When Faith Hurts

How can it be possible that the lovely Madelyn Simone will be celebrating birthday #6 this week? It seems like yesterday that I was first smitten with this beautiful new granddaughter, and now she’s six (going on sixteen). She’s a chatterbox who loves going to the mall (only because it’s been too cold to go to the park for Nana), and finds a new best friend wherever we go. She adores her sister, the delightful Elizabeth Holiday, although she currently pronounces her name Elizabeff, as she has recently lost two top and two bottom teeth.

While the loss of that first tooth can be distressing, teeth are a necessary loss in childhood so permanent teeth can emerge. Yet other childhood losses are truly traumatic and tragic. The loss of safety, the loss of protection, the loss of innocence – all have a cumulative impact on the growth and development of too many children in our world.

But this is Ashland, Ohio, someplace special. Why do we need to have this conversation here? Surely our children are safe. Well . . . In 2013, 408 cases of suspected child abuse and/or neglect were opened by children’s services in our county. That’s why we need to talk about keeping children safe.

Ashland Theological Seminary, the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County, Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, and University Hospitals are teaming up to bring this vital discussion to our area on March 1-2. The two-day conference, “When Faith Hurts: Understanding, Recognizing and Responding to the Physical, Emotional and Spiritual Impact of Child Maltreatment,” will connect voices from the faith community, law enforcement, mental health and child protection, as we learn together how to lessen risk and how to increase effective intervention when abuse does occur. Victor Vieth of the Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center is coming to Ashland to bring his expertise and experience to our conversation (register at ashlandmhrb.org/whenfaithhurts).     

Alison Feigh, another conference presenter, remembers the day when her eleven-year-old classmate, Jacob Wetterling, was abducted at gunpoint from the end of the gravel driveway at his Minnesota home. Although his picture has been on thousands of milk cartons, Jacob has never been found. You could “taste fear” in the days and weeks following his disappearance, Feigh remembers. Yet instead of crippling her, that early exposure to fear has motivated her life work. “We learned at a very young age the importance of speaking up for people who don’t have a voice because of that.”

How does the faith community fit into this picture? Vieth knows that “the spiritual impact of abuse can be devastating,” but he also recognizes that “spirituality can be a source of resiliency for many children, and that those who are able to cope spiritually, also do a better job of coping emotionally and physically.”  

Within the church, when abuse does occur, it is often shrouded in secrecy and shame. We struggle to believe that this could happen within our congregation, youth group, scouting program, or community center. We’ve rocked this baby when on nursery duty and we know the family. Who could possibly hurt this precious child? Often we’ve eaten a meal at the table with the perpetrator and his/her family. How can this be? And in our response, if there is any, we may meddle more than heal, not intentionally, but because we just don’t know what to do. Yet what I also know is that the path from abuse to wholeness can be powerfully supported and strengthened by the faith community.  

     

I would do anything in my power to protect Madelyn and Elizabeth from the abuses of this world. I long to do so for every child. But too many years in the trenches of social services force me to agree with Vieth: “We may never be able to prevent all cases of child abuse.” Yet he continues, “We can, though, make sure we respond with excellence to the cases that come to light.” I believe “there is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole.” That’s why I plan to gather with the care-givers of our community at AU so that our compassion might be extended with capable hands and voices.