident happened during my freshman year at Davidson College in 1980. A freshman guy had invited me for a ride in his sports car, although taking me whizzing through the Appalachian foothills was not the way to my prone-to-motion-sickness heart. He seemed nice, so I invited him to a mixer that my hall was hosting a couple of weeks later. 

At the mixer that night, he was a different person. He kept putting his hands all over me while we stood talking to other people on my hall. Having someone constantly touching my back, butt, and breasts was annoying and embarrassing. I nudged him away. I elbowed him away. I would take his hand and remove it from my body, and he would put it right back. All while we were standing and talking to other people. Finally, I got tired of it and, for the only time in my life, resorted a lie so common it was trite: “I have a headache. Good night.” I walked back down the hall to my dorm room, leaving all of my hallmates and the loud party behind in the lounge.

Although I’ve forgotten many details of that evening, what happened next stands out in precise, specific clarity. I walked into my dorm room and stood there with my back to the door, my head in my hands. I said out loud, “What just happened?” And I heard a voice behind me. “I didn’t get a goodnight kiss.” “Fine,” I said out loud, and, as I turned to face him, I finished the sentence internally, “anything to get this date over with.” We kissed, me halfheartedly, and him with increasing energy. I moved away slightly, signaling the end of the kiss. He pressed his mouth harder against mine. I pushed away less subtly, and the pressure of his mouth increased. I tried to use my arms to push away from him. He pinned my arms and kept kissing with greater intensity. I was having trouble breathing, and I struggled, worried that I might pass out. Finally, he took his mouth off of mine.

I inhaled a deep breath of air and gasped, “Stop!”

He said, “No.”

I remember the cold chill of terror that coursed through my system when I heard him say that one word. I did the math quickly. He was much stronger than I was, and I had already proven I was unable to fight him off. Every one of the girls who lived on my hall was at the mixer, and my room was at the far end of the hall. There was no one who would hear me yell for help.

I kept fighting against him as he kept kissing his way down my body. Suddenly, and I will never know why, he let go, dropping me onto the floor. He stood over me and smirked before turning and walking out. I got up and ran to the door, locking it behind him. That night, I told my roommate and other girls on the hall.

Point #1: To whom else would I have reported what almost happened? I counted my lucky stars that “nothing” happened to me. Would I have contacted campus security, or his football coach, to report that he seemed to be about to rape me but then stopped? I imagine the coach might have praised him, “Way to go, son, for stopping when you did.”

My story continued.

At Davidson, the dorms are mostly in one part of campus, and the classroom buildings are in the main quadrangle. As a result, students tended to walk en masse along the same path to class. The following week, I was walking to class when he came up behind me, putting his arm around my shoulder. I elbowed him hard and ran ahead to walk the rest of the way in safety with a group of friends.

Shortly after that, he called me to invite me to Midwinters, one of three formal weekends Davidson hosted. I was shocked that he thought I would go out with him again. After all, his final image of me from our date would have been me lying on the floor where he dropped me as he strode out the door.  I told him I wouldn’t go to Midwinters with him since I already had another date, which I did.

Point #2: What I experienced as a terrifying “almost date rape,” he experienced as “a date.” It didn’t even register to him that what he had done would have any impact on me and my willingness to go out with him again.

One of my friends on my freshman hall called me a little while later. She told me, breathlessly, that he had been so despondent over my refusal that he had driven off in his sports car. She asked me to join the search party and was surprised when I declined.

She knew what he had done to me. Somehow, she didn’t understand that, although I didn’t wish him ill, my participation in his life ended the moment I locked the door of my dorm room behind him.

Point #3: Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you aren’t a product of the same culture. It can be complicated to disentangle ourselves from it.

He did, by the way, return to his dorm safely that afternoon. And, thankfully, I never spoke to him or saw him again.

Point #2, reprised. My distress came from attempted date rape. His despondency came from being turned down for a second date.  Our different vantage points in terms of power and gender created entirely different responses to the same event.

So why tell my story now? After all of these years, I really am fine. This experience was one more thing that helped me to recognize the good, kind man that I met and married a few years later. Right now, though, many people of good faith from throughout the political spectrum are trying to know what to believe. I wish that I could have begun my story by saying, “You’ll probably never believe what happened to me,” and that people would have found my story unbelievable, not because I was one more woman telling a story of violence that has become all too common, but because we lived in an era when such behavior was inexcusable. What if we found such stories unbelievable because we lived in a time when young men were taught that “stop” was not a challenge but a mandate? We’re not there yet, but I believe it’s worth it to try to get us a little closer to that vision.

And so I’m allowing you to know about this thing that almost happened to me. Add my voice to the voices you’ve heard. And dream and pray along with me for a day when such an experience will be truly beyond belief.