Author: RevMoMo

Thoughts On Cornell, 10/2/2026

~ RevMoMo ~ Leave a comment

I have struggled with how to write this, how to respond to the information coming out of Cornell University.

As a survivor, what happened to Jane Doe is frighteningly close to my own life, so everything I say has to be filtered through my own memories and experience. Simply thinking about what happened to her pulls me back in time nearly forty years, causing me to relive it all over again.

As a survivor advocate who is honored to hear the stories and experiences of many other survivors, I wish I were even remotely surprised by what Jane Doe experienced, not at the hands of her rapists, but at the hands of the Cornell system that moved swiftly to protect not her, but the people who had harmed and abused her so horribly. 

Holding those two things, and the reality of my life as a pastor of three United Church of Christ congregations, entrusted with the sacred work of accompanying folks as they walk the life of discipleship in this world, I have no choice but to write something.

Let’s start with some observations from the lawsuit recently filed:

  • Jane Doe was repeatedly gang raped at Cornell, at the Chi Phi fraternity house, in October 2024 by a “friend” and six other men;
  • You cannot consent if you are unable to consent because of alcohol, drugs, or if consent is forced through physical violence or intimidation (one person against seven men should clearly meet the standard of intimidation) and yes, laws on this vary considerably across the United States so this comment isn’t meant as a legal conclusion, but rather a moral one – you cannot consent if you are intoxicated;
  • Others, at least fifty other members of the fraternity, knew about what was happening because one of the perpetrators invited them to join in – none of the others reported it to any law enforcement or university officials;
  • Jane Doe reported the crime and there were both police and university investigations;
  • Cornell University officials redacted (edited) Jane Doe’s statement before giving it to local law enforcement, including removing her direct statements that she had not consented to what happened;
  • Police declined to pursue charges, and may or may not have informed Jane Doe about their decision (the lawsuit she has filed says that they never contacted her again after her initial statement);
  • The university’s administrative reviews under Title IX held hearings, allowing the accused to defend themselves, and take actions such as essay writing for reflection to mitigate (ease) any consequences they might face;
  • The fraternity suspended at least some of the men involved;
  • The national fraternity’s organization said that Cornell’s chapter of the fraternity could no longer be active.

Now some further observations from a survivor, advocate, follower of Jesus, pacifist, and pastor:

If you’re surprised by any of this, you haven’t been paying attention.

The system (all the systems) is rigged against survivors. We are instantly disbelieved, thought to be lying, accused of placing ourselves in dangerous situations, and more. We bear the burden to explain why someone else hurt us in the most intimate way, while the perpetrator is routinely given the benefit of the doubt because they’re “good young men who made mistakes and have promising futures” and other such nonsense that excuses their crimes. If alcohol or drugs are involved, it blames the survivor, but excuses the behavior of the perpetrator.

We are repeatedly questioned if we want to go through with reporting this because, we are told, that they’ll drag up everything about us – from what we were wearing, to why we were there, to why we didn’t fight back (even if we did), to how come we waited to report (even if we didn’t), to our sexual history, to why we shop at certain stores because don’t you know it’s just provoking them if we’re wearing fancy bras and panties, or too much lipstick, or something else.

We’re also told, if we aren’t stereotypically pretty, that maybe we should be grateful someone paid attention to us, that they took pity on our fat selves, or our ugly selves, since no one would want to have sex with us under other circumstances than force and coercion.

All of the excuses come regardless of the circumstances.

Children are raped in their beds in their pajamas and we’re told that the perpetrators just couldn’t help themselves. The same is true of elderly and disabled survivors who are assaulted in their care facilities. Women are assaulted for wearing modest clothing, or not wearing it, depending on the bias of the perpetrator. Women are assaulted at work places, and schools, and churches, in public busses and airplanes, and by the very law enforcement officers who are supposed to protect them (including in many a jail and prison by the guards charged with their care).

Women are tired.

Yes, men are assaulted as well, and yes, we very much need to take that seriously, but there are a lot of people (men) who only care about male victims when they think it will get them out of the responsibility of doing something about female victims. Let’s have that conversation at another time, in another forum.

But for the moment, let me say all the women in your life, absolutely all of them, every damn last one of us, is tired of living in a world where this is our daily reality. We don’t go out without letting at least one other person know where we are. We don’t take the Uber or Lyft without all the possible security options engaged, without our friends knowing the driver’s name and license plate, without even maybe having a phone conversation during the entire trip just to make sure we are overheard if something happens.

Double or triple those precautions after dark, or in communities we aren’t familiar with, if we’re on a work trip, and more. This is how we have been living from an early age, learning how to avoid or appease or fend off unwanted advances since grade school.

We all need to be better bystanders.

The power is in our hands, all of our hands, to do something. At least one of the fifty members of the fraternity who received the invitation to participate in attacking Jane Doe had the foresight to take pictures of the messages which preserved them, but that’s all he did.

None of them looked at the initial message, and the following “conversation” and thought to themselves that this wasn’t right, that there was a human being suffering, that maybe they should pick up another phone and tell someone, anyone ~ law enforcement, the university, someone outside their fraternity, their parents.

We can’t any of us be that way. We have to pay attention, to care about folks even (particularly) if we don’t know them. We have to do something.

Yes, it can be risky. We might lose friends, but frankly friends like this aren’t really the kind you want in your life anyway, but we could very well save a life.

Thanks to technology we have options that don’t involve us putting ourselves physically in the midst of situations where violence might be inflicted on us. We simply have to be paying attention, to be good bystanders, good members of the world community, better human beings.

We need to education ourselves, and our community.

The scope of the problem of sexual violence is immense. Conservative estimates are 1 in 4 women in the United States and 1 in 2 women world wide. Hold that in your heart for a minute and think about the three or four women closest to you.

When someone says “it’s not all men”, the reality is that it’s all women, every woman you know has experienced something, some violation, abuse, unwanted attention and more. If she hasn’t told you about it, it’s a combination of shame which isn’t hers to carry, and the fact that she might not trust you not to use that information and experience against her in some way.

But, friends, we can change this. We can make a different world. We can listen and respond with compassion and gentleness.

We can practice saying “I’m sorry, it shouldn’t have happened, and I believe you.”

Write it on your hand if you need to, until those are the only words you speak when someone first entrusts you with their experience. No questions, no what-ifs, no victim blaming or shaming. Nothing except “I’m sorry, it shouldn’t have happened, and I believe you.”

That’s what almost every survivor I’ve ever known (myself included) is waiting to hear.

And we can educate our communities, whatever circles we are a part of, talking about and practicing ongoing consent in all kinds of things like asking IF someone wants a hug, or IF they’re done with the plate in front of them at dinner. Consent is supposed to be a part of every aspect of our lives.

And men can talk with each other, learning healthier ways to be men, turning their backs on the macho masculinity often called bro-culture. They can challenge locker room talk, the language that makes women less than human. They can interrupt “jokes” that aren’t really jokes, and use the power and privilege they have as men in our culture to create a new way of living and being.

I have many more things I can, and in time will say about Cornell, and how we create a different world, but this is my beginning. I really am serious about wanting to be in conversation with you, with your church or faith community if that’s your thing, in whatever way I can because I really do believe a better world is possible.

Peace,

Moira

Where are the 2024 BTSS materials?

~ RevMoMo ~ 2 Comments

It’s mid-April as I write this, spring is really coming to northern Wisconsin, and my self-imposed deadline of February 1st for creating new yearly materials for Break The Silence Sunday (BTSS) long past. There won’t be new materials for BTSS this year (for a lot of reasons which I hope to explain a bit here) but even as I write this, I can feel the guilt welling up inside of me.

It feels as if I’m letting survivors down, all of them, myself included. My brain knows that guilt is misplaced, a whole bunch of other emotions changing themselves into guilt because that’s an emotion survivors know very well. My brain knows that, but my heart isn’t sure. Perhaps as I write, as I try to explain to you gentle reader, my brain and heart might get on the same page and help me understand too.

The past twelve months have been full ~ for my parish, my family, and the world. There have been births, and deaths, and transitions to different kinds of living facilities; jobs lost and found; the challenge of living in a swing state during a US presidential election cycle; inflation (which we might well call corporate greed) stretching already stretched budgets, and resources, and spirits.

And there’s been war in Ukraine, and Palestine, and Sudan, and Syria, and Haiti, and Myanmar, and so many other places where the violence masquerades under other names, but the result is always the same ~ the innocent suffer, sexual violence increases, lives and dreams are destroyed.

All of this feels like I’m writing an excuse for not producing new BTSS materials, and I’m really not. I’m trying to find an explanation that will satisfy my own heart and mind about why in 2023-2024 I couldn’t bring myself to sit down and revisit the statistics ~ every 68 seconds in the US someone is sexually assaulted ~ to write prayers that only a few will read or actually pray, to beg at the doors of the wider church for recognition and support for survivors.

The short of it is, I’m tired.

I’ve been a rape survivor for nearly thirty-six years, working on understanding my trauma; navigating a world that doesn’t understand what living with a traumatized brain, body, and heart is like (it’s not just soldiers who live with PTSD); and trying to transform the trauma that I might not transmit the pain to others, and might use it to help transform the world. Some days all that work goes well, and some days not so well, even after all these years. All days it is a lot of work.

I’ve been an ordained pastor in the United Church of Christ for just over twenty-two years now, sharing the work of ministry, of building the kingdom of God’s abundance and justice right here and right now, with the most amazing people at St. John’s UCC Cecil, WI, Trinity UCC Shiocton, WI and St. John’s UCC Black Creek, WI. My life with them, all of us working together on the life of discipleship, is my greatest joy and my deepest honor.

And for those years of ordained ministry, I’ve also been working to find a way for survivors of sexual violence to be actively supported by our denomination (and all faith communities, but I work most where I am already, in the UCC), a denomination that espouses abundant and radical welcome, our slogan of the moment saying, “no matter who you are, no matter where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”

That work has often felt like knocking on a closed, locked, barred, bolted, and sandbagged door. Bringing the voice and experience of survivors to the layers of the wider church has been met with resistance, and anger, and rejection. Yes, there have been moments of door opening, of heart opening, and I’ll talk about those in a minute, but the vast majority of my experience doing this work over the past twenty-two years has been exhausting in its frustration when told, time and time again, that we’ll get around to listening to survivors and honoring their experiences when something else isn’t more important.

There have been, as I said, incredible moments when the door started to move, sometimes even more than a fraction, and those moments help me hold on to hope.

In 2015, Break The Silence Sunday was born when my Wisconsin Conference Minister, the Rev Franz Rigert and I sat down and dreamed it up. He offered the support of the Wisconsin Conference in promoting whatever resources I could dream up for this work, and I am indescribably grateful for his support then and through all these years.

At the 2019 UCC General Synod in Milwaukee, WI we brought BTSS to the entire denomination as a resolution, to adopt BTSS for the whole church, to bring the work of supporting survivors in the church to every part of our tradition. That experience, being the proponent of the resolution, working with the committee (chaired by the amazing Rev Cheryl Lindsay) was extraordinary. Hearts, minds, and spirits were opened. Stories, tears, and laughter were shared. And overwhelmingly (691 in favor, and 10 opposed), BTSS became an observance of the entire denomination.

Then, after what I refer to as “the plague years” when covid changed everything about everything, BTSS had a booth at the 2023 General Synod in Indianapolis, IN. With our purple themed space in the exhibit hall, we welcomed and talked to folks, so many folks, about BTSS. Many hadn’t heard about it because the publicity the national church might have done about BTSS got lost in the covid crisis, and the social upheaval of that time. We were honored to listen to more than 130 stories of survivors during the five days of Synod, about 7% of the total attendance, and I am sure that there were many more stories that survivors weren’t yet able to share. It was heart-breaking, and heart-filling, and exhausting.

And as I write this, I realize I’ve written “we”. There is a we to this work. My dearest friends, Lella Baker and Helen Rowinski, make up the other parts of our team. Helen does graphics design and support for me, feeding the cats, feeding me, listening to me ramble, and more. Lella is logistics and as she calls herself the “emotional support pit bull”, giving up her vacation time to fly to Wisconsin to drive with me to Indianapolis to hand out pounds of purple wrapped candy and hear stories, and all the while making sure I have enough iced tea to keep going.

But that’s it. That’s the entire team. Mostly (and I think Helen and Lella are ok if I say this), mostly it’s me.

I’m the one dreaming up fund raisers ~ making and selling soup, walking 400 miles in my purple converse high-tops to get donations to get us gas money and exhibit space money, and all that purple candy for Synod (more than $6,000). With incredible contributions in prayers, and poems, and songs (for which I am eternally grateful), I am the one writing and organizing the liturgies, putting them together publishing them on the website (which we fundraise to pay for), giving the interviews to promote BTSS, and such. I’m the one who wrote the resolution, and answers survivor emails and calls, and honors so many stories (an average of four a week, every week). It’s me, and I’m tired.

So as Synod 2023 wrapped up and I had some time on my sabbatical in June and then again in January 2024, I found that I just couldn’t get myself to sit down and write anything new for BTSS. I decided it was time for a break and so instead of new materials for this year, we’ve been working on redesigning our website, making sure all the materials have proper attribution for copyright, and other such things that aren’t exciting, but are essential for the ongoing work.

And I was feeling pretty ok with that pause, the needed break to breathe and regroup about what happens next with all the challenges in the church and the world, until a few things happened.

The first was the realization that the number of survivor stores I heard every week was going up, a lot. When I first started speaking up about sexual violence and being a survivor in the church, the stories would drip in, one or two here or there. Then the incredible #metoo movement started by Tarana Burke came to public awareness and the number of stories I heard increased. And it’s kept increasing through the challenges of our life together during these last years.

In some sense, that’s a good thing. Survivors are feeling slightly more able to tell their stories, to be honest about their experiences, to find a listening heart and spirit that won’t replicate the victim blaming and shaming that they’re so often met with, in society and in church. But, it’s also a worrying trend. The number of young people, and particularly young men, who share their stories with me is sometimes overwhelming, as are the people who are in their older years, the ones who start their stories with “I didn’t know what to call it” or “I’m 70 and I’ve never said anything about what happened when I was 5.”

Then a pastoral colleague told me if I didn’t produce new liturgy every year BTSS would fail. They said that it would disappear from people’s minds and hearts if I wasn’t producing new materials, constantly putting it in front of people on every kind of social media, weekly emails and more.

When I asked them what they would do to help, if they might write a prayer, or mention BTSS on their personal or church social media, or have an observance of it in their church, or send a couple of dollars our way they said, “oh, I can’t do that because it would upset people. We can’t talk about shameful things like that at church, but you definitely have to keep doing it or nothing will change.”

And finally, in January, just about the time I would have started compiling materials for BTSS this year, I received the newsletter of a nearby UCC church which included a description of their upcoming Lenten series. Their theme “saying no” sounded interesting, and important.

We can’t faithfully say yes to everything because it leaves us stretched far too thin. But …and you knew, faithful reader, that there was a BUT coming didn’t you…

But, the title of their first week was “saying no means saying yes”.

There, in print, was the antithesis of everything I’d spend the previous thirty something years as a survivor, the previous twenty plus years as an ordained pastor, and the previous nine plus years as architect of BTSS working against. There it was, in this church’s newsletter, the continuation of the victim blaming and shaming that silence survivors, particularly in the church.

After I freaked out a bit, I checked with some other folks (Helen, Lella, and a trusted team) to make sure I wasn’t misreading, or over-reacting. They all agreed I wasn’t, that this is the very basics of consent education, the  beginning of decency as a human being … no means no, and only yes means yes.

So, I reached out to the pastor, asking for some clarification, hoping that it had been an oversight, that they maybe just hadn’t read the title of that day’s talk out loud and hadn’t thought through the implications of saying in the name of the church, to a world where a low estimate is that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 10 men are survivors, that no means yes.

The response was underwhelming. The nearby UCC pastor, and the other pastor who was leading the series with them, had discussed it and considered the matter closed.

That’s it. No apology. No even attempt at explanation, communication, or conversation.

My heart gave way. I couldn’t imagine sitting down and writing even a single prayer, much less an entire liturgy, that would go up on our website, and be circulated amongst my UCC colleagues and wonder how many of them would respond the same way these two colleagues had ~ that they couldn’t do anything like BTSS in their church because it was private and shameful, or that they would look at the BTSS resources and dismiss them, their silence (or worse their words) reinforcing the oppression of the rape culture we live in.

And if that were not enough, then the April newsletter of the same nearby church came out and the same pastor who shut me down for asking about their “saying no means saying yes” statement, wrote about believing and supporting survivors including the line that “this might mean apologizing when we have caused hurt rather than healing.”

Even now, as I write this months later, I’m looking at the pages printed out from their newsletters, and I can feel the rage welling up in me again. It’s rage on behalf of all my survivor siblings, every one who has ever tried to say no to only have it ignored, or to have their abuser try to “persuade” them that their no means yes through force, threat, and intimidation. It’s rage for all the people who didn’t know they could say no, who were in places where they couldn’t because it wasn’t going to be respected, and for all those of us who did and whose no was completely ignored. It’s rage at the hypocrisy of a church (individual ones and all of us collectively) that espouses welcome and then silences people in so, so many ways.

Now I believe anger can be an incredible force in working for change. Indeed, anger has driven a lot of the social change that has included more and more people in the work of our common life.

But the current rage I’m still feeling, along with exhaustion, isn’t constructive, at least for me, in creating things for healing and hope for survivors in the church. So what started as an unintentional break for 2024 has become purposeful. I need to give my survivor self some attention, to figure out how to get that rage to move towards constructive anger. My support team (therapist, spiritual director, and did I mention Helen and Lella?) are working on it, and it’s coming, but you can’t rush or bypass this work. You’ve just got to slog through all the feelings of everything, or at least I do, in order to get to the hope on the other side.

The work of BTSS isn’t stopping. The stories of survivors are still being shared. Congregations like my parish and a community in Ohio I heard from today, are still having observances on the fourth Sunday in April (or another date that works well for them). There are tremendous resources from previous years all organized on our website (breakthesilencesunday.org). I’m working with some folks at the UCC’s national offices about ways to get the work of BTSS out into the world while we figure out where our work best fits within the national structure (it’s a justice issue that fits in a lot of places and intersects with many different parts of our work), and just today I gave an interview to United Church News about BTSS with the advice to pastors if they’re afraid of starting this work, to start small, learn their local resources, post our clergy commitment in their newsletter or by their office, and to remember none of us are in this work alone.

As I work through some things, moving from rage to constructive anger, I’ll be thinking about resources that help church leaders (lay and clergy) to introduce ideas about supporting survivors of sexual violence into many aspects of their life together, and their work in the world. I’ll be lacing up my new pair of purple Converse high-tops and walking 600 miles to fundraise for the next General Synod, July 11-15, 2025 in Kansas City. We’ll be figuring out what kinds of things we need to bring with us (those grape pop rocks were ridiculously popular), what kind of resources we need, and how we’ll keep our hearts and spirits open to the holiness of this work.

Between now and then, if you’re looking for ideas about observing BTSS in your community, please check out the previous year’s work on our website.

If you’re interested in writing something, anything ~ a prayer, a hymn, a poem, a question, a sermon, a few words, your own survivor story ~ anything, reach out and send me an email.

If you’ve got ideas, questions, or need help starting (or even thinking about starting) a conversation about BTSS in your community, I’m right here waiting for your email

I will close with a prayer I did write this year. My friend, and tireless advocate for BTSS, Rev Maren Tirabassi, asked me to write for the UCC’s Living Psalms, a reflection on the end of Psalm 22, the lectionary psalm for April 28th, this year’s official date for BTSS. If it had been anyone other than Maren, I would likely have said no, but Maren has been a great friend to BTSS, incredibly generous with her gift with words from the very beginning. I am grateful to Maren, for all her support, and for the nudge which got me out of my writing funk, and a bit further down the road out of rage.

My voice shakes, and still I sing;
to God I offer my praise,
though the memory of my cries of pain,
my despair and grief,
the Holy One had abandoned me,
my voice shakes, and still I sing.

The scars ache, and still I sing;
to God I kneel in worship,
remembering the words of my enemies,
their encircling threats,
body and soul torn apart,
the scars ache, and still I sing.

My soul is weary, and still I sing;
to God I offer my life,
knowing that, even in the pit,
I fed on unseen grace,
holding me, never alone
my soul is weary, and still I sing.

In grace and hope,
Moira

General Synod 2023 ~ the budget update

~ RevMoMo ~ Leave a comment

Friends, the time for the 2023 United Church of Christ’s General Synod in Indianapolis, Indiana grows near. We will be in Indianapolis from June 29th through July 4th (not counting some travel time).

We have registered our team (Moira & Lella), and reserved our exhibit all space. The spaces are 10′ x 10′ and together we decided that it would feel crowded to put all the things for both Break The Silence Sunday (BTSS) ~ the advocacy portion of the work that provides liturgy and support to congregations and communities standing strong in supporting survivors and speaking out against sexual violence in our communities ~ and Strings of Strength (SOS) ~ the support work that listens to survivors, hearing their stories and experiences (to date 1402 survivors have shared their stories with our team since the beginning of BTSS in September 2015).

So we have reserved two adjacent/joined spaces and now have 20′ (wide) x 10′ (deep) which will allow us to create a nurturing sharing space for survivors and advocates to sit, breathe amid the glorious chaos that is Synod, and have a chat. Hopefully it will also be a space where survivors feel comfortable sharing their stories with our team. Our space will also need some “swag” ~ things to give to folks who come by the booth (we’re working on stickers because they’re all the rage right now, and we’ve got buttons!), and we want some treats (candy), and need to dress up our space so it’s an inviting and attractive place to stop, learn & share.

All of this, of course, costs money.

Our budget comes to $7,330 (see the PDF at the end of the post for specifics)
We’ve raised just over $3,400 which is absolutely amazing!!!!!!!!
We also have $3,470 of in-kind donations for our hotel room & a minivan to get us to Synod.

We would like to raise another $1,750 to cover unexpected expenses (and price increases), leave a cushion in our account before we have to begin fundraising again, pay for the 2023 website fees.

Because I don’t think I know anyone with a spare $2,000 lying around I did some math (with $2000 which is just a little easier to deal with than the not very round $1,750)…
20 people with $100 each
40 people with $50 each
100 people with $20 each
200 people with $10 each

I know things are hard, with rising prices and stretched budgets, but if you are able to share even a little it would be so incredibly appreciated and we will put it to amazing use to support survivors of rape & sexual violence and advocate for churches and communities to do the work of support and advocacy to change the culture of victim blaming & shaming.

Paypal & Venmo both at breakthesilencesunday@gmail.com
or you can mail checks to
BTSS c/o Moira Finley
PO Box 691
Bonduel, WI 54107

Also, one other need we have which isn’t financial … if we know anyone in the greater Indianapolis area who has a couple of comfy, but firm chairs (not recliners, but kind of really nice library reading club wing chair kind of things), we would love to borrow them for our survivor space. It would be even cooler if they were of a color that would blend with our everything is purple booth, but we will definitely accept anything we can find that we don’t have to take with us. See the picture to the right for an idea of the kind of chair I’m thinking of.

Here’s the full budget as a PDF in case you’re that kind of detail person, or you’re interested in sponsoring a particular line item…

2023 Synod Advocacy BudgetDownload

Walking to Indianapolis UPDATE 9/23

~ RevMoMo ~ Leave a comment

We’re off to an amazing start on the journey to Indianapolis. I’ve covered 28 miles in 14 days which is 6% and perfectly on pace to get the remaining 392 miles in 259 days done. Plus y’all have raised just under $400 or 10% of our goal which is incredible! You can follow me on Instagram (@revmomo ) for updates, and I’m including some pictures here as well.

FUNDRAISER INFORMATION:
to support survivors, you can send donations to Break The Silence Sunday in care of my address (message us for specifics) or PayPal and Venmo to breakthesilencesunday@gmail.com

ALL THE HASHTAGS
#BTSS #breakthesilencesunday #UCC #unitedchurchofchrist #generalsynod2023 #conversehightops #walkingforsurvivors

The whole journey … this app (my virtual mission) is keeping track of distances, showing how far we’ve come and how far we’ve got to go
So far we’ve gotten from my house in Bonduel, WI to mid-Green Bay … lots of miles to go, but enough under our belt to feel confident as well.
Kittens (Minerva in stripes and Lia in grey) after a walk, and a cool view of the purple Converse high-tops that we’re doing all the walking in.
The walking hat … can you tell we have a purple theme? That’s because it’s the color for sexual assault awareness.
The shoes. I’m wondering if they’ll hold up for more than 400 miles. They weren’t new when we started, having gotten us through many miles at Wisconsin Conference UCC annual meetings, and General Synod 2019 in Milwaukee, WI when Break The Silence Sunday was overwhelmingly approved by the Synod members to become an observed Sunday in the UCC calendar (4th Sunday of April)

Break The Silence Sunday 2022

~ RevMoMo ~ Leave a comment

As I write this, it’s January and we are nearly at the two year mark of living with the global health crisis of Covid-19 that has changed everything. In responding to the virus, we have changed the way we live with practices of social distancing and isolation. In many places in my part of the world, school became virtual and many who could were required to work from home, but both of those practices revealed problems in our society including lack of broadband internet access, lack of childcare, and the classism that resulted in someone telling me that “the important people” were working from home while store clerks, delivery drivers, utility workers, farmers and farm workers, factory workers, and more, the people on whom our society depends were on the front lines, often with little or no sick leave, having to work through whatever ills came their way.

And all of that is even before we consider what happened in other countries: places where social distancing simply isn’t possible; places where basic hygiene is challenging because of limited or no access to clean water; places where there isn’t internet so schools simply shut down completely. And, as I write this we are in the midst of the surge of the omicron variant in my part of Wisconsin. Infection rates are the highest they have been throughout these two years and our medical facilities and workers are overwhelmed, exhausted from fighting not only Covid, but the stream of misinformation that has made their work all the much harder. In the midst of this some churches and communities have returned to online only worship, while others have not returned to in-person worship since the initial shut-downs. So, what do we do about Break The Silence Sunday (BTSS) in 2022?

BTSS isn’t something that, at least in my personal and pastoral opinion, moves online well. It’s something that I believe needs the human presence, the being together in the same space. Much of being a survivor of sexual violence relates to how we honor and reclaim our physical bodies, how we occupy space with bodies that have been cruelly mistreated by others. That said, there are communities doing incredible work with their online worship experiences that could well provide a BTSS service within that space with care and integrity.

So, BTSS, like all things these days, can be itself in many different ways, in many different spaces – both physical and online. The most important thing is that every community that engages with Break The Silence Sunday does so carefully, with the knowledge that it is a difficult, sensitive, and essential topic for the church and that there is a plan for follow-up and after-care for whatever they do.

And that’s something I’m learning that BTSS needs. We started in 2016, providing complete liturgies each year since, but I’ve come to realize that perhaps that’s not enough, not the only thing we need. In 2021 we provided a couple of prayers in written and recorded formats that could be added to worship. They were well received. So this year I’m thinking of just stand-alone prayers, things that can be incorporated perhaps on April 24th, but also perhaps throughout the year, smaller parts of the service that can provide repeated encouragement to folks in the pews (or at home on their sofas) that they, as survivors, are welcomed and embraced by a community of faith.

I will be writing these prayers over the next month or so, hoping to have them all to you by way of our website and Facebook page by the beginning of March. To use them faithfully in worship you’ll still need to do some preparation, making sure folks know that they’re coming, that you’ll be dealing with some hard subjects, allowing survivors and their supporters to prepare their hearts and minds, or absent themselves if they need to.

The need for Break The Silence Sunday is greater than ever. The years of the pandemic have made a lot of things worse. Survivors have, in many cases, been obliged to isolate with the person who is abusing them. Financial pressures have made already complicated situations even more volatile. With medical systems overwhelmed, survivors aren’t able to get to the physical care they need, and access to mental health resources, already incredibly difficult, has become near to impossible for many. Yet the need continues. In the first year of the pandemic, the number of calls I had from survivors needing to talk tripled. In the second year, that number has tripled again. Survivors are struggling, and the church is deafeningly silent.

For those of you who know me well, you’ll be able to testify that I am a card carrying optimist, a belief founded in the essential goodness of who we are and who we can be. But my optimist heart is tired, tired of trying to understand why the church, and the United Church of Christ (UCC) in particular since that’s my tradition, can’t seem to speak out in support of survivors. To be clear we do good work advocating for change, for teaching about consent culture, for the work of ending rape culture and those are all incredibly important things, but they come too late for me and for my survivor siblings. We’re already sitting in the church’s pews, and viewing the church’s online services, carrying with us in our hearts, our minds, our bodies, and our spirits the wounds the church doesn’t seem willing or able to address.

I was raped in 1987, and ordained in the United Church of Christ in 2002. When I have asked questions about the church supporting survivors I’ve heard the same things across all these years – it’s personal and private and it makes people uncomfortable – and then the platitude that we have lots of important things we have to address as the church, we can’t possibly give our time to everything, and it’s just not important for the church to address (that’s been said quite literally in those words).

Idealistically I believed when I was told that the secret to getting on the national church’s radar was to have a resolution passed at General Synod. So we did, the resolution to make BTSS part of the national church’s calendar passed overwhelmingly at General Synod in Milwaukee in 2019. But then the pandemic came, and the great social upheaval of the summer of 2020, and the election of 2020, and despite sexual violence being repeatedly in the news with the #metoo movement and more, and with a resolution about supporting survivors, the message of the national church was about preventing sexual violence, about consent education, an about Thursdays in Black (an important symbolic gesture started from the World Council of Churches … Wear a pin to declare you are part of the global movement resisting attitudes and practices that permit rape and violence. Show your respect for women who are resilient in the face of injustice and violence. Encourage others to join you.”). Again, all of those are incredibly important things, but they do little if nothing for those of us who are already survivors.

Supporting us, speaking to us about our holiness, saying overtly that we are welcome in the Body of Christ with our wounds, with or without forgiving our perpetrators, with the struggles and questions we have about where God was when we were victimized, helping us to find a way forward that honors our past without blame or shame – those are the tasks of supporting survivors that I believe are being done on the local level, in communities of care, but aren’t being addressed by the wider church, and I can hear their silence.

Last year I wrote:

The Body of Christ has been raped and abused and the Body of Christ must stand up to witness with and support survivors, saying repeatedly and clearly that they are believed, loved, and valued as they are.

We must continue to do the work of education about consent, and healthy relationships, and all the hard work that needs to be done to prevent future rapes, but we must at the same time stand in solidarity with those of us for whom consent education and prevention didn’t work, who bear the scars in our bodies and souls of other people’s violence.

I know that what I’ve written today might sound critical, but it is because I want the best for the church, because I know what the church can be when it gets it right, when it’s willing to stand up for and support survivors. I know this from first-hand experience – I wouldn’t be here today without the support of the church I grew up in and the encouragement of the churches I serve.

BTSS is a movement of hope, even if this moment seems to be a bit of the valley of shadows. That’s because it’s a movement and movements take time. We can do this, even if it requires a long view. We believe that, as individuals, as congregations, and as the wider church we can do better in supporting survivors, creating space where they feel safe sharing their stories, and honoring their courage and resiliency. We can find new ways of thinking about, and talking about our faith that don’t glorify suffering and don’t perpetuate the abuse that so many have suffered. And we believe that we can work together to change the culture that allows sexual violence to happen, building a future where survivors can share their stories without shame, and where all can live free from sexual violence.

And if nothing else gives us reason to hope it’s that you, yes you, are sitting here reading this material. Maybe your community has a supportive pastoral staff and all you need to participate fully. Maybe you’re the pastor who is going to invite your congregation to observe BTSS for the first time and you’re anxious, but also confident, that it’s what your community needs right now.

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking you’d like to suggest it to your pastor or worship committee or whoever in your context might be most supportive, and you’re just not sure any of them will be. Maybe you’re a survivor who thinks you’re perhaps, possibly ready to share your story and hoping your faith community will receive it with grace and love.

Whoever you are, whatever the situation you find yourself in, you are the reason Break The Silence Sunday will ultimately make healthy, sacred space for survivors in our faith communities.

The suggested date for Break The Silence Sunday is the fourth Sunday of April. This keeps us within the national observance of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), but it is just a suggested date. In 2022, that date is Sunday April 24th.

This is, in the UCC’s calendar also Pacific Islander Asian American (PAAM) Sunday, a vital part of the diversity of our life together. There are also churches that will observe Earth Day events at the weekend, particularly given the current state of climate crisis. Please feel free to pick a time that works best for your community.

Some have held observances in October during the observance of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, remembering that much rape and sexual violence occurs within domestic relationships. Other communities observe during the summer, and still others find Lent an appropriate time to take on the challenging work of learning about sexual violence and creating space for survivors. Whatever date you choose please feel free to adapt these materials, use them for inspiration, and craft whatever you need – worship, prayer, study – that best fits the needs of your community, particularly in these days of living with Covid.

If you’ve been with us from the beginning, thank you. The archive of materials is available on our website and you are welcome to change and modify them so they work best for your community. All we ask is that you use proper attribution for those who have written these materials.

Please, whatever you do, we would appreciate feedback about what you liked, and didn’t like, about these materials, what worked for you, what was a challenge, and what could be provided in coming years to help you better implement BTSS in your community. There’s a feedback form at the end of these materials if you’d like to mail it in, of you’re welcome to send questions and comments to our email at breakthesilencesunday@gmail.com.

Again, please be in touch if there’s anything here you need to talk through, if you have questions or concerns, if you need to share your story, or if you just need a cheerleader as you work towards bringing Break The Silence Sunday to your community.

Thank you for your openness to this work, welcome, and God’s blessings.

Peace and grace, Rev Moira Finley

Silver For Survivors

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In the summer of 2023, the Thirty-Fourth General Synod of the United Church of Christ will meet in Indianapolis, Indiana. Break The Silence Sunday (BTSS) needs to be there, and to do that we need your help.

We need to be at General Synod to:

  • to be a visible presence of survivors in the life of the church – we are here, part of every congregation and community and are in need of the vocal witness of the church to support our healing and wholeness;
  • to provide space for survivors to tell their stories without judgement and to have those stories honored through the work of BTSS’s project – Strings of Strength – that provides comfort items to survivors.
  • bring the work and witness of BTSS to more communities and congregations;
  • remind the national church of it’s commitment at General Synod 32 in Milwaukee where it overwhelmingly approved BTSS as an observance of the entire church;
  • to increase and expand our writer’s pool to reflect the great diversity of God’s people.

Our fundraising goal is $5000 which will provide:

  • Travel to and from Indianapolis for the BTSS team (2 people);
  • Housing & food during Synod
  • Booth space for BTSS in the exhibits hall
  • Promotional materials for BTSS

And how, you wonder, will be find $5000?
Through Silver For Survivors.

There are 575 days between 11/4/2021 and 5/31/2023.
We invite you to consider saving a silver coin every day to help the work of BTSS.

Silver dollar a day         …      $575

Half dollar a day           …      $287.50

Quarter a day                …      $143.75

Dime a day                    …      $57.50

Nickel a day                  …      $28.75

Of course, these are symbolic donations and we would welcome your gift at any level to help us continue to reach out to survivors, and to make our presence in the church visible, to remind the church of its sacred calling to support survivors.

Donations can be made:

Through our PayPal and Venmo accounts at:
breakthesilencesunday@gmail.com

By mail: checks to Break The Silence Sunday
c/o Moira Finley
PO Box 691
Bonduel, WI 54107

Questions? Concerns? Other ideas?
Pastor Moira Finley at either breakthesilencesunday@gmail.com or pastormoira73@gmail.com

Survivor and need to reach out?
Pastor Moira Finley at 715-851-3080 or pastormoira73@gmail.com

Need immediate help?
 Rape Abuse Incest National Network (RAINN) at 800-656-4673
or online at rainn.org for live chat and 24/7 assistance

P.S. If you’re wondering why start this today, November 4, 2021? A year ago the world lost one of the brightest lights and bravest survivors I’ve ever known, my friend Gwen. It seemed a fitting tribute to her life and legacy, and to the trust she placed in me to carry on the work of supporting survivors, to begin this campaign on the anniversary of her walking on to life eternal. She is dearly missed and I hope I am doing well by her in continuing the work she taught me about, the work of being as unashamed a survivor in this world as I’m capable of, and by being a life line for others.

BTSS 2021

~ RevMoMo ~ Leave a comment

Well, this wasn’t the year that any of us wanted. I’ve said in my parish several times that this season in our lives surely hasn’t gone as planned. For Break The Silence Sunday we should have been gearing up for the United Church of Christ’s General Synod this summer, expanding our outreach, getting more churches to participate after the success of passing our resolution in 2019, and generally doing amazing things with and for survivors in the church. But then, we all know how the story goes – covid. It’s been a challenging time to be a survivor, and a local church pastor. My pastoral care calls from survivors, about the challenges these times have brought, have tripled. It’s not just covid, but the isolation that has brought has been extremely difficult for many survivors. Add that to the rest of what we have lived through in this past year and it’s pushed a lot of people to the edge of their coping skills.

I am not providing new liturgies this year partly because the ones for 2020, along with the amazing survivor reflections that were included last year, didn’t get seen or used and they deserve to be. But it’s also because the decision about if to have a BTSS observance in your community needs a lot of careful consideration. Many congregations are still in virtual only mode and that presents its own challenges to providing care for survivors during and after the service. Other congregations and communities, like my own parish, are in a combined mode and that is a different set of challenges. Instead in this space in the next about week I’ll be posting some links to videos you can include, and the texts of the prayers in the videos, that will at least open up some space to let survivors know you’re with them.

There is a lengthy introduction in the materials this year because there’s stuff that needs to be said, some groups and work you need to know about, a personal remembrance about my friend Gwen, and some information you need to consider about the musician David Haas and other “celebrities” whose abuse has become known in recent months.

The materials are linked below.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if there’s a way we can help your community, or you personally, with Break The Silence Sunday, or with simply the work of being a survivor in the world these days.

Peace and grace,
Moira

breakthesilencesunday@gmail.com

Break The Silence Sunday 2021Download

BTSS 2020 & Covid-19

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Here we are, the beginning of April, and I should be writing to encourage everyone to continue their planning for this year’s observance of Break The Silence Sunday (BTSS). I should be making a daily post about Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), and I should be celebrating the first BTSS since it became an officially recognized observance of the United Church of Christ.

But, of course, I’m not. I’m sitting in my front room which has been converted to a home office, improvising and adapting like everyone else as we learn to live under isolation and quarantine rules for the covid-19 public health emergency. In my parish, as in so many others, pastors and lay leaders are working hard to keep people connected, to create worship that can be experienced by people in a variety of ways, making sure that people without internet capabilities don’t get lost in our move to video worship, cancelling long planned and looked forward to events, and worrying about all the people we can’t visit in nursing homes, assisted livings, and their own homes. We know it’s the right thing to do, that protecting our collective health while relieving the burden on our medical facilities and professionals is essential, but it’s still hard.

For BTSS and its work there are three important things to note right now: postponement & prayers & caution.

Postponement – At this point, with a suggested observation date at the end of April, it is my (Moira’s) advice that you and your community postpone your Break The Silence Sunday worship and educational events. It breaks my heart to say that, and it feels like a bit of a failure, but it is the right thing to do. This is NOT a service that can be done in a virtual context, at least not unless that was already your worshiping experience. There are too many risks involved – for worship leaders who aren’t familiar with the video/live technologies feeling extra pressure no one needs right now because this is a difficult subject to address in the church under the best of circumstances; for survivors who might be watching alone with no one to support them; for survivors who might be obliged to be in isolation with their abuser or who might not have disclosed to their now constant living partners about their histories (more on that in a minute). Perhaps you could consider a date towards the end of the summer when, prayerfully, things have reopened more fully, or in October which is domestic violence awareness month, or at another date when the calendar of your parish or community best fits.

Prayers – now that my parish has figured out how worship will happen in these days, and we have a pretty good rhythm for it, I will be able to turn my heart and mind to writing some new prayers for BTSS, particularly short ones that can be shared in video or live formats, to at least honor and recognize the survivors in our midst, and our intention and commitment to more fully stand with with them, and work for change.

Caution – Wisconsin’s order, like that of many other states, is called “safer at home”, and I understand the intent behind that statement, but the reality is that not everyone is safer at home. For far too many, home isn’t a safe place and many folks are now locked in with their abusers. The outlets they had – school, work, shops, the library, the swimming pool, the park – all those places are closed and there is no where to go that is even remotely safe. Every shelter and crisis center I know of is experiencing an even higher than usual call volume, folks not knowing where they can turn when they can’t get away from the person hurting them. In addition, for many survivors the isolation and social distancing, as well as the general climate of fear around the virus, has threatened to overwhelm our already traumatized brains. For  many, PTSD, anxiety, insomnia, and their associated physical symptoms have all been made worse by these days. My caution in these days in manifold. (1) be careful how you talk about “safer at home” and if someone tells you they feel stuck at home, listen and don’t judge, they have a reason for what they’re saying; (2) go gently, particularly when you’re sharing lists of extra things that could be accomplished in these days, how many more online meetings you invite people to, or what you’re expecting of folks while they’re coping with an unprecedented global crisis – no one’s brains, hearts, or bodies are functioning at their absolute best right now, adjust expectations accordingly; (3) keep these numbers and websites handy … Rape Abuse Incest National Network (RAINN) 800-656-4673 and live chat (a sometimes much safer way for folks to connect) at https://www.rainn.org/ and the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 (voice) and 800-787-3224 (TTY) and live chat at their website https://www.thehotline.org/help/

Finally, know that I am here by email (breakthesilencesunday@gmail.com), or phone (715-851-3080) if I can help you with your BTSS planning, or in any other way as a survivor during these days. ~ Moira

 

2020 BTSS Materials

~ RevMoMo ~ Leave a comment

Hello friends,

This is a quick post to get the materials out to you as soon as possible. I will write more about these materials in a few days, about the process that got these materials together, and some thoughts behind them. In the meantime, yes the full document is just over 100 pages – it includes three survivor reflections, a sample sermon, a full liturgy, a new full evening liturgy, and two speeches from this past summer’s General Synod (mine to committee, and the committee’s speech to the full floor). Those last two are included for archival purposes so they’re all together. There’s also information about Strings of Strength (SOS) and BTSS in a Box. I’ll have separate PDF files of everything up by the end of the week if parish pastoring allows.

Peace and grace, Moira

BTSS 2020 WORD

BTSS 2020 PDF

Strings and things – a project

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820

That’s the number of stories shared with me (and Lella) by survivors since Break The Silence Sunday began not quite five years ago.Seventy-eight of those have been since the beginning of General Synod on June 20th.

I’ve kept track of every story, usually initials, sometimes a name when they’ve asked me to use it, and maybe a little note as an aid to my memory about who they are and the story they carry. I’ve tried to respond to every story with gratitude for the sharing, knowing myself how hard it is to tell, to not want to be a burden, to share something that many people can’t begin to imagine, much less live with.

Lately I’ve found myself replying with words something like, “your story is heard, and believed, and held in God’s grace”. (Yes, I know that last bit might not work for everyone … so could we maybe agree on grace as a concept, in this case like tenderness and love combined, that holds the story without judgement, shame, or blame?) I’m finding those words comforting to survivors, and to myself, maybe because they’re the words I heard, and still need to hear even all these years later.

And that got me to thinking about some sort of tangible way to symbolize this with survivors come the next General Synod, 2021 in Kansas City.

The answer, clearly, is string!

If I knit one shawl every month from now until the next Synod, I’ll have 24 of them.

If I recruit other people to knit, crochet, weave string into scarves, shawls, and wubbies (more on that in a minute) then I could have oodles and oodles of objects, soft and cuddly objects, for survivors to have when they share their story at the Break The Silence Sunday booth. Because as sure as I’m sitting here, and as sure as the kittens are demanding I get up and feed them, there are gonna be a whole lot more stories now that BTSS is moving to the national stage, now that we’ve taken down the door, now that we’re all working together to break the silence.

So, here’s the plan (if you aren’t a string type creating person, please skip to step three where we need your creativity in naming things):

Step One: You – fabulously wonderful string artist type person – commence making objects in whatever pattern you like, by whatever technique you like (I am an utter failure at crochet, but I’ve been knitting for 40 years)

Object Suggestions

Shawls – something like 24″ x 60″, give or take

Scarves – well, you know, a scarf is sometimes skinny, sometimes not; sometimes long, sometimes not; variety is key here, but scarves are clearly skinnier than shawls in width

Wubbies – my William had one of these when he was little, they’re about 12″ square (big washcloth?) and get carried around in backpacks and purses and such so when you need to know it’s there, you just reach in and pet it; the person who gave us William’s called it a wubbie and so here we are

Object Requirements

Soft, seriously soft. Don’t go into debt buying cashmere or something, but we want snuggly.

Probably acrylic or a blend thereof; if your string has wool in it, please let us know (see further steps); washable is really useful, particularly for wubbies.

Colours – somewhere in the purple-ish range of things. Purple is our theme colour for sexual assault awareness (my living room looks like Barney the Dinosaur exploded), but please think of this broadly. The string I’ve started with has loads of yellow and pink in it. And remember, purple is a whole range of colours. It doesn’t all have to be lilac and lavender pastels.

Step Two: You – fabulous string creator person – arrange to send me your creations. This step needs some sorting out. If you’re near me I can collect in person and bring you a snack. If you’re further away we shall conscript the postal services into delivering, and give the carriers a snack (and probably mail you a treat too). But, we’ll get to this when we do because it’s going to take some time to get the creations going.

Step Three: We attach a note to your creation that says something like

your story is heard, and believed, and held in grace
with the BTSS logo
maybe your first name or initials as creator
and some sort of name for this project

(hello non-string people, this bit is where we need you and your use of words to come up with what we’re calling this work). I had thought of “Comfort For Survivors”, but the more I said it in my head the more it sounded like the comfort women of World War II and I just don’t want that (if you don’t know about it, please go here … https://www.history.com/news/comfort-women-japan-military-brothels-korea).

So, the project needs a name … what shall we call it to convey the meaning that these objects are symbols of the courage of the survivor for sharing their story, it being received by our BTSS team, and it being held in the loving grace of our hearts?

Step Four: We give out these objects to survivors. Perhaps it will all be when we get to General Synod in 2021, or at the Wisconsin Conference Annual Meeting in 2020 (where I’m sure to hear many stories), or they become part of our website outreach to folks, or ??? In any event, the objects eventually end up in the hands of survivors.

Step Five: You relish in the support you’re offering to survivors you may never know, but who now feel a whole lot less alone in their stories, and in the world.

Step Six: You make more objects, and repeat the entire process until rape culture ends.

If you’re game to help, even one scarf or wubbie would be great, drop me a note: at breakthesilencesunday@gmail.com, through the comments here on the website, or on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/breakthesilencesunday/

Same goes if you’ve got ideas about what we can call this enterprise. Drop me a note and let’s get a good name going.

Also, you don’t have to be any good at this. We’ll take your best efforts. This isn’t about perfectly knitted, crocheted, or woven objects. This is about you expressing your love for survivors of rape and sexual violence.

Looking forward to all your creativity. ♥ Moira