Do you care?

I do the shopping for my work on a weekly basis.  I go to a grocery store I don’t love, because the stationary store I do love is in the same center.  I park in different places, never too close to the entrance, but also not too far.  I realized today that I avoid parking in a particular row, which today I forced myself to park in.  As I climbed out of my mother’s car I reorganized the cord for my ear phones so I could listen to a podcast as a I walked to the first store across the road, before going to the stationary store. Today wasn’t a regular shopping day, but I needed to go hardware store nearby. As I listened to Dr. Caroline Leaf speak on Traumatic Brain Injury and Recovery I walked, purposefully away from the car guard (I don’t know if car guards exist anywhere else in the world, but they are a big part of South African society) who guards the row I don’t park in. 

I care about car guards and people behind counters and tills and holding trays and at the petrol station and at the traffic light.  I believe in people.  Years ago I spoke with the car guard I now avoid, because I believe in and care for people.  I had shown interest in his story, many of the car guards in South Africa are educated men and women from other African countries, Congo, DRC, etc.  He asked about my accent, was I also from another country?  I told him no, but that WE had lived in Japan.  From that point he called me Mrs. Kobe (he had taught geography) and I would ask how he was. 

I don’t remember the exact day, but I remember him standing talking to an old white man.  As I walked past I overheard them discussing me, my shape, my female body in a way I had never expected to hear.  It was a sucker-punch to the gut.  As I walked passed I felt somehow diminished, I felt violated.  It brought back the feelings of helplessness and shame. 

It wasn’t conscious, my avoidance of this car guard.  It was a natural defense mechanism that sprang up to protect me from the unwanted attention and affection I have experienced over the years. 

When my husband and I got notice of the dates for this year’s Global Leader Summit I told him I did not want to go this year.  I couldn’t.  I have been so blessed by the GLS over the years and by Bill Hybels who birthed it, but when allegations of sexual misconduct (I don’t know how to say it right) were made against Bill Hybels my heart broke.  I cried for the women, for him, for his family, for his ministry and for all of the believers and unbelievers and leaders of businesses and churches who have been impacted positively by him.  His life and ministry have had real, life changing influence, there has been much good fruit, but the brokenness echoes the brokenness heard crying out all over the world.  In the end we were invited and my husband said yes.  I still did not want to go, but I didn’t have the guts to say so to anyone other than my husband who didn’t know how to share my feelings with the pastor who invited us.  And then we remembered my father on the anniversary of his suicide.  And my granny died.  And that week was so sore, and the GLS took on the guise of a distraction, until the first speaker and the next.  There was acknowledgement and men who believed in GLS and in Bill Hybels shared their heartache for the women and for all women, and for Bill.  The main them of the conference was along the lines of not living in failure, but learning from it.  The secondary theme was around Gender based violence.  There was a workshop which we attended.  The majority of the audience was women, but there were a handful of men.  The workshop was good.  I cried.  My husband, who has himself started speaking to other men about how they treat women, heard from women other than me, who spoke of the realities they had faced.  I watched his shoulders droop as he sat across from a woman who spoke the words, “I was raped.”

My husband and I, realized that day, that men who care need to listen to women who have had to endure carelessness and violence and brutality. 

Why am I writing this?  

I am declaring that I am not a victim and I won’t be forced to live in fear. 

I care about people.  I believe in people.  People are broken, they are messy, we are messy.  We need love, but I will probably still avoid the car guard for now. 

Why am I writing this? 

Yesterday my 8-year-old daughter, who has anxiety and is on the sensory seeking side of sensory processing issues, was having an off day. She has a few, um, quirks, she is never without an Alice band, she likes shoes that make a noise, she likes her clothing to fit her snugly and often wears hairbands on her wrist.  Of late she has given up the hairbands and replaced them with her shorts worn higher than usual and as tight around her hips as possible.  Yesterday she chose to wear a pair of grey skorts (shorts with a skirt over) with silver stars.  She matched them with her brother’s old Pink Floyd “Another Brick in the Wall” T-shirt and her little black faux leather boots.  She looked cute.  She was happy.  Sorry, I failed to mention that her skorts are technically too small for her.  The shorts parts fits snugly, but the skirt is super short, but she is 8, right?  She was climbing onto the top of the outdoor gym equipment when I overheard a boy her age comment to a group of boys about the length of her skirt.  The other boys sniggered. 

I have my daughter and two sons.  I cannot fear the future, nor can I raise my daughter to live in fear, but I will have to educate her as best possible to be aware.  It is my responsibility to raise my sons in a way that causes them to be champions, warriors, protectors of their sister and other sisters and mothers and daughters. 

Why am I writing this? 

You need to speak.  You need to cry out.  And If you are man, you need to care.