“Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.”-Augustine
the creative maladjusted nonconformist
"The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority."— Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is dedicated to my practicum family and was written with us in mind at this ending time. Thank you each for an incredible journey.You've left your mark on me
I am not unscathed by the battles we've raged in this place
Fighting for hope in the spaces where hope has been suffocated
Struggling for life when death is immanent
Believing the resurrection is truth
Holding onto the stake in the sand as the wave dedicatedly crashes upon us both
You've left your mark on me and today we are a we
You've left your mark on me
When I could not see, you saw my face and held it with kindness
When I could not hear, you heard the other and patiently invited me along
When I could not feel, you waited for my heart to show up and felt for me
Believing that being created with the Imago Dei in mind
Is plenty enough a stake in the sand to hold us both under the waves
You've left your mark on me and today we are a we
You've left your mark on me
You graciously shared your sacred stories
Your words called out in me a response to love better, to hear and see you more
Your tears and laughter have met me in my own emotion—calling me to own my emotion
Believing that bringing ourselves fully to each other
Provides an encounter rich with reality and transformation as we brave the waves together
You've left your mark on me and today we are a we
You've left your mark on me
Beginning our journey in this place with ambiguity and expectation
Beginning our restoration in this space as story and grief meet
Beginning our conversion right here—from what should be to the truth of who we are
Believing the cost of this all is greatly worth the prize
Makes the waves seem less imposing, and our hearts actually invite the swells
You’ve left your mark on me and today we are a we
Anya Reeser; April 15, 2009
I've changed shape, morphed into a newness your turned eyes cannot ignore
Tears have left grooves as they've persisted down my face:
Ugly to you...beauty in this place
Beauty on this face; my face
I walk differently than I did when you knew me
My feet dance their way through these days making music of the old debris
Stories have found home in my heart—the light and the dark:
Unwelcomed by many...embraced here is life the words impart
Beauty in this heart; my heart
I taste stranger than I did when you tried me out in the past
Life's added spices and diversity and cultures so different, a conversion so vast
People have left their foot print in my mind, in my soul, in my in-betweens:
You say "Be strong, be safe like us all"...here, though,
God is seen in my interactions with the obscene
Beauty for the in-betweens; my in-betweens
Touch me, and you'll feel a soul altered in ways you've not felt before
A cold heart's melted, a body awakened, no longer closed, an openness and invitation for you to explore
Grace has become my aroma, hope has become my air—breathe in death, breathe out life:
Most reject the joy in this strife…here the paradox enjoyed with sweet delight
Beauty for this life; my life
Perhaps you'll engage me differently, if you dare
A risk to admit: the refining metamorphosis in me begs the same in you—this is what we share
Truth is, there's no me without a you (without you) and in the same way no you without me
To exist well we must be a we…you and I together create the purest essence of unadulterated beauty
Anya Reeser, 2009
As inseparable as violent waves and paradise's sea shore
Beauty to ashes; ashes to new growth
As captivating as the redemption of an unlovable whore
The agony of death holds hands - woven fingers -
With the relief of breath again
The in-between spaces cannot be named, or claimed, or changed
Life to death is & death to life is the same
Grief leaves wakes as it makes its way through the body of celebration
Break out the champagne: let's toast to the funeral sensation
Without placation of pain, sorrow and mourning
Such is the beauty and form of liberation
Black & white; white & black
Grey is the abomination, and grief is its companion
Too dangerous to be anything but this or that
Grey is the celebration, and freedom is plenty to traverse the canyon…
Of one or the other
Too much & not enough
The pendulum swings and one day it will rest when waters are still rough
In the middle created from raw, organic and pure stuff
Not that stuff or this stuff, the middle stuff…the me stuff
With one foot in death & the other in life
There is sweet joy in having a split-level foundation
Learning to be myself…to be me in spite
Of the awful pain of this transformation
Anya Reeser, 2009
A Very Simple Wish
i want to write an image
like a log-cabin quilt pattern
and stretch it across all the lonely
people who just don't fit in
we might make a world
if i do that
i want to boil a stew with all
the leftover folk
whose bodies are full of empty lives
we might feed a world
if i do that
twice in our lives we need direction
when we are young and innocent
when we are old and cynical
but since the old refused
to discipline us
we now refuse
to discipline them
which is a contemptuous way
for us to respond to each other
i'm always surprised
that it's easier to stick
a gun in someone's face
or a knife in someone's back
than to touch skin to skin
anyone whom we like
i should imagine if nature holds true
one day we will lose our hands
since we do no work nor make any love
if nature is true we shall lose our eyes
since we cannot even now distinguish
the good from the evil
i should imagine we shall lose our souls
since we have so blatantly put them up
for sale and glutted the marketplace
thereby depressing the price
i wonder why we don't love
not some people way on
the other side of the world with strange
customs and habits
not some folk
from whom we were sold
hundreds of years ago
but people who look like us
who think like us
who want to love us why
don't we love them
i want to make a quilt
of all the patches and find
one long strong pole to lift it up
i've a mind to build a new world
i want to play- Nikki Giovanni
I am not sure when it happened exactly, but at one point following the conclusion of our time together as a class (DVA 503-Advocacy for Victims of Domestic Violence) I suddenly encountered a deep desire and an urgency to get involved in the process of advocacy for the victims of domestic violence. While sitting in the large circle with my classmates and participating in two beautiful smudging ceremonies, I was able to listen to the voices of those who have personally met the devastation of domestic violence, and my own story found company that I did not realize it was longing for. After months of assuming that my flat-lined heart was simply operating via the power of some metaphysical life-giving machine that allowed me to experience the most primitive of emotions, the passion happened, and it happened quickly. Perhaps God, who has been almost as silent and unresponsive as my heart, decided that now is the time in which God would be present—the incarnational gospel becoming real and tangible and I somehow fit into God’s plans for redemptive work in the realm of domestic violence. Unexpectedly, I have built relationships with people who are currently involved in all kinds of creative and redemptive advocacy on behalf of the women who have no voice to approach the darkness of domestic violence. One of these relationships, and one that I will cherish forever, is my new friendship with a police officer stationed at the Seattle Police Department (SPD) Southwest Precinct. Four hours spent with Officer W (name protected) during a ride-along has left me with an accomplice in this mysteriously new endeavor to reflect the Imago Dei to the overwhelming and unknown territory of domestic violence.
Click on "Read More" below if you want to...well, read more.
Two weeks prior to my ride-along with W, I adamantly began a search for how I might be able to get involved as an advocate for victims of domestic violence in my community now, not really wanting to wait until I am educated and professionally licensed to intervene. In my exploration, I came across a volunteer program through the SPD called the Domestic Violence Victim Support Team (VST). This is a program that links the members of the community with police to address and prevent domestic violence. According to the SPD website, “Volunteers with VST provide crisis intervention, support, and resources to domestic violence victims and their children at secured crime scenes during the critical time following a domestic violence incident”. I immediately became interested and made some calls to find out more. Following my first conversation with the director of the VST and attending an open house for the program, I decided to apply for the program’s rigorous seven-week training academy in hopes of joining the team in late spring. The program requires that its volunteers go on at least one ride-along with an officer prior to finishing the formal training, and I was already planning on doing so. When I set up my ride-along I ended up speaking with an officer at the SW Precinct who was well respected by the VST volunteers I had met at the open house. He pulled some strings for me and set up a ride-along for third watch on Friday night (a time slot when civilians are not generally allowed to go on ride-alongs) so that I could meet up with the VST volunteers while they were on duty. The encounter with the volunteers is what I most anticipated and looked forward to, and the opportunity to do so allowed for great conversation with W during the course of our time together.I met W at the precinct on Friday the 13th—of all nights—and he first took me on a tour of the building. In the process of following him while he completed his routine for beginning a shift, I met a number of officers and the lieutenant and sergeant on duty. It was during these introductions that I was able to share about my interest in domestic violence and I was thrilled to hear from each that there was an active awareness of domestic violence and I was shocked by their overwhelming support of the people who are community advocates and the VST volunteers. In myself I was aware of a lessening of the prejudice that police officers are not involved with nor concerned about the victims of domestic violence. In the 15 minutes it took to get all geared up and out to the car, my perspective on the local police began to soften and transform, and it set the precedent for the following four hours that I spent with W patrolling the streets of Southwest Seattle.
W is the most animated and kind-spirited police officer I have had the pleasure of getting to know. He was eager to share all about what his duties entail as an officer, his “normal” routine when out on the streets, and his thoughts about citizens’ perspectives about police officers. He expressed more than once that he wished more citizens would join officers for a ride-along so that more people might gain a better idea of what they do. W was passionate about his honesty and fairness on the streets, and he shared stories of how his reputation of being a cop with a foundation of unprejudiced justice created opportunities for him to interact with criminals in a kind and civil way. He is well respected, and deserves to be so. Our ride was pretty uneventful—in the four hours we only responded as backup to three low-priority calls—and yet I learned more sitting in the passenger seat having conversation with W than I might have if we were busy and distracted by other incidents.
We were notified by the precinct’s secretary, B (name protected) (a retired field police officer), that the VST had arrived, and W and I made our way to meet them there. I had previously met one of the volunteers ho was training another volunteer that night. We spent about 20 minutes talking about SPD’s involvement in addressing and preventing domestic violence, and I appreciated the active participation of W and B. The sobering realities of domestic violence did not seem to dissuade the volunteers or the officers of confronting the issue; on the contrary, each seemed to use their emotional responses as fuel for engaging domestic violence head-on in a way that is healthy and understanding of the victim’s experience of the violence and the intervention of the police and the VST. This laid the foundation for the conversations I later had with W about his experiences as a police officer and civilian when confronted with domestic violence.
Most interesting about my time with W were discussions about how his work required that he hold the stark contrast of hope and hopelessness while dealing with the lives of people. He has no true concept of black and white, claiming that people make everything grey. Domestic violence was this way for W, as well. When he encounters domestic violence, which is very often, he struggles in his role as a police officer to uphold the law while addressing his desire to care for the victim, the children, and the perpetrator. He shared about how the law states that if there is any testimony of an assault at all, regardless of evidence, he is required to make an arrest. W talked about how sometimes he is certain that the man had not done anything (yet) and the woman called the police “to get back at him” or to “get even.” Although I could hear what W’s concerns were about women who take “advantage” of the system, I encouraged him to consider what the woman was “getting even” for in such a drastic and public way. W began to ask questions about the women who are repeatedly victims and expressed his confusion about what women might stay. We had such great conversation and W admitted that even in all of his encounters with domestic violence (hundreds upon hundreds of cases), he was unsure of how to really engage his heart and mind at the same time. He said that sometimes it is just so violent and graphic that he has to rely upon his ability to “shut down”, just like the tactics he used in the military. I think he had the revelation that it was only in domestic violence cases that he used this technique, and he was curious about that and why that is the case for so many officers.
Part of W’s difficulty in engaging domestic violence cases fully is due to the children who are witnesses and even victims themselves. He was ashamed by the number of times that he had to make arrests or use physical force to subdue a parent in front of the children; and W also acknowledged that there are just some times that it cannot be avoided when considering the safety of all the people involved. Talking about the effects on children opened the door for W to share a little bit of his tragic story with me. Hearing his story gave me a beautiful picture of why W experienced the most trauma when responding to domestic violence cases when children are involved: he could feel empathy and there is not much room for empathy in his line of work.
My time with W was filled with laughter and moments of silent reflection upon the gravity of his responsibilities. He is so concerned that he might burden his family with the heaviness that he deals with daily and I was shocked to hear W say that he had exposed to me more of himself and his experiences as a police officer than he ever has with his wife. I thought that I was in the car as a burden, in a bump-on-a-log sort of way, and now I realize that I have the privilege of holding W’s story and standing with him in the midst of his ambivalence. Although our ride was pretty eventless, I am now, more than ever, excited about the potential working with W and officers like him through the VST. I have a respect for the very hard and underappreciated work of police officers, and I value the persons behind the uniforms. Maybe my conversations with W and the other officers I met were the beginnings of a redemptive and caring work in the hearts of those in the SPD involved in addressing the issues of domestic violence. Maybe the relational gospel will not only infiltrate the lives of the victims through advocacy, but also the lives of the officers who are desperate for an encounter with Someone who can handle all that they see and are faced with. Maybe God desires to be the advocate for everyone who experiences the devastation of domestic violence in their lives, no matter to what extent. Maybe I can be just a part that kind of advocacy.
1. a Counseling Psychology student at Mars Hill Graduate School
2. a lover of words, poetry, and life
3. a maker of music, tears and love
4. an original copy of those who have gone before me
5. a trumpet player, guitar strummer, melody hummer and friend.
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian Archbishop
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