A Language Older Than Words - Derrick Jensen [168]
Jesus knew this. And I believe he knew he never had a prayer. Like the salmon who hurl themselves against concrete, he knew there could only be one ending. He could not have been so stupid as to think otherwise.
The opposite is true as well. If your heart and mind are right, it doesn't matter what you do; it will be the right thing. A father who loves his children would not and could not rape them, nor beat them. He may make mistakes, but he will not traumatize them. A person who loves the world and those in it will not destroy it. A person who loves will not rob others of their voices.
Jesus would have known this also. We all know it. Anyone who has ever been in a bad or a good relationship knows it. If the magic isn't there, it doesn't matter how many roses you send nor chocolates you receive, the most you can hope to achieve is that the both of you agree to carry on a fiction (As Kahlil Gibran wrote: "It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity, and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created in years or even generations." This is true whether the lover is a human, a piece of art, the coyote tree, or the world). The same is true for writing: no amount of rewrites will awaken words that lie dead on the page. The same is true for music: if you have to ask, it ain't jazz.
While it is true that we all know this, it is also true that on another level those who would destroy are consistently able to convince themselves that they too love the world and that they too would act only in the best interests of those around them. Recall the Nazi doctors who convinced themselves they were acting in the best interests of the Jews. Recall the Boise Cascade advertisement likening clearcuts to smallpox vaccinations. Recall that in order to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves.
Recall finally our collective response to self-evident, if inconvenient, truths. A grenade rolls across the floor. This time, with all the world at stake, do not look away.
"What is the relationship," I asked, "between breaking the silence and healing? You've written that, 'When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery.' How does that work? What happens inside survivors when the truth is recognized?"
She laughed. "I wish I knew. It's miraculous. I don't understand it. I just observe it, and try to facilitate it. I think it's a natural healing process that has to do with the restoration of human connection and agency. If you think of trauma as the moment when those two things are destroyed, then there is something about telling the trauma story in a place where it can be heard and acknowledged that seems to restore both agency and connection. The possibility of mutuality returns. People feel better. "The most important principles for recovery are restoring power and choice or control to the person who has been victimized, and the facilitation of the person's reconnection with her or his natural social supports, the people who are important in that person's life. In the immediate aftermath, of course, the first step is always to reestablish some sense of safety. That means getting out of physical danger, and means also creating some sort of minimally safe social environment in which the person has people to count on, to rely on, to connect to. Nobody can recover in isolation.
"It's only after safety is established that it becomes appropriate for this person to have a chance to tell the trauma story in more depth. There we run into two kinds of mistakes. One is the idea that it's not necessary to tell the story, and that the