Easter Monotone!

I said I wouldn’t get into moaning about religion too much! But it is that time of year again when every time I put on the radio or TV I hear that dreadful monotone voice of someone religious spouting ! If there was a god, I am quite sure he would hate that bloody awful tone they adopt  when they consider they are talking to him/her.

But then I always do find it hard not to be bewildered by such people’s blind obedience to religion,  especially when we see all around us it is so destructive. 

Not just because of the people who have died in the endless wars fought in the name of religion, but by the way it  has deftly succeeded in de-valuing all of our  human life. We only have to see the dreadful killing of innocent people this week by terrorists to be aware of this! But terrorists aren't the only ones who don't value this life. 

I recently went to a funeral that was for a young man who died of a heroin overdose. His Mother who is fiercely religious had that awful “all knowing”  beatific smile on her face often worn by religious  people, and she held it throughout the funeral, and afterwards, told me (with the same beatific smile) that she was so happy that he was with god, that god had spared him from a worse fate.Now I do know that everyone grieves in their own way,with  whatever gets you through the shit. 

But HE WAS 22 ! For F... s sake! he should have been there with his brothers and sisters, with his mates, having fun.  I wanted her to be screaming in absolute anger and  grief that he was not! I wanted her to say how important he was,how special,  how terrible it was to lose him, what a shit deal it all was. It felt almost as if his whole short life was being negated because of the whim of some arse in the sky who didn’t care about the pain that his death had caused, what a gaping hole would always be in his family’s lives.

It is subtle, this blind belief in the hereafter,  it is insidious and it has crept upon us over the millennia, until so many people spend what is such a rare and precious time on earth thinking about the next one! Religion is the architect of such cruel delusions. What a f.....ing waste! 

Theres not a day goes by that I don’t

metaphorically scream in anger and despair that my own son died at the age of nineteen! Of course it would be so comforting to tell myself he is in a “better place” and that I will join him one day. How much easier that would be for me! But I can’t just decide to believe in a fairy story  because it feels nicer! And actually I WANT to shout how bloody dreadful it is, to acknowlege what he has missed and what we have missed about him. Because his life, THIS life was precious and important and valuable and finite. I know we won’t meet again, and if I could just have back the times when I was annoyed with him, or angry , or even "too busy" , then I would give the proverbial limbs. It broke my heart,and it still hurts like F...!

This kind of sinister  fairy tale thinking pervades every part of our society! I certainly wouldn’t want to be treated for a serious complaint by a doctor who thought my life was not important apart from being a proving ground for the next! I don’t want to have my government headed by someone who leaves the major decisions about my country to his imaginary friend in the sky! I don’t want to rely on anyone who thinks that this life of mine or my family is just a trial period!

This boy’s death was a dreadful tragic  waste of a life, and  although, of course, I sympathised with his Mother, and I know that she surely must be in such pain,  I actually found myself wanting to smack her! (I told you that when I think about religion it brings the very worst out in me!)  But what I did instead,  is really look at how I value those people in my life, my children, my husband, my friends,  all of whom will also only have a tiny speck of time  on this planet, and I have had the sheer luck to be able to share that precious time with them. I will not  waste a second of it thinking about some vengeful judgmental bastard who thankfully doesn’t exist!
If I don't manage to get to the radio to turn off that dreadful monotone soon enough, It will tell me that this is a time for "reflection" So I will reflect on this!
 Each one of us is a unique, precious irreplaceable part of the universe, made of stardust and will only have one moment, and THIS is the moment!

Someone told me that if I wanted to be happy I should live each day as if it was my last. I am resolving to  consider that  everyone I connect with might be having  THEIR last day, and so try and make it a great  one! 

Sick of being Sick!

Something has happened to me today!. 
Do you know I am just  SICK of it!  Sick of the negativity that constantly  thinking about religion brings out in me! I am Sick of feeling angry, Sick of repeating old news , Sick of wasting these precious  days on irrelevant people . 

I KNOW the score! I know they are duplicitous self engrandised narcissistic liars. It doesn't matter which angle I look at it from, it is always clear! 
So I for one am "moving on"! 
It feels  a bit like when I stopped drinking, I could have spent  my life complaining about the evils of drink, what it did to me, my shame and guilt,  how sorry for myself I was, or I could grab the opportunity of recovery with both hands and get over it! I was Sick of being Sick , so I chose the latter!

So now I have another choice! I could spend my days complaining about the 
r c narcissists , banging on about how abusive the catholic upbringing of children is, how it attracts and protects pedophiles, and on and on , OR I could thank F...  I  am out of it and get on with living  a life that has been saved! 
I spend ages saying how it is wrong to feed narcissists, and then I get drawn in to doing just that!  It keeps me Sick! Constantly fighting them, makes me fight everyone , and  brings out the very worst in me! 
Have I really turned my back on them? or is there still a bit of residual delusion that things might change? NO! Or maybe I still have some post disclosure paranoia? Who knows!   
So today I choose recovery, health, wellbeing, positive growth and freedom, and I will continue to share my skills to help other survivors recover too.

I will work on my recovery, my teaching  and the five star recovery plan for survivors , and not give one more hour to that  negative influence that I have escaped from and left behind. 
When I stopped drinking, it wasn't after a particular drama, in fact worse dramas had occurred many times before that. But I somehow had a "moment of clarity",  not from any "higher power" but from my own humanity. I saw what would happen if I continued, how this would be the pattern forever, and how my family would suffer, how "Sick"  it all was.

 Some people call those moments a "spiritual awakening" but for me it was just an  inherent human desire for something better and for survival that gave me that clear window.

I have experienced many of those moments since, and if I choose to act on them I fair better, am happier, more productive and more useful - ignoring them makes me bolshy and  miserable! It is not difficult to see what is better! 
That wretched church has had enough of my precious time, it took my innocence, my safety, my peace of mind, my security and much of my potential. I do not want to give it any more of what is actually a very  very short spell on the planet.
That is why the "recovery tree" on the

Survivors Voice website was created!So I am going to now going to get on with the real business of cultivating, watering and nurturing!

Stretching the truth!

When I was a child growing up in the toxic environment of brainwashed fearful catholic bigots, I was always  aware that what was important to them was what we were seen to be doing, rather than what we actually did! I was charged very early in my life with the responsibility of not letting down the image of being a catholic!  I was being "watched" !!!

Not only by that cruel  omnipotent executioner in the sky, (who loved me!) and by all of his "saints" but by everybody else! EVERYONE would be watching me and , knowing I was a catholic,  would judge any transgression, no matter how minor or human and that  would reflect badly on the church.

Admittedly this was a time when catholics saw themselves as a persecuted minority, but  nothing has changed. Still there is a "What can I get away with" culture, which has very little to do with common decency or morality. 
I have said before how there was a "hierarchy" of "sins" some with more serious consequences (in a next life) than others. So there was effectively a list of rules. As children we were taught that whatever was on that "list" was what would send us straight to hell. Most people soon learned how those rules  could all be stretched and manipulated, to justify pretty much any behaviour they chose to indulge in. I remember when the "no meat on Friday" rule applied, the family would   justify eating meat, if you were ill, had been ill, were looking after someone who was ill, or were working and needing more energy,  or at school equally in need of  more energy. 
 The "Fasting in Lent" rule was the same, and actually pretty much any rule could be manipulated, regardless of how immoral or lacking in human decency it was. The "joke" between adults in the family was "have it and tell it" meaning do what you want, then go to confession.(make sure no one outside the church sees you though, that would let the church down!
They would discuss their own "ways around things" as if it were a virtue! It seemed that the creativity of avoiding the consequences of "sin" was much prized!

Different rules applied to children of course, who needed to be taught how sinful they were, should not have that "rod spared", and should be totally obedient.

As I watch all the various promises and feigned sorrow of the church's hierarchy regarding those lives that have been destroyed by their priests violations, it is fairly obvious to me that they are still hell bent on what they can "get away with" and their ONLY agenda is still the image of the church. 
Anyone with any decency or integrity would be saying "We will do as MUCH as we possibly can to atone" (and then DO it!)  They would act with humility and a degree of shame! 
The church will do as LITTLE as they can get away with! Offering crumbs (and renege on even that!) They will act from a position of arrogance and grandiosity.
They will constantly STRETCH  the rules to justify their immorality!
They tell us priests  are celibate!! despite far more of them "stretching the rules" to include several mistresses,secret children, and multiple boyfriends.
They say that if priests  could marry, there would be less child abuse! "stretching the rules" to suit their own purposes when we all know that pedophiles are not created because of  celibacy!
They dig their heels in over issues that don't really concern  them, but would save lives,  like contraception and stem cell research, but "relax" their rulings on things that suit their purposes, and don't really matter, like "relaxing" the rulings on catholics marrying non catholics, and condescendingly offering women "forgiveness" for past abortions!  
Then they tell you they are the keepers of truth and decency! But the facts  tell us very much otherwise! So keep your elastic "lists"- I like facts and statistics! here are some REAL  ones to be going on with!

Love to Ballarat

       
Love to Ballarat.

      Watching the brave survivors from Ballarat exhausted after their travels and the ordeal of having to sit and watch George Pell's unfeeling and cold performance for the Royal Commission, I cannot help but point out the almost identical experiences of 2010 when we also were in Rome.
The same scenario, brave survivors, this time    from 14 different countries, including seventy of the deaf and speech impaired survivors of clergy abuse form Verona in Italy.
 Lots of reporters, TV cameras, interviews,multiple gatherings, laughter,tears,anger,despair, hope-and all of the other extreme emotions that come with this sort of occasion. 

    We met in Castel Saint Angelo opposite the vatican (they would not let us into vatican square because we were wearing Survivor's Voice teeshirts!) We lit candles and we sang,  we shared our pain and our determination.

        Frederico Lombardi (papal spokesperson) slithered out of his hole saying he wanted to "address the meeting"! He said he had seen us out of his window, and decided to come out (Armed with two A four sheets of prepared speech that presumably fell into his hands as he came over) We refused to let him speak, we were there for each other not the church or it's spin. So he scuttled back under his rock after refusing to answer questions by the journalists there and then being heckled. 
 We danced and we marched, some of us were arrested and had passports removed, some were "allowed" only in to the square with teeshirts covered up and in pairs. Some of us left stones in the square from our gardens at home and our names on, they were swept away pretty bloody quickly!
  A few of us  were then ushered into Lombardi's office, where he arrived to take  centre stage, he sat in a chair  raised higher than ours (usual disrespect) hardly spoke, NEVER listened and was clearly there only so that the next day he could report in the vatican news that he had a "meeting" with survivors- absolute crap!  The few words he deigned to utter were patronising and ill informed, he suggested, (as he did similarly this week with the Ballarat survivors) that we should all "work together to stamp out pornography in all of the other churches "WTF!
      Gary  told him that he was  clearly "wasting our time", that we had come to party with each other and would prefer to get on with it! I suspect he was pleased to get rid of us, his PR stunt had served his purpose.
    As it happens, one of us  "accidentally" left their phone on "record" and we still can hear the ludicrous and useless dialogue, sometimes we have played it back for fun and just to remind us what a creep he really is!
    This week Lombardi  are saying it was a "healing experience" in Rome , they had the audacity to praise Pell and the film  "Spotlight" (in the same sentence!! WT double F!)  I have always been so amazed at how they can turn their obvious humiliation into a victory! Taking credit for things they had no part in,  apart from being the  cause of all the pain. Even more amazed that still some people believe a word they say!!
There is another film I would like to draw attention to, BASTA by Gary Bergeron, which shows his and Bernie McDaid's journey ten years earlier to Rome, where they too encountered messages "not received" "pope unaware" "fax's not working" - same shit different day!
This week in Rome felt like an action "replay"! 
And  here is the thing : In all that time and with numerous groups of survivors going to Rome - NOTHING about the church has changed!!! NOTHING that has been promised has ever materialised!!  NOTHING has altered their disregard and obvious contempt for those  who's lives were destroyed.
BUT We have  changed!!
We KNOW who they are - we have seen their dark underbelly  and power mania and have turned our backs on them!
    Because Here is the thing ! THEY DON"T GIVE A SHIT!!! They are narcissists and will always use and abuse anyone who challenges them. They are INCAPABLE of change. Anyone who goes there expecting integrity will be put into the role of supplicant or beggar and they will be used  for PR fodder.
We have been back several times to Rome, but never again to seek anything from them, or to protest-  but to PARTY! To dance in front of the vatican-  to celebrate our survival and our connections, and to show them that we have survived despite them - and to spite them.

   We have been several  times to Verona and there we party with those survivors in Italy who STILL have received NO justice.Despite their story being put into the pope's hands directly!

  I send my love and admiration to Ballarat but I do hope they know that  Pell, the vatican, will say anything to gain publicity out of them, and then very quickly get them off their backs! Their false tears and feigned sorrow is obscene.
When it comes to MAKING AMENDS for their crimes they will do as little as they can get away with, NEVER as much as they could do.They will offer patronising crumbs- and then  They will do NOTHING!
We have to take care of ourselves and each other!

Spotlight Survivors!

So as we are celebrating the brilliant success of the film "Spotlight", and I do applaud all those involved,  I can't help wanting to remind everyone that this story is in fact quite an old one! 
New film of course, but the story goes back a decade or more. 
The brave survivors of that time in Boston, and I would like to name my buddies Gary Bergeron and Bernie McDaid as among them, did a magnificent job of bringing to the public eye the horrendous abuses in the Boston area, and bringing down the duplicitous cardinal Bernard Law. The Globe journalists and lawyers also did their wonderful bit too, there is no doubt about that. But in that time NOTHING has changed in this wretched  church! They were also part of this story way back then, and still they did NOTHING! 

They have even  had the audacity to congratulate the Spotlight team, and said they applauded the film! Are they joking or what!
They learned NOTHING at the time and they have learned NOTHING since!
They still behave in exactly the same way, still acting as if they are above the law. There are many defensive catholic voices who are telling us that they are "putting in place safeguards for children" and we "should get our facts straight"!!! 
Well here are some facts : If they were indeed "putting safeguarding in place" that should be a GIVEN! Not something they deserve Brownie points for! After the endless scandals and horror stories that have come to light about this crime against humanity, damned  right they should be "putting things in place" that is the very least they should be doing!  They should also be open to secular independent scrutiny, having  proved they are  quite incapable of policing themselves.
They have demonstrated  time and time again their unwillingness to change, and they disregard every attempt to make them accountable, even to the point of totally disregarding clear directives from the UN. They simply are not capable of openness and rigour.
The constant cry seems to be "protect the children" and I care very deeply about future children's safety  of course, BUT  frankly, if catholic parents are STILL allowing their children to be influenced by them and even (good forbid!)  be alone with any of them- then THEY  are as culpable as their church!
And  once again,  may I remind everyone that regardless of what this hypocritical, narcissistic church crows about when they talk about their "safeguarding" and even if all of the bishops and cardinals  learn how to tell the truth, even if every priest in the world gets married, and the pope chickens out and resigns like the last one, then we are STILL left with 
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DAMAGED HUMAN BEINGS WHO'S LIVES ARE NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME AGAIN!!!!
MAKE  PROPER AMENDS to those victims -you MORONS! Stop negating their suffering, by using them to protect future catholic children- that is YOUR job! 
Recognise the severity of their burdens and MAKE PROPER AMENDS!! Only then might you have a glimmer of a chance to garner some small bit of credibility.