Chronicle of a Silence Endured. Guido da Verona
of something so terrible under the rug only creates a bigger problem in the long run. Invariably, the mound gets larger, and it starts to smell. Covering a crime of this nature is an act of cowardice, an act that can only be traced back to fear, and fear will always come back to make the crime of incest a stronger reality for all in the family to contend with. It is always only a matter of time.
Fear rips at truth’s larynx. It ties a rope around it, drags it to the basement, and nails it to the wall to keep it from being seen or heard by anyone. Everyone in the family may know that there is a monster of truth being kept in bondage inside of their home, but no one dares to speak about it. No one will muster the necessary courage to be the first to ask, “What’s that smell?” or “Did you hear that?”
It is much easier to live with the comfortable pretense of conscious ignorance.
Yet everyone in the family understands that there is nothing comforting about it. Fear and secrecy are some things that can not only smell, they can affect other senses too.
Have you ever been in the presence of someone who is uncomfortable with their self? They give off a strange, unnatural vibe; they seem ill at ease with themselves. They appear out of balance, stiff.
Have you ever come across someone like that? No matter what they do or how much you try to like them or ignore them, neither seems to work - there is just something about them that rubs you the wrong way? In much the same way, those who are sexual predators inside their families - their demons hang upside down in the distance that exists between them and their relatives. They are neither here nor there. They mask themselves as the emotionally closest to the victim. They wear disguises of trust-worthiness, and oftentimes their disguise allows them to pass themselves off as the most spiritual, well-to-do members of the clan.
Their all-consuming fear of the secret being exposed can keep both perpetrators and victim relatives from thinking about anything else. It brings paranoia and emotional shut-down, a sort of spiritual virus. Yet, by contrast, the mind and the heart, by their own nature, are always pulling life back to homeostasis, to balance, to spiritual openness and truth with all things. The conflict this produces in everyone’s souls keeps them all up at night, wreaking havoc on their relations with God, with family, and with themselves. Fear makes them all short-tempered…..and poisonous. It hits everyone.
Perpetrators, even as young as Fox, live in fearful isolation, ever-vigilant, always sleeping with one eye open, always guarding what they do and say, consciously and sometimes not so consciously projecting their insecurities unto others in order to take the attention away from themselves - lest their ‘little crime’ find an escape in a careless moment of lightheartedness and frivolity. But, make no mistake, they are fully aware of their crimes. Evil like this is always aware. Always. They know that power, control and secrecy are their main weapons. And, as always happens in evildoing, these weapons of theirs inevitably turn against them sooner or later. It’s all about cause and effect. These weapons of theirs are alive, and so their sense of power eats, it breathes, and ultimately disintegrates the structures of their inner and outer worlds; just like a fire that becomes too great to manage, and all that can be done is let it burn its way through the constructs of the house…until there is nothing left.
In the end, for the perpetrator, there is no integrity to be found, only holes and ashes.
What is Fox’s story?
How did he become this way?
The consequences of predatory crimes are not only dealt with in this life, by both the family secret-keepers and predators themselves, but the sinful and proud and evil character they take to the seat of judgment when they meet with God face to face is something that cannot ever be hidden. And not a single one of them escapes that seat. Not a single one of them. Their last saving grace lies in that the sooner they realize the extent of the damage they have caused, the sooner they can start to realize the severity of their mistakes and hopefully take right action and repent of their fine mess.
Otherwise, they remain in their arrested states while wholeheartedly convinced they are going to walk happily through the gates of heaven.
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
-John 8:32 NIV
2
Boat
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
-Matthew 7:1 NIV
Right before his mother’s eyes, almost as if overnight, our hero suddenly started to take on the look of his father. A common occurrence was when he would catch his mother staring at him from across the bright living room, not saying anything.
She would then announce, “Amazing, amazing how much like your father you are. You have his eyes…how they change color in the sun…how much of his character you have already.”
Then she would walk over, sit right next to him and cup his hands in hers, and caressing them and looking down on them she would say,
“…and you have his hands too…”
There was concern in her voice.
But that was of no consequence, or better said, of little consequence in light of the more urgent matters that, according to mom, needed to be addressed with our hero.
Mom finally got sick and tired of seeing her son coming in at least once a week all beat up from school. She did not go to the school to file a formal complaint, nor did she make any calls to the principal’s office. Oh no. No rescue efforts of that sort here. Her just-turned 10 year-old son was going to learn how to stick up for himself against his bullies. He was going to learn how to fight back. This present state of affairs was completely unacceptable, and mom was not about to let her sisters, living only a few neighborhoods away, know that unlike their sons his age, her son was a pushover, a weakling, a coward. Besides, he needed to be with other boys his own age, and to stop hanging around the house with his sisters wanting to cry. He needed to make new and happy friends in a safe environment where he would be taught some lessons of life by exemplary men and other boys his age.
Judo would supply just that environment.
Our hero learned sit-ups and push-ups. He learned the low block and the high block. He learned the technique of footwork and grappling. He learned to take his opponent to the ground and pin him into submission. He made new friends who had smiling faces and who were tough. His Judo teacher was a charismatic young man in his early thirties who attended medical school and had a great sense of humor. He took our hero under his wing, giving him plenty of opportunities and pats on the back to build up his shaken confidence and, making sure to not cause harm, strategically, jokingly pointed out his weaknesses.
On this one particular day, a rainstorm was blowing outside during class, and the master said to our hero,
“You are going to have to gain some weight before a big wind comes and blows you back to Colombia!”
It made everyone in the dojo laugh, including our hero.
And although it was not easy at first for our hero to lose his anxiety and over-worry about performing in social situations, where his embarrassment and potential failures and weaknesses could be seen and judged by all, and although he still cried alone from time to time, and although there was great distress at the start of this new performance-based environment and over the need to be accepted, the flooding waters of pain and fear did indeed slowly recede, as he learned to accept that sometimes fights are lost, and that it was ‘ok’ to make mistakes, because you always lived to fight another day, and the boy with the green belt who beat him that day was not necessarily an enemy, but rather an opponent-friend and teacher too. And what was more; one’s integrity and self-worth are not necessarily damaged in losing. Our hero learned to learn from his mistakes, to improve, and to appreciate sweat all over his uniform, and to smile in the face of physical pain. It was the start of the gluing back, the rebuilding, of his fractured ego.
And it now seemed not all