Chapter 9 - Religious Women
The last few days until Lydia’s big meeting passed by quickly. All four of the author candidates submitted their sample articles in plenty of time, and none of the other people she called expressed any interest. She wanted to run a few things by Oscar one more time before Gerald and the Board of Directors grilled her. Of course she had done thorough market research and knew her author candidates and their pieces of writing inside and out, but she wanted to be absolutely certain that she wouldn’t be asked a question that she wasn’t ready to answer. Oscar’s opinions weren’t universal and his experience was often a little jaded, but his first-hand account was more interesting and probably more reliable than looking at charts and reading technical market analyses.
Oscar had agreed to meet Lydia in the afternoon on the Saturday before her meeting. Earlier that morning he had taken a bus over to Evangeline’s home. The two of them needed to talk about wedding details because Evangeline and her mother had made some arrangements and they were hoping to be able to finally set a date for the wedding. After a few hours of discussion, though, they were no closer to confirming that date and Evangeline needed to leave for choir practice. Together they had agreed that Evangeline would drop him off for his lunch meeting with Lydia and then pick him up on her way back.
“I thought we had agreed that we would pick a date this morning,” Evangeline said after a long time of silence in the car.
“Yes, we did agree to that, but I wanted to run the new dates that you were suggesting past my parents, and they weren’t answering the phone, so there’s nothing I could do.”
“It’s our wedding, Oscar. Your parents would make it work no matter what date we pick.”
“Of course they would, but it’s only fair that if your parents get to be part of the discussion, then so do mine. Besides, as soon as my folks see that I’ve called, they’ll call me back and we can let them know what days we’re thinking of, and then boom, we’ll have a wedding date. I don’t know why this is such a big deal.”
“This is going to be our anniversary for the rest of our lives, Oscar, it’s a very big deal. I really wanted to have a wedding date picked by now, and we could have if you hadn’t been so stubborn.”
“Okay, fine!” said Oscar. “Open your little wedding planning book. We can forget about the dates your parents suggested and we’ll just tell my parents about it afterwards. Let’s pick a date, no parents, just you and me.”
“That’s ridiculous Oscar. My dad is officiating the wedding, he has to know which date works ahead of time.”
“It’s our wedding, Evangeline. He’ll make it work.”
“You’re being immature,” she said, shaking her head. “Let’s just talk about something else. How are your meetings with Lydia going?”
“Good, I guess,” Oscar said carefully, trying to gauge whether she wanted an answer or if she was just trying to change the subject. “It’s been really interesting hearing her thoughts on the Christian world from an outside perspective.”
“Do you think she’s coming along?” asked Evangeline. “You know, spiritually?”
“I don’t know. I guess we haven’t really talked much about her spirituality. It’s been mostly business.”
“But you are trying to tell her the gospel, right?”
“So far she’s been asking some really good questions about why some Christians do one thing and others do the opposite thing. I haven’t had a chance to explain the gospel to her because I’ve been so busy explaining to her why the gospel is so poorly applied. Besides, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything that I’m telling her about Christianity. She’s telling me about the publishing process too, that doesn’t mean I’m going to ask her how I can become an author.”
Evangeline looked up from her wedding planning book, “If you want some help with evangelism ideas, you should talk to my dad.”
“I’ll see if I can fit it into his busy schedule,” Oscar said as they pulled up to the agreed upon restaurant.
Evangeline rolled her eyes but decided instead to change the subject when she saw Lydia standing outside the door of the restaurant. “Do you enjoy talking to Lydia?” she asked.
Oscar replied immediately by casually saying, “I guess.” He certainly had enjoyed working together with Lydia on the project so far, but he also knew that Evangeline was secretly asking if he thought Lydia was pretty. He remembered thinking she was pretty in high school, and he thought she was even prettier now. He hoped his quick answer had allayed any of Evangeline’s fears, but just in case, he also added, “She has an entirely different outlook on the world from me, so there are definitely limits to how deep the conversation can go. It’s tough to look past that.”
“Okay,” Evangeline said as Oscar opened the door to leave. She looked up and noticed that Lydia had spotted them. Before Oscar stepped out of the car, Evangeline said, “Aren’t you going to give me a goodbye kiss?”
He turned back to her, leaned in and gave her the kiss she was waiting for. “Have fun with the wedding shopping today. Don’t spend too much money,” he said as he stepped out of the car.
Oscar walked nonchalantly toward Lydia, and after they had greeted each other, he turned back and waved goodbye to Evangeline, who hadn’t left yet.
Inside the restaurant Oscar and Lydia stood quietly at the counter while they thought about what they wanted to eat. When their meals were ready they quickly found a table. Oscar asked to find one close to a window so he could watch for Evangeline’s return.
“How are you feeling in the lead-up to your big meeting with the Board?” he asked.
“I have all my materials ready,” she said, getting a folder out of her bag and sliding it across the table to him. “It would be nice to have interviewed a few more candidates, but these were the only credible-sounding ones that responded quickly enough. At this point, I’m just trying to sell myself on one of the candidates so that I’ll be able to make a convincing pitch to the Board.”
“Just so you know,” he said, starting to flip through its contents, “this is already the coolest project I’ve ever worked on. Did you want me to read the material now?”
“There’s no rush. You can tell me later what you think. I just wanted you to have a copy of it.”
“I’m looking forward to reading this one of Alistair Graham,” Oscar continued as he saw his profile in the folder, “Bethpage is pretty popular in Christian circles around here. My fiancée and I were talking about going there. She thinks it would be a fun weekend date some time.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very romantic outing to me,” Lydia said, thinking back to her discomfort with the expectations of the retreat center.
Oscar just chuckled to himself. “You don’t know Evangeline.”
“Okay, well, just so you know, they won’t let you sleep in the same room.”
“That’s fine, neither will Evangeline.”
Lydia’s face couldn’t hide her confusion, but Oscar decided he would rather discuss the book project than try to justify his relatively prudish relationship standards. “So which candidate do you think you’ll advocate for?”
“Right now I’m leaning toward Monica Lang, the social worker I mentioned. I don’t know if you got this sense from Benjamin Worsley, but I found the other three were all older guys that just came off sounding creepy, lonely or both. Monica is younger than all of them and her material sounded both relevant and attainable.”
Oscar looked up from his papers. “You’re not worried that the Board will think you’re biased because she’s a woman?”
“They probably will, and maybe I am a little biased, but if I can show them using their own criteria why she’s a more qualified candidate, it shouldn’t matter.”
“Right,” said Oscar, continuing to flip through the information.
“Did you have other plans when I met with her?” Lydia asked. “You never wrote back when I asked if you wanted to meet up with her.”
“I was avoiding the issue,” Oscar said meekly. “About a year ago, Evangeline and I were looking for ideas of things we could to do together as a kind of charity date night. I suggested helping out at Vashti’s Palace for a few evenings. When she called there to ask when we could come volunteer, they told her that she could go, but I, as a man, was not welcome. Evangeline was more upset about it than I was, and we ended up going somewhere else.”
“That kind of makes sense for a women’s shelter, doesn’t it?” Lydia asked. She wondered if Oscar could have been more sensitive, but she also couldn’t help but think that none of her boyfriends would have ever been interested in a charity date night.
“Yes, it does,” he conceded. “I didn’t see it immediately, but I totally understand how that wouldn’t be the best place for me as a guy to hang out. It definitely wouldn’t be the best place for us to have a romantic moment either. Anyway, I figured if she invited you to have the interview at the shelter, then I wouldn’t be welcome. Plus, from what Evangeline relayed to me about how that phone conversation went back then, I get the sense that she has some opinions that she might be more comfortable sharing if there weren’t any men around. I should have spelled that out earlier, but I didn’t want to taint your impression of her, one way or the other.”
“I guess I see where you’re coming from,” Lydia agreed. “She did seem to be carrying a lot of resent toward men in general, but mostly toward her dead husband and the male leadership of the church she attended.”
“Probably with good reason,” Oscar added.
“It sounded like it,” Lydia said. Then, after thinking for a moment she added, “Most of my friends in university were feminists, and in those circles religion was almost a four-letter word. What is it about Christianity that makes men want to take power away from women?”
Oscar let out a laugh before catching himself. “I’m sorry, that is a very serious issue, and I don’t mean to make light of it. If you heard the argument I had in the car on the way here, though, you wouldn’t think that the woman was the powerless one in our Christian relationship.”
“Trouble in paradise?” Lydia asked.
“It’s just the stress of all this wedding planning,” he shrugged. “But as far as churches go, women often do have a lot of power. In many less conservative churches, leadership positions are open to men and women. Even in more traditional churches, where they have very clear limitations on how much authority women can have, many women attend without their husbands. Most of the volunteers in those churches are women. Because they are so plentiful and active, they have a lot of influence.”
“So women in churches are either given power directly or they can take it coercively?” Lydia asked.
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Oscar said. “Another thing to remember is that if you ask most religious women, they don’t feel particularly oppressed.”
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t,” Lydia insisted.
“That’s true,” Oscar quickly conceded.
“I just don’t know how this all fits together,” Lydia began. “You are a Christian, and you don’t seem to hate women. Monica is a Christian, and she’s dedicated her life to helping abused women. But, a lot of the women that she protects are Christian women who put up with abuse from their husbands in the name of God.”
“To be fair,” Oscar said cautiously, “no respectable church allows men to abuse women and no respectable church tells women to be secretive about the abuse they experience. Granted, you could argue that their understanding of love is warped or that their definition of abuse is too narrow, but Christians all over the world teach unequivocally that men should love their wives.”
“Okay, maybe I was being a bit harsh, but how is this all part of the same movement?”
“There are basically two streams within Christianity,” Oscar began. “There’s the stream that says ‘Let’s follow the Ten Commandments and build a civil society’ and there’s the stream that says ‘Jesus was a rebel so we should be rebellious too.’ It plays out that way with the peace theology we were discussing with Mr. Worsley, and it plays out that way about women. So some women think it’s their Christian duty to rock the boat and some women think it’s their Christian duty not to rock the boat.”
“What’s the point then, if you can be one extreme or the other and still be a Christian?”
“I know I’m treading on thin ice making this comparison, but bear with me. A generation or two ago, young women were starting to rebel by burning their bras, refusing to do traditional tasks like sewing and baking, and if they dared lower themselves and get married, they insisted on keeping their last names. However, those women now have teenage and young adult daughters. This next generation usually feel free to dress more provocatively than their mothers did and to tell them otherwise would be interpreted as imposing on their freedom. Other young women are reclaiming tasks like knitting or canning preserves as expressions of their femininity. This all still somehow falls under the umbrella of feminism.”
“Did I ask you to read Feminine-ism?” Lydia asked, recognizing some of this logic from the book she had worked on.
“I picked up a copy for Evangeline but she hasn’t touched it. My point though, is that these women are essentially part of the same movement. Maybe some are misguided, maybe some are responding to different cultural situations, but at least to me, as an outsider, it all looks like feminism.”
Oscar was, of course, off on a number of points, and Lydia had a pretty good idea what a number of her friends would say in response to him, but she understood his general point. “So, is it possible to market a successful Christian book written by a woman?”
“It wouldn’t be the first.” Then after a while Oscar added, “I haven’t read many of them, but Christian bookstores are full of books written by women.”
“So maybe what I should do is get you to tell me why the other candidates wouldn’t be marketable.”
Oscar laughed, “Well, first, I know I read the policy manual, but I still don’t know anything about marketing. Second, to label someone as unmarketable would feel like more of a personal attack than I would feel comfortable making. If you want, I can tell you why I personally think their theology is off, for one reason or another, but I’m not sure that would help you in your process.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“So what work do you have to do before this meeting?”
“I have to figure out what I’m going to say.”
“You have to give a speech?”
“Yes, but I think I’m pretty much ready for that. I’m mostly afraid that I won’t be ready to explain myself when they start asking me questions about why I made certain choices or what the research suggests about this or that.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll do fine, and this may not mean anything to you, but I’ll pray for you.”
That was a phrase Lydia hadn’t heard spoken too often and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it either. “When you pray for me, what exactly will you say?”
“I don’t know, I guess just that you’ll find the right words to say and you’ll have the peace of mind to say them.”
“Yeah, that would be nice, but you know, if I do well it won’t necessarily be because God helped me.”
“And if you do poorly it won’t necessarily be because God hung you out to dry either.”
Evangeline arrived shortly after that. While Evangeline and Oscar were head-ing home they got a call on her cell phone from his parents saying that the first day they suggested worked fine for them. While Evangeline and Oscar were both happy to hear that, it was a reminder of the argument from earlier in the day.
Lydia was happy to get home and, once she had settled in, she wrote out a list of questions the board members might ask her. The booklet of the candidate writers’ bios and sample articles was already finished and the copies had been made, but she flipped through it a few more times hoping not to find any mistakes.
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p; Attn: Members of the Board of Directors
The following documents are the result of my author search process. I have narrowed the field to four potential writers. Each of them has submitted a sample of their writing. With each article I have included a photograph and a written profile of the candidate.
I appreciate the effort you are putting in to reviewing this material and I eagerly await your feedback.
Sincerely,
Lydia Phillips
Reverend Joseph Ballard has been a priest in Capital City for twenty years. He currently presides over St. Alexander’s, the largest Anglican Church in the area, located at the heart of downtown. His parishioners admire him for his wisdom, enthusiasm and candour.
He is a man of great physical stature and his eyes reveal the wisdom of his years. His prominent position in society has given him a lot of time in the spotlight, and he is comfortable behind the camera.
His sphere of influence reaches beyond the realm of religion and into local politics as well. He sits on a number of citizen advisory boards and his counsel is often sought out by prominent local politicians.
Reverend Ballard is a regular contributor to the Faith section of local newspapers and has had a number of articles printed in various magazines. He is also a frequent guest on religious television programs on the local cable network.
He is an advocate for a wide variety of social causes and does not hesitate to speak about them publicly.
“New Parable for a New Time”
There was once a great man who was at the same time a mighty warrior, a man successful in trade and commerce and a planner for the future. Not only was he a skilled fighter, but he also fearlessly entered into battle whenever he thought it was necessary. He had acquired such great wealth in his commercial endeavours that virtually every business transaction in his community somehow involved him. He was ambitious in his future plans, but also cautious, knowing that men like him had come and gone before.
However, this man also had his flaws. While he filled the hearts of his fellow soldiers with courage, their wives and mothers felt that he would lead them into battle too readily. His riches were great but he did not always carefully seek the best ways to spend them. He was a man of vision, but his plans for the future dealt almost exclusively with keeping his military power and maintaining his business empire. Everyone respected his power, but they lived in fear of being punished by him.
In that same place there came a woman. She was very wise, often telling the people stories of where they had come from and where they were going. She was kind, tending to the needs of the sick, the poor and the lonely. She was also very beautiful and her home was ornately decorated. Most of all, she was a great motivator; her words gave the people meaning for today and hope for tomorrow.
Though many people loved her, there were limits on what she could accomplish by herself. Her charity was limited by her meagre resources and her influence was hampered by her low social standing. Certain people were quite vocal in their opposition to her, but her following continued to grow.
At first, the man did not trust the woman. He worried about her popularity. He worried that if the people followed her, they would stop respecting him. He followed the lead of his closest friends by denouncing her and her teachings.
In time, however, he too saw why the people admired her so. He grew to respect her, then to love her and in time they were married. These two great entities were united as one.
Together they could achieve much more than they ever could apart. Freed from the worry of punishment and ridicule, the people could admire the woman publicly. With his power and influence, her teaching could reach a much larger audience than was possible before. His wealth also provided far greater resources for her works of charity. Finally, looking forward, his actions and future plans took on a deeper meaning because of her values and wisdom.
Their relationship had its difficulties, as marriages do, but they were happy together, recognizing the many benefits of their union. But while they were together, the people around them changed; some began to vocally question her teaching and some resented his power. This once powerful couple had lost the ability to unite the people, and in their various camps the people started to call for a separation of the man and the woman. Neither of them wanted the separation, but the people couldn’t be quieted any other way.
There was some separation anxiety at first, but soon they each adjusted to their new reality. The man went about his business, maintaining his wealth and influence, but once again his actions and plans for the future were void of meaning. As is usually the case, the woman was the greater victim of this separation, but she dutifully returned to her work of teaching and charity, this time with greatly diminished resources. The people had become sceptical of both the man and the woman, and went about their lives thinking they were happier, but their days were void of the hope they once had.
So if this separation has caused only hurt, why did everyone want it? If the people are all victims of that separation, why do they still support it? Isn’t there some way that we can reunite the kind and compassionate Lady Church with the rich and powerful Master State?
Benjamin Worsley is an organic farmer in Prince Edward County, just south of Trenton, Ontario. He lives alone on his farm, raising chickens and pigs as well as growing a variety of crops. He sells his produce at farmers’ markets throughout the province as part of a cooperative with other organic farmers.
He looks more comfortable in his overalls than in a suit. He doesn’t go out of his way to get his picture taken, but understands the public nature of this role.
He gained headlines nationally when he ploughed the words “Love your Enemies” into one of his fields. He told reporters at the time that his actions were motivated by his opposition to the war in Iraq. Adding to the controversy was the fact that it was first spotted by Air Force pilot trainees. Mr. Worsley proudly admitted that the military personnel were his intended audience.
He is a regular participant in local peace and agriculture related political rallies and is well known to local politicians. He also attends church services regularly, having participated in a number of congregations in his area.
“The Accidental Environmentalists”
In recent years our society has become more aware of environmental issues. People have begun to factor the ecological impact of their choices when it comes to making major life decisions. Naturally, it wasn’t long before businesses responded and tried to use environmental motivations to get people to spend more money. As a result, there is a new generation of environmentalists who are now filling landfills with environmentally friendly products. They feel good recycling the containers of products they didn’t need to buy, and they do it publicly so that everyone can see, but in secret they neither reduce nor reuse. They make needlessly long trips in their hybrid vehicles. They rally governments to limit pollution, and they will fly around the world in CO2 emitting jets to deliver that message. Farmers work together with refiners to burn one gallon of regular petroleum to produce the same amount of cleaner burning ethanol.
In stark contrast to the new popular green movement, there exist various groups of people who for generations have been working with the earth, not against it, groups of people whose carbon footprint has been no greater than the land they own. They are not a new puritanical environmental movement; instead they represent the continuation of an ideology that is millennia old, predating any end of the world fear mongering. Interestingly, these people do not use regular environmental terminology. In fact, they are quite unaware of it. These people have an entirely different set of motivating factors.
In the history of the Christian church there have always been people who see in the teachings of Jesus a call to live simply and in harmony with the earth. Whether it was early monasticism, medieval mysticism or contemporary Amish communities, their religious convictions produced some of the most environmentally friendly citizens this earth has ever seen.
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sp; Obviously, there are reasons these movements have stayed largely on the fringes of society and the mainstream church. Living this way often requires physical and/or social isolation from the rest of the world. Heavy-handed leadership is often required to maintain a cohesive community environment. Accumulation of wealth is almost impossible in these settings. When the alternative is so easy and comfortable, it is understandable that not everyone can make the sacrifices necessary to follow this reclusive lifestyle.
Even if someone were willing to withdraw from society like that, they could still get tripped up by any of the doctrinal points that have been central to these various groups. Like their contemporary counterparts, early monks and nuns followed the call to celibacy. The medieval mystics held at the core of their worldview an anticipation of Christ’s imminent return. Besides their peculiar dress and culture, the Amish of today are fundamentalists in their application of pacifism, among other things.
These points may be difficult to stomach for the postmodern enlightened individual, spiritual or otherwise, but they are intrinsically woven into their clean environmental record. Even the most ardent idealists will soften their views to do what they think is necessary for the safety of their family. Those gladly anticipating the end of the world compile no more resources than they need for the next short while. In the history of the world, there has been no greater driver of technological change and the accompanying environmental destruction than armed conflict.
As green thinking becomes more prevalent, it still makes headlines when mainstream church figures embrace green theology, and understandably so. Expansionist governments backed by imperial churches have raped the earth of its resources for their own gain. Some contemporary end-times preachers even advocate intentional destruction of the earth to hasten Christ’s return. But if Christ would return now, he would be disgusted.
The mainstream church has conveniently forgotten what many fringe movements have always known. Following Jesus should mean you’ll take better care of creation, not worse.
Alistair Graham is the founder and director of Bethpage, a spiritual retreat center in a remote forest in the Haliburton Highlands. It was established fifty years ago by the Presbyterian Church. The center is a popular destination for Christians of all generations and stages of life. Its strict rules for guests seek to ensure an environment conducive to prayer and worship.
Mr. Graham is a popular and well-respected man in his field. Many attest the surprising popularity of Bethpage to his wise and gentle leadership.
He will turn 80 next year, and his grey hairs attest to that fact, but he is still remarkably sharp and surprisingly contemporary within his community.
Mr. Graham recently became a widower after his wife of 55 years passed away. They had 3 children together.
He has a Masters of Divinity from Trinity College in Newfoundland and he guest lectures at a few local theological schools and occasionally has articles printed in Christian publications.
“No Reception for Cell Phones”
Bethpage is a spiritual retreat center nestled away in some of the little remaining wilderness in this area. When we built it, we were even more isolated than we are now, but at that time, there was a lot less to isolate ourselves from.
At the front desk, where our guests sign in, there’s an old wooden box. Someone made it years ago in our workshop. We knew it was nice to look at, but we had no use for it then. We kept it around, but only later did we find its purpose. It is now the mandatory drop box for our guests’ cell phones.
It wasn’t long ago when we first started to hear the electronic interruptions that have come to define the age in which we live. Some people can pray through the cell phone ringing and other people cannot. Even so, it was soon apparent to us that we needed to do something about these disruptions.
Guests will sometimes refuse initially to give up their cell phone when they get here. Perhaps they’re worried someone else will take it. Maybe they haven’t read the agreement they signed when they reserved their stay with us. Maybe they simply ignore the wooden box right in front of them, full-to-overflowing with other people’s cell phones. But their stubbornness to give up the phone is not our biggest problem, it is their belief that they can have a meaningful spiritual retreat while still being plugged in to the outside world, if only wirelessly.
I have talked to all sorts of people, high school teachers, pastors, university professors and business leaders, all of whom have had their classes, sermons, and meetings interrupted by the ringing or vibrating of someone’s cell phone. The interruption is compounded when the recipient of that notice of electronic communication leaves the room to answer the phone call or tries to coyly respond to the text message or email.
Besides the professional inconveniences, the problem is exponentially worse in social settings. An otherwise quiet bus or subway ride becomes awkward when someone’s cell phone conversation is all that anyone else can hear. A pleasant conversation between friends over dinner stops because someone is calling from the office. The value of family time is limited because everyone knows that if the cell phone rings everything is paused.
The people I have mentioned who are annoyed by these devices are not anti-technology, and neither am I. What’s offensive is the automatic feeling of rejection one gets when that ring starts and everything else stops. The person calling could be someone’s dying father wanting to impart some final words of wisdom. It might be a notice that you’ve won some sort of contest. Another possibility, and the most likely one, is that it is just a friend just calling to chat.
So, we confiscate the cell phone, but the phone itself is not the problem. Instead, it is the manifestation of a much deeper human problem.
When phones were first being installed in our homes, we would rush to answer the ring, knowing that at the other end was a person with a concern serious enough to warrant the hassle of using this new technological device. As phone calls became commonplace, we would still rush to answer it, even if it rang during a family meal, even if it was likely someone calling with a survey or some product to sell us. When cellular phones first became available, it was a status symbol to speak on one of these devices in a public place. Even though these phones and their usage are now commonplace, it is still tempting to imagine that the calls we receive are important enough to answer immediately and we imagine that we are important enough that everyone else needs to know about it.
At Bethpage, we invite our guests to communicate with their Creator. This communication does not require a cell phone, either to send or receive. In fact, the cell phone often impedes that communication. Prayer is most effective when there is nothing to distract us, electronic or otherwise. The phones wait happily in the wooden box for their owners to bring them home at the end of their stay and begin re-cluttering their minds. We wait here eager to help our guests de-clutter their lives again when they return.
Monica Lang is the founder and host of Vashti’s Palace, an abused women’s shelter in a suburban neighbourhood within the Greater Toronto Area. She used the tragic loss of her husband as a call to serve others and converted their home to accommodate the facility. Vashti’s Palace aims to offer abused women a temporary oasis from their violent realities, a step up so that they can regain control of their lives, and most of all, dignity and respect.
Despite her church pulling funding from her center, she continues to have a strong faith. Her acts of compassion and charity are inspired by belief in a gender-neutral God who loves all people unconditionally.
Monica has a Bachelor of Arts from Memorial University. Each year she raises funds for an annual scholarship available to current and former residents of “The Palace” and their children.
“The Princesses of Vashti’s Palace”
It was raining the night that Veronica and her two children came to the Palace. She had a black eye and bruises, and her son had a cut on his lip. She apologized for coming, promised to pay for any expenses she incurred, and assured me she woul
dn’t be staying long.
She looked sympathetically at the other guests, as though their problems were more serious and fundamentally of a different nature than her own. Then, she began to talk to the other women.
It turns out all of them had married “good” men, just like her. Initially, their husbands had small but correctible flaws. These women were all surprised when their husbands hit them the first time, and they all believed it when their husbands said it would never happen again. But between the husband’s promise and the wife knocking on my door, something had changed. A few more things had to change with Veronica too.
On that fateful day she had told him over dinner that she wanted him to spend a night at home with the kids instead of spending another night at the bar. He responded with his fists, saying that his social life was none of her business. Her eight-year-old son tried to intervene. When her tears subsided, she wrote a note that said when he was ready to apologize he should call her cell phone. She then packed up a few things, put the kids in the car, and left.
She expected to hear a drunken apology that night, or at least a sober one the next morning, but no call came. Veronica had married a proud man but he was about to find out that beneath her passive exterior, the woman he married had some pride too.
A week later he called, saying she should come home, but he refused to apologize, so she refused to return. Somehow he had found out where she was staying, and he came to bring her back. Maybe it was the volunteers and the other guests that were watching, maybe it was the video camera he saw me holding, or maybe he had just been struck with a pang of conscience, but he left without incident. He was lucky he didn’t stay long, because the police were on their way.
Veronica was lucky, though. She had the strength not to go crawling back, and her husband soon realized his mistake. As the time passed she worked out a detailed list of requirements that needed to be met before she would return.
He came to the Palace again, this time willing to say that he was sorry. We sat down together to flesh out an agreement they could both work with. Around the table sat a group of people that cared about them; their kids, the pastor of the church she went to, a counsellor, and me.
She and the kids went home with him that day, but only after he signed on the dotted line. In this contract, he agreed to a long list of things designed to ensure the physical safety and emotional stability of his wife and children. His friends mocked him but he finally had the love and respect of his family.
These are the things he agreed to. First, he would give up alcohol entirely for six months, and failing that would join an alcohol addiction program. Next, he had to enrol in anger management classes. They were offered at a nearby community center at a very reasonable fee. Third, he had to reimburse Vashti’s Palace for his family’s three-week stay. This was not something I threw in, but something Veronica insisted as a way of helping him begin to use their wealth to benefit other people. Many of their stresses involved the amount of time he spent out of the house, so he also had to promise to limit his work time to 50 hours per week as well as limiting social nights out with friends to two nights a week.
As I said, Veronica was one of the lucky ones. She was lucky because her husband realized the mistakes he had made. She was lucky because there were no recurring incidents and I never saw her again as a guest. The increased quality and quantity of time they spend together has meant their home is now a place of love and security.
Veronica’s fortune then became ours. She now serves as a regular donor and volunteer. Our guests benefit from her experience, her understanding and sense of hope. Thanks to her courage, in our city there is now one less abusive husband, one less boy who will learn the pattern of violence from his father, and one less daughter who will grow up to tolerate it.
A Pie Plate Pilgrimage Page 11
