Yesterday was an interesting day. I was doing some visiting of people, and running errands (even pastors have to go to the grocery store). I stopped for lunch and ended up right in the middle of a mess – a family torn apart by misogyny, slut shaming, and hatred. I wrote about it on my personal Facebook page, and I link here for the full story…

Many people kindly said how brave I was. Thank you. I defer to your thoughts on that because I’m not sure we (I) ever think of ourselves as brave at the time. We just do what we do when we need to, and other people see it as brave. Upon considerable reflection, and not too much sleep because my heart and brain couldn’t get themselves slowed down, I am grateful it didn’t occur to me at the time that Wisconsin is a concealed carry state, though it probably wouldn’t have changed what I did, it might have changed how I did it.

A quick update on the family – I have been in contact with them. Grandpa did come and get things from the house while the granddaughter’s fiancé was there, and her father as well. They have also been in touch with the counselors at the local abuse shelter whose numbers I gave them. The family, except grandpa, seem to be quite supportive, and I’m praying for all of them.

However, all this got me thinking about what we are called to do in these challenging days.

At least once an hour there’s a comment from someone on my Facebook page about the Women’s March on Washington, invitations to call our congressional representatives, petitions to sign, letters to write to advocate for various things, and more. It’s all incredibly important work, participating in the world, showing up, making our voices heard. Personally I’ve written the sitting president every week since I was eleven, and I intend to keep that practice up with the new administration. I have my congressional reps (both state and national) on speed dial on my phone, their names and numbers taped to the front of my computer. I have marched, and participated in sit-ins, and been arrested for civil disobedience. And all of that is good, vital work.

But there’s an interesting turn that’s happened in the last couple of days. People have seemed to demand that there’s only one way to do the work – that we must all attend the march, or must all make phone calls, or must all do whatever it is they’re calling for. And that’s simply not true, nor possible.

I won’t be at the march on Washington. Partly because I have a long planned trip to St. Louis to work on the materials for the 2017 observation of Break The Silence Sunday. Partly because I think that right now, given all the other things I’m juggling, the huge crowd would send my PTSD over the edge, and I’m not sure my lupus would allow me to march for very long in the cold. Then there’s a financial consideration as well – getting to and from Washington, and housing in between, plus all the other expenses of traveling.

I’m not the only one in that boat, where time, distance, finances, health, and other obligations (jobs, children, partners, caregiving, and so on) need us to be in other places. There’s no shame in that, and we need to stop harassing others who aren’t able to make it to Washington, or participate in their local supportive events either. We aren’t helping the cause of justice and peace if we’re shaming people who can’t participate in the same way we do.

But I got distracted. That’s not actually the point of this post. Back to the encounter at the restaurant in Green Bay…

Two things occur to me most – one about the church, and the other about all of our roles as good bystanders.

First – the church. If you’re paying attention to the story, the grandfather assumed that I, as a clergy person (obvious from my choice of clothes – quite intentional on my part, to make clergy, and particularly women clergy, more visible in the world) – he assumed that I would condemn his granddaughter for having sex before marriage. He simply assumed that is the stance of the church, that we’re in the business of condemnation, guilt, and shame. We have allowed this to be, and we (clergy mostly, but laity too) have to get off our buts and be more vocal, more visible, and more passionate about a G-d of love, and grace, and compassion. We have to challenge every hate-filled, hate-fuelled Christian preacher the media chooses to be the voice of our faith. We have to get busy with spreading our understanding of the gospel – writing alternative columns for our local newspapers, offering interviews to the media, talking about our faith with people at the gas station, and the grocery store, and the restaurants we frequent. It’s our job, our calling, and should be our passion.

Second – we need to be good bystanders. Several people remarked that they wouldn’t have felt comfortable intervening in the situation at the restaurant the way I did. I understand, and as I said about if I had stopped to consider if the grandfather might have had a concealed weapon, I might well have reacted differently. As it was, I was by myself which means I didn’t have other people to look after, and could give myself to the situation without knowing how much time, and energy it might require. But there are ways for all of us to be good bystanders, to intervene in such situations, and we need to start thinking about how we’re going to do it. As I said, not everyone can go to Washington for the march, but all of us can challenge sexism, toxic masculinity, misogyny, and patriarchy at home.

• We can ask people to explain to us why jokes about women earning less than men are funny.
• We can challenge people who catcall, or call women “sweetie”, or say “you’re pretty smart for a girl”
• We can interrupt people who are in the middle of rants like the grandfather was – one of the most useful things to do, in my experience, is to ask someone who has gotten stuck in one of these rants what time it is, or where the nearest McDonald’s is, or anything that will make them stop and think about what they’re doing and saying; it might give just enough time to someone else who can step in with other resources, and ideas.
• We can call the police (if that’s a safe thing for us to do – understanding the complicated nature of police relations).
• We can seek help from others around us, in this case the wait staff at the restaurant, but in other circumstances, the other people at the bus stop, or waiting in line at the grocery, or wherever you happen to be.
• We can befriend the person who is being attacked – for example, the pregnant young woman might have come to the buffet and you could have offered a kind word, an “I’m sorry for what you’re going through”, or a friendly smile.
• You could talk to the youth and children in your life (all of them, regardless of gender) about treating one another with dignity and respect.
• You could carry the numbers for your local shelter, abuse crisis center, or other such places with you, so you could hand them out to people in need.
• You could carry the number for RAINN (Rape Abuse Incest National Network) that provides phone, and online counseling … 800-656-4673 or http://www.rainn.org

These are only a few things, and this post is getting long enough, but there is something each of us can, and should be doing, to be better bystanders. The world will change through huge movements like the March on Washington, and through countless small steps we each take in our day to day lives. We need to “be the swedes”, the two Swedish students who intervened, stopping Brock Turner’s rape of an unconscious woman at Stanford. They saw something. They did something. They were good bystanders, good neighbors, good people to share this planet with. May we all be the same, to everyone in need.

P.S. There’s still plenty of time for you to contribute something to the 2017 Break The Silence Sunday worship materials. Drop me an email at breakthesilencesunday@gmail.com if you’re interested, or just curious.