There’s this thing that’s super popular (particularly in Christian circles): When we have something to say to someone that is difficult for us to say – or difficult for them to hear – we like to start it off by saying something along the lines of “I’m telling you this because I Love you”.

Sometimes what follows is a sincere attempt to reveal a wound, or talk about a behaviour that we believe is hurting the person. It’s well intended, and the goal of the conversation is to help bring healing and reconnection. And our words, carefully chosen, aimed at the behaviour and acknowledging our own biases and perceptions that may be influencing our interpretations, actually produce the intended effect. And that is good.

Sometimes, the prologue is just an attempt to make ourselves feel better about saying something that is actually aimed at hurting, and creating shame and doubt and guilt in the person we are talking to, while manipulating their behaviour to meet our demands. That is not good.

But sometimes – most of the time, I think – what follows is something in between the two. Someone, with a sincere intent to help and heal, says something that instead produces pain, shame, guilt and deep hurt. Something that while truly well intentioned turns out to be a knife plunged deep into an already festering wound.

This hurt is even worse than that inflicted by someone who intended to hurt us. When we know someone is out to hurt us, it’s easier to let go of their words. It’s easier to walk away from a toxic relationship, to reason with ourselves that even though it hurts (and to be clear, it still hurts) that person is not our friend, and has no interest in our growth or happiness. You expect your enemies to try to hurt you.

But when the person who hurts us does so and we know they truly do love us, it makes us start to question ourselves. After all, why would someone who really loves us tell us something that isn’t true? How can they be wrong? Doesn’t it mean something that they felt so strongly that they had to speak up? Doesn’t is mean they must be right?

No.

It means they are human. It means they love us, but they do so imperfectly. It means they have their own filters that influence their perceptions, and sometimes – even when they have the best of intentions – they say hurtful things. They say true things in hurtful ways. Or they say untrue things in hurtful ways.

There is this idea perpetuated by our fairytales, by our modern conception of marriage, by our “me” culture, that if anything or anyone hurts you, you just cut it out. There is an incredibly popular book by Marie Kondo, where she advises that you go through all of your possessions one by one, and only if they spark joy do you hold onto them. (Side note: when it comes to stuff, I’m all for having less of it. None of it will make you happy) But what kind of an approach is that? To only hold on to the things that spark joy? If we followed that logic into all areas of life we’d get divorced the moment someone hurt us, we’d buy knew things as soon as the spark ran out from our old things, we’d only take to heart that which was joyful to hear.

Oh how many people live this way.

The truth is, often it’s the people we love most that hurt us most deeply, because their words matter more to us. It’s also true that sometimes the things that change us and grow us the most hurt in the beginning. There is much wisdom that comes from pain, and in my experience my deepest growth requires confronting painful truths in myself.

But when the words used are hurtful, or the message itself is wrong, is there any value in it? My answer is a resounding yes. The value is in teaching us to be humble, because too often we are the ones with those wrong words or wrong ideas. In learning and practicing forgiveness, the kind we find ourselves in need of every moment of every day. In opening a door for deepening our relationships even more if we are willing to tell the other person just how hurtful their words were, or helping them to see their own filters in the same way they tried to help you see yours. Growth is not a one way street.

And when we find ourselves as the deliverer of hurtful words and wrong ideas, the best thing (the only loving thing) we can do is to acknowledge the hurt that we were a part of – even if we had good intentions. To hear the other person’s point of view, and really reflect on where we might have gone wrong. To validate the experience of the one who feels wronged, just as we want to be validated in return.

Because sometimes saying it with love is not enough.

The hard part is figuring out what hurts because it’s wrong, and what hurts because it’s true.

Lord reveal to me my heart.

We need an ethnic cleansing. 
A cleansing of, a stripping off, 
the trappings of culture and nationality, of pigment and pigheadedness, that we cling to trying to make ourselves more worthy, more deserving, more entitled to. 
As if they could. 
As if by making someone them, we can make ourselves more us. 
As if we are somehow shrouded in the right to be, to breathe, to walk by virtue only of things like melanin and creed and histories we made up. 
We walk around as if every waking moment isn’t what it is: a gift of pure grace to which we hold no claim. How can something be stolen from us when it didn’t first belong? 
We hold no claim, so we distract ourselves by saying that it’s them not us that should be grateful. Or giving. Or just gone. 
We are so terrified of the unspoken knowing that it is not ours that we fight for more, believing life is finite both in breadth and depth and there are only so many that can hold it before it is depleted.
We cling to wealth, and land, to skin and stone, to anything we can make ourselves believe is tangible enough to grab.
But life is intangible. Life is unclaimable. It’s infinite but only insomuch as it is shared. We must be dispossessed of it before it can possess us, and imbue us with all the gifts it has to give. We must let go to take hold. We must release our claim on it, so that it can claim us completely. 
We need an ethnic cleansing. Release us from ourselves.

”Keep your chin up – it will pass”

”You just need to dig deep and work hard”

”Being too tired, too busy, too poor – these are all just excuses. Stop making excuses”

”I put myself first. You need to put yourself first too”

 

How many times have you heard a variation of these phrases? 10 times? 100 times? More?

 

I have this theory. My theory is that the more privilege you have, the more likely you are to both hear these words and to say them yourself. God knows I have said these things more often than I’d like to admit over the years, most often in my youthful and self-assured days where I was invested in acting like I had all of life figured out. And my life filled mostly with middle class, light skinned friends seems filled to the brim with these kinds of sentiments.

 

I know I’m being pretty hard on you right now. After all, you realize that these platitudes skip over some of the nuances of people’s lived experiences. But you say them because there is still enough truth that they make sense. And your intentions are good too. It’s not like you say them maliciously, to put people down or to just make yourself feel better.

 

Actually…

 

Ok, maybe you don’t want to admit it (I know I hate to admit this) but let’s cut the BS, shall we. We DO say them because they make us feel better.

 

The thing about these platitudes is that not only are they simply NOT TRUE for most people, but they aren’t really about helping someone else either. Not really. They are phrased to make us feel like they are about the person we are talking to. “I want to encourage him! No one wants to hear ‘yeah, this sucks and it’s probably going to suck for awhile’. “I want people to experience the same happiness and success I have, and the only way for that to happen is if I tell them how I got to where I am today!”. “Look, I know you want to find some hidden evil in everything, but I really just care about her enough to give her the tough love she needs’.

 

Even writing that is a painful echo of my own self-justifications. But that’s all they are. My own “reasons” (read: excuses) that I give so I can keep telling the world how in control we all are, how in control I am.

 

Because that is what we are saying, at the core.

 

“Keep your chin up- it will pass”: YOU can get through this, you just have to wait it out long enough. Your self-determination and my self-determination are more powerful than anything that can happen to us. Bad things don’t outlast us if we don’t let them.

 

“You just need to dig deep and work hard”: Hard work is the answer, and we get to decide how hard we work. In fact, I am where I am because of how hard I worked. Sure, there were other factors, but I was the deciding factor. And you can be your deciding factor too.

 

“Being too tired, too busy, too poor – these are all just excuses. Stop making excuses”: I used to make excuses too. But I decided one day that excuses wouldn’t cut it anymore. And dammit, when I made that choice, everything changed and I TOOK CONTROL of my life. Because we are all in control at the end of it. We get to decide how we deal with life. We get to decide to have a can-do spirit and a positive attitude. We get to define our own success. If you are feeling stuck that’s on you. Stop making excuses: I did and look at how much control I have now. It’s all me baby.

 

“I put myself first. You need to put yourself first too”: At the end of the day, we need to take back some selfishness, invest in ourselves, gives ourselves permission to put ourselves first. It may not seem like an option but believe me – it always is. You have the power to decide to look after you.

 

Did I lose you yet? Was it hard to read that? It was hard to write it. The defensive voices in my head have been screaming since paragraph 3.

 

We like to feel like we are in control. It’s safe. It’s comfortable. It’s… human. We want to feel like our feet are firmly planted on the ground and the only person who can take them out from under us is us. And when something comes and knocks us over, our first instinct is to try to get back up. Back on our feet. Back where we are deciding when we will and will not stand.

 

So it’s not your fault that you want to feel in control and you want to use every opportunity to remind yourself and the world around you that you are. It’s what we like to do, us humans. But it’s not real. And knowing that it isn’t, it’s your responsibility to do better.

 

Control in our world is largely (as much as control is a possibility) a product of various forms of privilege. Wealth allows us to determine where we live and when: we choose the houses that suit us, the mortgages that give us the most flexibility, the neighbourhoods with the best schools and the most convenient proximity to work, and we move when it works for us. Skin colour allows us to be blind because we can walk into any store and not be followed by the staff, never fear for our lives just because we got pulled over for speeding (or for no reason at all), and have the best assumptions made about who we are, our education and our intentions based solely on the fact that we woke up light skinned. And if you happen to be male, you most likely won’t get asked in an interview if you are done having kids yet or how you’ll manage to balance work and a family, and your job prospects won’t depend on having a calculated answer. You’ll never have to worry about hiding your pregnancy so that you don’t get fired before you qualify for maternity leave.

 

These are just the big and obvious ways that privilege gives us control. Privilege that has little to do with our behaviour and a lot to do with the things we are born with and into. And the more ways we hold privilege, the more control we have both in reality and appearance.

 

But where we go wrong is in what we attribute our control to. We think we are in control because of the choices we made to get ourselves there. We tell ourselves the reason for our successes is our choices. We both intentionally and unintentionally ignore all of the ways in which things we have no control over at all have gotten us to where we are.

 

When you don’t have the default control of being white and middle class, it’s harder to make the mistake of thinking your choices give you more power than they do. Every day you are confronted with the reality that no amount of keeping your chin up will erase the overt and systemic racism that works against you every time your dark skin is seen. Digging deep and working hard seems laughable, when your parent’s have each worked 3 jobs for your entire life but they still couldn’t afford daycare or a college education so you don’t even have the base opportunities to get the kind of work that will get you out of your “bad” neighbourhood. You want to scream at the people that tell you your exhaustion and busyness and poverty are just excuses while they spend 3 hours a day on social media working on their iPads from their overpriced coffee shops while you serve them their 11am daily fix of caffeine working your second of 3 minimum wage shifts for the day trying to pay off the debt you incurred when your wife left you with 4 kids and a high school diploma. And putting yourself first isn’t an option – not because you don’t care enough about you but because there is literally no one else around who can take of everything long enough for you to have a time out. No one to share the burden, but a million people willing to tell you you need a break.

 

It feels good to tell someone they have some control, because then we feel like we have some control too. Some of us believe it more readily than others: I suspect most of us recognize on some deep and terrifying level that most of our control is really a facade.

 

But who wants to be the one to say “it sucks right now, and it may keep being awful. This might not get better”.

 

The thing is, if that’s all we say, we are still missing the most important part of all this. Realizing we aren’t really in control of much of our lives is step 1. Realizing we say these things to help ourselves feel better as much as to help other people feel better is step 2. And step 3? Step 3 is recognizing we don’t get to be in control. We just get to be out of control together.

 

‘It sucks right now, amd it may keep being awful for a long time. But I promise, I won’t leave you alone in this.”

 

It’s easier to tell the other person they are in control because then we don’t have any responsibility. We let ourselves off the hook for each other’s well-being by saying it ultimately comes down to each man choosing for himself. But that’s not reality. Reality is we aren’t in control of very much of what happens to us. We aren’t in control of most of our successes. We aren’t even in control of many of our failures.

 

But it we are too often in control of the failures we let other people endure. We too often are in control of allowing someone’s failures to consume them, to stack one on top of the other as we sit back and watch and think to ourselves “they need to start taking responsibility for their choices. Tsk tsk.”

 

We need to start taking responsibility for our choices. Not because we control our outcomes, but because one of the few things we have the power to control is whether we are going to let our brothers or sisters be alone in this uncontrollable world. We can’t stop their bad choices, or the things that lead to them. But we get to decide how we are going to be with them in the midst of their pain and hardship.

 

Next time you you see someone suffering, try something new.

 

“I don’t know why this is happening to you, and why it isn’t happening to me. I am not more deserving or wise just because things have worked out in my life. I don’t know if or when the pain will stop. All I can promise is that I will do my best to stand with you in it. I won’t leave you alone.”

Today I found out I lost a friend.

Depending on who you are, you may tell me she was no friend at all. 

I haven’t seen her face to face in 15 years.

I haven’t spoken to her in person or over the phone in 15 years.

When I did see her in person every day, I hardly knew her. I rarely said hello. I never gave her a hug. We seemed to have little in common. 

So how can I say she was a friend?

A few years ago, I reconnected with her on Facebook. Yeah, that evil, news-manipulating, capitalist sell-out, anti-social “social” networking site that is the root of all evil and the source of so many present day issues. That place that takes us away from the people and family we should be paying attention to, that serves as nothing more than glossy fake snapshots of our made up lives meant to impress one another. That one.

The thing is, that place that so many condemn is where our friendship grew. In my carefully cultivated circle of Facebook friends, I built a world that connected me to people from my past and present, around the globe, and made them a part of my every day life. In ways that would otherwise be impossible, I was able to become part of an intentional community  that cheered me on, comforted me, challenged me and ultimately changed me. Instead of an echo chamber of back-patting clones, my Facebook world is inhabited by a diverse neighborhood of liberals, republicans, anarchists, atheists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, feminists, pro-life advocates, pro-choice advocates, monogomists and polyamorous, bisexuals, homosexuals, asexuals, Asians, Native Americans, Europeans, North Americans, South Americans, college educated degree holders, high school drop outs, philosophers, mechanics, seniors, millennials… Each person brings a unique experience, a different perspective. For the most part, my Facebook world is filled with laughter and moments of joy. Sometimes we are angry – at each other or at the world. Occasionally we carry each other in grief. Almost unfailingly, we walk together with mutual respect and the common thread of decency. 

This world I have created is one of my most sacred spaces. As an introvert, my online community has given me a space to be real and raw, to interact when I can and how I can, and has opened doors that would not otherwise be open to me at all. 

Sarah was one of the pillars of my community.

Through the years, her voice was one I came to seek out again and again. When we agreed, her reasoned responses driven by her unfailing kindness challenged me to not forget those on the other side and to seek out their voices in order to increase my own understanding. When we disagreed, she did so with respect and grace, and taught me the importance of making sure I remember to speak with and not at those who may think differently than I do. 

While kindness and acceptance underwrote everything Sarah did, she was not afraid to speak up and speak out strongly against the things she viewed as wrong. She spoke passionately about women’s rights, against racism and homophobia, against bigotry and religious intolerance. She believed in a Loving God and she reflected that Love into every corner of her life… and into my life too.

Sarah was a loving wife and mother. Anyone who knew her knew how much she loved her family. Her two beautiful boys just so happened to make their way into her life through adoption, and man were those boys the luckiest kids around. She spent so much of her online life talking about the joy they brought to her, and you can see from her many photos the deep joy she brought to them in return. How few of us get to be loved like that. 

Sarah also came from a blended family, and often brought up her relationships with step parents and parents alike. It never seemed to occur to Sarah that the extra people in her life were anything but a blessing, and where so many others struggle to find enough room to let everyone be loved, Sarah’s heart seemed 10 sizes too big for all the room she had in it. 

I talked with Sarah many times over the years, mostly about the meaningful stuff, the kinds of things that have no easy answers. Even when I wasn’t a direct part of her discussions, I would read along as I always knew she’d have something insightful to add. I like to think once in awhile I challenged her in the way she challenged me, because otherwise it seems far too one-sided a gain I got out of the deal. 

The one thing I never did was take the time to really spell out to her how much she’d come to matter in this online world of mine.

And now I can’t. I don’t know what her email is in heaven.

Sarah, if you can read this between your choir sessions with the angels and your Torah lessons with our Jewish Jesus, accept my apologies for waiting too long to tell you all this. Thank you for making my world so much better. Thank you for letting me be a part of your circle. Thank you for helping me become a better person.

You have no idea the hole you have left in my Facebook world, and in the hearts of so many. 

We promise to take care of your boys as best we can. We promise to never stop telling them about you, to never stop teaching them the same lessons you taught us. May we be as kind to each other as you have been to us.

I promise to keep you alive in my life. 

I’ll see you on the other side. Make sure you save me a spot in the circle. 

There’s something I need to say.

For those of you who know me, you’ll know this isn’t something new. I’m not exactly a wallflower. I’m certainly not afraid to hold and voice strong opinions. And a good discussion is one of my most favourite things in the world (just ask my poor husband). And yet, there is something I haven’t said openly before. Something I’ve believed strongly for a very long time, but have only really discussed with those closest to me, in the safety of those relationships I know can hold the weight of such strong words. I’m working hard as of late to refine my listening skills, to learn greater restraint and increase my awareness and understanding, which often means less talking and more hearing.

I said I’m working at it – not that I’m succeeding.

But seriously, while I am happy to voice strong opinions when I have had time to form them carefully, I still hesitate on certain issues. I want to walk that line between voicing an opinion strongly held and preaching at others that they are wrong. And I want to be careful that my judgment of a position doesn’t cross the line into judgment of the person who holds it. It’s not easy.

So I find myself here, needing to say something with strong words, a position carefully formed, and yet not wanting to come off as self righteous or judgmental. So I include myself in the audience for these words.

You cannot be a Christian if you refuse to speak up for the marginalized.

It’s not that you can’t claim the title – there are plenty of very visible and vocal people walking around claiming the label as their own but living completely contradictory values. And it’s not that you can’t have a variety of different opinions about how help is best given, or even about what you may personally think is right or wrong. You can be hypocritical in any number of ways (we all are when we look closely enough), you can be wrong about any number of things, you can be as broken as broken can be.

But you cannot be a Christian if you refuse to speak up for the marginalized.

How dare I make such a statement. I mean, if one thing is central to the Christian faith it is that there is nothing humanity can do to EARN the grace that is necessary (and freely given) to restore our relationships. And that is 100% true. But that is not what I am talking about. I’m not saying “in order to be a Christian, you must do ‘A'”. What I’m saying is “If you are truly a believer and follower of Christ, you cannot help but do ‘A’ – ‘A’ is inevitable”. So if you aren’t doing ‘A’, then you are not truly following.

The very essence of Christ is Love. But by far the greatest expression of that Love is shown towards those who DO NOT DESERVE IT. I mean, no one deserves it, but if you are reading the stories of Jesus’ life, you are seeing that most of his time is spent engaging with and speaking out on behalf of the lowest of the low. It is absolutely essential to his way of life to identify with those who are wrong, and bad, and dirty, and hurt, and weak, and alone. If you cannot see that, you aren’t reading the same Bible.

Prosperity gospel is a popular thing these days, and I see it often in varying degrees. Spoiler: if someone is telling you that God will reward you for faith with STUFF, or HAPPINESS (as defined by us), they are lying to you. The biggest problem for me is the middle class Christians who like to walk around declaring that all you need to do is “give it to God” and “have faith” and everything will work out. Spoiler alert 2: if someone tells you that believing in God means you will no longer suffer (or that all your suffering will lead to some great human pay off) they are lying to you. The reality of millions of Christians worldwide is that while their faith is real, it is hard, and their lives are hard, and will continue to be hard. And sometimes it won’t get better. Not here. And if you are a Christian, it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to ignore this reality. Because God is most certainly not blind to this reality. His whole gospel is centered on this reality. And if you are centered on him, your reality will be centered on it too.

A gospel that ignores those among us who are cast out is not the gospel at all. It’s nothing more than some pretty words and nice ideas meant to make you feel safe and comfortable and happy in the human kingdom you have built for yourself. It’s the gospel of you, not the gospel of Christ. And you, my friend, are not meant to be at the center of your world. Everyone else is. If you find yourself ignoring the hard stuff for the sake of your comfort, you’re going the wrong way. If you are comfortable in your life and think the extent of Christ’s message is to help other people feel comfortable too, you’re missing the point. If you find yourself never talking, thinking or engaging with those groups the vocal minority of people identifying as Christians take the most joy in pissing on, you need to reacquaint yourself with your Christ. Christ was never silent – in word or action – when it came to those on the fringes.

Now some people (including myself) will read this and think “Yes! That’s right! We need to be showing up for those groups that are cast out by society – the poor and homeless, the LGBTQ community, the ethnic minorities” and you are right: we really really do. Our whole ethos should be one of showing these communities radical Love. But we so often forget that it wasn’t just the poor and outcast Jesus hung out with. Nope.

Guys, this is where it gets hard. Jesus also hung out with tax collectors. He spent a significant amount of time engaging with the pharisees. He made time for heads of state and leaders of armies. This pacifist, Loving, Jew didn’t just deal with the lowly, he dealt with the unpopular. Even the really rich, prestigious unpopular crowd. We are good at calling for attention to the “hurt, weak and alone” but we can be pretty bad at showing love to the “wrong, bad and dirty” crowd. I know I can.

But you cannot be a Christian if you refuse to Love the undeserving.

The thing is, in their own way, the wrong, bad and dirty crowd is just as bad off as the hurt, weak and alone. They are totally broken, in totally different ways.

Some people hold more power in our world, and we need to recognize that difference. Some people have smaller voices, and they need our voices more than others so that they can be heard. And we need to give our voices to them.

But no matter how powerful or weak our society may have made someone, the thing is, they all need the same Love. The great thing about Love is it is extremely versatile. It can show up as compassionate giving, and it can show up as humble correction. Sometimes Love is shouting for justice. Sometimes Love is pleading for reason. Sometimes Love is silent tears shed in solidarity.

All the time, Love is our calling.

You cannot be a Christian if you refuse to speak up for the marginalized.

You cannot be a Christian if you refuse to Love the undeserving.

You can be a Christian if you are willing to try.

 

 

I’ve been looking for an article somewhere that articulates how I feel about the Ghomeshi verdict. I’ve posted many articles commenting on the judge’s ruling, and on the limits and purpose of our legal system. I’ve had lengthy discussions, and engaged in many a debate about various characterizations of what exactly went down. And yet, in all of the blog posts and facebook discussions and news articles, I have still not found what it is I am looking for. So I guess I will just have to create it myself.

There are many competing voices on the Ghomeshi case; on what happened and how we characterize what happened, and about who and what is at fault and who and what is not. Most of my time thus far has been spent defending what I see as a mischaracterization both of the judge’s ruling and of how the legal system worked. Some people believe this has been my focus because I do not care about victims of sexual assault. That I think our system is perfect, and worked perfectly, and nothing needs to change. People are very good at imputing intention when anger and hurt are involved. But the reality – my reality – is very different.

I decided to go into law later than many people do. It wasn’t something I had dreamed of, or even really considered as a possibility. I did so because of personal experience and frustration with the current legal system, and a desire to change the parts of it that seem to be failing people. But I also did it with a deep respect for the system itself, and a desire to fully understand exactly what the system is and what its main objectives are before trying to claim I knew all of its problems and could solve them. I recognized that in order to validly critique something and make it better, I needed to ensure I truly knew what it was I was attempting to change. I need to ensure I truly know what it is I am attempting to change.

And so, in the aftermath of the verdict of not guilty, I have seen two main stances. On the one hand, I have seen people jumping to the defense of the legal system – laying out why the judge was right in his legal analysis, why the system worked and why people need to stop claiming these things didn’t happen and that the judge is a dirty misogynist who is perpetuating stereotypes and that the system didn’t work the way it was supposed to. At least in my posts, this has been largely my focus. And I do believe these things are true.

On the other hand, I have witnessed countless numbers speaking out with rage and hurt at the injustice of it all. Visceral reactions from survivors and allies, angry at a system in which so few assaults are even reported, and where of the few that are, only a handful result in convictions. They are angry at the ways in which being forced to publicly testify puts complainants at the centre of a deeply vulnerable and painful process, and at how in far too many ways it seems it is the women and not their evidence whose credibility is challenged through rigorous cross-examination. And I do believe these things are true as well.

You see, while perhaps I have not done a very good job of portraying this outside of the more nuanced discussions I’ve been involved in, I don’t think we need to choose sides. I think it is not only possible, but is in fact extremely important, that in our reactions to Ghomeshi we support both of these viewpoints. And I also think it is necessary that we correct the misinformation being spread by both sides in this social commentary.

The justice system worked the way it was built to work, and the judge overall exercised sound legal judgment in applying the law. The justice system, however, was not built to deal with sexual assault, and the criminal standard of proof – while necessary and important in protecting people from wrongful conviction – is not well suited to supporting victims through the process of conviction or in holding people accountable where the only evidence available is conflicting testimony.

The judge was not immune from being bothered by stereotypes that continue to be perpetuated – and while he made clear they were not the reason for his verdict, we cannot ignore their prevalence and the harm they continue to do. Nor can we ignore the ways in which this verdict will be used by people to continue to perpetuate myths about sexual assault and the women who come forward. The women in this case absolutely hold responsibility for how they contributed to the downfall of this case. But that should in no way impute on them the idea that they made it all up, or that most women make it all up. And yet it will be used that way, and that is hugely damaging, hurtful and problematic.

The process of cross examination is difficult in any case. For survivors of sexual assault, the process can be (and often is) even more traumatizing than the assault itself. Being forced to publicly relive the assault in front of your abuser in open court, and then having every possible piece of evidence that may show your testimony is not credible picked apart for the world to see is nothing if not traumatic. Add to it the fact that far too often it is the complainant and not their testimony that seems to be at issue, and that much of the time the complainant has not received appropriate counseling or support, and you have a recipe for disaster. Survivors who are already carrying around unbearable shame burrow even deeper into it, and often end up questioning if they really are the cause of the abuse, and if they really even deserve to be in a courtroom telling their story. This is wrong and sad and hard – not because the system is broken but because the system was never built for them in the first place. And that is a truth we all need to understand.

The burden of proof is high for a reason. A conviction doesn’t only mean jail time or probation. It also means a life time of public stigma. It means a loss of career, livelihood, family, friends. It is an enormous punishment, and therefore it is necessary to make sure only the guilty are convicted. Cries that the burden of proof should be lowered here, that a personal intuition or public consensus should be enough to overturn evidentiary rules, throw out due process and convict are uninformed and dangerous. In the common law system, verdicts set precedent, and precedent is powerful. Rules require a lot of thought and careful discussion before changing because the ramifications are always far bigger than whatever reality we may be presently considering. We talk about justice as if it is entirely confined to the case in front of us, or to one particular kind of crime. But justice also must be served through the system as a whole. And the thing about the system is that every part of it is intricately connected to every other part. The ripples of change get very big, very quickly.

Every person who comes forward with a sexual assault complaint has been hurt. How they have been hurt and who has hurt them are not always determinable. Sometimes the answer is complex and cannot be easily broken down. But that they have been hurt, that they feel hurt, is a truth we need to acknowledge. A presumption that a complainant is lying is not necessary in maintaining the presumption of innocence. And a requirement that we believe the complainant and therefore that we also impute guilt on the accused is also not necessary. A complainant may very well be telling their truth, but their truth is not the only truth or only experience, and neither person’s story needs to be thrown out at the expense of the other. The courts are there to figure out what can be proven as true, not what is or is not true.

None of these realities are inconsistent. All of these realities contribute to a deeper and fuller understanding of what the issues really are, and only when we can acknowledge the full picture can we be informed in a way that will help us produce effective solutions.

Solutions like building a new system that is built specifically for these kinds of crimes.

Solutions like examining the assumptions and inferences we make in sexual assault trials and about sexual assault survivors, and changing the law in ways that keep these assumptions and inferences out of our courtrooms.

Solutions like finding different systems that already exist and may be better suited to dealing with sexual assault and sexual assault victims.

Solutions like putting better supports in place for complainants, supports that will guide them not only through the legal process, but through the emotional process as well.

Solutions like focusing not just on our legal systems, but on the broader social systems that continue to perpetuate and constantly reinforce a culture where abusers feel they can get away with assault, and survivors feel shame and responsibility for having been assaulted.

Solutions that focus less on punishing crimes that may never be proven, and more on validating the hurt suffered by those involved and on helping survivors and even abusers move through their hurt and into hope.

That is the truth we should all be talking about. That is the truth we should all be listening for. That is the hurt we should all be working together to heal.