Name signs

Here is another story of abuse and abuse survivors.

The Good Raised up about Tom "Bigfoot" Tannehill, a deaf man connected with recent news of a large number of abuse cases connected with a Catholic priest in Milwaukee

http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2011/03/tom-bigfoot-tannehill-and-his-ministry.html

Read the blog entry yourself for the details.

Read the comments for a RantWoman inquiry that is just about as far as RantWoman dares go in opining about matters of Deaf Culture, a topic of extreme importance to Ferrener Husband and therefore something RantWoman has at times wandered into just by association. Just for a teaser, RantWoman promises a bit about Ferrener Husband's name sign for RantWoman at the bottom of this entry.

Meanwhile, lest anyone try to pretend that this particular item is only about the Deaf, RantWoman means to hold the following excerpt thought:

God's love for him--including God's love through me--isn't diminished because of
his shortfalls. Maybe God's love for us, and God's love through one another,
even becomes more necessary, more warranted when we fail.

These days, when I have an opportunity to respond to someone who I'd rather view as a monster or think as someone to be fearful of, I will need God's grace to remind
me that we are each a Beloved Child of God, with a story that at the very
least might need telling, and at the very most, might need healing.

Perhaps RantWoman should stop there, but RantWoman is reflecting on various flavors of awkwardness around her Meeting about the Safest Sex Offender on the Planet, about even talking about him to the degree necessary to support our community's role in the treatment program he continues voluntarily, about the conflicting needs and preferences articulated by different members of our community who identify as survivors of abuse, and about the practical and spiritual necessity of talking about unpleasant realities, unpleasant possibilities just in the course of tending to community life.

RantWoman lately has been seasoning what if anything of RantWoman life experiences she is called to offer for further conversations on these themes in her Meeting.

Among the items currently on RantWoman's mind:

--RantWoman has previously written obliquely of a volunteer on one of her projects who one day rather flamboyantly announced that he is a pedophile. He says he has no interest in actual activity, but definitely is interested in pictures. To say the least, better grounded souls than RantWoman might Roll their eyes at such a revelation. RantWoman found herself thinking "Thank you so much for telling me, now I can cross you off any childcare list." RantWoman also figured that it is not inconceivable that he has neighbors with similar interests so instead of just bouncing him from the project, RantWoman gave him a VERY stern "For your own safety..." admonishment and landed squarely on the side of rules designed to protect everyone and coincidentally topical in other terms as well.

--When a new director of an agency serving disabled people arrived in town, RantWoman introduced her to someone RantWoman greatly esteems at another agency serving disabled people. The two of them immediately bonded and started a long discussion about sexual assault statistics among the populations they serve, in both cases much higher rates than among the general population, compounded by substantial barriers to finding help. Perhaps it is just as well RantWoman was not led to say something like "I'm so glad you two found something to talk about."

--RantWoman lately has had more than one conversation with different people who assemble one person's name, various behaviors, and the term sexual harassment. The person with the behavior issues uses a wheelchair. Everyone who complains can walk and get away, albeit in a couple cases with difficulty. RantWoman herself composed an email specifying behaviors she considers unacceptable for herself but omitting the specific term sexual harassment. However, it also fell to RantWoman to articulate to others who can help RantWoman observe the point that one person who cannot walk and get away might in fact not mind what look to RantWoman like even more egregious behaviors.

RantWoman is a little afraid that speaking of these messy Truths around her Meeting will cause some to run away screaming, almost as fast as talking about the Safest Sex Offender on the Planet himself. RantWoman is also praying for the centeredness not to lose patience with others in any conversation. To say the least, Divine Presence duty is unlikely to be dull!


Now for Ferrener Husband's name sign for RantWoman: A name sign is sign-language shorthand for someone's name. Sometimes the name sign evokes a specific physical characteristic such as a mustache; often a name sign will in some way use the initial of a person's written name.

Ferrener Husband and his parents and all his brothers are Deaf; their actual hearing ranges from nearly stone deaf to able to be helped a lot with hearing aids. At home when RantWoman visited the local sign language was used in preference to anything spoken, except for when someone wanted RantWoman to hear. Ferrener Husband was educated entirely in schools for the Deaf in his homeland.

RantWoman and Ferrener Husband have been separated for years and happily so. The separation happened before the main events of RantWoman's vision meltdown, but RantWoman did not have great vision even before that. RantWoman took a long time to figure out that Ferrener Husband's name sign referrinhg to RantWoman, an ASL pun on RantWoman's first initial, basically also amounts to "Four-Eyes" in the hand signal lexicon of many playgrounds. RantWoman can cite many daunting aspects of interactions with Ferrener Husband, but RantWoman also decided in context that usage is kind of sweet.