I so appreciate that these conversations exist and that I can listen and benefit from the insights shared. Paul mentioned that the church has a job to do in truth telling and telling the stories; that is what is allowed here that often is not allowed in other places. Especially within church communities, I have experienced that it’s often really not allowed for us to tell the truth about harm we experience. That’s something to just sit with.
I also really appreciated Paul’s comments on forgiveness as I too have experienced my community use their ideas about forgiveness as a way to spiritually bypass examination of problems, shutdown conversation, shift blame…essentially they say, “you are actually the problem if you experience pain or emotion or want to talk about this, it means you haven’t forgiven and everything would just be fine if you would get over it, “forgive” and “get healed”. It was such a disgusting manipulation and it makes me angry just thinking about it.
I so appreciate that these conversations exist and that I can listen and benefit from the insights shared. Paul mentioned that the church has a job to do in truth telling and telling the stories; that is what is allowed here that often is not allowed in other places. Especially within church communities, I have experienced that it’s often really not allowed for us to tell the truth about harm we experience. That’s something to just sit with.
I also really appreciated Paul’s comments on forgiveness as I too have experienced my community use their ideas about forgiveness as a way to spiritually bypass examination of problems, shutdown conversation, shift blame…essentially they say, “you are actually the problem if you experience pain or emotion or want to talk about this, it means you haven’t forgiven and everything would just be fine if you would get over it, “forgive” and “get healed”. It was such a disgusting manipulation and it makes me angry just thinking about it.
Thank you for listening and for sharing your thoughts here