April 1, 2010
In Observance of Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Month

Blue Bows Reflection

Patty Jenkins
Director, Center for Life and Learning

Jeremiah 6:14-16

Ironic how pretty the trees look when the blue bows are tied on and fluttering in the wind. People cross the street to learn what the pretty blue trees are for. They smile as they walk up to the trees, and their smiles drop when they read the explanation: “Each bow represents a child abused in Cook County in the past year. The bows are the color of bruises. Nearly 8,000 cases were reported in the past year in Cook County alone.”

I work with the older adults here at the church, as the director for the Center for Life and Learning. I work with folks at the other end of the lifespan, whose bodies and minds are quite different than children’s, so much so that we marvel at how small children are and how smooth their skin is. How do they stand on those tiny legs? How do humans get from there to here?

Although our members are primarily vital, active older adults, I also have an interest in elder dementia. I attended a presentation once through the American Society on Aging from a psychiatrist who studied elderly dementia patients whose behavior was particularly agitated and included frequent weeping, screaming, nightmares, and other fear-based behavior. The behavior is terribly distressing for the person and also makes it much harder for caregivers to feed them or provide medicine, bathing, or nurture. His goal was to identify a common cause with the hope of finding a treatment. He reviewed their medical records and interviewed them and their family members for their personal histories.

The overwhelmingly common factor among the elderly suffering violent dementia was childhood abuse that had never been dealt with. The common factor was childhood neglect or physical, sexual, or motional abuse that family members knew about but never addressed and that the victim was never able to talk about.

It turns out that time does not heal all wounds. As we age, we are less able to filter and suppress strong emotions and memories. A child who is abused and is not able to heal may become an adult still tangled in an abusive cycle. A child who is abused may become an elder no longer able to realize that abusers long since dead are no longer stalking them. If we develop dementia, our demons may be waiting for us at the gate.

What I have learned is that removing children from abusive situations is a good beginning, just as pulling your hand out of the fire is a good beginning, but it does not heal your hand. Much more is needed to heal abuse and needed all throughout the lifespan.

In our scripture passage this morning, Jeremiah laments, “They have bandaged the wounds of my people lightly as if they were not serious.” So we ask this morning, what can we do to take seriously the wounds of our people? What can we do to help children avoid abuse or be removed from abuse? And then what can we do to help them heal? The passage from Jeremiah gives us a clue:

Stand at the crossroads, and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way lies; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.

What are the ancient paths, where the good way lies? To me they are the paths of instinct and communal responsibility. I have only called DCFS once to report suspected child abuse. I could hear my neighbor in the apartment across the hall shouting and spanking her first-grade daughter, thirty to forty times. I stood frozen in my apartment trying to decide what to do, whether I had the right to make that call.

My instinct was to knock on the door and intervene, but I was afraid and my fear made me stuck. What moved me was my communal responsibility. I heard the voice of a social work professor who challenged us by asking whether we had the right to not make that phone call: “Do you have the right not to speak up when you believe someone is being abused?” As a member of a community that values the wellness and protection of children, it was my duty to act, and I made the call.

I want to tell you my neighbor was mad at me. But it was OK. She wasn’t a danger to me, and she wasn’t a bad parent. She was a frightened parent, and now she knew she wasn’t alone. She and her daughter were part of a community.

The ancient path is also one of honesty. To tell the truth about abuse is a tremendously difficult thing. But we here are doing it right now. This morning we are a people gathered to tell the truth about abuse, because we know there is no excuse, no justification for what abused children suffer at the hands of adults. We have come to proclaim the truth.

The psalms often say that the mountains, the wind, the ocean will shout out to God. Today the trees on Michigan Avenue are proclaiming the bruises and tears of too many children, even the deaths of little children. Just last month, the Tribune reported the death of a three-week-old infant named Lilliana, whose father threw her against the side of her crib because she was crying. All Lilliana got was three weeks at life. That is a truth hard to tell, hard to bear.

But the whole truth is much larger than any of the terrible truths we could tell, larger than the blue trees multiplied by every county in every state, because the whole truth includes hope. The whole truth includes the reality that children can heal, families can heal. There are people who care and programs that work. If you did not believe in hope, you would not have come here this morning. But God bless you, here you are.

Our call today is to search for the ancient paths and walk in them, for they will bring peace to our souls. Our call is to follow our instincts, claim our communal responsibility, tell the truth, and to live in hope. May it be so, for so much and so many depend on it.