Confessions of a Deacon's Wife

I grew up Catholic. I went to church every Sunday and religious education classes every week - except when I went to Catholic school, then I had religion class every day and said prayers before the start of most of my classes. Sr. Holmes was the best. She was my middle school math teacher and started every math class with a prayer before spewing out an oral multi-step math problem of the day. I was lucky, I guess. The nuns at my school never once used a ruler for punishment. 

Even though I've only been to Mass twice in the last ten years (I hope Sr. Holmes understands from wherever she is now), I can still recite the prayers on demand without a missile. 

"I confess to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned. Through my thoughts and in my words. In what I have done and what I have failed to do . . . "

And then prior to Communion, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the words and I shall be healed."

At the end of the Hail Mary, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

So much emphasis on sin and blame. When I think about these words now, how they still reverberate in my mind and my heart, it finally makes sense why the shame I felt from my abortion almost killed me. If my thoughts and words weren't reason enough to be ashamed, how much worse was the sin I had committed by terminating a pregnancy?

I think that (straight) men must find these prayers have a different impact to them. They can actively participate in Church leadership, whereas women cannot (at least in the Catholic Church). That sets them up in a position of power that women in Catholic traditions don't have. My guess is that these prayers are humbling for them, but that they likely don't impact their psyche the way they do for me as a woman. I am not met in the same way in my religion as my male counterpart and so I am already starting at a less than place when I recite these prayers. 

The Catholic Church was thrilled with the recent decision by the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade. I suspect that this decision and the direction our country will take as a result will take an even bigger toll on the emotional psyche of women of Christian faith. We've repeated for decades the words "I am not worthy" and it's evidenced by the lack of women in the hierarchy that we are not equal. It has taken me decades of therapy and coaching to find my worthiness again. For anyone who is struggling, believe me, I understand. And remember this, Jesus made all of us in his image and we are all made with the same essence of Love and Divinity inside of us- female and male. The words we repeat in Church as words meant to keep us in our place. We are powerful beings, perfectly made. 

So repeat after me:

"I am worthy. I am worthy. I am worthy."

Rinse and repeat until you believe it. 

Namaste. 

The Three Best Gifts You Can Give Mom This Mother's Day

Let's face it, Mother's Day is a complicated holiday. And mother-child relationships are probably the most complex and intimate relationships on the planet. Mothering has become such an exulted profession that it's hard for many of us to acknowledge or feel the many, often conflicting truths, of that relationship. 

For example, I have a friend who lost her 93 year old mother only six weeks ago. She and her sister had a tight relationship with their mother, who weathered partner abuse when the girls were young and endured despite it. My girlfriend has been overwhelmed by grief for the loss of her mother in recent weeks. Today she will stay home and avoid Facebook and social media, waiting for this day to end when her heartache won't be so visible.

Another friend has four daughters who barely speak to her anymore. They took the father's side in a divorce, and constantly criticize, belittle and disrespect their mother when they are around her. The abuse she took from her ex-husband now comes at her through her daughters. She will also be staying inside with the shades drawn today, waiting for tomorrow, when she can get back to work and not dwell on her loss.

Still another friend is childless, who had multiple miscarriages and one abortion many years ago. Although she is single, she still deeply desires the blessing of children, yet remains childless. Her feelings today more complicated than I can imagine.

And then there is the mother who works three jobs to support her family, or the one that had the baby of an unexpected pregnancy who can't find a job that pays enough for her to cover day care, or the mom who's husband trips over his own feet as he leaves the local bar but makes it home only to slap her around while the children pretend to sleep - the mothers who endure just to survive. 

I'm sure if you chatted with your friends, you might come up with a dozens of other examples of why this day is fraught with angst for so many women.

This "holiday" in American culture has become a capitalist perversion of what it was intended to be when it was first thought of back in 1905. It wasn't long (less than 20 years later) before even the founder of Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis, tried to have it rescinded due to the commercialized tone it had taken. 

Glorifying all mothers, a superficial acknowledgement to women, and commercializing motherhood does not make the world a better place. Only a more confused one.

I've thought about this a lot over the years. Although we are now in a state of equilibrium, my relationship with my own mother has been tumultuous at times. And as to my own parenting? Ugh. Even when I thought I was doing my best, I had a partner who was still able to sexually abuse our daughter. There are experiences that haunt us for the rest of our lives.

So this mother's day, I'm not sending flowers, buying gifts or wishing strangers I see in my daily walks a Happy Mother's Day. It's hard to take this different path. Everyone's experiences are far too different, incredibly personal and belong to them. I don't wish to do more harm, although I worry that I still might. 

Ideas for women or mothers in your life that go a little deeper than flowers and gifts, especially during this pandemic? How about:

• A phone call to check in. Ask them how they are doing, what they need, if they would like to talk. Let them know they're not alone. Practice the art of listening well. 
• If you're close to a friend who is feeling loss, providing a meal or other sort of nourishment is helpful. In particularly profound times of grief, managing to get clothes on is a challenge; fixing a nutritious meal is a luxury. 
• Show up to vote! Vote for women and mom friendly candidates and policies. Write letters to your representatives to let them know where you stand, why taking care of mothers is important. 

Listen. Nourish. Support with your vote. These are the best gifts I can give to myself and the mothers in my life in 2020. 

Namaste. 

The Things We Do For Love . . .

I've been thinking for awhile now that if our default mode was one of love rather than fear, we could probably make a big dent in the number of abortions that take place. 

Isn't that what everybody wants anyway?

No woman "wants" to have an abortion, even those of us who have had one. 

And duh, the pro-lifers are all against abortion. 

What better way to have it all?

And then a couple of weeks ago, my daughter's boyfriend showed me a perfect example. 

He made a decision based on love, not fear. 

He chose to walk in my daughter's shoes long enough to understand her reproductive choices were "their" reproductive choices. Her comfort or discomfort was his too. When she was not healthy, it impacted him also. They both knew before they began their relationship that they didn't want to have children. Neither pressured the other to think the same way about a future with or without kids. After watching her medical struggles for a year now with various hormones and patches and their impact on her body, mind and spirit, he decided he would do his part. 

He made a decision to have a vasectomy. 

Now, more than a few folks think he is crazy. Or, he's too young (26) to know whether or not he wants kids. He may change his mind. My favorite - why would he risk a knife to the "family jewels" in the first place? 

Maybe there is a new generation of men out there who are more open to this kind of sharing. I hope so. I've met men who refused to wear a condom, much less decided to have a vasectomy. This young man's actions seem pretty extraordinary to me. 

I don't know what the final straw was that propelled him to make this decision, but I know that he loves his girlfriend, my daughter, with his whole self. He's watched her pain and seen her anxiety. I believe he's felt these things with her. 

He made a choice for unity instead of separation. 

He made a choice to operate with compassion and love for the benefit of the whole of the relationship, not for the benefit of himself. 

He made a choice for love over fear. 

He leaned into, not away from. 

He built a bridge to greater intimacy, he did not dig a bigger moat. 

He earned his "man card". 

He's a modern day Knight in Shining Armor in my book. He's taking responsibility for himself and the woman he loves. He leaned into a decision that many other men don't ever make. He chose love over fear. (And, ironically, a decision that will hopefully prevent an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy). 

I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but I do know, as a mom, I couldn't feel more grateful for the partner my daughter is with today. 

Ahhh, the things we do for love!

What will you do for love today? Lol!

Namaste. 

A Manifesto

I heard Cheryl Strayed speak once about why she wrote her memoir, Wild. She said up until that point, her life was completely encompassed by the loss of her mother. The question that consumed her, "Why did she leave so young and so early?" framed her life.

That's how it feels for me with abortion. It began 30 years ago, in 1988, when my childhood BFF found out she was pregnant after being date raped (and drugged?) at a college party. She had been a virgin and had no idea she was pregnant.  Four years later, it became more personal for me when I found myself with an unplanned pregnancy.

Like Cheryl Strayed, there has been one experience that has framed my life. It all revolves around abortion. I've spent decades asking myself two interrelated questions.

Having been raised in a fairly strict Catholic household, the first question was "How do I get past this?", because the fact is, for me especially with my religious upbringing, it had some pretty intense fallout. Especially when I started having my own family and was able to "see" my decision as I watched my babies come into the world.

Once I was on my way to finding the answer to the first question, the second question that began to take over my brain was "Why does abortion exist?". I am still wrestling with that question. I have a lot of thoughts and information from my own experience and from listening to the stories of other women who made the same choice I did. I love the way the Universe works and I am seeing a tapestry being woven as I lean into this question with curiosity.

My purpose and direction gets refined and is having more clarity with time. The continued threat to a woman's reproductive freedom gives it more urgency. There are three distinct components to it.

I believe many women who've had an abortion(s) and have feelings of regret or grief afterwards often feel alone. The Pro-choice movement denies that there are aftereffects, so they mostly likely cannot find support there. The Pro-Life movement condemns their action. They may feel left behind or left out. Where can they turn? Where do they fit in now? Building community for women who've experienced abortion is the first part of my mission.

The second piece is to help those who have unresolved feelings from their abortion to come to terms with those feelings. After spending over a decade on find the answers for myself to question #1, I've come up with a three part process to help women address those feelings and bring them back to wholeness. Healing for women who've experienced an abortion is the second component of my work. 

The last aspect I feel deeply committed to is to bring healing to the divisiveness in our country around this issue. I think most women who've had an abortion never dreamed they'd be part of this "club" and would have preferred not to ever faced that decision. But our world, is not a perfect and safe place. We make this decision because it is the least onerous one for us. How can we make this world a different and better place where this choice isn't so necessary? There are ways to reduce abortion without taking away a woman's reproductive freedom. I believe we can come to more peaceful resolutions around this issue. This third component is imperative. 

Who am I? I am a woman, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter and a girlfriend.

I believe in women's freedom, women's intuition and our ability to make good decisions.

I believe in the power of sisterhood to transform lives and the world.

I believe Divinity lives inside us and wholeness, happiness and joy are our birthrights.

And I believe the power of love and connection can make anything possible.

Dear United States Senator

Dear United States Senators,

I am frustrated, angry - no make that enraged, and despite the last two years - incredulous. Our country needs leadership right now. We need leadership that will build bridges to peace, not further the already historic divide in our once great nation. The past two weeks what I have seen makes me sick. My heart is breaking tonight for our country's women, children and all marginalized people. The game of which party is bigger, better, or more deserving isn't serve any common interests, only self-interest. I'm so tired of the fighting, the adversity and the inability to see the big picture over the bickering between all of you. Shame on you! The Democrats used Dr. Ford the same way Norma McCorvey was used by the Pro-Choicers. A means to an end. Has anyone checked on her this week? Do you know how she is managing? Do you even care?

And Republicans, including and especially Donald Trump - you have used power over others yet again to get your way. This is not just about gender - it's about abuse of power. I am sick and tired or your platitudes on the value of life. If you valued women, we'd have access to insurance that covered birth control and equal pay to that of men. Do you know how many sexual assault victims commit suicide? According to Rainn, 33% of rape victims contemplate suicide, 13% actually attempt it.  Do you understand the permanence of that trauma to a person's psyche or do you just not care? Please help me understand how your inability to address the epidemic of sexual abuse is valuing life.

This is a pivotal moment in our country's history. We need leaders who can listen - not just to words, but to what actions are behind the words. Intonation. Respectfulness. Intent. Motive. Empathy.

We need leaders who can step back from the war between the Republicans and Democrats, the left and the right, the conservatives and the liberals, men and women, whites and non-whites and open the  lines of communication. We don't need more leadership that shuts down and uses power over others to get their way. This country has lost all its humanity for the taking of winning. America has lost it's soul.

I fear for my children. If we can't count on our nation's leaders to be a voice of reason, to evaluate and educate and listen to each other, we are truly rudderless. Judge Brett Kavanaugh demonstrated an inability to listen. He showed his bias against Democrats and liberals in a clear and angry fashion. Whether or not you believe Dr. Ford is no longer the main issue. If Judge Kavanaugh had any tenderness for his family or his country, he would step aside. He is not thinking of anyone but himself as he fights for his "right" to be a supreme Court Justice and he is certainly not acting in the best interests of our country with his paranoia about the left being out to get him. He is not capable of listening, of answering a question or showing respect. He is certainly not capable of being impartial. How can we ever expect him to be part of the solution to heal our wounded and disenfranchised people?

I hope you're proud of yourselves. I am disgusted. I thought we'd elected leadership for all the people. - leadership that recognizes the crisis we are in and wants to work to fix it. We need you to find a candidate who can facilitate that, not make it worse. You can do better. Our children deserve better. May the God you worship every Sunday have mercy on you when you meet your Maker. You're going to need it.

Sincerely,

Christina Haas

Grey's Anatomy Nailed It

Dear Pro-Choice Movement,

I don't want you to think I've left you out after my little meltdown with the "Pro-Life Movement", now known by me as the Anti-Abortion Movement. You need a new name too, because your name doesn't fit like a glove any more than theirs.

Are any of you Grey's Anatomy fans? Remember Season 11? That's the season Dr. April Kepner finds herself pregnant with a baby who's bones are so fragile, they are susceptible to breaking even in utero (Ostogenesis imperfecta 2). April is a devout Christian who lives and breathes for God. She is married to an atheist - Dr. Jackson Avery - creating a simmering tension between the two of them, culminating in the biggest conflict of all - whether or not to terminate their pregnancy. 

As the couple wrestles with their personal views on the suffering of their child, a climatic moment occurs in the middle of Episode 10. Jackson and April's mother are arguing in the kitchen while April is trying desperately not to be a part of their argument. Finally, April can't stand it anymore and screams at them,

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!  None of this is helping. You are not helping. Neither of you. I'm standing here listening to you tell me that God only gives me one choice and you telling me that I should forgo God's choice. And the truth is I don't know anything except that I am scared, and sad and I am alone.  You're both just standing there yelling at each other and talking at me, but I am alone and and it is terrifying!  And the louder you get the more terrified I become so I just need you both to shut up. Can you do that? Can you please both just shut up!"

Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the show, nailed it. This is exactly what's been happening to women who want to have reproductive freedom. They, like April, are in the middle of an escalating fight and the women you chose to help way back at the beginning have been tossed aside, scared out of their minds, while you battle for the win. 

Pro-choice movement, is this the way you help women? By defending their rights while avoiding their turmoil? You say your movement is here to help women - but I don't think you're listening very well. Many of us feel pain - physical and/or emotional pain - from our abortions, but you ask us to deny that pain, again and again and again. Your tactics on the battlefield are causing us to lose our minds! 

A couple of years ago, a woman named Emily Letts, filmed her abortion to show the public how easy and painless it is to have an abortion. Emily says she is uplifted and positively transformed by her abortion. No regrets. At the end, she is interviewed a month after her abortion and says she still feels great, empowered by her abortion. And while I believe that may have been true for Emily - she feels like she is a warrior for your movement and that she has just beaten the enemy - for many women, that is not the case. The writer, Katy Waldman, states at the end of the piece "And because the anti-choice myths are strong, the resistance fierce, the corrective must be too." 

You've gotten sucked into the gamesmanship of the anti-abortionists. You're reacting to them, not acting for a woman's best interest. Just like April, women are suffering on the sidelines while you engage in battle, ignoring the real physical and emotional needs of women who make a decision to terminate a pregnancy. 

Make no mistake, the strategies of both sides are about winning - not about a woman's life. Or I might add, that of her unborn child. Many women who've had abortions and who were once pro-choice, now feel abandoned, like Norma McCorvey, and are even choosing to go to the other side and take up the anti-abortion banner. 

And there it is. This is where we are now. Arguing. Fighting. At each other like Jackson and April's mom. And there are a million April's out there alone and sad and terrified and confused. I've seen them in support groups all over the internet. They need to know that what they went through was more than just a "right" they deserved. Having an abortion is a multi-faceted experience that can take it's toll on a woman in many ways. To ignore that is to ignore the group of women you say you are serving. 

So, pro-choice movement, I don't believe you have a woman's heart and soul in mind any more than the anti-abortion movement does.  You may be support a woman's right to choose, but I don't see any evidence that you are acknowledging the humanity of the women you purport to serve. Just like April, we've been left stranded, isolated and alone in the middle of the battlefield. Do you even remember what this battle was about? 

When the other side went low, with horrendous photos of fetuses and other vicious maneuvers, you went lower. Videotaping an abortion to "prove" that having an abortion is empowering and uplifting? I gotta hand it to you - there certainly is some shock value with that one. 

I don't know what to call you anymore. You may be pro-choice, but you're not pro-woman. The end is more important to you than the means it takes to get there. In th meantime, I will do my best to support women who still feel isolated, stuck, sad or regretful. Because I know there is A Third Way to do this. 

A Thousand Previous Outrages

Dear Pro-Life Movement,

We need to talk about your name - Pro-Life. It has to change. 

Last week I listened to the podcast, The Daily, by Michael Barbaro for the New York Times, on the issue of Roe v. Wade.  It was eye opening.

The first of this two part series begins by telling us about Norma Nelson McCorvey's (aka, Jane Roe's) life leading up to her desire to have an abortion - how she was raised in poverty by a violently alcoholic mother and abandoned by her father at age 13. She tried to run away from home many times, and at the tender age of ten, gets into trouble for stealing money from a gas station. After that, she's sent to a Catholic boarding school where she is sexually abused. After a stint at a girls' reform school, she is sent to live with a friend of the family, a man, who she says rapes her almost daily for three plus weeks.

She meets her husband at age 15, Woody McCorvey, who is also abusive and beats her relentlessly when he finds out she is pregnant. Unable to live with him, she returns home to her mother. The same mother who is a violent alcoholic. She becomes pregnant a second time and gives the baby up for adoption and it isn't until her third pregnancy that she reaches the decision to have an abortion. She's had one child, given another up for adoption and realizes she can't go through either of these alternatives again. To think the safest place she can find is back home with a woman who abused her as a child is mind-boggling.

Norma Nelson McCorvey

You can listen to the podcast, linked above, to hear more about her life story.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about her childhood all week.

How is it that we've spent decades being outraged over her desire to have an abortion and not in any story that I have heard or read are not outraged with how she was treated as a child?

Alcoholism, domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse are all part of the fabric of her young life - where is fury over those atrocities? How is it you say you are "pro-life" and yet the quality of this young life is so horrific and yet the details so absent from any discourse of what "pro-life" means?

Coincidentally, I happened to watch the documentary series on NetFlix, The Keepers, last week. Teenage girls were sexually molested and raped for years by clergy from the Archdiocese of Baltimore in this story and yet no one is talking about this either.

The quality of many of our children's lives is unimaginable. Who can truly imagine an adult violating a child in such monstrous ways? It happens in families and in the church. It is constantly swept under the rug and both the children and those who stand up for them are disregarded, made out to be crazy. The secrecy of what really happens behind closed doors has stayed locked up tight. Denial is a powerful force, but enough people have spoken out. It can no longer stay hidden.

And yet it is in the name of family and the church that we deplore abortion. The very groups that are so righteous in claiming they believe in and fight for life - the life of an unborn child - are the very ones who are either perpetrating or looking the other way when it comes to other horrors of childhood.

Pro-life movement - you need a new name. From here on out, as far as I am concerned, you are the anti-abortion movement. That is all. You may be against abortion, but you do not stand for life. If you were truly pro-life, we would be far more horrified by the thousand or more outrages suffered by Norma Nelson McCorvey before she ever decided she wanted to have an abortion. 

Which, at the end of the day, she was never able to have anyway . . . .

Sincerely,

Christina Haas
A Woman Who Will Not Pretend Anymore