Recovering from human evil
When I used to think of the evil humans do I’d think of war and rape and the torture of political prisoners ... the things written of in your issue on recovering from human evil. I never thought to include my personal experience as a victim of incest. It wasn’t "worthy" of being included with the aforementioned. It took years for me (and the professional psychological world) to recognize that I suffered from traumatic shock in many ways identical to soldiers and torture victims. My father used the tactics of tyrants and torturers everywhere to create fear and silence in our home. Child abuse, and especially sexual abuse, may seem too small and personal, or the opposite, too rampant and universal, for most people to want to deal with. That’s what I’m telling myself these days as I struggle with the vacuum all around me. I’m trying to understand why good people fail to struggle with, talk about, cry over, preach about the abuse of children. I can think of no greater betrayal among human beings than parents assaulting their own children. If it’s too much for most people to comprehend, imagine what it is for the child and the child grown to adulthood, who sees nothing around her – be it church, state, family or friends – that challenges the monster that nearly destroyed her (and at times still threatens to destroy). Silence was, and is, evil’s weapon of choice. I’m sorry The Witness contained more of that silence. I’m not angry, you understand. I’m just sad, and sadly unsurprised.

So I know I have to speak up, and my thoughts lately have been on how to find the language people can hear. There’s a stunning book that provides the vocabulary I’ve been looking for: Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery. It links all the evils and their effects and makes the kind of sense the wheel must have seemed moments after the first one rolled out ... why didn’t we think of this before??? Now if I can just get someone to read it. So I tell my minister at the peace and social justice church I belong to that I’ve never heard the word "incest" from the pulpit. For that matter, I’ve never heard it in church or from a minister or priest at all (not even the priest who heard my childhood confession). Silence. My minister does speak it in a sermon, bless him, but he doesn’t know what else to say about it and the Herman book he ordered just doesn’t seem to get cracked open. I understand why – there’s the Iraqi delegation trip and there’s the death penalty issue thing and this corporate take-over of the church’s neighborhood to deal with ... But I’m beginning to understand that I can’t wait patiently in line to give the devil his due on this. The abuse of children is as plain an evil as you can get and the devil has had a field day with the human race’s silence and lack of comprehension. My minister confessed to being afraid to read about trauma and recovery and I told him it was good to know he was afraid and that it wasn’t that he simply didn’t care. "I pray that’s not so," he said, and so do I.

I’m asking this splendid publication to witness to the children, all around us in our homes, schools, churches, who suffer in silence and secrecy. Witness, please, to we who are grown and struggle with an evil few seem to care to attend to. The Witness is one of the best things I know of the religious community and I am seeking hope within that community for light, light that will conquer an old, old darkness.

Mary Eldridge
Milford, MI

Time and freedom
During my tenure at All Saints Church, heading our peace and justice ministry, The Witness became a major resource for me and our various advocacy groups. I clip articles and share them with my colleagues and family. I reread back issues (the stack has now become a piece of furniture in my study). So it’s time I thanked you for this important and abundant support in my work for justice and nonviolence.

This month I want to render very special thanks for the masterpiece of an article on the living wage. As an Executive Board member and one of the founders of CLUE, I can tell you Camille Colatosti got it right! She did a great job explaining our campaign, defining clearly the impact of poverty wages and the benefits to community, business and workers of a living wage. She captured the spirit of our grassroots, interfaith, cooperative movement here in L.A. We are grateful to her and to you for this definitive piece. You may be certain it will be an invaluable boost to our outreach to the "unconverted."

Mary Coleman
Pasadena, CA

Witness praise

I find your magazine wonderful! The articles are so full of real "meat."

Julie Weldon
Monona, WI

Thanks, and an invitation
I am a prisoner in the Iowa Prison System taking part in a Christ-centered, Bible-based program called Innerchange Freedom Initiative. We are a group of 150 men who seek and struggle to transform our old self and ways into the new self and ways that are ours through our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.

We are doing this in an 18-month program of intense Bible studies, Life Skills classes, Christ-centered Drug Treatment, and lots of prayer and devotion to our Loving Savior God.

We spend a lot of time and energy praying for the needs and concerns of all. We know that God listens to the prayers of all, but maybe especially to those of the lowest of the low, the poorest of the poor, and even to those hidden away from and rejected by society.

I would like to extend an invitation for prayer requests from you and your readers. We have been praying for the ministry and witness of your journal, as well as for Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann and her family and will continue to do so.

We count it a blessing to be able to pray for others and the world as a whole. All those inside and outside the walls of confinement are in need of the loving arms of God and His people.

Christopher M. Kenline #1102558
Newton Correctional Facility
Box 218
Newton, IA 50208-0218

Great Issue
The Jan/Feb issue of The Witness was outstanding in its comprehensiveness. For example, "Free time for a free people" was a great complement to the article on "Fighting for a living wage." In the latter piece, Camille Colatosti did a very thorough job, capturing both the reach and political thought behind the living wage campaign, and its theological rationale. Bob DeWitt’s piece was tremendously moving and evoked many good memories of working with him at the Episcopal Church Publishing Company. One correction in the living wage piece having to do with the Church Pension Fund: The meeting between Fund trustees and the Service Employees International Union did take place, two years ago, urged on by a letter of 80 bishops to the president of the Fund. Together with a new approach by the union to the building contractors in Washington D.C., on behalf of the low wage janitors there, the Fund’s cooperation resulted in a new labor agreement. The Diocese of Los Angeles last December passed a resolution commending the Fund for this action, and urging it to go further, following the good example of the Executive Council’s Committee for Social Responsibility in Investments. Hopefully a similar resolution will be offered at General Convention, to strongly encourage the Fund to become more pro-active in stockholder actions on behalf of peace and justice.

Dick Gillett
Minister for Social Justice
Diocese of Los Angeles