21
" Why have your followers all drawn their swords, may I ask?" said Aslan." May it please Your High Majesty," said the second Mouse, whose name was Peepiceek, " we are all waiting to cut off our own tails if our Chief must go without his. We will not bear the shame of wearing an honor which is denied to the High Mouse." " Ah!" roared Aslan. " You have conquered me. You have great hearts. Not for the sake of your dignity, Reepicheep, but for the love that is between you and your people, and still more for the kindness your people showed me long ago when you ate away the cords that bound me on the Stone Table (and it was then, though you have long forgotten it, that you began to be Talking Mice), you shall have your tail again. "
23
" Take the famous slogan on the atheist bus in London … “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” … The word that offends against realism here is “enjoy.” I’m sorry—enjoy your life? Enjoy your life? I’m not making some kind of neo-puritan objection to enjoyment. Enjoyment is lovely. Enjoyment is great. The more enjoyment the better. But enjoyment is one emotion … Only sometimes, when you’re being lucky, will you stand in a relationship to what’s happening to you where you’ll gaze at it with warm, approving satisfaction. The rest of the time, you’ll be busy feeling hope, boredom, curiosity, anxiety, irritation, fear, joy, bewilderment, hate, tenderness, despair, relief, exhaustion … This really is a bizarre category error.
But not necessarily an innocent one … The implication of the bus slogan is that enjoyment would be your natural state if you weren’t being “worried” by us believer … Take away the malignant threat of God-talk, and you would revert to continuous pleasure, under cloudless skies. What’s so wrong with this, apart from it being total bollocks?
… Suppose, as the atheist bus goes by, that you are the fifty-something woman with the Tesco bags, trudging home to find out whether your dementing lover has smeared the walls of the flat with her own shit again. Yesterday when she did it, you hit her, and she mewled till her face was a mess of tears and mucus which you also had to clean up. The only thing that would ease the weight on your heart would be to tell the funniest, sharpest-tongued person you know about it: but that person no longer inhabits the creature who will meet you when you unlock the door. Respite care would help, but nothing will restore your sweetheart, your true love, your darling, your joy. Or suppose you’re that boy in the wheelchair, the one with the spasming corkscrew limbs and the funny-looking head. You’ve never been able to talk, but one of your hands has been enough under your control to tap out messages. Now the electrical storm in your nervous system is spreading there too, and your fingers tap more errors than readable words. Soon your narrow channel to the world will close altogether, and you’ll be left all alone in the hulk of your body. Research into the genetics of your disease may abolish it altogether in later generations, but it won’t rescue you. Or suppose you’re that skanky-looking woman in the doorway, the one with the rat’s nest of dreadlocks. Two days ago you skedaddled from rehab. The first couple of hits were great: your tolerance had gone right down, over two weeks of abstinence and square meals, and the rush of bliss was the way it used to be when you began. But now you’re back in the grind, and the news is trickling through you that you’ve fucked up big time. Always before you’ve had this story you tell yourself about getting clean, but now you see it isn’t true, now you know you haven’t the strength. Social services will be keeping your little boy. And in about half an hour you’ll be giving someone a blowjob for a fiver behind the bus station. Better drugs policy might help, but it won’t ease the need, and the shame over the need, and the need to wipe away the shame.
So when the atheist bus comes by, and tells you that there’s probably no God so you should stop worrying and enjoy your life, the slogan is not just bitterly inappropriate in mood. What it means, if it’s true, is that anyone who isn’t enjoying themselves is entirely on their own. The three of you are, for instance; you’re all three locked in your unshareable situations, banged up for good in cells no other human being can enter. What the atheist bus says is: there’s no help coming … But let’s be clear about the emotional logic of the bus’s message. It amounts to a denial of hope or consolation, on any but the most chirpy, squeaky, bubble-gummy reading of the human situation. St Augustine called this kind of thing “cruel optimism” fifteen hundred years ago, and it’s still cruel. "
― Francis Spufford
28
" God spoke through the prophet Isaiah and said in Isaiah 54:4-10 (NLT)4 “Fear not; you will no longer live in shame. Don’t be afraid; there is no more disgrace for you.You will no longer remember the shame of your youth and the sorrows of widowhood.5 For your Creator will be your husband; the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is his name!He is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of all the earth.6 For the Lord has called you back from your grief— as though you were a young wife abandoned by her husband,” says your God.7 “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will take you back.8 In a burst of anger I turned my face away for a little while. But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer.9 “Just as I swore in the time of Noah that I would never again let a flood cover the earth,so now I swear that I will never again be angry and punish you.10 For the mountains may move and the hills disappear,but even then my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken,” says the Lord, who has mercy on you. "
31
" Blame is a Defense Against Powerlessness
Betrayal trauma changes you. You have endured a life-altering shock, and are likely living with PTSD symptoms— hypervigilance, flashbacks and bewilderment—with broken trust, with the inability to cope with many situations, and with the complete shut down of parts of your mind, including your ability to focus and regulate your emotions.
Nevertheless, if you are unable to recognize the higher purpose in your pain, to forgive and forget and move on, you clearly have chosen to be addicted to your pain and must enjoy playing the victim.
And the worst is, we are only too ready to agree with this assessment! Trauma victims commonly blame themselves. Blaming oneself for the shame of being a victim is recognized by trauma specialists as a defense against the extreme powerlessness we feel in the wake of a traumatic event. Self-blame continues the illusion of control shock destroys, but prevents us from the necessary working through of the traumatic feelings and memories to heal and recover. "
― Sandra Lee Dennis
34
" I was breaking down, wanting to fade away and cry, yet I feared ever being invisible again. My head lowered to conceal my humiliation behind a curtain of hair where I trembled as if sobbing.“Hey, Gwen, it’s okay. It’s okay. Calm down.”I yearned to feel Daniel’s soft touch meet my temple and then trace along my ear, brushing back the hairs from my face. What I wanted was the comfort his caress always afforded me. He moved as if he would grant my wish, realizing at the last moment that neither of us possessed the power to touch the other.“Your hair, Gwen.”I refused to do what he wanted. I didn’t care for him to see the shame plainly visible in my features. But the next thing I knew, his blue eyes were staring up at me from the ground, a glare reflecting off his glasses. The guy had dropped his books to fall over for a clear view of my face. His desperation made me laugh.“It’s going to be okay, Gwen, I pro "
37
" We kissed for two hours. Eventually, I led him into my bedroom and pulled off both of our shirts. He stopped me." This might sound weird; it's not typical guy response." I froze, suddenly awkward. " I mean, if I didn't feel the way I do with you I would be all for it, but I kind of think maybe it would be good to wait. I've rushed into sex, and had it be a mistake." He shrugged apologetically. " I mean, if it's safe to assume you are experiencing the same date that I am, then I think we will have time." I was a little flabbergasted and more than a little embarrassed. How could I explain that the idea sounded like a huge relief to me, that I didn't quite understand where the impulse to start taking my clothes off came from? I had had the same experience. I rarely enjoyed first-time sex with partners, largely because I usually did it before I really knew or trusted them. Here was where the difference between what I knew and did remained wide. The shame I felt wash over me was tinged with that hatred of my own innocence. Was I still so green? So unconfident? Had I gone straight out of the extremity of sex work to the innocence of my adolescence? Where was my self-knowledge? Still, I was relieved. " Of course. I agree totally." I clutched my T-shirt to my chest and smiled at him. " And yes, I am on the same date you are on." " I thought so," he said. " I mean, I don't think you can feel like this when it's not reciprocal." He left at 2:00 A.M. and called me at 11:00 the next morning to schedule our second date. "
