Dear friends,
I had too much time to read today! I read the Sun magazine story, "Constellations" by Megan Kruse. I also read "The Sweet and the Salt" by Tatjana Soli, and the stories in the section called Readers Write; this month's topic is Narrow Escapes. Both Constellations and The Sweet and the Salt have to do with women being used and abused. Constellations comes closest to my experience as a gynecologist, around the issue of domestic violence. It probes that line between the patient and the helper, the idea one has of the abuser, the hope that the abuse will stop, the love that got twisted, the vulnerability of the children. My heart was in my throat and I could hardly finish reading it. It is a terrorizing topic. One never feels the same way again, after one has tried to help stop a case like this, and seeing the boundary lines bleed, and feeling the self wobble. I bring it up here, because it has to do with violence, with therapy, with the hopes one has for social solutions. And for the brokenness of families. I belong to Al Anon, and many of the stories of wives of alcoholics are these same stories. The tremendous burn-out, the danger, the hopelessness, the sinking into despair grip me. We need armies of social workers, helpers, solutions; and we need to get the corporate monsters off our backs, to help address this issue. There are too many ways to say "it is not my problem". There are too many ways that these most vulnerable souls fall through the cracks. I was just given the book Teens Under the Influence, written by Katherine Ketcham and Nicholas Pace, MD. She is a co-author of one of my favorite books, "the Spirituality of Imperfection"-- and this is a good book. But it set me up with even thinner skin for this story. May this year be the year that the medical community says NO to the defeating forces, and YES to community and common good. I know it is only a sliver of hope; "Once in a blue moon"-- and we just got one! Bless all of you who are doing so much to hold up your corners of the world!
