I have been known to stand in front of large groups of women and share how we can use the gift of humor and cultivate "an eternal view of things" (ie, this is not the end of the story) to feed our spirits in difficult times. And I stand by that. When you find yourself within a temporarily negative situation which you are powerless to change, it's an effective short-term strategy for finding a way to live well in that place.
As a permanent lifestyle, though, it sucks. Especially if there's subtle pressure upon you from the outside to maintain the illusion that "everything's all right, really" --when it's not. This is the pressure I feel at VG. As long as I show up and shut up and appear happy, all is well. But information about what's really going on inside is not welcome.
That's a sweeping statement and patently unfair. I'm sure there are numbers of individuals who would wish to know (though very few have asked), who would listen with empathy, who would pray for me; all the stuff good Christians do for each other. But where the weight lies, my experience has been that even when there has been a listening ear, wherever my view of things has differed from the "official" one, it has made no discernible difference in the information released or the decisions taken (or the lack thereof).
These decisions affect me, and others I care about, directly and negatively. And hasn't anyone ever told these people that putting a decision off indefinitely is a decision in itself? It is a decision not to deal with what you know on the information you do have, which makes those waiting for action on their behalf despair.
Out of those who have been shafted by the euphemistically-called "financial crisis" in the church (because we don't want to call it by name for what it was: "misappropriation of funds"), two of my closer friends reached the point of despair before I did. One recently gracefully bowed out of the leadership team after several years, not being very upfront about all the reasons why, which is the usual Christian cop-out. She is still accepted, though I've heard her opinions more-or-less dismissed by the one who carries the most weight.
The other, chronologically first, had tried her very best to communicate, first in talks and then by writing, her utter frustration and (at least partly righteous) anger at the way things were going. She asked many pointed and perfectly legitimate questions, most of which still await an answer to this day. Finally, in despair, she wrote a final letter stating why she was giving up and withdrawing from a process stacked against her, but that nothing was solved. At this there was a sigh of relief and she was written off. Just like that. Nobody has ever answered her questions and though since that time it has been repeatedly proven that her view was often the correct one, this has made no apparent difference.
And this is a person who has given her heart to VG's vision and served it at her own cost for many years.
Do you see why it isn't worth it to fight this thing? It has decided which view of reality it supports and will have its way in spite of any evidence to the contrary, no matter how well supported. I had a marriage in which this element increased over the years until there were large swaths of subject matter P and I simply avoided by common unspoken consent; it was pointless to go there because there would be no resolution. I am now not certain, knowing what I have since learned about his psychological profile, that even had P agreed to the counseling I'd begged for (and eventually gave up on), that this would have been redeemable.
Here, though, we have a whole group of leaders who (at least those who matter) seem to be able to remain in a state of blissful ignorance no matter how much information they receive. I don't really understand it; it sure looks like denial from the outside, though. Both A and I got email responses from I, who expressed her astonishment and dismay at the news that we are resigning membership. This just proves the point. Excuse me, I, but just how long did you think we could submit to the reality which is harmful to us, that you support (whether passively or actively)? How long did you think we could live in your La-La Land and thrive?
Or weren't you listening?
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