Believing is Seeing

It's a line from one of my favorite Christmas movies.  In the movie "The Santa Claus" starring Tim Allen, he becomes the next Santa through a series of events.  At the beginning of his introduction to the North Pole on the fateful day he becomes Santa Claus, an elf by the name of Judy is discussing with him the reality of magic, the North Pole, and Santa Claus.  Tim Allen's character (Scott Calvin) looks around at the wonder that surrounds him and says that though he sees it, he doesn't believe it.

Judy responds, "Seeing isn't believing. Believing is seeing."

I have no doubt some pastor (or two) have used this movie bit as a sermon analogy about how believing in God is seeing God at work, or something.  Rather than talking about that, I am going to take it a different direction.  I am going to talk about believing women who have had their bodies violated and used without their expressed consent.

Before I go too much further, I know that my curtailing the conversation to focus on women is going to bring people who say that boys and men are violated too, which is 100% true and equally as wrong.  Not all sexual assaults are reported, and the number of reports is lower amongst male identifying persons, and that is heart breaking.  But this blog is about believing the stories of the victims.  In the outpouring of sexual assault instances that are coming to light (as they should) there is one prominent male figure who has shared his story about assault.  Actor and former NFL player Terry Crews spoke out about his experience with agent Adam Venit.  Because I read the comment sections like a troll, I couldn't help but notice most of people who saying how brave he was, how courageous, how inspiring.  I noticed it, because days before the comment sections and FB conversations I glanced over in regards to the allegations about Harvey Weinstein were filled with people demanding the women prove it, calling them sluts and whores, and saying with a sense of all knowing that these women were just looking for attention.  Or all the women who came forward about Bill Cosby and the people who still denied the women were telling the truth.

As proud as I am for Mr. Crews speaking out about his experience, I cannot help but feel a deep sadness at the contrast of the conversations. No one doubted him.  No one asked him to prove it.  No one accused him of slander.  No one asked Mr. Crews how much he had drank or what he was wearing or if he was asking for it. 

He was simply believed.  Through belief in him people stated they saw his pain, they saw his experience, they saw how vile it was, and that they saw his personhood.

When we don't believe women, we are saying we don't see them. 

When we don't believe women we are saying we don't see their pain, that we don't see how vile it would be to have that done, and that we don't see them as a person.  When we don't believe women, we don't honor their personhood, their ownership of self and their own bodies and that their bodies bear the image of Christ.

But when we say we believe women's stories, we say that we see them. Not only that, for by believing them we begin to actually see them, to see any pain or anger or confusion they harbor.  We begin to understand them and to care about them, to open and transform our hearts and let God do some long over due housecleaning.

Yet I want to dare us to take a step further.  I want us to believe women without demanding the ransom of their stories.  When we see a scar on the skin, we do not need to hear the story to know that it hurt.  And the hardest part about scars we cannot see is we do not know if it is healed or if it is still bleeding and scabbed.  Or if it is like a phantom limb that will randomly itch and ache with no ability to relieve it.  There is so much we don't know, but I am fairly certain about some things, one of which being that believing a woman leads to us seeing them, seeing their bodies as sacred, caring about them as persons, and slowly building space for the Healer and Sustainer to do the rest.

So if we are to be better at seeing, we need to start by being better as believing.

How to Talk to the Single Women in Your Life

As soon as I got old enough, the questions and conversations I would be engaged with during the holidays, whether it be family gatherings or church social functions, were stripped down to three basic questions.

  "How are you?"

"How's school?"

"Do you have a boyfriend yet?"

At first it was flattering. The simple act of initiating conversation was thrilling to me because I had understood it as people caring about me, wanting to get to know who I was and who I wanted to be. Eventually through the complexities of social interactions and patterns, I came to understand the first two questions were never as important as the final questions. The older I became the more it seemed to be that those initial questions in the sequence were simply a means to an end - to the knowing of my all too important relationship status.

I have said in a prior blog post that relationships are an important and healthy part of the human existence, including the human existence of single persons, but it was disappointing that every conversation seemed to be focused on the need to talk about me in relation to a romantic attachment. My identity as a human was bound up solely in someone else. It didn't matter what I was studying, what I was passionate about, what I was struggling with, or what gave me joy or pain. All that mattered was having a partner. It also caused me to be this strange tangle of sad and angry, because regardless the answer I gave there was the secondary assumption of how I felt about my relationship status (or lack thereof). It was assumed I was sad if I was single (and that it was never a choice), and happy if I had a someone.

I am not saying that having a someone cannot make a person happy or that single persons are never sad about being single. I am also not trying to say that family and friends should never inquire into the personal, relational aspects of the single people in their lives. What I am attempting to point out is that in very small, simple questions, a single woman can be reminded of her lack of voice and personhood in a place where her voice and personhood should be uplifted and honored as a complete human experience. In only listening to her when she is talking about a romantic partner, we teach women there are limits to where their value is.

When I began to voice my complaints about only being questioned about a partner, it was explained to me having a someone would mean that a new persons could be introduced into the social circles and they wanted to know as much as possible before they met the person (if they ever did). That explanation did not lessen the disappointment. Quite the reverse actually, for right before their very eyes was a young woman who was constantly changing, constantly becoming new, and they seemingly had no interest in who she had become or was becoming into. Here, before them was a new person, and they were more interested in someone else, a person that may not have existed or that they may never meet.

So when you find yourself in a conversation with a family member or friend or church member who is a single woman, I beg you to ask her a question about who she is. First, get to know what makes her tick and thus honor who God has uniquely and wonderfully made her to be. Ask her what God is up to in her life, where she has seen God or where she struggles to see God.  Ask her about her prayer life or her passions.  Ask her if she has created something.  Ask her to teach you something.  Ask her if she's read something, or what her favorite movies are.

And if she has a significant other, go talk to the significant other directly.