Week 6: Silence
My parents celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary last week. Prior to their wedding they were together 5 years. That’s 37 years with the same person. And yes, they only ever dated each other. One set of my grandparents celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary earlier this year. My other grandparents would have celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary this year if my grandfather had not passed away almost three years ago. They all also only ever dated each other. This is part of why I, with my 0-1 record when it comes to officially dating someone and countless ambitious situations, have always felt an immense amount of pressure to find “the one”. I have always felt like I was supposed to make it look effortless, like it was plucked straight from the Divine plan.
Purity culture reinforced this in my mind. Which meant that when life happened and lines were crossed that I had been told should not be crossed even though many of them were normal developmental markers, I became increasingly secretive about the romantic/sexual part of my life for fear of others’ judgement and disappointment. And, as things became more complicated, I then lacked skills and knowledge as to how to deal with the situations I was finding myself in. This brought a lot of fear and shame into my world. It created environments that fostered harm being done on numerous levels to myself and those around me.
Eventually, as I was increasingly exposed to different theologies or philosophies around faith and existence, I started to unpack all of this and talk more about this part of my life casually. Truth be told, I’ve actually talked about it a little too much on occasion, but I kept what was essentially (although it was never labeled as such) a very toxic relationship a secret for over two years so I think I’ve earned it in some respects. Talking about all of this doesn’t just undo years of trauma though. Saying something out loud that voices a new idea or opinion doesn’t instantly undo years of shame and guilt, it doesn’t immediately make triggering situations not triggering, it doesn’t stop the anxiety or the dissociation - but it is a start.
Silence did not serve me well. Not the silence of my church on the topic of consent. Not the silence of my parents on the topic of sexual development. Not the silence of myself when I was faced with situations that left me hurt and confused. Silence bred my shame in part because it made me feel like an outlier, when in actuality my experiences were not uncommon at all. Because some of what I was experiencing was developmentally normal despite what purity culture had told me, and other things were, if not normal in the “mainstream” culture, normal for someone living in evangelicalism or leaving it. And maybe, maybe if we could just all talk about it, if the Church didn’t make their demand for perfection in the form of purity as the hallmark virtue among young women and then end the discussion, maybe we’d all be better off. Maybe the Church could actually be a place people could feel accepted and loved without having to have it all together. Maybe singleness, dating, and marriage could all be seen as valid stages of life. Maybe less harm would be done to those in and outside of the Church. Maybe then it could start to be, in some respects, on Earth as it is in Heaven.
I’m not saying this single conversation would fix everything. It is actually one of many conversations that needs to be had where the Church needs to actively listen and the dialogue needs to be less one-sided. This conversation is part of a larger conversation about the Church owning the harm it has caused and making structural changes to do better for all of creation by leaning into the gospel of love, justice, and mercy which Jesus set forth. And to do that, for the work to begin, some of us have to stop being silent.