Who told us to leave our spirituality, our hearts, at the door when we get ready to leave our vehicles in the parking lots of our employers? When was this subtly fed to us? I was outrightly told to do this when I began working for a Lutheran based organization in Northwestern Minnesota. It was part of staff training involving the opening of a newly built facility for troubled children between the ages of 10 and 17. The young director who had been hired had worked in the field of “juvenile delinquency” for a number of years and he meant no harm to me or the others. His message was one of arming ourselves to the manipulations and triangulation attempts of the residents, those who would be coming at the bequest of their parents and at the order of the juvenile judicial system. What this director was not aware of was how leaving my spirituality out in the car left me a fragmented individual always facing a battle of “Who am I?” and “Why am I doing this difficult, emotional work?” The scenarios that came with these young people were as diverse as the color of their hair and the fashions that they wore. I was employed to “hold them accountable and teach them new behavior skills”. It sounds very matter of fact and leaving the more sentimental part of myself out of the equation probably makes pretty good sense from a purely methodological point of view but, in reality, it gets messy. Let’s take the 10-year old young girl who acted out as a result of her mother drinking heavily, partying in her home with strange men, and then sending those men purposely down to her daughter’s bedroom as a “reward”, “payment”, or “entertainment” for them and as a nightmare for her daughter. Her real pain, she said, was that her mother would beat her with the heals of shoes and the metal handle of a fly swatter. I listened as best I could as one who was fragmented. All this little girl said she wanted from me was to hold her. She cried and I cried. I tried very hard to stifle the sobs inside of me. I could envision her story and felt the initial stirrings of my senses towards the fear and dread that must have accompanied the stumbling footsteps down the hallway as she lay there frightened and alone. I could not hold her and I should not have held her in the system of managed care. I was the only staff on at that particular point in time and I was vulnerable to any possible accusations that a young child may have chosen to point towards me and with that could be the suffering of my own children. Leaving my spiritual self out in my vehicle did not help me to figure this out, though, or to make some kind of peace with it. It left me feeling cold, authoritative, and inhumane. It did not help me to problem solve and let surface the Will of God and the eternal possibilities, including that of spiritual healing, which could have been addressed in what I would later discover to be that “Holy” moment. To this day I pray that she saw my tears for her for I could not shut my body off to the torment shared as she sat on the bed in her room. I also pray for her forgiveness and God’s Mercy for the way I stumbled into a conversation about talking to her social worker after the tide of grief had resided and I could physically breathe again. Do not get me wrong, the conversation would have included the hopefully compassionate social worker but it also would have included God in whatever way He would have led me to.
This little girl’s story is huge because it brings to light Satan’s hold and our human sinfulness. Her heart “cried” at the injustice of her being “locked up” while her mother and the rest of the perpetrators continued “free” to walk through their days without punitive readjustment. The world of the 10 year old does not include an understanding for social problems and repetitive abusing. It is full of love and hate, yes or no, happiness or pain, comfort or fear, friend or foe. She is the “next generation” that falls under the “sins of the father (and mother)”. We have tried for years now to bring about some systematic form of justice that will, hopefully, eventually fulfill her basic needs. But who among us will help her to “spiritually heal” from this crucifixion? Who will be brave enough to add spiritual awareness to the initial staff training agenda not only in this and other Christian funded homes for children with mission statements that use the name of God or His Son, Jesus Christ, but also within the entire framework of the social system of juvenile, disabled adult, elderly, human care. If all past and present staff were to gather for a reunion of sorts, would there be a desire for communal prayer to help us heal? To help us heal the truth of the stories left fragmented within us that trouble our sleep at nights? Would we cry for ourselves and for those we came to know so well and hold one another against the raging storm of sin or would we refer each other to someone else, someone else who hopefully would be compassionate and understand that sending us into hell without the armor of our Savior and the possibilities of our Advocate, the Holy Spirit, just keeps the abuse smoldering, waiting for that wisp of wind that will set it alight all again.
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