Shattered Pulpit - How a WELS Pastor Destroyed One Woman's Faith

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Death of a Soul

http://shatteredpulpit.blogspot.com/2014/08/death-of-soul.html

The psychological scars that are left when a pastor sexually exploits his parishioner are deep, life altering, and lasting. Because of his power, he can manipulate the woman not only psychologically but also morally, inducing spiritual confusion and guilt. The crisis then becomes a crisis of faith by exploiting the sacred trust in him in order to gain sexual pleasure. Sexual abuse is inherently shaming. This shaming is accentuated when the user is a spiritual leader. Because the assault is combined with spirituality, it makes it difficult to feel spiritual, theological, or fully human.- Soul Stealing: Power Relations in Pastoral Sexual Abuse

My concept of a "normal response" to a situation was extremely warped, it still is actually. I see people and desperately wish that I could react to situations like they do. The thought process that I used, as a coping mechanism, drastically changed how I thought and acted with everyone, not just him, and "normal" people frequently asked why I responded the way I did...even now.

I was convinced that I had to accept the guilt so as not to hurt my pastor who I was taught to respect and obey. However, by doing that it battered down my self-esteem even lower and further warped my thinking.  He then used his spiritual authority by pleading with me to forgive his “sins” or risk being rejected by God. 

This spiritual blackmail can trap women into silence and suffering for years or decades.Because he has redefined what is right and holy based on his own needs, women are left with a deep mistrust of their ability to distinguish right from wrong. 

I felt obligated that I had to forgive him. I was WELS as a little girl and learned that it was God’s command to “forgive your neighbor”. But I had no one to explain what “forgive your neighbor” all includes because my own pastor was the one doing it. He was the one that I was suppose to be able to go to for spiritual questions. So that left me alone with no one to ask.

I was too afraid to go to another pastor because what if he was the same way? I couldn't handle the pain that one pastor caused me much less two. I didn't trust my own instincts. I was fooled once and was NOT about to let that happen again. I never thought the first one would do that, so how could I trust my judgement again on a second pastor? The chance that all pastors were the same, and it happening again, was too much of a risk for me to even consider that as an option. Fear is a powerful motivator. 

The emotional wounds leave the woman with feelings of anger, betrayal, dismay, desolation, isolation, guilt, and shame. But the spiritual wounds are perhaps the deepest. These impair the woman’s ability to trust—others, as well as God—and to believe that God or others are good and loving. Many women report that not only have they lost their own church, but their trust has been so violated that they cannot go to any church. - Sharon's Rose

I walked away from church for years and never looked back. I hated God. I hated God with a passion. Every day I hated God more for allowing a "Called Pastor of God" to do this to me. I would be driving and literally cry out, "Why God? Why are you letting your pastor do this? Why are you allowing a pastor to kill my soul?" Hell started to appeal to me because it was far from God and pain. 

In my eyes, it was God doing this because a Pastor is a representative of God, so if I didn't want the pain, then I needed to be far from God. I surrounded myself with everything I could find about Satan; slowly my mind started embracing it and I convinced myself that was the only way to escape. It's probably lucky that I didn't succeed with suicide during that time or I would be in hell right now.

Pornography and Satan do have one thing in common - they are both extremelyaddictive. Because just how porn was a controlling addiction to him and escalated over time; that was Satan to me. The more I thought about how to be far from God and the pain, the more comforting those Satan thoughts became. At first it was a few thoughts here and there, but soon those thoughts started filling my mind until I was consumed with the thought that hell was peace and God was pain. But now you had a pastor escalating in porn and a woman escalating in Satan. What a lethal combination that proved to be and the longer it continued the more lethal it became.

Most chilling, she fears his retaliation on the spiritual level. It is difficult for others to comprehend the sheer terror that accompanies this form of abuse. But often because of the image of charismatic spiritual power that these men have asserted and fostered, the women's terror is akin to actually being cursed or damned. Victims fear that their very souls will be stolen.Because of the clergyman’s influence on the woman, trusting God enough to even open the Bible again can be a milestone.- Soul Stealing: Power Relations in Pastoral Sexual Abuse

When I walked away from church and God. I threw all my bibles in the garbage. Everything I could find that represented God I put in the trash. I actually sat by the window and waited for the garbage truck to take it away thinking, "good..I'm finally free from the God who causes so much pain". I felt free and fully embraced a life away from God.

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GJ - Does anyone wonder why WELS, the ELS, and the LCMS work so frantically to cover up these scandals?

Sig Becker, when he moved from the LCMS to WELS, told Herman Otten he was shocked at the extent of alcoholism and adultery among the WELS clergy.

One layman, who traveled all over the US, said the WELS clergy are the crudest and most immoral of all the clergy he met - and he met them from all the denominations. Of the three sects of the Synodical Conferance, WELS is the most fanatical about UOJ.

The synodical leaders have a monetary reason to kill the lawsuits and silence the critics. They were eager to preach Marvin Schwan into heaven, even though he left his wife for his manager's wife. Ending two marriages, they briefly legitimized their relationship until he met His maker. "Treat the world kindly and be worthy of grace. Remember one day you will meet God face to face." (Judith Durham, My Father's Last Words)

Leveraging the Rain: Mulch, Earthworms

This illustration omits the crucial work of earthworms in the nitrogen cycle.
They are all muscle, so they contribute nitrogen through their kidneys
and when decomposing.

Why am I writing at 3 AM? I fell asleep very early and woke up to a thunderclap right over our house. That reminded me of the open windows of our limo, since I dis-believed for joy the report of rain on the way. By the time I wiped the seats dry and closed the windows, I was wide awake.

The rain is doing my work in creating blooms throughout the gardens. I know the compost pile, where my pet pumpkin plant is trying grow, will benefit from a thorough soaking. New vegetation from my yard (crepe myrtle) and my neighbor's garden is on top and ready to start the decomposition cycle.

By God's design, a tiny bit of work will be leveraged by the rain.

Sandy soil will not support as much life because it is relatively sterile and easily damaged by wind and water erosion.

Clay soil has a lot of potential, but rain can run off a baked surface and not reach the roots as well. Plants are root-bound in a clay pot and likewise hampered in heavy clay soil.

However, adding organic matter and earthworms will benefit both types of soil. Rich loam is ideal, so that is going to do well regardless. Sand and clay need some help.

When the rain falls on a garden area covered with mulch, finished compost, composted manure, grass clippings, or newspapers, the organic matter will hold onto the moisture and promote the growth of bacteria and soil creatures - the denizens of rot and decay.

The earthworm is a custom-designed little cow that grazes on bacteria, which are mostly protein, and the earthworm is mostly protein (all muscle). Unlike the rest of us, earthworms adore yesterdays's newspaper, and grow fat on the lignin they devour. The net result of earthworms and organic matter will be a storage of moisture and growth compounds for all plants.

Sandy soil with more organic matter will stick together better and support more life. Clay soil will be dug by earthworms and soil creatures and release its mineral ions more easily.

Mulch will hold in the moisture and keep the topsoil from blowing away in the wind. My distant neighbor's roses are not pruned and not mulched. The soil around them was dry and white before the rain. This storm will run off some of his top soil. The roses will revive somewhat, but the moisture in the soil will evaporate quickly and the sad state of the roses will continue.

Purple crepe myrtle shows how abundant the blooms can be.

Crepe myrtle will mulch itself with falling leaves and flower petals, and the plant will tolerate long dry spells. However, by mulching the bush with shredded cypress and cut up branches, I increased the plant's ability to pump rain from the soil. In a neighborhood where this plant is abundant, I want the champion plant. Very little work is needed, but some work is required. The bush did not become fully alive until it was initially earthwormed and pruned. Encouraged by the best blooms in the area, I added mulch and pruned heavily.

Our helper is alarmed and anxious about weeds in the sunny garden. He clipped some of the crabgrass away, but ran into some of the good plants, which are well hidden. I was using the braille system yesterday to find tomatoes when I found a pumpkin growing, hidden away. No wonder the vine has started its march across the lawn to gather solar energy for the fruit.

My first effort has been to open up and provide sun for gardening. Before I had a front and backyard shaded by untrimmed trees, covered with grass and a wide variety of weeds.

Beans, borage, and gourds are appearing in abundance. Roses are soaking up the rain and blooming profusely. The more I harvest the fruit and flowers, the more I have.

The tomato flower is the promise of fruit will real flavor,
unlike the hothouse tomatoes of the store.

Pruning Roses - Divided Joy, Doubled Joy

Our neighbor's daughter came over with newspapers. We give them the Sunday paper for coupons; they send it back with interest. I said, "Thanks. I will turn these into roses and vegetables. Do you want some roses now?"

No one turns down roses.

Although I cut about 10 roses for the altar, I still had four perfect roses left with long stems. She decided to hold them for the walk across the street.

The Germans have a saying, which is literally "A cut joy is a doubled joy." People translate it as "A shared joy is a doubled joy." The Jackson Literal Translation fits rose gardening the best.

When roses are cut just above a five-leaf cluster, they produce more blooms. That is where I normally prune. Dead wood (brown and dry) is always pruned. Spent flowers are trimmed away and so are thefurtive attempts at going to seed.

Knock-Out roses bloom profusely and open quickly, but I can get those roses to open slowly if I cut them early in the blooming stage. The whites, pinks, and magentas have delicate little buds that are perfectly formed when pruned early.

These sepals need a little more time before cutting the rose for the vase.

The best rose in a vase is not the fully opened bloom, but the bud where the five sepals around it have opened. Then the bud will open completely, slowly. If one of the sepals is still tightly bound to the bud, the cut bud will not open. I wait until the sepals are at the equator (my term) or below it.

Given adequate moisture and nutrition below, heavily pruned roses will bloom profusely. I do not add rose food after a bloom cycle because I have the earthworms and mulch for that. Besides, inorganic fertilizers are like steroids. They can promote immediate change but long-term damage. I water extra because these roses are on a slope and it is difficult to over-water them.

The crepe myrtle bush got a Lyle Lovett haircut.

I wanted to shape the crepe myrtle bush so the horizontal branches were pruned away. The bush was engulfing the mailbox, and neither object could be moved. Although the bush  can take on a graceful umbrella shape, I wanted a tall vase with a narrow base - like my distant neighbor's, which is now 20 feet tall.

When we were done, I thought of Lyle Lovett. All the lower branches are bare and only the top is leafy. All flower heads are trimmed away in hopes of a second bloom this year. As my mother used to say after cutting our hair with her electric trimmers, "It will grow out."

Our timing was good. A storm front moved over the region and dumped rain on all my projects, with more to come. The bush is mulched by cypress and cut up fragments of the pruning. I placed solar faerie lights in the top. I set them to flicker on every so often instead of blinking steadily and making the neighbors go crazy.

Gardeners realize that one effect of pruning is waking up the roots. If the plant is pruned, the roots start growing more - the secret to healthy, robust, drought-resistant plants. Gardeners will spade into the roots of an old bush to cut them, to promote new growth.

I have no qualms about trimming the roots of bare root roses to fit the hole I have dug for them. I know the roses will not accomplish much until the roots grow out and form their extremely delicate root hairs. Until that happens, the rose will be fragile. The rose will wobble in the soil and not take in much moisture or nutrition. The root hairs vastly increase the surface area and the efficiency of the plant.

Digging up a rose bush means damaging the root hairs. That is why transplanting can be difficult and will always result in a delay after replanting.

God created entire plant groups with specific characteristics. If we know how they relate to their surroundings, we can have great results with relatively little labor.

Has anyone improved on Mr. Lincoln?
Velvety petals, rich perfume, beautiful foliage.