Exploring Personal Meaning Making Related to Spiritual Crisis Within Experiential Personal Construct Psychology

Home , Holy Roller, Never Leave Me Alone, Real Bad, Spiritual crisis

MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School

Certificate for Approving the Dissertation

We hereby approve the Dissertation

Katherine Jeanne Hayes

Candidate for the Degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

______Larry M. Leitner, Director

______Vaishali Raval, Reader

______Deborah Wiese, Reader

______Elise Clerkin, Reader

______Ann Fuehrer, Graduate School Representative

ABSTRACT

EXPLORING PERSONAL MEANING MAKING RELATED TO SPIRITUAL CRISIS WITHIN EXPERIENTIAL PERSONAL CONSTRUCT PSYCHOLOGY

Katherine J. Hayes

This study explores spiritual crisis from the perspective of experiential personal construct psychology (EPCP). Spirituality and religion are understudied phenomena in clinical psychology, despite being relevant to many people’s understandings of themselves and their experiences of distress. Spiritual crisis, as a time of grief and loss related to one’s spiritual life that leads to a change in worldview, is an intersection of spiritual and psychological concerns given its focus on distress and grief (Agrimson & Taft, 2009). In this study, I interviewed four people who self-identified as having gone through periods of spiritual crisis. The purpose of this research was to deeply explore the lived experiences of these four persons and how they made sense of their experiences, in order to inform theoretical frameworks around spirituality (rather than to find generalizable themes of how all people respond to spiritual crisis). In the interviews, participants described personalized understandings of religion and spirituality, entwined with other aspects of cultural identity. Participants described times of spiritual crisis as marked by profound grief, distress, and confusion, and described the resulting changes in their lives as an ongoing, transformative process rather than temporary or resolved ruptures. Spiritual crisis often involved negotiating relationships with larger group or institutional structures such as churches or formal doctrines. I discuss these themes and how EPCP theory might develop an understanding of spiritual crisis related to group expectancies (Kelly, 1991).

EXPLORING PERSONAL MEANING MAKING RELATED TO SPIRITUAL CRISIS WITHIN EXPERIENTIAL PERSONAL CONSTRUCT PSYCHOLOGY

A DISSERTATION

Presented to the Faculty of

Miami University in partial

fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Psychology

Katherine J. Hayes

The Graduate School Miami University Oxford, Ohio

2020

Dissertation Director: Larry M. Leitner, Ph.D.

Katherine Jeanne Hayes

2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ...... 1

Psychological approaches to spirituality...... 2

Humanist psychology approaches to spirituality ...... 5

Spiritual distress and spiritual crisis ...... 8

Defining spiritual crisis ...... 9

Defining spirituality ...... 10

Experiential personal construct psychology (EPCP) ...... 12

Method...... 14

Participants ...... 14

Conducting primary interviews ...... 15

Interpretive summaries ...... 16

Member-checking interviews...... 16

Reflexive writing ...... 17

Reflexive statement...... 18

Thematic analysis across participants...... 20

Results ...... 21

Interview 1: Anna ...... 21

Interview 2: Matthew ...... 27 iii

Interview 3: Beatrice ...... 43

Interview 4: Miriam ...... 61

Reflexivity in practice ...... 91

Discussion ...... 96

Brief summaries...... 96

Interview themes...... 98

Developing EPCP theory in response to these findings ...... 121

Limitations and Potential Directions ...... 131

References...... 136

Appendix A ...... 141

Appendix B ...... 142

Appendix C ...... 143

Appendix D ...... 145

Anna...... 145

Matthew ...... 185

Beatrice ...... 219

Miriam ...... 256

DEDICATION

To the many people who made my formal and informal learning possible, including my family, here and gone, who made every experience a learning experience; the communities that surrounded me in steadfast love; the teachers who encouraged my nonsense; the faculty, staff, and students of the Western College Program who challenged my assumptions and supported my growth; the extended academic family of the EPCP research group, who treated me as someone worth listening to and inviting to fancy dinner parties; my graduate cohort and student community, especially Aki Imai and Cat Munroe, who were my lifelines during change and grief; my internship cohort and friends who helped me find community far from home; and the web of friendships, connections, artists, and activists that helped sustain and educate me over the past several years. And especially to those who helped me stay relatively housed, hopeful, employed, and insured during the ABD phase, including Vaishali Raval, Chris Wolfe, Ginger Wickline; Deborah Wiese, Alexandria Schramm, and especially Alex Nyquist, who offered her spare room to a relative stranger and ended up pulled into many late-night talks about hymns.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project would not have been possible to complete without the assistance and support of many people. I am profoundly grateful to the people who shared their stories with me for this project. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee members, Ann Fuerher, Elise Clerkin, Deborah Wiese, and Vaishali Raval, for their thoughtfulness, patience, and encouragement. In addition to the formal assistance with the dissertation process, I am grateful for the chance to work with and learn from a group of committed scholars over the years, including the members of the Qualitative Research Group.

I would like to particularly thank Vaishali Raval for her gracious, practical, and generous support, especially during the latter period of this research. This project would not be the same, or done, without your insight, encouragement, and pragmatic support.

Finally, I am very grateful to my advisor, Larry Leitner, for his compassionate and encouraging mentorship through difficult circumstances and past retirement. Your humanity, incisiveness, humility, and good humor have been and will continue to be deeply important to me.

Exploring Personal Meaning Making Related to Spiritual Crisis Within Experiential

Personal Construct Psychology

Spirituality and religion are categories that encompass issues and activities important to human meaning-making, but they are under researched and poorly understood phenomena in psychology (Pargament, Exline and Jones, 2013). Psychology historically tends to pathologize or romanticize spiritual matters, with little integration of spirituality into comprehensive theories of person (Ellis, 1986; Wulff, 1997). Spiritual experiences are wide-ranging and can include experiences of psychological distress such as spiritual crisis. Spiritual crisis can be understood as a time of personal conflict that highlights fundamental ways of being that are under threat. In this study, I interviewed four people who had undergone or were undergoing a spiritual crisis in order to access a deeper understanding of spirituality. I used the resulting narrative data to begin the process of developing an experiential personal construct psychology (EPCP) understanding of spirituality, as EPCP is a comprehensive theory that honors the subjective experience of the person. Before describing the study method, I will review some of the ways psychology has approached spirituality. I then will define spiritual crisis for the purpose of this study. I will then give a brief overview of EPCP and how an EPCP understanding of spirituality might be developed. After describing the method of this study, I will give the narrative summaries of each interview, then discuss the resulting findings in the context of EPCP theory.

My reasons for studying spiritual crisis come from my life experience, backgrounds, and interests within psychology. As the daughter of a small-town midwestern pastor, I grew up in the sociocultural context of lower middle class rural congregational American Protestant

Christianity. Spiritual language and practice were integral to my life, and it was plain to see the importance and centrality of these meanings to the people I grew up around. Religion was the

first context and language in which I encountered the issues of meaning-making, relationship, personal narrative, social justice, community living, psychological suffering and personal growth. These issues were what drew me towards the study and practice of clinical psychology.

If, as Frankl quoted Nietzche in Man’s Search for Meaning, “he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how,” (1985, p. 97) then understanding what happens when we lose our why, and how we navigate those times, seems to be a basic and fundamental pursuit of understanding and encouraging human growth and healing. My own experiences of spiritual crisis have reinforced for me not only the importance of these events, but also the difficulty of communicating about them within the language and system of psychology. As a central goal of humanistic psychology is to better understand the richness of human experience, it follows that these experiences would also be important to study from a psychological perspective.

Psychological approaches to spirituality

The current state of psychological research in religion and spirituality is diverse and proceeding on multiple frontiers. Pargament, Exline and Jones (2013) challenge the ways in which past researchers have sought to define the influence of religion and spirituality as “good” or “bad” and encourage a more complex, contextual approach that acknowledges that religious and spiritual practices can have both helpful and harmful effects. They define spirituality as “the search for the sacred” (Pargament, 1999, quoted in Pargament et al., 2013, p. 14) and religion as

“the search for significance that occurs within the context of established institutions that are designed to facilitate spirituality” (Pargament et al., 2013, p. 15). Within mainstream psychology, then, the distinction between spirituality and religion is that spirituality seeks after

“divinelike qualities, such as transcendence, immanence, boundlessness, and ultimacy”

(Pargament et al., p. 14) in any part of life, while religion seeks to meet psychological, social, and physical goals in addition to spiritual goals.

In reviewing what we need to learn about spiritual crisis, it became apparent that spirituality in general is neither well-researched nor clearly conceptualized in clinical psychology. This gap exists even though (or perhaps because) spirituality and psychological meaning-making can be seen as two overlapping lenses on similar aspects of human life (e.g.

Frankl, 1975, Maslow, 1974; Pargament, 1999; Pargament et al., 2013). In other words, what is named “spiritual crisis” or “spiritual emergency” in parts of the literature that focus on spiritual meaning-making might be seen as simple “depression” or “psychosis” by psychotherapists who do not integrate spiritual meaning-making into their conceptualizations (Grof & Grof, 1989).

This is not simply a difference in language, but a difference in focus. An experience may well meet the descriptive behavioral criteria for a depressive episode and also hold meaning as an important turning point in life, during which values and meanings must be grappled with as much as symptomatic behaviors.

As a topic, “spirituality” is difficult to define because every term related to spirituality is hotly contested. For instance, in much quantitative research, “spirituality” is used as a categorical or continuous variable, either conflated with religiosity or measured by a questionnaire scale (e.g. Sifers, Warren & Jackson, 2012). This has the advantage of allowing quantitative comparisons of abstract concepts, and the disadvantage of limiting our understandings of spiritual experience to cultural labels (Miller & Thoresen, 2003). Sometimes, people in and outside of psychology use “spirituality” as a contrast to “religion.” “Spirituality” can be a way of describing processes of making meaning, experiencing connectedness with other people and the universe, and determining moral values. “Religion” has, over the past few

decades, come to refer to a heavily doctrinal, political, and sectarian approach to these concerns, in which a central authority (such as a pastor, or the Pope) is understood to dictate the answers to spiritual questions.

These definitions can provide a basic vocabulary for describing how spiritual experience can exist outside of easy religious categorization. They also oversimplify the roles of community practice and personal beliefs: “religion” comes to mean bad and “spirituality” comes to mean good (Wulff, 1997; cited in Pargament et al., 2013). However, the complexities of human religious and spiritual experience and practice far outpace this simple model. A constructivist model must be more open to elaboration and personalization and should be attentive to the effects of sociocultural context.

Clinical psychology has historically been at pains to distinguish itself from religion since its inception. Theorists who see scientific knowledge as objective have attempted, with benevolent intentions, to neutralize spiritual terminology for the purpose of separating psychological understandings of spirituality from the complications of religion—among them, moral, social, legal and lethal condemnation that religious systems historically leveled at people in psychological distress. Pargament (1997) sums up the ongoing rift: “Psychology has accused religion of everything from dogmatism and intolerance to social repression and mental illness

(e.g., Ellis, 1986). Psychology has, in turn, been accused of arrogance, elitism, amorality, and selfishness (e.g. Vitz, 1977)” (p. 7). There is no objective reality here; all parties involved have strongly held, fiercely defended systems of belief.

In order to move towards a more complete understanding of spirituality from a psychological perspective, we also recognize the ways in which our own views are culturally and historically situated, and colored by the dominant religious traditions and concerns of this place

and time. In a review of measurement in the psychological study of religiousness and spirituality, Hill & Edwards (2013) discuss ways in which most existing religion and spirituality measures fail to account for and accurately assess diverse religious and spiritual experiences because they have been shaped almost exclusively by research with European-American

Protestant churchgoing Christians. They suggest that currently the best way for researchers to assess spirituality and religiousness across cultures may be to create “entirely new measures” reflecting the population they want to study (p. 55).

Humanist psychology approaches to spirituality

Researchers and theorists who take a humanistic psychology perspective towards spirituality tend to see spirituality as the search for the sacred in human life. Humanists in particular center on the sacred in human experience and relationship, and may criticize the ways in which reductionist research and practice can disrespect the wholeness and wonder of the human being (Frankl, 1975; Maslow, 1964, Schneider, 2005). This is in line with Frankl, who uses the term “spiritual” to indicate “a specifically human phenomenon (in contrast to the subhuman phenomena that we share with other animals)” further emphasizing that “the

‘spiritual’ is what is human in man” (Frankl, 1975, p. 23). The alternative to being fully human, according to Frankl, is to be a mechanistic or instinct-driven person who does not exercise choice or take responsibility. Maslow criticized Freudian psychoanalysis as “essentially a system of psychopathology… It does not supply us with a psychology of the higher life or of the ‘spiritual life,’ of what the human being should grow toward, of what he can become” (Maslow, 1964; p.

6). He mourned the loss of clear humanist artistic goals in the “chaos of relativism” that made up the modern age (p. 6).

Schneider (2005) discusses his concept of “awe-based psychology”, where awe reflects

“the capacity to be moved.” Awe is chosen as a term that reflects transcendental experience; it can reflect both the exhilarating highs and numbing lows of human existence. Both are sacred experiences from a humanistic perspective because both are authentic, genuine human experiences. Adams (2006) describes the sacredness of nonhuman lives and the spiritual damage done to the world when animal species are driven to extinction and lost by human action. Adams focuses on the sacred relationship of people and the world around them; he uses the Buddhist concept of inter-being to elucidate this “ecological-psychological-sociocultural-spiritual crisis”

(p. 131). Adame and Leitner (2009) posit reverence, the experience when “we stand in awe of another person we have come to know in a deeply intimate way as he or she has come to know us on the same level,” as critical to optimal psychological functioning (p. 255). Again, the sacred is found in the space between: in this case, between two people in a mutually intimate relationship.

Humanist spirituality, then, focuses primarily on the highest reaches of human experiences, with some, like Adams, including the non-human world in their conception of the sacred. Many humanists, as well, find talk of spirituality and religion somewhat gauche.

Maslow complains that “spiritual life” is “a distasteful phrase to a scientist, and especially to a psychologist” (1976, p. 21). Although he concedes that he can find no better language than religious language to describe his ideas, he points out that “non-theistic people” can use them for

“non-religious” experiences (Maslow, 1976, p. 21). Maslow searches for ways to find universal laws of human experience, stating his hypothesis that “all mystical or peak-experiences are the same in their essence and have always been the same, all religions are the same in their essence and have always been the same” (p. 31) in his efforts to discard religious answers but make

traditionally religious questions “a part of science rather than something outside and exclusive of it” (p. 31). Even Jung, who became well known for his poetic and mystic style, was frustrated that he could not find a drier and more scientific way of writing about his theory of archetypes:

“Archetypes speak the language of high rhetoric.... It is a style I find embarrassing; it grates on my nerves, as when someone draws his nails down a plaster wall, or scrapes his knife against a plate” (Jung, 2009, p. 178). Since this time, many humanists interested in issues traditionally grouped as spiritual identify their work instead as “transpersonal,” defined cautiously by Walsh and Vaughn (1993) as focused on experiences “in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche, or cosmos” (p. 203).

By contrast, other humanists emphasize the importance of poetic and artistic language in representing the sacred. Schneider (2005) decries reductionist language, such as a description of art as “a pleasure technology,” (p. 168) as, at best, a faulty and crude depiction of the sacred and awe-inspiring (Pinker, 2002, p. 405 quoted in Schneider, 2005, p. 168). In an effort to improve the artistic quality of research communication, Adame, Leitner, and Knudson (2011) explored creative, poetic and aesthetic ways to try to honor the humanity and beauty of human interactions. Spiritual and transcendent concepts are embraced by humanists, but religious and spiritual language is held at arm’s length, and explicitly religious or spiritual material is often reduced to an individual level (e.g. Maslow, 1974) or intentionally sidestepped (e.g. Adame &

Leitner, 2011).

For a variety of reasons, many researchers and clinicians from these perspectives have engaged with ideas related to spirituality but struggled to engage directly with spiritual or religious experience from a psychological perspective. This leaves a significant gap that needs

to be bridged, because people who experience distress often do directly identify their experience with spirituality. Part of the goal of this project is to begin providing clinicians with a way of understanding and speaking about spiritual experience without reducing it to religious categorical labels.

Spiritual distress and spiritual crisis

The primary focus of this project will be on spiritual experiences that are distressing, frightening, saddening, or frustrating. This encompasses a wide range of spiritual experience.

When spiritual and religious experiences and practices are studied in psychology, their “success” is often judged in terms of their function as coping mechanisms or methods to promote the psychological, social, and physical well-being of individuals. However, spiritual experience and practice often have a different purpose for the person than they do for mainstream clinical psychology. Pargament (2013) explores some ways in which religious (western, mostly

Protestant Christian) and psychological (behavioral, cognitive, community) goals may differ:

While there are important exceptions, it may not be too much of an exaggeration to say

American psychology is a psychology of personal control. In contrast, religion generally

helps people appreciate what they cannot control… The psychological world says that we

are not as powerless as we imagine ourselves to be; we have resources within ourselves

that can be tapped more fully. The religious world says that in fact we are powerless in

important ways and that we must look past ourselves alone for answers to important

questions. (p. 8)

From this perspective, if we construe a time of being ‘out of control’ as a potential personal crisis, a generic psychological approach might then be to try to regain the lost control. Viewing the situation as a spiritual crisis, however, might lead to a different goal: accepting powerlessness

and reaching for meaning in different ways. As Pargament notes, these approaches (while simplistically stated), do not necessarily contradict. Times of spiritual distress can lead to rich experiences of transformation; they can be valuable to people as guides in understanding how they can live more meaningful and purposeful lives.

Defining spiritual crisis

Experiencing trauma and loss can lead us to change, discard, or fiercely defend our threatened ways of viewing the world, others, and ourselves. This extends to spiritual relating.

When I am badly spiritually injured, my relationship with the entire ground of the universe is shaken. My experience of my connection to the universe can become confusing, empty, and lost.

In a spiritual crisis, I come to a point where my previous ways of construing my self , my actions, and my place in the universe fail. I must let go of my previous way of life and begin anew: a painful and terrifying experience in the best of circumstances. A spiritual crisis carries both the opportunity for transformation and the risk of destruction. If I do not let go of my failed way of construing the universe, I must find a way to block out my experience. If I refuse to change myself, I may objectify other people, deny my connectedness to other people, numb my inner experience, or fail to introspect (Leitner, 2010). Because I cannot actually ever sever myself from the web of connections and relationships around me, this kind of response can be profoundly hurtful to other people and the more-than-human world, as well as myself. It is this danger that makes spiritual crisis truly crisis, a crossroad with risks accompanying every choice.

Agrimson and Taft (2009) developed the concept of spiritual crisis using literature from transpersonal psychology, and describe the process as “a unique form of grieving or sense of loss, marked by a profound questioning of or lack of meaning in life, in which an individual reaches a turning point or juncture, leading to a significant alteration in the way oneself and life

is viewed” (p. 457). This struggle with meaning may or may not include religious faith affiliation or an experience of relationship with God. Spiritual crisis involves experiences of terror, sorrow, meaninglessness, and despair. I may experience a spiritual crisis when I am not being true to my core spiritual self—the process by which I understand my place in the larger universe and seek to find meaning in my life. If I am unable to reconcile my actions, beliefs, experiences, and relationships, my self may fragment; my experience may become disconnected and disjointed. My core values are called into question. For example, if I construe my core spiritual self in terms of a relationship with God, I may experience a spiritual crisis when I lose my felt sense of connection to God. Or I could construe my core spiritual self in terms of being self-sufficient and accountable to no one, and have a spiritual crisis that takes the form of a dramatic religious conversion. As a person going through a crisis, I may change to a new religion or lose my faith entirely. My experience of the crisis is likely to be emotionally loaded;

I may feel like I am dead or dying; I may wish to die or consider killing myself. If I am to move through this hopeless experience, I must grieve the “death” of my old ways of being and take on a new life (Grof, 1996).

Defining spirituality

Spiritual crisis cannot be understood absent an understanding of spirituality. In the tradition of cultural psychology and anthropology, my priority is to acknowledge the limited focus and range of this study rather than to write about findings as if they were universal or culturally neutral. With this in mind, I am defining spirituality as a dimension of active human experience involving the person’s sense of connectedness with the universe beyond the self. In order for this definition to be useful, it must be flexible enough to include many different ways of experiencing spirituality; it must conform to constructivist ideals of valuing personal perspective;

and it must take a credulous approach to the experiences of each person. From this perspective, then, the often-debated “existence” of the soul, self, God, karma, good, evil, or all of the above is not settled—but neither is it particularly meaningful. The purpose of stating a definition is to create a large framework within which we can understand many different individuals’ spiritual experiences.

Spirituality, from this perspective, encompasses a person’s process of relating to humanity, nature, the universe, past and future, and/or non-physical beings. Leitner and Faidley

(1995) showed how a capacity for interpersonal reverence, once developed, could be turned first towards a reverence for all of humanity, then towards the universe at large. This suggests that our spiritual experiences of our connection to the universe, as well as our actions in responding to this connection, begin with our active experience in interpersonal relationships. Likewise, a person’s way of relating to the past and future might include traditional, modified, or original rituals, as well as perceptions and beliefs about one’s place and purpose in time and space. As in all experience, spiritual experience happens through cultural lenses, and people make sense of their experience based on their interactions in the world and the cultural labels and stories available to them.

As previously discussed, "spirituality" is a loaded term, but seems to be the best available. It is important to note that many people may not consider themselves “spiritual” in the colloquial sense while living in a deeply connected way with the universe. A person may angrily denounce the existence of a god in the face of the horrors of human cruelty; the same person may feel a deep sense of awe and holiness when confronted with the wonders of the cosmos. Both responses may be understood as different ways of relating to the sacred occurring within the spiritual dimension of human experience. A reaction does not have to be happy or religious to be

spiritual. Likewise, a religious person may identify strongly and publicly with their religion and spirituality as an identity but have little lived awareness of their place in an interconnected universe and their responsibility to this greater reality.

Experiential personal construct psychology (EPCP)

Experiential personal construct psychology (EPCP) is a development of George Kelly’s personal construct theory (Kelly, 1991) that attends to the depth of human experience. ROLE relationships are a concept derived from Kelly’s Sociality Corollary, which posits that to the extent that you have a deep and mutual relationship with a person you can have a role in each other's process of making meaning of the world (Kelly, 1991). Leitner’s EPCP theory (1985) focused primarily on the importance of ROLE relating to the ability of people to make meaning of their experience. In a ROLE relationship, both people are coming to understand each other’s process of construing the world, while simultaneously recognizing the separateness and uniqueness of each person (e.g. Adame & Leitner, 2011; Leitner, 1985). ROLE relationships hold the potential to make life rich and meaningful, and also the risk of profound invalidation, which can threaten our most central ways of understanding ourselves and the world (Adame &

Leitner, 2011; Leitner, 1985; Leitner, Faidley, & Celentana, 2000). Psychopathology, from this perspective, can be understood as communication about the struggle of fear and hope as we reach out for and retreat from intimate connection in response to relational injury (Adame & Leitner,

2011; Leitner, 1985; Leitner, Faidley, & Celentana, 2000).

Given the centrality of individual psychotherapy in psychology, the bulk of EPCP literature focuses mainly on the applicability of this theory to relationships between two people.

However, Leitner (2010) began to expand EPCP theory by exploring the ramifications of Kelly’s

(1955) assumption that the universe in which we live and related is integral and interconnected.

Leitner (2010) expanded on this idea, reflecting on the unknowable but real consequences of our personal actions, thoughts, and feelings for the world around us. He posits that the meaningful relationships which make up a person’s world “include relationships with other people, our culture, humanity in general, and the more-than-human world” (p. 229). Adame and Leitner

(2011) further explore the ways in which personal healing, even if it begins in the therapy relationship, proceeds through the renewal of the person’s connection to the larger world.

Transpersonal reverence refers to an awareness of ourselves as parts of an interconnected world and our commitment to a cause or purpose greater than our individual existence (Adame &

Leitner, 2011). Transpersonal responsibility, the “ongoing commitment to respond to the needs of humanity and the world at large,” is an aspect of optimal human functioning from an EPCP perspective (Adame & Leitner, 2011, p. 55).

EPCP has not yet substantially addressed spirituality as a central topic, but it has laid groundwork to begin doing so. For example, Adame and Leitner (2011) acknowledge but decline to explore the centrality of Buber’s personal Jewish faith and theology to his concept of

I-Thou relationships, which in turn important to EPCP’s understanding of relating. Leitner

(2010) explores the ways in which a therapist’s commitment to the therapeutic relation constitutes a leap of faith and reflects on the ways in which our thoughts and feelings might affect the world around us in unknowable ways. Leitner (2012) further develops this connection, describing the experiential constructivist view of faith as “an audacious one, a daring one” compared to the “overly moralistic and literalistic doctrines” faith is commonly associated with

(p. 225).

Spirituality, as a crossroads of personal meaning-making and commitment to a larger cause, seems to be a natural next step to explore from this perspective. Given that “spirituality”

is too broad a topic to begin with, and the wealth of existing literature on EPCP focused on human distress and healing, it seems natural to begin with a study of spiritual crisis, where psychological distress happens in the context of spiritual conflict. Through this study of spiritual crisis, I hope to begin to build an understanding of spirituality from an EPCP perspective. I will now discuss the method of the proposed study.

Method

Participants

For this study, I recruited four participants by way of flyers and word of mouth. (See

Appendix A for recruitment text.) All participants were over the age of 18 and provided written informed consent (see Appendix B for a copy of the form indicating informed consent). The small sample size for this project is common to independent qualitative research, which derives validity not from broad statistical representation but from rich description and member-checking of interpretations.

I sought out people who identified a specific time in their past as a period of spiritual crisis. I defined spiritual crisis in recruitment materials as a time of intense grief or loss, marked by profound questioning or felt meaninglessness related to one’s spiritual life, which leads to a significant turning point and a change in the way life and self is understood. This definition is adapted from Agrimson and Taft’s concept analysis of spiritual crisis, which provided a framework for identifying and distinguishing spiritual crisis (2009). While I invited people to share if their definition of these experiences differed, the people in this study agreed with the starting description.

My goal in recruiting for this study was to find participants who had been through a past spiritual crisis as well as people who currently identified as being in the midst of spiritual crisis,

to better understand how people navigate and process these experiences over time. In this study,

I interviewed two people who identified periods of spiritual crisis starting several years previous

(Matthew and Anna), as well as two people who identified themselves as currently experiencing a spiritual crisis at the time of the interview (Beatrice and Miriam). One participant (Miriam) was experiencing a current spiritual crisis and had also been through periods of spiritual crisis in the past. I discussed these criteria and discussed any questions about the study itself in preliminary conversations to ensure informed consent.

Conducting primary interviews

I conducted one primary interview with each participant. I introduced the interviews as likely to last 1-2 hours and offered to go longer or follow up as necessary. In practice, only one interview (Miriam) lasted only 60 minutes, with the rest going for longer than two hours.

Specific areas of inquiry in each interview depended on how a person discussed their own experience with spiritual crisis (especially whether it is a past or ongoing event.) I focused particularly on ways in which people understand their spirituality in relational terms, ways in which people construe their processes of entering into and emerging from crisis, ways in which they perceive they changed through the process of crisis, and ways in which they make meaning of their past experiences today. Sample questions from my semi-structured interview guide can be found in Appendix C, and full deidentified transcripts are found in Appendix D. I offered each person a choice of whether they would like to have their interview in a private interview room on campus, at their homes, or at another private, quiet location of their preference. In accordance with their wishes, I spoke with two interviewees (Miriam and Matthew) in an on- campus lab space and spoke with the other two interviewees (Anna and Beatrice) at their respective private homes.

Interpretive summaries

For each participant, I wrote an interpretive summary and returned it to them for member-checking along with the deidentified transcript of our conversation. In these summaries,

I organized and presented interview themes and quotes to describe the story the participant told and the themes I found relevant, supported by their words in the interview. All specific names and locations were deidentified and disguised to help protect participants’ identities. I used narrative theory to guide my construction and interpretation of participant summaries (e.g.,

Josselson, Lieblich, & McAdams, 2003, 2007; Wertz et al., 2011). For each participant, I closely attended to interview data and used it to explore the participant’s experience of spiritual crisis. I specifically attended to narrative structure (such as changes over time, themes of growth or change, or parts of the story that discuss entering, experiencing, and emerging from a time of spiritual crisis) to try to translate the transcript of our conversation into a readable narrative.

Member-checking interviews

In order to ensure that my summaries and interpretations aligned with the participants’ understandings of their experiences, I engaged in member-checking, a formal qualitative method of returning research products to participants for review (Wertz et al., 2011). I sent each participant a copy of the deidentified transcript of our conversation and the narrative summary I had written to represent their experience in the body of my study. I offered each participant a second interview to hear their opinion of the written documents and take note of their experience comparing the deidentified narrative summary to their own experiences. With each set of documents, I included a personalized cover letter of thanks and offered to follow up in person, by phone, or in writing about any comments or concerns they had. While I planned to make edits to the interpretive summaries based on these follow-up interviews, no edits were requested by my

participants. I was able to meet with two participants (Anna and Matthew) for in-person follow- up interviews. Both Anna and Matthew expressed that they felt the narrative summaries and transcripts were accurate to their experiences, and both discussed how talking about these experiences and reading about them was a valuable experience for them. Two participants

(Beatrice and Miriam) declined to follow up with interviews or comments after repeated contact, though both did make contact by email to indicate they had received the documents sent and neither reported any problems or requested changes.

Reflexive writing

As a qualitative researcher, I do not subscribe to the idea that it is possible or ideal to maintain an objective distance from my topic of study. I am a culturally situated person with my own experiences, biases, understandings, and areas of interest. My own experience of spirituality and spiritual crisis inform my understanding of spiritual crisis and my starting assumptions about spirituality. Adame, Pavlo, Smith, Schielke, and Leitner (2009) explore the ways in which engaging with the pain of others leads to reflexive emotion, insight, and challenge. England (1994) asserts a feminist approach to reflexivity as accepting responsibility for our research: acknowledging the role we play in shaping the direction of our research, and thoughtfully considering the purpose and outcomes of our actions in doing so. Through this study, I hope to use reflexive writing to disclose my own understandings of the subject as necessary to perform responsible research.

Josselson and Lieblich (2003) recommend reflexive statements as a part of any narrative research, as it is understood that inquiry will proceed in hermeneutic circles, moving from existing knowledge to new understandings. Likewise, being conscious of existing assumptions and biases can prevent those biases from being projected onto participant narratives. I will

include a brief reflexive statement anticipating the personal aspects of my research that make up my starting place in terms of existing experiential knowledge, and will provide reflexive commentary in my analysis of data to reflect how I see my perspective informing my understanding of participant narratives, as well as how my understandings of these topics develops in response to these interviews.

Reflexive statement

I am approaching this area of research because it is personally meaningful to me. I have been through spiritual crisis myself, and I have witnessed the importance of similar events in the lives of family, friends, and clients. My own perspective is rooted in my experience as a white, queer, Christian woman in rural, lower-middle-class, conservative Ohio, as well as my identity as a doctoral student of clinical psychology. This combination of identities requires careful stepping; for most of my professional life, I have been reluctant to disclose anything personal, let alone something as private and complex as a spiritual identity. However, as a clinician and as a researcher, I believe in the importance of reflexivity, self-reflection, and cultural awareness. In working with clients from various cultural backgrounds, and in looking at the larger social issues facing the communities important to me, it felt necessary to begin to make my ongoing internal reflections part of my research. Starting out, my knowledge of spiritual crisis was informed by my own experiences of spiritual crisis earlier in life, as well as the philosophical framework of my upbringing in the Wesleyan tradition of the United Methodist Church. It is impossible for me to not be aware of the Methodist legacy of intellectually and methodically thinking through questions of spiritual experience when I approach questions of spirituality from an academic perspective. Perhaps more importantly, I was informed by the cultural framework of growing up in a rural Ohio church pastored by my father, trying to navigate changing identities and

communities during the rise of the religious right in U.S. politics and local leadership in the

1990s-2000s. Long before I thought of myself as a queer or bisexual woman, I was personally, deeply, and confusingly hurt when I came into conflict with my family, church, or spiritual traditions around issues of sexuality and identity, which happened increasingly as sexual identity became a matter of fierce debate and cultural change in the church and country.

As a graduate student, I kept my religious background and spiritual experiences as private as possible, seeing clinical psychology as a secular alternative to the church that allowed for engaging in similar questions of meaning from a more inclusive and helpful framework. I sometimes found myself fielding questions from peers about local religious culture and spiritual meaning-making as related issues came up in psychotherapy; I attempted to maintain an awkward balance between providing information and becoming the sole representative of spiritual or religious discourse. As I began tentatively exploring spirituality in research and sharing some of my background, other colleagues brought up my research in conversation and discussed difficult personal experiences and work experiences related to spirituality and religion.

I found that this was a topic that many of my colleagues also found interesting, difficult, or painful, but a topic for which there was relatively little theoretical space for psychotherapists to openly process or discuss. I knew from growing up around conservative church members that many would not consider seeing a psychotherapist if they were in distress, partly because they would not see their experience in psychological terms and partly because they viewed many secular institutions with suspicion. This project came from a sense of obligation to do what I could to help bridge the gap as someone with lived experience in both spaces.

After beginning this project, I experienced a series of family disasters and losses, stretched over the better part of a year, which utterly upended my life in unchangeable ways. As

someone currently going through spiritual crisis, I find it difficult to neatly sum up my own opinions or biases on the issues involved, as they are in flux and in dialogue. However, I am certainly always informed by the traditions and communities I grew up with and continue to engage with at various levels. I am certainly also always informed by my experiences of invalidation and interpersonal conflict within religious communities, To the extent that I am aware of my own agenda in pursuing this line of inquiry, my goal is to share stories of people who identify their experiences in spiritual terms in order to better equip psychotherapists to better understand and empathize with their clients and people in general.

Thematic analysis across participants

After giving an interpretive summary of each participant’s story, I will discuss the common themes and differences across the interviews. I will particularly discuss emerging themes that could contribute to an EPCP understanding of spirituality. As EPCP is concerned with the personal construction of meaning through relationship, I will specifically note the presence or absence of relational themes across participant narratives of spiritual crisis.

I have organized data according to how they reflect participants’ experiences making meaning of the events in their lives at an individual level, as well as how they perceive and interact with spiritual meaning-making. I will analyze how themes in the data fit into my prior understanding of spiritual crisis, as well as any unexpected themes that emerge from the data. To conclude, I will discuss the ways in which my understandings of spiritual crisis changed over the course of the study, and how this could inform future understandings of spiritual crisis and spirituality from an EPCP perspective.

Results

Interview 1: Anna

Context and first impressions.

I spoke with Anna at her home at her invitation. As I approached the door of her home, I was struck by the beauty of the flower garden surrounding the entrance, and I took a moment with it before greeting Anna and beginning our interview. Anna was generous enough to speak to me for nearly three hours. Her friendly dog was a mostly-silent third member of the conversation, sometimes lying between us contentedly and sometimes insistently pushing her head into one of our laps, seeking out more connection and attention. A few times, a phone call came in to the house phone, and Anna would patiently wait out the answering machine before returning to the conversation. Anna showed interest in me and my perspective, often expressing hope that her story was ‘what I needed’ and worry that she may be speaking too much or not about the topic I was interested in. I was tremendously grateful for Anna’s generosity of spirit and time during this interview.

Anna is a middle-aged Caucasian woman who is married with adult children. She has a physical disability involving chronic pain and joint problems, though it is much improved from earlier in her life after medical intervention. Anna has a university education and worked for many years in university libraries; she currently works at an Episcopal church, where we shared a passing acquaintance. Anna describes her family of origin as a relatively wealthy, white family that traveled in “exclusive” circles; however, she supported herself financially from a young age and did not personally value money or material goods.

Context of past crisis: “The most doormatted person you could be”

Anna began her story of spiritual crisis in the context of her abusive first marriage.

Anna’s husband Dan was verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive of her. She placed this abuse in the context of her early life. Anna’s family had been abusive towards her, and most of the family had what she called “aggressive” personalities, in contrast to her own gentle and protective nature. She disliked conflict and found herself feeling walked over in many interactions, but still tried to reach her own goals through careful planning and evasion of her parents’ control. Reaching college, and moving out on her own, she managed to pursue her own goals independently and avoid her parents’ attempts to bring her back home by cutting her off financially.

College and beginning of first marriage: “A time of total challenge and change”

College was a time of tremendous personal growth and meaningful work f or Anna. She formed relationships, developed her identity, supported herself financially, and did work important to her, including activist work towards racial integration. Her burgeoning activist/artist identity grew in contrast to her family’s, which was centered in “exclusive” communities of white upper-class suburbanites, including their church, a “high church”

Episcopal community. Under pressure that Dan, then her boyfriend, might be called to serve in the Vietnam War, and swayed by his persuasive visions of building a happy family together,

Anna agreed to marry him over Christmas break of her senior year in college and was married on

Spring Break.

Identity development and first marriage: “I chose someone who’s secretly like my mother”

Anna continued to develop her own identity, largely separate from Dan, who she described as simply “gone” during many of the times she considers most important about her

early life and work as a mother. As time went on, Anna’s husband revealed himself to be much more like her abusive mother than she had initially realized: he abused alcohol to the point of frequent memory loss, belittled her spirituality and idealism, and over time escalated from verbal to physical abuse.

Changes: “How do you love yourself? Putting yourself above the doormat?”

During her marriage, Anna participated in a psychological study and focus group on assertiveness that gave her empirical evidence that she related differently than her husband and

“aggressive” family, and suggested that she could learn to be more assertive. The group and its leader provided empathy and space to reflect on past decisions and consider the possibility of making more assertive decisions in the future, and Anna found it very meaningful. She presented the ideas from the study to her husband and sister, who made it clear they would not change their patterns of behavior. Bolstered by the researcher’s assurance that her abusive family members would not change while the current system was working for them, Anna ended the marriage. She spent a length of time purposely “alone,” often in community with others but not in romantic relationships. Rather, she focused on better understanding herself and what she needed and wanted in life. She struggled with her sense of connection to the Christian God she had grown up with, and began exploring new ideas, expanding her sense of spirituality and community in order to regain some of the sense of connection she had lost.

Religious and spiritual development: “Chop wood, carry water”

Anna grew up a “super Episcopalian” child who felt a deep connection to God and Jesus and was interested in world religions. As she developed her adult identity, Anna felt her spirituality imbued all her activities with meaning and purpose. She cited the Zen koan: “before

Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water” to

illustrate her sense of connectedness carried out in her daily work as a homemaker and mother.

During the same time that her marriage was becoming abusive, Anna found meaning and a sense of spiritual communion in her day-to-day work.

Challenge to beliefs about love and God: “not only was I let down, but I was trapped”

However, when she began to reach the point of no return with her husband, her spiritual world was deeply challenged. Having believed firmly that “love can overcome anything,” Anna struggled to come to the conclusion that her self-sacrificing, generous, giving love would not lead her husband or sister to respect and love her, but instead seemed to lead them to take advantage of her “doormat” nature and demand more and more from her. Her sense of connection with “the God that [she] had worshipped and believed in” was “being cut off.” She felt betrayed and trapped: not only was God not coming to her aid in her abusive relationship, but also the doctrine of the church told her that her soul was inextricably linked with the man who she was realizing was “scum.” Anna felt abandoned, hurt, and “let down” by God, but said she did not feel angry towards God or Jesus personally. Rather, she became frustrated with the systems that personify God as male and felt her ability to relate with God “closing off.”

Expanding and exploring: “Anna’s world”

In response to this, Anna began to expand her notions of spirituality and community.

She transferred her practice of daily Bible study to a study of the I Ching and Jung; she began to engage at an embodied level with dance, song, and nature, and to begin to connect in this way with a spirituality that was not limited to “God the Father.” Anna spent time “alone,” when she was in community with others but not seeking an intimate relationship for herself, trying to explore her own sense of what she wanted and needed. Over time, this became what she called

“Anna’s world,” both referring to the physical space at home that she has gardened, cultivated,

and created to be comfortable and beautiful, and also to the sense that she can take a more assertive position and control more of what is happening in her home space.

Changes in life and relationships: “A community, but not based on religious beliefs

Over time, she related with people in different ways. She met her current husband, Paul, who had his own history of betrayal with his own church. Paul understood how belief systems and church communities can let a person down. In this new relationship, Anna explored other forms of community that had nothing to do with religion but functioned “like church” in the way that it provided relationship with others and a common sense of purpose. She joined and became a leader in feminist consciousness-raising groups, connecting with other women and building different understandings of who she could be and how she would relate to her culture, religious traditions, and self. On the other hand, she experienced exploitation and discrimination at work; she was more able to recognize this and express anger at the people involved. Anna overall seems to have changed her style of relating to others, becoming more adept at managing her own boundaries so as to keep her own needs met while working with others, and accepting that they often don’t operate by the same rules she does.

Another overlapping crisis: “You were not born this way”

Anna also described a second crisis that contributed to her ongoing spiritual journey.

Anna had been told by her family that the chronic pain, nerve damage, and joint trouble she had her entire life stemmed from a congenital problem. Much of her urge to be loving and giving in all situations came from a conviction that she would not have long to live, and that she wanted to leave a loving legacy behind by caring for and giving to her siblings and others. However, when she was able to pursue assessment and treatment for the pain as an adult, a scan revealed her pain stemmed from physical damage to her body as an infant or toddler. Anna understood that she

had been physically abused and harmed as a child, and that her family had never told her. She recalled having a time as a very young child when she stayed with her grandmother for reasons that she did not know and, in retrospect, could have been related. During that time, she remembered feeling a strong sense of Jesus’s presence, a sense of being special and connected to

God, and a desire to heal people. However, this was difficult to reconcile with her new knowledge that she had been abused and injured by her family even as a very young child. Anna continued to expand her spiritual life, and began connecting to the healing tradition of Reiki, which has its origins in Japanese tradition, and became a Reiki master.

Development over time: “Still believe that love is the answer””

Anna’s spirituality after her crises is not a recovery to her old state of spiritual living, but a new way entirely. She currently attends an Episcopal church with her husband, which she is tentatively comfortable in, though she wishes that the church kept politics more separate from their spiritual work. She explains that she likes the Episcopal style for its dedication to ritual, and because it provides a framework for identification with Christ’s suffering. But, she says,

“it’s not enough.” When scriptures forbidding divorce come up, she is struck with frustration and questions. While she does “want the church to prosper,” she is also conscious of and angry with the long history of patriarchal violence associated with the Christian church. After her crisis, Anna began exploring and combining different religious traditions. For instance, in her

Reiki practice, she conceptualizes God as helping her use or send Reiki to help someone heal or ease their pain and uses a short prayer as part of her practice. Even when she and her husband were both estranged from the church and their belief systems, they still prayed over meals. In her personal sense of religious connection, Anna feels there are “not a lot of answers from God.”

Anna’s current spirituality is marked with more questions than answers, and a willingness to sit

with the conflict that those questions may bring up. She related this to the concept of yin and yang, and the sense that there will always be some darkness in the light and some light in the darkness.

Anna still feels she is “unusual,” but is now happy to be so, and finds meaning in being one of a small group of people who relate the way she does to the world. Importantly, her husband Paul “recognizes” her, and from early on in their relationship saw the difference between Anna and her mother. This recognition of Anna as an individual, and their shared sense of how it feels to have a spiritual community let them down, were mentioned as important threads in their connection.

The question of what love is still forms a central part of Anna’s spirituality. She “still believe[s] that love is the answer” and tries to live with compassion to others, aware of how others might watch her choices and make choices to live with compassion themselves. Anna also remains open to questions and connections beyond her current belief system, and approaches others’ beliefs with a sense of credulity and willingness to connect. Anna’s participation in the present study was meaningful for her in part because she was able to

“partially pay back” the researcher who helped her understand the patterns of abuse she was experiencing in her marriage and family. Although the context of her spirituality has changed significantly over the course of her life, Anna continues to structure her daily actions, even including the current interview, as intertwined with her meaningful spiritual life.

Interview 2: Matthew

Context and first impressions.

Matthew is a middle-aged Caucasian man living in Ohio who is married with adult children. He works in medicine and attends an Episcopal church. Matthew was acquainted with

me previous to the start of the study and asked about it, seemingly simply interested in how my research was going; when I told him I was still in the stage of finding participants, he said he wanted to participate, sounding almost reluctant. Worried that he might think he was obligated to participate out of politeness, I assured him that this was not necessary, but he then told me he’d been considering participating for some time and had brought it up because he had decided he wanted to do it.

On the day of our interview, Matthew presented as professional and self-possessed, and remarkably even-tempered throughout a discussion of difficult events. He generously spoke for about two hours with me about his experiences with spiritual crisis, which were rooted in complex and difficult family circumstances. Matthew introduced his experiences in terms of the external events his family was going through, rather than through descriptions of internal angst, and focused on the ways in which his experience of spiritual crisis was not an individual experience, but one inextricably linked to his family relationships.

Our conversation did not follow a distinct crisis from beginning to end. Instead, Matthew began by explaining the family events that drove Matthew’s personal crisis, and then we discussed some of the major turning points and conflicts that he experienced during this time. In this summary, I have tried to model the major themes we discussed in the order we discussed them. This is not a neat timeline of events, but rather follows several threads happening at the same time, focusing on Matthew’s experiences.

Trauma, family disruption and privacy: “Most people aren’t able to talk about it”

Matthew introduced his story by noting that it was traumatic, and that “most people aren’t able to talk about it,” including his wife. The separation of private and public information,

both due to a family preference for privacy and because of most people’s difficulty processing traumatic stories, would become a theme throughout the interview.

Realization of daughter’s trauma: “Something’s going on”

The beginning of Matthew’s spiritual crisis was rooted in his experience as a father. He described a time when his two daughters were teenagers, when both he and his wife had a sense of tension for several years within their marriage and family that “something’s going on” but could not determine what was happening. Matthew’s wife Ellen was particularly worried that something had happened with their daughters; Matthew thought it was possible, but also thought they could be reading too much into normal teenage belligerence and independence, given that their children were still academically and socially successful. After several years, their older daughter Tara (then a college student) disclosed to Ellen that she had been sexually assaulted in middle school and had kept it a secret. Matthew recalled a sense of foreboding when he realized what was told what had happened and realized how long his daughter had hidden her experience. Matthew did not know what to do, but attempted with his wife to offer help to his daughter, which she did not accept (“you know, do you want some help? Do you want this and that? You know, she was on campus, she was kind of brushing us off like she always does.”)

He was left again with a sense of tension, knowing that the situation was not resolved but unable to figure out what to do to help his family.

Deepening family crisis: “Dumbfounded”

This second sense of tension broke when Matthew and his wife were informed by the police that Tara had been arrested for making bomb threats. Matthew was “dumbfounded, absolutely dumbfounded” by the turn of events. He and his wife made connections with friends in the medical community to get advice, and strongly pushed for Tara to receive psychotherapy

and medical treatment rather than to be imprisoned. The authorities involved agreed, and Tara began attending intensive psychotherapy every day in the city. This required changes in the family order: Tara was suspended from her university and returned home, and Matthew drove her an hour to and from therapy every day. Tara became reclusive and unpredictable, avoiding meals or interaction with Matthew and Ellen, and engaging in “bursts of violence”. At home,

Matthew found the experience horrifying as the quiet tension of previous years exploded into violence and anger. Due to client confidentiality policies, he was not able to receive updates on what Tara was doing in therapy; he was encouraged to expect a several-year open-ended ordeal of treatment.

Driving hours each day to get his older daughter to therapy that she often rebelled against, dealing with confusing and unpredictable violence at home, and watching the cascading effects of the events on his family and himself, Matthew began feeling more and more desperate. He realized he “couldn’t take it anymore” after several months. He began dealing with escalating homicidal and suicidal ideation. (“I really—I became homicidal and suicidal. I was going to kill her. I really—that was it. I was done.”) His wife realized something was badly wrong when he couldn’t get out of bed on a Sunday morning for church, and he told her

“something’s wrong with me.” They called a friend who took Matthew to the hospital, where he stayed for several days, afterwards transitioning into ten years of psychotherapy. Although this experience was harrowing, Matthew noted that he needed it to “work through a lot,” and that therapy specifically provided him with space he needed to process and deal with the intense and immense changes in his life.

Matthew and Ellen’s younger daughter Cindy was also affected by the tumult in the family, in ways that took many years to play out completely. Matthew emphasized that “she was

affected by [Tara’s trauma] too, even though she was younger. She knew something was going on, and it infected her, with her relationship with Tara.” Cindy also requested psychotherapy in response to the family’s general tension and distress; after working briefly with a psychotherapist who indicated to her that her problems weren’t that serious, Matthew also began taking her to

Tara’s treatment center to see a different therapist there who saw her long-term, meaning that he was managing the care of both his daughters simultaneously for several years.

While Matthew continued to take his daughters to therapy after he began treatment, he began to change the ways in which he thought of his responsibilities as a person and father.

Getting Tara to therapy often required intense persuasion every morning, and continued to be very stressful for both. Matthew began to make difficult decisions about how to set boundaries with her, working with their attorney to set in place an agreement that she would face legal consequences if she stopped treatment against her doctor’s recommendation. Matthew felt that unless he was able to “get pretty tough” about enforcing this boundary and requiring his daughter attend psychotherapy, he was likely to lose her entirely. Between Tara’s suicidal ideation and his own struggles with suicidal and homicidal ideation, he was aware that the entire situation was very dangerous. Putting the decision about Tara’s treatment in her doctor’s hands allowed him to step back and let her take responsibility for either attending psychotherapy or accepting a legal sentence, while he could put more energy into his own emotional health.

Changes in worldview: “Rose-colored glasses”

Through this period of his life, Matthew describes himself losing “rose-colored glasses” on the world, realizing that “crap happens,” a realization that took a long time and a great deal of work to process. He describes losing faith in other people: “I lost of a little bit of faith in people…I lost the innocence of—even though I was forty-something years old—of always

thinking the best of people.” Rather than any specific betrayal, Matthew tied this realization to his shock that his daughter had been suffering severely for so long without his or his wife understanding what had happened. “I looked at it, I thought—gee, how could I miss this. You know, things were going on, and… I didn’t see it. And I should have seen it… what else did I miss?” Having realized that his daughter was struggling immensely during years when he occasionally dismissed thoughts that she might be dealing with something underneath her success, Matthew became more attentive to parts of the world that were unpleasant and cruel. A friend advised him away from this path, telling him “if you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask the question,” but after much processing, Matthew decided “that’s not right… because sometimes you need to know the answer, because otherwise it’s just going to eat you apart.”

Matthew identified this as a significant change in the way he interacted with the world, where he now sees himself as having both a duty and a personal need to ask the questions that might lead to unpleasant realities. On the one hand, he needs to do this because he might be able to do something to address the situation; on the other hand, he needs to do it for his own self - preservation, because attempting to sidestep these ugly realities was quite literally “killing” him during this time.

Matthew at first continued his work in medicine, where he frequently worked with patients in halfway houses. This work became more personal and draining as his daughter struggled, as work that had once seemed like outreach seemed like a threat of what could happen to his daughter if she was not able to recover enough to live without supervision. He became aware of how widespread these struggles were, understanding that some of the people in halfway houses were children of people he knew in town. Matthew’s deeply personal experiences

affected not only his close relationships, but his way of understanding and relating to the rest of the world and humanity in general.

After a year and a half, Matthew left his medical practice, where he was increasingly distracted and had difficulty focusing on his work. For three years, his primary focus was on doing the work of making sure his daughters could obtain treatment, requiring hours of intense work each day. In addition, he was trying to parent while Tara was blaming him and his wife for not realizing earlier what was happening and stopping it. In large part, the legal problems Tara had required that Matthew be present for much of her life, something that both found draining.

She was only allowed to access the internet (a requirement for most college courses) while he was supervising, so when she returned to classes he had to assist with all of her work. Although he was spending so much of his time and effort to help his daughters, he had no real way of understanding what they were going through in treatment. After a year, he recalls, to his shock and dismay, his daughter’s psychiatrist telling him they’d had “a good start.” In total, this period would go on for seven years, longer than he or even the psychiatrist had predicted, while

Matthew himself would continue in psychotherapy for a decade. Matthew emphasized the extended length of his experience: “years and years and years and years.” This crisis was not a distinct event followed by a period of adjustment back to normal, but a massive change to the climate of Matthew’s personal and family life.

The ripple effects continued throughout the entire family for an extended period of years.

During the initial event, the family’s focus was on Tara, as the person whose symptoms and legal situation were most urgent, then Matthew, who also developed urgent and severe symptoms in the near aftermath of Tara’s trauma. Other effects took longer to be known. When Matthew’s younger daughter Cindy reached adulthood, she and his wife experienced a similar feeling that

“something was wrong, again,” feeling uneasy about her “hooking up with these guys that she didn’t know,” but felt that she was old enough to make her own decisions. Matthew expressed his dismay at wondering if there was more to come: “I’m like, oh my God, not again, I can’t take it, I can’t do another one. I can’t do this again.” Eventually they found out that Cindy had been

“forced” into a relationship and (brief) marriage by an abusive man who tried to convince her that her family did not love her and threatened to send them compromising photos. Matthew and

Ellen tried to communicate both their love for their daughter (“you know us better than that… we’d do anything for you”) as well as their perspective that something was wildly wrong (“we said, this is crazy, and she said, oh, I want a divorce then… you really want me as part of your family?”). Ellen traveled to live near her to help her through the process of extricating herself from the situation. Cindy had been sexually assaulted in college and had not wanted to disclose this to her parents. She explained that she had held back because they had “been through enough with Tara, and [she] didn’t want to put [them] through all this.” Matthew wished she had spoken up earlier, and saw this as part of the ripple effects from the initial period of trauma and disruption: “You know, she was that traumatized by what had happened to her… when she was younger. Because, when rape affects a family, it affects everybody.” Matthew’s experience of spiritual crisis was deeply embedded in his family relationships and the trauma and upheaval they experienced both as a family and in different ways as persons.

Religious and spiritual contexts and changes.

Matthew’s commitment to faith does not seem tied to any particular theological creed as much as it shows a commitment to certain values of liberal thought and practical action in the world. He grew up in the United Church of Christ, which was, in his experience, “a very liberal church,” with several close ties to the UCC: a family member as a minister, and two friends who

went to seminary in that denomination. Matthew’s wife grew up Catholic, and when they married, Matthew agreed to attend the Catholic church (though not to convert to Catholicism formally) and to raise their children in the Catholic church.

During the time of his family crisis, Matthew’s family decided to leave the Catholic church that they attended. Scandals involving Catholic priests sexually abusing children had begun to make the news, and Tara voiced her strong objection to continuing to attend. Matthew and the rest of the family agreed that this was important, and they began attending an Episcopal church instead, (a Protestant Christian religious tradition that shares many liturgical traditions with the Catholic church).

Finding spiritual support: “If it gets worse, let us know”

Although Matthew and his family stopped attending weekly Catholic church services and joined an Episcopal church, Matthew and his wife continued to be a part of the Catholic church’s community as part of a prayer group that met weekly. Matthew discussed having tension with this group due to strong differences in politics, and a need to avoid many topics, such as abortion and Donald Trump. But he felt that as long as they weren’t “pushing” their beliefs on him, and the group kept its attention on what’s happening in their families, “it works ok.” Matthew described himself as the only man in a group of ten to fifteen women who meet regularly for this group. Being in the group helped Matthew contextualize what his family was going through by hearing what was happening in others’ families and helped him feel less alone. Over time, he came to appreciate the changes in his own family through psychotherapy and effort in their relationships, compared with other families who did not have access to these options or chose not to use them. Over the years, other members of the group performed rituals of healing for

Matthew and his wife, for example, using anointing oil and the Water of Lourdes, a Catholic site

historically renowned for miraculous healing. Matthew did not connect with these rituals directly, but was willing to participate because he felt the palpable effort of the people he was surrounded by to provide as much help as they could: “I thought—ok. I’ll be blessed. I don’t care… I don’t think it was the oil as much as the people standing around giving you comfort and support.” Notably, the prayer group also encouraged Matthew and his wife to continue to come and give updates on their situation, especially if it got worse, so they could provide more support. The prayer group also offered tangible help, in the form of rides and offers to call and listen to ongoing problems. Importantly, they were willing to stand with Matthew and his wife consistently through hard times.

Isolation in church community: “They’ll turn around, and walk away”

The prayer group stood in contrast to Matthew’s experience of people’s inability or unwillingness to listen to his experiences in other religious contexts, such as his church. While the church was able to provide support for physical illness and injury, they were much less receptive to the ongoing family trauma of rape and sexual assault. “You can go to church and say, ‘my kid’s got leukemia.’ You can’t go to church and say, ‘my kid’s been raped.’” Matthew ascribed this to most people being not able to “handle” the experiences his family was going through. He disclosed his experiences privately with church rectors, which was a supportive experience, but was also somewhat for their benefit—“so they know where things are coming from.” Matthew emphasized how outside the norm talking about his struggles at church would have been. If he had gone to church and said that his daughter had been raped, he suggested:

“they’ll look at you like (blank face) and then they’ll turn around, and walk away. You can’t.”

Navigating church at this time meant that Matthew could speak privately to explain things to a rector, but he could not expect understanding support or even confused engagement from others

in his church community. Not only would they fail to provide adequate support, they would be so blindsided by the breach of church decorum that they would “walk away” and abandon them further. Although Matthew felt his church community during this time matched his understanding of religion and God better than the Catholic church, the Catholic prayer group, with its political differences and unfamiliar rituals, was the source of greater understanding and support.

Questioning and experimenting with religious models: “Not getting enough out of religion”

Relatively early in the years when he was driving his daughter to therapy daily, Matthew went through “a phase” where he experimented with a more fundamentalist approach to

Christianity. Feeling out of control in the events in his family, Matthew found himself unable even to take a walk while waiting during his daughters’ therapy sessions because he was too

“emotionally distraught.” He began to feel that his approach to religion must be failing in some way, and that he was “not getting enough out of religion.” Talking with some friends who were fundamentalist Christians, he was invited to a men’s retreat hosted by Promise Keepers, a nondenominational conservative Christian organization focused on men, particularly in their roles as husbands and fathers.

Matthew found that he agreed with some of the ideas presented in the conference, such as ending use of alcohol and drugs, he did not connect deeply with the community. In part, he felt that he already was doing most of the things that Promise Keepers recommended to being a good

Christian man. The method of worship that they favored was also more emotive and loud

(“hallelujah-ing”) than he was comfortable with. Matthew tried to follow up with the materials that the conference recommended, such as materials produced by Focus on the Family and fundamentalist Christian radio stations, for a few months before deciding that it was “just not

[him].” Similarly, other people told Matthew to “pray about it and read the Bible and it will all come to you.” He felt that he was being asked to have “blind trust in religion” to fix his problems, which he did not agree with. Ultimately, he focused back on the more “liberal”

Christian identity he had grown up with. However, Matthew did, upon reflection, benefit from the conference’s focus on men as leaders in their family. Although he did not take a more domineering or controlling role, he began to be less hands-off as a father and make more firm decisions in the difficult situation he was in. He noted that his decision to tell the attorney that his daughter should face legal consequences if she refused to engage in treatment was shortly after his participation in the conference and his time of experimenting with these new ideas.

Matthew emphasized his sense of balance in this new effort: rather than taking more control, he put himself in situations where he could feel less responsible for controlling every outcome, and let his daughter take responsibility for her treatment, even if that meant she would face legal consequences.

Action vs. passivity: “You gotta do something”

Matthew also discussed his faith in the context of his experience as a medical practitioner. As a clinician, Matthew worked to strike a balance between respecting his patients’ faith and strongly encouraging them to avoid relying solely on prayer to navigate dangerous medical problems, encouraging them to view the recommendations he could make based on science as part of how God might be trying to help them through a situation. He also had a strong memory of the experience of a neighbor child whose Christian Science family had waited five days to take her to the hospital with a broken leg, insisting that she should pray for healing.

Matthew found that this approach to prayer conflicted with his strong value on action: “You just can’t pray about stuff like that. You gotta do something. I’ve always been a doer. And so when

you got to these things, and they were just hallelujah-ing and praying and doing this, I said— where is the action here?” Matthew found that his new Episcopal church better matched his value on action and providing resources to “start doing something” in the face of crises.

Painful rebirth: “Born from six feet up”

Although he understood why many people, including some he is close to, lose faith in

God during difficult circumstances, Matthew did not experience a sense that God had abandoned him. Rather, his crisis seemed more centered in his own choices—had he missed something, or gotten something wrong, that had led to the current situation? He lost faith explicitly in other people to be generally good, and implicitly in his own judgment and viewpoint on the world and his faith. Matthew recalls praying at times that God would “come hit me over the head with a two-by-four,” desperately reaching for any guidance or certainty during these tumultuous years.

In retrospect, he recalled that several times he received the answer he needed in the days following these prayers and felt listened to. (This also resonates with Matthew’s sense that for a faith to make sense, it must be active and “do something”-- the answers that mattered to

Matthew’s prayers were in actions and events, rather than a felt presence or words of comfort or instruction.) Matthew evocatively compared this time in his life to how “a giraffe is born from like six feet up” and then is kicked awake by its mother until it struggles to its feet and learns to walk. Although this time was, at an important level, an eye-opening time of rebirth, it was also, like any birth, a series of painful shocks and frantic readjustments.

Alongside his growing skepticism in other people, Matthew reached out to others and accepted the outreach of others. As his family’s experience was of a kind that was not acceptable conversation for his usual church community, he began relating with other people who may not agree with him on theological issues but were willing to listen to the truth about his

experience and share their own. He took in other people’s gifts of presence and ritual, regardless of his personal beliefs about them, as he centered more on the interpersonal aspects of their support than the mystical elements. Matthew acted experimentally with new beliefs and ideas in faith, shaken enough in his own views that he was willing to consider that he had been wrong. Ultimately, this almost scientific approach led him to a deeper confidence in his own experience and perspective.

At this time, after these “years and years and years and years” of prolonged personal, family, and spiritual crisis, Matthew felt more centered in himself, his family, and his spirituality, crediting most of this change to long-term psychotherapy. Matthew had a distinctly secular preference for treatment, finding religiously targeted psychotherapy deeply suspicious.

Although he had no personal experience with Christian therapy, he judged by his experience with people who had gone through it that they had not confronted the issues they needed to in order to make real change in their lives. Although Matthew had initially been frustrated with his daughter’s psychiatrist’s recommendation that he “trust the process” of long-term psychotherapy, he eventually advocated for it himself.

Importance of marriage: “They could not split us, ever”

Matthew does not explicitly describe his marriage very much in his telling of this story, but his wife and marriage are crucial to the story. He discusses several points where they disagree-- for example, his desire to participate in the study and discuss these experiences more often. Implicit in this telling is that these points of disagreement stand out for their relative rarity. Matthew and his wife functioned as a unit for the purpose of parenting and navigating family life. Although they took different angles on how to work as parents, they agreed on what they needed to do and continued to support each other during these times. Towards the end of

the interview, Matthew emphasized that although his daughters both went through tumultuous experiences and the family experienced a great deal of conflict, “they could not split us, ever.” Matthew’s strong relationship with his wife is highlighted as a primary reason why he and the family as a whole has been able to survive such tumultuous events.

Importance of financial resources: “Fortunately, we’ve been able to”

Throughout Matthew’s story, he frequently discusses his awareness of the ways in which his story is made possible by his specific sociocultural circumstances. He described the immense cost, both financially and personally, of having three family members go through long-term intense psychotherapy; he noted that for other families this kind of investment might be impossible, especially on short notice. He also noted that although their own situation was incredibly difficult, he felt “fortunate” when thinking of how much more complex the situation could have been if drugs or organic disorders had been involved. Matthew described the experience of others in his prayer group with compassion and frustration, watching as their systemic family problems replicated themselves, over and over, without sufficient change in their lives. Likewise, Matthew’s experience as a clinician opened his eyes to the severely limited access many of his own patients had to healthcare and mental health services, while his connections were able to find help and provide support for him when he desperately needed it. Matthew’s cultural context meant that many resources and spaces were open to him (even if they were often still difficult to access) as he tried to find support during these times of crisis.

Morals, God and faith: “I guess I’m equating morals and faith”

Reflecting on his current fears that his daughters would not find loving, good relationships if they were unwilling to date religiously Christian men, he noted some ambivalence about the overlap of religion and morality: “I guess I’m equating morals and faith,

which-- I’m not sure if that’s a good equation.” Matthew reflects actively on an equation that does seem problematized in his telling. Matthew’s story raises questions about what, exactly, any given person refers to when they bring up “faith.” For Matthew, faith was both represented by Christianity in general and also by a sense of morals that supersede the teachings of any given church or Christian organization, leading to his exploration of different faith organizations as he navigated this time in his life. Built into Matthew’s faith is a sense of critical thinking and active interpretation, so that he can question his own identity, interpretations, and beliefs without questioning the basis of his faith. Although Matthew understood why many people lose faith in

God during difficult circumstances, he did not himself experience a sense that he had been abandoned during this time. Rather, the spiritual dimension of his crisis seemed more centered in his own choices—had he missed something, or gotten something wrong, that had led to the current situation?—or his choices of how to engage in religious community. His memories of prayer and connection with God during his period of extreme crisis seemed centered on pleading for guidance and help, even if that guidance came in a difficult or painful form (getting “hit with a two by four” was preferable to continuing without a firm sense of what he needed to do).

Matthew continued to feel connected to God during these times of doubt and crisis, while his relationships with religion, community, and himself changed dramatically.

Review

Matthew reflected on an extended period of personal, family, and spiritual crisis in our interview. Matthew’s experience of spiritual crisis was embedded within his roles as a father and husband, and his understanding of how to live as an individual was tied to those relationships, both in the sense of alliance he shared with his wife and the deep challenges he faced in his relationships with his daughters. The various forms of community that Matthew engaged in

were an important sociocultural context for his wrestling with his sense of identity and spirituality: throughout this experience, he made multiple decisions about disconnecting or connecting with different religious communities in response to the experiences he and his family were going through. Matthew experienced this time as a period of loss and pain, and also came to see these experiences as helping him gain greater clarity in his view of the world and other people, as well as a sense of painful but necessary rebirth. Matthew experienced “years and years” of crisis in his spiritual and family life, simultaneously describing profound improvement in both over time and also an awareness that this was “an ongoing thing” marked by repeated setbacks and a determined resolve to keep going. He experienced no resolution or return to normal after these experiences, rather finding that his life and perspective had changed irrevocably.

Interview 3: Beatrice

Context and first impressions

Beatrice met with me at her home, a condominium that is part of a retirement community in a small Midwestern town. Beatrice was acquainted with me previously through some shared activities in my parents’ community, but we had not spoken extensively before she asked me to arrange an interview. Before this conversation, I was aware of Beatrice as a thoughtful, highly educated older white woman deeply involved in her community, who often showed a creative and distinctive flourish of style. At the time we spoke, Beatrice was living with some ongoing physical health issues that affected her mobility. Beatrice explained that her experience of spiritual crisis was an ongoing, present issue, and so could be difficult to put into words.

On the day of our interview, we met for several hours for a wide-ranging discussion of the various parts of her life and history that felt connected to her current sense of spiritual crisis.

Our interview conversation often shifted frames, ranging from personal stories of childhood, to academic discussions of theory, to discussions of politics. Beatrice made frequent and comprehensive references to other people who made up her communities. While I deidentified all private people mentioned in the conversation, and have omitted parts of our conversation that only consisted of others’ names, it seems important to note that Beatrice told her story in a very social context, calling attention to dozens of relationships and individuals as she told her own story.

In our conversation, Beatrice showed a concern for intellectual congruence, often bringing up theorists, writers, and historical movements to contextualize her thinking and experience. My own contributions to this discussion were often to clarify and try to better understand the connections between these concepts and her personal experience of spirituality and spiritual crisis. In summarizing this conversation, I have attempted to focus primarily on the parts of our discussion that centered Beatrice’s felt experience.

Throughout our conversation, it seemed that the ongoing nature of her experience of spiritual crisis and grief meant that the various elements had not converged into a straightforward narrative. Part of the current crisis seemed to come from ambiguous tension of a life in flux: one in which personal relationships, local communities, and questions about the direction of the world were called into question. While this loose organization is informative, I have organized this summary into roughly chronological order to simplify reading.

Early life and spiritual/religious upbringing: “this sort of hybrid family”

When asked what her spiritual life was like before experiencing disruption, Beatrice gave a detailed description of her upbringing and the complexities of her unique cultural situation. “I was born into this kind of hybrid family.” Beatrice’s parents introduced her to very different

religious traditions. Her mother was a New England Unitarian and raised the children within the

Unitarian church context. This tradition (different from the more common Unitarian Universalist tradition) strictly avoids religious instruction. “The only thing Unitarians believe is that no one can tell you what to believe.” She gave the example of how she saw the Unitarian and

Episcopalian views of afterlife to illustrate this difference: “Not everybody goes to heaven, in the

Episcopal church. You have to be just so. Right? Or if you’re not, terrible things could happen to you. But Unitarians don’t believe that… But they could if they wanted to.” Although some

Unitarians also identify as Christian and participate in Christian rituals like communion, Beatrice clarified that she was “not one of them.” Beatrice’s understanding of New England Unitarianism was also grounded both in the theological tenets of the organization as well as the cultural and historical setting of the people involved: “There is no doctrine. There is no creed. And this is— this was founded in New England. You don’t mess around with New Englanders in the 17 th, 18th centuries. You don’t tell them what they can and can’t do, cause they’re not going to do it.

They’re going to say—‘no, I don’t believe we will.’ So it’s non-doctrinal.” Beatrice identified herself as a “card-carrying New England Unitarian.” However, due to the lack of a community of like thinkers in her area, Beatrice was often the only New England Unitarian in her social circles and had no immediate community that directly reflected these values and experiences.

At the time of our interview, Beatrice attended, participated, and led at a local Episcopal church. Beatrice discussed her conflicted sense of belonging with the Episcopal community, which had to do with both a longstanding relationship with the organization, a sense of appreciation for the music and intellectual tradition associated with the denomination, and a complicated family upbringing that gave her complex roots in the New England Unitarian and

Episcopalian traditions.

Beatrice’s father was a strict New England Episcopalian, who made clear his disdain for other religious or spiritual traditions. “My father believed that there were no religions that were worth anything at all except for the 1928 prayer book Episcopalianism… That’s it. No other world religion. He was antisemitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Baptist, you name it. Including anti-

Unitarian.” Although his children were raised as New England Unitarians, Beatrice’s father rejected the tradition’s validity. “My father always said that the Unitarians didn’t believe in anything. He was not a Unitarian. He was a 1928 Episcopalian… That will tell you how conservative he was. Really conservative.” Later in life, Beatrice’s mother suddenly devoted herself to an Episcopal church, throwing herself into organization and religious adherence in a way that seemed at odds with her previous beliefs and practices. Beatrice’s father was unnerved by her sudden devotion to the Episcopal church and believed it was related to problems she was having with mental health.

Beatrice describes a long history of mental unrest for her mother: periods of

“enthusiasms,” intense artistic creativity and production, followed by crashes of self -hatred so intense that she would destroy all the art she had created. Beatrice’s experience of her mother was also markedly two-sided. Sometimes, her mother was someone who angrily and physically hurt her daughter when Beatrice tried to speak up about unfair treatment by her brother, a profound memory of betrayal and trauma. At other times, she showed a delicately compassionate sensitivity: upon finding Beatrice crying over a mouse in a mousetrap late at night, she took her daughter’s grief seriously and helped her formally gather the dead mouse and perform a small and meaningful funeral together. “Now, she told me until the day she died that she had not been a good mother. In many ways, she was terrible. But I think that is extraordinary. You know, instead of saying—‘oh for god’s sakes, it’s vermin, it can’t be alive.’ I mean, she didn’t do that.

But on the other hand—I mean, she didn’t just spank me. She beat me with that brush. She once threw a cast-iron frying pan at my father, which terrified me.” Beatrice’s experiences left her unable to depend on her mother: “you never knew who she was.” The “amazingly talented,” compassionate artist was the same person who threw away Beatrice’s fish if she caught more than her brother, “because girls can’t catch more fish than their brothers. Just as girls shouldn’t run faster than boys...girls are not supposed to be better than boys in anything.” Beatrice expressed a complex appreciation for the ways in which her mother had shown her love and care at times, while also being deeply aware of the ways in which her actions were harmful in both direct and more subtle ways.

Independent spiritual identity: “I don’t believe any of that, but I love to sing”

As an adult, Beatrice’s experiences with religion were one important context to her struggles with spirituality, but her experience of spirituality as a whole existed largely outside any religious frame. Beatrice’s sense of spirituality was grounded in community action toward social justice, creative (often musical) expression, and interaction with religious tradition. She emphasized the definition used in the recruitment pamphlet for this study, which included non- religious aspects of spirituality. "So often people assume that spiritual means religious.” Her own sense of spirituality and spiritual crisis was “in part connected with issues of religion. But also something else.” Although religion was not the sole focus of her experience, Beatrice also did not fully reject it as a concept. “There’s this wonderful expression... BNR. But Not Religious. So there are all sorts of people now, who say, well, I’m not—I’m spiritual, but I’m BNR. I just heard that the other day, and I looked it up online of course. I thought—well, that’s interesting.

But I wouldn’t use it of myself. I find it annoying. It’s too glib. It’s too glib.” Beatrice’s conflicts

with various religious doctrines and communities did not come as a result of discarding or ignoring different ideas and beliefs, but of engaging with them seriously and sincerely.

Singing in groups was a consistent part of Beatrice’s life from an early age; it was entwined with her other experiences of spirituality. She referenced the saying “those who sing pray twice” as one she particularly liked.

Well, I’ve always sung, from the time I was a tiny child. Always in groups... I like all of

that for the same reason that some people think that team sports are so critical for

children. Or group singing, or instrumentalists, or theater productions. Where individuals

have to learn their parts and have to do them. And if they don’t, they screw the whole

thing up. And when they come together—they’re magical. So, is it part of my

spirituality? If spirituality involves, um—trying to find one’s place in the world, where

you’re not harming people, and where you can do, do things that you think can enhance

life for yourself and for others, then yes it is.

Communal singing, for Beatrice, was both an act that was personally affirming and meaningful as well as an active metaphor for living in the world responsibly with other people. Her concept of spirituality as living in such a way to enhance the experience of self and others while refraining from harm connected to the embodied practice of learning a part, staying in tune, and keeping time.

Beatrice engaged in social organizations in her town that supported charity giving and community action; she described a long career of working towards gender equity and social justice causes in her workplace. She chose not to engage with the Unitarian Universalist communities nearby mostly because they did not have the poetry and music so important to her sense of spirituality. “I would rather be at the Episcopal church with good music than be with a

lot of really old friends at the UUs-- they don’t have music, I can’t stand the rewritten hymns.”

While she did not share theological beliefs with the local Episcopalian community, she shared a value of music, poetry, and social action that made it a good if unconventional fit. “I love to sing sacred music, cause so much of it is so good. I don’t believe any of it. And I – I mean, I think that’s ok.” This was not the first time she had made a decision like this; as a graduate student, she had attended a “fire-and-brimstone” Methodist church with a good choir rather than a

Unitarian church without music. Particularly, her experience in the choir was foundational to her spiritual experience at her current church, as it had been throughout her life. “I’ve done all sorts of things within that community. It means a great deal to me. Not just because I’m singing. But I really find singing is an extraordinary experience. I mean, I literally have sung all my life.” The choir also served as a smaller community within the church where different beliefs were more typical. (As the friend who asked her to join the choir put it, “three quarters of the choir—they’re not even Episcopalians. I mean, God only knows what they are, but they’re not Episcopalians.”)

Beatrice would sit out parts of the service that did not align with her beliefs, but she would join in any sung response or hymn because the act of joining in song was so important to her. “I don’t believe any of that, but I love to sing. And I will sing anything—which is kind of hypocritical. I will sing all— I sing all the responses.”

She did not change her beliefs, her practices, or her identity as a Unitarian, as she became more involved in the Episcopal church. A conversation with a past rector helped convince her that she could belong and lead in the Episcopal church while maintaining her Unitarian identity.

“I said, I’m not trying to be offensive, but I can’t do any of this, I’m a Unitarian. And he said,

‘but you love to sing?’ I said, yes. He says, ‘well, do you believe that there’s a moment in one’s week when it’s good to think about other kinds of things besides grading?’ I said, yes. ‘And do

you think it’s important to do good deeds, and would you like to do them?’ I said yes, he said

‘well, I think you should be here.’”

Beatrice became deeply involved in the Episcopal church over the years, and formed many close relationships with friends, several of whom had recently died. “I love the people there, some of my most favorite people—half of whom are dead now—go to that church. I like the things that St. Mark’s has done. I taught Sunday School once, if you can believe it!” Being part of that community allowed for building long-standing relationships, singing in a choir, and mobilizing people to social action, all important parts of her greater spiritual life. She was able to be both an outsider and an insider, and to join in singing with others even though she believed differently (“without, most of the time, feeling like a hypocrite”).

Social relationships in difficult times: “I’m terrified of losing my mind”

In addition to struggling with relational and political meaning-making, Beatrice was facing a time of existential vulnerability in her own life. She discussed the impact of having many of her friends die over a short span of time. Beatrice also described prolonged, terrifying struggles with her own health. “Several years ago, I went through this terrible, terrible period where I stopped singing entirely, which is really unusual for me... it would not be accurate to say

I had some kind of psychotic break, but something was really, really wrong. ...I was diagnosed with having early dementia.” As a result of a physical infection, Beatrice lost her ability to access long-term memory for an extended time. She was unable to identify her doctor in the hospital, and could not access words, names or relationships she had even with close friends. Reading, writing, and speaking became frustrating and difficult. “Because, having gone through two and a half years where I could not read—I couldn’t even read literature, and I am an inveterate reader—I really couldn’t write, and I was having so much trouble speaking, which was another

reason they thought I had dementia. I actually couldn’t speak. Um, I mean, there’d be something in my head, I could almost see the words—” Beatrice’s experiences of this time were frightening and disorienting. She also identified parts of her experience resonant with the same themes of structural sexism and poor communication that were frustrating to her in many systems.

Beatrice’s memory and thinking slowly grew better again as her medical problems were addressed, leaving her thankful for her renewed acuity but in dread of losing her access to memory and sense of control again. “And the infection was taken care of, and I came here—for three weeks, I had physical therapy here, occupational therapy which was really good, cause I still didn’t have my brain quite back, and a nurse came every week and I seemed to be really quite well. I’m terrified of it happening again...I’m terrified of losing my mind.” This sense of profoundly traumatic disconnection and powerlessness remained a deep fear even after her remarkable recovery.

Having supported and witnessed her own friends through illness, sometimes irreversible memory loss, and in death, Beatrice was very aware of the innumerable ways in which health and ability can collapse. “There are some of the loveliest people in nursing and in assisted living who are so fragile mentally now. A number of whom I have known for a very long time.”

Beatrice’s experiences with losing access to memories for a short time were more threatening given her familiarity with the devastating effects of dementia on friends. “Deteriorated really is the accurate word for her, in the sense that—you wouldn’t have known her in her prime, but she was incredible. So vigorous, so funny, and, and—when dementia started eating away at her, it did it so quickly. I mean, it’s hard to describe… it’s a terrible thing.”

Beatrice experienced frustration with the medical system at other points in recent years: dealing with the consequences of careless overmedication, a lack of preventative knowledge,

dangerous inattention to drug interactions, and a lack of practical care after injuries (although she specified that at other times, she has received excellent medical care from the same facilities).

Beatrice did her own research, discussed treatments with doctors and nurses, and at one point refused treatment to rehabilitate at home rather than stay at the center for advanced care and receive inadequate nursing care.

Beatrice also highlighted the vital importance of her network of friends and community relationships, as well as her access to adequate resources to pay for help, as she needed to rely on them for assistance while she recovered from medical difficulties. “Yeah, it was difficult. But all my friends brought me edible food, for one thing. And they took care of me, and they picked up things off the floor, and I have cleaners.” While the experience of relying on tools and friends to help with household tasks was aggravating, Beatrice was able to navigate it.

Beatrice also described positive interactions with a past rector who visited her while she was having her intense problems with memory. “[When] I had no memory and stuff, he came to visit me three times, three times in a week. Twice in the hospital and once up there. And each time he asked if I would like a prayer, and I said yes. And they were beautiful prayers. And he knew all about me. We’d laughed over my resident Unitarian status. ...But there was something different about it. And I—maybe it was, he knew perfectly well I didn’t want to hear about sin, I didn’t want to hear about redemption, um—I didn’t want to hear about Jesus dying… But when

Sam made his prayers, at least to me, I mean it was—it was kind of nice. I mean, it reminded me that he was thinking of my well-being. Because I was so scared.” In these moments of connection, Beatrice felt supported by the past rector (Sam) and his prayers despite usually not finding that practice meaningful. The relationship they had, in which Sam knew, accepted and laughed with Beatrice about her “resident Unitarian status” in the church, and in which he

avoided topics they both knew she didn’t want to hear about, helped Beatrice feel that someone cared for her, which was an important lifeline in a terrifying time.

Given the importance of her network of friendships in helping her recover from health difficulties in the past, the ways in which Beatrice’s relationships and social connections were weakened in this time of crisis became all the more threatening. Strong and reliable social relationships were necessary both for the joy and meaning they brought to life as well as the very practical needs of a person recovering from injury and illness. Having reliable friendships and networks of support could be the difference between being forced to stay in a hospital situation where Beatrice did not trust the care she was receiving, and being able to return home and take control of her recovery in a comfortable and independent place.

Loss of friends: “I’m tired of people dying”

Beatrice began the interview by explaining that she had recently gone through the deaths of many close friends. “Since Thanksgiving of last year, seven intimate friends have died. People

I’ve known all the time I’ve been here all the time I’ve been here... Um—I’m tired of people dying.” Beatrice emphasized the relative competence she felt in grieving the deaths of people she cared for, while relating her sense of being overwhelmed by the speed and scale of her losses. “I know how to deal with grief. It’s just—it came so fast, so many people.” Because of her active involvement in the small-town community and her wide web of relationships, she was constantly aware of the deaths of friends and acquaintances: “And you know, the thing that happens when you live in a place like this—um—I mean, I know by name and sight almost everybody…. But, um—people die. You know they’re going to die. And it’s true of this town too. You know, this town is so small, that when someone dies, either you knew that person, or your best friend did, or the person was someone that everybody knew, you know—I mean, it’s, it’s life, I can deal with

it.” Beatrice did not go into detail about her personal feelings of grief and loss for her friends; rather, she framed her experience in terms of how it affected her.

While the sheer amount of deaths in Beatrice’s close circle would be overwhelming for anyone, Beatrice expressed that these personal losses were not themselves the sole source of the crisis she felt herself in. Her grief was not resolved, and she expected that it would take a long time to process her feelings, but she drew a distinction between those feelings of grief and the sense of crisis she felt in her spiritual life and identity. The accumulated difficulty of the loss of or threat to several sources of meaning and community set up conditions that contributed to

Beatrice’s sense of spiritual crisis. “So—I have to deal with the deaths of my friends. I’m trying hard… And I mean, grief takes awhile. But—I mean, I’ll get through it. Other people have died.

Feeling that I’m losing St. Mark’s… that really would, I’d really have trouble with that.” In a time of heavy grief, Beatrice was particularly affected by her changing relationship to the church she attended and sang with. She had at least some experience with the process of moving through personal grief, but the threat of losing her church community was threatening in a different way.

Changes at church: “For the first time ever, I feel like I don’t belong”

Maintaining her identity as a religious outsider in her spiritual community meant that her sense of belonging was threatened by changes to the religious leadership of the church. When a new rector was hired who (in contrast to the rector who welcomed her to participate regardless of religious belief or practice) encouraged a more rigid and conservative interpretation of

Episcopalian doctrine and behavior, Beatrice’s spiritual grounding was shaken. “It’s only recently, under Joan, that for the first time ever, I feel like I don’t belong.... Which is part of the spiritual angst.” Part of her experience of “spiritual angst” came from her own difficulty in listening to a speaker whose ideas about the world opposed her own, and part came from the new

rector asking her to not participate in church activities and rituals. “It’s not fair to put so much of that part of the angst on Joan, but… aside from the fact she’s hard to work with, this literalism.

And when I, I told her how hurt I was that she didn’t want me to process—now, I still can’t process, because I can’t walk up those steps well enough, or down. But she said, ‘I said that?’ I said, ‘Yes, you did.’ ...But, um—I said, ‘Yeah, you know, no other rector—continuing, supply, visiting—no one has ever said I couldn’t do things.’ Ever. They never said I couldn’t teach

Sunday School. They didn’t say I couldn’t be on committees.” The longstanding friendships and groups that she had been a part of for decades in the Episcopal community, as well as the leadership roles she had taken to lead the community towards social action, were unsettled by these changes.

Some of the changes at church came from the new rector, while some were a result of the loss of many friends. “Here I am, so painfully aware of the loss of all my close friends. ...I go to church. I go to Easter.” In the Episcopal church, as with many mainline Christian churches,

Easter services celebrate stories of Jesus being killed and then resurrecting from the dead, and much of the focus of the day is on death and life in general. “And the rector—comes this, this close to saying ‘the Jews killed Jesus’. And I thought to myself, ‘I’m not really hearing this, am

I?’” As a person who closely studied both history and current events, Beatrice was horrified at the ways in which the rector’s literalistic and uncritical approaches to these stories reinforced dangerous antisemitic tropes at a time when Jewish communities were experiencing increased harassment. “And then she does the children’s sermon, where she says that this is a historical fact, that Jesus rose from the dead. [deadpan] Ok. I’m glad she believes it. How are those children’s parents going to explain why their beloved grandfather hasn’t risen from the dead, or their beloved great-aunt hasn’t risen from the dead? Just asking.” In a period of profound grief

and vulnerability for herself, Beatrice was struck deep by the unfairness of hearing the rector of the church declare that death and loss were avoidable or temporary in such literalistic terms. She framed her objections in terms of how it could affect children who had lost loved ones, but introduced them from her own perspective, as she was “painfully aware” of the recent deaths of her own friends. “I kept thinking—this is the only place at the moment where I can sing.”

Because singing was such a vital part of Beatrice’s spiritual practice, and the Episcopal church was the only local place she had found a sense of belonging with the music program, Beatrice could not simply step away from the church. Although she had tried to visit other churches with a friend, hoping to find a better fit, she had found similar problems with fundamentalist preaching and no other choir to join. Staying would involve a painful endurance of doctrines and beliefs she found intolerable, while leaving would sacrifice a sense of spiritual connection through music that was part of what made life meaningful.

Sense of injustice, being burned out: “I’ve had it”

Locally, Beatrice felt deeply tired of dealing with being treated dismissively by others in a community service organization when she raised issues related to gender and violence. “And I said—I’ve had it. We’ve got to do something, as a society. I gave the statistics, and I said—we must find ways to raise our sons differently, because they’re the ones who are killing. One guy says [disgustedly] ‘oh my god.’ Another says ‘oh, so should we all be shot?’ I was so tempted, so very tempted, to say ‘yeah, we’ll start with you.’ But of course I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t do that. But—what—ok, I, I’ve read enough feminist theory to understand what’s going on. I understand the power, what they’re trying to do, I understand male privilege, male entitlement, um—some of them, I think, got really tired of me—too bad. I’m tired of them.” Although it was technically possible to leave the organization and join another that also promoted her values in

the community, Beatrice was hurt by the actions of her colleagues and by the inaction of those who expressed support for her in private but did not confront the problem in public. “I said... you know, some of you guys oughta talk to those guys. Cause they’re not going to listen to a woman.

They haven’t yet. They don’t listen to their wives. They’re not going to listen to me. They need to hear it from one of their own. I don’t think he’ll say anything.” There was a challenge both at a practical, straightforward level (the organization had become less meaningful and enjoyable because of these interactions, and she might need to leave it) but also at a deeper, more abstract level-- how to square the long-term, significant effort she had put into the community with the casual betrayal she was experiencing now.

The lack of open and energetic support she received even from people who recognized the problem raised painful questions about the strength and purpose of those relationships and the meaning of the energy and care she had dedicated to them. Beatrice seemed to strongly value a reasoned, calm, thoughtful approach to most issues, and described restraining herself from responding in kind when people made jibes at her. Now, after decades of working on these issues and seeing some progress, it was discouraging to see similar themes in current discourse.

Beatrice felt betrayed and “blindsided” by the changes she saw around her, and frustrated that she didn’t expect it: she described feeling she was “lulled into some false sense of security” in social progress, despite knowing from experience how difficult it was to drive real change.

Need for community support: “I want to hear someone else be outspoken for me. Not to me.”

While Beatrice was remarkably able to stand up for herself and others in various settings, it was frustrating to have to specifically demand respect over and over. In her medical crisis, she reported her problems in detail to the leadership of the medical team and withdrew from residential treatment. “I dictated a single spaced, five-page memo to the executive director. And I

went through the whole experience... I went home.” In these times, when Beatrice was physically hurt and vulnerable, she did not feel able to rely on the formal systems of care around her. She needed to firmly defend herself and demand better treatment in order to receive adequate treatment, which she did by clearly delineating her complaints to the people in charge of the facilities where she received care, then suggesting changes they could implement to improve communication. “Other people have sometimes complained about that. And I say to them, did you talk to anybody about it? No. Well, then, they can’t do anything about it if they don’t know that you’re unhappy about something.” This worked-- her subsequent time with the same facility featured much more attentive and appropriate care-- but was also frustrating, as it highlighted how much progress depended on her willingness to take difficult stands when no one else would.

“My goodness, are people treating me nice. But, as with… other contexts-- I’m also burned out, because I am outspoken, and I know sometimes I shouldn’t be. But a lot of times I’ve been outspoken where someone needed to be... I want to hear someone else be outspoken for me. Not to me. Not to me.” Beatrice had been active and outspoken about things that needed changing for much of her life, but was growing tired with the pattern of being the only person in her circles to take the risk of trying to address and fix systems that many complained about in privacy.

Mental health and precariousness of support: “Nobody should feel that way”

With the difficulties she was experiencing in her personal sense of spiritual well-being, and the losses and changes in her support network, part of Beatrice’s concern was for her own mental health. In part due to her mother’s struggles, Beatrice had always paid close attention to her own behavior: for example, she discussed her church involvement with her therapist when she began taking on more roles at church, concerned that her actions were mirroring her mother’s manic involvement with church activity. Keeping in touch with her own feelings and behavior,

and checking her perspective with others, was important to Beatrice because it was one way of preventing or at least softening the blow of intense, periodic depression. “You know, usually my sense of humor carries me along. Or I see something funny, or something beautiful-- and it’s been a very long time… My kind of depression is really, really bad. And nobody should feel that way.” Some of Beatrice’s mental health concerns overlapped with the general issues she had experienced in the healthcare system, such as when a past psychiatrist did not appropriately attend to interactions and side effects. Since that time, she had found a good psychiatrist she liked and trusted. However, she was losing that relationship because her psychiatrist was moving away. The timing of this loss compounded Beatrice’s sense of lost support. Having lost friends and places of safety, it seemed likely that she may be entering a time of depression with less support than she needed.

Attempts to mitigate crisis: “I’m disappearing myself”

The question of whether to maintain her relationships with her church and social organization takes on an urgent and practical relevance in this context. In an effort to reduce the stress she experienced in her social organization, Beatrice decided to take time off and informed her close friends. “So, I told my friends, I said, ‘I’m going to disappear. I’m disappearing myself.’” When it came to her church relationships, she found herself prioritizing singing and continuing to attend, though it was a difficult and ongoing choice: “that church has meant so much to me, so that now—I mean, I finally decided I could not not sing... But I have to think about other things. I cannot listen to the rector.” Beatrice attempted to get through this period of spiritual distress by making significant changes to the way she engaged with her important relationships and communities. At the time of our interview, these decisions were not set in

stone, but were part of an ongoing attempt to balance several unpleasant changes with the need to maintain community.

Ongoing discomfort, present identities

Even in the midst of this time of crisis, Beatrice described her happiness at returning to doing scholarly and community work. She enthusiastically explained some of her current projects, her new writing interests, and her ongoing collaboration and dialogue with students:

“My god, there’s so much to know.” Beatrice discussed her new work with warmth and joy, in contrast to the clear frustration and fears she had with the current situations in her church and social organizations.

For Beatrice, it seemed that while she largely stayed rooted in her sense of self, the shifting of people and relationships around her created a sense of spiritual tension and crisis. A few times during the interview, she would introduce some of her beliefs with apologies, suggesting that, in some ways, although she was firm in her beliefs, she had come to expect pushback. Sometimes in explicit and unavoidable ways (the death of friends) and sometimes in more slippery and implicit ways (the political shifts in social groups, or the shift in rhetoric that came with new church leadership), the sense of tentative security she had built over decades of relational and community work was shaken. Beatrice worked throughout her life to take leadership and publicly support others in her community as well as to advocate for herself, often in times where that work was difficult and risky. With her friends and allies, she collaboratively built a community of relationships where she could give and receive support, especially important in situations when official channels were not humane or attentive enough to be adequate to the task. She worked for years to create a space for herself in a church community where her beliefs were not universally understood or accepted, and was able to commune with

others in music, build meaning, and do purposeful work in that space. At the time of our conversation, in a time of particular individual vulnerability and grief, Beatrice’s systems of community support and meaning-making were directly threatened by changes in the communities she was a part of. Her story of crisis did not have a sense of resolution or conclusion: instead, she described being in the midst of a period of great loss and foreboding change, without a strong sense of what her next steps might be.

Interview 4: Miriam

Context and first impressions

Miriam, a middle-aged African American woman, contacted me after hearing about the study from a mutual friend. She came to meet me for an hour in a campus interview room to discuss her experience of spiritual crisis; our time was limited by her travel schedule. Miriam shared her experiences candidly and warmly, describing her current sense of spiritual crisis in the context of a lifelong spiritual journey. Miriam expressed her spirituality in a variety of ways throughout her life; she describes having intense spiritual experiences from a young age and learning to process it over time. As an adult, Miriam was interested in how to faithfully and accurately express her understanding of the scriptures. After experiencing rising tensions in her church community, Miriam felt pushed to the point of crisis when her mother died, taking away one of her primary supports in life while also pushing her to greater awareness of the limited time she had to act on her beliefs. She discussed the current alienation she felt from her church community in the context of her spiritual history, life as a mother, and her current relationships in the church. Miriam felt deeply frustrated by her current situation, but also felt that her current time of spiritual crisis would end, based on her experience of several past times of crisis or separation.

Reacting to grief: “My thing was to stop wasting time”

Miriam explained that she had been through “several spiritual crises” in the past, and that her most recent started after her mother’s death. “I think it hit me really hard, one because she was my mom. ...She’s my life anchor.” She made a distinction between the emotional grief that she felt in response to her mother’s death and the spiritual crisis she felt in reaction to it. “It wasn’t so much a spiritual crisis, I don’t think, as it was an emotional—and, yeah, you know, you mean your, nine times out of ten your parents are going to die… spiritually, though, it affected the way I dealt with interactions with my, my church, my pastor. Um—it’s time for the

B.S. to be over.”

Miriam described her present crisis as occurring in the context of her mother’s death, but not as a direct reaction to it. Rather, her grief and awareness of death gave her a sense of existential urgency, and an unwillingness to tolerate the situations she was experiencing in the organized church communities she was part of. “My mother’s death triggered it for me, because we don’t have a long time in this world, and we don’t know when our end is going to be, so my thing was to stop wasting time. In organized churches.” Miriam’s mother’s death came after a significant series of losses in her family over the course of a few years, and she described how the mounting grief of these losses contributed to her willingness to step away from her church when her mother died. “After Mom died, my sister said—half our family is gone. And it’s true.

Half our family. We were a family of eight, now we’re a family of four. And it’s just been—so all of that has been contributing to my—where I find myself. To my crisis, if you will.” Miriam’s experience of personal loss lowered her willingness to tolerate situations in her religious community that made her feel frustrated and unfulfilled.

Distrust of academic approaches to ministry: “They’re trained to do the wrong thing”

In the wake of her mother’s loss, Miriam’s frustrations with her church community came to a head. She had been feeling frustrated for some time with her experience of the pastor, who she saw as preaching “incorrect” ideas and “caught up in the theology, as opposed to the spirituality, of the church.” Miriam defined her concept of theology as “academic explanations of what the word of God says in the Bible. Um—it seems to me that it was also about teaching these pastors the value of doing what Man wants, as opposed to what God wants... I’m pretty convinced based on conversations that I’ve had with this pastor in particular that they’re, they’re trained to do the wrong thing.” Miriam saw this “academic” or theological tendency as a way of avoiding spiritual truth, Biblical evidence, and the needs of the local community. Miriam attributed differences between her perspective and her pastor’s perspective to “what he was taught in seminary” and so this “academic” perspective represented this gap between Miriam’s experience (drawn from personal spiritual experience and close reading of scriptures) and her pastor’s (associated with a seminary education and the distribution of pamphlets and materials that “explain” spiritual matters in a way contrary to Miriam’s beliefs).

When she spoke up to bring her concerns to her pastor, he did not acknowledge her perspective or engage in conversation about the issue. “I’m like, that’s not scripturally correct.

And I said that to him. That’s not what the Bible says. Um, and he basically just ignored me...And handed out this booklet… who said that, and went about explaining that, and it was all academic bullcrap to me.” Miriam spoke from a place of community and spiritual authority, as both a class leader in the church (with a responsibility to be a “spiritual advisor” to others visiting or attending the church) and a person identified with the spiritual gift of prophecy.

Conflict with pastor: “False prophecy”

The central theological issue that troubled Miriam was her pastor’s insistence that when people converted to Christianity, they gained access to spiritual gifts that non-Christians did not have. The pastor “said that people don’t get the gifts of the Spirit until they’ve converted and become a Christian.” In many Christian traditions, gifts of the spirit (also referred to as charisms, charismatic gifts, or spiritual gifts) broadly refer to people’s experiences of power, healing, or grace, understood as diverse manifestations of the power of God given to humans through the

Holy Spirit. Miriam saw her pastor’s words as contradictory to scripture: “I’m like, that’s not scripturally correct. And I said that to him. That’s not what the Bible says. Um, and he basically just ignored me.”

Miriam’s understanding of spirituality and scripture was markedly different than her pastor’s: “gifts of the Spirit are given liberally by the Holy Spirit to whomever and how much he, he chooses. So—and that’s what the Word says.” Miriam’s perspective, derived from her interpretation of Christian scriptures, emphasized that individual people could not gain spiritual power through any actions of their own, and that gifts of the spirit were given to people regardless of their religious identity. “It has nothing to do with accepting Christ.” Miriam also saw it as important that people who did not identify as Christian might have experience with spiritual gifts. In contrast to her pastor’s position that conversion to Christianity or a relationship with Christ was a prerequisite for receiving spiritual gifts, Miriam understood spiritual gifts as given to everyone to help guide them in their own spiritual development towards a relationship with Christ: “Because the gifts of the Spirit are so critical in enlightening people, and in their own conversion.” Miriam also found this conception crucial for understanding how many people seemed spiritually gifted and succeeded in the world regardless of their religious identity or their

own understanding. “But people in the world who have, who operate in those spiritual gifts, tend to be very successful. They may not even be aware that that’s what they’re doing, but that’s what they’re doing.” From this perspective, Miriam found it “dangerous” to preach or imply that spiritual gifts came as a result of a person’s decision to become a Christian, in part because it would make conversations about conversion misleading. “Because it sets [people in the church] up for, um, being ineffective in the conversion, in converting people, or just telling people about

God. It sets them up to say in conversation with someone, um, ‘and if you accept Christ as your personal Savior, you’ll be given all these wonderful spiritual gifts.’ It’s, it’s just—devastating, to me, it’s, it could be very devastating.”

In addition to leading to harmful personal interactions, Miriam’s concerns about her pastor’s approach were exacerbated because she saw it as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit:

“Why lie, especially about gifts of the Spirit? Um—that’s a big deal. I mean, the Word says you can blaspheme against the Father and the Son, but don’t blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. It is an unforgivable sin.” While Miriam tried to understand why her pastor’s perspective was so different in the context of miseducation, she was discouraged that he did not correct his perspective when she confronted him. “It’s probably some of what he was taught in seminary, and it’s incorrect. But when I presented the Biblical-- the scriptures to him, he ignored it.”

While she could understand an error, Miriam grew more frustrated and wary as it seemed to her that her church was being led towards serious misinterpretations and that their leader was ignoring the danger. She took some time away from regularly attending church and was frustrated when she returned only to find this interpretation even more entrenched: “I tried to go back, earlier this year. Right before Easter. (laughs quietly) And they were working in, um, with this pamphlet, another pamphlet….That again, didn’t come from the AME church. But it was

teaching the same lie. … And-- I just threw it in the trash. I just—and I haven’t been back since.

Because—why lie?” Miriam described the danger she foresaw in spiritual terms: “So for me, it feels more like an attack on the Body of Christ, the church— And it’s very deliberate, and very insidious. Because it just potentially sets up so many incorrect and spiritually devastating principles. I—that cannot— because it’s like false prophecy. It cannot benefit the people of God.

Because it’s teaching them the wrong things.”

We discussed how the spiritual gift of prophecy, which Miriam saw in her experience, is associated traditionally with both foresight into how current events might lead to future events and with speaking truth to power (often with the goal of avoiding potential dangers to the community’s spiritual well-being). Miriam identified both aspects in her own experiences.

Miriam was frustrated at being ignored by her pastor when she felt something was wrong at a personal level, as well as frustrated that her voice was not being listened to in the context of speaking from her own spiritual gifts. “I cannot—I cannot support a lie. Or multiple lies. Um, which created a crisis for me, like I said. I love God, I love his people, I love being called to service. Um, actually using my spiritual gifts. And for that to be stifled, and bastardized— It’s at a certain level very devastating. (sigh) That’s organized religion.” When she tried to share her faith community with her adult children and their respective spouses, their experience reinforced her sense that something was wrong. “And it’s so bad, honestly—I was trying to encourage my kids to go to church with me, earlier, before all of this started… they felt the same stuff.” Miriam experienced these conflicts in a spiritual way, as a denial of her own God-given ability to serve her community through leadership and discernment. She saw these problems as a systemic issue with organized religion.

Distrust of organized churches: “Dens of thieves”

Her frustration mounted as her concerns were ignored, and after the death of her mother, she felt “done” with the church and all organized churches, which she compared in a potent

Biblical reference: “Like the churches are dens of thieves. And they have no heart for God or his people—they become secondary to what they personally can get out of it and gain.” The Biblical book of Matthew includes a story in which Jesus goes to the temple and forcibly drives off the sellers and bankers who gathered there to sell sacrificial animals and other goods to potential worshippers, quoting a scripture that the temple should be a place of prayer and the merchants have made it a den of robbers. Referring to the churches as “dens of thieves” is a powerful condemnation. Miriam described a profound and painful conflict of values, leading her to feel angry, hurt, and helpless: “They have no heart for God or his people—they become secondary to what they personally can get out of it and gain. And—(sigh) I just, I don’t want to be around it.

Because it does anger me. Um, but it also—hurts my feelings. It hurts my spirit. Um, to see it, and to—not be in a position to do anything about it, really.” Having perceived the organized church as operating out of its desire for gain, rather than following spiritual leadership, Miriam felt deeply angry and hurt. She made a distinction between feeling hurt at an emotional level and hurt in her spirit. Being around this situation without being able to do anything to change it went against her experience of her own spiritual gifts.

Early spiritual experience: “It freaked me out as a kid”

In our conversation, Miriam discussed how she had come to understand her sense of the gift of prophecy in her own life and what it meant to her now. Prophecy can be understood a variety of ways in Christian traditions: Miriam and I discussed it from the perspective of both foreseeing events to come and speaking truth to power. Her current crisis was centered on

experiences of speaking truth to power: seeing systemic problems in her religious community and speaking out against them to leadership, only to be ignored. This fits with one understanding: seeing where current conditions will lead in the future if action is not taken to change them and confronting the people in power with the responsibility for leadership. Miriam also experienced a more vivid and intense form of foresight.

Miriam described this dimension of her experience being part of her life since early childhood: “I’ve had it for as long as I can remember.” Miriam explained experiencing terrifying visions of others in pain or dying. “It came in the form of dreams. Or daydreams. I’m daydreaming, and then I get these visions. Um, usually of death. Something tragic happening.

And—I’ll put it like this, by the time I was twelve, my mother told me to stop telling her about my dreams. It was really intense.” Miriam was left to figure out what these experiences meant mostly on her own as a young child. The content of her dreams was disturbing to her mother, who did not want to hear about them.

The first “very direct” vision like this that Miriam remembered was a classmate being hit by a car. “I was eight, in third grade. And I got this image of one of my classmates getting hit by a car, being knocked, um, a great distance in the air, and his leg being broken. And—I got that image three times before it actually happened.” Miriam explained that her classmate was, in fact, badly injured by a car while riding his bicycle back to school. “And it happened just like I saw it.

Knocked fifty feet in the air, and his leg was broken in two places. I don’t know if I said that initially, but that’s what I saw, that’s what happened. And— it really— It freaked me out.”

Miriam later found out her classmate had been injured in the way that she had experienced a direct image of beforehand. Left alone to try to figure out these frightening experiences, Miriam concluded that she had caused the horrible injury she had witnessed. “And when it did, the only

thing—my interpretation was, ‘I’m a witch.’ Because I was thinking I caused it. I didn’t understand anything at that point.”

Miriam continued to have similar experiences through childhood and adolescence, and she grappled with what these experiences meant and what she should do about them. Over time,

Miriam began to think about these experiences not as a result of her being “a witch” but as a communication from God. “The only thing I can say is I’ve always known there was a God. I mean—and I’ve got memories that go back to when I was nine months old…. I’ve always known there was a God. I’ve never questioned that. And I think that it was knowing that, and acknowledging that, that made me—that helped me gain understanding…” Part of Miriam’s experience, as long as she can remember, was an awareness of God as a present reality. Over time, Miriam came to understand her experiences with difficult visions and images as part of her relationship with God.

It would take more time and processing to reach an understanding of the meaning and purpose of these experiences, but by adolescence she describes no longer blaming herself for the images and knowledge she received. She described being given foreknowledge of a classmate’s death but being prevented by God from warning her. “She was excited because she and her mom were taking, having a girls’ weekend… And as she spoke, I saw—I didn’t see what was going to happen to her, but I knew she was not going to survive the trip. And—every time I tried to open my mouth to say, ‘don’t go’, I—it—it literally was like my mouth was closed. I wasn’t permitted to speak that to her. And sure enough, on the way back home-- it was storming really bad that

Sunday. And they were in a car accident, her and her mom—ran into a utility pole.” Miriam hoped to use these experiences of foreseeing death and injury to help or warn other people, but she felt physically prevented from doing so by God. “I knew that, at that point, it was coming

from, from God. And I was frustrated, because it’s like—why are you giving me this and not allowing me to warn people?” Miriam’s experience of God was very active in terms of giving her knowledge and preventing her from using it to warn people, but no explanation came about why she was not “permitted to speak.”

Growing frustrated with these experiences, Miriam confronted God after her cousin died of leukemia. “One night, my family, we were just sitting around talking, and I kept wanting to ask about Eric. And I felt like it was urgent for me to ask about him, and find out what was going on with him, because—and the urgency came from knowing he was going to die. Three days later, he died. Um... you don’t know me, but… it really pissed me off. Not that he died, but that I was given this information and not allowed to share it.” Having come to understand God as the source of these experiences, Miriam was angry that she could not share the information she had, and could not understand why she would be given such experiences by God if she could not use them in a helpful way. After her cousin’s death: “I asked God. I was in, still at the funeral home, and I—I’m like, ‘what do you want from me? What do you want me to do with this? Why are you giving me this, and not allowing me to warn people?’” Miriam received a direct answer:

“And I got back, as clear as day—it wasn’t an audible voice, but it just, in my spirit, that—I wasn’t given these things to warn people. I was given these things so that I could be available to comfort people as they go through their losses or whatever. And I’m like—oh, ok. I can deal with that now, cause it was the not knowing what my purpose was.” Receiving this answer from

God helped Miriam understand her experience in the context of preparation for grief. This alternative let her understand herself and her experience in new ways, rather than seeing these images as a way to warn people of impending disaster, a pointlessly painful experience, or as magical harm she was inadvertently doing to other people.

As she grew through adulthood, Miriam continued to have experiences of images and visions from God. “It still continues, to this day. It’s interesting, though—it’s not always in dreams. Um, most of the time it is in dreams, but sometimes it’s, it’s while I’m awake. And I’ll get these images. They don’t—the only thing I can say is that I know when it’s from God versus when it’s my own imagination. Cause being a writer, you have to have an imagination.” During our conversation, Miriam remarked on how strange her experience of foreknowledge and visions was (“It’s really kind of crazy, wild”), but also expressed that she felt solid in her understanding of when she was experiencing an image from God rather than her own imagination, and understood the painful images she sometimes received as a way she could prepare to help others who would soon be grieving. “I prepare. It was like he was giving me the information so that I could go through my grief process or whatever process I need to, and then I am available.” This part of Miriam’s gift of prophecy made her more sensitive to grief and loss, and also allowed her a sense of direction for where to direct her care and compassion for others.

Looking back, Miriam thought that others in her family had similar experiences, but that, as a group, they lacked the structure of religion or the mentors who could help process these experiences and make them less terrifying. “The irony in that is that there’s a prophetic gift throughout my family. My—most of us have that. But none of us had the—rooted in the organized religion. We didn’t have the opportunities for mentors to help us process what we were getting, and to experience—and you know, things manifest in different ways.” Although

Miriam was experiencing deep frustration with organized religion at the time of the interview, she saw it as something that was helpful in understanding and contextualizing these experiences in the past, and something that had the potential to be helpful to others having similar experiences.

Miriam also identified with a spiritual gift of healing. Similar to her experience with her gift of prophecy, this involved careful balance between being able to help people and becoming personally overwhelmed. Miriam’s experience with healing was not as central to her identity as her gift of prophecy, and she was cautious about it. “The prophetic gift is the biggest one. I’ve also operated in the gift of healing. But it’s not—it’s just like the preaching. It’s not going to be something that’s continuous—it’s more like, as the occasion comes up, and the Holy Spirit enables me, empowers me, to touch.” Miriam described how this gift came with a sensitivity to spiritual activity that made her be very careful around others. “I’m very, very leery of touching anybody. Like, there’s certain things I won’t do. I won’t visit people in nursing homes…

Spiritually, I become overwhelmed, because of the spiritual activity in those places.” Miriam understood the spiritual activity in these places as a sense of people’s spirits not being contained while they went through difficult events. “People near death, and people going through changes… their spirits kinda, I don’t want to say come and go. But they—spiritually, in terms of spirit realm, they release their spirits. They are not as contained as younger, healthier people.

And it’s, it’s just too much for me. I—it overwhelms my spirit.” Miriam sometimes feels called to visit people in hospitals. She is cautious about how these environments feel riskier to her, to the point where she avoids it when possible. “I’m not visiting you in the hospital unless God tells me to.” As she felt that part of her expression of her spiritual gifts was a call to comfort people who mourned, she found ways to do so that did not involve being physically present, such as writing letters and calling people in need.

Spirituality as foundation of identity: “I know who and what I am in Christ”

Miriam described being through several spiritual crises in the past that shaped her spiritual life over time. Her first spiritual crisis, in her mid-twenties, came as she sought help to

escape an abusive marriage. “I was in a bad marriage. Abusive husband—physically, emotionally. And I went to my pastor for advice because I did not want a divorce—I didn’t believe in divorce, I’ll put it like that. But I knew if I stayed, that man was going to kill me.”

Miriam felt torn; she could not see at the time how to reconcile her reading of Scripture (which is often read to forbid divorce in all circumstances) with her need to escape a potentially lethal situation. “I did not want a divorce—I didn’t believe in divorce, I’ll put it like that. But I knew if

I stayed, that man was going to kill me… I asked my pastor, and the only thing he could say is

‘God hates divorce.’ I’m telling him, ‘seriously? He’s beating me, choking me out, and that’s all you have to say?’” The pastor’s lack of empathy and legalistic approach to Miriam’s horribly dangerous situation was deeply upsetting. She divorced her husband, and “stayed away from the church for a long time.” This experience led Miriam to the conviction that church leadership was being trained in ways that contradicted the lived experience and needs of real people: “Church leadership doesn’t apply what God says in his Word to everyday situations, contemporary situations. It’s like they aren’t trained to understand and then to do that.”

Miriam experienced another betrayal by church leadership as part of the same crisis, when she was “called by God to preach.” When she felt a call from God to enter ministry,

Miriam sought support from her own pastor and took action by calling local seminaries. She encountered immediate sexist discrimination from the seminaries: “They wouldn’t even let women take the classes that led to preaching.” Her own pastor was deceptively supportive: “he led me to believe he was in support of my preaching… tricked me into believing that he was supportive, but he wasn’t.” Miriam found out that her pastor had deceived her when she visited churches led by members of the ministerial alliance he belonged to and f ound them amused by the idea that she wanted to enter the ministry: “I kept getting this ‘hee hee, ha ha’ vibe from

them. So, I asked my pastor. And he said, ‘well, yeah. We were kind of laughing, and we don’t believe women belong in the pulpit’-- and I’m like, wow. Really? Seriously.”

Later, Miriam disclosed that, in addition to their pastoral relationship, this pastor had also had an intimate, manipulative relationship with her. He was the father of Miriam’s adult daughter, though he had been largely uninvolved with parenting. “[My daughter’s] father’s a minister too… that’s a whole other conversation… in fact, he was the one who was teasing about my being called to preach.” Miriam referred in general terms to personal issues that she dealt with that made her vulnerable to unhealthy relationship dynamics, and described an experience that could be seen as emotionally abusive: “Yeah, I had other issues that—that he sensed, and picked up on, I guess, and then proceeded to manipulate. It is what it is. So that was all part of my crisis.” Miriam declined to go further into detail about her relationship in this interview, suggesting it was both too complicated to get into in our limited time and not the most important lens through which she saw her spiritual experience. While it was unclear to me whether this pastor had been the same man as Miriam’s dangerously physically abusive ex-husband, it seemed clear that his interactions with her left her feeling disrespected, manipulated, and lied to.

After this first crisis, around the age of twenty-five, Miriam did not attend a church again for six years, until she felt she should return to give her daughter more spiritual mentors.

These painful interactions contributed to Miriam’s sense of spiritual crisis in her mid- twenties. The pastors she trusted with her spiritual questions and development betrayed and abandoned her when she needed support, and the institutional church refused to honor her experience of a call from God because she was a woman. The father of her child, himself her pastor, mocked her call to ministry and manipulated her. She survived her abusive marriage through divorce, contrary to a pastor’s unhelpful guidance, and developed a defiant sense of her

own spiritual experience and identity rooted in her direct experience of God. “I know what I know. I don’t care who does or doesn’t believe it, receive it. I know who and what I am in

Christ.”

Parenting around spiritual issues: “So she could make an informed decision”

Miriam returned to organized religion when her daughter was young, realizing that “her only experiences with church were weddings and funerals.” Miriam herself had wished she had more experienced mentors and structures to help her understand her spiritual experience as a child, and she hoped to provide this to her daughter. She hoped that her daughter could find community and spiritual support in a church that Miriam was not able to provide alone: “So she could learn what I couldn’t teach. I mean, the whole importance of going, and fellowship being had, and hearing the Word of God, a message through his ministers—she needed to experience that, so she could make an informed decision about whether or not she believed in Christ.”

Miriam returned to the church where her daughter’s father preached to give her daughter an experience of church, despite her bad experiences with him and his lack of involvement with his daughter. “And of course, I decided taking her to her dad’s church made the most sense—would be the most nonthreatening. Even though he really wasn’t involved… but that’s what I chose to do.” Miriam felt that her daughter “got it” at a young age, and that she made an enduring relationship with Jesus Christ. “By the time she was twelve, she accepted Christ.” For Miriam, this meant that Christ would always be a part of her daughter’s life.

Growing up, however, Miriam’s daughter faced conflicts that led to her to have a complex relationship with religion as an adult. “She’s not wanted anything to do with organized religion. I think in part, in large part, that has to do with her being a lesbian, and things people have said regarding her being a lesbian and going to hell, and all that foolishness.” Miriam’s

daughter faced a mixture of reactions from close family members in reaction to her lesbian identity. Her aunt, with whom she was very close, attempted to convince her to deny her lesbian identity with the understanding that sexual orientation was a choice and that her niece could go to hell as a result of being lesbian. “My sister had—said something very devastating. She didn’t mean any harm, but—she was like ‘I just don’t want you to go to hell. Can’t you choose something else?’… and they were really close. Plus, there were some other things that my sister had said, her and my mom actually… about me. So, it was a combination of family drama and dynamics and that whole thing that, she was like, ‘psh.’” Miriam’s daughter reacted to these difficult family interactions by retreating from the religion that seemed to motivate them.

Conflicting views of God: “That’s what people say he does, but that’s not what he does”

Miriam herself was supportive of her daughter’s identity; she felt that her daughter’s identity as a lesbian was neither in conflict with her understanding of Biblical law nor her expectations of her daughter. “Honestly, she was—she was one year old, and I saw who she was. I saw that a big piece of that was her being a lesbian. I just knew. And—I’ve always been ok with it. Because I don’t see condemnation.” While she recognized the deep pain that her daughter had experienced in interactions around religion, she was also saddened to see her daughter question or reject her faith as a result of her experience with other people. First and foremost, she encouraged her daughter to pray for guidance herself rather than listening to anyone else’s perspective. “I said, you accepted Christ. You know you believe. I said—so, rather than listen to all of these people, why don’t you ask him? If you really want to know, ask him. She’s like, ‘no.’” Miriam also tried to convince her daughter to reconsider by showing her

Biblical passages that provided a basis for accepting homosexuality, and encouraged her to see her lesbian identity as God-given. “I tried to actually show her some things in the Bible that I

discovered and got an understanding of that makes it ok… it was ok. It is ok. You have to be true to who God created you to be.” Miriam felt that her daughter, influenced by interactions with Christians who rejected her based on her lesbian identity, misconstrued the role of God and the idea of hell in rejecting that version of faith. “But she said… still thinking on what people had said— that it’s a setup. ‘Well, if he created me this way, and then he’s going to turn around and send me to hell for it, it’s a setup. I don’t want to worship a God that would do that.’ I said,

‘but that’s not what he does. That’s what people say he does, but that’s not what he does.’ And as far as I know, she’s never taken that step to actually ask God, and ask him for an answer.”

Miriam’s own sense of spiritual crisis was in part fueled by the conflicts around her and her daughter, as she navigated the frustration of having other Christians reject her daughter, while grieving that her daughter seemed to be alienated from Christianity. “Even that is part of my own crisis, um, as her mother—and loving, and knowing what I know.” Although she did not see condemnation in her own idea of her faith, other Christians did: “it’s really frustrating trying to communicate with other Christians who have a very different interpretation of what the Bible says, on that issue, too. “

Miriam also experienced some strain in her relationship with her daughter. While she understood why her daughter and her daughter’s wife avoided organized religion, she worried that her daughter and daughter-in-law were not basing their lives in Biblical principles. “[My daughter and her wife are] very against organized religion, but my thing is, you can not agree with organized religion and still practice a relationship with God, which is what I do, and which is what they say they do. They’ve got their own belief system, and I respect that. I just want it to be founded in the Word. Um, which—they’re not. They’re not using that.”

Although Miriam reached out to try to support her daughter, her daughter did not always experience these attempts as supportive. “I gave my daughter a Bible one year for Christmas, one of her presents, and she really resented it. And I said, well, you’re not there yet, but you might get there, so keep it, don’t throw it away, or give it away. Um, and it’s funny because, at her age,

I was going through my first spiritual crisis.” Miriam saw her daughter’s distance from religion, or at least from the Bible, as potentially temporary, based on her own experience. Having faith that her daughter had made a connection with Christ and was on her own journey, Miriam perceived her as going through a similar crisis to Miriam at her age. Miriam saw her daughter’s identity as integral to who she was and shared some of her frustrations with organized religion and Christians who rejected her identity; at the same time, Miriam saw her daughter’s alienation from the church as temporary. In part, this came from Miriam’s own experience of going through times in her own life when she felt separate from religion or church but maintained her relationship with God.

Called to a new church: “They ain’t ready for me”

Miriam described her experience connecting with Zion AME, prior to her current crisis.

She felt led by God to connect with the congregation shortly after moving into town, but she felt underwhelmed by her first attendance at the church. People were not moving or responding in a way that she associated with active spirituality. “God wanted me to go to Zion. Which I was resisting. Um, I didn’t even know why I was resisting it at first. But I was obedient eventually and went there. And—even back then, the church was packed. Um, I’m like—Lord, I am not ready for them and they are not ready for me. Because they were very—what’s the word I wanted to say—very unexpressive. And I’m very expressive, in my worship.” Despite her misgivings, she felt that God intended her to connect with the community, so she “was obedient

eventually, and went there.” Miriam described how the quiet and seemingly unemotional congregation was a confusing shock to her after a history of being in churches where her expressivity in worship fit with the norms of the congregation. “And they were all so reserved, and still—and I’m like, I can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t understand how you could be in his presence and be like a dead person.”

Processing her confusion in prayer, she explained her sense that “either they’re resisting, and something’s wrong, and there’s, you know-- and I talked to God, I’m like ‘eh, they ain’t ready for me.’” Feeling a push from God to connect with this community, Miriam was perplexed by their lack of energy or life, and felt that although she was supposed to connect with them in relationship, they were not yet ready to meaningfully connect with her. She talked with God about these concerns, unable to understand why she had been called to a community that seemed to not be at her level spiritually.

Crucial friendship: “Challenge and support all at the same time”

Around the time Miriam visited Zion African Methodist Episcopal (AME )for the first time, she became closer to her friend, Jackie, who attended Zion and would become her “partner in crime, if you will” over time. “I mean, I knew that Jackie went to the AME and I could pick up, in her spirit, that she wanted to establish a relationship with me. But I also knew that spiritually, she was going to challenge me in ways I was not ready to deal with. And I didn’t even articulate it or understand it clearly—it was just spiritual instinct. I’m like, mn-mn (no), I ain’t ready to deal with her, kind of thing. Because she would challenge and support all at the same time.”

Looking back on it, she shared that this seemed like a relationship that had existed spiritually before they had met physically. Discussing her sense of how Zion AME had not been

ready for her, and that she had not been ready for Jackie, Miriam elaborated: “It’s interesting to me that you have the connections in the land of the living, in the natural. I’ll put it like that. But that just reminds me that everything begins in the spirit realm, and then it’s manifested in the natural, in the physical world. ...I sometimes forget that. And it’s like—I shouldn’t be surprised.

So, there was a spiritual connection. The Lord had divined a spiritual connection between Jackie and I before either of us were even in this world. And then we stumble upon it, or whatever. It’s just—it’s kind of cool, the way things operate.” In contrast to her interaction with the general congregation at Zion, Miriam found Jackie spiritually intimidating in some ways. Jackie wanted to form a relationship with Miriam, and Miriam knew that there would be “challenge and support” in their relationship. While she found it difficult to state why, she felt an instinctual need to be careful about starting this relationship, knowing there were some aspects for which she was not yet ready.

Over time, Miriam’s friendship with Jackie deepened and they helped each other develop personally and spiritually. Even when not seeing each other in person very often, they stayed connected and reached out frequently, often feeling directed by God to do so. “It’s funny, because Jackie and I will both—we’ll both get, get directions from God, for lack of a better word. Even when we haven’t—cause we haven’t seen each other much, the last few years. …

She’s had a whole other set of issues and circumstances to deal with. But it’s funny, because— we’ll both get the nudge from above. Or sometimes it’s just that we will pick up in our spirit something’s going on with one another. So, we’ll call.” Even though at the time of the interview, Miriam felt separated from the church community, she was still connecting with

Jackie. “It was really good to get together with her the other day-- and spend time. Cause we haven’t really had the opportunity to do that for a long time, so… to relate, back and forth. Um,

and, again—it’s clear that God put us together, um, spiritually.” Miriam and Jackie both experienced God “nudging” them to connect to each other. Miriam felt her friendship with Jackie was God-given, and did experience the “challenge and support” that she foresaw in ways that helped her develop personally and spiritually.

Learning to live with spiritual sensitivity: “Processing in and processing out”

Over the course of her life, Miriam had found her spiritual sensitivities useful for helping others or protecting herself, but she could also be misled or confused by them. “I used to see with my prophetic, spiritual eyes, and lean on that more than with my natural eyes. By my second husband, I saw who he was intended to be, without recognizing that that’s what I was seeing.”

Miriam needed to learn over time how to parse the information she received from her prophetic sense; her perception of the world as it could be sometimes led her to untrue assumptions about the world as it was. “Because I did try to interact with him as if he was at that place, at that level.

And—loved that man that I saw-- and ignored the man that he was.” Miriam indicated that this conflicted view led to confusion and invalidation, contributing to a deterioration of the relationship and a sense that her ex-husband was moving further from this ideal self instead of closer to it. “And that, I found out the hard way, can be really devastating to people. Because one, they have no idea what you’re talking about, or why you have these certain expectations.

And it can send them in a reverse, reverse mode so they actually stop being where they were and, and it’s just devastating... that’s a whole other hour conversation.” Over time, and through these experiences, Miriam learned to be very careful with her insights about other people, both for her own sake and for theirs. “I’m very careful now to see and hear what God gives me about a person—doesn’t mean that I need to communicate that to them. It’s just giving me insight. So, I have to be very prayerful about how I interact with that individual.”

Over time, and with the support of her friend Jackie, Miriam developed skills in being able to mindfully make choices about what to do when she experiences insights like this, and to let go of information that is hurtful to her: “Processing in and processing out. Because yeah, it’s devastating, also, to hold on to all that stuff. And it can be super-overwhelming, and detrimental—And that’s something, actually with Jackie, I’ve learned to process out, and not hold a lot of stuff. Because it – like I said, it can overwhelm and devastate you.” “Processing in” seemed to involve actions taken to avoid being overwhelmed by unpleasant experiences. This involved paying close attention to her own emotions and insights, discerning experiences that came from God versus imagination, and keeping firm boundaries around interactions she was sensitive to (ex. limiting hospital visits). “Processing out” seemed to involve mindfully acting on the experiences she had and then releasing the emotions and sense of responsibility that came with difficult experiences (in contrast to other times in her life when she held on to so much intense emotion). As she developed spiritually, Miriam became better able to let go of this information, even in times when she did feel called to share it with someone: “So [God] gives it to me, and when he tells me to release the information, I release it.” Miriam’s spiritual development, through prayer and relationship with others, helped her be more able to contain, process, and release the difficult visions and emotions she experienced.

Over time, Miriam’s friendship with Jackie included an important relationship with

Jackie’s father as well. “It’s funny, because Jackie’s dad… the Lord told me that this man was my new father in the earth. And I’m like—wow. And I was kind of shy about saying anything to him. It took a couple, few months. And I’ve—I finally told him, and he just chuckled. And I said, you know that that means, even if—cause this was after my split with the second husband—I said, if somebody even wants to go out with me, they’ve gotta get your approval, and he just

laughed.” Jackie’s father became an important anchor of spirituality for Miriam, someone she admired and trusted on account of his spiritual practice, strength, and dedication. “He’s strong, very very strong. Man of few words, but when he speaks, there’s much power. And it’s like— like the scripture, ‘pray without ceasing.’ ...This man is always singing to the Lord, I mean, just—he’s just—daily, every day, doing things the Lord, the Lord, I know, has given him to do— picking up the slack at the church financially.”

Elders in the church: “Solid spiritual anchors”

Miriam attended the church for nine months before deciding to join, after feeling that she had the “all clear from God” that it would be a good place for her spiritually. As Miriam developed more of a connection with Zion AME, she developed a deep appreciation for the spiritual example of several of the elders of the church. “People there are fantastic. Um, we’ve got a lot of solid spiritual anchors there, whom I respect immensely, because no matter what’s going on, they stay in their spiritual positions.” Miriam elaborated on what made a person a spiritual anchor: “They—(sigh) speak the truth. They study. Like this woman, once a month, gets up and does ...teaching, and—her prayer—I mean—when some people pray, it’s just like they’re going through the motions, and they’re saying words. When other people pray, you feel the power in their prayer. And I recognize that’s just because they’ve got a strong prayer life, and they are in active relationships with God. For me, that’s wonderful.”

In addition to the wonder and joy she felt, the experience of being in relation with these elders in the church was somewhat humbling for Miriam, given her initial impression of them. “I have gained a great deal, a great deal from that church body. And what’s funny about that is, my—my ego, my arrogance, was that I was being sent there to teach them. I was sent there to be taught, as well... I have learned a lot, spiritually. And even just in terms of normal human

relationships, I’ve learned a great deal.” In addition to the spiritual guidance and modeling of prayer, teaching, and study that Miriam admired, these people provided human relationships that helped her grow as a person. She described the joy and comfort that came from being surrounded by people like this: “I love being somewhere where people are doing what they’re supposed to do and being who they’re supposed to be, because they’ve worked through and advanced so many levels spiritually. It’s, it’s—it’s a welcome relief for me, because—I’m, I’m not the—I’m not the most advanced and the biggest one. I love being around people that I can learn stuff from, and whose life lines up. It’s not just they talk it, they walk it.” The authenticity and genuineness of the elders that Miriam admired helped her not only think about how she would like to live her own life, but also, importantly, let her relax and depend on others. Not being the “most advanced” in the room meant that she could learn and grow and take energy away from church gatherings, rather than feeling drained and exhausted.

Elders’ response to church conflict: “They still stay in their positions”

Miriam emphasized the financial realities of a church like Zion: remaining affiliated with a larger denomination like the AME requires yearly dues to be paid per member, which are expensive given that many of the local members have relatively low incomes: “That’s a lot when you’re talking about people who are living in poverty, people who are retired and on fixed incomes—that’s a lot of money to be asking for with no clear return. So, what do we get out of this? And it’s just—that’s just the pragmatic me talking. If we are to give that money to support the connectional church, how—and there are ways that it’s supposed to come back to us. Like, they have several publications which we’re supposed to receive...we might get one a year, late.

Um, the others we don’t get at all. And it’s just—it’s just wrong. I’m sorry, it’s just wrong, the way they’re doing stuff.” Miriam contrasted her own frustration and pragmatism with the

consistency she saw in the elders she admired. “And I admire my new father, and this lady who just lost her son—they truly are pillars. And even though they clearly know that what’s going on is incorrect, they still stay in their positions. They still praise and worship God and share what he has given them to share. They still do what they were called to do.”

These “pillars,” importantly, did not deny or ignore the problems that bothered Miriam: she was confident that they knew that wrong things were happening. Despite this, they remained in community with others, continuing to worship and teach as they felt called to do. Miriam admired their stability, contrasting it with what she saw as her own inability to follow God’s command. At the same time, their seeming willingness to tolerate wrongdoing was perplexing for Miriam, who felt unable to continue at the church. “We’re talking people in their eighties, who are very strong, and very connected to God, um, and very steadfast in their service to the

Body of Christ, to the church. I don’t understand why—and they know. They’re spiritually way ahead of where I am in terms of their relationship, and their level of understanding. I can’t understand why they would sit back and not challenge those things. And even if they have challenged them unsuccessfully, why they would stay, and continue.” Miriam seemed to struggle to make sense of this: in some ways, she accepted that they may have a different understanding with God of what to do, and in other ways, she saw herself as failing for not doing the same as the people she admired. “I figure that’s between them and God; they’ve been told to stay put… I get that. I’ve been told to stay put, but—as a member—but Father God knows I can’t do it.”

Called to spiritual teaching: “To break that down, put it in layman’s terms”

Over time, Miriam became a class leader at Zion alongside Jackie, and they took on a task they both felt called to. “I was just to do whatever the Lord led me to do, and told me to do, like that training manual. That’s a really bad term to describe this work. But it’s so foundational.

It’s so—at the core of what God wants to give to his people. An understanding.” They began work on a book of “spiritual guidance and direction that people should take, based on our own church doctrine, which lines up actually very well with what the Bible says. But to break that down, put it in layman’s terms, and—teach, basically.” Over time, this project-- explicitly focused on teaching doctrine accessible to lay (non-clergy) perspectives from a position of lay leadership-- became important to Miriam, as well as a point of contention. Miriam felt strongly that the project was “the mission [God] had given us” but experienced conflicts within the church. She felt a lack of support from other class leaders who “weren’t lining up… with what we knew to be true,” and the project’s support dwindled to Miriam, Jackie, and a third person who Miriam saw as “very much about herself, very destructive force-- not lining up with what she could be, for the church and God’s people.” While Miriam was confident in the call to teach in this way, she had run into many interpersonal obstacles from people, both due to differences in how to truthfully express ideas about God, and due to some people focusing more on their own desires than the work.

The pastors of the church (Miriam emphasized the frequency with which pastors had come and gone recently at the church, saying they were on their “fourth pastor, in an eight, nine year period”) also failed to support the project. “They did everything from avoiding it, and this last one that currently removed us from position, meaning myself and Jackie, without even telling us that he was going to do that. Really cowardly.” The pastor’s rejection of their work felt like a last straw to Miriam, especially in the wake of her mother’s death. “So, it’s been really interesting, it’s been—but after my mom passed, I was—I was done.”

Miriam felt God had told her to stop putting work into the project, with an understanding that the work was still important and would be completed later. “God is patient. That’s one of the

reasons, I think that’s the main reason, he still has me connected to Zion, is that—in his timing, that thing could be released, and received... He [God] put a halt to it. Um, we’ve gotten pretty far. It’s almost, almost complete. Honestly, the part that, where we left off, is the beginning of the glossary... But no. When Jesus says stop, I stop.” Although Miriam had persevered on the project despite a lack of support, when she felt that God was telling her to stop, she let it go.

Experiences of healthy, invigorating spiritual life: “I need to get back to that”

Miriam described what her normal spiritual life had been like during the good times at

Zion AME, in contrast to her current situation at the time of the interview. She described feeling in constant contact with God when she was going to church regularly and feeling good about her spiritual life there: “before I stopped going to church, frankly, I was walking and talking with

God, or singing. I mean, like—and even if it wasn’t, um, like an audible expression, I was constantly communing. I mean, to the point where it became my norm… over time, as my relationship [with God] improved...I was pretty much praying without ceasing. Like, all day every day. Um—you know, not falling on my knees or getting on my face, but just—communing with God through the Holy Spirit all the time. That had become my norm. And—I need to get back to that. I miss being in that place.” Miriam described realizing that this had become her new norm during a church service when a pastor made a reference to a scripture that encouraged people to “pray without ceasing.” Miriam’s state of communion with God was not a result of trying to consciously pray all day, but a result of living within a supportive and energizing community while working on her individual spiritual life and calls.

Context of current spiritual crisis: “These things don’t happen in a vacuum”

When Miriam realized she was no longer in that state of constant communion, it came with similarly little fanfare. “It just hit me one day that I wasn’t doing it anymore. And—I knew

I wasn’t doing it because I wasn’t—this is going to sound weird—because I wasn’t going to church, and I wasn’t getting my spiritual food, of any kind, because these things don’t happen in a vacuum.” Without attending church, Miriam was missing the relationships that had enabled her to grow in her own spirituality. “When you are around people who are strong, like these folks are, it inspired me and encouraged my spirit to seek, um, and develop an ongoing relationship with God. I’m not out of relationship with God, I’m just not practicing—I’m just not doing things the way I had been doing them. And I miss that.” Miriam still felt connected to God, but there was a marked change in her spiritual experience when she was out of relationship with her church. She was missing the human relationships that gave her focus and energy in her own spiritual life.

At the same time, Miriam was aware that while she was missing the social relationships that gave her energy and hope, her experience at the church before leaving had included many difficult interactions. “There are some members of the church who challenge me too. It’s just like, oh my God, stay away from me. But I know that’s not what my frame of mind should be.

Because I can’t get impatient, I shouldn’t get impatient, with people because of where they are or are not. I mean, I really shouldn’t. So that’s my issue to work through.” Miriam held herself responsible for how she reacted to members of the church who tried her patience but felt exhausted by these interactions. Her recent experience at the church was in contrast to her past experiences of solidarity and support. “I’m not gaining what I need to gain with any consistency.

And I’ve come out exhausted. It just, it just—exhausted, as opposed to being refreshed.” While

Miriam yearned for the spiritual connection she had experienced at church, she was also very aware of how she had been hurt and drained through interactions with others recently. She

described herself as currently being “in the same place, of frustration,” as when she made her decision to stop attending.

Current state of tension: “I have not been released to do anything else”

Miriam’s current situation was frustrating and lonely. We discussed how she had been through previous spiritual crises, and whether her experience suggested she would reconnect with her previous experience of spirituality or find a new way to connect: “It can be both

[reconnecting and finding a new way to connect]. Um, it has been both. Sometimes I have to go back in order to, what’s the phrase I’m looking for—in order to tie up loose ends, spiritually…

When I go back, I’m not even necessarily thinking in those terms, but that’s the reality of why I had to go back.” She saw in previous experiences that sometimes in the past, she may have gone back to communities thinking in terms of reconnection, but in the end, needed to resolve and end her relationship there. Although Miriam was currently in a place of frustration with Zion, she still felt that God was calling her to be connected to the church: “With this experience, I know

I’m going to go back to Zion because I have not been released to do anything else.”

She related a story of the last time she tried going to a church without feeling the call of

God to do so, and ended up visiting a “hot mess” of a church led by a husband and wife who were exploitative of the congregation: “Like—having them come over and clean their house, and calling it service for God. How is that service for God?” In contrast, when she felt the call of

God to a place, she found that the people there were supportive and pursuing spiritual goals similar to her own, “from whom I can learn a lot.” Miriam discussed her fear that if she did try to find a new church, she would have another negative experience: either dramatically immoral, like the church she visited on her own, or disappointing over time, like her current experience: “I have been resistant about going to other, visiting other churches. To do that—and I fear having

the same kind of experience. It’s too much, for me.” Engaging in a new church community would mean risking the same kind of harm she had already experienced, and she was not ready to do so.

Indecision about next steps: “God doesn’t force anybody to do anything, ever”

One way or another, Miriam felt that she would return to Zion, either to “tie up loose ends” and conclude her relationship with the community or to return after personally changing in a way that allowed her to engage in community again. She described herself as not being ready to change in the ways that she foresaw would be necessary to reconnect with the church. “I’m not where I could be—but I’m unwilling—and God doesn’t force anybody to do anything, ever.

Um—that’s just a process that I haven’t been willing to go through yet.” She described conflicting feelings about how she wanted to change or develop: “One of my almost-prayers, cause I haven’t really asked for this, but I feel like I need to, is to gain the—to be as steadfast, and immovable, no matter what’s going on. Kinda want that, but I kinda don’t.” Miriam felt that, in order to become “steadfast and immovable” the way she felt she needed to, she would give up parts of herself. “Because—there—I know there are going to be aspects of my own personality and character, spirit, that are going to have to be changed, or suppressed, or whatever. I’m not ready to do that yet, so I haven’t asked that. But—I’d like to get there. But I know there’s going to be personal sacrifice to get there.”

Miriam was beginning to feel that she needed to be more “steadfast” in the face of changing circumstances, but also felt strongly that to make this change would require her to change at a very personal level. At this point, she characterized this as an “almost-prayer”: she saw the end result as something she wanted, but the process of getting there she foresaw was not something she wanted to go through. She emphasized that although she felt a sense of what

might be possible, what she did with that knowledge was her choice: she could see the ways in which she might change if she asked God for this, and knew that she was not willing to do so at the current time.

Miriam’s spiritual and personal history included several periods of disconnection and reconnection, alongside an enduring sense of connection to God. In church contexts, she had experienced strengthening, supportive relationships that helped her develop her personal and spiritual life; she had also witnessed experienced lies, betrayals, and corruption in churches. At the time of our interview, she was moving cautiously in her decision-making. While she wanted to regain the strong friendships and mentorships she left behind at her church, and felt a deep and divine call to do work in that setting, Miriam had also experienced ways in which her spiritual and personal relationships could be hurtful and disappointing. While looking forward to a time when she could reconnect or connect in a new way with community, Miriam was tending carefully to her own relationship with God and processing her difficult and complex experiences.

Reflexivity in practice

In keeping with the qualitative, narrative methodology of this study, I paid attention to the effects of my own presence in the interviews as an integral part of the resulting data. I found that in areas where I shared cultural knowledge and positioning, it was easier for discussions to deepen into rich conversations about understandings of meaning-making and spirituality rather than staying at a shallow level of description or explanation.

For instance, in my conversation with Anna, she shared her difficulty with Christian scriptures that have traditionally been interpreted to forbid divorce. The liturgy and theology of her church community, involved in her marriage ceremony and continuing practice of religion, emphasized the image of marriage as a union of two souls into one, and did not leave open the

possibility of separation. For Anna, whose first marriage was abusive and neglectful, this message (as well as her community’s silent condoning of it) was deeply horrifying and harmful.

She saw herself, in keeping with this image, as joined with her abuser as one soul before God.

This contributed to her attempts to love her ex-husband into being a better person, at great personal cost.

I felt deeply angry while Anna described this aspect of her experience. I monitored my thoughts and emotions carefully in order to minimize their impact on her story. I felt pulled to assure her of the respect I had for her and how glad I was that she had eventually divorced her abuser despite her religious misgivings. I remembered my own experience of how my church defined roles for women that I had to make sense of growing up (e.g., the worried debate I had with myself as a small girl about whether I would swear to “obey” my eventual husband as my church prescribed at the time). I was aware of my own experience, especially as a queer woman in church contexts, of the ways in which silence or neutrality in the face of this kind of rhetoric implies rejection to the people who are being condemned. Simultaneously, I was aware of my own guilt about participating in systems that help to maintain, passively or actively, these kinds of ideologies; Anna asked me directly if I had been present for any times when a church had read these scriptures, which I had. At a different level, I felt a strong objection to this ahistorical interpretation of the scripture in question, and a pull to voice that disagreement (conveniently defending myself from guilt and protecting my own construal of that text at the same time).

In order to maintain the balance of connecting with Anna’s experience and keeping it separate from my own, I paid close attention to my presence in the room and used words carefully. I put my notes down, leaned forward to make direct eye contact, and intently listened.

During this part of the interview, I responded only with empathic sounds and body language

intentionally, so I was not guiding the story with more specific reflections. I recognized and set aside the thoughts, memories, and feelings that Anna’s story reminded me of in my own story.

In an ordinary conversational setting, I may have expressed my anger or shared some of my experience as an attempt to validate Anna’s sense of alienation; but in a research setting, I did not want to close off her exploration of this difficult feeling or complicate it with my own perspectives.

However, this does not mean that I reacted in totally neutral ways: I reflected the emotions I heard to show empathy that I genuinely felt. Since Anna was reacting to a cultural framework that explicitly codified her rejection and condemnation-- a framework she did not completely know my own relation to-- a too-neutral response could be interpreted contextually as judgmental. As a researcher, I also wanted to be supportive to encourage her to explore her own experience of these events out loud.

Talking about the Christian church’s positions on divorce provoked a very different process than another part of the interview, where Anna discussed the I Ching. Neither Anna nor

I grew up studying the I Ching. She encountered the ancient Chinese divination text during her difficult first marriage, when some high school friends showed it to her as a way of predicting what would happen in her relationship. Since the divination statements (at least in the translation she read) centered on how a man should live, she took on a personal project of translating the work for herself in a gender neutral fashion. Anna cared deeply about her personal experiences with the I Ching, which had helped her through a difficult time in her life and continued to be meaningful.

My own experience with the I Ching is limited to academic spaces. I have been taught of the basic significance of the work and also warned of the difficulties of trying to understand or

use works like it out of their cultural context. As someone who considers cultural factors deeply important to psychology and human interaction in general, I felt discomfort in the moment, unsure whether Chinese practitioners or scholars who used the I Ching would find Anna’s use of it (or the general movement in the 1960s-1970s that made a lot of Eastern philosophical classics widely popular in the USA) appropriate. As someone with no cultural roots in the practice, I was also aware of feelings of doubt as to the usefulness of divination or numerology as a practice for guiding life.

Notably, this reaction differed greatly from when an explicitly harmful way that Christian scriptures came up. Christian scriptures are translations of a variety of ancient texts largely, and often violently, appropriated from Jewish culture and history, and the widely accepted interpretation that Anna cited is also widely known to be difficult for people experiencing abusive marriages. Yet it was easier for me in the immediate moment to recognize and understand Anna’s attachment to that text, which hurt her, than it was for me to empathize with

Anna around her attachment to the I Ching, which she found engaging and freeing.

It was clear that Anna’s experience of the I Ching was deeply meaningful and significant to her. However, my relative lack of connection to the sources to which she referred meant that our discussion was more limited than our discussion of topics on which we had shared cultural context. Instead of discussing the deeper meanings of these texts and practices within Anna’s life, much of our conversation remained frustratingly descriptive, clarifying what the I Ching was (from Anna’s perspective and research) and what her practice with the I Ching looked like.

This was no less authentic than our discussion of Christian scriptures, but the differences in our cultural experiences meant that it was more difficult to talk about life from this perspective. I

asked more questions; Anna shifted from reflecting to explaining. We did not develop the deeply connected dialogue we had around topics we both knew by heart, and Anna moved on.

The passage from the I Ching that Anna mentioned briefly, the “strength of the mare,” does seem potentially significant to her personal and spiritual struggles (Wilhelm & Wilhelm,

1995, p. 77). Within the I Ching’s recommendations, passivity is celebrated if it happens in the right context. There is strength in enduring difficulty, reaching for guidance, and being quiet.

The “superior man” is recommended here to take on explicitly feminine traits, emulating the

“quiet perseverance” of the mare who works and endures. The focus of this approach is more related to balance and appropriateness in an ever-changing world than in finding the one acceptable way of being a person.

Even at the neophyte, outsider level at which I read this passage, I could see connections between this passage’s recommendation of prudence, endurance, and receptivity and Anna’s story. Anna identified herself as a “doormat” in interpersonal situations earlier in her life; she felt that to be “good,” she needed to be kind and accommodating. Over time, Anna developed more skills with the help of an assertiveness group. But this passage, which we did not spend time on, suggests another dimension to this growth. In the interview, Anna mentioned this passage and quickly moved on to talking about her important connection to nature. If I had responded differently-- by demonstrating relevant knowledge, reflecting her words with nonjudgmental curiosity-- would we have been able to develop as rich a dialogue about this? In areas where we had similar knowledge and experience, it was easier for me to understand her story, and she was able to feel that success and move to deeper discussions. In other areas, we were only able to discuss her experience to the extent I could validate it.

I use these examples to illustrate the role of reflexivity in this study, as well as the ways I attempted to be aware of and respond to my own reactions in the room. The data I analyzed are not a direct representation of my participants’ experiences: they come from the combination of my participants’ stories and my own presence, responses, and interpretations.

Discussion

The four participants in this study told stories of their experiences of spiritual crisis that illustrated both the importance of spiritual experience and the diverse ways that people understand spirituality. In this section, I will first briefly summarize each interviewee’s story.

Then, I will describe and illustrate major themes that emerged across the interviews. I will discuss how the themes from these interviews fit within a context of experiential personal construct psychology (EPCP) theory, and how EPCP theory might develop to better encompass and understand experiences like these. Finally, I will discuss some of the limitations of this study and suggestions for future directions in research.

Brief summaries

Anna experienced a spiritual connection to a loving God from a young age, which at times in her life conflicted with her experience of how God was discussed in her cultural and religious context. Anna experienced chronic pain from health issues that were not addressed for most of her life, and felt she needed to be a constantly positive presence in the lives of others because she was not sure how long she would live. She experienced deep pain at different points in her life related to how she made meaning of her experience spiritually and religiously. For example, being given religious advice to avoid interpersonal conflict and divorce, she ended up feeling like a “doormat” to abuse in her family. She changed and added to the framework of religion that she was brought up with in order to better accommodate her experience of a loving

and affirming God. Although churches and religious contexts were part of Anna’s understanding of spirituality, especially as a young person, she also discussed her spirituality as developing in the context of psychology studies, non-religious social groups like sailing clubs, parenting, and individual experience with nature. Over time, her sense of spirituality became more separate from religious structures, and more individualized.

Matthew’s sense of spiritual crisis was embedded in his role as a parent and husband, his political and personal values, his religious identity, and the communities he lived and worked in.

Matthew described his experience of spiritual crisis in practical terms, discussing the rippling effects on himself and his family when his daughter was raped. Matthew’s views of himself, his family, his community, and the world were dramatically changed when he realized what his daughter had been through without his knowledge. Matthew felt pushed to a psychological breaking point by the mounting pressure of trying to care for his family through the exhausting and prolonged effects of trauma. While working through this difficult time, Matthew came to a new understanding of how prevalent pain and trauma is in the world. He connected with various religious communities and philosophies as he sought out a balance of finding personal support with the religious and political views he supported.

Beatrice’s sense of spiritual crisis came after several deaths of close friends in her life.

Beatrice was raised with competing perspectives on the world related to religion and spirituality.

She identified strongly with questions of history, philosophy, and theology. Beatrice’s spirituality was separate from a belief in God. Her spirituality encompassed her sense of how to be a good person in the world, how to work towards justice, and how to join in a community.

For Beatrice, singing in choir was important as a consistent source and symbol of beauty, community, and common purpose. With her church leadership taking positions that she

considered racist or problematic, Beatrice was frustrated and grief-stricken spiritually, caught between losing important connections in her life or feeling as though she was condoning values she deeply disagreed with.

Miriam had recently stepped away from church after her mother died, giving her a sense of urgency that made it difficult to tolerate the ongoing disagreements she had with the pastor.

Miriam described having spiritual experiences from a young age that she found difficult to process, including nightmares that seemed to forebode future events. She found religion to be a helpful framework for finding mentors, friends, and resources for understanding and living with those experiences. However, she also experienced difficulty and invalidation within religious

Christian spaces, including being laughed at and invalidated by male clergy members when she felt a call to enter the ministry and being told divorce was sinful even in the context of ongoing abuse. At her current church, Miriam had found important friendships and mentors that helped her process her difficult experiences and sensitivities. She reflected on this as she also described her difficulty as a parent, wanting her lesbian daughter to engage more with Christianity while acknowledging the ways in which Christian people and environments had harmed her. Miriam believed the time of spiritual crisis she was in would end, and she would return to some form of community with her church, based on her prior experiences with spiritual crises.

Interview themes

In the four interviews conducted for this study, I identified several common themes which I will discuss one at a time. I will describe the theme that I identified from analysis and give examples of quotes and events in participants’ stories relevant to each theme. After discussing the themes from this study, I will discuss questions raised by these interviews and potential future developments to EPCP theory based on this study. The major themes I will

discuss here are the diversity of religious and spiritual experience, the relevance of grief and distress, the tension between processes of transformation and restoration, the role of cultural identity and context, and the importance of groups and community in these participants’ stories.

Diversity of religious and spiritual contexts

Participants described a wide range of experiences and activities as part of their spiritual lives and spiritual crises. Given the limited sample size and cultural breadth (all Midwestern

Americans, all significantly affiliated to some extent with small Protestant churches in Episcopal traditions), it is remarkable that a variety of approaches to spirituality are still evident.

Participants’ descriptions of what constituted spirituality and spiritual crisis differed both in terms of content (such as religious texts, organizations, discrete beliefs) and also in terms of process (how people engaged with spirituality).

Finding a diverse range of spiritual understandings and practices was not particularly surprising to me, but it does support the general idea that spirituality is not a simple or consistent phenomenon in people’s lives. Spirituality, and by extension spiritual crisis, entwines with other aspects of life such as politics, gender, physical health, and dreams. Spirituality can be seen as a dimension of experience, rather than a set type of experience. Additionally, that a few people from a relatively narrow cultural context show a wide range of understandings of spirituality suggests that it is difficult to predict how any one person will define and act within their spirituality based on group factors or simple labels. Each person developed their own nuanced understanding of spirituality in response to their relationships, experiences, cultural contexts, and religious contexts. This suggests that a personal constructivist perspective may be particularly useful in understanding people’s spiritual experiences, because it provides a framework that

allows us to understand how people construct understandings of the world in response to their experiences within it.

Connections and conflicts between spirituality and religion in spiritual crisis

Previous research into spirituality and religion has run into the recurring questions of how to define spirituality and religion, and whether spirituality and religion should be seen as separate concepts (e.g. Ellison & McFarland, 2013). Handbooks for psychotherapists written to help them address spiritual issues in psychotherapy often emphasize a categorical approach to understanding clients’ spiritual and religious issues and identities: dividing information up about major religious traditions and suggesting ways that a Protestant, Catholic, or Hindu might behave in psychotherapy (e.g. Nielson, Johnson & Ellis, 2001, Josephson & Peteet, 2004). I looked at the ways the concepts of spirituality and religion came up and interacted in these interviews: whether people described spirituality as separate from religion, and how people’s spiritual crises connected with their religious traditions.

Each participant discussed ways in which they experienced spirituality outside of religious contexts, suggesting that spirituality was not identical to religion in their views. Each participant also described their navigation of religious contexts as part of their spiritual lives, suggesting that, in their view, spirituality was not totally separate from religion. Each participant critically examined the religious contexts they had been part of, with various results (for example, Matthew reaffirmed the sense of political progressivism and social action that his upbringing in the UCC involved after a period of intense questioning, while Anna identified the ways in which Christian scripture and commentary around divorce caused her to remain in an abusive marriage longer while recognizing the value of that “broken system” for her when she was young).

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The ways that people described their shifting religious allegiances and identities through periods of spiritual crisis suggests that spirituality must be approached as a complex lived process, often entangled with but not identical to religious contexts. Notably, Beatrice, who soundly rejected religious belief but struggled with the prospect of leaving the Episcopal church where she had led for decades, reflected on how “spiritual but not religious” was an interesting development in public discourse, but that she would not use it to label her experience because she found it “trite.” Miriam, who felt guided by her personal relationship with Christ on a daily basis and found it difficult to understand why her daughter would want a spirituality separate from the Christian Scriptures, was disengaged from her religious community when we spoke and despaired of “organized religion.” Miriam and Beatrice’s experiences and expressions of spirituality differed dramatically. However, both found wrestling with religious identities and communities relevant to their spiritual crises. Religion was not irrelevant to their struggles; sometimes, it was the background against which they contrasted their own developing understandings of life.

The way these interviews illustrate how these different people grapple with religious traditions, structures, and texts during their lives, and especially during spiritual crisis, is interesting to me in the context of how we talk about spirituality and religion within psychotherapy. There is a tension between trying to provide information about how religious groups are different and trying to conceptualize how individual persons operate. Providing information about different religious groups suggests that persons “from” these groups see the world in the way that the group sees the world.

Certainly, knowing the historical and cultural context of someone else’s beliefs and practices is helpful in understanding the issues that are important to them. However, the

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participants of this study show the ways in which any one person is difficult to categorize based upon a religious label. If I am interested in helping a client like Matthew, should I regard him as a Protestant (raised in the UCC, attends an Episcopal church), or a Catholic (attended for decades, continues to attend a prayer group)? How should I consider the perspective of Anna, someone who was raised in an Episcopal church but whose spiritual worldview is tied to her gardening, housework, poetry and dog training? The organized structures and “official beliefs” of these churches are not irrelevant to their stories: Matthew chose to leave the Catholic church he attended due to the way the power structure of the Catholic church responded to child sexual abuse by clergy, and Anna had specific parts of her spiritual crises tied to specific religious traditions and texts within Episcopalian systems. As an interviewer, I was able to engage with them more deeply on issues related to Protestant traditions with which I was familiar. However, neither of them is exactly “a Protestant;” they are persons who have interacted with Protestant churches and systems differently along their respective paths of spirituality. Flattening their experiences in this way would hide the interesting, crucial, personal work that each of them has done to build a spirituality that works within their own lives.

A strictly categorical approach to religious identity would not adequately inform us about the struggle of a person like Beatrice who explicitly disagrees with the official beliefs of, but also spiritually depends on, her church community. Unitarians are too rare to mention in the handbooks I checked, and New England Unitarians are rarer still. But according to Beatrice, the central tenet of her religion is that no one can tell you what to believe. Any approach that assumes that religion involves shared beliefs dictated by a central authority neglects traditions that deal much differently with belief.

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Likewise, separating religion and spirituality entirely misses the complex interplay between personal experiences, religious upbringing, cultural context, community support, and power dynamics that may lead a deeply religious and spiritual person to disconnect themselves from a church they cared deeply about. Anna was raised in a Christian Episcopal environment and found it deeply relevant to her spiritual growth and later crises, who felt betrayed by the

“God the Father” of her church, and who later understood her spiritual life as encompassing her interaction with the I Ching, her gardening, her dog-training club, and her feminist consciousness-raising groups, among other aspect of life. Is Anna Protestant now because she was raised in an Episcopal church? Is she agnostic or atheist because she felt separated from

“God the Father”? In what ways are these categories useful for helping us to understand and empathize with Anna’s struggles, and in what ways do they obscure the personal ways in which she developed her sense of spiritual living over time?

I found cultural context to be quite important to communication about spiritual issues. I did not find it surprising that of all the people I advertised the study to, the people who agreed to be part of this study were people who had some shared cultural context with me. In interviews, I found that when I had more shared cultural and religious knowledge of the context a person was describing, I was able to better connect with how those ideas were meaningful to them.

Researching the passage of the I Ching that Anna mentioned as important to her helped me understand what it meant to her. However, I do not believe that looking up a summarized version of a generalized “Confucian” client would help me understand Anna’s experience with the I Ching whatsoever. After all, Anna’s experience of the I Ching was relevant partly because it was outside her religious tradition of origin: it was a new way of viewing the world and her role in it.

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This raises the question of how researchers and clinicians could better ask about and represent people’s spiritual and religious experiences. One approach might be to think about spirituality and religion in a similar way to Markus and Kitayama’s (2010) “mutually constitutive” model of culture and self, which emphasizes the ways in people can be seen as in constant exchange with their cultural contexts: drawing from the shared meanings of common experiences, concepts, and behaviors while also being an active part of that cultural context for those around them. If we understand spirituality and religion to be aspects of individual experience that happen in collaboration with others, involve shared concepts and behaviors, and give meaningful frames to our lives, they seem to naturally fit with a cultural approach. Given the complexity of assessing cultural factors, this does not exactly simplify matters, but it seems the most meaningful way to go forward. Some theorists have seen promise in cultural psychology as a theoretical foundation for more meaningful work in the psychology of religion

(e.g. Belzen, 2010, Saroglou & Cohen, 2013). The tension between a categorical approach to understanding spirituality and religion to a more fluid, contextual approach mirrors the tension between more categorical, comparative models in cross-cultural theory and more person- centered, contextual, integrative models in cultural theory.

This would imply that, as a psychotherapist, it is important for me to be aware of my own religious and spiritual contexts to be aware of gaps in my own experience and knowledge and to learn and consult on issues and perspectives I am less familiar with. I would want to assess my clients’ spiritual and religious contexts and identities in an open-ended way, and to attend to the ways in which spirituality and religion are relevant aspects of meaning-making across different areas of life throughout my work together with clients.

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As a psychotherapist, it is important for me to honor a person’s spiritual and religious contexts and identities while understanding them as living, flexible aspects of a person’s life that may change out of necessity or choice. I do not want to ignore or otherwise disrespect the sociocultural religious contexts of a person’s experience when I work with them in psychotherapy; nor do I want to reflect those aspects of their lives as immutable or non- negotiable, especially when I feel they are doing people harm. For example, Anna felt she

“needed that broken system” of the church as a young person, and that she had benefited from her time as part of it. However, as a victim of domestic violence in her first marriage, her spiritual understandings of her role in the world, informed by that “broken system,” led her to tolerate increasingly violent and dangerous conditions in an abusive marriage.

Imagining myself as a psychotherapist working with a client like Anna during that first marriage, I would not want to make the mistake of ignoring the relevance of my client’s religious context and spiritual perspective: they are both part of how she has survived this circumstance so far and part of why she has so far allowed herself to suffer. If I fail to understand my client’s spiritual meaning-making around these experiences, my ability to form a meaningful therapeutic relationship with her is limited. Working to understand her spiritual views helps me understand how grotesque and massive a betrayal she experienced in realizing that her husband, who she believed shared her soul, was violent, abusive, and unloving. Understanding the horror of that choice helps me understand how hard she worked to try to redeem him through love rather than accept that cosmic level of disappointment; it also helps me anticipate the ways in which she is likely to need new sources of support and hope if she decides to leave. I also would not want to make the mistake of understanding my client’s religious and spiritual life as a rigid, immutable characteristic that is completely “off limits” in psychotherapy. If I avoid discussing her views on

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spirituality and how they inform her marriage, I do my client a disservice. If I reduce my client’s spirituality to “something that gives her comfort,” I may miss the ways in which her spiritual life is currently distressing and painful. If I conflate my client with their religious group, I may assume my client subscribes to beliefs and views they do not actually hold, and I may inadvertently discourage them from sharing any doubts, questions, or dissatisfactions they have with that structure.

Rather, I want to attend to the ways in which my client has navigated and made meaning of religious and spiritual contexts. In so doing, I can provide a safe space in which they can, as needed, experiment with new understandings of the world. I want to respect not only my client’s experiences and worldviews, but also their capacity as a person to encounter different ways of understanding the world and make decisions about them. One important aspect of spirituality highlighted in these interviews is the extent to which our spiritual contexts, communities, and identities sometimes change. These kinds of changes can be threatening, difficult, and painful.

They can also be necessary to personal and spiritual survival and growth. Psychotherapy may be a particularly important setting for people grappling with questions and crises related to their spiritual lives, as a place set apart from the groups or religious contexts with which they may be in conflict.

Grief and distress in experiences of spiritual crisis

Each participant described the experience of spiritual crisis as painful and distressing.

This was fully expected given the existing literature on spiritual crisis and the conceptual definition that I used to advertise and frame the study, which defined spiritual crisis as a period of grief or loss. Grief, in terms of losing loved others or losing important parts of identity or perspective, seems to be an important frame with which to understand these times of spiritual

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crisis. Most people viewed the time of spiritual crisis as leading to a way of living that was better, if not easier, than what they had before; however, all expressed that going through a time of crisis was painful, difficult, and prolonged. Spiritual crisis seemed to involve a conflict between important constructs for each person; navigating a time of spiritual crisis seemed necessary for survival in real ways. The people in this study described periods of spiritual crisis that involved threats to their physical and mental safety. This speaks to the ways in which spiritual concerns are intertwined with experiences that are traditionally seen through a clinical lens. In these interviews, people describe experiences of spiritual crisis in ways that are not independent from distress more generally. Spiritual crisis, in these interviews, is not separate from psychological or physical distress. In line with theories that see spirituality as a dimension of human experience, rather than a discrete category, the people in this study described spiritual crises that were interwoven with other aspects of their lives.

The interconnections between spiritual crises and psychological distress imply that people who may present to psychotherapy in psychological distress may be experiencing a spiritual crisis, as well as that a person who is seeking aid for spiritual crisis may be experiencing psychological distress. Psychotherapists working with a person in distress may not automatically notice the spiritual dimensions of that distress unless they think to assess it. It may benefit psychotherapists to understand religious and spiritual issues as relevant to clients’ mental health.

If I as a psychotherapist view spiritual and religious issues as unrelated to psychopathology, I might refer a client who brought up an experience of spiritual crisis to their pastor or religious leader rather than engaging with the issue in psychotherapy. Because people going through spiritual crises may be at odds with their spiritual and religious communities and leaders and considering changes, such a referral would not work well. Likewise, I might be a

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psychotherapist who does not appreciate any distinction between spiritual crisis and psychopathology; from this perspective, I see any expression of religious or spiritual experience or conflict as a sign of delusion or ill mental health. Such a two-dimensional approach would be extremely limiting (and, hopefully, rare). More likely, I might draw somewhat arbitrary lines between the kinds of spiritual experience I am comfortable with (a client attends church and prays to God) and the kinds of spiritual experience I am uncomfortable with, and consider pathological (a client hears the voice of God call them to a new vocation).

For example, Anna described several instances of severe emotional distress and a long history of psychological and physical abuse in interpersonal relationships. During her relationship with her abusive ex-husband, Anna described her sense of ongoing desperation and cognitive dissonance as he escalated from emotional to physical abuse. “I was just in huge turmoil because when he knocked me down, he knocked out some of my teeth, loose, over here.

And I said to myself that I couldn’t live this way, which I had been saying for several years already.” Anna’s experiences show interconnected experiences of psychological distress and spiritual crisis.

Similarly, Matthew experienced a dramatic psychological deterioration during his spiritual crisis. He described the mounting stress of parenting and managing care for his traumatized daughter while maintaining his high-demand career over several years, until he hit a point of realizing he was experiencing homicidal and suicidal ideation and had a friend help him check into a hospital for psychological evaluation and treatment. “I ended up in a psychiatric ward. Um, and the reason was, um, I couldn’t take it anymore.” Matthew credited long-term psychotherapy with helping him move through the period of spiritual crisis in his life. For

Matthew, the experiences of psychopathology and spiritual crisis were intertwined, and receiving

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psychotherapy helped him navigate a time marked with spiritual questioning. Matthew’s sense of spiritual crisis was not directly caused by his mental health crisis, nor vice versa; both seemed to occur in reaction to the increasing, ongoing pressure he was under as a father and his attempts to make sense of his obligations.

Beatrice and Miriam’s spiritual crises had been precipitated by intense periods of personal grief for the loss of loved ones, again showing a relationship between psychological distress and spiritual crisis. Beatrice lost several close friends over the course of a few months;

Miriam had lost her mother and several other immediate family members, over the past year.

Beatrice discussed her experience of grief and spiritual crisis in the context of mental health issues. For Beatrice, the grief she was experiencing in her relationships became more threatening to her when her sense of belonging and support in her community was eroded by a new pastor’s conservative preaching: “for the first time ever, I feel like I don’t belong. Which is part of the spiritual angst.”

Miriam had been experiencing a growing sense of spiritual unease for some time before it rose to a crisis; the grief of losing her mother made her conflict with her church community feel more intense and urgent, and convinced her to act.

The experiences that these participants described indicated that their experiences of spiritual crisis occurred during distressing times in their lives. It is important to foreground the suffering and difficulty involved in these experiences. While spiritual crisis can be transformative and meaningful, that does not negate the pain and suffering experienced by those going through these periods of upheaval.

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Transformative process of spiritual crisis

We can see some overlaps and some differences in this study in how people experience the process and outcome of spiritual crisis. Several clinical and academic researchers have studied spiritual crisis, but it remains a loosely defined concept. In part because spirituality is so difficult to define in concrete terms without flattening its meaning, the process of spiritual crisis is also tricky to delineate. While doing these interviews, I was interested in better understanding the process of the experiences these participants saw as spiritual crisis: when the crises began, how they happened, and what happened when (or if) it ended. Understanding these processes of spiritual crisis could help support and inform people going through similar experiences.

Participants largely framed spiritual crises as transformative processes with no clear end, even when discussing events that had happened long in the past. Rather than returning to their previous way of interacting with the world spiritually, the participants described going through periods of crisis that changed them in ways that were not undone. Sometimes this meant leaving communities, redefining identities, or changing core understandings of lif e and morality.

Although participants described some of the distress associated with the crisis fading over time, they did not see this as a sign that the crisis had ended (this might be seen in connection to the idea of spiritual crisis as grief, which may soften over time but is never truly over). Rather, they described how they changed in response to the crisis. For Anna, Matthew, and Miriam, who described past experiences of spiritual crisis, change meant accepting difficult and often unpleasant truths about themselves, their relationships, and their world.

The two participants who saw themselves as in an unresolved time of crisis at the time of the interview (Beatrice and Miriam) were both distancing themselves from their communities and trying to negotiate what kinds of changes would be necessary to reconnect. Both foresaw

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that they would need to suppress their own anger or frustration, or try to psychologically distance themselves from leadership, in order to return to their communities. From their perspective, there was no way to return to their previous way of engaging with their spirituality; even if they returned to the same communities to do the same things they used to do, they would have to do it in a new, and more limited, way.

Anna and Matthew described spiritual crises that occurred years in the past. By the time of the interview, they had made meaning of their experiences and saw how the crises they went through enabled them to broaden their understandings of the world. Anna described how her spiritual crisis built over time, as she felt betrayed by God after her marriage turned emotionally and physically abusive. For Anna, navigating through this time involved asserting herself in ways that she previously believed contrary to her spiritual identity, as well as exploring new contexts for spiritual exploration, such as the I Ching and solitary engagement with nature.

Matthew described the tumultuous years after his daughter was assaulted, when his own mental health declined in the context of the tremendous stress in his family and the lack of support he felt from most religious communities. While Matthew remembered this time as agonizing in many ways, he also felt he had lost “rose-colored glasses” on the world and would not choose to go back to his previous view of the world. His deeply painful awakening to the commonality of trauma led him to a broader, more compassionate understanding of the world he lived in.

Matthew vividly described how the changes he went through were both painful and irrevocable:

I lost, um, the innocence of—even though I was forty-something years old—of always

thinking the best of people. And not realizing that people had ulterior motives, or ulterior

designs on things. So, you know, now I’m more of a skeptic when I come to meet with

people. But I don’t hold it against them, I just—I’m more measured when I talk to

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people now, you know.… You know, I looked at it, I thought—gee, how could I miss

this. You know, things were going on, and… I didn’t see it. And, I should have seen it,

and yet I—(I: If I couldn’t see this, what else am I not seeing.) Right, exactly. What else

did I miss? And one of my friends said—if you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask

the question. And after a while I said, that’s not right. That’s not the right answer.

Because sometimes you need to know the answer, because otherwise it’s just going to eat

you apart. So I got to the point where—I used to not ask those types of questions. And

now I do. Even if the answers are going to be something that I really don’t want to deal

with, I still have to ask the question, for peace of mind. Knowing that, well, maybe I can

do something—or maybe I can’t, but at least I’m going to give it a shot. Because if I

don’t ask the question, it’s going to eat me alive. And I don’t like that feeling. Because

that’s what it was doing. It was killing me. Absolutely killing me.

Matthew emphasized the violence of his previous way of innocently expecting the best of other people and avoiding looking too closely into ugly and painful realities. Although the transition to seeing the world as full of violence and trauma was deeply painful, it was a better choice compared to being “[eaten] alive” by the effort of ignoring it.

Beatrice and Miriam both spoke from the position of being in the midst of spiritual crises.

Beatrice described a frustrating sense of feeling isolated and alone, after decades of building community that supported her spiritual growth. Beatrice was still in the process of feeling trapped between deeply painful choices, and she was not sure what she would choose. By the time we spoke, she had made decisions to distance herself from groups that had long been important to her spirituality, in order to protect herself. Miriam had similarly distanced herself from her church community, but she felt less disoriented. She described having multiple

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spiritual crises in her life, and while she felt adrift at the time of the interview, she still felt connected to God and felt she would eventually reconnect with her community. Miriam was certain that she would reconnect with her church based on how she felt God was guiding her and her previous experiences, but she left open the possibility of where that might lead. Miriam was sure she would go back to her church community, but she was unsure how it would go and what would happen next. She expressed foreboding concern that, in order to keep the community she had found there, she would need to “suppress” or “sacrifice” parts of herself.

Beatrice had a very different spiritual approach to the world, but she had similarly taken time to distance herself from meaningful communities during her spiritual crisis at the time of the interview. She expressed how returning to her church community meant that she needed to psychologically distance herself from what was going on and being said in services: With regards to her community organization, Beatrice strategically decided to withdraw to a minimum of participation, while maintaining contact with leadership and planning a return several months later. Importantly, Beatrice understood the leader of her organization as supportive (“so good”) when he replied to her withdrawal by suggesting she take an even longer leave of absence than she proposed from the organization. A person conceptualizing the situation in very concrete terms might understand Beatrice’s withdrawal from her primary social supports as an act that would worsen her depression, and so encourage her to re-engage with these groups as soon as possible. The director of the organization seems to have seen Beatrice’s withdrawal as understandable and good for her. He encouraged her “strategic” separation from the group in order to maintain her long-term meaningful attachment to the community she found there.

Beatrice felt that he understood what she was going through and responded appropriately. For

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Beatrice, in a time of spiritual crisis as a single woman with ongoing health issues late in life, moving carefully and strategically in her relationships was important.

Cultural context of spirituality and religion

The interviews in this study highlight the ways in which each person experiences cultural contexts in specific and nuanced ways. There is no separating someone’s experience of a religious context from their experience of their own cultural identity and context. Many religious experiences and teachings are specifically framed around different aspects of cultural identity. For instance, many faiths have specific teachings around gender roles and expectations.

A person’s cultural identity and context also helps determine what kinds of ideas and viewpoints they are exposed to, and as such, the materials with which they can construct their own ideas about spirituality. For example, a child is usually exposed more to their parents’ beliefs than the myriad other frameworks of spiritual belief in the world. However, exposure to systems of belief is systemic as well as personal. A person growing up in the United States will be exposed to many Christian ideals, stories, holidays, and terms-- regardless of that person’s personal or family beliefs-- due to the hegemony of Christianity in the U.S. The doctrines of religious structures may be important building blocks for people to build their own spiritualities with or against. An atheist person who grew up in a Christian family may have different views around what their atheism means to them than an atheist person who grew up raised by atheist parents.

A person may identify with a specific categorical identity around religious issues but may have a system of beliefs and practices that differs from (or even directly contradicts) the doctrinal statements associated with official organizations associated with that identity.

We know that if someone identifies themselves as “Catholic” on a form, that does not mean that they have memorized and internalized every doctrine released by the Vatican. At a

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deeper level, every person experiences religious contexts through their own cultural identities.

The experience of someone who grew up in a non-religious home and became deeply involved with Catholicism as an adult will be vastly different from the experience of someone who grew up in a Catholic home and identifies with cultural tropes such as “Catholic guilt” but may not identify as a Catholic now, let alone agree with or even know about many institutional church policies. For a person who grew up in an imperialized nation where people were forcibly converted to Catholicism, “Catholic” means something different than it may to a person who grew up Catholic in Ireland during the Troubles. A straight, cisgender man who finds great meaning, encouragement, and support in his Catholic faith and feels called to ministry will have a very different experience than a transgender man who feels similarly called to priesthood.

Religious identity does not stack on top of other aspects of identity; they interact. There are broad differences in how people may experience religious contexts based on other aspects of their cultural identities. Cultural context does not dictate every part of individual personal development. However, we all learn and grow in response to the world we perceive, and our perspective depends on our position.

The stories in this study involve many examples of experiences where aspects of cultural identity and context intersected with how people experienced spiritual crisis and meaning- making. For example, Anna emphasized how the looming Vietnam draft and her ex-husband’s

ROTC membership raised the pressure for her to agree to marry him in the first place. As a woman re-establishing her identity after an abusive marriage and divorce, feminist consciousness-raising groups were important for re-establishing meaning for herself in the world and in her community. Matthew emphasized the role of his socioeconomic status in making

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long-term psychological treatment a possibility to his family. “Fortunately, we had the finances. And that helps… We had the resources to do it. Most people do not.”

Much of Beatrice’s distress came from the conflicts between her own cultural and religious identity as a New England Unitarian and the community she had built much of her spiritual life within, and the relative lack of power she felt she had within that community.

When Miriam experienced a call to ministry-- an experience often revered and celebrated within her religious context when men experience it—her experience was disrespected and treated as a joke by her partner and leaders because she was a woman. Structural, systemic discrimination led to her exclusion from seminary classes or professional pathways related to her calling to ministry. “I called every seminary that I was aware of in the city. They wouldn’t even let women take the classes that led to preaching.”

Relationships between individuals and groups

One theme that arose across all four interviews was how people’s relationships with communities informed their own experiences of spiritual crisis. It was surprising to me that this theme was so consistent and strong across interviews. Participants tended to frame their experiences as relationships with organizations and groups.

Here, I am using “groups” as a broad term referring to any intentional, consistent gathering of people. Loosely organized groups, like groups dedicated to a common hobby, might set some basic structures (such as times to meet), but only according to what its members chose to do amongst themselves. Many of the groups involved in these interviews were structured, in that they had some form of formal organization: leaders, scheduled meetings, protocols, rules, sacred texts, denominational control, doctrine, rules of order, etc. Formal organizations, such as the Lions’ Club, have rules and norms of their own. They may be

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completely locally controlled, or they may be part of a larger organizational structure. Many organizations are tied to larger institutions. For example, a local church is beholden to an international denomination, which makes decisions about doctrine and interpretation of scripture that are passed down to the local level to be taught and enforced. A structured organization can be shaken up in strange ways compared to a group of friends who share a hobby. No one can decree that a group of friends who go on weekly fishing trips must accept a new person into their group, give them the final word on new group activities, and let them speak unchallenged about fishing for an hour each week; but this happens in local churches when a new pastor is appointed or hired. This combination of interpersonal relationships with formal, structured organizations can lead to interesting problems between people and groups.

These interviews highlight the importance of groups to experiences of spiritual life and spiritual crisis. Sometimes participants experienced spiritual development or crisis in the context of a structured religious community with particular teachings, such as Miriam’s exposure to a prophetic understanding of the terrifying dreams she experienced. At other times the group’s support (or lack thereof) was independent of religious affiliation or belief structure, such as when

Anna found spiritual support and growth through her dog training club. Although relationships with other individuals within the group were sometimes highlighted, those relationships were different from the relationship with the group as a whole. For instance, Miriam’s friendship with

Jackie was distinct from her relationship with Zion AME as a group even though they were both part of it. All described their changing relationships with groups as important to their experiences of spiritual crisis.

Separate from their relationships with specific individuals, all four people described relationship dynamics with institutions and organizations. These groups were sometimes

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religious and sometimes secular. Anna described the influences of her childhood church, where she developed an identity as a “super Episcopalian,” her “advanced” youth group that opened up ideas of spirituality beyond Christianity, her current church, a group of dog show enthusiasts, and a sailing group as communities of people that had been important to her spiritual development over time. Matthew described how his time of spiritual crisis involved navigating how he related to different Christian groups, including the United Church of Christ church he grew up in, the Catholic church he attended as an adult, an Episcopalian church, an Evangelical men’s movement, and a Catholic prayer group. Matthew experienced of a “phase” of feeling he

“wasn’t getting enough out of religion,” and was encouraged by fundamentalist Christian friends to explore a more fundamentalist understanding of Christianity at a Promise Keepers rally.

So, I went through a phase. And it was not—it was a phase where I said, well, maybe

I’m not getting enough out of, out of, out of religion… It was Promise Keepers. I didn’t

know what it is. … And that was not for me. It was just not for me. I mean, they were

talking about—you know, what the men are supposed to do in their lives, which I thought

was great, you know, get rid of the alcohol, get rid of the drugs, take care of your family,

you know, that kind of stuff. And I thought, that’s not what my problem is. That’s not

me. Cause I do that anyways. And you know, they’re hallelujah and stuff like that—I

just said, no. So I did that once, and no. And you know, they’re talking about radio

stations that you have to listen to, fundamental radio stations, so I listened to those for a

while—I wasn’t really aware of them, you know—Focus on the Family and all that stuff

they had. And I did that for a couple months, and I thought, well, maybe this will help

me. And it didn’t. I thought—this is just not me. It’s just not me. I think I have a better

grasp of what I need to do than just doing that. I thought that was almost like blind

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trust—you know, in religion. Where they just say, put all your stuff here, and they’ll take

care of it. And I didn’t agree with that.

Matthew’s interaction with more conservative, fundamentalist approaches to Christianity ended with him reaffirming his personal sense of responsibility, in contrast to what he saw as abandoning responsibility in favor of “blind trust… in religion.”

Beatrice discussed the importance of various groups in framing her spiritual experience over time, including the New England Unitarian community she grew up in, the New England

Episcopalian church her father had belonged to, the secular community organization she did philanthropic work with, and the midwestern Episcopal church she was feeling increasingly estranged from. Beatrice’s spiritual crisis was partly due to feeling she no longer belonged in her church group. She contrasted this with the story of how she negotiated with the priest who served there when she first began attending the choir: he helped her see ways in which her spirituality was compatible with the community there, while the current priest emphasized their differences.

And I talked with him. I said, I’m not trying to be offensive, but I can’t do any of this,

I’m a Unitarian. And he said, ‘but you love to sing?’ I said, yes. He says, ‘well, do you

believe that there’s a moment in one’s week when it’s good to think about other kinds of

things besides grading?’ I said, yes. ‘And do you think it’s important to do good deeds,

and would you like to do them?’ I said yes, he said ‘well, I think you should be here.’

And it’s only recently, under Joan, that for the first time ever, I feel like I don’t belong.

Which is part of the spiritual angst.

For Beatrice, conflicting religious beliefs were both a point of disconnection from others and a point of connection. When her own personal Unitarian beliefs and practices were honored

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and included within the church community, she felt a sense of belonging and fully participated.

When she was pushed by a leader to comply with the religious rituals and norms of the group, she resisted the pressure to conform but felt the loss of her sense of belonging.

Miriam, who grew up experiencing violent nightmares that she now sees through a prophetic lens, saw many problems with “organized religion” but still credited the mentorship she found in religious settings with helping her process her experiences. Miriam talked about how an important aspect of her spiritual identity developed from butting up against sociocultural religious expectations:

I got in trouble there cause part of the, the service was in Latin. And part of that was

praying in Latin, like, as a group. And I was even younger, I was—first grade. Six.

And—one of the nuns was looking at me like, ‘go ahead and pray.’ I refused to pray,

because I didn’t understand what I was saying. Even at that age, if I’m talking to God, I

need to know what I’m saying. I’m not going to do this without an interpretation in

English of what I’m saying… I felt it was prayer. But I’m not going to pray something

when I don’t know what I’m speaking. Now, that was me at six. So you can only

imagine. I’ve always—I never even thought about it before, but I’ve always been the

voice of challenge. And it was—the challenge, though, wasn’t about the traditions, and

the rituals, and stuff. It was about my understanding the foundations, and the reasonings

for those things. I—it needed to make sense to me. And if what I was given didn’t make

sense, I usually would say that—like, ‘well, that don’t make sense.’ And people took it

personally, when what I was saying was, ‘that doesn’t make sense to me, and I’m still

looking for an understanding.’

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Miriam needed to personally make sense of religious practices before deciding whether, or how, to take part in them. She was aware of how some people saw this challenge as offensive

(“took it personally”) but emphasized that she challenged the expectation that she would go along with a practice without fully understanding it. As someone with a deep belief in God,

Miriam saw prayer as sacred and real; religious rituals were not just a school task to participate in obediently. Over time, she found her spiritual identity relating to her religious contexts in similar ways: respecting and learning from the religious knowledge and structure of her communities, but also bouncing off and challenging them.

Groups and organizations seem to serve as important sites of learning and conflict in these participants’ stories of spiritual crisis. Spiritual crisis often happened in the context of shifts and conflicts in people’s connections to different groups. Usually, this was not due to a conflict with the people of the group, but with some aspect of the group’s structure or organization: stated beliefs, scripture, formal leadership, etc.

Developing EPCP theory in response to these findings

Having described the major themes from this set of interviews, I will now discuss them in the context of Leitner’s experiential personal construct psychology (EPCP). Particularly, the emergence of groups and cultural identities as major themes poses interesting questions for

EPCP. I will briefly describe EPCP’s approach to understanding interpersonal relationships, then discuss how this might be elaborated in the future based on this study’s findings.

Experiential personal construct psychology (EPCP) and interpersonal relationships

EPCP presumes that human beings are naturally relationship-seeking: we rely on other people to help us survive and make meaning of our experience, and so we are drawn to relationship with others throughout our lives (Leitner, 1988). As we interact with the world

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around us, we seek to construe our experience of it: to form hypotheses about how things work that let us experience the world as more predictable and meaningful. Communicating with other people requires us to construe each other’s constructs; to develop a deep and meaningful relationship, we construe not just another’s constructs, but also the process of meaning creation.

Another person who understands my way of seeing and moving through the world may affirm my process of making sense of the world, encouraging me to continue to explore and deepen my understandings. This kind of deep, meaningful interpersonal relationship is referred to as a

ROLE relationship, in reference to Kelly’s sociality corollary: “to the extent that one person construes the construction processes of another, he may play a role in a social process involving the other person” (Kelly, 1991, p. 66).

Through their reactions to me, a person in a deep ROLE relationship with me may validate or invalidate my way of understanding the world. Being invalidated in such a close and meaningful relationship could be devastating to me: I trusted this person with my innermost self and they did not affirm me as worthwhile. Likewise, if the other responds to me in a way that affirms and respects me as a person, I can grow further and deeper in my relationship with them and my interactions with the rest of the world. “Thus, the basic struggle in relational life, according to EPCP, is the need to connect with others (bringing richness yet potential devastation) versus retreating from connection (bringing safety yet emptiness) (Leitner &

Thomas, 2009, p. 195).

Primarily, EPCP theory centers on deep interpersonal relationships between persons

(ROLE relating): often, specifically, psychotherapy relationships. At that level within EPCP, we might understand that someone who is connected to me through a deep and meaningful ROLE relationship has a form of power over me. This could be power both in the sense of the ability to

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help and encourage, as well as in the sense that that person could wound me in deep and personal ways.

Validation and invalidation in groups

Groups were sites of powerful affirmation and validation for my participants’ experience in this study. For instance, Matthew continued to attend a Catholic prayer group after leaving the

Catholic church. Although his religious beliefs were often different from those of the other people in the group, Matthew found the group helpful and comforting.

And they’d bring in water from Lourdes, cause they went over there and got the water,

and I think, well, ok, it looks like water to me, but—I guess it’s holy water. I don’t

know. And so they, they’d give us that, and sprinkle it on us, and I—but it wasn’t so

much that, as much as it was just the people around. And when you brought up

something, they would—they would, they’d pray for it at the same time. And give you

support. And they didn’t have the answers, of course. Um, but they’d tell you to keep

going. You know, keep going, we’ll be back next week, let us know how it goes. If it

gets worse, let us know, so we can talk about it on the phone, or whatever. So that was

good. It was good. And we still do that.

In this example, Matthew describes a mutually validating experience with a group that does not involve a common belief system. Although Matthew and the Catholic prayer group may share some common constructs (he did attend the Catholic church for many years), he specifies that some aspects of the group’s attempts to help are not always in line with how he understands the world. Despite this, Matthew validates the group and the group validates him as they continue their relationship. The group may believe in holy water while he does not, but they act in ways

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that are encouraging and consistent. Crucially, they encourage him to share his experiences with them whether they get better or get worse over time.

Matthew’s experiences in other church environments provides a contrasting example of how groups can be a source of insidious invalidation. In most church environments, he describes people asking about each other’s families’ health, but not wanting to hear about Matthew’s family’s profound struggle. He experienced people as supportive at a vague surface level, but there seemed to be an unspoken rule that sharing information or feelings about sexual trauma was impossible. Because of this culture of silence, Matthew’s relationship with this group was limited. He felt his current church’s institutional stances on social justice validated his own; but at the personal level, he found more support from a group he disagreed with institutionally.

Groups can also invalidate a person’s views in more explicit ways, through leadership or general sentiment. For example, Beatrice described her frustration and disillusionment when men in a community social group commented derisively about her focus on sexism. Although several individual friends and the leader of the group made private contact with her to say they supported her, they did not do so within the group itself. Beatrice ended up feeling even more frustrated to know that although her individual friends might support her privately, they would not take the social risk of supporting her publicly. In this case, Beatrice felt hurt and misunderstood in the group despite the private, individual support of leadership and other members. This highlights the ways in which groups complicate any understanding of how people make meaning through relationships. If I am affirmed by my friend in private, but they allow me to be insulted without objection when another person is present, I experience not only the insult but the loss of confidence in my friend’s private affirmations.

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Anna described a situation in which she felt invalidation within a group setting due to doctrine and group beliefs. She noted the discomfort she felt in church as a person who had once been in an abusive marriage when scriptures forbidding divorce were read aloud without challenge or commentary, or when pastors and commentators talked about marriage as a joining of two souls. In these encounters, often the only person speaking was a religious leader, and in one case, the statements in question are being read aloud from a text. Regardless, these interactions challenged Anna’s sense of relationship to the group. The difficult commentary and the silent acceptance of the group both made it more difficult for Anna to conceptualize her life in a way that would allow her to escape her abusive ex-husband and forge an individual identity apart from him. Anna’s experience as a survivor of abuse was not supported by the scriptures and commentaries that were spoken of in the church service. No one individual person caused that invalidation; the invalidation came out of the complex web of interactions (including the text itself, the text’s original sociocultural context, a long-ago committee deciding what texts would be considered part of the Christian scriptures, a faraway committee deciding what scriptures to include in the denomination’s weekly liturgy and a polite culture of listening silently to people reading aloud). Even if every person sitting in her church had silently agreed with Anna’s outrage during that reading, the structure of their interaction meant that her perspective was still invalidated by the group.

Doctrine, policy, leadership, and communities

Organized groups, such as churches, carry another level of complexity compared to more egalitarian groups of people. In addition to the web of relationships that make up the group itself, there is a system of formal leadership and a system of established beliefs or values that are independent of any one person’s belief system. Interpersonal interactions within organized

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groups are often structured in ways that they would not be outside the group, which also complicates the picture of how people relate within them. Most (but not all) of the groups described this way were churches, which may involve several different kinds of structured interaction for a roughly similar group of individuals. For example, at one church, a worship service may involve formalized periods of speech and silence where only a leader gives interpretation on beliefs and the rest of the group reads responses, while a study group may allow several people to offer differing viewpoints, a committee may involve a small group of individuals working towards the group’s perceived goals in the community, and a social hour may be relatively freeform (while still having implicit norms about how to interact).

Power and leadership played a role in how individuals’ relationships with groups played out. For instance, Miriam strongly disagreed with the way that her pastor interpreted a part of scripture especially important to her personal experience. She attempted to correct what she saw as his error, but he did not listen to her. Miriam was aware that elders in the church also disagreed with the pastor’s actions, but they did not take an active stance against him. She also pointed out that the pastor was working from written materials not associated with the greater denomination the church was a part of. Although she was confident in her views, felt validated by others in her community, and at times felt the direct inspiration of God, Miriam ended up stepping away from the church and expressing deep dissatisfaction with organized religion.

When she thought about how she might reintegrate into the community, it was by changing herself: becoming less reactive to the wrongs she saw and remaining constant. The pastor, by virtue of his social role and position within the church, had the power to dictate his own views and contradict Miriam’s. When he disagreed with her, he stopped her projects; when she disagreed with him, she left the community. Beatrice experienced a similar rift with church

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leadership. Although she herself had been in leadership at the church she attended for many more years than its current pastor, the pastor still maintained the power over what was said on

Sunday mornings. Beatrice was torn on how to relate to the group when some more egalitarian interactions (like her committee work and choir participation) were affirming but the experience of listening to the pastor on Sundays was extremely difficult.

When groups are affiliated with larger organizations, an individual might experience validation or invalidation at the group level based on what is happening in the larger system. For instance, the increased news reporting of widespread child sexual abuse being covered up by

Catholic power structures led Matthew to stop attending the Catholic church he had raised his children in to that point. This decision was not based on a belief that his specific church group was protecting abusers. Rather, he was aware of the ways in which the affiliation with the larger church made his daughter uncomfortable and the ways in which his presence and financial support could be seen as a tacit acceptance or support of the larger institution’s choices.

Kelly and group constructions

Kelly’s personal construct psychology (the theoretical foundation of EPCP) provides a basic structure for conceptualizing an individual’s way of making meaning while understanding them to be part of a fluid, evolving sociocultural context.

EPCP originated from personal construct psychology more generally and is an elaboration of work by Kelly (1991) that focuses on the embodied, experiential aspects of construing. It also functioned as a response to the gap between the existing personal construct psychology literature and the actual practice of psychotherapy. Personal construct psychology

(PCP) as delineated by Kelly (1991) addresses the question of how people’s ways of making

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meaning develop in the context of groups, and his discussion of group expectancies as validators of personal constructs is relevant here.

Kelly’s commonality corollary suggests that to the extent that people have similar experiences, they have similar ways of construing (Kelly, 1991). Within a group or community,

“one finds people behaving similarly because they tend to expect the same things” (Kelly, 1991, p.123). To the extent that people have experiences in common, they will construe things similarly; because each of our experiences are shaped by our ways of construing the world, this process can be frustratingly recursive.

Kelly (1991) focuses on the ways in which people develop individual systems of construal to predict events in their own lives. “People, too, are events,” (p.122) requiring each individual to attempt to find ways of anticipating the actions of the people around them in order to make sense of their experience. At the same time, “‘other people’ are persons too” (p. 123), meaning that the individual making meaning of a group is one among many individuals in that group, all attempting to make sense of their individual worlds in part by watching each other for evidence that their view of the world makes sense. Kelly acknowledges (without speaking to cause and effect) that communities can be made of individuals who share personal constructs.

“[The] expectancies which are common to the group actually act as validators against which the individual tends to verify his own constructs. Broadly, this is what we mean by saying that group expectancies are validators of personal constructs” (p. 123).

When a group of people share personal constructs (ways of anticipating the future and sorting through experience) an individual in that group may test the validity of their own individual constructs by comparing them to the group’s shared constructs. If I tentatively form a new construct for understanding my experience, but that construct is in contrast to the constructs

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of the community of people in which I live, I may see that as evidence that my own construct is not workable. Likewise, it will be much easier for me to perceive and make meaning of things if my community has shared constructs with me that make sense for our similar experiences of the world. Because people are constantly being born, developing, and dying, the constructs that a group passes around may transcend any one individual and be passed down over time. We might understand this as a point where a theory of personal constructs runs up against a social constructionist theory of how meaning is created socially and culturally at a broad level.

Kelly considers the case of constructs for which our direct evidence is limited, and we need to make choices based on group expectancies. He uses the example of Earth’s roundness as a construct which we receive from other people, rather from our direct experience. Although there are ways of gathering concrete evidence of the Earth’s curvature, most of us do not directly perceive it as round in our day-to-day experience, and most of us do not travel to space or perform the calculations necessary to understand the curvature of the Earth. Instead, our construct of the Earth as round is supported mostly by the fact that other people have described it that way, shown us photographs, or told us about evidence of it: our ability to validate this construct is “ordinarily available only by way of other people’s opinions” (p. 123, emphasis in original). Because it is dependent on the experiences and perspectives of the group of people who surround us, this kind of construct is vulnerable to invalidation or validation by the group.

“If the people with whom we come in contact all expect the earth to be flat as a pancake, all the validating evidence to which we must subject our construct of earth sphericity is negative. We may have to decide that the earth is flat after all” (p. 123).

I posit that this example is relevant to a discussion of spirituality; spirituality, by definition, involves ideas and forces that are, at best, difficult for any individual to perceive

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directly. One way that this may come up is how individuals construe the nature of God. It seems fair to say that for most people, the evidence necessary to validate a construct related to

God, or hell, or morality is “ordinarily available only by way of other people’s opinions” (p.123).

This is also relevant to the other invisible ideals, goals, and fears that may be common to a spiritual community (e.g. ideals around marriage, concepts of sin, concepts of an afterlife). That an idea is primarily validated by other people does not mean that it is false or questionable; the

Earth is round, after all. If I somehow limited my understanding of the universe to only those things I have personally perceived and construed, my world would be crushingly small and empty.

Religious groups may be particularly powerful because they deal with questions that are ultimately mysterious: how to live, what death means, how to be in relationship with others, how to parent children, why people suffer, what justice is, who my community is, etc. I may encounter these questions in completely non-religious contexts, but within religious contexts, they are particularly explicit and hard to avoid. (Anna found spiritual affirmation within her group of dog-trainers, but dog-training is not necessarily about spiritual development.) Religious groups with explicit belief and/or power structures may also be challenging to people in particular ways. I would expect a person to have different experiences in a religious context where argument was considered a valid and sacred way to engage with scripture or community versus a religious context where belief without proof was seen as the highest form of faith.

Likewise, I would expect people to have different experiences with groups that involved a strict hierarchical power structure where people with more power were seen as having more knowledge of or connection to spiritual matters compared to a group that interacted more collaboratively.

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Next steps in developing EPCP theory

Thinking about individuals’ relationships with groups raises the question of how best to conceptualize these interactions from an EPCP perspective. Much of EPCP theory focuses on

Kelly’s sociality corollary, which Leitner develops into the concept of ROLE relating

(e.g.Leitner & Pfenninger, 1994, Leitner & Faidley, 1995), and the choice corollary, which underpins the idea of paradoxical safety in psychotherapy (e.g., Leitner, 2001, Leitner, 2005,

Leitner &Thomas , 2007). These findings suggest expanding experiential personal construct theory in the direction of Kelly’s commonality corollary might be a logical next step. Kelly’s suggestion to think about group constructs as the elements with and against which individual clients had to build personal constructs provides a starting place for making these ideas more meaningful to psychotherapy and lived relationships.

I believe this balance to be a crucial area for developing future theory in EPCP that might foster richer, deeper discussions of spirituality and religion in the context of psychotherapy and psychological theory. In general, the individual constructivist model that EPCP is founded on creates a framework with which it is possible to understand how different people may have deeply complex individual models of spirituality. These findings also suggest that in order to grow and develop this model of spirituality in an EPCP framework, we may need to focus on the ways in which individual meaning-making processes are built from shared constructs we receive from our cultural environment (including religious structures, knowledge, and information), and how the individual engaged in give and take with the groups of which they are a part.

Limitations and Potential Directions

The implications of this study should be considered in the context of its methods. Like most small-scale qualitative research, it cannot and should not be used to infer generalizable

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information about how spiritual crisis works for all people. The method of this study is designed to explore these questions at a deep but narrow level within a few people’s experience; it is not designed to test a hypothesis or generate facts. The small sample should also be kept in mind when considering potential future directions: although this group of participants discussed a variety of understandings of spiritual crisis, this should not be considered representative of the full range of diversity of experiences relevant to these ideas. Future studies could investigate how terms and concepts like spirituality, religion, belief, and spiritual crisis are seen and used differently by different people in different cultural and generational contexts.

Cultural context was important to the way this study developed, but I did not ask specific research or interview questions related to cultural factors beyond religion. Participants brought up cultural factors such as gender, age, socioeconomic status, religious contexts, race, historical context, etc. as they told their stories. Each participant brought up cultural factors, but the extent to which they discussed their own cultural identities and contexts varied. Although the participants in this study had different personal stories, they shared similar cultural backgrounds around religion in that they lived in majority-Christian places and had lifelong exposure to

Christian beliefs and practices. Further research might help us understand what aspects of their experiences had to do with that specific set of traditions. The histories of religion, imperialism, and racial segregation are deeply entwined in American history; a more explicit approach to understanding people’s cultural and religious contexts would be helpful for understanding how people experience spirituality differently in different religious and cultural contexts. If I were to do a similar study in the future, I would make a discussion of cultural identity and contexts explicit in my semi-structured interview questions, to increase the richness of my understandings of how cultural context and cultural identity fit with these experiences of spiritual crisis. It may

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also be useful to research topics of spiritual crisis from an explicitly cultural lens, to better understand what constructs may be shared among people and what constructs are more individually developed

The importance of relationship to data-gathering in this study emerged over time.

Despite advertising in traditional ways (flyers, announcements, websites, social media), the people who approached me to be a part of this study all knew of me as a person outside the academic context. Shared activities or communities seemed to lead people to believe they could trust me with these stories, some of which are deeply personal, painful, and conflicted (while this was not a question I specifically asked, multiple interviewees volunteered information about how they came to the decision to contact me). This was also true for several people who were excluded from the study because our relationships were close enough that I felt I would not be able to maintain an appropriate distance from their stories. I would be interested in qualitative research that leaned into this issue: a more collaborative, participatory action research approach that blurred boundaries between “researcher” and “subject” may be appropriate and helpful for learning more. Likewise, it may be helpful for people interested in discussing these issues with interviewees to actively make use of existing connections (e.g. snowball sampling) while reaching out to find interested participants.

The theme of relationships between individuals and groups emerged as a theme in this study and could be a focus of future research. Although basic constructivist theory around these issues exists (e.g. Kelly, 1991), most theorists focus on individuals’ relationships with other individuals. Further work to understand how individuals connect to the people and world around them at multiple levels would be welcome. Developing theories to better understand and conceptualize spirituality from an EPCP perspective could involve focusing on how people

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receive (and pass on) shared constructs of meaning and belief through cultural networks of relationships, and the tension between individual and group construal. It would be interesting to research collaboratively with groups to better understand how people navigate individual and shared meaning. For instance, interviewing a group of people who shared a church community could be a way to begin to explore how people navigate meanings and relationships within a group.

The stories in this study illustrate some ways in which these individuals experienced spiritual crisis as transformative, rather than a period of crisis followed by a return to previous functioning. These periods of transition were deeply painful and confusing. More research and reflection are needed, especially in clinical contexts, on the role of psychotherapy in understanding and addressing spiritual crises. In my own experience, these topics were rarely broached in training settings, and people have a difficult time figuring out how or where to start talking about issues related to religion or spirituality. It seems unfair to ask clients to trust us to help process these deeply personal experiences if we cannot do so with each other. Studying comparative religion may be helpful towards understanding the experiences and expectancies that others might have. However, I find group-based clinical approaches to be deeply problematic, especially in their erasure of the experience of people who change or discard religious group identity over the course of their lives, people who find the structures and ideas of religion meaningful or challenging despite not having a particular shared identity with those religious groups, and people who determinedly maintain meaningful contact with religious groups and identities that exclude them systematically A cultural approach (as opposed to a cross-cultural approach) may be helpful in focusing discussions on how each person navigates their cultural and religious landscape, rather than attempting to understand people as members of

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monolithic groups. There is no level of competency at which knowing a group identity means we no longer need to approach our client as a fellow person and try to understand their unique perspective on the world.

Because spiritual crisis is a relatively uncommon area of focus in psychotherapy and clinical research, it may be helpful to start by assessing how people within and affected by the field understand spiritual crisis and spirituality. What kind of understanding do psychotherapists have of spiritual crisis, and how competent are they at handling this issue if it arises for a client?

How are spirituality and religion approached by psychotherapy education programs? How do pastors and other religious leaders or counselors address psychological distress in the context of spiritual crisis? How do people who have been through spiritual crisis ask for help, and what do they find most helpful? How do people who have been through psychotherapy perceive their therapists’ comfort and competence with religious and spiritual issues? Given the ways in which the participants in this study described their transitions through spiritual crisis as frequently involving growth or necessary change, I would also be interested in future research studying potential growth (and obstacles to growth) that occur during and after times of spiritual crisis.

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Appendix A Recruitment Flyer Text A spiritual crisis is a time of intense grief or loss, marked by deep questions about life and feelings that your life has lost its meaning. This time could include the loss of faith, of an important relationship, a sense of safety, or something else important to your spiritual identity. A spiritual crisis leads to a significant turning point in life, and a change in the way you understand life and your place in the world. If you have been through a time like this, you are invited to participate in a qualitative study. I am interested in hearing how you experienced a time of spiritual crisis in your life. The study involves participating in individual interviews about your experience and how you make meaning of it. For more information, contact Kat Hayes at [email protected].

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Appendix B Informed Consent You are invited to participate in a qualitative study on spiritual crisis. This study is being done with the intention of improving psychological understandings of spirituality and spiritual crisis. In this study, spiritual crisis is defined as a time of intense grief or loss, often marked by deep questions about life and feelings that your life has lost its meaning. A spiritual crisis leads to a significant turning point in life, and a change in the way you understand life and your place in the world. In this study, you will be asked to write a personal narrative of a past time in your life that you identify as a spiritual crisis and submit a copy to the researcher. You will also be asked to participate in an interview about your experiences and how you chose to represent them in writing. By signing below, you are indicating your consent: - to participate in audio-recorded interviews - to have your story used in research resulting from this study without personal identifying details (ex. specific names and place names will be changed).

If you participate in this study, you will have an opportunity to read and respond to the researcher’s write-up of the written work and interview, in order to ensure that it represents your views as accurately as possible and contains no details that you would like to exclude. Your feedback is welcome and valued. Even after agreeing to participate, you are under no obligation to remain in the study. You may remove your permission for me to use your interviews at any time. Please contact me directly if you have concerns or questions about the research (Kat Hayes, [email protected]), or you may contact my advisor, Dr. Larry Leitner ([email protected]). Signed ______

Date______

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Appendix C Semi-structured interview guide Reflect on a time in your life in which you entered a period of spiritual crisis and then emerged. Spiritual crisis can be understood as a time of intense grief or loss, often marked by deep questions about life and feelings that your life has lost its meaning. A spiritual crisis leads to a significant turning point in life, and a change in the way you understand life and your place in the world.

I would like to hear your story of spiritual crisis.

What was your spiritual life like before the crisis began? Consider: What were the circumstances of your life? How was your spirituality expressed-- individually, socially, through a religious organization, in nature, through a personal relationship with God, through a relationship with a religious leader or mentor, through family?

What were the circumstances of your life before the crisis? What was the setting? What were your primary roles in life-- teacher? worker? student? child? caregiver? Were you comfortable? Happy?

How did the crisis begin? What signs did you notice that your spiritual life was changing? Were there definable events that prompted the crisis, a slow build-up of tension, a sudden trigger? In retrospect, were you aware of the crisis when it began, or later? When did you realize that you were in crisis?

How did the crisis progress? What questions arose for you during the crisis? How did you feel in the midst of the crisis? What changes did you go through in your relationships, spiritual life, religious life, work life, daily life? Did your life circumstances change? What stayed consistent, and what changed, during this time in your life? What sources of support did you keep? What sources of support did you lose?

How did you react to the crisis? Did you try to alleviate the situation? Seek counsel? Seek support from others? Through prayer? Through reading? Through community involvement? Through solitude? Through distraction? What was your first reaction to the questions coming up for you—to accept them? To reject or avoid them? How did you experience hope during this time—did it exist for you? Did you hope for a specific outcome?

What do you identify as the turning point (or points) of this crisis? Was there a point at which you started moving towards resolution? A point at which you accepted a new “normal”? Were there changes in your life that led you through the crisis or helped you begin to move out of crisis? What helped you get through? What were the obstacles for your progress?

How did you emerge from this time of crisis?

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What signs did you recognize in your life that the crisis was resolved or had passed? Was there a specific event that ended the crisis, or did things change over time? Were you aware at the time that the crisis had resolved, or did you realize it in retrospect? What had changed in your spiritual life over the course of the crisis? Your values? Did the resolution you got match up with your hopes, or did it resolve in an unexpected way? Did you get answers to the questions you had during the crisis? What was changed in your life circumstances when you emerged from the crisis?

How have you made meaning of these events over time? How do you make sense of this time in your life now, and how does that differ from how you made sense of it at the time? How has your understanding of this crisis changed over the course of your life?

What choices did you make in how to tell your story? Talking about personal experience usually entails leaving out some details and focusing on others—how did you decide what to include in your story of your own experience? What about these experiences were the most important to get across?

How does your experience fit or not fit the questions you were given? Were there ways in which your own experience did not fit the template that these questions provided? How did you navigate this? What other threads of your experience went unexplored here? What other aspects of this experience do you think are important to understanding spiritual crisis?

Describe your experience of sharing this story with me. What feelings and thoughts come up for you as we discuss your story of spiritual crisis? Have you shared these experiences with others before? What does it mean to you to share them with someone else? What is your experience of telling this story in the context of a research study? Are there ideas you hope to convey to me, or ideas that you believe are most important for me to learn or tell others?

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Appendix D Interview transcripts Anna I: I have some questions here, that I’d like to touch on, but I also don’t want to grill you for your experience— P: (Laughs) Ok. I: So kind of, what I’m interested in is a time in your life when you had a period of spiritual crisis, and the kind of general definition that I’m having going in is a time that might be intense grief or loss related to spiritual living, usually there’s a lot of deep questions about life that come up, might change perspectives on how to live or different things in life. P: Yeah, I’ve had a time like that. I: Can you tell me about it? P: So, um, I was married when I was a senior in college, on spring break. And, um, and I had two children with my first husband, and was a stay at home mother. We were in the Army when I had the children, and then we lived in Medina for awhile and then we moved to Wooster— I: Ok. P: And he worked after he was out of the military at the university, as a veterans’ benefits counselor. And um, I guess that he had always sort of ridiculed my spirituality or my feeling of connectedness to the universe, and also the desire to go to church, although we were married in the church… over in uh, the Episcopal Presbyterian church in Akron. I: Ok. P: After he, you know, on spring break of our senior year. And um, so, as it turned out, he just became more and more—abusive, verbally, and then physically, and, um, I had grown up in a home of abusive violent alcoholics. I: Mm. P: And was always the completely unusual person in the family—I was the first of three children, my brother is a year and a half younger than me, my sister is eleven years younger than me. I: Oh. P: So when she was born I took care of her a lot, and we both tried to keep my parents from treating her the way they had treated us, and that didn’t work out very well, but um, I had always this idea of completely – a different way of life. I: Mmm P: I wasn’t interested in drinking, smoking, partying, uh— I: That was the family norm? P: Family norm, yeah. We lived north of Chicago in a suburb, my father worked at the Tribune, and they were kinda on the fringe of this rich community. We attended the Episcopal Church, I sang in the choir from the time I was very young, I was a Girl Scout, I was a Girl Scout even in high school. I: Oh, me too. P: (laughs) I was always into school, and a good student, and learned to sew, and like sometimes some of my friends would get together on Friday nights for the weekend to sew something. And, I read a lot, and wrote poetry, and um, so I was very different than my family that I grew up in. Although I was a lot like my father, who was quiet and sort of unassertive. And then my mother

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was more the violent person in our family. And my brother and sister both ended up having aggressive personalities like my mother, and uh—so I didn’t realize we had a dysfunctional family until I was a sophomore in high school and read—and took a psychology class. And I’m reading all this stuff and thinking ‘hmm.’ (laughs) This is the way we live! This is what they say is love. You know, we love you, and this is why we have to just beat on you, and expect all these things of me that I really wasn’t—I was like, hello, have you been listening at all? (laughs) You know. I: There’s— not listening. P: And they didn’t—Yeah, that’s right. Well, I don’t think that they could really understand. That’s what I’ve decided, that sometimes people just, because of the way they are, they can’t go to somewhere that’s so different from—you know, they don’t even have their receivers on in terms of what you’re saying. It doesn’t translate into-- I: Into their language? P: --what I mean. Like, your meaning, when you say the words, is interpreted as some other— I: So even when you’re trying to communicate, it’s being taken differently than it’s being said. P: Yeah. Right. Plus I was just what I think they call now the scapegoat of the family. I: Mmm. P: And I wasn’t supposed to be able to go to school. I was supposed to be a secretary, like my mother had been. I: What’s that mean, that you were supposed to be? P: That’s what their expectation for me was. I: That’s what their expectation was. Was that explicit, or did they tell you— P: Oh yeah, it was explicit. And my brother was going to go to school because he was a boy. He was allowed to have a car, and I wasn’t. You know, there was this – and that was back in the day when you -- I: Very clear. P: It would be hard for you to understand, but – in the summer, I was on a swimming team, but in the winter, I couldn’t be in school on a swimming team because I was a girl. And you couldn’t play tennis, and you couldn’t do any—you couldn’t take mechanical drawing, you couldn’t learn about cars, you couldn’t-- and I was kind of a person who wanted to push those boundaries a little. I: Mmhmm. P: And eventually of course we now have the ability to do those things, as women. (laughs) I: Thanks to people who pushed the boundaries, yeah. P: But I’m like hello, how fair could that be, you don’t let any of the women play and then say that you’re the best. Cause I beat my brother at tennis and swimming, yet he could swim and play tennis in school but I couldn’t. But anyway, I became a waitress when I was sixteen, and saved my money, so that I was able to afford to go to school myself. I: Mmhmm P: So I applied to school. (emphatically) I also did not take typing, or home ec— I: Avoided that one. Yeah. P: When I was in high school, because I didn’t want to be able to be a secretary when I was thinking ahead. I: Yeah. P: Ok, you have to have these skills to be, you know, kind of thing.

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I: Yeah. It’s standing out to me how you kind of described yourself as, you know, a Girl Scout all the way through college and doing these sewing circle things and at the same time, pushing back against these boundaries—that that sort of enabled you to be more independent? This identity you were building? P: Probably, yes. Yes. I: I don’t know if that reflects it right or not, that’s just part of what I’m thinking. P: Yes, yes. Well, I, you know, my way was just to go ahead and do the thing without conflict if possible. I: Make it happen on your own. P: Applied to the only college I actually wanted to go to, and then was accepted even though my parents accepted the fact I was going to go to college, and said they might help me with my tuition, but they didn’t want me to go to the college I – I went to Heidelberg I: Ok P: And you probably are familiar— I: I am, yeah. What made you want to go there? P: Um, well, we visited Albion, Denison, and Heidelberg, and um, when we went to Denison, all the girls were wearing fluffy dresses and they were getting ready for a dance, and um, I’m not a fluffy dresser. And then when we went to Heidelberg-- and I stayed in the dorm at Denison-- and then we went to Heidelberg and people were getting ready to go to a barn party, I: Hmm P: Where you were wearing jeans, and flannel shirts, and there was a band— I: No poofy dresses. P: (Laughs) And in nobody’s closet were poofy dresses. Although I think eventually there were some dances where we wore dresses, but not—poofy ones. I: But your impression was more— P: And they didn’t have sororities that you lived in. They had sorority houses that were like a normal three bedroom house, and you could be a member of the sorority if you wanted to, which I didn’t think I wanted to be, and—still, not have to be completely cliqued, or whatever, with this particular group. I: Yeah. Yeah. P: So, um, my thing was like to try to be good, I guess you could say. At everything I did, and to be a good person. I: Yeah—in both senses. P: Yeah. I: Excel and also— P: Yeah, and just—and I always felt that I was very spiritual and connected in some way to God, and Jesus, and of course singing in the choir from the time I was in third grade, I was very in tune with all the aspects of the church, and I was real active in the youth group in high school, and we went to different churches, and I was really into learning about different people in different religions, and um— I: So that was part of your interest, was exploring different approaches to religion, or how different kinds of religions— P: Different ways that people interpret their relationship with God, or the universe, or their culture, or their group, I guess you could say.

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I: Yeah. Was it—I’m hearing you right now, put that in terms of “God or the universe or their culture or their group, or Jesus,” and I wonder, uh, that’s such a broad and diverse way of thinking about it, and I wonder—was that something that developed over time? Or was that something as a kid where you were already – P: No, I was super Episcopalian. I: Super Episcopalian. P: But our youth group was kind of a little bit – um, advanced. Well, plus we were, you know, we were on the beginning of the sixties. I graduated from high school in the sixties. I: Ok. P: And was in college in the sixties. I: Heck of a time. P: A time of total challenge and change, and you know, come the revolution—eventually— (laughs) and challenging the establishment—but I didn’t know about all that when I was in high school. I was just trying to find my own way, and I didn’t like the establishment. I didn’t like what-- the limitations the school was putting on me, I didn’t like the expectations that my family had for me, and I wasn’t—very outspoken, ever, about any of that. I was kind of under the radar person. I: Trying to make it happen, but not trying to make a scene about it, cause conflict-- P: Oh right, exactly. I: Just get it done. P: Yes. So being an artist, and going to art class instead of—in our school you could pick things, and well, when we were in middle school we could do all the things, which was again, slightly different than the norm. But um, when I went to college, my, (laughs) my father quit his job the week I went to school, and declared that they were unable to help me at all financially, and I was on my own, and probably should come home. And I wasn’t going to do that. But I had scholarships, and grants, and a lot of faith— I: The week that you went, you say? P: Yes, can you believe that? I: Wow. P: So, they didn’t tell me that, though, for a couple months. My brother was at home, so he was—he had left home when he was fifteen, because of our situation at home—he was afraid he was going to do something violent to my mother. I: Mmm. P: So he had left, but then he came back that year, which was senior year in high school, to try to help my parents financially. He, like, took a job as a janitor at night to help them make their house payment, and they didn’t tell me anything about that for the first couple months when I was at school. But then I found that out, and I was supposed to just come home at Christmas and stay home. I: Hmm. P: And um, which I didn’t do. (laughs) I mean, I came home for Christmas. But I didn’t, I still went back to school, and figured out how to continue to get – I: How to make it. P: --How to pay for it. Yeah. But because of all this, I was planning to be a marine biologist. I was a really good swimmer. And also pretty interested in worms and things (laughs) and so I changed my major to being an art major, because I figured that art history – and also, I was fairly

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talented as an artist—was something that was timeless, whereas if I was a marine biologist I would have to go to grad school, and I would have to have continued financial support, which at the time I didn’t know about, that you could get internships and stuff like that. I just figured, I better figure out how to do what I want to do— I: Like, I have to do this out of the jobs that I can take while being a student, so let’s not plan for something that’s a twelve year degree. P: Yes, exactly, right. And I worked in the dining hall, and I cut people’s hair, and I – but I did join a sorority. As it turned out, someone that my mother knew in the community that we grew up in, had been one of the people that – her grandmother had started one of the sororities at my university. And the way those things work, I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, but they’re very exclusive in terms of, that you have to have references, and a bunch of stuff like that. And they show your picture up on the—during Rush, and do, “does she have enough coolness,” and everybody had to go through Rush, pretty much. It was immediately, when you got to school, and it was all emotional and crazy, and I just thought “I don’t want any part of this”, but, they were very, you know—they wanted me. I – which was an unusual experience in my life, to be the one that they wanted. If you can imagine that. I: To have them seeking after you, yeah. P: (Laughs) And of course, one—there’s a theory of change. You can change things from the outside, or you can be in an organization that has goals that are not necessarily consistent with yours, but you can change things from the inside. So, anyway, I joined the sorority, and I majored in art, and I ended up with a BFA in studio art and art history and a teaching certificate. I: Wow. P: And (laughs) and I worked during the summers at this restaurant—well, I was really fortunate, my friend in high school, her mom—her grandmother owned this really nice inn in our town, and so a lot of us waitressed there in the dining room from the time we were sixteen on. And some of them even came back after we came home from college, and just did that for awhile to get money. I: It was a good opportunity to have. P: Cause you could make, you know, it was a high end restaurant. I: Good tips. P: Good tips. (laughter) Hustle, but good tips. So that’s the story of the beginning of my life, and then I met Dan, and he was at my college, and we dated, and then we sort of broke up—I was also in this program called Upward Bound? I: Yeah. P: So, um, it was um, the summer between my sophomore and junior year, and between my junior and senior year, and then I worked as a teacher the following summer after I graduated. And so it was a six week program, black and white, half of the teachers were black and half of them were white. Students were black and white. And we all tried to help these young people prepare to be able to go to college even though they hadn’t been in a family that encouraged them. And also, we did a lot of – integrating. I: Mmhmm. P: We would go in integrated groups to places that weren’t integrated, like swimming pools, and barber shops, and restaurants, and we would walk down the street holding hands and talking to each other, and we were just like—a peaceful example of how we would like society to be. I: Mmhmm

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P: But it was at a time when it was pretty—Columbus was a hotbed of racial tension at that time. I: Yeah, pretty dangerous time. P: And these students were from there. I: Yeah. P: The students that were in the Upward Bound program. I: So I noticed, you were describing it as helping these students whose families hadn’t really prepared them for college, and of course yours didn’t, it sounds like. P: Right, exactly. I: How was that for you? P: Oh, it was meaningful. I mean, also, I used to be very dark. And I was excluded one time from swimming lessons when I was eight— I: Really. P: They put me in the office and called my mom and told her to come pick me up. And she was of course this incredibly white person (laughs) who came and “what’s up with this?” “Well, she’s—we don’t accept, you know, black children in our, in our swimming classes.” I: Man. P: And so she said “did you take off her swimming cap?” and they took off my swimming cap, and totally straight hair, but I was really dark. And so they finally let me take swimming lessons. And of course swimming became a really big part of my life, and so—anyway, that was one of the things I felt was really important for everyone to have the opportunity to do. The simplest things, like that. So that was how I spent my college life. And during that one, that summer, my (air quotes) boyfriend came back to Medina where he lived, and um- I: Why was boyfriend in quotes? P: Well, because, I don’t know. It seems like a silly term now. I: Oh, that’s ok. But that’s who he was at the time. P: Yeah. He was—yeah, and we dated, sort of as a group, with some other women that I knew and some other guys that were friends with him. (brief delay for phone message system coming on) P: The fellow that I was dating in college seemed like a very nice person. And he was smart, and um, and actually two of the couples we hung out with, both of us got married on spring break. One couple the first weekend, and we did the second weekend. I: And when you say married on spring break, was that a spontaneous thing? P: Well, you know, it was the Vietnam War. My husband was in the ROTC program, in fact they were helping him pay for school, and um, so at Christmas time I guess, it was – kind of— what’s going to happen in the future, and we got engaged then, at Christmastime. And I think both of his parents and my parents were like, “well how is this going to happen, because he’s probably going to be, as soon as he graduates he’s going to be you know, assigned somewhere,” and so, um— I: But at the time, it sounds like that was part of it, was being there at Christmas, and thinking ‘what’s going to happen in the future,’ and— P: Oh yeah. I: We’d better do this now. P: And, and then, um, oh, there’s no way we could possibly get a marriage together by then, and stuff like that. So we of course, then, of course wanted to be able to do that (laughs) you know, right, ‘you can’t tell us we can’t get married at spring break!’ and we wanted to—the same way

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with this other couple, sort of. And so a lot of our friend went to their wedding and then came to our wedding, and it was—which was kind of a—so it was sort of spontaneous but it was also planned in terms of what’s going to happen in the future. And there was one little thing—the fella that I married was offered a … he was accepted in a program in California, to law school, but you couldn’t be married if you went there. So that was one thing that triggered our decision, was I said that, ‘you should go and take this, and go to California, and that’ll be fine, and we’ll figure out if we’re meant to be together,’ and I had plans with a friend of mine from high school to go to Italy and study art in Florence. And—and he convinced me that we should get married, and that he didn’t really want to go to law school in California, and, and, that we would have beautiful children together, and that we should stay together, and that I should go to the army with him, and—it was kind of a kind of time when you had to make a choice? I: Yeah. And it sounds like your initial thought was, maybe this is a good time to take a break, or go – go to these different places for awhile, figure out what we’re going to do next— P: Right. I: And instead the pressure came down to— P: And it was mostly society, as well as personal. Because of the times. Because we’d all been through this—really, a lot of changes that took place when I was in college. And I was kind of a mid-level leader of things in college, I was not particularly outspoken, but I was in a jug band that protested against the war—you know, sang folk songs with another woman, and I was in the Upward Bound program, you know, I was pretty active in terms of um, change. I: Was he engaged? P: And the things that you hear about, in church, that you want to be reality in life. So, a lot of it was grounded in, of course, my religious beliefs. And also my rebellion against my family’s interpretation of – they’re pretty prejudiced. I: Hmm. P: (laughs) I showed my grandmother my Girl Scout camp photos from third grade, when I had a black counselor that was my favorite. “This is my favorite counselor”-- she practically jumped off the couch and “what? What are you doing to this child? Why is she allowed to go—“ You know. All these pictures of racial integration with Girl Scouts was really horrible. (laughs) I: And she was just scared, and angry— P: Well, they were very bigoted, yeah. You know, but I loved my grandmother, she was very helpful to me throughout life. But—um— I: But that sounds like a real contrast again between you and your family— P: Oh right, yeah. I: If I’m hearing you right, kind of, that their interpretation of some of what they were hearing in church may have reinforced that for them? And for you it was kind of an inspiration to change things? P: Exactly. Cause you know—Episcopalians back then were very exclusive also. And the community we lived in was very exclusive. Only the uh, plumber’s daughter—they were black. She was in our class. Would she be invited to the party or not? I: Mmm. P: You know, and there was always racial interpretations, and, later on, when (laughs) things got a little heavier, my parents’ friends used to imagine that a group of black people would come up and you know, attack the suburb we lived in. You know, I mean— I: They were very—that was part of what they were thinking, was—

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P: Oh yeah. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago—I would have been there, except my brother had the mumps. Also I would have come to Freedom Summer, that summer that they had Freedom Summer here, I couldn’t, there was another problem where I couldn’t come then. But anyway— I: But that’s where you were. You were in that circle. P: Definitely, I was. I: Can you—I think you know a little about what you mean, but can you say a little more about the things you hear in church that you hope, that you wish would happen in real life? P: Oh, I still wish they would. I: Yeah. (laughs) I: Which sort of things inspired you there? P: Oh, um, well, let’s see. There’s a song that kind of puts it in—um, “When He Calls, I’ll go to live with Jesus, in his kingdom they welcome everyone”—I mean, I was all about love, and love is the answer, and the first song that I learned to sing as a folk singer was “Let There Be Peace On Earth, and let it begin with me,” I was all about peace and love and Jesus and the shining face of love that accepts everyone, and the fact that because of his coming he made it possible for people to feel that they had a direct relationship with God, rather than that they had to go through all the those, like, slimy people (laughs) that, I’m sorry— I: No, that’s totally fine! Can you say more about what you mean by slimy people? P: Well you know, the uh— I: The systems? P: Yeah, the distance. I mean, the church I was in was what I think they would call a “low” episcopal church— I: Slightly less formal? Yeah, we didn’t have, like, incense— I: But still Episcopal. P: Or as much of the regalia, or as many layers, between you and the—and God. And the minister, and, you know, there was more the feeling—you know, we had a donkey come in with Mary on it at Christmastime. Yeah, so, I think the message of ‘love your neighbor as yourself’, and then—it wasn’t all that easy for me to love myself, when I was that age, because of my family. I: You hadn’t—well, you had said earlier, kind of realizing in high school, oh, this is what they’re calling love, and that shouldn’t be. P: Yeah. My interpretation was different than my experience. And they would say to me, you are so incredibly idealistic. There’s no way you can live in this world. You are so fucking pure, why do you have to be so fucking pure. I: Hmm. P: Things like that. I: As if it’s opposed to reality. P: Yes. ‘Don’t you get it.’ And their whole thing was—of course, living in Chicago, which was actually kind of, uh, corrupt politically—and our holidays were all my mother’s—and her sister, fighting, because my sister married an Irish Catholic Democrat. I: Oh my.

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P: (laughs) Which back then was as bad as marrying a black person, or a Hindu, or something. And my brother, uh, lived in a monastery for a year. I: Really. P: He got a full ride to an Ivy League school, and he went into physics, and he did that for a couple years, and then he um, of course it was the sixties again, he got into this group called the Vedanta Society, which is um, guru-based monastery kind of thing. I: Ok. P: So I, in high school, we visited all different kinds of places, and monasteries, and all different levels of Episcopal church, and I just thought of – well, I liked the simpler things in life. And the simple idea of just helping people, and being, uh—in a community of caring. Probably I would have been a semi-good candidate for living in a commune or something, if, you know, things had turned out differently. I: If the opportunity had presented itself. P: Yeah. And my brother and I wore—he got a pair of earrings that were the peace sign? I: Mmhmm. P: And I wore one on my necklace, and he wore one on his necklace, and when my parents moved to a house – when I was a senior in college, finally my father got a job, so all that time he had not had a job— I: Wow. P: So he got a job and moved closer to where I was, which is part of why we were able to have the wedding there in the spring of my senior year, and they poured a patio in the back of the house between one section and the other, and I had them stamp it in the peace sign (laughs) I mean, that’s how much I was into that kind of thing. So I was like, sort of a quiet rebellious person, I guess you could say. I: Both at the same time, yeah. P: But the basis of all of it was my religious and spiritual belief, and in wanting to—like when I would bake bread, I would chant—uh, um, “to see thee more clearly, to love you more dearly”… you know— I: “Follow thee more nearly—“ P: Yeah, praying, and singing, and that was like—a super big part of my world. And when I was home with the kids, I sewed most of their clothes, I baked all the bread, I had a large organic garden, I um, rode my bike every day with the kids. I mean, I was very— I: And all of that was tied together, sort of daily practices— P: Of spirituality. Yeah. And the whole idea of “chop wood, carry water.” That your life, every day of your life, is your spiritual path. That all the things we think of as simple parts of life are imbued with God’s love, and spiritual components, I guess you would say, or—um. So then, the idea that I was being abused by my husband, who in theory knew me and loved me and understood who I was— I: Hmm. P: It turns out that I chose someone who’s secretly like my mother. So the interesting thing to you might be how I found that out. I was just in huge turmoil because when he knocked me down, he knocked out some of my teeth, loose, over here. I: Gosh. P: And I said to myself that I couldn’t live this way, which I had been saying for several years already.

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I: Was that—an incident that happened kind of abruptly or was that the buildup of a lot of physical things, and that was a big one? P: Yeah, it was just the buildup of moving from verbal to physical. I: Yeah. P: And also he was an alcoholic, which I didn’t know at the time that he was going to be, and he played in a band, so he would come home drunk from playing in a band. Although we had music at our house, too—music was a big part of our relationship. And uh—but when he would, when he was drunk, he—the really awful thing about drunk people is they don’t know what they did, even, the next day, unless you have a tape recorder and a video thing, they wouldn’t believe if you told them that they came home and beat you up and threw up and went back to bed, and woke up the next morning hungover. They have no clue that that’s what they did. I: Yeah. P: It’s very disturbing to the person who isn’t in the middle of all that, or doesn’t want to be. I: Who’s seeing the whole story, and not just the pieces that are going— P: Yeah. So, um, so I got a part time job. My son was going to kindergarten. So that took place one summer, the summer of— I: How long had you been married? P: We’d been married eight years. Or, almost eight years. So it was the summer of 77. In the meantime, my parents had gotten divorced, because my mother, when finding out that my father was sick, had picked him up and set him outside, and locked all the doors, and called my sister and I and said that we needed to come and get him and take care of him. I: Wow. That’s a lot of responsibility. P: And my sister was also living with us, because my mother had thrown her out when she was a senior in high school. And she came to our house, and we helped her kind of, when she wasn’t in classes or living in the dorm. And she ended up getting a really good scholarship. So she was living near us, and my dad was being thrown out, and, and I was kind of like, always trying to make everything better for everyone, kind of thing. I: Yeah, I just keep getting the feeling of being in the middle of this web of a whole lot of things, getting thrown at you at once, there. P: Right. Yes. That was— I: A young child, and husband who can’t remember what he’s doing and is being abusive— P: (laughs) Yeah. I: So were you caring for your dad at that point, too? P: Kind of. First of all, we moved him into an apartment about an hour away. We helped him move into an apartment in the city. And um, he had emphysema pretty badly. He was given six months to live. He actually lived for three and half years. And for the last two and half or whatever, I was the caregiver, and he came and went from our house, and, um. Eventually, in the divorce, he finally got ten thousand dollars, which, he was able to buy a little house in a small town. And it was barely anything, but— I: It was something. P: He lived there—but he used to just show up all the time and need food, or, um, whatever. He was—he was a wonderful man until he became sick, and then he was—fairly diminished, as sick people who are not getting oxygen and food are. So that was hard. So—but, um. So that year, though, that fall, there was a graduate student like yourself who had an ad in the newspaper for

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people who wanted to participate in the study to come and take a test. And my interview with you is partially payback for what happened. I: (laughs) What happened? P: Because I took this ad, and you would get paid twenty five dollars each. Ok, so we didn’t have very much money. And neither did my sister. And so, all three of us, my sister, my husband, and myself, applied for the study, we were all accepted, we didn’t know what it was about, and we were individually tested with a really long test that you took, that asked you all different kinds of questions about if you were in this situation, what you would do, and how would you handle it, and—and then, I was accepted to be part of the study. And my sister and my husband were not, and they were pissed. And um, the woman then explained—well, so it was a group study. And what this student had done was form a group of people; and it turned out—so what she was measuring by the testing was your assertiveness, unassertiveness, or aggression. So it was a scale from ‘you are a doormat’ to ‘you are very aggressive.’ Well, my sister and my husband were very aggressive. And I was the most doormatted person you could be. I: Was that the results of the study? P: Yeah. The result of the test showed—and that’s why I was accepted in the study, because we were going to be learning how to be assertive. How to at least bring ourselves up to the middle, which is assertive. I: Yeah. P: So, um. We met for like, once a week for ten or twelve weeks, eight weeks or something, in a group, and we told stories about well, how did you feel like you couldn’t handle this situation assertively? I: Mmhmm P: Like, our neighbor wore camo and carried guns around in his yard. And he didn’t have a phone, and his family would ask to use my phone. It was hard for me to say no. Even though I didn’t really want them to use our phone, and sometimes one of his sons, it was—would call us in the middle of the night, and we’d have to go get him—but I couldn’t really say, I’m sorry, you can’t use the phone. You know? So that was my example. I: Yeah. P: (laughs) But anyway, during the process of learning that, I had then a personal interview with the woman. And she explained to me that um, an aggressive person is always going to be aggressive. They have no reason not to be aggressive. They have no reason to try to meet you, unless it’s such a strong love, or um, or money, possibly, if you had a lot, all the money. But there are very few motivations for an aggressive person to even try to get— I: To meet you in the middle. P: Yeah. And, so, if you remain in a relationship with aggressive people, and you’re you, over here on the doormat—you’re always going to be abused and targeted and—they can’t help it. I: Hmm. P: And my sister was like that. I mean, she wanted everything to be about her all the time. And I, unfortunately, had partially raised her that way. I mean, she adored me, and I took care of her all the time, and I treated her like one of my kids, and I did sometimes make choices to give her something instead of myself. Also, I wasn’t real well, when I was young. I had a lot of physical problems that were explained by the fact that I was born that way. My joints didn’t work well, and stuff like that. So my thing was, well, I would rather give things to other people. Even if I

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wanted to have more money, it would be to give things to other people. I was very—I wanted my kids to have a totally different life than the life that I had had, I wanted to, um, make everything all right. I: Can—sorry to interrupt—can I ask you, I wasn’t quite sure I saw the connection of, how your not being well as a child played into that feeling of needing to give more to your sister, or other people. P: I had a lot of internal pain. And um—carrying both kids was difficult on me physically. I couldn’t get signals to this leg for a number of years. And, so, it seemed like, well, I might not be here all that long, I want to make sure that everybody else—which is unusual, I think, now. Because I think back on it, I think a lot of people in that situation might be more, ‘I want it all now, cause I may not be here long,’ but I was like, I want to make sure that my kids are going to be independent and strong and feel good about themselves because I might not be here long. I: For a long time, it sounds like, you had that feeling of—I don’t know how long this is going to last, I want to—make sure I can make my presence felt as much as possible. P: Yeah. That’s true—of love. Of all the goodness and good things that I could possibly think of. I: All the good I can do in this amount of time. P: Yes, right, exactly. So, because I was in that study for that whole fall semester of 1977, I was able to understand that there was nothing I could do to change the situation that I was in with my marriage, and I was going to have to end my marriage. And that’s why I had the spiritual crisis, because I—when you’re married in the church, your souls are bonded together, and you’re supposed to stay married, and, only people who are just horrible get divorced, and you have to, you know, go to lawyers and call each other terrible things, and—and back then it wasn’t just like you could say, ‘I was abused,’ and they would say OK. But, there was, um, the ability to dissolve your marriage legally, became the first time when you could actually do that. So we ended up doing that. But I only felt the strength to be able to end the relationship because of my understanding of – I’m a doormat, these people are aggressive. My mother obviously was aggressive. I: And they’re not going to come to me. P: Oh yeah. When my sister and my husband were explained that, they were like—no way am I going to change anything that I do to make you more comfortable. I: So you tried to talk through that model with them, to say ‘this is happening’? P: Yeah. I: And they were pretty—maybe that’s happening but we’re not going to change. P: Yeah, so they verified what she had told me, that they were definitely not going to change. And then my husband, it turned out, was having an affair with a blonde student whose father had veteran’s rights, so she had met him through the veterans’ benefits deal. And then, as a test, we went on vacation that spring of 78, and it was just bad. And he didn’t pay any attention to the kids, or me, and it was just bad. I: That was a test to see, like, can we work through this? P: Uh-huh, yeah, can it—even if we were on vacation, could we—cause his parents had bought this time share down in Florida that we could go to for a week. Can we get along, will we have fun, will he pay any attention to the kids, will there be any love there. No. So when we got back, I asked him to leave, and he gave me four months to find a job, and he would support us for four more months.

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I: How did that go? Because it seems like—you had that time where you were 100% a doormat, and then, it went pretty quickly to you being able to bring that up with your sister and your husband, and to say, we have to do this test, and then to say, this test didn’t go well, and— P: Because I – I mean, there’s that other part of me, that’s smart, and not a doormat. I: Absolutely. P: I mean, part of my doormat-ness was because I wanted to be loving— I: Good. P: Good, right. So part of the reason that – of course I test, in high school I tested pretty high on things, and was in an advanced class, and—but my answers were based on my religious beliefs, and my spiritual, and my belief in love. My belief that this can overcome anything. Ok, so I can’t overcome this. I’m screwed. What is God doing? Is he really paying any attention to the fact that I’m really trying every minute to do this right? How could—how could I now be abandoned? How could my soul have to be eternally linked to this man who would beat me and possibly abuse my children? I: Mmm. P: I mean, that’s where the crisis part comes in. I: Absolutely. P: I mean, because the church at that time, and society at that time, all the rules were saying that you were going to be a horrible person if you divorce this man. My parents didn’t want me to divorce him. This is just the way it is, Anna. I: They had already been divorced at this point? Am I understanding that right? P: Yes, but they didn’t think I should divorce him. I: But they didn’t think you should. P: Yeah. Yeah, you just have to stick it out as long as you possibly can. I: This is just how it is. P: This is just the way life is. Lie, cheat, and steal. I: You’re just too idealistic. P: Exactly! Yes, and he would say, ‘you’re so fucking pure, why do you have to be so fucking pure, why don’t you just have an affair too, it’s lots of fun’. He wanted to wife swap! Hello! I mean, is that love? See, my whole—I guess you could say that my whole conversation is now based on the interpretation, or partially the definition of what is really love. How does love play out in our lives, in our relationships, in the world? How do we demonstrate that this is loving, and how can it be accepted as that? Obviously we had different definitions of what is included in loving someone. Irreconcilable differences in that. I: A real legal term, yeah. Yeah, that does seem to be an important thing you were talking about with your family growing up that—what they were calling love was very aggressive, very abusive, not something that could be received as love. P: Yeah. Or it didn’t feel like that to me I: Didn’t feel like that to you. And then— P: So, like, I would sing my sister to sleep every night. You know, that’s the kind of—I sang my kids to sleep every night. Bath, read a book, sing songs, I mean—I was just all about that. Peaceful, loving, I took in the girls next door when their mother came home having been divorced in Texas, we used to trade clothes around, we had yard sales, we were just constantly giving people things from the garden— I: Very communal—

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P: I would bring people things from the garden. I: Had your husband-- your first husband—ever been a part of that? You described some of your early life, making the bread, and doing the chant along with it, and going in the garden, and walking, and—where did he fit in any of that? Did he do any of it? P: Gone! He was gone. He would come home, and be tired, and eat, and then maybe go play at the bar, or—I also realized when we split up that he had everything. He had three wardrobes, because he had casual wear, rock star clothes, and work clothes. I had one pair of shoes, two pairs of pants, even though I had a job that year in the morning. I had four shirts. Um, at home, I had worn—I had made bibber skirts out of bibbers, and various things like that—I didn’t have much, personally. Anyway, so that—that started a whole process of reexamining my life. And throwing out the chaff, and trying to sort things out, as they say nowadays (laughs). And it took a long time for me to – I wouldn’t say that I was exactly mad at God or Jesus, individually, but— the whole thing of—even personifying God as a man, and Jesus as a man, and is the Holy Spirit possibly female? Please, let that be true? You know? I: Yeah, who are you supposed to connect to, there, in that situation? P: Exactly! So, um, this—when I went on the vacation, I stopped to see a friend. We stopped in South Carolina on the way down to Florida. And they introduced me to the I Ching. Which is— I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it. I: I’m a little bit, but tell me about your experience with it has been. P: It’s an ancient Chinese interpretation of relationships and life, based on a hexagram, and uh, by manipulating the hexagrams you get sixty four different sets of lines, which then correspond to a commentary that was written by a Chinese king many years ago, and then reinterpreted by Confucius, and then re-studied by Jung. So I was into studying that, then. And I kind of transferred my spiritual interest from the Bible, reading the Bible—I read the Bible every day, read the Bible once a year, during my previous—the, when I was married, and when I had— I: When did you start doing that, was that something you learned growing up, or something you adopted as an adult? P: Uh, I did it growing up and as an adult. I: Just always. P: And then I was ridiculed for doing that, by my family, even though they went to church. I: Even though they were taking you to church, P: Yeah, they weren’t— I: Weren’t too keen on you— P: Well, they were like—I don’t know how to describe their—their belief system included that it was important to go to church, because it’s important to be part of the community. Because it was important to them to be part of the community that we lived in. And, which I think is often true of alcoholics. They’re very social. I: Mmm. P: And that’s how they can kind of excuse the fact that they’re alcoholics. And actually, I think a lot of—I’ve now noticed that a lot of young people are almost, you know, trained to be alcoholics, while they’re in college, by the social expectations that many people are interested in. I mean, I had a lot of trouble not drinking when I was in school. I have a super-low tolerance to alcohol. And plus, I didn’t want to become an alcoholic. But—it’s not that easy to be a social person in college, in the military, in the community, if you don’t drink and smoke and sleep around.

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I: Absolutely. P: And that’s what the expectation is, apparently, for the good life. My interpretation was— spend more time in the garden, ride your bike more often, pretend to be an eagle flying down the road. I: Mmm. P: So I, uh, started studying the I Ching, and Jung. I: And was that—I think you said this and I didn’t quite process it—was this with a new group of people? P: No, I stopped by—a friend of mine from high school, who had kept in touch with me in writing, and who used to stop by sometimes with his wife on the way to see his parents, he was in grad school in South Carolina. He and his wife. And when we stopped there, and I think we both, Dan and I both knew we were having trouble, they said ‘let’s throw the I Ching and see’, cause they had been studying the I Ching. ‘Let’s throw the I Ching with Anna and find out what’s up.’ So um, and I didn’t know anything about the I Ching. I: As a way of kind of diagnosing the interpersonal issues? P: Yeah, because it’s an oracle of—so it can, you can bring a question to the I Ching and it will somehow magically find exactly the, the—well, so it’s called the Book of Changes. And of course I was already into change. And uh, what the base of that belief system is, is – there’s nothing constant but change. So, how we handle a situation and how we look at how to change it into what we would like it to be, or closer to what we would like it to be, is what the whole commentary is based on. I: Navigating those constant changes. P: For men. Of course, because it was ancient Chinese. So the whole thing is written for—The Honorable Man would do this, or it’ll give you—sort of a picture of a situation and then how if you choose this path, the outcome might be this way, if you choose this path—so it was a very, uh—and I was 27, so, Confucius said you have to be 50 before you can really understand, totally, the I Ching. I: And a man? (laughs) I: I was just wondering because— P: Well, I rewrote the I Ching eventually with non-gender specific advice. I: Wow, that’d be quite a project, that’s a long thing. P: Well, I was studying it for all these years, until recently. So during one section of my time, I did—every time I would get a hexagram, I would rewrite the commentary to be gender-un- specific. To say the person, or the one, or that sort of thing. I: You were mentioning—yeah—you were mentioning that sense of alienation that came with only having this personification that was male of God or Jesus to connect with, in those moments— P: So that was not a good thing about the I Ching either, but it was something that was easier for me to change, in my mind, I guess you could say. And there were places for women in the I Ching, also, the Strength of the Mare and some other things. So I, and I also started doing what I called dancing barefoot in the yard. I: Mmm. P: So I had this big garden in the backyard, and I would go out there because of my belief that barefoot against the earth, you receive the energy from the earth, and the energy from the sky,

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almost like you’re a battery. And so I would go out in the garden and I would dance. And also, we danced around the table a lot, played loud music, Jackson Brown, and uh, Peter Paul and Mary, and Linda Rondstadt, and Bonnie Raitt, and the kids would all put on aprons and we would have the house shaking, and we would all dance around—so dance and music was, from a spiritual point of view. I: Dance and music, yeah. That kind of physical connection with the earth, and with your body— P: Exactly. So I branched out from Episcopalianism— I: From “the good Episcopalian”? P: (laughs) to other ways. When I’d already been interested in that anyway, especially cause I had gone to listen to the gurus with my brother, and I’d gone to all those different places with my youth group, and I took comparative religion when I was in college, too, and – so my way of dealing with spiritual crisis was to figure out other ways to interpret dealing with the world. Plus, I was going to have to get a job. So—Anna’s world. Well, part of it was that I realized when I was at home with the kids doing all the things that we did at home, that was good. That life was good. It was when he would come home that it was bad. So the whole—so he lived in town for a year, and he would call up the kids and say he was going to come and see them, or he’d call them tomorrow and he wouldn’t, or it’d be three days and he wouldn’t call them and they’d be crying—so we really were grieving this relationship, their dad, during this time. I was making 4.24—I got a job at the library, as an inputter in the catalog department, making 4.24 an hour. I was taking care of my sister, my two kids, and my dad. And I lived in this really big house nearby, that during the first year that I worked, was the oil crisis in 78 and 9. And our heat cost went up hugely. So I started renting rooms. And again that was a form of community, because we had a common room in the kitchen, and I rented rooms to students and faculty members, and various different people during a number of years, like five years. And I was alone for two and a half years— I: How did that happen? It sounds like you had built up a lot of people there-- P: I wanted to be alone. Well I mean I wanted—I was never actually alone, but I never dated anybody, or—I did not want to have another relationship. I was like— I: You were ready to spend time—go on? P: Yeah, sorting. I figured—well, this one thing I read, later, made so much sense, that said, after you—a relationship ends, for one reason or another, death or—divorce, which back then was much different than it is now, socially. And you go to the grocery store, and you look at what you’re putting in your basket, think of how many of those things you’re choosing for someone else, that you have a relationship with. In other words, your whole life, if you feel that love is the way that I felt it was, all of my choices were based on the relationship, and what would be better for him, what would be better for us. I was—very little about me. So a lot of the doormat-ness was, how do you love yourself? I: Yeah, I wonder. P: Putting yourself above the doormat? (laughs) I: Yes. P: So that was one thing I was trying to do. And—you wouldn’t believe the number of guys, who were his friends, and other people that we knew, that would like, show up in the middle of the night, and say things like ‘oh, you must be so lonely.’ I: Mmm.

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P: I mean—slime. I: Slime. P: Like, I am not sleeping with you. You just find out a whole bunch of things about guys that you—eugh. Not that I want to, you know, change your opinion of guys, or anything. I: No, you’re fine. But it sounds like that’s part of – one relationship breaking there, was also, some of the façade on some of those guys who maybe didn’t seem quite as slimy before kind of showed some nasty colors afterwards. P: Yeah, you just see the-- (sighs). Well, a lot of things about people’s choices that aren’t— they’re not trying to follow the same rules as I am. They’re not really living what Jesus would want for us, or what the Ideal Chinese Man would do, or what the Buddhist would suggest that we do, or the Dalai Lama or—any of those things. I: There’s a lot of sets of rules you were working with— P: Yeah, and I was just really into, how do we explain our connection to the universe. I: So, that seems like something that persisted through that time, was your felt feeling of connection? Or was that something that faded during that time? P: My connection to the God that I—that we worship in church— I: That was closed off? P: Was closing off, because he [God] let me down. Big time. I: Yeah. P: So I was looking for other ways to connect with, with, um—well, there’s a, there was a—I think it was one of the Huxleys who said any choice that doesn’t further the development of a person is anti, you know, the future. It’s not good for the future of all of us, kind of. I mean, I’m one of those people who thinks that, you know, one butterfly on your milkweed is um, worth the fact that you have a milkweed in your yard in the first place, and other people think it’s a weed. I mean, that’s kind of an example of how I am, I guess you could say. I: Yeah. P: (laughs) So—spiritual crisis as I see it, and I don’t know if that’s what you’re studying, if it fits into that— I: Absolutely. P: But it was between me and the God that I had worshiped and believed in. I: Yeah. P: And I felt that not only was I let down, but I was trapped. I: Yeah. P: My soul was connected to this guy. I: Bound to this guy, yeah. P: Who was, you know, scum. He and that blonde ended up going to law school, and I don’t know what you think of lawyers, but my father always used to say ‘lie, cheat, and steal’ is their MO. And uh, they eventually got married. And then um, one of the things that he chose to do was represent the asbestos companies against the people who were harmed by asbestos. I: Well. P: So, I mean, you couldn’t be any further from my— I: Right. P: My kind of beliefs, than he turned out to be. And he then married another woman, who – they had children, and he harassed us just unbelievably, call up drunk and harass the kids, and um, not give them the money he said he would give, not give me the money he said he would give, I

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mean, it was an ongoing battle. The entire time they were—from then through high school, and even when they were in college, it was just a-- the third wife ended up shooting herself, when her kids were teenagers. Just to show you how this can play out. And how grateful I was that I made the choice I did, even though it was super hard. And so my thing was just to be alone more or less. Cut off from, uh, from the things that I didn’t want to be a part of. No smoking, no swearing, no drinking, just—change the world so that it’s Anna’s world, when I’m at home. I: Mmm. P: And even my sister eventually wanted to have a big fight, and I said ‘not on my property. Not in my yard. You come back when you don’t want to have a fight and um—‘ I: This is my world right now. P: Yeah. I don’t have control over anything else, but this half an acre. And I had given her so much, and all she wanted to do was take things away. And, uh—and neither she nor my brother would help me take care of my father, or even contribute anything financially. So she called up—my mother lived another—my dad died in 82, and my mother lived another eight years, during which time I didn’t really see her, except once or twice. The first time that she met Paul she met us at a Mexican restaurant and ordered a pitcher of margaritas. And neither of us were going to drink, so she was obviously going to drink the whole pitcher of margaritas. I went to the bathroom, and I don’t know what she told Paul but when he came—she—when I came back, he said ‘never leave me alone with your mother again.’ And she was an evil person. So I think my—my— in response to my crisis was to look elsewhere for spiritual guidance, and connection. I: And also to kind of—figure out what you wanted, too, it sounds like, a little bit. P: To look inside, too. To see what I wanted for the rest of my life. I: So—how was that for you? You mentioned getting into the I Ching—what did that do for you? P: Gave me a different way of interpreting things that made more sense than the Bible, or than even the things that—well plus, I had taken a lot of ridicule from my husband for wanting to go to church, for—and it, it just seemed like it wasn’t a good thing for me to keep on trying to go to church during our relationship because then the kids would hear and see this ridicule. I: Mmm. That they might be in on it too? P: Rather than having a good feeling about it. I: Mmm. P: So they were not raised completely in the church, but not outside completely either, and during the time they were growing up we sometimes went to other churches—there was a nice Lutheran church in a nearby small town we lived right by, the Baptist church was behind us, they used to try to get us to come over there, but I didn’t want to be saved (laughs) at that point. So— I just felt really a strong connection to nature. I think probably growing up near the lakes and just riding my bike a lot and being outside, I felt the closest connection to God. Not necessarily God the Father, but— I: But God. P: Yeah. In nature, in the garden, walking in the woods, swimming in the lake, stuff like that. I: Was there a time – kind of looking back at it—was there a time when you started to feel like – maybe not that the crisis had passed, or that things had changed significantly? P: Well, yeah, because gradually, with the kids getting older and renting rooms, and getting to know other people—I formed a different community. I met a wonderful woman named May, who um, was leading consciousness-raising groups at the Women’s Center at the university

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Back in the, way back in the day. And consciousness-raising groups, I don’t know if you know about them, but it’s sort of—explains patriarchal society and how it makes you feel, as a woman, and raises your consciousness to why things are the way they are now. Why you’re being treated the way you are. And to ask— I: Similar to that study, in terms of having some space to ask questions and talk about these systems, that— P: Exactly. Right. So eventually I led consciousness-raising groups at the Women’s Center. And I was also on a radio show about women’s issues for years, a call-in show where we would pick one topic a week and talk about it, and um, and that was in the early 80s. When I was just getting to know Paul. And um— I: So forming relationships with women was pretty important, it sounds like. P: Oh yeah, I was in a support kind of group—one of the women had broken both of her legs, and so, um, May, she was a good friend of May’s, so she organized this group on Friday nights where we would go over to her house and hang out with her. And sometimes we would go to other people’s houses—there was a guy whose wife had left him, and um, there was a woman whose husband had died of cancer, there was me, there was the woman who broke her legs, there was another woman who was a professor—so, it was kind of like a support group. And then when I was working at the library, there were a lot of women who gradually, I became friends with a few of them. And so, yeah, I stuck mostly to—and we did the first Take Back the Night March here at the college. I: Yeah, wow. P: So we were very, um, you know, we were radical feminists, I guess you could say, back then. I: Yeah, definitely. P: And um, um. I: I guess I’m wondering what kind of meaning— P: (overlapping) So that became— I: How was that meaningful for you personally? P: Oh yeah, it was super meaningful. And it was a group that didn’t want to exclude me, or make me feel bad about myself for what choices I had made, or for having been in an abusive relationship. You feel so much guilt when you’re in an abusive relationship. That you have somehow caused it. And of course the person wants you to believe it that ‘if you hadn’t said it to me that way right then, I wouldn’t have slapped you.’ I: Yeah. P: I mean, that’s the whole basis of it. That you have somehow—so from several, somehow, many years there, I believed, that it was the way I said it, or the look I gave him, or I didn’t make the pie right, or—you know, that I deserved the treatment I was receiving. And of course that’s what you’re brought up to believe, in the family, that you deserve this. And in fact, we call it love. Or, we’re doing the best for you that we can. We’re looking out for you. Whatever. So— I guess I replaced—but I still always had that terrible feeling about my soul. I: That it was linked to his? P: Being connected to his still. I: What— P: I even did rituals, like, I would have a basket and I would put all kinds of different rocks and feathers in, things in there, and have like a ceremony to try and get rid of him. And there’s no real way that the church lets you get rid of him.

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I: Yeah? P: Which has really pissed me off for a long time. I: Yeah. P: And it’s still, even now, when they read that scripture about the divorce. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in church when that’s the scripture of the week, but. I: I have. P: I just want to—what can you do? I mean, you feel so—wait a minute, there are reasons why people have to be able to get out of a relationship like that. I: Mmhmm. P: So, even now, there’s a certain—well, then, when I met Paul, he was very, he was raised in the Pentecostal religion. So quite different than Episcopalians. And he was going to church down in Fairfield, and his wife had an affair with their deacon, at the church he had been going to with her. I: Hmm. P: And so he was in— I: So you were both kind of acquainted with the ways that church can let you down. P: Yes, and then, even then, when we decided to get married, no one would marry us. I: Really. P: Hello! Yeah. Finally, um, well, there was a guy—[aside to dog] yes, everything’s just fine, you can lay down now if you want to, yes)—uh, at the Ministry Center, and the guy there said that he would, ok, marry us, [imitation of disgruntled grumbling]. And uh, (laughs) and then, my husband’s brother got married the summer before we did. And uh, her father was a minister in the Pentecostal church, and they retired to Ohio a couple months before we decided we were going to get married, so he said that he would marry us. So we ended up finding someone who willingly wanted to marry us. I: That was enthusiastic about it. P: Yeah. (Laughs) I: Good. P: Right. But um, so even then, both of us just felt that—our churches, our religion, our belief system had just let us down big time. Socially, or physically, or personally, or whatever, it was not there for us when we needed—when you most need somebody to say, you should act on your feelings, or try to encourage you to feel good about yourself and what you’re doing—not in the church. You know—as the established church was then, or maybe still might be now, I don’t know. I: Some things change, some things-- P: But—so it was kind of a big step for me to start working at the church. And for, for the years that we were married, his kids were going to, uh, Seventh Day Adventists. They celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday. And we had his kids for ten years, every weekend. And we had-- my kids lived with us. So they would come to us on Saturday afternoon after they’d gone to church, and we had them till Sunday evening at seven. So, again, introducing church into that— I: Means double church. P: And their kids are already critical of us—their mother was just an incredibly whacked woman, she was so mean. She ended up marrying—my first husband is now married to his fourth wife, the third one killed herself about five years ago, which was very difficult on my kids and her

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kids, and—his first wife married five times, and the third time was to an abusive, horrible man that raped his children. I: Oh, God. P: And I mean, we have been through just a lot of really horrible things. I: Yeah. P: During which time we raced a sailboat, for ten years, and we showed dogs, for ten years on weekends. And we didn’t go to church, and we said grace every night, and we—I think still lived by the, I guess, the ideas that—‘and in Jesus’s name we ask it.’ It’s funny, we used to pray—‘our bodies—bless this food to our bodies and our bodies to thy service.’ And so when I applied for the job at the church, I was like, well, ‘our bodies to thy service,’ I guess it’s a little more practical than I thought! Because we were just trying to be good people again. And when we were in the dog club, it’s like a community, it’s like a church. I don’t know if you know anything about people who run dogs, but— I: I don’t, what was like church for you in that? P: Well, you go to – you start taking classes with your dog. And then they want you to start showing your dog at shows on the weekends, so each dog club puts on a certain number of shows on weekends, so it’s a whole weekend thing, Friday Saturday Sunday, and all these different people show their dogs, and then we became instructors in one dog training club, and then we had a really wonderful dog that, um, just passed away a couple years ago that was actually very good. So for about six years, my husband was running with people who go to the World’s in agility. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen dogs run agility. I: Yeah, I’ve seen some. P: They have to go through tunnels, and over—so I used to teach that beginning. I: I’ve never had a dog who could do any of that. P: (laughs) You might have. And you didn’t know it. I: (laughs) Very possibly. P: Dogs are pretty cool. So anyway, dogs are better than people, from our point of view, sometimes. So that’s – you’re together with these people a lot, and you’ve—we were asked to join another club, and, um—so between the two clubs and the classes we were teaching and the classes we were taking, and the trials that were run, and the—sometimes there would be a weekend seminar, we’d have to take classes with this woman from Europe that has the number one agility dog in the world— I: Wow. P: So that was cool. But, so, the dog club is kind of like a church in a way because it’s very accepting of anyone who is into their dog and has the money to participate. And you bring food to the trials, and everybody participates—you can’t have a trial unless you have people taking score, and people greeting, and people helping with this and that, and, um—and everybody ate potluck meals the whole weekend—so it’s very, I mean, it’s much more than just going to church for a couple hours. It’s like a whole three days of church. I: The gathering of people— P: People set up tents if the trial’s outside, and—it’s like a whole community comes together. I: People have different roles. P: Exactly, and everybody kind of contributes in a volunteer way, the way they feel comfortable. Like, you can always count on me to bring my salad or whatever. Or oh, maybe she’ll bring her honey rolls this time. People get known for different things, like they are at church. And

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actually, racing sailboats was a lot like that too. We learned from nothing, never—I mean, I sailed when I was young, on the lake, but, Paul had never sailed. But it’s—again, it’s a group, and you’re racing with them, and you’re learning from them, you know, so it’s a community, but it’s not based on religious beliefs. So in a way, it’s more accepting of other people. Especially because a lot of churches are actually very exclusive, even though they— I: Very much so. P: Like, actually Paul’s mom is actually pretty bigoted. She super-believes in God, and she prays all the time, but she doesn’t like Jews. She doesn’t like black people. You know, there’s—I mean, her father was a minister, her grandmother was a minister, I mean, you know. All these people are super-religious, but in their daily lives—again, I’m not sure that they so strongly act on their beliefs. And that’s a really big thing for me to have your life demonstrate what your belief is. To have—that you don’t just go to church for two hours, and say ‘I believe this,’ and sing this nice song, and then you go out and represent the asbestos company against the people being harmed. Or whatever allowed people, especially when I was growing up with, their parents did a lot of questionable things. (laughs) All day long, and made lots of money doing it. And the whole—a rich person—you know— I: “Easier to go through the eye of a needle?” P: Than to go to heaven as a rich person. So I never really was about money, partially for that reason, I guess, too. I: Even being brought up around those values. P: Right. Yeah. But I, and I never worked for profit. After I, after I was—worked as a waitress, I always worked nonprofit at the university, now the church, I mean, I’ve always been a—my daughter works nonprofits, my kids eat organic, I worked at the – between working at the university and the church I worked at the farmer’s market, and I worked for an organic garden when I was physically able. So the only other piece is that—when my mom passed away, in 1990, I was still not really able to use my leg. And I believed all along, like she told me, that I had been congenitally – although I figured out that a lot of it was really that she was an alcoholic when she was pregnant with us, so one of the things, thank God I didn’t get Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, but it’s—bad for your valves and joints. But I was diagnosed with severe arthritis when I was fourteen, and told I would be in a wheelchair by the time I was thirty. And um, but, in 1990 I went to the orthopedic guys and, had a bunch of x-rays taken and had them try to figure out what they could do with my leg. And he said, ‘oh, you were not born this way. Your leg was damaged when you were between the ages of one and a half and two and a half.’ I: Man. P: And um, showed me the x-ray—cause, this leg, the bones are smaller, and everything—it’s two different legs. So you see, I wasn’t allowed to see my grandmother when I was—during a certain period in my life. But I had gone to live with her when I was young—my first memories are being with her, and my aunt. And it turns out that I wasn’t just verbally abused, but I was actually physically damaged and abused when I was a baby and a toddler. I: Yeah, very very young. P: And, um. And that’s why I was in so much pain. It turned out then, later, I found out that my left kidney had been damaged and never worked right. That’s where all the pain came from. I had a stone the size of my hand in it. I: Oh, my gosh.

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P: And it was very large, and infected, and I’d had an infection all my life, but the little tube was blocked, so I mostly never got a UTI. And no doctor ever figured it out. Because I had such bad arthritis, they thought the pain I was in was from the arthritis in my spine and my neck and everything. My hips, my knees, and my arms. So they never looked further, to figure out about the kidney. So I was really fortunate to get that taken out— I: Carrying a lot of pain for a long time, and just accepting, this is— P: This is what it is. I: This is what it’s been since I was born, this is the way life is. P: I’d been in pain all my life. Physical. Severe, physical pain. And, um, and I actually still am in some. I: How was that for you, finding out that that wasn’t just how life had to be, that--? P: Well, that was another crisis, then. I: Yeah. P: Not only had God let me – see, but I always had this feeling. I sometimes wonder if Jesus visited me when I was at my grandmother’s, in my little twin bed. Because I have such good feelings about that. And I have feelings that I was cared for in some way, by God or Jesus or— you know, I always felt special in a certain way. I don’t know. I: Like, that there is a feeling from that time, of being cared for, and loved. P: I guess, maybe that was the only time. I: To match up with these facts of— P: Yeah. I: Also you were being abused by the people around you. P: Yeah. So, when my brother was born, probably that’s when it was the worst, I guess. And they, and then my – I went to live with my grandparents for awhile, and then my grandparents bought my parents a house, and they used to come every Sunday, which is why my parents moved to Cincinnati for awhile, to get away from my grandmother, who was checking on what was going on. But I didn’t know that. I just knew they were coming to see us. So a lot of things, it’s taken me a lot of time to psychologically adjust to the things that I’ve learned over time. But that piece, also, had—being raised in the church, and having—hearing my parents say what they believed in, and then seeing them act completely differently, and do things to us—and then, I mean, at least my first husband didn’t—wasn’t hypocritical to say that he actually believed. In his family, his mother went to church, and his father and the boys didn’t. They ridiculed his mother for going to church. I didn’t know that at the time, but. His mother was super-nice to me. So yeah, there’s a lot of that. But there’s still—the idea of the God that religion teaches us about, and the community that religion is supposed to play in our lives, you know, didn’t really hold up for me, throughout time, as it were. (laughs) Which causes my husband to say, dogs are a lot more honest than people. And— I: Certainly, yes. P: (laughs) And, and—and, um—and for us to just feel probably separate, in a way, from—even though I think we feel comfortable having joined the local Episcopal church, I mean, I didn’t— when I first started working there, I didn’t know if I would even start attending or not, they didn’t expect that. I: Yeah, I was wondering how—how did you happen to apply? Like, what was appealing about that at this time, that--?

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P: Well, so, Paul and I retired in 2007. When I had my kidney taken out in 1996, it’s basically— they cut you in half. I: Mmm. P: Eighteen inch scar, from the middle of my spine, take out my rib, go all the way around to the front of your hip. Three hundred and eighty five stitches. I'm allergic to metal, I’m allergic to adhesive. I: Gosh. P: Luckily I found this cool doctor that we raised sailboats with. I: Hey. P: It was totally a fantastic story, how we found him. I: Yeah. P: And he sewed me up with silk. But still, you’re cut in half. You can basically not do a lot physically after that. No racing of sailboats. But gradually I was able to show dogs and do a few things like that. But still, I’m not physically very good. I: Did the pain lessen? P: Um, not initially. It’s like, whoa! (laughs) I: I’ve just been cut in half. P: Not only that, I look like a blown out tire. And, yeah—but gradually, the pain lessened. But, I mean, I still have arthritis. But oh yeah, that terrible pain—one time I was driving to a nearby city, I worked at that campus the last years of my work. So I worked at the main library in cataloguing for eight years, then the art library, which was wonderful, for nine years, then I went to the branch campus. So driving over there, sometimes I would go on the Jacksonburg road over there, and there was this little pond over here. I was driving a little Honda and I would just think sometimes—I could just drive off the road into that pond, and all of my pain would be gone. I: Mmm. P: (laughs) So one day, after I thought that, a couple days later I drive by, and there’s a cow standing up to about here in the pond. I couldn’t even have driven into the thing and been gone forever because it would have been too shallow. But that’s the amount of pain I was in. I: That’s where you were at, yeah. P: And I finally did get a urinary tract infection, and finally they figured out they had a kidney infection, but it was still four and a half years later of being on antibiotics and antifungals that I finally said to the doctor, after doing medical research over there, that I wanted an ultrasound. They figured it out, and then the next day I went to see this guy we had raced sailboats with who was a urologist in Cincinnati so—yeah, so there’s a lot of things that I’ve had to deal with that really, I guess you could say God let me down. In terms of even providing somebody to help me figure out—although all along, all along the way, I have told you that things were provided and people were provided, like that grad student that had that class, whoa. I mean, that was major. I: That was an important thing. P: Oh, so important. Yeah. I: Do you get a sense—and it’s fine either way, I’m just trying to see how it is for you—that these communities along the way or these relationships along the way that have been helpful, do they tie in your feeling of God at all, is that connected?

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P: Oh definitely. Yeah. And, and also in the meantime, I’ve studied Reiki, I’m a Reiki master. So for the past fifteen years, I’ve been studying that. Which is a Japanese spiritual system of beliefs. I: And that’s very involved with the body as well, right? P: Yes, and healing. I’ve always wanted to be able to touch people and heal them. That’s another thing from my youth, from my being very young. I always wanted to be able to heal people. Hands on healing. Um—on that scale, what is that scale called where you’re an introvert or an extrovert, or a blah blah blah? I: Yeah, I know the one you want. Yeah. P: You’re thinking, or— I: The Myers-Brigg. So I’m in the most small category of people. The 1% of people are this, I’m there. (laughs) I: What does that make you? P: I don’t know, it’s feeling, it’s an introvert—it’s a feeling, thinking—but it’s like where Gandhi and those people are, not that I’m Gandhi. But it’s an unusual, tiny category. So I really am actually proven to be an unusual person. I: Hmm. P: As well as—which I, I’m sure can be difficult, if everybody else is thinking this way, and you’re in 1% of the people who are thinking your way— I: It can be difficult for— P: Or if you test in school and you’re in the 1% up here, obviously you’re not the usual person. So I mean, even in school, although my family was saying about how idealistic—so my sister who lived with me, she meets her future husband. I said, ‘What’s he like?’ ‘Oh, he’s an idealistic twit like you.’ So always, I was like—but now, I sort of feel good about being in that 1%, instead of feeling excluded or whatever. I: There’s something special about that, rather than just excluded. P: Well, that it’s a positive thing, to be—to be unusual like I am, instead of something to be fought against or feel bad about, or whatever. I: Not something— P: I don’t know if that makes sense. I: Well—yeah, I think it does. I’m trying to think of words around it. I guess for me it’s resonating with what you were talking about even back in your childhood of kind of being pushed to be more normal, or be more realistic-in-quotes, kind of— P: Yes. I: Adjusting to the world the way it was, and maybe a lot of people are like that, but you’re not, and that became something to embrace? P: Right. I just didn’t want to accept the rules that—and I can remember too, when, um, I think it was after we were married. But Dan’s father was ranting about the Communists one time, and how you could go over and be raped by a Russian, and I’m like, you could just walk down the street in Wooster and be raped. I: Mmhmm. P: You know. I could never really get around the fact that any other particular group was worse than the group I was part of. I: You were pretty aware of how bad the group you were part of could get.

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P: Right. And you’re supposed to just accept that as ‘it’s ok’. You know, especially – it was difficult for me to adjust to the idea that I was actually so damaged, physically. You know, a lot of, um—ways that people explain even why you have arthritis, or whatever, a lot of times they don’t include damage or injury. But there have to be a lot of young people and women who are damaged physically, as well as psychologically or emotionally. I: You’ve been very hurt, in a lot of ways, yeah. P: Yeah. Well, so, there’s not a lot of answers for that, necessarily, from God. In terms of our— I mean, the thing that I like about the Episcopal church is the ritual, the awareness of Christ’s life and his suffering, which I guess I probably identify with in some way, and his answer to it, and – want to keep on trying, but—you know, to represent that, in life. But then, there’s still a little part of me that—you know, is just—it’s not enough. It’s not really, um, helping me as much as I feel like I need help, or whatever. And I do pray for help a lot. Which I—and I try to give thanks, also. And I try to make my own world. Paul calls it Anna’s world, out there in the flowers. If you sit out on the porch and look out on the flowers. So I mean, I always have tried to make a place where people feel safe, even when we were renting rooms we, we had standard for, you know, people feeling comfortable and good. And some people could actually rob a single mother with two children who has nothing. Could in the night, take some of the silverware. And you’re just like—you know, how low do people get. So, the um, the fact that we really needed Jesus to come and give us a different idea of what religion is about is important to me. I: That resonates still, that idea of—having a personal connection that doesn’t have to go through this broken system. P: Exactly. But there are things about the broken system that I see were really good for me when I was young. I wouldn’t have had that otherwise. And I do feel bad for so many people in our society don’t even have that now. You know, they don’t go to church, they don’t— I: The access to that other kind of community was important? What was important for you, do you think, about--? P: Yeah. Well, you asked me why I took the job at the church. We retired to have more fun while we were still physically able, maybe, while I could still walk. And my husband had a heart attack seven weeks later. I: Gosh. P: He was going to go back to work part time as—he managed major construction at the university, and had a higher salary than me. And I was going to stay home and, um. We were going to kayak, and travel. And my kids lived in Seattle and Santa Barbara, and of course that all changed. And then, um, the library offered me to come back halftime. So I went back halftime, they filled my position with two people when I left (laughs). A master’s degree librarian who I trained, and then I did my other half of my job, the halftime I was there, and then in 2009 the university laid off everyone who was half time, because they couldn’t lay off full time people until they laid off half time people. So there were a number of people in the library, specifically—I had been told I could have that job for the rest of my life if I wanted. But then you couldn’t. I: But then not. P: Then I had breast cancer, cause I had enough time to have a mammogram. Tiny little things, the size of salt. And then again, you’re like, ‘Hello!’ You know. But I had a lumpectomy, and it was grade zero, and I prayed a lot about cytoplastic cells going to kill the bad guys, and so I’m

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very proactive in terms of wanting the right thing to happen. I mean, figure out, do the research, what would it take— I: Yeah, that’s a very targeted prayer. P: Ok, I’ll try this. And I have actually been diagnosed with cancer four times, but I’ve never actually had metastasizing cancer or anything. So, that’s good. I: Have you felt—have you felt a response to your prayers, in those moments of screaming ‘hello’ at the ceiling? P: Yes. I: What’s that like? P: I think when—when something works out easily, then you know that that’s the answer to prayer. I: Mmm. P: Like, my husband’s mother lives in, has been living in Florida for 20 years. And she recently went through the process of getting her condo ready to sell and move up here, because her three children live up here, and we’ve been trying to get her to move up here for awhile, and she really wants to stay down there, but she’s not really good physically anymore. She’s going to be 85 in August. So she and I and all of us have been praying to find the right place for her up here. So, two weeks ago, on Friday, Paul had a strong feeling that we should go look at these villas that he had seen on the way to a doctor’s appointment. So we went there, we go to the model place, and we meet this man who turns out to be the developer himself. I: Ok. P: So the villas of—cause Paul’s mom lives in a real nice condo in a community of retired people—so we wanted to find something. So the villas there are 350,000-400,000 base price, and there’s only one available, and that couple may or may not take it. So we’re just quiet. You know, good. Good for you. Yeah, we’d like a floor plan. (laughs) No way in hell we’re going to be able to! You know. But in the process of asking us about, um, of telling us about himself and basically bragging on his group there, we said where we were from and he, like, immediately got all excited and said that he had been planning to make a community there but then, the recession came in 2008. But that they had made villas nearby. Basically the same thing they’re building in the suburbs, but back then, the construction prices were so much less. So property has lost value, construction has continued to be more expensive. So they didn’t build in town because at that time then, the university had this—we’re laying everyone off, we have a hiring freeze. So it’s not a good economic place. But, they’d already built these villas nearby. So, his mother’s realtor—that’s on Friday. His mother’s realtor had set up places for us to look at on the Fourth of July, which, we had looked at one, and then on Saturday we were going to look at some other places. And, um, during the time we looked at one, it turned out it looked great online but it wasn’t right. We got the call that one of the places was already pending and couldn’t go. So I said, well, what about the villas nearby, is there anything for sale there? So she looked, and she hadn’t found anything before, or even thought that she wanted a condo. One was for sale. Well, let’s drive over there now, so Paul’s brother and his wife, the realtor, and Paul and I drive over there. The woman and her family are all there with a pod, they’re moving out. They don’t really want us to come. But (laughs in response to incoming message on answering machine) That’s Paul. I: It’s ok if you need to answer it. P: Am I taking up too much of your time?

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I: No, you’re doing fine. P: So, ok, so the lady didn’t really want us to come in, cause they were moving, she didn’t really want us to see the place that way, we’re all standing around like, for real, lady. But her son came out and said, well, we decided that we would let you see it. He’ll meet us at the front door, he’ll unlock it. So we go in there and it’s perfect. It’s the perfect place. It looks out from a sunroom onto a lake. She has a lake behind her place, but it has an alligator in it, a big one. This lake does not. I: This one does not have an alligator in it. P: So it’s a perfect place. So by that afternoon, she had put an offer on it. It was just in her price range, and the lady actually came down a little, and now it’s turned out she was able to buy the couch and loveseat that were in the sunroom, she just called me a little before you came to tell me that. So, when something happens like that, one, two days—you know it’s the answer to prayer. I mean, that’s, to me, that’s how you know that it’s the answer to prayer. Because something that could be just—take forever, and be incredibly hard—wow. I: Those pieces fit into place. P: And it’s equidistant from each of her three kids. It’s not exactly where she wanted to live, but it’s a super-nice villa group, with her place looking out on the lake, which is all that’s important to her, because she likes to be in the house looking at the lake, that’s it. I: It strikes me how communal your description of that prayer was, as well. That it wasn’t just you wanting this, it was a lot of people praying and looking and remembering pieces and working together on it, all together, was kind of that process, it sounds like. P: Yes. His mom and I pray a lot. His mom—his mother used to actually kneel in a closet and pray everybody in the family’s name, every night. And, uh, I think she prays everybody’s name every night, in the family too. So there’s a lot of, you know, strong belief. But, underlying, there’s that—from ever that time that I told you about, there’s still this—“I was failed,” kind of feeling. The spiritual crisis aspect of what you’re looking into. I mean, nothing can really take that away, I don’t think. I don’t know. Although, after I had my kidney out, it wasn’t clear I would live, or how long I would live. And, um, there was that—O Brother Where Art Thou, have you ever seen that movie? I: Yeah. P: And the guy—um—made popular the song about—um—(sighs). It’s Paul’s favorite, it’s Paul’s song. About—I can’t remember the title of the song now, but Ralph Stanley also sang the song, about ‘spare me over for another year.’ I: ‘O Death,’ yeah. P: ‘O Death,’ yes. Ok, so I identified strongly with that at the time. And just wanted to be spared over another year. But I have been spared over twenty years since then. I: Mmm. P: So, I mean that, again, is an example of an answered prayer. If being here is what you want. Again (laughs) that could be a question. Is it better to be here than to be gone, and our suffering to be over? I: What do you say? P: Kind of that’s what Paul says, ‘well, our suffering is not over yet.’ (laughs) But, um—well, that is a good question. I mean, that’s another faith-based question about, uh, why are we here, and, I mean, I always felt like I was here to do good. To make it better for other people. I have a friend who had polio, and she has physical damage and is a massage therapist, and has helped me

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a lot. We trade Reiki for massage now. And she has this super attitude, as I do, of wanting to help people and heal people. And so she, she describes it—well, first of all, she thinks that I’m an alien from another country sent as a missionary—but besides that, she—she and I shared the fact that because of our own hardships, we have a strong desire to be compassionate and healing toward others, and accepting, and, um, open—and yet, it’s kind of dangerous to be that way. Because—when people recognize weakness or vulnerability, and they’re those aggressive types, you’ve got a target on your back, you know. So it is kind of a touchy thing, to, uh, to be open and accepting, and make a place for— so basically, though, I, I cut off relationships with— during that two and a half year period when I was alone, with my kids and my sister and my father (laughs)— I: But that sounds significant for you, to call that being alone. Like, to allow yourself to be you, yourself, by yourself. P: Yeah, cause I had never really felt that way. I: Yeah. There’d never really been a time to do that, it sounds like. P: No, uh-huh. And—well. That’s another thing that our society doesn’t really give you a lot of space for, or encouragement toward. Unless you’re into one of those sects like my brother was in for a year. To, you know, meditate, to look inside, to, um—but during those years, I decided that I would no longer have a relationship with my brother. He tried to come and take my son away and raise him. I: Hmm. P: And uh, and my sister, she called about four years later, and someone said, ‘did she call to bury the hatchet?’ and I said no, she called to define the hatchet. Because it was really just laying out all the reasons why—either you change, or, or you’re cut out of your mom’s will, I’m taking everything that would have been yours. Which is what she did. So you know, you have to kind of protect yourself in a way. You have to—again, from this woman whose study I was in, you realize that you’re never going to have the power to go up against those people who are aggressive. It’s kind of like in The Terminator. Have you ever seen the Terminator? I: It’s been a long time, which part do you mean? P: Well, the Terminator is relentless. I: Yeah. P: And at some point, you are going to have to face the fact that it’s either you or the Terminator. And you have to— I: You can’t be on the run forever. P: You have to pull yourself away from those aggressive people who you know are going to abuse you or take advantage of you or hurt you. And that’s not something that we’re taught in— certainly not in my family, not in society either, I don’t think. Um, and even—we went to see a counselor. When—after Paul and I got married, we thought it would be helpful if he and I went to see a counselor, and if each of the kids was able individually to see a family counselor. So, we went to see the family counselor together, and then we each went individually, and we set up times for the kids to each go individually, when we had his kids. And, we tried to explain what it was like to deal with my previous husband and his previous wife trying to mess with us all the time and screw things up. And he was like ‘no, it can’t be that bad, you just need to try to realize that they have their own problems, but—it’s just like you, they’re just like you, but—‘ And then, um, I was filing cards into the card catalog at the library and the guy comes in, shaking like a leaf, white. He had gotten a phone call from my, Paul’s former wife, um, who reamed him up

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and down about having her children in his office, and he said ‘there’s no way I can see your family anymore. You were right, she’s just whacked, I can’t—‘ He totally ditched us. I: So he went straight from—sorry— P: (laughs) Yeah! Straight from, you guys just have to kind of cool it— I: You must be making this up, to, you’re not making it up, therefore I completely reject you. P: Exactly. I: Oh man. P: So again, looking to find what our society— I: To the people who are supposed to support you. P: To help you. Yes. To be there through whatever, you know, to guide you through this, because they know some way that’s going to help you deal with your problems better than you are. I: I don’t know if this strikes you this way or not, I guess—when you told this story, something that hit me, was, that seems kind of like a church reaction, that twin—bad things don’t happen, but if they do— P: We don’t want to hear about it? I: We don’t want to hear about it. That’s—so you ran into that with the counselor too. P: Yeah. So all along the way, in my life, anyway, there have been unexpectedly good and wonderful people and things that have happened. But again, it’s a small percentage based on the bigger, sort of the big lie of our society, which is that there is help available, God is there for you, counselors are there for you— I: Everything’s fine, and if anything happens to go wrong—God and the counselor will fix it shortly. P: Yeah, or show you a path. So I wrote these journals for awhile. And I was looking for a path on which I can find my heart, was kind of the way I was describing that time period when I was alone. And I was looking for—how to really find my own path, that allowed me to be who I was, without feeling bad. You know, and I think a lot about the ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ It’s really hard for people to love themselves. More less, love somebody else. I: Sounds like for you, it almost needed to be flipped, it was easier to love your neighbor than to love yourself. P: Yeah, because I had all these reasons given to me why I was not what I should be. And that basically turned out to be my husband’s rejection of me. Although I actually asked him to leave, I felt that he rejected me by, you know, having the affair, and not seeing who I really was, though he thought that he did, or said that he did. And I should have—there was a clue. We graduated—so we lived together in this little house near the college, we lived—they were on quarters at that time, so, after spring break was a full quarter, and then you graduated. So, I got straight As that quarter. I graduated with a BFA, in both studio and history, art history. I also got a teaching certificate, which is a lot of extra classes and stuff. I: Absolutely. P: And I, my, um, artwork won the Best in Show in our senior show. And, when this came to light, my husband was pissed off. I: Mmm. P: Because he got a 3.85, and I really shouldn’t have gotten an A on that paper that I wrote, and—I mean, he—he went into a big thing about—I mean, it was competition, you know, but

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he—it pissed him off that I did better than him. When he should have been proud of me, that while being married to him, I could do that well! Wouldn’t you think? I: You had this series of triumphs, yeah. P: So is that love? So maybe, at that point, I might have thought—big mistake, to marry this guy. But I didn’t. But I mean now, I can look back—I felt bad. But again, you know, I was used to having people treat me that way. I: It was harder to see it then. P: Well, and plus, you know, I couldn’t have divorced him then. But you know, again, it’s an example of the love thing. That—is this love. Wouldn’t you think that if someone loved you, they would be proud of you. And you find that in situations where people work, too. There are some supervisors who can give credit to people below them for people below them for doing good, and there are other ones who just take all the credit for themselves, and keep on you to keep doing more, but take the credit over here for themselves. So when you see it, in a lot of settings— I: Absolutely, any relationship— P: I suppose. I: I’m wondering—cause that does seem to be sort of a throughline that’s come up, is that question of ‘what is love.’ And I wonder where you’re at with that now. P: I still think love is the answer. I still think that I want to be seen as and be an example of someone who, even though these things have happened to me in my life, I still am compassionate, and caring toward other people, and even want to heal them. If possible. Which, Reiki does give you the feeling that it is possible to help people heal. I: Which is something you’ve wanted a long time. P: Right. When I do Reiki with people, I especially feel a connection with—but I think of it as a connection with the Universe, and—(laughs). When I was at home, and I was trying to think of if I could get a job, I described what I did as ‘life force management.’ Raising children, growing food, cooking bread, you know. I: Yeah. P: So that’s kind of the way I feel about it now. And especially when you—I don’t know if you know very much about the I Ching, or qi, or, whatever, but it’s life force. The concept of—of— it’s not God, it’s life force, or the energy of the universe— I: The process of everything moving through everything, kind of. P: Right. Exactly. So that’s what I feel connected to when I do Reiki with people. But I always say ‘dear Lord, please send Reiki now.’ So my mantra that I chose, or my question that I ask— some people just say ‘turn it on’ or—I mean, there’s any kind of way you can, as a Reiki master, that your Reiki will begin now. But I always say, dear Lord, send Reiki now. I: What led you to choose to do that? P: Well, I—I guess that’s the question that, that’s how I still communicate with the forces that we’re talking about, is that I believe that this is provided as a part of God’s love. Rather than just as, you know, as the life force of the universe, or whatever, I still believe in God’s love. But I just wish that the way people explained it and presented it to others included women, and—you know, and even that. If you look at it from the consciousness-raising point of view. The Catholic Church, and those men, who are the most powerful and rich men in the world, have found a way to make it all about themselves, and how needed they are in order for you to communicate with God. And they’re one of the biggest groups of religious people on the planet.

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You know, they still have people—lots of people—who believe that it’s all about men, and they’re needed. When in reality, who is it that gives life to another? A woman. I: Seems pretty significant. P: (Laughs) Right? So they can’t. All they can do is kill. They—I mean, I think that’s the initial thing about people, or the sin, or whatever, is men recognizing that—if they didn’t really keep track of the woman, they have no idea if it’s even their child. But a woman on her own, with—a tiny bit of help—can actually bring life into the world. So it’s kind of like they usurped that. Men, and religion, and the whole patriarchal view. I: Those systems tie together pretty tightly sometimes. P: Well, like, so, and then if you study the Native Americans who, in theory, at a matrilineal society, and where women were seen as spiritually strong, instead of as witches to be burned, because they knew about herbs and healing—even back then, when you studied herbs, and herbal healing, you could be burned at the stake? I: Even within the Native American communities? P: No, I mean within the European religious – I: Yep, that surprises me less. P: Our background, our—our guys. I: Yeah. P: There were villages in Germany that wiped out every single woman and child that was female. Now how can that be right, you know? I: It cannot be. P: I mean, how can those women have all been evil and those men be—perfectly wonderful. I mean— I: Even while— P: So even looking back through history, or whatever—and I don’t like all the futuristic movies that they have now, where, you know, post-apocalyptic zombies and all this horrible stuff. I would like to picture that as a society, we will eventually actually get it, and be good to each other. Again, being such an idealistic twit as I am. (laughs) I believe that somewhere, it’s possible to, to um— I: That that’s something that can build on Earth, in life. P: Earth, yeah. Heaven on Earth, instead of waiting till afterward, when we all get our wings and our crowns and our—if we do, kinda thing. Well, plus, it’s not so good to—you know, to feel that things are going to be better after you’re dead. How about having it better now? You know, we’re here now. With each other. I: That seems to be—at least from what I’m hearing—a really significant part of how you’ve lived your spirituality, is in the here and now, and ‘what can I do with this time that I have, in these moments that I’m living, in the tasks that I’m doing—this is the stuff.’ P: Yes. Yes. I: This is the spiritual stuff, I’m not waiting for it to happen someday down the line. P: Right. And even that song that I quoted—when he calls, I’m going to live with Jesus, in his kingdom he welcomes everyone—well, I got to thinking, you don’t have to wait till you die to live with Jesus, you can live with him right now, here. That’s the whole message, really, is—and in theory, why he came to Earth and was with us is to say ‘now is the time.’ ‘If not now, when?’ So, I mean, I do incorporate Jesus and those beliefs into my daily belief system, but I’ve just

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studied and become aware of a lot of other belief systems that—are also flawed, but (laughs) help me understand people, and what’s up. I: Yeah. Yeah. Well that’s—and I would also just, say that, the other piece that really strikes me, is you told that whole story that—almost, I don’t know how to phrase it, but almost a guiding sense of dissatisfaction. Of seeing hypocrisy, or seeing people not live something they profess to believe, and knowing internally—that doesn’t feel right, I want to steer away from that. And kind of, in that first marriage—knowing at some point, this isn’t right. We can’t live like this. P: Yeah. No. I said that for years. I can’t live like this. I cried every day. Every day, I cried. Crying was my release, I guess. Even after I started working at the library, I’d get out of there and sit in my car and cry until I had my good cry and then I’d go home and me with my kids and stuff. But, um. I: Was that ever a time when you considered talking with anyone about what was going on, or seeking any kind of help? P: During those times? I: Or was that just impossible, at that point. Yeah. P: Hmm. Well, there was no religious person that I was connected to at the time. Um, probably the only – well, I didn’t think about going to a counselor. I did take my son to the –well of course I met that woman, cause of the study, so I knew the psychology department existed, and there were people studying to be psychologists, and stuff. And at one point my son was very upset because of his dad. They used to be so upset when they would come home from seeing him. So I took him there, and this – and this guy took him into his office, and, um—I guess he was in there for about an hour and a half. When he came out, he was like a different kid. I: Hmm. P: He was like, twelve, maybe. And he was like—it’s not my fault. I: Mmm. P: It’s not my fault that my father treats me this way. It’s his fault. I’m ok the way I am. And he kept that feeling for the rest of his life. I: Wow. P: That it wasn’t his fault. And I think that’s the hardest thing, when you’re abused, or when you’re in situations like that, is to say it’s not your fault. That’s the theme of that Good Will Hunting movie, is, it’s not your fault. Well, that’s a super-hard concept for me, still, sometimes, to get. Because even though I’m saying well, it’s kind of cool to be in this 1%, it kinda makes it seem like it’s your fault, too. Cause you’re different than, you know. I: So—like, how can you possibly expect them to understand, that kind of thing? P: Yeah. But yeah, so when we went seeking something to help for my son, he definitely received help. But then when Paul and I tried to receive help— I: It didn’t work. P: Well, I went to, I did, because I was real active with the women’s center, and, you know, took and then led consciousness-raising groups, and so those women were-- I: That’s a huge deal, yeah. P: And then, um, the radio group, that I was with, we would study those topics and talk about them. And, uh, some of those people were psychologists or whatever. One of—the guy who lost his wife was, I think. So we talked about things. I mean, that support group I was with was like seeing somebody, I guess.

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I: Yeah. P: You know, I didn’t have any money to pay anybody, for certain. And even then, I went to like—family services, or whatever. And they said, well, you would have to quit your job to qualify for our help. But I would have actually made more money if I had quit my job and gone on aid, dependent children, blah blah blah, then when I was working. Now how can that be right? I: It’s hard to believe how it works sometimes. P: How could they not just be willing to help me a little? You know, they wanted me to change my whole life, or not. Or goodbye. So the people that I sought help from, I guess you could say, were not helpful. Or were. Planned Parenthood was very helpful. I was super-supportive of them. But then a new university president came, and he closed the school my kids were going to, he closed the women’s resource center, and he changed the radio so we couldn’t have our show anymore. So then you’re like— I: So that’s a lot, yeah. P: Everything that I care about, everything that I’ve put my whole self into, is –tshh. Not profitable. I: Yeah. P: Not supported. I: It does— P: It took eight years for women to get the women’s center funded again. And May was so smart. She had them funded from five different departments—a piece from here, a piece from there, so that no one person or department could close it. And gradually, they’ve put it back under just one department with one person. Now they’re moving it, I don’t know what’s going to happen to it. But, you know—crush the radical feminists now, before they take hold in our world. I: Well, partly what it sounds like is crush them over and over again. P: Yes! Yes. I: It’s reminding me of what you were saying with the I Ching, in that—the only constant is change. Through this is—make a connection, lose a connection, make a connection, lose a connection. P: What can you count on? Right. I: Sort of constantly – not having the one thing to count on. P: Right, where you would think that it would be God. Or it could have been. Could be. And I still think it is. But—but it’s flawed. I: Yeah. And maybe the way of reaching God, or being in touch with him—or, them, or her, or whoever, or whatever (laughs) that refers to at any given time—the access changes, it sounds like. Or certain ways get cut off, or blocked off. P: Well, I think even people who are attending my church now, many—there are very few who are ‘cradle Episcopalians.’ And there are probably many people who don’t deeply believe every single thing we say and sing and do. But they want to be so much a part of something that’s happening, good, that they are willing to overlook the things they don’t actually believe in. I: Well, the things like you were believing in—not enough. P: Right. I: Are you kidding me.

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P: (laughter) Yeah. I mean, but I do want the church to prosper. I mean, I’ve become, you know, connected with—and Paul went through confirmation, and became confirmed in my church, and stuff. But he still takes offense, sometimes, I think, to the political nature of some of the people in our church. He doesn’t want sermons to be about—the political things that are happening in the world, which everybody seems to have a huge amount of conflict about right now. Uh, I would also rather that when you go there, it’s about God, and a community that we’re creating that—isn’t focusing on and talking about these specific individual groups that we could or couldn’t hate. You know, so, I—some of the people in our parish are more active politically, you know, maybe than it’s appropriate, in terms of—we accept everyone. If you do or you don’t, I mean—I don’t know how to describe that part. Is this helpful? Is this the kind of thing you’re looking for? I: Absolutely, no, no, you keep asking that (laughs) P: I just want to make sure that I’m not taking up your time for no, uh— I: No, I’m delighted. Sometimes that doesn’t show, but no. P: So—so that sharing. And I wanted to say one more thing—it still kind of pisses me off when someone doesn’t recognize me for who I am. I: Hmm. P: Like when somebody applies their own set of standards—of understandings or standards, or whatever—and they’re that other way, other sort of person, that’s competitive and mean, etc.— and then they are somehow in a setting with me where they misinterpret my actions, or my – just trying to clarify something, for example—that does make me mad. I: Not recognizing you for who you are. P: Which I’ve learned to understand, again, it’s not my fault, it’s their ability to, to understand and accept the fact that there really are people like me. (laughs) I: What do you mean in that way? P: Well—okay. For example, at the, in the library, there were three other staff members. And— they had this kind of group that I didn’t know about that was trying to blame me for a lot of their problems. And, um—I finally found out about it because one of the women turned on the other woman, and then she knew what it felt like, and she came and apologized to me at some point, right before she retired, because of the way it was, and she was left doing this woman’s job a lot. But, um—the fact that they, that they recognized enough of me to know that I could be their victim instead of thinking of me as somebody that should be left to be the way I was, you know, the fact that they would spend—and this one library administrator said, ‘just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’ And they really were! And this woman finally admitted to me that for like, five years, they had been telling the director all this stuff that wasn’t even true, because I wouldn’t do this one woman’s job. And then, when the other woman refused to do that woman’s job, she turned on her, and she was like ‘well, I’m not going to stay here and take that,’ so she, but she came and apologized to me. And then she sort of expected that I would be her friend. I: Mmm. P: Like, because she had—she still sometimes asks me for my email, now that we’re retired, and I promised myself I would have nothing to do with them after I left. And I just ignored it the whole time I was there. The director would say, ‘well, it doesn’t even seem like you pay any attention to that.’ Well, see, I’m on this other path. I— does that make sense? I: It’s not that it’s not bad, it’s that you’re focused in a different direction.

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P: Yeah, I’m focused on doing my job the best I can, and helping people. And, you know. I: Yeah. So people, sounds like in that situation, kind of—misrecognizing you. P: They were taking advantage of me. I: Recognizing you just as, ‘here’s someone we can exploit,’ instead of as human being. P: Yes. Here’s someone we can take advantage of, here’s someone we can blame for things when they go wrong. Here’s someone we can take offense to when they say something we don’t like, or, whatever. So, that part is still kind of hard. I: Yeah. P: And, actually, just having to say—to draw a line. You know, to realize that you can’t let bad people get away, when you recognize that’s what’s happening. For example, they used their mother’s handicapped stickers, the two of them. They would trade each other, using the handicapped—so when I became able to have a handicapped sticker, I was actually allowed to use that, and the woman, just one of them blew up at me. ‘You’re not really handicapped. You have no reason.’ She couldn’t accept the fact that I was going to be able to use that. And even the director asked the physical facility guys to wait until he retired, five months later, to get another handicapped spot there for me to use, because it would cause so much trouble with those women. That he actually favored them, and kept me from having a handicapped spot. ‘Oh, you can just park down there and walk up to the library,’ which I couldn’t do. I: Hence the handicapped spot, yeah. P: I mean, that’s how far people will go to make themselves comfortable at your expense. I: Yeah. Well, and it sounds like that’s—maybe been something that’s changed in your idea of what it is to be a good person, is that thing you were just saying of —you can’t let bad people get away with bad things when you know what’s going on. P: That’s kind of part of it, isn’t it. Yeah. Yeah, the whole time I worked at the library I always helped anybody who was handicapped. You know, anybody who—I had one of those signs in my office about, ‘you’re safe here,’ and I’ve taken endless classes on diversity training, and all the—I’m ok, you’re ok, and all that stuff. I: Yeah. P: But even so, it’s—it’s not, or, if I’m living by Reiki’s rule, or the I Ching’s rules, or the Episcopalian rules, or whatever, most cases they’re not. And they’re not even acknowledging that you are. You know, that you have taken vows to not mess with them. (laughs) Or whatever. I: They’re on their own. P: Yeah, when I retired, my director said, the previous director actually made them wait to put your handicapped spot in. As soon as he took over, he made sure they had it there, but—he didn’t want me to know that, even, until I was leaving, although I suspected it, you know. And that’s, that’s like, I could have sued them for not accommodating me. I: Yeah. P: Would you ever think that someone who wasn’t handicapped would yell at and try to keep somebody who was handicapped from being accommodated? I: (sighs) Well, you know, you would hope not, but I believe it. P: I went to see my daughter in Seattle, and I had my brace on, and I ended up—now this is one of those good things—ended up sitting on the plane next to a woman who had a brace like mine. And she shared with me the ways in which she had been discriminated against at work, and the things that people had done to her, very similar to me, because she was handicapped. (to dog) What is it, baby, huh? Are you a good girl?

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I: A lot of sitting and talking and not enough petting the dog (laughs) P: Well, anyway, those people have different expectations for themselves, and different rules, and then when you’re the person you are, they don’t— I: That doesn’t mean anything to them. P: Uh-huh. So in a way, being religious or spiritual or whoever you are—you know, can still— cause you to be persecuted, or. So in a way, if you read the prayer book, or you listen to the life of Jesus and the things that his followers encountered, you can both see how men benefited from that, like the Catholic Church, and how people still are wanting to identify with, with Jesus and his suffering, and—and how people—so, it’s very interesting to think about all these things. I: Those both exist at once. P: Yes, right. Yeah, so—so what’s the symbol for that? The yin-yang. Right? Always within the dark, there’s that little bit of light, and within the light there’s that little bit of dark. That was one of my ceramic projects, initially, was to make a yin-yang (laughs). I: It’s a powerful symbol. P: Yes. I: That—acceptance of—this is as close as it gets to stability. P: Uh-huh, right. I: A little bit of darkness in the light, a little bit of light in the darkness, and moving. P: Right. So anyway, um, I wanted to help you, but I also wanted to pay back that lady years ago. I: Well, I wanted to tell you, that’s—I’m really honored by that. Especially hearing your whole story and how important that time was. P: It was super-important. Yeah, so I—although I didn’t actually seek her out, as someone to help me, when we, when we applied for taking the test for twenty-five dollars, it turned out to be, you know, one of the most important things I ever did. And also, the fact that my husband and my sister took the same test, and then were, you know, so clearly— I: Different. P: You know, it wasn’t like we were anywhere close (laughs). I: Yeah. P: You know, and it was very typical of my parents’ relationship, cause my mother was super aggressive and violent, and my mother was very unassertive and, uh, he just kept on loving her anyway. There’s something that I wonder about psychologically—how that kind of a person has a hold on other people. Because—I would have done anything for my mother, and to help her. Even—and of course I didn’t know the whole story—and my father, still, would have done anything to help her, and only wanted, please would you please just love me. I: Yeah. P: My sister, that’s all she wanted. Just please, would you love me. You know. Um, even somebody that violent and abusive. You, you just wish that they would love you. That you would be loved. And of course, when it’s your mother, it’s big. I: It’s big. When it’s somebody who can physically hurt you when you’re a child, it’s big. P: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think about that, man. I: A lot of big. P: What would my life have been like, for example, if I hadn’t been disabled all this time? And there—even back in high school, there used to be this thing called the Scholastic Reader. And somebody wrote a poem about, who was a disabled person, about, ‘did God’s hand slip when he

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made me?’ because she was somehow disabled. So it was still, you could blame God, instead of thinking that your prayers were answered. I think a lot of people do, when someone dies, a child dies, you know, they get really pissed off at God. And, I wonder how much power does God really have over our individual daily lives here and now. I: Mmhmm. P: Is he even present at all? Is it just totally our imagination? Does every culture have to imagine, or are the—have you ever watched the program ‘Ancient Aliens’? I: I have not. I know of it. P: Oh, it’s so cool. So their, their belief system is that we have repeatedly throughout history been visited by E.T. and that they’ve even manipulated our DNA— I: Oh my. P: And mated with—you know, the stories of the Greek gods who came down and mated with the women— I: So it’s sort of an explanation for ancient religions? P: Kind of, yeah. Yes. So they can even show you times at which our society has been influenced by, and still is being influenced, by aliens. I: Is that something that is part of your system of belief as well? P: No, but I can see why—why people would look for answers like that. I: Mmhm. P: I mean, if every society has in some way wanted to connect with the stars, the universe, the sky—I mean, imagine if we didn’t have electricity, and you were back in the day, the sky would be all about it, man. I: The sky becomes very important. Yeah. P: I mean, when I used to dance in my yard at once, oh, the power. And the power of the ocean—the power of, uh, storms over Lake Michigan, I mean—where does that all come from? Is that God? Is that ancient aliens? Is that the sunspots? I mean, we still don’t know so many things about our own existence here, right? So questioning, and—your own spiritual beliefs are probably part of some people’s lives, I guess. Trying to say, how does it work. I: Exploring the questions. No, that’s—I wanted to first thank you for going through so much with me, I really appreciate that. I wanted to check on a couple things, because we’ve covered so much in this interview, and I just want to be sure I’m not missing anything important. Um. (pause) P: I have little stories that I tell, to give examples of things. I: Yeah. P: That help me to understand myself, and choices that I’ve made. I: Yeah, I’ve really appreciated that, I think that’s great. P: (laughs) I: Stories are very important, for understanding. I guess that’s—part of what I’m thinking, as well, is—when you think about—and you talked about sort of two crises, or kind of one crisis that blended into another one. Do you think about there being any particular turning point through that, or more, kind of—it almost sounds like a constant turning, that you’re describing. Was there ever a point where you felt like, or looking back on it you feel like—the crisis is over? Or, you’re not in a crisis anymore? Or does that feel like something that sticks with you? P: (pause) Well, I would say—in answer to your one question about, did I ever ask for help. Several times, people suggested that. But—I wanted to remain a forward looking person. And I

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think a lot of times, psychology asks you to go back, and spend a lot of time trying to analyze what happened, and why, and I —except for talking with you—don’t do that very much, and didn’t think it would be that helpful for me. I: You wanted to be looking forward. P: It seems to me like closing the door, and, um—trying to make a different place, is more valuable than dwelling on, or analyzing the past, I guess. I: Mmhmm. P: Although, when I’m talking to you, you have to start somewhere to develop the story of how you got to where you are. But, um, I don’t think Freudian analysis would, for example, suit me. Because I really want to see, how can we get on that path where our heart is, or make that world that’s Anna’s world, or—so, I guess the crisis was never deep enough for me to want not to go on and figure out a way to deal with it. Like, to be a problem solver, what they call ‘resilient’ now. I: Yeah. Well—well I mean, help me understand that. Because it sounds like you’re saying, the problem wasn’t severe enough for me to not want to solve it. P: Well— I: Seems like it makes sense to me that it would be very urgent to find your heart. P: How many people really do that? How many people become abusers, versus the people who completely make a different world for their children, that they never even knew that that existed? I: Yeah. P: I mean—what do you think the numbers are like? Isn’t it—most common that people who are abused become abusers? I: It’s not most common, it does happen. But I think it’s—most people fall in the middle. P: Really? I: Yeah. Just in terms of the statistics which we’ve got, which are not perfect, obviously. P: I was wondering about that. I: But yeah, I think it’s something where—(reaction to dog) P: (referring to dog) If she’s bothering you, let me know— I: Yeah, I think, from what I understand, which is also not complete, there definitely has been a research on cycles of abuse, which are very very real. And then also, in researching that for a long time, people weren’t paying enough attention to people who were resilient, or who did manage to break the cycle. P: It’s like a whole new thing, just a couple years ago, right? Fifteen years— I: Yeah, it usually takes a couple years for the researchers to catch up with what people are noticing. But that’s been a very important thing, because of course, when people who have been abused are only told, you have no choice but to perpetuate this cycle, then it doesn’t really make anyone to talk about being abused. P: There you go! I would never want to admit to anyone that I came from an abusive, alcoholic home, or that I was abused, or, I mean—I don’t want that to be part of my world. Because then the expectation is, that, you know— I: It’s just going to keep happening, and you don’t have any choice. P: Watch out for her, because— I: Yeah.

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P: I mean, I was very fortunate to meet Paul, who would say ‘don’t ever leave me alone with your mom’ instead of ‘I’m outta here.’ (laughs) I mean, he was able to recognize me, as a different person from – I: That I want to be with you, not with her. That separation. P: Yeah, right. I: That sounds very important. P: Yeah. (to dog) You’re a very pretty girl. And you’ve been very patient, haven’t you. I: She has been very patient. Well, the last thing I wanted to ask you already touched on a little bit, but I just wanted to ask what the experience of sharing this story has been like for you. You were saying it’s not something you normally do, to go back through all this stuff. P: Right. I: What’s it been like, just sitting and talking through this? P: I felt like I did better than I thought I might. I: What do you mean? P: In terms of being able to explain to you—what the progression, and how, how it has influenced me, and, um. Like I said, I decided no matter what it was going to be like, I really wanted to, um, well—I mean, I admire you and I like you, that’s part of it, but it’s mostly because I, I want to help. I: Cause of the study. P: Because I want to pay back for what this woman—helped me, and therefore I want to help you be able to help people better than you, you know. To know that there are people like me. I: Definitely. Definitely. P: So I, it’s been hard thinking about seeing you, and I kept thinking—are we cancelling for one reason or because I really won’t be able to talk with you, when the time comes? But that hasn’t been, you know, it turned out tonight that it did work out, and I’m really glad it did. I: I’m really glad it did too. P: I just felt that it would be hard with my husband around, to share with him. I: It’s a lot, yeah. I think it’s something that’s easier to go through one on one, usually. P: Oh, yeah. I: So much stuff. P: Yeah.

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Matthew I: So this is fairly open-ended. From my perspective, I have some questions that I’d like to touch on, but I think I’ll just sort of fit those in as we go. P: Okay. I: So we can start off, just going over, what I was looking for when I started putting this together was reflections on a time in your life when you entered into a time of spiritual crisis, um, that can be understood as a time of intense grief or loss psychologically, often there’s a lot of deep questions about life or a feeling that life has lost its meaning; this can often lead to a significant turning point in life or a significant change in life, or a change in the way you understand life, your place in the world. So, to start off, I was wondering what struck you about that that made you want to share — just to invite you to share your story. P: Well, I think, um, it’s a – it’s pretty traumatic, and most people aren’t able to talk about it. Ok? My wife can’t talk about it. Um. But I can talk about it, because I’ve dealt with it now for sixteen years, I’ve been through enough therapy, I think I’ve kind of come to grips with what, you know, goes on in life, that I can—not talk about it in an open setting with a bunch of people, but I think I can talk about it with this. I: Ok. P: And I think that’s, um—I think it’s therapeutic. I mean, it helps me put things in perspective, and keep things in perspective. I: That’s part of why you wanted to talk about it here, is that there aren’t that many chances to? P: No—well, I mean, I’ve talked about it in therapy a lot—I really can’t talk about it with my wife too much because it’s still too raw for her, because it’s just, it’s an ongoing-type thing. I: Yeah. P: Even when I said that I was coming up here, she just went, make sure that nobody knows about it, you know, because we know too many people, and she said that she would never be able to do this. Which is, you know, I understand that—but I think you have to get to a certain point in life where you have to, otherwise it just tears you apart. And I think she does relapse sometimes, when it comes up—not relapse as far as, you know, being depressed or anything, but just—she gets upset. I: Sure. P: But I, you know, I kind of keep that kind of perspective, and I don’t get as upset as I used to, so, I feel better about it because I think I’ve done what I could do, and I’m in a better place than she is, I think. I: Ok. P: So, you want to know what happened? I: I do. P: Well, um, when—let’s see—in 2001, February, there’s always something that goes on in your life, and you always think ‘something’s going on and I don’t know what it is’. Ok, and that had been going on in our lives, in our married life for…seven years? We knew something was happening, we didn’t know what it was. Couldn’t put a finger on it. Um, and it had to do with our older daughter. And you know, when they get to be teenagers, you know, they pull away, they form their own opinions, they kind of become belligerent, stuff like that. Ellen kept saying ‘it’s more than that, it’s more than that, I can tell.’ You know, never having had a daughter, I didn’t know. So I said, well, maybe you’re right. But she was always good in school, and she was always, had friends and stuff. But then Ellen came home from work one night, late, on a

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Monday, and she said, I just talked to Tara. Tara was living at her college at the time. And she said, Tara finally told me what happened. And I thought, oh boy, here goes. She said, when she was in middle school, when she was twelve, she was sexually assaulted. I: Mmm. P: And I said to myself, it’s been seven years. We’re in trouble. Seven years is a long time, especially when it happens at twelve. That was my first thought, was, oh my God, we’re in trouble. And as it came out, you know, she did tell us—she didn’t tell us much, other than the fact that she got assaulted in school and she kind of left it at that, and we just didn’t know what to do at the time. So we kept talking to her, and saying, you know, do you want some help? Do you want this and that? You know, she was on campus, she was kind of brushing us off like she always does. Well, it came down to April, and we knew something was going to happen, because all of a sudden we got a call from the police department, and she had been arrested. And I went—we went to the police department, and I thought—this is not good. And what had happened is, she knew enough not to use drugs, she knew enough not to use an eating disorder, cause we talked about that at the time. But what she did, and this was before 9/11, thank God, she got on the computer and she made bomb threats to police stations. I: Mmm. Wow. P: Yeah. All over the country. And she got arrested, and the FBI came and they took her up to Cleveland, and we were sitting in the police station, just dumbfounded. Absolutely dumbfounded. And we said, she doesn’t need to go into jail, she needs to go into therapy. So they put her up in Cleveland, at the hospital, in the psychiatric ward, under – what is it, 48 hours of observation? I: 48 hour hold? P: Hold, or something like that. So we talked to a bunch of our friends who had—not similar situations, but we knew enough of medicine, and we knew people. And we got her to, um, a Cleveland psychotherapy unit. It’s a big unit, they have—I don’t know how many psychiatrists. But anyways, it’s all psychiatrists, all MDs, and they do a lot of teaching at the university, and they do a lot of research, and they do a lot of writing, so they went out to her, saw her, and she got released, um, to go there. So, we started taking her there— I: Just to clarify at this point—everyone was kind of agreeing with you, of—she needs therapy. P: Right. She didn’t need to be in jail, but she still had— I: But something’s going on. P: Right. I mean, she still had legal stuff, that we had to work through. I: Sure. Yeah. P: But she started going there, and she went to one person, and went there for maybe a week—I mean, every day for a week—and it just didn’t work out with that person. Ok? So we switched to another, another doctor down there, who was, um, more tuned to child, um, trauma. I: Mm. P: And so he saw her, and saw her for seven years. First three months was every day. For three months, every day. Monday through Sunday. (emphatically) Every day. I: Intense. P: It was very intense. I: Yeah. P: So we had to take her up there, I mean, it’s a long way up there. It’s fifty-five minutes. So we went there, every day. Um, and she, of course, she was at Kent State, getting straight As, had to

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drop out of school because it was just too much for her. I mean, you know. Kent told her she couldn’t stay here with all that was going on, they told her, you gotta take some time off. So she took some time off. I: So she was back living with you at this point? P: She was. I: How was this for you? P: It was terrible. I: Hmm. P: Um—she lived in the basement, she wouldn’t come up. She wouldn’t eat with us. She was ashamed of herself. She lived in the basement for nights, wouldn’t eat with us—um, would sleep down there on the sofa, occasionally she’d come up to her bedroom and sleep. She had violent—bursts of violence. I mean, she threw mattresses—she’s only five feet. She picked up mattresses and box springs and threw them out the second floor windows. She smashed doors. I: In— P: In the house. I: In exchange with you guys, or just sort of aggression against objects? P: Both. I: Yeah. P: I mean, she broke things, she took—painted her room, just, she took black marker, wrote all the stuff that happened to her on the walls— I: Wow. P: I mean, it was—it was traumatic. Very traumatic, for her. For us. I: For that seven years of just knowing something was wrong and not knowing— P: We knew something was wrong, we didn’t know what it was. I: And then this explosion of everything hitting. P: And then it exploded. Yeah. It just exploded, and it just like—I mean, Ellen and I were just, beside ourselves, we were just beside ourselves. I: Of course. P: But we were going down there, and it’s all confidential, so they really can’t tell us what’s going on. Though they did say, you know, that it’s coming along, or, you know, be aware of this, this is going to happen, that’s going to happen, I mean—they said, it’s like peeling an onion, at this point. I mean, she stopped growing, mentally and emotionally, at twelve. That’s when she stopped. She was a nineteen year old with a twelve year old [inaudible – mind?], and we knew that. We could see it, but we couldn’t pick it up. We couldn’t figure it out. We weren’t psychiatrists. Um, so he had to—you know, tear her down, put her back together. I: Hmm. P: And that took seven years. Long time. And, um, the first three months, we found out—she did not talk. Not once. Seven days a week, for three months, took her three months before she said anything. Her favorite movie was, um. The one with—the psychiatrist? Um—and, uh—oh God, I can’t think of the name of it—the math, the guy who’s real good at math— I: Oh, the—Good Will Hunting. P: Yes. That was her favorite movie. I: Mm. P: Favorite movie. Because she related to that. She was a good student, and she was—she was so, um, violent, even, I guess, in the room with him. She didn’t talk, but I guess she would throw

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things. You know, things like that. And he threatened to throw her out a couple times, and she settled down. But as we went through, after the first three months, I had a complete breakdown. I ended up in a psychiatric ward. I: Mm. P: Um, and the reason was, um, I couldn’t take it anymore. I mean, it was tearing up the family, it was tearing up Ellen, it was tearing up me, it was tearing up our younger daughter. And I really—I became homicidal and suicidal. I was going to kill her. I really—that was it. I was done. And so, I had to get a lot of therapy for that. I: Was that voluntary for you? Was that something you identified and decided—I want to talk to somebody about this? P: Well, what happened was, Sunday morning, I couldn’t get out of bed. And I’m always up and out of bed. Eleven o’clock in the morning, Ellen said, ‘what’s wrong?’ I said, something’s wrong with me. And then I told her, and she called a good friend of ours, who came right over. And, I mean, I had a hunting gun, gun in the house, so he took that, the only thing like that, supposedly. And we had already taken all the sharp knives and stuff like that out of the house, because she was so violent, we didn’t know what she was going to do. I: Mm. P: And then he took me to the hospital, and that’s where I stayed for five days or something like that. And then I had therapy, and I had therapy for ten years? You know, not every week. Not every day, like she did, but you know—at first, once a week, and then it became once a month, and then after awhile it became once every six months or something like that. Just—as things came up in life, you know, you went to it. I: Definitely. P: You know, it worked out—it worked out good for me. I had to really go work out—work through a lot. Um, but in the summer—after 2001, all the legal stuff came up, and I was talking to the attorney one time, and I said, well, I know how it is, people don’t want to go to therapy. Especially at this point. He said, you go into the legal stuff, what happens—I said, make it with the judge that she cannot be removed from therapy until the therapist says so. I don’t want her saying ‘I’m 21 now, I can go,’ I said, no, I said—make it so the therapist says she can go, or she goes to jail. I: Mm. P: It’s hard to do. It’s a hard thing to do when you’re a parent, you know. But, I figured that was the only thing I could do. So they did it, and they told her, and they said—you know, you have to go to therapy, you have to stay there until the therapist, the doctor says you can go. And if you don’t go, you’re going to go to jail. So there were several times where she said ‘I’m not going to therapy today.’ And I said, ok, call your attorney. You’re not going, they’re coming to get you. I: Became kind of a standoff. P: It was. It was a standoff, and I had to get pretty tough. That was something that I really wasn’t, I don’t think any parent wants to do. You know, to say—if you don’t go to therapy, I’m going to call your attorney to take you to jail. What else—what choice did I have? I had no choice. It was either that, or I was going to lose her. Because when she was arrested, she had tried to commit suicide at college twice. Um, once she slit herself, the other time she drank some—something, I’m not quite sure exactly what happened. It wasn’t slitting her wrists—I

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think it was more attention-gathering, she was cutting herself. But the other time, she tried to drink something, because it was just too much. She couldn’t, she was—coming apart. I: Yeah. P: So, you know, we had to deal with that too. The therapist had to deal with that too. I: Well, and it sounds like—there was a threat of losing her on multiple sides. P: Absolutely. I: Because, the—she was feeling suicidal, you were feeling homicidal, after a long period of this buildup. P: Right, right. Exactly. I: So many ways for that to go wrong. P: Oh, it was. You know, each day, it was so, you know, emotionally draining. Because we had no idea what was going to happen. We didn’t know—I mean, sometimes she could be fine. And then, (snaps fingers) just like that. Switch. Just—a word. I: Mm. P: Of the persons who did this. And this was done in middle school, by a group of girls. I: Mm. P: Um, at knifepoint. So there’s a lot of trauma involved. I guess these girls had done it to another girl, and this girl, they told her not to say anything, the other girl said something, and they beat her up, put her in the hospital. I: Gosh. P: Terrified. Just absolutely terrified, that something was going to happen to her from these girls. She had to deal with that by herself for seven years. Which was—you know, it’s a shame. I think about it—well, I don’t think about it anymore. But at the beginning I thought about— why didn’t we pick that up. But it was what it was. You know, it came out when it was ready to come out. I: Mm. P: And that’s, and we had to deal with it—fortunately it came out before she was 21, fortunately she was still living at home, fortunately we had the finances to do it, cause it cost a lot of money to do it. I: Yeah. P: And anyways, so she went, and, um, she went back to school the next spring. So she took, you know, 9 months off. And, um, you know, over seven years, you know, just got better and better. You had setbacks, and you’d go awhile, and have setbacks, go awhile, have setbacks, it was like that. She had multiple car accidents. I: Mm. P: After a time when we finally felt that she could drive down there. She would go to school, then between classes she would drive down to therapy, then she would drive back for class. So, God love her, I mean—the determination of trying to get through it. She knew she had to get through it. And that speaks volumes for what she was finally able to do, to get through it. So, she—and now, she’s—I think there’s still some residual stuff with her. She still doesn’t trust people, you know, like a lot of people do. I: Mm. P: She still has trouble with some relationships. She just doesn’t trust people with what they’re going to do, you know. Though she’s a little bit better now, but you know, she’s 35, she’s not married. I don’t think she’ll ever get married. I just don’t think she’s going to be able to trust

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enough to be in that type of relationship. That’s my own opinion, but--- I could be wrong, but I don’t know. I just think it was too much. And then, of course, it affects the whole family. I: Yeah. P: I was in therapy, Ellen was therapy for a little while, our younger daughter, she just decided, ‘you know, I can’t do this, Dad, I think I need to see somebody,’ so she saw somebody in town here, and, you know, I won’t say who it was, but, um, they’re not in town now, she came back after a month or so and said no. This person does not know what they’re doing. Um, said that I’m alright, that the family, said your parents are fine, listen—so we sent her up to Cleveland. And she’s there to this day. Because of another issue that came up a couple years ago, still related to the first time. So she’s actually living in St. Louis, and does it over the phone. Because she, she had such a good relationship— I: Had a good connection. P: For eight years, so they can do it over the phone because they trust each other so much. So she’s just about done now. So yeah, it’s been going on for a long time. The um, after I got out of the hospital, I treated a lot—my practice, I saw a lot of patients, I saw a lot of patients who were in halfway houses. Um, people that were psychologically—in group homes and stuff like that. And I would see them, because we would go there on a regular basis. And that affected me, because I would see them and I would think—I hope my daughter doesn’t end up like this. You know. I: It became personal in a way that it hadn’t been. P: It did. And it was very difficult. Some of those people were—children of people in town, here. So there was a connection there, and I thought—oh, what am I getting into. So I would come home from those drained, just completely drained, knowing that—gosh, my daughter could go there and be like this. Fortunately, when they did a complete workup at the hospital, they said there was no anatomic or physiologic—there’s no schizophrenia, there’s no drug abuse, there’s nothing like that. It was all caused by this trauma. I: All the trauma. P: So she was happy. We had no idea. We thought maybe she was schizophrenic, or—we didn’t know. But that’s what it was. So—(tsk)-- after that, our lives changed. Took off the rose- colored glasses, as Tara said. And, you know. And I said, (tsk), yeah, I guess so, it seems, yeah, crap happens. It took me a long time to get over that. I: What were the rose-colored glasses like? Like, what kind of things did you lose, in terms of your viewpoint? P: Um, I think I lost—I lost a little bit of faith in people. I: Mm. P: I lost, um, the innocence of—even thought I was forty-something years old—of always thinking the best of people. And not realizing that people had ulterior motives, or ulterior designs on things. So, you know, now I’m more of a skeptic when I come to meet with people. But I don’t hold it against them, I just—I’m more measured when I talk to people now, you know. Before, I would just—you know, didn’t bother me, I’d just talk, this and that and everything. But now I’m much more measured. I: Was there a specific part of your experience that tied to that, or was that a general change on how you viewed the world?

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P: Nah, I think it was just general. You know, I looked at it, I thought—gee, how could I miss this. You know, things were going on, and… I didn’t see it. And, I should have seen it, and yet I— I: If I couldn’t see this, what else am I not seeing. P: Right, exactly. What else did I miss? And one of my friends said—if you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask the question. I: Hmm. P: And after awhile I said, that’s not right. That’s not the right answer. Because sometimes you need to know the answer, because otherwise it’s just going to eat you apart. So I got to the point where—I used to not ask those types of questions. And now I do. Even if the answers are going to be something that I really don’t want to deal with, I still have to ask the question, for peace of mind. Knowing that, well, maybe I can do something—or maybe I can’t, but at least I’m going to give it a shot. I: Hmm. P: Because if I don’t ask the question, it’s going to eat me alive. And I don’t like that feeling. Because that’s what it was doing. It was killing me. Absolutely killing me. I mean, after a year and a half, I left my practice, I could no longer practice, left my medical practice after, about sixteen months after I—I mean, it was a lot of other reasons but that was one of the major reasons. Could not think, when I was seeing people. I had a lawsuit. It was just that thing, I just couldn’t keep the focus. And so I said, I’ve got to drop this out. So I dropped out of my medical practice, took three years off before I went into pharmacy, cause I had a pharmacy license, so I did that part time. But during those three years, I pretty much spent most of my time dealing with this. Taking her down there. Taking her here. Helping my younger daughter, um, deal with the trauma. Taking her to interviews. I: All the ripples coming off— P: Right, all the stuff that was coming out. She’d come home, and she’d be crying, and, you know, you know, just saying how bad we were as parents, and why we didn’t see this, why did we have to do this, why are we doing this, I had to deal with that on a daily basis, pretty much. When you add the legal stuff, she still, even though it was eventually sealed, she still was put on probation. She still was convicted of Internet harassment, or whatever it’s called, is what they finally went down to, and put her on probation. And she thought her life was ending, you know, at this point. And I said, you know, it’s better than going to jail. I had to deal with that. She got to the point—that day, she was so mad at the attorney when she called her up that she took the phone and took it apart and threw it around the room. I: Hmm. P: We had to take the computer away, because we couldn’t let her around the internet. It was part of the, uh— I: The agreement that was made. P: The agreement with the attorneys. So when she was at college, she couldn’t get on the internet unless I was there. You know, there’s a lot of things—I had to be there. You know, so, sacrifice—so that’s why I had to drop my practice. I couldn’t do all that stuff. And not do it— not do it justice. You know, and without losing her. I: Sounds like you were being stretched pretty thin. P: I was stretched pretty thin. I was. And, uh, you know, my wife was working, and she would take her down there early in the morning before class, before she’d start, she’d start at eight

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o’clock, Tara had her therapy session at 6:30 or 6:05 A.M. So she had to get up at 4:30. And that was a struggle every day. Every day it was a struggle. Trying to get her up. We said well, it’s either get up or I’m going to call your attorney. I don’t know how many times I said that. And she’d get down there, and she’d go in there, and she’d be exhausted, and sometimes she wouldn’t get out of the car, you know. That was just part of the process. I learned that word. Part of the process. Right? I: They say it a lot. P: Part of the process, that’s what they always tell me. I said, ok. And then after, I don’t know, after a year—he’d talk to us every so often, I said, ‘well, how’s it going?’ He says, ‘well, we’ve had a good start.’ I’m thinking—good start? He says, ‘we’ve had a good start at the beginning.’ You know, I’d never thought about that. After a year and a half, almost two years, I thought— you know, this could be it, it’s going to be fixed—never would have dreamed it would go on for seven years. Seven years. But it did. And we stayed together. The family’s tight. And, um— that’s where we are. We were going to the Catholic church at the time. And then all this stuff with the sexual abuse, with the priests—that was a no-go. You know, as soon as that came up, Tara said ‘we’re not going here, we’re leaving’, and that was that. And I agreed, I said, this is, this is it. We’ve never gone back to the Catholic church again. And so, we went to the Episcopal church. Of course, there’s still problems there, but, you know, it wasn’t quite as open as it was in the Catholic church. So we changed. I: Was that—had you grown up Catholic? P: I did not. I grew up United Church of Christ, which is a, um, old German church, which is Evangelical and Reform. They came from Germany. It’s not like the Church of Christ. [inaudible] it’s the United Church of Christ. It’s a very liberal church. I: Yes, we had one of those where I grew up. Down at the UCC. P: Yeah, UCC. Right. My great-uncle, yep, my great-uncle was a minister in the UCC. And he was the minister for our church. And then when he retired, they took him to a UCC retirement home, until he finally passed away. So yeah, I grew up like that. I had all my friends there—I had two friends who went to seminary in St. Louis for UCC, one who is still a minister, the other went back and actually became a physician. Um, so yeah, I grew up with that, and when we got married, Ellen had grown up Catholic, so I just said ok, yeah, I’ll go to Catholic church. I: Ok. P: I had never converted or anything like that. Which was kind of strange, but—but the girls grew up Catholic, and they were confirmed, or what is it—First Communion in second grade, had that at the Catholic Church. Um, and then when that happened, we were out. But we still go to a prayer group every Tuesday night with our Catholic friends (laughs). I: So the relationship’s kind of— P: So the relationship is the same with the people, but not with the organization. I: With the institution. P: Right. And I do have to hold my tongue sometimes, when I’m—when they talk about certain things. I: Hm. P: But they’re entitled to their opinions, I just don’t—I just don’t bring it up. I: Like what sort of thing?

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P: Well, they talk about—I mean, I’m, they talk about abortion, stuff like that, and [inaudible] ridiculous. And they talk about, just—they were all Trump people, so I have a hard time with some of that. I: Mmhm. P: Um, but as long as they’re not pushing it on us—we talk about families. What’s happening in other people’s families, and praying for that. So it works out ok. It works ok. We’ve been doing that for—that started right after all this stuff happened. We just decided to go, because they said, well, we have a prayer group, why don’t we go together. So we did. And it was interesting, because—I’m the only male, and there’s sometimes ten women and sometimes there’s fifteen, and I’m the only guy. I: Mm. P: But I don’t care. And it’s good, because we talk, and you know, I feel at home. I f eel comfortable talking to them about certain things. And there’s one African-American woman who talks about discrimination, and how she grew up in the South, and how she was discriminated against, and all this stuff. And she’s got a Ph.D., she taught at Kent, you know, she talked about Jim Crow down there, and talked about that, so it’s interesting to talk about stuff like that. All of the people, you know, they all have so many problems. You know, you don’t realize what people have in their families until you actually get into a group like that and think ‘gosh, I guess I’m not alone.’ And what I see now, as we’ve been doing this for fifteen years ,and because we did the therapy, and we did all—what we thought we had to do, we’re in a much better place than those who never had therapy, and they’re still dealing with the same problems in their family that they had fifteen years ago. Because that’s—that’s too much for me. You can’t keep going like that. So, we switched out of that, and you know, when I went down there for the first few times to the therapy, you’d sit out in the parking lot, Tara would go in, and then she’d come out in fifty minutes or whatever it was. And I’d walk around, I’d say oh, this’ll be good for me, to get exercise. And after a few times I said no, I just can’t do this. I was just so emotionally distraught. I: Mm. P: So I went through a phase. And it was not—it was a phase where I said, well, maybe I’m not getting enough out of, out of, out of religion. So I talked—I had some friends, who were very fundamental. I: Fundamentalist, or? P: Yeah, fundamentalist. I mean, they went to fundamentalist church and so on. They talked to me about what happened in their family, and I talked to them, and we went on a retreat together, um, in Chicago, I forget the name of their retreat, but it was all men. I: Promise Keepers? P: Yeah, that was it. It was Promise Keepers. I didn’t know what it is. So we took a bus there. And that was not for me. I: Hmm. P: It was just not for me. I mean, they were talking about—you know, what the men are supposed to do in their lives, which I thought was great, you know, get rid of the alcohol, get rid of the drugs, take care of your family, you know, that kind of stuff. And I thought, that’s not what my problem is. That’s not me. Cause I do that anyways. I: Mmhmm.

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P: And you know, they’re hallelujah and stuff like that—I just said, no. So I did that once, and no. And you know, they’re talking about radio stations that you have to listen to, fundamental radio stations, so I listened to those for awhile—I wasn’t really aware of them, you know— Focus on the Family and all that stuff they had. And I did that for a couple months, and I thought, well, maybe this will help me. And it didn’t. I thought—this is just not me. It’s just not me. I think I have a better grasp of what I need to do than just doing that. I thought that was almost like blind trust—you know, in religion. Where they just say, put all your stuff here, and they’ll take care of it. And I didn’t agree with that. I thought—you know, I guess I’ve been in medicine too long. Cause I had people come into my office, and they have infections, and they have all kinds of stuff. And they’d say, what do you think I should do? And I’d say, well, you need to be on antibiotics, and this is serious enough that you need to go to the hospital. And I remember one person looked at me and said ‘we don’t believe in hospitals.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s fine, I’m going to give you an antibiotic anyway, but, um, you’re going to get worse.’ He said, ‘Can we pray about it?’ I said, ‘You know what, praying about it is probably the best thing. You pray about it, I’ll pray about it. But remember, God works through people. He doesn’t work by himself.’ And I told him about the boat. I said, you know, somebody’s in a boat, and it capsizes, and they send a boat, they say, why did you save me? I sent you three boats, what the heck were you doing? God put people on earth, and put doctors on earth, so he could work through them, I said. And that’s what I’m here for. So if you want to pray, that’s fine. If you want to call me and go to the hospital, that’s fine too. Two hours later, they called up and said, I need to go to the hospital. I: Well, hey. P: Yeah. And I mean, that’s what you gotta do. And I got that with the Promise Keepers and the fundamentalists where they just say—pray, and it’ll all go away. I: Hmm. P: And we even get that with— I: Where they weren’t adding the ingredient of—sort of, community, or— P: No. I: Providing resources, or working through people-- P: Right. Exactly. I: It was just pray about it. P: Pray about it, pray about it and it’ll get better. You know, and I had a family that was Christian Science, that I grew up with on my street. And I remember the girl, who was a couple years younger than me, broke her leg. I: Mm. P: And her father said, pray about it. And the poor girl was in agony. I: Yeah. P: Finally, they took her in, but five days later. And that made a big impression on me. I: Yeah. P: I thought, you know, you just can’t pray about stuff like that. You gotta do something. I’ve always been a doer. And so when you got to these things, and they were just hallelujah-ing and praying and doing this, I said—where is the action here? I: Hmm. P: There was no action for me. And so I just didn’t go that way. And that’s why I like the Episcopal church. Because it’s action-oriented. If something comes up, there’s resources and

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they say, you do this, you do that, you can do stuff like that. That doesn’t mean you can’t pray about it, also you have to pray and start doing something. So, that’s why I got out of that, and got into the Episcopal church. I: Yeah. P: But I’ll tell you, you’d think about people that have traumas like this, and feel God abandoned them. I never felt that way. I: Hm. P: My brother-in-law, Ellen’s brother, lost his first wife, a hospice nurse, in a car accident. She was 41, and she was going around a road from a call—you know how you go around roads and they’re twisty, and there’s snow, and you think—God, I’m glad I—you know, you go over the center line cause you can’t see it—Thank God nothing was coming—well, there was somebody coming. I: Yeah. P: And it was a truck. And it hit her and killed her instantly. And then, five years later, his younger daughter fell, and was paralyzed from I’d say 3. And she’s a quadriplegic. And he lost all faith. You know, and I can understand that. He has—you know, he just doesn’t deal with that. Doesn’t have that faith. But I think I had that more where I never really lost it, but I think I had to find a way to deal with the grief. And deal with it somewhat with that, and somewhat with therapy, of course. I: Somewhat with that, you mean the action you were talking about? P: Yeah, some people said, you know, pray about it and read the Bible and it will all come to you. That didn’t help me. Some people said—journal. Write it all down, and that will make you healthy. I did that for about two weeks, I said—I don’t want to live these days over again. I: Mm. P: Every day I was writing down what I did, and I didn’t want to think about it. I knew what I did. I didn’t need to write it all down. And every time I wrote it down, I felt worse. Because it was coming back to me, and I wanted to go to bed. I: Yeah. P: You know, I was getting depressed. And you know, I was never a depressed person. And I would write that stuff but it was making me so depressed. And, um, so I stopped doing that too. Some people say they get a lot of stuff out of it. I don’t get anything good at all. I never get that. I: Mm. P: So—you know, and the fundamentalists just didn’t help me, going with the church radio stations, that didn’t help me. I guess I had a strong enough opinion of what I had to do that I could marry the two together. I still struggled—I still struggle, occasionally, you know. Things happen. You know, I still struggle. Two years ago, um, our younger daughter who went to therapy also, and then when she finished therapy, she went to the Peace Corps. And, um, this was before you could be on it till you’re 25, she was 23, insurance ended, she went into the Peace Corps. Unfortunately, it ended too quickly, her therapy ended too quickly. We found out later. Because she also got sexually attacked, at Kent. And didn’t tell anybody. I don’t know what it is. But they don’t talk. I guess they feel ashamed or something. But, you know, neither of them talked, which is unfortunate. And she said she didn’t talk to us because she said, you’ve been through enough with Tara. And I didn’t want to put you through all this. So, you know, after it all came out, I said, I wish you would have. But she didn’t. And hers came out in a big way two years ago. She was getting through the Peace Corps, she was working at—I don’t

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know, but anyways, it’s not there anymore, I’m trying to think of what it is. And then she went to graduate school in Atlanta for a couple years. And then went to China for six months. And then she had a job down in North Carolina, doing research. You know, we had no idea of any— what was going on. And she was holding it in also, for all those seven years. Hers came out in a big way—she met a guy, fortunately she didn’t do drugs, she didn’t do eating disorders—she became sexually promiscuous. I: Hmm. P: Ok, which I guess is, sometimes happens. I: Yeah, it does. P: And I guess—I mean, we had no idea. She was gone all the time, so we didn’t know. But we couldn’t figure it out. We knew something was wrong, again. But we couldn’t figure it out. Because she would be hooking up with these guys that she didn’t know, that she hardly knew. Ellen said ‘something’s wrong, something’s wrong’, I’m like, oh my God, not again, I can’t take it, I can’t do another one. I can’t do this again. Um—so two years ago, we were down in Chapel Hill, where she was living, and she had a boyfriend. And she was thirty years old. She said this boyfriend was moving in with her. I thought, well, you’re thirty years old, what am I going to do? I said, well, I hope it works out, you know, this and that and—well, as it worked out, as it turned out, he was abusive. I: Mm. P: He, um, threatened to tell us that she’d been sexually abused, and forced her to marry him. I: Mm. P: (humorless laugh) If you can believe that. It’s really true. And we had no clue. We were driving home from Chapel Hill two years ago, we get a text from this guy—I had no idea who he was, didn’t even know his name, no—I mean, I knew she had a boyfriend—and he texted us a copy of the marriage certificate in the car. I was like—talk about shock. I: Yeah. P: I was like (humorless laugh) I—I said, ‘Ellen, you’re not going to believe this.’ She almost went off the road, you know. So I texted my daughter, and said what’s going on? I: Yeah. P: I mean, what happened? I said, you’re married? And you know, of course, all hell broke loose. ‘Well, he forced me, he was going to do this,’ and he was sending pictures of her in compromising positions and sending—pictures of him with other women, and—she goes, ‘I just couldn’t bring it up to you, and he was threatening to bring it up, I didn’t know what to do.’ So she married him. Because he threatened her. As we found out, this guy was going around and marrying women and taking their money. I mean, he was that type of—you know, you’ve seen that type of stuff. I said, Cindy, I said, we will never abandon you. I said, no matter what happens, we’ll never do it. So she called him up and said, ‘I want a divorce.’ You know, this was about five weeks after they got married or something. And he was making all kinds of rude comments to us, about how we’re breaking up the family, and we hated her, and his parents would take her in, and I’m like-- Cindy, you know us better than that, I said, we’d do anything for you. And she just was brainwashed. So. Ellen had to go down there. We lived apart. Ellen went, had to actually go down there. I: She was brainwashed enough that she didn’t want to go through with the divorce? P: No, she was brainwashed enough to get married, and she didn’t know about the divorce. We told her, we said, this is crazy, and she said, oh, I want a divorce then. You’re gonna—you

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really want me as part of your family? I said—(humorless laugh). You know, she was that traumatized by what had happened to her. I: Yeah. P: When, you know, when she was younger. Because, when rape affects a family, it affects everybody. I: Right. P: And she was affected by it too, even though she was younger. She knew something was going on, and it infected her, with her relationship with Tara. So she was in therapy for a long time. Then, Ellen went down there and we had to go through the whole deal with that, to get her the divorce, had to work through that, and that’s when she started going through therapy again, which she’s still doing right now. Three days a week, on the phone. So there you go. I: You’re kind of shaking your head there. P: (laugh) That’s my, that’s my life, in a nutshell, for the last fifteen years. You know, and, um—I had a lot of therapy too. I had to. You know, not as much as they did, but man, I had to put things in perspective. Of what we did—we had to do what we had to do, what we – I finally came to a point of, I’ve done as much as I can do. You know, you can’t control everything in life, you know—my wife says, oh, I wish Tara would have better relationships. I said, you know, I do too. But, you know, she’s 34, and you know, she’s holding a great job, she’s getting along with her people, I said—I just don’t know what else we can do. We’ve done everything we can do. And do I feel bad about it sometimes? Yeah, I do. I mean, you know, and I wish things were different. But I’ve accepted it-- how I feel. You know, I’ve done what I can do, there’s nothing else more. You know, occasionally I’ll say to her, hey, why don’t you get a life coach? I: Hm. P: You know, so she can do things she hasn’t done yet. But I think, you know, she had seven years of therapy, I think she thought was enough. I don’t think it’s enough. I think she could probably go for a little bit more. But I think that’s only because, having seen therapy I think that you can never get enough therapy. I: Hm. P: Therapy doesn’t work because you don’t get enough of it, is what I think. I: Hm. P: So—and her younger sister who’s now in therapy gets it, she needs therapy. So she sees it too. She can, she can see that therapy. But she says, you know, she’s doing the best she can. And I don’t—of course, the younger one’s not married, and well, she was married, but—she’s said she’s never going to get married. So, neither of my girls are getting married. So. Anyways, that’s—that’s what happened. I: So, when you were saying therapy was really useful to you in terms of changing perspectives—what was your perspective like, sort of going into that? P: Well, I think, as a, as a father— I: Mmhmm P: You feel like you’re responsible for everything that happens. I: Mm. P: You’re responsible for bringing up the kids, you’re responsible for their relationships, you’re – you take on stuff that probably you don’t need to take on. And I—when that came out, I thought, man, I screwed up.

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I: Mm. P: Um, and so—it took me a long time through therapy to realize that what I did was okay, and it came out when it came out, and crap happens in life, you can’t be with them 24/7. And that what our response to it was more than most people would do, okay—and it took me awhile to figure that out, ok? To realize that it’s ok, what you’ve done. And you saved them, because they were pretty much going to be goners. Our older daughter said she’s not going to live till 30. Which— I believed her. And our younger daughter said she’d be lucky to live to 30 also. And I believed that. So if anything, we’ve done—so you know, I think therapy changed my perspective on what I am able to do as far as a parent or a person, and what I’m not able to do. There are limitations, and I’ve learned that—after awhile there’s certain things that, you know, you have to be good to yourself, and if I can’t take care of myself, then I can’t deal with their other problems. I: Mm. P: And unfortunately my wife doesn’t see it that way. Which is a stress sometimes, for me, because I feel bad about it. I wish she would get some more therapy, but she doesn’t seem to want to, so, um, there’s certain things we just don’t bring up because when we do bring it up she has a problem with it, and I have to—because when she brings it up, then it brings up all these bad memories for me, and then I have to think about it again, and then I have to go away from it, and I have to go outside, and you know, things like that. So—and Ellen said that she really wants to leave Kent because she’s had so many bad experiences here, you know, with what’s happened. And I said, yes, we have had bad experiences. We’ve also had good experiences here. And I, and she has a hard time seeing that—it’s bad. But I think she’s better than she was, like—not to the point where I am, I think. So I think it changed perspective. And then therapy also helped, you know, it helped—I had two older parents, who both had Alzheimer’s, I was dealing with that at the same time. I: At the same time. P: Same time. Um, and they just passed away within the past sixteen months, so I had to do that. And they were up in New England, so I was power of attorney for medical and for financial, so I was going up there all the time, which was another reason I had to leave my practice. Um, so I was doing that at the same time, getting them out of the house, because they couldn’t take care of themselves, getting them into a facilities, and that was—a horrible stress, at the same time. So, you know. I felt like I was going—I didn’t know which way I was going. So I was in therapy for that at the same time, because I couldn’t deal with it. It was overwhelming. I was just overwhelmed, ok? And, um, you know, I talked to the rector at church, about it. And she was very helpful. And I’ve talked to the new rector about it, um. But it’s been—you know, just talking to them about it, so they know where things are coming from. And I think, you know, the people at church really don’t know about what goes on. It’s not something that really goes on. I mean, you know more than anybody, ok? Except for my therapist. Um— I: I wondered, when you brought up that prayer group, you said part of what was strengthening about that was realizing how many problems had around-- It is, it’s amazing. I: And that you weren’t alone. P: I think that was probably my rose-colored glasses. I never really thought about it. You know, you think—oh yeah, like everybody thinks, they’re good students, they, you know, they come from a good family, they got good jobs, they must have a perfect family. And you don’t realize that nobody has a perfect family. There’s something going on everywhere.

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I: Hm. P: Um, I mean—there’s a person in there, she’s a recovering alcoholic, she went to Alcoholics Anonymous for many years, and she’s a sponsor of people, and she talks about her family being alcoholics now and going into prison, and—I’m like, geez. You know, and then you look at other people who are in town here, and one’s a social worker, and you know, the other had a different type of job I won’t tell you, cause then you’ll know who it is, and it—talks about their relationships with their children, and how it’s not so good, or sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s bad—relationships with their younger children and grandchildren and how they have ADHD, and I’m like—I guess it was a shock to me, that so many families have so many things going on. And I think seeing that strengthened my resolve to get this fixed. I: Hm. P: To say, ok, we’re going to keep doing this until it’s as fixed as it can get. And I think it is— you know, I wish the older one was a little bit farther, cause it could do with a little more fixing, but I think the younger one, now that she’s been back into therapy for a couple years, is pretty much—can see what’s going on. Yeah, that—it did. It gave me resolve. I: So part of it was a feeling of not being alone, and not the only one who’s sort of— P: Absolutely, exactly. I: --has one front, and also all these problems. P: Oh, it was incredible. It was just incredible. The amount of, and you know, it was—all confidential, and we didn’t talk about it outside the thing. But you think, oh, they were going through that? And you’re still standing? Well, I can do it too. I: So that’s where the resolve comes from? P: Right, you look at it and think, oh, we can keep doing it. Um, and then I have, an older—both of my—I have three sisters. Two of them were also raped. (humorless laugh) I hate it. I: It’s everywhere. P: It sucks. It really does. And I, I, you know—it is everywhere. But anyways. And the older one, my older sister, both of them have become alcoholics. I didn’t want that. I could see it. They’re functional alcoholics, where they held jobs and stuff, and one still holds a job and one’s retired now, and still, um, they still drink. And I called one out on it once, you know, and they didn’t talk to me for five years. But, now she appreciates it—well, she appreciated it for awhile, now she doesn’t, but that’s ok. I had to do what I had to do. But I didn’t want to—I didn’t want my kids to have that. I: Mmhmm. P: I wanted—I didn’t want them to have the things that I saw in the prayer group. So I tried to do what I could do. So, and it’s—you know, and I look at that, and I think about these relationships these people have in their jobs. Now, my older daughter’s a in a very male- dominated field—so she deals with a lot of relationships with men who are older, who don’t like young women that are educated, as she is. So she has a very, sometimes, hot temper, and says things that she probably shouldn’t say initially, and she’s getting better at that. But it does affect, I think, her relationships. But I’m not sure if that’s from what came before, or just because of what she is. I mean, you know, when she was 2 years old, I could never win an argument with her. I mean, she was that type of person. An argumentative type of person that—she would bring up both sides, and then bring up why this why that why this why that, you know— exhausting, as a child, for me to bring her up. Um, and then when this happened, it was really exhausting, because she had that, plus she had all this other stuff going on.

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I: Yeah. P: And just. Ay-ay-ay, I mean, trying to sort it out in her brain was just—because she was just so intelligent that she just didn’t understand why these things were happening to her. And I think that’s one of the reasons that psychotherapy, which is what they went through, they actually went through psychoanalysis, both of them—I guess that doesn’t work, I don’t-- I am familiar with it, I don’t know if—I guess it only works on people who really want it to work, or people who have the intelligence that it’s going to work, cause most people don’t understand what they have to do. And it takes so long. It really takes so, so long. Because—when the therapist came up, the first time we met him, he said, ‘well, there’s two ways you can do this. We can do the band-aid approach, which will take about 15 months. But when she’s 35 the band-aid’s going to come off, it’ll be just as bad. Or we can do the long approach. That’ll take 3-4 years.’ Well, it took seven. He wasn’t telling us the truth, but that’s ok, cause if he had told me seven I would have passed out. But anyway, so we went the long approach. And he said, ‘now, when we do this, there’s going to be some really tough times. You can’t quit in the middle of this. You can’t quit psychotherapy in the middle, for a variety of reasons. One is that, I’m disarming her. Cause she’s got so much built up as defenses, I have to tear every defense down. And she had a lot of them. I mean, she had everything. She had an answer for everything. But he said, she’s got a soft underbelly, and we’ll get to it, but it’s going to take a long time. And then when she’s—all her defenses are down—she’s going to be vulnerable to everything. I mean, everything. Then I have to start building her back up. And that’s going to take time. So it’s, it’s going to be a rollercoaster’. He wasn’t kidding. It was a rollercoaster. So—it worked, for the most part, which is good. But yeah, the—the prayer group really helped. So. I: Were you able to share your experiences in that group? P: Yes. I: How was that? P: That was interesting. Um, because we would pray about stuff—and we’d say, you know, we’re hoping that the therapy works, we’re praying that, you know, this was going on. And people would say, oh gosh, and they’d—they’d give us moral support. They’d say, ‘keep praying.’ They’d bring in, you know, they were Catholic, so they’d bring in oil, you know, and bless us. You know, and I thought—ok. I’ll be blessed. I don’t care. I: I’ll take it. P: I’m—and I don’t think it was the oil as much as the people standing around giving you comfort and support. And they’d bring in water from Lourdes, cause they went over there and got the water, and I think, well, ok, it looks like water to me, but—I guess it’s holy water. I don’t know. And so they, they’d give us that, and sprinkle it on us, and I—but it wasn’t so much that, as much as it was just the people around. And when you brought up something, they would—they would, they’d pray for it at the same time. And give you support. And they didn’t have the answers, of course. Um, but they’d tell you to keep going. You know, keep going, we’ll be back next week, let us know how it goes. I: Hm. P: If it gets worse, let us know, so we can talk about it on the phone, or whatever. So that was good. It was good. And we still do that. You know, when my parents died, we’d talk about, you know, the Alzheimer’s, and, you know, it’s—two other people had family members with Alzheimer’s at the same time, so we’d talk about that together, so—it was good. That part of it really worked out good.

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I: That really strikes me—we were saying of people saying, ‘if it gets worse, let us know.’ Cause we started out talking about how difficult things are both very prevalent, and talking about them is almost impossible—it just isn’t done, people don’t want to hear about it. P: Right. I: People don’t know how to handle it. P: Well, they don’t. I: So it’s interesting to me to hear that this group had not only—we’ll listen, but, we want to hear if this gets worse, not just-- P: Right, exactly. I: -- if everything’s fixed. We’ll be here next week no matter what. P: We’ll be here next week, and, you know, if something comes up, you need help—and you know, people would say, ‘do you want us to drive her down there, do you want us to pick her up’, cause they know I’m going down there five, six, seven days a week, ‘do you want us to drive her’. And we didn’t, because—that was a time that we had to be in the car with her. Cause she was just—we were just too volatile, at that point. And then, when they were both in psychotherapy at the same place, they couldn’t go down at the same time. If you know that feeling—ok. I: Mmhm. P: Cause they both had, of course, different therapists. And they both had to have different times. So we’d drive one down, come back. Drive the other down, come back. Twice a day. Um—it was 200 miles a day. I: Yeah. That’s something that— P: And it was just, too much, you know. Yeah. I: Something that keeps hitting me about this is, that—like you were saying, this affected the entire family. It affected you. And—but, because it affected your daughter so strongly in the beginning, it seems like there were a lot of situations—and not even just with that, both with your parents happening at the same time—where you were being put in the role of, ‘ok, you’re the one who’s ok, take on this responsibility and this responsibility and do this and drive 200—‘ P: Yeah. I: That’s a lot to put on somebody. Even if they started out— P: That’s why I cracked up. I: Yeah. P: So to speak, you know. I just, you know, couldn’t handle it. You know, the one time. But then after that, you know, I got depressed. And I was never a depressed person. So they put me on some melatonin. You know, I think it helps. But I think the therapy helps. But I still—if I get into a situation where, you know, things are looking bad, I still get those feelings. I don’t know if I’ll have that forever, but it’s not much anymore. I: Which ones are those feelings? P: Well, you know, the depression feelings. The feelings of—am I doing enough? Is this going to work out? You know. Those kinds of feelings. Not knowing what’s going to happen in the future, I think that’s— I: That’s a big one. P: The, the—you know, that’s a hard, that’s a hard one. You know, not knowing what’s going to happen with your parents, not knowing what’s going to happen with your kids, are they going to make it, are they going to live next week, are they going to be alive next week, you know.

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That’s, that’s a hard thing, to know. I mean it wasn’t—you know, I could talk to people and say, ‘my kid’s got leukemia.’ I: Hmm. P: You can talk—you can go to church and say, ‘my kid’s got leukemia.’ You can’t go to church and say ‘my kid’s been raped.’ I: Hmm. P: They’ll look at you like—(facial expression)—and then they’ll turn around, and walk away. You can’t. You—it’s just a different thing. And even, even our daughter said, you know—‘we couldn’t really—it would be different if we had cancer. Cause then we could talk about it. But this is—you know, it’s just not talked about.’ I: Mm. P: It just isn’t. And you know, fortunately, we were able to keep them in therapy where they could talk about it, cause that’s the only thing that’s going to solve it. Um, but yeah. That was a hard thing. And so that’s why this prayer group was very interesting, because you could bring up stuff. I mean, we could—we got a girl now that’s—I mean, she’s only been coming awhile, but now she’s in jail, right now, because she’s a, she’s a raging alcoholic, we can’t get her to stop because she’s in her mid-40s and she’s been doing it since she was 15. And you know, just— going to AA is not going to do it. But people don’t have the resources, the financial resources, to fix that. I: Yeah. P: Cause you know how much it costs. The time—we’ve spent probably close to a million dollars. I: Mmm. P: Total. Not that I don’t—you know, I don’t think about that. But fortunately, we had the resources to do it. I: Right—there’s just a sense of— P: And you know, if I tell people that—if I ever told somebody that I spent almost that much money, they’d say, ‘oh, man, you were really being taken.’ I: Hm. P: Because, I don’t know—I saw that someplace about, maybe it was in Good Will Hunting, I don’t know. One of the movies where he said ‘oh, wow, how can you keep going to therapists, they’re just taking your money.’ And I never felt like that. I always felt like—this was a reputable place, and I think these guys down there are very very reputable. Cause you have to be careful with therapists. I: Mmhmm. P: Cause some of them are good, and some of them are not so good. I: Mmhmm. P: And there are some people—and, you know, I guess I’m biased about what we’ve had—but there are some people I just wouldn’t—I wouldn’t go to, because I don’t think they get the big picture. I: Hm. What’s the big picture? P: (sighs) Well, there’s some people who’d say, you know, suck it up, you’ll get over it. You’ve got a good family, you’ll get over it. You got a good job, you’ll get over it. I: Hm. P: Um, pray to God you’ll get over it. Go to our religious—

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I: Everything is normal, you have something wrong right now that’s making you think it’s not normal-- P: Yeah. Yeah. Right. I: But you’ll get over it. P: There are some therapists, even in town here, that are—you know, and I’ve never been to them, so I don’t know, but they’re—Christian therapists. And I just don’t think that’s a good thing. I don’t know. I just don’t think that’s a good thing. I think it’s a good—I think it helps, to put you in perspective, but unless you get down to what’s actually causing the problem, it’s just glossing over it and it’s just going to keep coming back, and coming back, and coming back, and coming back. I see it with my sisters, cause they’ve never had therapy, and it keeps coming back, it keeps coming back, it keeps coming back. Um, in my younger sister, I mean, she’s divorced—her son’s a heroin addict. She’s an alcoholic. I mean, come on. I mean, it was never addressed. I: Hm. It’s still there. P: My older sister is—yeah, it’s still there. My older sister’s an alcoholic. I mean now she’s, she’s an invalid cause she’s got real bad rheumatoid arthritis so she’s in a wheelchair. We were up there last month, a couple months ago, just helping them out, putting stuff in the freezer, cause they—she can’t cook, can’t get a glass of water anymore. And her husband, who was also sexually abused as a child, doesn’t know how to deal with it. I mean, does the best he can, but doesn’t know how to deal with it. So we go up there and help him. But they still drink. I: Hm. P: What am I going to do. I can’t do anything. I do what I can do. You know, if they want to drink, they’re going to drink. And unfortunately, you know, if you drink with rheumatoid arthritis medication, it negates the effects of the rheumatoid arthritis medication. So. Um— (clears throat)—so I think, um, I can’t remember where we were going with this, but, um, I think getting to the root of the problem is what you have to do. And, I can’t remember what your question was now (laughs). I: (laughs) Well, we were kind of talking through, sort of—what was helpful about therapy and gaining perspective—we’ve covered a lot of ground. Um, and you were mentioning kind of, Christian therapy, and how that doesn’t seem like it meets that same— P: It doesn’t. I think it glosses over it. I: Have you had experiences with that, or were you saying you hadn’t? P: Um, I have not really had personal experience with it. So I can’t really say—um, as a personal thing. But I’ve seen people that have gone to that, and they still struggle. I mean, for a long, long time. And they say, ‘oh, I go to my therapist once a week,’ that’s fine, ‘they just set me on the right [inaudible: path?]’. I say, how’s your life? ‘Well, I’m divorced, my son committed suicide,’ I was like—(claps hands) it didn’t work. I: Hm. P: You know. And maybe, in the long run—I mean, it was a daughter, I’ll say, for whatever reason, it just didn’t work. But, you know, I just got a feeling—there are certain things that you really have to go after. And I think this is one. I: So it feels like— P: This is not-- I: --the most active way to do this, is to—

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P: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And I think, you know, if she said, if she had said when she was twelve and said ‘Dad, this is what happened at school today’ --different type of therapy would have been needed. I: Mmhm. P: Because it’s fresh, it’s there, you can address it. I: Yeah. P: But not after seven years. I: Yeah. Different thing. P: No way. No way after seven years are you just going to go to a certain type of therapist and after a month they’ll say, oh, you’re fine. (laughs humorlessly) It isn’t going to happen. It’s just not going to happen. And we knew that. We knew that we were in trouble after that length of time. So, I guess there’s a place for all kinds of therapy, and, you know—I didn’t go to long therapy, psychoanalysis. Maybe I should someday. But anyways—you know, and I was able to deal with a lot of things. I: Mm. P: But I was able to deal with it because when it came, I dealt with it. I: Yeah. P: You know, I didn’t really hold it it. Whereas, when you’re a child, you know, you hold it in, and it comes out. I: You don’t have the resources to deal with it at the moment. P: No. And they didn’t have— I: Takes time. P: -- they didn’t have the capacity to deal with it, or the emotional stability to deal with it. They were frightened out of their head. I: Yeah. P: So. Yeah. I: Well, I’m interested in one of the things you said a little bit ago, which was—that you never had the feeling of being abandoned by God. P: No, I didn’t. I: What feeling did you have towards God during this time? P: You know—it was—(sighs) I think it was more of an exploration. You know, I grew up in a pretty liberal church, which wasn’t—you know, a holy roller type church. It wasn’t a church that goes out and tries to convert people. You know. But I think I had a pretty good liberal understanding of it. I didn’t take the Bible, you know, at its face value. I: Mmhm. P: I wasn’t taught that. I still don’t. But then when that happened, I thought—maybe I’m missing something. I: Mmm. P: Is there some—is there more things that I need to— I: Like, was I wrong about this? P: Right. Was I wrong. And that’s why I, you know, went on that Promise Keepers, and I talks to some fundamentalists, who were friends of mine—and I didn’t know they were fundamentalist, but I found out. And I did that, and I did those—those radio stations, and I read some books, um, you know—Jesus Is A Carpenter, um, Prayer of Jabez, you know, different types of books.

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I: Yeah, yeah, yeah. P: And actually it was a pretty good book. And they had some good insights. And then I read a lot of, um—articles and books of like, oh, people that had, you know, bad things happen to them, and why do bad things happen to good people, and—you know, you read those—that whole series of books. You know, I can’t really think of one particular one, but people there would say oh, I had diabetes, I had this, I had that, and this is what I did, and this is what I did. And so I think I gathered all that stuff in me, um, and realized that—I didn’t need to go and become a fundamentalist, and prance around on the street, and hallelujah, and stuff. Because that wasn’t what was doing it for me. And I think, um, having a pretty good foundation actually did it. And then I realized that, you know—I wasn’t being abandoned. That I could still pray, and who knows how long it was going to be—and sometimes I prayed (laughs) a couple times I prayed— the worst of my time, I prayed ‘God,’ you know, ‘come hit me over the head with a two-by-four and tell me what to do. Cause I don’t know what to do.’ Um—and then it was funny because often times when I prayed that, two or three days later—it would come to me. I knew what I had to do. I: You got it. P: Yeah, I got it. I: Wow. P: And I can’t give you a specific thing, but I did do that several times when it was really, really bad. I: Mm. P: And I, I got more faith. And, so I think my faith became stronger. I was never really … what can I say. Um, I don’t know. I mean, there’s so many levels of faith. There’s blind faith, and there’s—people who just don’t think about faith, and there’s people who have faith and they just say, ‘well, yeah, I have faith’ but they don’t really mean it, um—and I think mine was figuring out that I really had it, and I just didn’t know how strong it was. I: Mm. P: Ok? I: Mmhm. P: Um, but it’s not a faith—it’s different than my wife’s faith. I: Mmhm. P: Because my wife really had a strong faith all the way through. But now, when I combine the faith with the therapy, I think I have a better perspective than she has with just her faith. I: Mm. P: Does that make sense? I: Yeah. P: Yeah. Ok, good. And when I look at the people in my prayer group, which I keep coming back to—I mean, they have a lot of faith. And a couple of them are nurses. Some are social workers. One was a Ph.D. in nursing. So they’re all educated people. I: Mmhm. P: But they never really had therapy, as I think of therapy. And so—they go on faith, but—I mean, for them it works. But for me it didn’t work. I had to get something more. But it wasn’t—the more wasn’t fundamentalist. That was just, that was not me at all. So actually, that’s how I got it. I think it was more of—it reaffirmed my faith. It put me in a better spot, where I was saying, I wasn’t—you know, when you go into science, and you read all these things

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about atheism, and you read about, how can God be around if you look at all the science—you know. And it’s true. Um, when you get those type of arguments. And my younger daughter, who has zero faith—and I understand that—and my older daughter, who has (so-so sound) maybe a little bit of faith—neither of them have it. Which is fine. I mean, you know. And— because of what they went through, they just don’t have it, and I don’t hold that against them, and I don’t tell them that they need to, or whatever. I: Mm. P: But—I think they’re still missing out on something, but-- There’s so many people that don’t have it, nowadays. And I can understand how they don’t. I mean, there’s—you know. But I’m not, you know, right-wing fundamentalist either, so. (snaps finger) Kind of a liberal, liberal place. I: Yeah. Well, part of what I’m hearing you say there—like you were saying of this being reaffirming your faith—is that there’s—the part of moving through this for you was having all those doubts raised about—did I do faith wrong. P: Right. I: Which kind of feels parallel to, did I do parenting wrong-- P: It was. I: Like, what did I miss. How have I been— P: It felt bad for a long time. I: Have I been messing this up, and that there was— P: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, especially, especially when they came up and grow up and say, you did this? Why did you do this? Why did you—how could you do this? How could you do this? Why did you do this? Why did you do that? Really—well, I did the best I could, with what I had. And now, they understand that. I: Mm. P: You know, they understand. In fact, both of them, both of them said, you have done so much for us. I: Mm. P: You know? I mean—you know, on the phone, saying, you’ve done so much for us, that we can never repay. And I’d say, well, you repay us by what you do. Don’t worry about repayment. Your repayment is just our peace of mind. I: Hm. P: So—and, uh—and that’s good to know. That really is good to know. I: That’s good to hear, at this point. P: It is good to hear. You know, they, it took them a long time to appreciate it, you know. A long time. I: Definitely. P: Years, and years, and years. So when they constantly beat you down, you have to be pretty tough to take that. I: So I wonder—just because, I think you’re—I agree, everybody says faith and means something different. And I wonder if you could elaborate a little more on what you mean by faith, and—so, what might it be that you feel like your daughters might be missing by not having that. What has it given you? P: Yeah, I think it, um—you know, with their faith, with their lack of faith, they don’t—they look at relationships and they pick out people who don’t have faith. And not that that’s bad, but

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I don’t think that—I guess maybe it has to do with morals. I feel like maybe people that have more faith, hopefully, have better morals. I don’t think that’s always the truth. I: Hm. P: But, in my rose-colored glasses, I think that’s—(laughs) that’s what I hope, ok? I: Mm. P: And when I see the people that my girls dated that are not—have a lot of faith, it seems like they are lacking in morals. But they have gone out with people who do have faith and don’t have morals, too, but it seems like it’s weighted the other way. I: Mm. P: So, you know—I think, when they date these guys, now—well, one person refuses to date because of what happened with the marriage, she said ‘I’m done’— I: Sure. P: I said, that’s fine. Um—the older one complains, you know, after a date or two, they want to jump in bed, they want to do this, they want to have sex, she says, I’m not like that. I said, I know you’re not like that. Because you’re more moral than that. And so, even though they don’t say that they have faith, I think they have it underneath there, because we’ve instilled in them the morals of it. So I guess I’m equating morals and faith, which, I’m not sure if that’s a good equation. But, um, from what I hear from them, you know—the people that are not, that don’t have any faith, seem to be, you know, up for a hookup and that’s it. So. I think— I: There’s not the same kind of connection? P: Yeah, and they don’t—they don’t seem to be getting into—there’s different types of organizations you can get into now. And I think that sometimes some faith organizations or church organizations may have a different outlook than some of the other organizations. I: Mmhm. P: Um—and that may not be true, or it may be true, I – it’s hard for me, you know, seeing these kids in their 30s and not being married. I mean, they’re running into people now that are divorced, and have kids, you know, that kind of stuff. So, that’s—that’s a new thing. P: That sounds like that was not part of your expectations at all, when you started. I: No. No, no. And you know, now that they’re there, they’re at that age—they’re finding single men that are their age have a lot of problems. Well, that’s why they’re single. Or, they’re running into married men, or divorced, who have kids, who also have a lot of problems. So— and I don’t have any answers for that. I mean, I am – I’m beyond that. I say, I don’t know. You two girls work it out together. You two are in the same age, you’re in—not married, you’ve been through so much together. You guys have to work that out. I: You’re going to have the best information about this. P: Exactly. And you know, I listen to them, but I can only listen so long. And then I just, you know, I just can’t do it. So I think that they’re missing out on some of that. And you know, we’ve brought that up to them—and they say, well, if I go to the Episcopal church in my town, there’s nobody there my age. That’s a problem. Because it’s not a college, so they don’t have anybody their age. So that’s a problem. So, they go to meetup groups, where they do different kinds of organization. You know, those are—so that seems to be working better for them at this point. We’ll see. So. I: That seems like an important ingredient to what that means, in terms of faith, might be—might be an organized community like the church, but that might also be the way that you form relationships.

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P: Right. Exactly. Right. And that’s what we tell them, you know, and then—you know, they both say, well, you know, because of what they’ve been through, well, these people did this too us and they were faith and, you know. I have a hard time arguing with that. I: Mmhm. P: You can’t pigeonhole them into it. I: Mmhm. P: And I think that’s because, you know, what happened to them, they felt that they were let down by the faith organizations. You know, twelve years old and something should have happened. They should have seen it, they should have helped me. And that’s why, one of the reasons, that she told us-- ‘that’s one of the reasons I put out bomb threats to police stations, because the police didn’t protect me. So I’m going to get back at them.’ I: Hm. P: And that’s what she thought, as a twelve year old. I: Starting out with an idea that everyone will protect me, and then when they don’t— P: Right, exactly. I: Yeah. P: Right, I think, you know, the fact that faith organizations didn’t prevent this, and the fact that, you know, the Catholic church has been so rampant with it—I think it sours them. And rightly so. I: Yeah. P: And that’s, that’s their perspective. But I always try to tell them that there may be some more moral people in that thing, and then I get pushback on that. And I say, well that’s fine. You’re right. It probably is immoral. Look at the church, and they say, look at the priests, they’re supposed to be moral, rah rah rah (laughs). I know. Um—but, I still say it anyways. (laughs) So. Because that internet dating, I don’t know if you do internet dating, but—internet dating is just for the birds. I: Tricky world. P: It is. It’s ridiculous. I: Yeah. P: And that’s, when my younger daughter, when that’s—when she got into that, that’s what happened with her. There’s an internet thing, they got together, this and that, and then (mimics explosion) that guy took advantage of her when she was vulnerable, and that’s what happened. Now she won’t even look at an internet date, she won’t look at a guy right now. I mean, which is understandable. I: Yeah. P: But she said, maybe someday. I said ok. I: Some hope there. So I wonder—we’ve kind of talked—let me look at my clock, I want to make sure I’m not keeping you here too long—ok, so it’s about 4:30. I was wondering—I was thinking of the crisis you were going through. And I know this is kind of counterintuitive, because part of what we’ve been talking about is that this isn’t something that just happened to you. It’s not your process that happened, it’s the whole family, it’s a whole system, it’s a whole community and society to some degree, that— P: Happens all the time. I: And this is one intersection of all those things. P: Yep.

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I: And I’m also interested in coming back to your piece of this, and your perspective on it. This took so long, and it took so much time, and that seems to be a really strong impression that I’m getting from you about it, is part of what was overwhelming is that it became your life. P: It did. I: The doing all these things, for all these people. And I wonder, um, did you notice any changes through this time? Was there every a point where it felt—rarely is there ever a point that is a clear-cut, ‘oh, we’re at the turning point, things are going to get better now’, but did you—were there changes over that time? P: Um—no. It was gradual. I: Gradual. P: There was no one point, because it took so long. I never, you know, with the first one being in therapy for so long—and that being—and you know, we’re not privy to what really happens in therapy, and we can see how things change with her—but it was so gradual. And I think that was good, that we never really reached a turning point. I mean when therapy finally ended, um, she said—I think I need more therapy. I said, well. I don’t know about that. I mean, at this point. I: Well, and that’s such a change from a few years before— P: Right. When she didn’t want to go. Right. I: --when you were having to sit down and make sure that there was not a possibility— P: But now she says she doesn’t need therapy. Because, I think, she says—and I think she’s pretty much got it together—but she still has a few issues, but a lot of people have different issues, you know, I mean, you know. I: Sure. P: She’s late. Big deal. Lot of people are late. She doesn’t keep a neat house. Well, you know. Lot of people don’t keep neat houses. I think, what can I do about that? Nothing. I can’t do anything about that. You know, she’s gotta learn how to do that. Can she form good relationships with people her own age? Probably not. So—so no, I don’t think there was a point. I think it’s still ongoing. It’s still ongoing today. I: Still ongoing. P: Still ongoing. Especially with the younger one, who is still in therapy. And I think when they were in therapy, I felt comfortable, knowing that they were in therapy, so that if there was a problem—talk to your therapist. I: There’s a therapist. Yeah. P: Right. Exactly. Talk to your therapist. You know? I: Hm. P: And I felt relief that someone was there, taking over for me. I: Hm. P: That I didn’t have to do it, cause I couldn’t do it anymore. Um—and I don’t feel that with the older one now, because she’s been out of therapy for—so many, so many years. Um— I: And you’re back first in line. P: I mean, yeah. I was—yeah. Right. Sometimes I feel first in line. Um, but I’ve gotten to the point where—I can—say well, you know what, I’ve done what I can do. I guess it’s up to you. Cause I can’t do anything more. I mean—she lives in St. Louis, I can’t be up there holding her hands. I can listen to her, I can give fatherly advice, for what it’s worth. But I can’t give therapy advice. I can’t. And when she comes up with something—well what about this? Then I say,

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talk to your sister. Because I think they’re close enough—they were very not close when they were young, because of this—um, and when this happened she was twelve, my younger one was nine—my older one took it out on her, which I didn’t know, you know, stupid parents that we are. Didn’t realize that behind our backs— I: Human beings. P: Yeah. Behind our backs, you know, the older one was pretty much torturing the little one, and saying to her, don’t say anything or I’m going to beat you up—I mean, same thing that’s happened to her. She was—putting it on the little one. And, I, you know, it took a long time for her to get over that. She hated her. Oh, absolutely hated her. And now they both live in the same state, they get together, and they talk— I: That’s really remarkable. P: My younger one knows that she hasn’t had, hasn’t had enough therapy, and knows that there’s certain things that she can’t expect, but they get together and they talk about stuff. And I—that’s what I kind of encourage now. I: Mmhm. P: Cause I can’t be, you know, on the forefront anymore. Ok, your car broke down, ok. Here’s what you gotta do. But as far as relationships, and dating—that’s beyond me. I: Kind of accepting, this isn’t something I can control— P: It’s not—right. I: Not something that’ll turn out well if I try to control. P: Right. I’ve learned that through therapy, that I can’t do it anymore. And I don’t know if I ever could do it, but you know. When you’re a parent, and you think you can—especially when this happens—you want to fix it. And we did the best we could. Now I’m beyond fixing it. So. I: Yeah. Well I’m wondering—was there, kind of by contrast, ever a point where you kind of woke up and realized, things aren’t easy right now but man if I think back to how they were a few years ago, this is easier. P: Oh yeah, all the time. Oh yeah. Yeah. All the time. You know, especially in the beginning, when it was so violent. I mean, she was just – violent, I mean, she’d run away from home, we’d have to go get her, you know, she’d, you know, break things and, you know, just wouldn’t— would be down in the basement, you know, she was going through so much trauma. So no, we don’t have that anymore. It’s much much better than it was. She’s gone to graduate school, she’s held jobs, she’s gotten a security clearance where she had to—I told you things were sealed, well, they’re sealed except for the government. And they opened it all up six years ago, and we had to go through that whole thing again, you know, get her therapist to write letters to the government saying she’s not—she’s a good security clearance, nothing violates— I: That’s fairly significant. P: It was. Because they had people from the government, from the FBI and the CIA or whatever it was, some type of whatever—security people, come to interview her, and they came to Cleveland and interviewed the therapist. Now of course the therapist can’t say because of closed, you know, personal stuff he can’t say. But he can give an opinion. I: Mmhm. P: So, so yeah—it’s a lot better than it was. I: And it seems like some of that was kind of—correct me if I’m ever getting anything wrong. I’m trying to see if I’ve got the right impression. Seems like some of this process for you, and for the family, was adjusting to kind of a new set of expectations?

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P: Absolutely. And you know, as we were going through it, and the girls moved away, and then they would come back for holidays, and they still weren’t—you know, didn’t like each other? It was horrible. And yeah, up until about five years ago, they’d get together and they’d just—at each other’s throats, you know. And made it so bad for us, because then they’d take it out on us. And I was like, whoa, man. You know. And I think finally they got to the point where they realized it, and now when they get together—they go on vacations together. And it’s great. It really is. They don’t antagonize each other like they used to. So. So that’s good. So yeah, it has changed a lot from what it was. But it took a long time. I mean, it took a heck of a long time. I: Mmhm P: Years and years and years and years. I: And so, wondering if part of—you kind of began by saying part of what happened was losing your rose-colored glasses on the world. P: Yeah. Those came off fairly quickly. I: That seems like maybe—one of the things you had to grieve during this process. P: I think so. You know, because I always thought people were pretty good. I mean, you know—and I realize that people are not so good. That bad things can happen. And it did. And I—and it did. Yeah. And I had to lose that sense of naïve—I mean, I wasn’t naïve anymore. I was still older and I still felt naïve, in that way. Um. Which was probably a good thing. Because people, when they’re that naïve at that age, probably it’s not a good thing. I: Hm. P: Because they don’t see things for what it really is. So. I: Like you were saying about—like, even sometimes when you don’t want to know the answer, sometimes you need to know the answer. P: Right. And that was from a professor here. He said, you know—and he was in administration here. He said ‘you know, I go to meetings, and if I don’t want to know the answer I’m not going to ask the question.’ And I thought that was a pretty good thing. Yeah, I don’t want to know the answer. And that was the rose-colored glasses—I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. Yeah, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I still have a sister like that. And she didn’t want any part of anything. Don’t tell me anything bad. I don’t want to know. Ok. But that’s not life. Ok? Because—and now she’s by herself, and she’s—she’s a problem gambler—(claps) you know, things happen. They don’t see it for what it is. And so, yeah, I thought that was a great answer. If I don’t ask the question, I don’t have to get the answer. The more I thought about it, I thought—you know, this doesn’t work. It doesn’t work in medicine. I had to answer—ask questions. I: Mmhm. P: Otherwise I’m not going to get the answer, and I’m not going to make the right diagnosis, and I’m not going to make the right treatment. But I kept the two of them isolated. I: Hm. P: I kept them—professional and personal—separate. And so I didn’t want to know what bad was bad in personal life. And that’s what got me. And I finally had to figure out that—nope, you’ve gotta know what the bad stuff is, because if you don’t, you’re never going to be able to make it through. Cause too many crap—things are going to happen to you. I mean, I wouldn’t have been able to do it, stuff like—my parents with the Alzheimer’s, nobody else wanted to do it. Because they couldn’t—they didn’t—they just couldn’t deal with that kind of situation. I: Couldn’t face it.

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P: They couldn’t face it. And so yeah, it was still hard—it’s hard to see that kind of stuff. But I didn’t have the rose-colored glasses and so, you know, you go in there and—ok, tell me how it is. Give it to me. And, you know—sometimes it knocks you right over. And my, my favorite thing was—whenever I’d think about how getting knocked over—I was thinking about a giraffe when it’s born. I: Hm. P: A giraffe is born from like six feet up—it comes crashing to the ground and lays there and doesn’t want to move. And the mother keeps kicking it, cause if you don’t move, you’re going to get eaten. And that’s the way I’ve kind of felt. You know, if you knock me down, that’s fine. But I’m going to keep getting up. It may be a little while. I: Mmhm. P: It may be tough—it may knock the wind out of me. But I’m going to get back on my feet and I’m going to do this. I: It’s really interesting that— P: And it’s—I’m a lot stronger person. Ok? I: Yeah. P: Could I go through this again, what I’ve done with my kids? After the first one I said no. I: Hm. P: And here we are doing it the second time. It’s not nearly as traumatic, because she’s older and she’s had a lot more therapy. But, we did it a second time. Could I do it a third time? I hope to heck I don’t have to do it a third time. I: Hm. P: If I do, well, we’ll come to it when it comes. And we’ll see how much strength you got in you. You never know, you know? Some people say, oh, they couldn’t do it. You know, and I— I didn’t think I could do it either. I mean, I became suicidal. I mean, I didn’t think I could do it. But then—that process of going through it made me stronger. So. I: There’s that process again. P: It is a process. I: Yeah. P: It’s a long process. You know, it’s like—it’s like digging gold, and forming it. It takes a long time to do that. It is a process. I: So there’s—that piece of feeling stronger. And you were kind of putting that in terms of —not stronger in the sense of, like, yeah, I could definitely handle this again— P: I don’t want to handle it again if I don’t have to. I: Yeah. P: Right. Exactly. Well, it’s just like, you know—I didn’t think I’d have to deal with my parents’ stuff. I: Hm P: And I dealt with that for seven years. At the same time I was dealing with this. And sometimes people would say ‘oh, I couldn’t deal with all that.’ Some people would say ‘well, God give you—never more than you can take’, and I don’t agree with either of those (laughs) I: Mm. P: Because—there are some times where you just can’t take it anymore. You know, you come to a final thing. It happened with my parents. I was the medical power of attorney, I was the executor of the will, I was the financial power of attorney, so whenever anything called, I was

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the one who got called. Finally, I said to my sister, I cannot do this. You have to take some of this. You have to do the medical stuff. Cause she was in medicine. And so she did. So she would get a lot of the phone calls, and that helped a lot. Because I couldn’t keep up with it all. You know—you know. I: It’s not something you can do all yourself. P: No. You ca—you can’t keep living in, um, crisis. I: Mm. P: You can’t keep living in crisis. I mean, you can do it for so long, and then you can’t. And I felt like—with my daughters, I lived in, probably I lived in a crisis state for almost four years. I: Mm. P: That’s a heck of a long time. I: Yeah. P: It’s a long time. Um—and, as I said, I left my medical practice after a year and a half, and then I devoted three years to it, and I think that’s the only reason I got through. And then once I was able—out of the crisis stage, then I was able to go back and work part-time. It worked out fine. We were able to still go into therapy and do all this stuff. But you can’t keep going through crisis. You can’t. You just—it doesn’t, your body just can’t do it. I: Yeah. P: I mean, you can do it for like—a period of time. Some people say ‘oh, I could only do it for 3 days.’ ‘Well, I could only do it for 3 months.’ Well, I did it for four years. You do what you gotta do. But— I: But you can only do so much. P: If someone had said to me, you’re going to be in crisis now for four years—I would have said no way. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. But I guess you just handle it because it comes each day. And that’s what I did—I took each day. Sometimes I took each minute. I: Mmhm. P: A really bad day, I got through the shower. I got through brushing my teeth. I: Mmhm. P: I mean, I would set goals, during the day. I: Yeah. Yeah. P: Of—ok, I’m going to go brush my teeth, and if I brush my teeth, I made it through that. Then I can make it through the next thing. And sometimes that’s what I would do. Really, really bad days, I would go minute by minute. I: Kind of encouraging yourself through that. P: Absolutely. Absolutely. I: Yes, we accomplished this one. P: Now I can go on to the next one. Exactly. Right. Exactly. So. Ayiyi. I’d be happy to never have that. I: Right. Well—I wanted to check in with you, just as we’re coming to the end of the time we have for today— P: Ok. I: About a couple of things. I can kind of give them and see if there’s anything there that jumps out at you. Um, partly I’m wondering—are there things that we haven’t hit that it feels like are relevant, that I just haven’t happened to ask about?

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P: I don’t think so. Um—I mean, this is so multifaceted. We had legal stuff, we had legal stuff with both girls. We had sexual assault. We had, you know. Everything. Fortunately we didn’t have drugs. God. And we didn’t have an eating disorder, which can be the most devastating disorder. Thank God. And I think about that—and I look at that, and I think, you know, for as bad as it was, it could have been a heck of a lot worse. You know, we could have had one kill themselves. They didn’t. Both of them thought about it. One of them tried. But the other one didn’t try. But they both said they thought about it a lot. You know—and thank God they didn’t have that. And they said, I said, well, why didn’t you? They said—because we thought too much of you. I said, well thanks. That, that made me feel better. I: Yeah. P: And I think that’s what made me keep going, and made Ellen keep going. Was that they thought so much of us that they didn’t do the stuff that they knew would really really hurt them. You know, getting on the internet and doing a bomb threat—it’s not something that’s going to hurt them at that moment. You know, eventually it’s going to come get them. I: Yeah. P: But it’s not like-- I: There’s going to be consequences, but not that kind of— P: There’s going to be consequences, but it’s not, it’s not like the other stuff. And fortunately we didn’t have to deal with that. I: All of you were kind of working on-- P: So, yeah. That was probably—multifaceted things but it could have been a lot, a lot worse. We know people, we’ve talked to people, who, you know, their children-- eating disorders, and they went to some therapy and stuff. But it’s still coming back to bite them. I know it is. I talked to them, ‘so how are they doing’—‘well, they’re doing this, one kid’s doing this, it’s not doing so well’—it’s like—(sigh). You know, and everybody has that, but still. You know. I: Yeah. P: So, yeah. But other than that I don’t— I: So— P: I don’t think that there’s anything else. I: Well, yeah, that sounds like an important throughline through this, is at different times, kind of the four of you living for each other, making decisions to help each other stay alive— P: Right. I: Even at times when that was incredibly difficult. P: It did. And another thing—yeah, I don’t think we ever talked about, was—I’m a pretty laid back person. I’m not a type A person, like my older daughter is. Um, though she’s calmed down quite a bit. But I was more a person who liked to keep things on an even keel. Is that the rose-colored glasses? I don’t know. But when this came up, I wasn’t able to do that. I: Hm. P: So for me, it was difficult. Very difficult thing for me, to be able to go up and say—I mean, I always told them, you know, what my opinions were. But it was more of a discussion when they got to be older. When they were little, of course you tell them, this is what you’re doing. I: Yeah. P: This is—but I never told them, we’re doing it because I said so. I never used that word. I always said, we’re doing it because this will happen if we don’t. Or, this might happen. Or

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something like that. And they’d agree with that. I never put it as a parent telling them that. I never dictated. And so when I got to this, all of a sudden, I had to. I: Yeah. P: And I wasn’t used to that. And they weren’t used to that. Um, and so for me it was a really tough thing that I had to become tough. And I did it. I mean, when I talked to the attorney, and when I said—don’t let them out, she’s not going to be released until the attorney, or the therapist says it—and then, when she would say ‘I’m not going,’ my response was ‘I’ll call the attorney, and you’re going to jail.’ To me, that was—probably the highest moment of realizing that—ok. I’ve taken this. I’ve taken control of this. Now I can do it. When I finally said that to her. Because I said—well, if you don’t say that to her, what’s going to happen? I: Mmhm. P: You know? I had to do it. And that—for me, that took a long time. That took a long time to get to that point. I: Definitely. P: Long time. You hate to say that to your kids, but, you know, sometimes you have to. I had to. You know, I had to tell them. I said, you know, this—or you’re going to jail. It’s not like it’s either this or, you know, you’re kicked out. I never wanted to kick them out of the house. That was not an option. I said, you are always loved. No matter what happens, we’ll work it out. I always told them, there’s a place you can come, and you can fall back here. I even tell them that now—though I kind of say, ‘try to work it out.’ (laughs) And they say ‘well, if I quit my job, I can come back to live—‘ I say ‘Uh, no.’ (laughs). There’s a limit to that. But, you know, if something happens that’s beyond their control, like this was, there’s a place that they can come, and we can regroup. I always told them that. So—even when they, when she wanted to get away. I mean, she slept in the car. She didn’t even want to be in the house. She slept in the car for weeks, during the summer. I said, doesn’t it get hot in the car? ‘No.’ I said, don’t you get kind of a bad back and cramped neck? ‘Yeah.’ I said, you want to come in the house? ‘No.’ Ok. I: Well it strikes me—not to—I think we’ve talked about it some, but when you were talking about kind of experimenting and exploring, doing Promise Keepers and kind of —trying out different things, I know there are a lot of models in fundamentalist Christianity that really encourage fathers to take a more authoritarian perspective. P: Right. I: And so, knowing that was in the air as well, I find it— P: Right. I think I probably took something from them. I: Like, that you were able to get more direct? P: I think so. I think I probably took, when I went to that—you know, I wasn’t really into the ‘praise God’ and throwing your hands up and doing all that—that just didn’t—but I think the fundamental idea of parent—of a father taking control. Now, most of that stuff was—you know, you have an alcoholic father, you have a guy that was running around, he wasn’t taking care of the kids, stuff like this. I didn’t relate to that at all. I: Mmhm. P: But I think the fact that, you know, I had to take a more—demanding or domineering role, at this particular point—I think that stuck. Because I did that in the summer, and within two weeks is when I said that. I: Mmhm.

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P: Because that’s when the thing—and then I kept it up after that. So yeah, it gave me some strength for that. Um— I: And also, at the same time, it sounds like—you kept—cause even, the, the very direct thing you were doing sounds like it was ‘ok, you don’t want to go to therapy, I’ll call your attorney.’ P: It’s your choice. I: There’s consequences to that, but it’s still not ‘because I said so, you just have to.’ P: Right. I didn’t say, ‘you have to go.’ And that’s one of the reasons I told the attorney, I said—make sure that the, the agreement is that it’s directly placed on the therapist. It’s not placed on me. It’s not placed on Tara. It’s not placed on you. It’s not placed on the law saying ok, she’s 21, ok, she’s on probation, after six months she’s fine. It’s not placed on the administration at the university. I said, it’s on the therapist. And that worked out. I: Yeah. P: I think that was me. I don’t know why I thought of that, but I thought of it. I: Mmhm. P: And I think that was probably the—probably the most astute thing, the thing that really made the most sense to me. I: Mmhm. P: Because it put it out of everybody’s hands, except for the therapist. I thought that was a good idea. I: Mmhm. Yeah, so there was sort of—again, like both at once. Taking control, in that moment, and making a decision, but the decision was not to, like, seize control over the situation— P: No, I never seized control— I: -- it was to pass it on to someone else to deal with it. P: No. Uh, yeah. I never seized control. I: Yeah. P: I never dictated. I: Yeah. P: I let the attorney tell them what to do. Which, she thought it was a great idea anyway. I: Yeah. P: But I think that—making the tough decisions. I: Yeah. P: And I made tough decisions through my whole life. You know, I was abused as a kid myself. I mean, you know, what are you going to do. I: Mm. P: Um—but making decisions in medicine. You know, you have to make tough decisions. I made them all the time, all the time. Um—and so I wasn’t afraid to make tough decisions, but I think from where I came from—I wanted things to be on an even keel. Because it was never on an even keel in my house. I wanted, I didn’t want that type of turmoil. So I tried to keep it non- confrontational. Non-turmoil. You know, it worked for awhile. It doesn’t work all the time. It doesn’t. I: Seems really important that you were able to find a way to be authoritative without marrying that really problematic way of just creating chaos— P: Right. I didn’t want to have chaos. I tried to get rid of the chaos. I: Yeah. P: But sometimes, to get rid of the chaos, you have to be pretty—

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I: Stick to your guns. P: Yeah, you gotta stick to your guns. And I was—the type of person that really, I don’t know, equivocal, or something like that. But you know, I would always see both sides. You know, talk it out. Things like that. Sometimes that doesn’t work. You gotta make the decision, and that’s the way it is. I: Yeah. P: So, that’s what I did. I: Well, the last kind of question that I have is kind of—how was talking through this today? P: Well, you know, I’ve talked through this many times. I: Yeah. What was your experience today? P: I think it was good. I: Ok. P: I think it was good. It reinforces the—you know, I think I did the right thing, when I think about it, and I talk about it a lot. Cause I haven’t really talked about it, you know, fully— probably in six or seven years. Can’t really talk about it with my wife, which is unfortunate. I: You’re in different places with it. P: We are in different places. Um, and I respect that. Um—and sometimes, with her, you know, I bring up things, and I say, well, she’s doing this, she’s doing a pretty good thing, could have been worse, could have been this, you know, we’ve done the best we can. I try to, you know, help her through things. You know, most of the time it works. But sometimes she gets in a funk. And that’s understandable. I mean, she’s a mother, and she just doesn’t understand it. She just doesn’t understand how two daughters like that could go that way. They said, well, you know it could have been a lot worse, and it wasn’t her fault. Um—but I don’t think she’s grasped that yet. So. Anyways. So. Yeah. What was the question again? I: Well, it was just sort of, what was your experience like today. P: Oh, well, as I said, it was good. Cause I had talked—you know, with my therapist. And I was never able to talk like this, initially, to a therapist. I mean, I had tears, and—you know, there was anger, and I was—I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no clue of how to go. I: Yeah. P: So they, you know, helped me set some things straight. Get a perspective, and—take care of yourself, take care of things, you’re doing the best you can, you’re doing this, you’re doing that, what else can you do? I mean, it comes down to—what else can you do? I mean, I think, to that point—there’s a lot of people who will say, well, I could have done this, I could have done this, I could have done this. I don’t think I could have done anything different. I don’t think I could have done anything more than what I’ve done. I can’t. I can’t think about anything more I could have done. Other than to force her to do something, and that wouldn’t work. I: That has its own consequences, yeah. P: Right. Exactly. And that’s, you know—when she didn’t talk to the therapist for three months, I thought—you gotta be kidding me, I just spent $50,000 down there. You need to talk to him. Well, he can’t force her to talk. Eventually it came out. I: Yep. Very similar. P: I mean, he told—she said to him, the first—one of the first things he told her, she told him, was—I’ve been raped, and you don’t know what that’s like,’ and she ran out the door. And that’s how it came out. That was one of the first things she talked about. And then when they came back in, he said—you know, you said this statement. To repeat the statement. And said,

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would you like to talk about it? She says no. He said, ok. And they never talked about it for another year. He said, it’s part of the process. I: Part of the process. Yep. P: Part of the process. [unintelligible] that word anymore (laughs). I: (laughs) P: But yeah, I was able to talk about it. And it took me a long time. I think talking like this was—was good. Yeah. I mean, you know—I don’t think it cleared the air, as far as my brain, because I was pretty well set with it, but I think it reinforced, um, the fact that what I’ve done is what I’ve done. And I think it’s been good. And I think it will probably reinforce me a little bit with Ellen a little bit. Because sometimes—you know, she just wanders a little bit, with this. And I have to try to keep her on track. And I think now that I’ve talked about it again, I think I’ve got some more ideas of, you know, helping her along. I: Alright. Well, I wanted to thank you very much for sharing with me. P: Well, I hope this helps. It helped me, so that’s good. I: Well, good. I’m really glad. No, definitely, I’m very grateful you’re willing to share, and I—I think it’s amazing. P: It’s amazing what happens in life. You know, we read statistics that people who have this type of thing happen in life—90% of them divorce. I: Yeah. That’s really remarkable, in your story. P: It’s a big divorce rate. Because they just can’t handle it. I: Mmhm. P: Fortunately, we’ve been able to. And—fortunately, we had the finances. And that helps. I: You had the resources to— P: We had the resources to do it. Most people do not. And most people don’t want to do it. They don’t want to spend the resources. Ellen and I, at the beginning, said—well, we either do it now and spend the resources, or till the end of days, we’re going to think that we should have. What do we want to do? There was no question, for us. But I guess for a lot of people, they don’t do that. I: It sounds really important that you were united on that. P: We were. And I think that really helped, because we were united from the—they couldn’t split us. They tried to do that, when they were kids. It worked sometimes. You know. All kids do that. But not with this. They could not split us, ever. They never split us. Which was good. I: Yeah. No, I’m very grateful for your time…

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Beatrice P: I’m ready. I: So, basically, just to kind of introduce, um, what I’m doing and what I’ve been asking people for, is I’ve been looking for stories about spiritual crisis. And, people have a lot of different definitions for that, and a lot of time it’s not very clearly defined, which is part of why I’m doing this study, is to see if we can look for common factors in how people tell these stories. Um, but what I’m asking you to do is reflect on a time in your life when you’ve gone through a period of spiritual crisis. Uh, in this context, my loose definition that I’m starting with—and if yours is different, I’d love to talk about that— P: Ok. I: Uh, is—spiritual crisis is a time of intense grief or loss connected to your spiritual life, uh, often this leads to a significant turning point in life, or a significant change in the way you understand life or your place in the world, your meanings around life. So I’d like to hear your story, and there’s a few questions that I might jump in with just to clarify things, but first I’d just like to invite you to share. P: Ok. I guess I’ll say—um, two and a half things. I: Ok. Two and a half things. P: First of all, um, I like the way you’re describing “spiritual,” because so often people assume that spiritual means religious. I: Hm. P: Whatever that means. I: Whatever that means. P: And, um—part of my spiritual crisis—and I am in one right now, it’s been going on for, I’d say, hm—sometime late winter. Um, is in part connected with issues of religion. But also something else. So, so, let me just say, um—I was raised a Unitarian. Not a Unitarian Universalist, because that merger didn’t happen until 65 and I was born in 46. So I’m a card- carrying New England Unitarian. I: Ok. P: Um, I grew up in the oldest meeting house still in use in the country. When was it built— 1638. I remember—the pilgrims came over in 1620, ok, that’s how old it is. I: And they built this church. P: (laughs) Yeah, they did. I: Maybe that’s not true. P: And Unitarianism has, you know, it’s morphed a lot, over the ages. But, um, it’s a very interesting—I mean, it is a kind of sect. It is a religious group. But, my father always said that the Unitarians didn’t believe in anything. He was not a Unitarian. He was a 1928 Episcopalian. I: Hm. P: That will tell you how conservative he was. Really conservative. I: Yeah, say more about that, because I am not familiar with that term. P: Oh, well. The prayer book the Episcopal church uses now—that was rewritten a number of years ago. Well, the 28 prayer book, 1928, goes way way back. It’s very conservative. Now, some of the prayers are really beautiful. Like morning prayer, which we always used to do at the Episcopal church, once a month, and we haven’t for a very long time. Carol Alexander, who just died, and she lived a couple of doors down from me and I’ve known her forever—she loved the 28 prayer book. Primarily because of morning prayer. It’s more poetic; I’ve always liked

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morning prayer. But, um, you know, that prayer book is really hard-core Episcopal. Which is fine, except of course I’m not a Christian and I’m not an Episcopalian. I: Mmhm. P: But my father believed that there were no religions that were worth anything at all except for the 1928 prayer book Episcopalianism. I: Ok. P: That’s it. No other world religion. He was antisemitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Baptist, you name it. Including anti-Unitarian, but my mother grew up in Brooklyn, New York in a big, powerful Unitarian church. I: Hm. P: I mean, big. And—somehow, my father, who is not a flexible man, agreed that my brother and I would be raised as Unitarians. So when they moved to this little town in Massachusetts, here we are, the hotbed of Unitarianism—there were two Unitarian churches in that town! So, we went to the oldest one. And, um, the thing about Unitarianism—I sort of understand what the UU’s are now, because Universalism was very much like Unitarianism. Um, I've heard it said that Unitarians believe in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the neighborhood of Boston. I: (chuckle) P: Well number one, it is sexist. No. The only thing Unitarians believe is that no one can tell you what to believe. I: Ok. P: So there are Unitarians who are Christian, and take communion. I’m not one of them. Um, there are Unitarians who believe that maybe there is a higher power, whatever that means, in the world, but um—it doesn’t bother them, whether they know it or not. I: Mmhm. P: Unitarians are famous for being involved, you know, in peace movements, environmental movements, and anti-violence movements, and anti-racism movements. I mean, they come from—like, the Congregationalists in Massachusetts, who actually admitted women into the ministry – oh, I don’t know—hundred and fifty years before Episcopalians did? Actually, more than that. So the thing about Unitarianism is, you basically can believe anything you want. You can go to any organized church you want, if you want to. So the reason I can go, without most of the time feeling hypocritical, to the Episcopal church where I’ve been singing since 1974, is because I don’t believe any of that, but I love to sing. And I will sing anything—which is kind of hypocritical. I will sing all— I sing all the responses. I do not say the confession of sins. Unitarians—Unitarians basically believe you get punished right here in this life. You screw up? You did something bad? There is not an angry God out there who’s going to get you. And I’m sorry, but even though Joan would probably say, ‘oh, I don’t believe in an angry God’, actually I think she does. I: Mm. P: Right? Not everybody goes to heaven, in the Episcopal church. You have to be just so. Right? Or if you’re not, terrible things could happen to you. But Unitarians don’t believe that. I: So— P: But they could if they wanted to. I: Right, that’s one of the things I wanted to kind of clarify, is you’re kind of putting it in terms of, Unitarians don’t believe this, but it sounds like Unitarians don’t put a lot of stock, if I’m

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understanding you right, in common belief as a tenet of—you have to believe this in order to be Unitarian. P: Now, see, this is what’s so interesting. I: Ok. P: Because the answer to that is yes and no. I: Ok. P: So, um, there are Unitarian churches where—ok. This is a non-doctrinal church, right? I: Sure. P: There is no doctrine. There is no creed. And this is—this was founded in New England. You don’t mess around with New Englanders in the 17th, 18th centuries. You don’t tell them what they can and can’t do, cause they’re not going to do it. They’re going to say—‘no, I don’t believe we will.’ So it’s non-doctrinal. So, nonetheless, there are UU congregations that will not let you use the word ‘God,’ or ‘prayer,’ or ‘worship.’ I kind of understand the ‘worship.’ Who have given new words to some of the best old Christian hymns. I: Mmhm. P: I love the warhorse hymns. I even like Onward Christian Soldiers, which was taken out of the prayer- of the hymnal, because it’s heretical. You gotta admit, some of those hymns, they’re great music, great harmony—and a lot of times, the words are coming from famous poets, and they’re really, really good. And I grew up with them. I mean, in my church, in Massachusetts, we sung all of them. Except for Onward Christian Soldiers, but here’s the funny thing—ok, so— let me get back. I do wander. I: It’s all right, it’s all right. P: Occasionally grab the reins. Ok, so—um, non-doctrinal church, which says no one can tell you what to believe, and yet, there are Unitarian Universalist congregations that are telling their congregation what to believe. I: Mmhm. P: I mean, unless I’m wrong, that is a contradiction in terms. And I would rather be at St. Mark's Episcopal with good music that be with a lot of really old friends at the UUs, they don’t have music, I can’t stand the rewritten hymns… anyway. Ok, so. Here’s the funny thing that happened. I remember this so well. My mother rarely—my mother was severely mentally ill. I: Mm. P: And also my father, although a very interesting, a very complex man. And not a mean man, particularly. Was really doctrinaire, and he took very seriously the patriarchal assumptions of what middle-classed white fathers were supposed to do, and he worked like a dog to support the family—she could never have held on, have held down a job at all, but he would never have let her, because that would have said to the community that he wasn’t doing his job. I: (overlapping) Wasn’t doing his job. P: You’re familiar with that. Ok, so. One day, he goes ballistic. We were singing something—I was, cause I was in the choir of course. And this is when I was—I don’t know. We moved when I was sixteen, so I was probably, maybe twelve. Um, I had this music of an anthem that we were singing, and we were not allowed to sing the word ‘king’ or ‘lord’ and both of them were in this anthem. So we had to sing something else. And my father goes ballistic. ‘God, Unitarians are—they’re heretical.’ And my mother pointed out they couldn’t actually be heretical because they don’t believe in a doctrine or a creed. But anyway, but then she said—the reason that they can’t say ‘king’ or ‘lord’ is that we are in southeastern Massachusetts, home of the revolution,

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and even now, if you sing those two words, you are referring to the King of England even though it’s a queen now. So for political reasons, you cannot sing it. That’s about the only thing that we could not do. There was a time when we got a brand-new, squeaky-clean minister, from Meadville Seminary, very interesting guy… tradition was, in our meeting house, we—a meeting house, you know, is square—have you ever been in one? I: I have not. P: They’re usually square, they look like a box with a funny little thing on top. And you go in the back, you know, and there’s a central aisle there, and there’s some steps, and a row down— you know, there’s a balcony—and remembering how old this was, this had box pews on the first pews, which actually are boxes. You know, they don’t have tops on them. But they’re really cool if you’re a little kid because you can play with your toys and no one can see you. But we didn’t have the money to have a box pew, so we were upstairs, where you could see, so you had to behave. I: Mm. P: So it was this tradition that they probably had been doing since the 17 th century that when the minister walked down the aisle to the back of the church at the end of the service and turned around to give, you know, some kind of—something. He would say something. The entire congregation would turn round and face him. They always did it. Well, this young minister, this very young minister, couldn’t stand it. He said, ‘you can’t do that, you’re turning your back on the altar!’ He said this at church. I was there when he said this. I: Mmhm. P: One ancient man, who must have been born in the 17 th century, said—‘we don’t have an altar! This is an Episcopal [meant Unitarian here] church! We’re not turning our back on anything! And immediately half the congregation left and went to the other church. And that’s how I was brought up. I: Well this—this is a Unitarian church, not—you said Episcopal just now— P: Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I: Ok. Just making sure I had it straight. P: No, I’m sorry, I keep flipping, I keep flipping. No. But, um—so I was born into this kind of hybrid family. So, my grandparents were very, very active in the Unitarian church. My mother, when she got married, um—stopped, stopped going after we moved to New York. After we left Massachusetts. And I honestly don’t know why. Um—just before I got married, she, for reasons I think I finally understand—I did not realize how mentally ill she was, before this. She decided I should be married in a church. In the church, the Episcopal church that my father grew up in, because by then we’d moved back to where he lived. It’s a tiny church, the most beautiful thing you ever saw. Maybe a quarter the size of St. Mark’s, if that. And it was very very old, had beautiful stained glass windows. And she joined the altar guild. And she did all sorts of stuff. All this enthusiasm. I mean, I could have been married in there anyway, without her doing any of that. They didn’t care. You know, Episcopal churches—except, I guess, for the really high ones—are remarkably lenient about what you can do. I: Mmhm. P: She subsequently, a number of years ago, suffered a real psychotic break. I: Mm. P: My father always blamed it on the church. I: Mm.

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P: Now he—I mean, he—he was confirmed, baptized, all of that in the Episcopal church. Um— I: But he felt like— P: I never saw him go into an Episcopal church, in fact, except when I got married. So, you know, there’s all this funny stuff going on in my family. I: So—so yeah. I do want to pause, uh—because I’m hearing you kind of talk about your mother and her mental illness, and that means a lot of things to a lot of people, and I’m wondering—how did that play out? How were you aware of that? P: I’m aware of it now in ways I never was. Um, because a few years ago I was diagnosed as bipolar. I have bipolar II, which is still bipolar. And you know, I’m on medication. I have a psych—well, I’m trying to find another psychiatrist, because there are no psychiatrists in this part of Ohio. I: Not a lot. P: I have a great therapist. But I need to take medication. And I function most of the time really well. I: Mmhm. P: But I had to learn a lot about what it means to have bipolar disorder. And I read a lot about it. And then I started thinking about my mother, and I thought—she has, she must have had bipolar disorder. And I would swear it would have been Bipolar I. I mean, people say, well, 2 is just less severe than 1. And from everything my psychiatrist told me, my therapist has told me, and I’ve read, that’s a little too easy. But here’s the thing. It was really scary growing up in that house. I: Yeah. P: And the reason it was, was—she was this amazingly talented woman. There was nothing she couldn’t paint or draw. She did exquisite needlework. She sang like an angel. She took really high-powered piano lessons—all the time I was growing up, she could play anything. She never played in public, but, I mean, she was really skilled. She would go into enthusiasms, right? So, she was once in an oil painting phase. And she worked with a very skilled famous artist in town, and she painted wonderful things. And her sister, my aunt, was a puppeteer, and she had made this puppet, a marionette about that tall. And she was a ballerina. And she was in a pink tutu, on her points—and I mean, I wish I could show you. I don’t have any of her marionettes now. And they were exquisite. My mother did a portrait of this marionette. I wanted it so badly. And I was probably—I was ten. It was just beautiful. And then she decided she didn’t want to do oil paints anymore, and she destroyed everything. I: Mm. P: Then—she went through a watercolor phase. Same thing happened. Now, I’m not kidding you—she was phenomenally, phenomenally talented. She went through a block-printing phase, only not ordinary kind of block printing—these amazing things. Same thing. Destroyed everything. I: Mm. You were saying it was scary to grow up— P: Cause you never knew who she was. I: Yeah. P: Do you know— I: When that was going to switch. P: You never knew. You never knew. And, um, and I honestly don’t know why they married. I mean, he—I’ve seen a picture of him as a young man, and oh my god was he gorgeous. And she

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was beautiful. But they were such different personalities. He was desperately shy, and come from even more straightened circumstances than she had, and had—he was a naval architect, and he became a real big deal. He defined Navy ships, and big—you know, big ships. Not little boats. Um—and he obviously was really, really good. And I know that not because of anything he ever said, but because for some odd reasons, every once in awhile, I would meet—this was after I moved out here—I would meet some of the people who had worked with him. And I could get their perspective on him, like—whoa. This is something. I: Mmhm. P: So he’s like that. She is this flamboyant, creative, outgoing woman who had been—sort of a tomboy, they would have said, when she was younger. I: Mm. P: He grew up in this little teeny town in New York-- Unitarian, Episcopalian. His mom died— she was mentally ill as well, but he always said, it was not something I could ever inherit, and I don’t fully understand that. But she was hospitalized many times. She died when he was eighteen. Um, so of course I never met her. Um—so, so my mother, I remember once—my brother’s three years older than I am. And kind of a typical older brother. I only have one sibling. And I remember this—you know, it’s funny how there’s certain things you—I remember almost nothing about my childhood. Almost nothing about junior high, almost nothing about high school. A lot of it, I think actually, I don’t want to remember. I mean, it’s not particularly interesting. But this I remember vividly. So, it was this beautiful day. I was upstairs playing, our little house. And I, I looked out the window, and there was my brother and some of his little boy friends playing with a dog that they had found. I love animals. So of course I went down to play with the dog. Well, they wouldn’t let me. Now, I was one of those children—as a 71 year old mother, woman, I have not changed at all. I notice injustice everywhere. Not just about me, but if it’s against me, I’m very vocal about it. So of course I screamed and yelled. My mother—ok, maybe she was tired of taking—she didn’t work outside the home, she didn’t have very many friends, um—they didn’t have very many friends. My father didn’t need anybody, I don’t think actually. I think my mother did. But anyway. So she comes out with a hairbrush and hits me, with the bristle end of the hairbrush. I mean, she pulls my hair down and hits me hard several times. And—I remember some part of my brain saying ‘wait a minute! I didn’t do anything that bad! Ok, I made some noise, but they wouldn’t even let me touch the dog. They were being these mean boys.’ Um—but see, you never could tell. You never could tell how she was going to react. I: What shoe was going to come down. P: On the other side—we’d go to the country to visit her parents who went there in the summers, cause they’d inherited a country house. And, um, there were always mice there. And they always had to kill them, in traps. And soft-hearted soul that I am, when I had to go out to the outhouse, because in those days they did not have indoor plumbing there—I mean, I was born in the 20th century, but they didn’t have indoor plumbing there—I would come across traps with dead mice, and I just couldn’t bear it. I: Yeah. P: So, my mother finds me just weeping over this little mouse. She takes it out of the—again, one of those vivid memories. I mean, I can see it. She takes the mouse out of the trap, puts it in a shoebox with some tissue paper, takes me—we walk down to this big, big blueberry patch. She digs a hole, she puts the little mouse in it. She covers it up. She makes the little name-board

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from a stone, and scratches on something. Now, she told me until the day she died that she had not been a good mother. In many ways, she was terrible. But I think that is extraordinary. You know, instead of saying—‘oh for god’s sakes, it’s vermin, it can’t be alive.’ I mean, she didn’t do that. But on the other hand—I mean, she didn’t just spank me. She beat me with that brush. She once threw a cast-iron frying pan at my father, which terrified me. I: Sure. P: Oh my god, he’s going to get hit. So that’s how I grew up. I: Not—not being really able to trust that she would be the same day to day, and—and it sounds like, from your describing, you didn’t go out much, there weren’t a lot of other people to count on. Sounds like a little island where— P: Yeah. I: -- if they were having problems, everybody in the house was having problems, cause it wasn’t- - P: I think so. I mean, we had an old, old woman living next door, in the first house that I remember there, which was—it was a four bedroom cape, a New England cape, which are lovely little houses. And there was this wonderful old woman living next door. And her kids were all— I mean, I bet she was 95. I mean, she was kind of an Energizer Bunny. And if my parents actually went out someplace, and they were going to be out late, I got to go sleep over there, which I loved, because she had all these—all these elephant figures. Statues. All of them with their trunks up, which you’re supposed to have, because that’s good luck. And they were so exotic, and she was so exotic, and I loved her. So I had her. And you know, I had some friends in school, but my parents—when—as I got older, when I was in my 20s and 30s and finally being diagnosed as having bipolar disorder—I wondered more and more whether what my father sometimes was doing was protecting her. I: Mm. P: Not—I mean, I don’t think—he really was not kind of a social butterfly, but I mean, he had lots of friends when we moved to Long Island because the friends he graduated from school with, from high school, were there in the town. And he was happy as a clam. She hated being on Long Island. She loved New England. That’s where she wanted to be. But he was moved to a really big important job. And if he’d stayed there, he wouldn’t have had a job, and she couldn’t have worked. So, but—my father was a hard man, to be his daughter. Um, he did not believe girls should go to college, because they take the place of a man who needed the degree in order to support his family. I: Still in that picture of—that’s just the job they have to do. P: Exactly. My brother got the dogs, I got the cats. I mean, any—any book you read about women growing up in the 50s and 60s, that is me. Do you know the book by Susan Douglas called Where the Girls Are? I: I’ve not heard of that, no. P: It is one of the single best books to read about women like me, of my age. Um, and I’m in a— I’m in three book groups, but the small, the medium-sized one I’m in is seven of us. Only one of whom is still working. We’re all within ten years of age. And I said, let’s read this—I read it when it first came out. Several people had never read it. We had the best discussion. It came out in the 70s. And it’s basically about how the popular culture—tv, movies, advertising, um, songs—how, she things, they bred in us—and by us she’s really talking about white middle class but not exclusively—but that’s roughly where there was more information at that time. Ok, so.

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She thinks we suffer from a kind of schizophrenia. What are Americans, right? They do things. They’re like Teddy Roosevelt. They see something, they fix it. They’re energetic. They’re very, very busy. They’re very outgoing, right? They’re patriotic. And that’s how little boys are raised. They’re raised to be loud. They’re raised to do things. I mean, they still are raised that way, and I’ll say something about that later. Little girls weren’t raised that way. They’re still raised, to some extent, the way I was. Little girls sit close to the teacher in grade school. They’re compliant. They’re cooperative. I mean, that’s how we were raised. I: So how do you fit in that country? P: You can’t! I mean, that’s the trouble. I: Yeah. P: You can’t be an American and a woman. I: Hm. P: You actually can’t. Now, obviously, lots of things have changed. And lots of things haven’t changed one single bit. And that is partly where I find myself now. So. Alright. Where do you want me to take this. I: Well—I want to say, one of the things still on my mind is that you said ‘two and a half things’, and I still want to hear what the two and a half things are. P: Oh, what was the half thing. Oh my god. I: It’ll come back up. I just wanted to prime it. P: I gotta write this down so I remember it. What was the other one? I’m sure it was good. (laughs) I: (laughs) I am just noticing that as you’re talking about, kind of, your background and your relationship with spirituality, how that does and does not overlap with religion and family traditions of religion, and I think that’s a really complex picture—there’s—I, well, I want to do two things. P: Ok. I: I’m tempted to ask you, so what do you believe in this. And also—I think partly, you’ve kind of given that answer in a communal way. That your spiritual life growing up was your inheritance from your mother, from your father, and kind of the communities you were a part of, and things. More so driven—more so framed by community than by, like, here’s my individual take on things. P: Mmhm. Mmhm. I: But I also do want to give you the opportunity of—where were you standing, in all of this? P: Well see, I think—I think that’s very interesting. Because, um—I have always labeled myself as a Unitarian. Not a Unitarian Universalist, a Unitarian, a New England Unitarian. Um- the fact of the matter is, I really am an agnostic. I mean—there may be a god, however you define it. I do not believe in a God with a white beard who himself is white. I mean, if there is a God, I sincerely hope it’s not male. I’m sorry, but (laughs) I: I’m not sure who you’re apologizing to. P: No, I—I just—I just don’t see why it is so necessary. I mean, I cannot say the Lord’s Prayer. I: Mm. P: I can’t even say ‘Our Mother.’ Cause I don’t believe—I do not believe that there is an anthropomorphic being that necessarily has gender-- I mean, I just don’t believe it. But I’m not an atheist. I mean, there’s a real difference—I mean, unless I’m wrong—agnosticism, every time I’ve read about it means—there might be a God, there might be 14 gods, there might be no

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god. I can’t know it, and I don’t need to know it. And it does not impact my life. What I need is some kind of structure within which to try to lead a good life. I: Mm. P: Now for some people, that means what we do on Sundays at St. Mark's. But—I don’t—I don’t need to think that there’s an angry God. Or that, if I don’t behave, Jesus is going to come down and punish me. I: Sounds like, to some extent, uh—in fact there might be a need to have that not be true. P: Mmhm. Yes, yes. No, absolutely. Because—I don’t know. Maybe partly it’s being a classicist. Who, after all, believed in lots of gods. I mean, you—my god, some of those gods. I: Not nice ones. P: No, no no no no. And if you read Homer, who’s one of my favorite Greek authors, you wouldn’t want to play any team sport with them. I: (laughs) P: You would not want to entrust your drycleaning to them. I mean, really. All they—you know. I: Mmhm. P: All those gods were basically huge human beings. And the only difference between them and humans, the only two differences in Homer, is that they don’t have blood in their veins, they have something called ichor, a clear liquid; and they can run really really fast. I: Hm. P: There are gods that die. You know, people say, ‘well, God doesn’t die.’ So maybe—I mean, I started studying my field when I was in high school, so maybe that’s part of it. But the thing is, I do not feel, even at 71, that I need to know the answers to this. I: Mm. P: I’m not sure they’re knowable, but part of me doesn’t care. I: Mmhm. P: I mean, I love to sing sacred music, cause so much of it is so good. I don’t believe any of it. And I – I mean, I think that’s ok. I: Mmhm. P: And that really is very much a Unitarian Agnostic point of view. You know, we had Christmas pageants. We had Mary and Joseph. We were taught that Jesus was a remarkable historical person, whose teachings one should pay attention to, and most, maybe not all, most of his teachings one should emulate. I don’t disagree with that. But, the son of God? No. The suffering servant? No. Did he die for my sins? No. Because that’s where the Unitarian thing comes in. No one can die for my sins. If I’ve committed a sin, whatever that is, I deal with it. I: I deal with the consequences. P: I deal with it. Right. And unlike Jonathan Edwards—I do love his sermon, Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God—and every now and then I think-- I’m doing a lot of study of the Holocaust, and anti-Semitism right now, at this point. I think, ok, so why the hell didn’t God come down and say ‘you have had it, here come the lightning bolts, gonna blast you’. Especially when so many Christians supported Hitler. And Martin Luther, whose 500th anniversary we’re celebrating, he died a flaming anti-Semite. I: Extremely. P: I just read his book, The Jews and Their Lies. He must have taught Hitler. It’s appalling. So you can see why I keep pulling back from all that.

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I: Sure. P: But I don’t – in a certain way, I actually don’t care. I don’t care if there’s a god, I don’t care if there isn’t a god. I don’t think I can know it, and I don’t need to know it. I: Can I ask—is, is your singing part of your spiritual life? P: Ah. Well, ok. Before the church was renovated, we had that little needlepoint that says—sing, pray twice? I: “Those who sing pray twice”? P: Yeah, yeah. I’ve always liked that. Well, I’ve always sung, from the time I was a tiny child. Always in groups, cause I do not have a solo voice, obviously. And also, I don’t particularly like solo voices. I like ensemble singing. I like operas that have ensemble singing. Occasional soloists—fine. I don’t even particularly like solo instruments. I mean, I like polyphonic stuff. I like all of that for the same reason that some people think that team sports are so critical for children. I: Mm. P: Or group singing, or instrumentalists, or theater productions. Where individuals have to learn their parts, and have to do them. And if they don’t, they screw the whole thing up. And when they come together—they’re magical. So is it part of my spirituality? If spirituality involves, um—trying to find one’s place in the world, where you’re not harming people, and where you can do, do things that you think can enhance life for yourself and for others, then yes it is. There’s this wonderful expression, has anyone mentioned this to you—um, let me see. BNR. But Not Religious. I: Mm. P: So there are all sorts of people now, who say, well, I’m not—I’m spiritual, but I’m BNR. I just heard that the other day, and I looked it up online of course. I thought—well, that’s interesting. But I wouldn’t use it of myself. I: Hm. P: I find it annoying. It’s too glib. It’s too glib. Yeah, um—but I’ve been through a lot of transformations over the years, because—and I think this does absolutely have to do with my notion of what spirituality might be—because you, you were talking about communal things awhile ago, and, um—because I was raised by parents who were such loners, I mean—we did go to church every Sunday, when we lived in New England. Not at all when we left New England. Um—my parents never participated in the PTA. Um, I was always the one who made cookies for the bake sales. I was famous for my bright blue cookies, which won’t surprise you. (laughs) I: (laughs) P: They were even bluer than the grocery ones. Um, I mean, I had some friends. My brother had lots of friends. He was much more outgoing than I was at the time. (coughs) We didn’t do any quote-unquote service to the community, or to the church, really, once we moved to New York. And then, you know, you go to college, and I—I did something very interesting in college, which was very much tied in with what I was studying. But it was a kind of service. I tutored a high school student who had been attending a School for the Blind. She—she had had some vision when she was born, but within, you know, six months it was completely gone. And she really wanted—I mean, she missed her family in New England, cause I went to school in New England. She missed them badly. She wanted to graduate from a sighted school. She wanted to go back to New England and go to that high school. And her parents said ‘ok, but it’s really going to be hard, you’re going from a school where things are doable for you—‘ and she said ‘I

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don’t care. I want to be in school with other people—other people who can see.’ They said ok. Well, in that state, uh—well, under the current President they won’t have this long if they still have it, sorry— I: Again, not sure who you’re apologizing to. P: (laughs) Well, you know, you know. I just, uh—I find it hard to believe that someone that vicious and cruel and stupid can be our president. I mean, he’s ripping the heart out of everything I care about. Everything. Social justice. Help for the poor. Family planning. Violence, I mean—trying to do something about violence. Anyway. So. What, what they had was this really cool program. Let’s say that you have, like Jeanne, cause I started tutoring her when she was a sophomore in high school. So how old are you when you’re a sophomore, I never can remember. I: Fifteen, sixteen? P: Fifteen, sixteen, I think you’re right. Ok, so. Your parents go to the state and say, I have a daughter who cannot see at all. And of course in those days they were using Braillers, they don’t have machines that talk to you, you know, all that stuff now. And they say—she’s taking Latin. And we don’t want her not to take Latin. But she can’t use any of the books, cause they’re not in Braille. And she needs a tutor in Latin. So, the state says to them—we will pay a tutor for your daughter. Where do you think we can get someone who knows Latin? And they’re talking with—cause Jeanne told me all about this, I mean, she was there at the time, she said—this person says, wait a minute, a university’s there. I should know, I went there. So they call the department, they say, do you have a really good Latin student who would tutor our daughter? And they asked me. I thought, well, this could be cool. I mean, I loved Latin. I’d never done anything like that. And I would get paid. So I tutored her for three years. And—it is one of the things I remember, not just because I got paid, which was very nice—but, even if I hadn’t gotten paid I would have done it. Cause for the first time, really, in my life, I was doing something for someone else that I was peculiarly well-suited to do. I: Mm. P: And then when she started reading Virgil’s Aeneid, which I was reading on the college level at the same time—it was amazing. It was such a good experience. So, I did that. Then I went back to New York to get a job, cause I couldn’t get a job anywhere else, cause I was a Latin major and a woman and in 1968 until 1973, want ads were listed “Help Wanted: Male,” “Help Wanted: Female.” I: Mmhm. P: Which so many either don’t remember or never knew in the first place. So there are all these jobs I couldn’t get. I wasn’t certifiable to teach. I mean, there weren’t a lot of jobs. Tried to get one in Boston, where I really wanted to be—I took a fifteen minute test and was told I was psychologically unfit for it. So I went to New York, and got exactly the same job. Exactly. Living—I mean, I had to live with my parents, cause I had no money. But. Working midtown— it was way cool. But I couldn’t live on it. And I really didn’t want to live with my parents forever. And they certainly didn’t want me to. I mean, it wasn’t that we didn’t get along, actually we got along quite well, but—you know, they deserved their privacy and I deserved to grow up. I: That was important within your family, that kind of independence— P: Well, what’s interesting is, I went to graduate school. My father did not want me to go to graduate school. Now, by the way, the man who said that women shouldn’t go to college?

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I: Mmhm? P: Colby—you’re going to love this—when I first went there, was 3300 dollars a year. It’s 56,000 now. Which is not just a sign of what’s happened to the economy. I: Sure. P: But it was an expensive school. Right? He paid for it all. Now, I did do another job. I san g in Chapel Choir, and Chapel Choir was also paid. And I was a waitress. Actually, I didn’t have to do any of that. He would have paid for the whole thing. But anyway, so I discovered, if I had a master’s degree in anything at all, I would make—let’s see, I was making $4500 in 1968. I would make $3500 more—didn’t matter what the master’s was in….So I applied, and because of my salary, I had no money whatsoever and the fools gave me money. So that’s why I went to graduate school. So there I am. I sang in a Methodist church. I: Mm. P: There was a Unitarian church there, a beautiful Unitarian church. But they didn’t have any music. What is it about Unitarians? Anyway. I: So you followed the music. P: I did, I did. Because everybody told me, for one thing, the preacher was really a fire-and- brimstone preacher, and I love fire-and-brimstone preachers. I: What about that? Cause that’s like Jonathan Edwards, too. P: I—well—this guy really was good. I mean, he was. I: The art form of it? P: The art form. And actually, um—you know, Methodists are really interesting. They sometimes get a bum rap, I think. Um, you know, there’s a lot of tradition in Methodism that’s really admirable. And, I—I mean, the choir was ehh, but the conductor was great and the organist was great. And I really liked that. But, but—because I was working so hard on graduate school, um, I did very little off campus other than that. I mean, I just—so, I didn’t do sort of socially useful things. Came here, um, because finally, I decided maybe I should get a Ph.D. So I did, and I got one of the few tenure track jobs in the entire country. I: Made it through. P: Made it through, and actually got a job. I: Yeah. P: And a tenure-track job. So I came here, and, um—you know, I kicked around for a couple years. And one day I’m sitting at a committee meeting, and Jim Morgan leans over and says, ‘Beatrice, I hear you sing.’ I said, yes, I do. He said, ‘how’d you like to sing at St. Mark’s?’ I said, what kind of church is it? And he said, Episcopal. I said, Jim. I’m a Unitarian. No communion, no crossing, no acknowledging the cross. I mean, really. If that bothered people I would not be able to sit there. He said ‘not to worry.’ He says, ‘three quarters of the choir— they’re not even Episcopalians. I mean, God only knows what they are, but they’re not Episcopalians.’ So I said fine. I: (laughs) P: So that was that. But the thing is—I love—well, until recently. I love St. Mark’s. Um, I— you know, I went there, wondering what it was going to be like. Fred Scott was the priest then, um. He was really an interesting man. And I talked with him. I said, I’m not trying to be offensive, but I can’t do any of this, I’m a Unitarian. And he said, ‘but you love to sing?’ I said, yes. He says, ‘well, do you believe that there’s a moment in one’s week when it’s good to think about other kinds of things besides grading?’ I said, yes. ‘And do you think it’s important to do

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good deeds, and would you like to do them?’ I said yes, he said ‘well, I think you should be here.’ And it’s only recently, under Joan, that for the first time ever, I feel like I don’t belong. Which is part of the spiritual angst. I: Yeah. P: But, you know, I really threw myself into—into St. Mark’s, thinking sometimes about my mother. Because when she went through that phase of being on Altar Guild, I mean— I: Such a big change, from— P: Yeah, and I, I mean—because she always did things like that. Overdoing things. And— although I am rarely manic by any sort of clinical definition, um, it’s really hard for me to say no, but I’ve always hard a hard time saying no if something sounds interesting. I really want to do it. I: Mmhm. P: And—my therapist wondered if I was becoming hypomanic for awhile. And we talked a lot about that and decided that no, it was part—it was a habit of my life. I: Mm. P: That—I’ve actually gotten more curious as I’ve gotten older about things I think will—well, that sounds like a lot of fun, I think I’ll do it. Um, and she decided—not even hypomanic, really, just kind of a little quirk. I: Curious. P: Yeah. But the thing about St. Mark’s—can we move into— I: Please do. P: Cause here’s the thing about spiritual crises. I: Yeah. P: Since Thanksgiving of last year, seven intimate friends have died. People I’ve known all the time I’ve been here all the time I’ve been here, with one exception, and I first met her at Kiwanis, although I used to do my travel plans with her. She was exactly my age. I knew her very, very well. Um—I’m tired of people dying. I: Yeah. P: I’m realistic, I know it happens. But all these people who mattered so much to me, some of whom were really my mentors, my feminist mentors, have died. So there’s that. I: Yeah. P: Several years ago, I went through this terrible, terrible period where I stopped singing entirely, which is really unusual for me. Um—and it would not be accurate to say I had some kind of psychotic break, but something was really, really wrong. Um, it appears—I mean, I was diagnosed with having early dementia. This is one reason I don’t drive. I don’t have a driver’s license anymore. I was in an accident. Nothing was hurt except for my car, no one or anything. But I lost an entire day, I have no memory of what happened. I remember the EMS people came to get me over by the senior center. And the next thing I know it’s night, and I’m in a hospital. I: Oh, that’s frightening. P: It’s terrifying. I never want to go through anything like that again. I: Absolutely. P: This good looking man walks in and says, ‘Hello Beatrice, do you know who I am?’ I say, you look familiar but I can’t say who you are. He’s my doctor. My doctor I’ve had for thirty years. And—anyway. So it appears that a lot of it was a major UTI. I: Mmhm.

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P: You know how many doctors don’t tell their patients—especially women patients, but apparently it happens to men too—what can happen to you with one of those? Every female nurse knows it. I mean, one nurse came in, she said, ‘well of course you have a UTI, that’s why you can’t remember anything, that’s why you’re in la-la land.’ Which is exactly how she said it, which actually made me feel a lot better. Now— I: Yeah, seems— P: There were other things too. I was vastly, vastly overmedicated. Not by my primary care physician, but you know how it is. You have specialists. I: Yup. They don’t talk. P: And they all prescribe powerful drugs, and they don’t talk to each other. So once I was taken off of—what, eight out of nineteen meds— I: Pshoo. P: And the infection was taken care of, and I came here —for three weeks, I had physical therapy here, occupational therapy which was really good, cause I still didn’t have my brain quite back, and a nurse came every week and I seemed to be really quite well. I’m terrified of it happening again. I: Sure. P: I’m terrified of losing my mind. I: Sure. P: And I’m really worried right now. Partly because the stress of all my friends—my beloved psychiatrist, the only one in this part of the state, who is magnificent, decided that she would join the Army, at fifty. I: Oh. P: For a wonderful reason. She came from a military family, her husband had just retired from the Air Force, she was fifty-one. She must look great in uniform. Spiky red hair, really funky clothes, I love her. But she said—listen, all of you need my help. But I think people coming back from Afghanistan and other places need my help more. I: Mm. P: And she may have been right. But— I: It’s a big loss. P: It is. It is, and she had said—I was doing so well on one medication. She must have put me on eight different ones over eight years. She’d find side effects she didn’t like—I mean, those things are terrible. Including mood stabilizers. I always wondered why they say that people who have bipolar, one of the problems is they don’t take their meds. Well, yeah! I: Yeah. P: I mean, it’s incredible! And I recently fired a psychiatrist, who, number one, gave me a mood stabilizer, and I said to her explicitly I don’t want to take one. And she said, why. And I said, have you ever taken one? And she said, no. I said, well, you don’t feel deeply depressed— which is mostly what my bipolar is—and you don’t feel happy either. You don’t feel anything. You’re dead. Then she prescribed something—I had filled out this lengthy medical history in which I said ‘I have diabetes. There are certain drugs I must never take.’ To be sure, I’m Type II, which some people think isn’t diabetes. I’m sorry, I can still lose my toes. I: It’s still diabetes, yeah. P: And my heart, and my head, and my fingers, you know (laughs). I: Don’t want to lose any of those things.

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P: No, you don’t! Well, I say to her—she says, I want you to take one. I said—oh, something, it has a funny commercial on TV, I can’t remember it now. Anyway, I said—you do know I have diabetes. She said, yes. I said, I don’t want to take anything that is going to interf ere with my A1C, which is 5.4, which is very very good, after a lot of effort. Years to get that down. She didn’t even know what an A1C was. And—I explained it to her. I even know how it works, which is way cool, I finally looked it up online, I mean—I knew it worked, and everyone I know who worries about their A1C is—nobody knew how it worked. So I went and looked it up, and told them, and it’s really an amazing test. So. She says, well you have to take it. And I asked— I said alright. And I was getting really concerned, cause it wasn’t quite—I really wasn’t feeling very well. You know? And you know, I can deal with blood and stuff, but I can’t deal with stuff up here, cause you can’t see it. Well, it turns out that the pharmacy didn’t want to fill it because the pharmacist said ‘Beatrice, this can’t be yours, you can’t take this.’ And I said, ‘why?’ Cause I hadn’t had time to come home and look it up online. So then we went to my primary care physician, and he said—‘you can’t take this. Moreover, I won’t let you take it.’ So I fired my psychiatrist. I: That sounds wise. P: So here I am, kind of, you know, teetering on that—meanwhile, for two years, I haven’t been able to walk normally. Or barely walk at all, to the point where I really could hardly walk. And then we discovered that it was the hip. And it never occurred to me to go see my orthopedist, because I actually didn’t think it was the hip, because the hip didn’t hurt. So—have to face the surgery—piece of cake. Not a problem. Annoying as hell, living alone, having to pick up things off the floor with a grabber. I: Yeah. P: Because you can’t pick up garbanzo beans or pens with a grabber. So I had to put little signs on my front door. My friends came in, I’m saying—‘Go to the following rooms and please pick up the following things.’ Ok, so that went well. I’ve been writing better than ever before. Um, I’m able to read better. Because I was really beginning to have trouble reading. I thought, well this is—maybe I really am demented. I: Mm. P: My primary care physician said, ‘you’re not demented.’ He said, ‘you’re weird, you’ve always been weird, maybe,’ which he said with affection, he said, ‘but—I mean, you’re a very distinct personality, but you’re not demented.’ Ok. So here’s what happened. Here I am, so painfully aware of the loss of all my close friends. And knowing that Pat Summers was going to be moving to Raleigh soon, and she was my oldest friend here, and my very closest here. I have several very good friends in other parts of the country, but they are far, far away. So—you know. I go to church. I go to Easter. And Joan—comes this, this close to saying the Jews killed Jesus. I: Mm. P: And I thought to myself, I’m not really hearing this, am I? And then she does the children’s sermon, where she says that this is a historical fact, that Jesus rose from the dead. I: Mmhm. P: Ok. I’m glad she believes it. How are those children’s parents going to explain why their beloved grandfather hasn’t risen from the dead, or their beloved great-aunt hasn’t risen from the dead? Just asking. And then I noticed other things that I couldn’t stand. And various people in the choir—at least on my end of the choir—were getting more and more itchy, which is why a

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whole bunch of us sat out for the summer, and didn’t go. I kept thinking—this is the only place at the moment where I can sing. I: Mm. P: I can’t—we—Peggy and I went to other churches. I can’t go to them. I mean, the Methodist church is completely out, cause that minister—oh my god. I: That seems like a—what happened there? P: Oh, for one thing he preaches two hours at a time— I: That’s a lot. P: He’s so fundamentalist. I: Hm. P: Um—and I have a lot of trouble with fundamentalism. I: Sure. P: And Joan is fundamentalist. And concretist. So— I: Kind of the opposite of the—seems like, what has served you well through most of your life, focusing less on the concrete. P: And at St. Mark’s. I: Yeah. P: Because Fred Scott didn’t mind that I was—but she did not want me to process with the choir because I didn’t acknowledge the cross. I: Hm. P: And I had a talk with her, and said, I’m a Unitarian. I will not do anything to embarrass you, but this congregation has gotten used to me. There are things I cannot do. It would be hypocritical of me. I can’t acknowledge the cross! I actually, physically cannot do that. I can’t say the confession of sin. I don’t— I: It wouldn’t—like you’re saying, it would feel, it would be hypocritical. P: It would be. But on the other hand, I do recognize my hypocrisy. I know advent carols from Christmas carols. I’ve gone since 1976 to every Good Friday service, Easter—I love Easter. I love Easter music. We had Easter music when I was growing up, for pete’s sakes! I mean, why not? It’s an important period of the time. Christmas, I love Christmas. Look at all the major religions of the world, ancient, medieval, modern, that all celebrate around the Solstice. Every single one of them, with very few exceptions. I: So what makes that hypocritical? P: Well, one could say, well, you go to all these services. I mean, some people ask me that. If you don’t believe it— I: So that’s one of the things you hear from people. P: Mmhm. Not from St. Mark’s people. There used to be St. Mark’s people who were very critical of me. Um—but no one ever said I couldn’t process. Um—and there are other people in the choir who don’t take communion. There once was a time, when there were about seven of us—this was many years ago—who did not take communion, and we had a number of, um, student singers, one of whom was Roman Catholic, and of course she can’t take communion in an Episcopal church. There’s a whole ‘nother issue I’d love to talk about sometime, but anyway. Sure. P: So she’s sitting next to me, and she says, ‘why aren’t any of you taking communion?’ I said, well, none of us take communion. She said, ‘really?’ I said, yeah, and I went through what the religious background was, and there was another Unitarian there, and she said, ‘you can sing in

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the choir?’ Well, sure, why not, it’s an Episcopal church. So here’s the problem. Under Joan, it’s not the kind of Episcopal church I’ve been living in all these years. Sure. P: It really hasn’t. I mean we’ve had some interesting rectors, one of whom really was mentally ill and had to be taken—taken out of the church. And a couple of, of supply priests who were just so beyond the realm of reason that they actually were amusing—except for one who said anti-Semitic things to Lane Boyle, whose main squeeze is Jewish, was Jewish when she was alive. I: Mm. P: An observant Jew. The priest never darkened her doorstep again. When I heard about that, I refused to let him come to see me too. But no—so, here I am. I have found solace in the church. I love the people there, some of my most favorite people—half of whom are dead now—go to that church. I like the things that St. Mark’s has done. I taught Sunday School once, if you can believe it! I: Mmhm. P: Um, outreach, I care a lot about outreach. Um—I’ve done all sorts of things within that community. It means a great deal to me. Not just because I’m singing. But I really find singing is an extraordinary experience. I mean, I literally have sung all my life. Um, usually in groups much, much better than I am, because—and I don’t have a bad voice, but, um—I don’t sight- read. I sight-read much better than I used to, I don’t know why, but I actually do. But there’s certain, you know, musical skills I don’t necessarily have. But I’m a really good choral singer, because I look directly at that conducting hand all the time. Every now and then I want to turn to a couple guys behind me and say, excuse me, have you ever noticed how he waves his right hand? I: (laughs) P: Have you ever noticed that? Anyway. But being a part of St. Mark’s, I mean—Lane was there, and Jane Lucas, and Ava, and—oh my god, Jay Smith, Luke Mills, these people, many of whom I didn’t get to see except in churchly things. Um—and it’s meant so much to me, so that now—I mean, I finally decided I could not not sing. I: Mm. P: But I have to think about other things. I cannot listen to her. I: Mmhm. P: She takes everything so literally. I really thought Sunday she was going to move in a more profitable direction. I mean, we’ve just had yet another mass shooting, which I’m writing something about. And I thought—if this were Fred Scott, if this were Linda Mayer, if this were Sam, oh, if this were Luke Sanders, oh my god. This would have been a moment for preaching. Really serious preaching, about white men mass shooters. Because statistically, they are. I: Mm. P: One out of ninety was not male. No, two—two out of ninety was not male. Fifty-one out of the ninety are white. Seventeen are black. Native Americans are three. A perfect time to say, there’s really something wrong with this culture, and we as a faith community—yes, we should pray for them, in Texas. But prayer’s not enough. Someone has got to take action, and historically, faith communities have often been, individually and corporately, groups that did it. I mean, they risked their lives. I mean, yeah, some of them committed abominations. Oh, we could mention the Inquisition, why not. But—but, when you think about it. So many things,

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until relatively recently—changes that have been made—have been a combination of a variety of people doing it. And a lot of those people have been members of faith communities who took seriously, for whatever reason, some obligation to take care of the rest of the world. And I take that seriously. I: Mmhm. P: But she didn’t do it. It was the same—same old, same old. I’ve been very disappointed. And the thing is, I mean, she’s—she’s been on missionary trips, I mean, she’s not unaware of, of, all the –isms that really should be wiped out. I know that. But— I: So why isn’t— P: I have no idea. And I really—I just find it so, so difficult. And some could say, well, the trouble is I’m just so secular. Um—and I don’t, I’m not sure that that’s really it. I mean, it’s just that—I see these opportunities, and—the trouble is, the trouble is (sigh) that in some ways, I’m too well-educated in terms of history. And I’ve paid a lot of attention over the years to social history. And done some of it in my own field, though not as much as some, but—I mean, you know, I did gerontology. And I did gerontology and aging in the ancient world, when there were three of us in the country who were doing it. And I still do gerontology, I still do feminist scholarship. And now, to just put the frosting on the cake—I’ve belonged to Kiwanis for 20 years. I like Kiwanis. Its mission, it says—to improve the world one child and one community at a time. I do not have children. I have the best godchildren in the entire world. And I’m very close to the children, who of course are now men and women, of a number of friends. I: Mm. P: I was thinking about it recently, because I’m rewriting my will. There are a lot of people named there. None of them are related by blood. Nor should they be, under the circumstances. But, so here I am—off and on for the last twenty years I’ve come really close to quitting. You know, the sense of—you know, we meet at lunch on Tuesdays almost every single week of the year. And we do lots of stuff. And we give money to lots of worthy causes, and we are an extremely active service organization. Actually, to be honest, we’re more active than Rotary. We don’t have as much money as they do, but if you look at who belongs, you can understand that. And the Lions do good stuff too, mostly they drink beer— I: (laughs) P: They have no women, even though several previous presidents were trying so hard to get them to admit women, because it’s not a national thing. Rotary has relatively few women, and they’re always saying, (whiny imitation voice) ‘well how come you have so many?’ And I once said to Dan Thompson, whom I like, Dan, it’s because we invite them. I: Mm. P: But the problem is, the atmosphere is sometimes toxic. Some of the, some of the jokes are so mean-spirited, and sexist. I: Mm. P: There’s one guy who’s right on the edge of racist. Now, they’re probably five out of seventy real culprits. So, this past year—this is building up to why this whole thing is just—I mean, I really am not in good shape. I: Gathering storm. P: Well, yeah, ok. So—every Tuesday, we put in happy and sad dollars. People talk about their grandchildren, what they’re doing, something interesting that’s happened—I always tend to talk about something that’s happened in the news, sometimes I try to come up with good things,

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sometimes I come up with bad things. I try not to be too flaming radical, but sometimes I realize—boy am I radical compared to them. And I, as a feminist, I mean, I’m not conservative, but let me tell you—people think I’m radical, I am not a radical feminist. I’m on the edge. So, I put in a happy dollar, and I said, this is because the twentieth amendment—twentieth or nineteenth? I can never remember whether it was the twentieth, or—well, whichever it was, it was the nine, the nineteen, nineteen-twenty—so I said, women could vote. And considering how long it took, it’s about time. And one of these guys—and they always say this audibly, audibly—‘and we’re regretting it ever since.’ I: Mm. P: Now. A joke? Well, we all know feminists do not have a sense of humor, right? And people advocating racial equality do not have a sense of humor, you know. I: Oh, never, yes, yes. P: And people who are opposed to violence do not have a sense of humor. That’s always, that’s always what’s said. Because—I bet you’ve even had a course on the politics of humor, the psychological side of telling jokes, and humor? Do you have classes in that? I: I wish there were. That is not something that I was able to take as a course, but— P: It’s so fascinating. I: I agree that they, often times, it sounds like a situation where humor is being used to put out ideas that are not something you’re going to agree with— P: Keep people in their place. I: And you’re not allowed to disagree— P: And if you laugh at them, it makes you one of them. I: Yeah. P: If you don’t laugh, you don’t have a sense of humor. I: Mmhm. P: Or worse. And it’s gone on literally since antiquity. There’s this wonderful historian, social historian, Mary Beard, who writes the best stuff of anybody about Roman antiquity, and I mean she is so amazing. How does she do it? And she’s only sixty-five. I mean—you can’t imagine how good it is. She has this great book on Roman laughter, which I—I didn’t even know it existed, until I was doing something in my IRL class, last spring, I thought, I’ve got to read this book. I’ve read everything of hers except this. She has a wonderful, wonderful set of bits of evidence, including about someone who laughed when an emperor said something. I: Mm. P: And, I mean, you could lose your head for that. So she talks about power, right? And I used to have a dentist—I loved my dentist, I sang with him in a very elite group. And he didn’t just tell usual dentist stupid jokes, he told nasty jokes. I: Mm. P: And I wouldn’t laugh at them. I: Mmhm. P: And other people there, I knew didn’t like them, but they wouldn’t say anything. I finally said one day, ‘come on, for pete’s sakes, stop telling jokes like that. They’re not funny, they’re mean-spirited, and you should—you’re old enough to know better.’ So then he started telling jokes when I’d see him in the office that were hysterically funny. They were so good. But I noticed—they weren’t at anyone’s disadvantage. They were wonderful jokes! So good. Well,

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ok, so I—I, alright, I’m probably hypersensitive to the phenomenon of joke-telling. But at least I know what’s going on. I: But it’s happening. P: It is. So this last time, and oh, and, it gets more complicated, because for five or six years, at seven o’clock in the morning on Thursday mornings, I go with a friend to have coffee with about seven other people, all of whom are Kiwanis. Only one other woman. The three most egregious boors go there. And—sometimes conversation is ok, but when I’m the only woman there, it is really uncomfortable. I: Mm. P: I mean, the others try to kind of steer them away, but they have no effect on them. So, not this Tuesday, but last Tuesday, I, um, I do the invocation, which of course did not have the word ‘God’ in it—and every now and then people will say ‘well, that’s a really good invocation, coming from you’ because sometimes I do mention God. I: Mm. P: And they say that to me, out loud, at the meeting. And I know what I should say. But if I say what I really should say—it will stall the meeting, and we have speakers. What I should say is, we—this was taught to me by an old friend, it’s the only thing you can say, and what you do is— I mean, I want to say, ‘do you eat with that mouth?’ And occasionally I’ll say that, but that’s not what you want to say. What you want to say is ‘why did you say that?’ If by any chance you misunderstood what the person said, or the person suddenly realizes that he or she said something a way they didn’t intend it, everything’s solved. If the person really is an unreconstructed troglodyte pig, they’re caught. And that would have stopped the meeting immediately, and I couldn’t do that. So— I: So it would be—yeah, that balance of maintaining the group versus— P: Yeah, yeah. I: Getting what you need. P: So, we get to happy/sad dollars. And I put a happy dollar in and say, this dollar is not sad, it’s enraged. And I said—I’ve had it. We’ve got to do something, as a society. I gave the statistics, and I said—we must find ways to raise our sons differently, because they’re the ones who are killing. One guy says (disgustedly) ‘oh my god.’ Another says ‘oh, so should we all be shot?’ I was so tempted, so very tempted, to say ‘yeah, we’ll start with you.’ But of course I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t do that. But—what—ok, I, I’ve read enough feminist theory to understand what’s going on. I understand the power, what they’re trying to do, I understand male privilege, male entitlement, um—some of them, I think, got really tired of me—too bad. I’m tired of them. Now, it’s interesting that I have gotten calls, and several people have come up to me, I’d say maybe seven people, women and men, who have expressed concern. Now, some of them know. I wrote to several friends. I wrote a couple of the guys at coffee, I said, ‘this is why I’m not going to be around for awhile. There’s nothing wrong with me physically. I have to reconsider whether I want to pay membership dues to belong to a group where those people feel entitled to say what they say.’ And I’ve gotten some really touching notes back from people. But, see, so the problem—I didn’t go today. I’m helping Joanne Black get ready for the holiday, big holiday dinner we always have up there, which will be in December. I wasn’t going to go, and then I thought-- I can’t not go, because there are people in that group whom I met because they belonged there. I would never have met them otherwise. I: Mm.

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P: I’m very close to some of them. And I like what Kiwanis does, but—and someone said to me, the other day, someone who is not particularly sympathetic—he says, ‘well, but look at all the good that Kiwanis does.’ I said, yeah, ok. I can through my church, I can through the local village network, the Senior Citizens, the Peace and Justice Organization, I can do all of that stuff. I don’t have to be a member of Kiwanis. Which is actually true—I don’t. So. You see the dilemma that I’m in. I feel as if—I mean, it’s a huge amount of loss. I: Mm. On a couple different levels, it seems like. P: Yes, well yes, yes. I mean, as an old-time feminist activist, I should have seen this backlash— I should have known. Because the backlash has been getting worse. Somehow, I didn’t see it. I think I thought that what happened in Texas was so awful—I mean, not that Sandy Hook wasn’t, not that Aurora wasn’t, not that Austin wasn’t, not all those others weren’t, I mean, Orlando, I mean, my god. I thought, how can anyone who hears the news, sees the news—except maybe Fox—reads it, how can anyone not see number one, that this is very, very bad, and number two, why aren’t they adding one and one together and not coming up with two? Because even my beloved New York Times is not doing much with the gender side. I think what’s happening is some news sources—they think the gender side has already been discussed, or is already understood because they’re basically men who are doing this. But when you hear the statistics, of two out of ninety? Who could possibly object to someone saying ‘we should raise our sons differently’? Who could do that? And part of me also wants to say, to three of these guys—this sounds so arrogant, and it actually is—I paid my dues in high school, in college, and in graduate school. Not in work. My workplace actually was wonderful. Half male, half female, was a very weird job, we were terrified of our immediate boss, who was a woman, our next-to-immediate boss was weird as hell, he ate paper. He didn’t just chew paper, he ate it. Reams of paper. But—there was never, I think because we were—we were so together because we were so underpaid, doing this amazingly weird job. I was Google. I: Huh. Mmhm. P: And Siri. We answered questions for people who owned encyclopedias who couldn’t get their questions answered. I: That’s an amazing job, yeah. P: Best job in the entire world. Not paid so that you could live on it, but, I—I never had that experience. But then, when I go to graduate school—looking at how women were treated there, except by my major professor—who was a man, because there was only one woman, out of seven faculty, and two women graduate students out of twelve. But my guy—if you did what you were supposed to do as a graduate assistant, which was the usual stuff—you write exams, you correct exams, you lead sections. If you did all of that, if you paid attention, if you were there, if you taught well—you had to teach well—then he would give you plum opportunities, which is why I got this job here in that terrible year of job hunting. Because I got to lecture in front of classes of five hundred. Now, I did think it was going to kill me the first few times I did it, because I actually am very very shy. I: Sure. P: He said—you’re going to love this—he said, ‘Beatrice, this is the time of—you haven’t even seen slide projectors like this. I: (laughs)

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P: They had really, really loud fans. He said, ‘Beatrice, not to worry, that fan is going to make so much noise they will not be able to hear your knees knocking together.’ Right? It was the perfect thing to say to me. I: Yeah. P: Cause of course I laughed, and thought, I can do this. But—I mean—you know, in, in high school, in college, in graduate school, no one in any of the appropriate courses ever talked about a woman. Ever. My family didn’t talk about women. I mean, I was paid the same as the male graduate assistants. I know, because there was a strike—I did not participate in the strike because I wasn’t teaching that year. But, it was—I mean, the pay was just foul. It was ridiculous, and it was uniform. But—so I’d like to say to these guys, ok. I really worked hard, really hard, to get a tenure track job, against male candidates in a field where they really still don’t really want women. I mean, it’s unbelievable, what my field is like. I mean, it’s appalling. Ok. I fought my way through the early years at the university, where if you weren’t white, male, heterosexual, Christian, married, with 2.5 children and a family dog and a made-in-America car, they weren’t so sure they wanted you. And it was bad there, really bad... We were actually some of the ringleaders… So anyway, what I want to say to them is—your lovely wives, your lovely daughters, your sisters, your nieces, your female cousins, have been able to get some jobs they couldn’t have gotten. They actually have gotten some salaries—probably gotten some salaries they couldn’t have gotten-- they’re still not as good as the men’s, by the way—without us. I: They couldn’t have done it at all without you, yeah. P: They wouldn’t, for awhile at least, have had legal, safe abortions. They wouldn’t have had birth control. Now, there are all sorts of things we still don’t have, and I really thought maybe before I died we might have some of them. Not under this president. Not under this secretary of education, god help us. Or any of the cabinet. I mean, really, I am really worried. I went through the Bay of Pigs, I was terrified like everyone else. I remember all those bombings. I remember walking home from something on campus once to hear that yep, the SCUDs had taken off for the Middle East. What a good idea, let’s bomb those people out of the air. And then to learn how we were lied to, about Vietnam—all those anti-war people who were vilified, and they were right. So taken together—what happened at Kiwanis is, is in some ways the absolute final straw. Now, it has a good side to it. Cause my response to things is to shoot off my mouth, right? I mean, I’ll never be a serial shooter. Cause I can’t do that. But I do shoot off my mouth, and I write. So I have now several projects, and one is going to be on violence and gender, which is why I’m now reading Jackson Katz again, and bell hooks again. I mean, people have said it, but not within this history. I mean, his is the most recent, but it’s still seven years or older. I think it’s 2010. Trying to remember when she wrote that other one—it’s gotta be in the 80s, I think. That’s ancient history in some ways, in terms of the violence that has occurred. So I’m doing that. And, I’ve gotten some really good advice from some really beloved friends, including just today at lunch from Peggy, and I’m going to see Linda Mayer, now that they’re back, on Thursday, cause we always do lunch and talk. I talked with Pat. She may have moved, but so far we have talked every few days on the phone. We email. And if her sons do what they promised, which was to get her the kind of phone I have for Christmas, then we can FaceTime. Cause Skyping is ok, but I like FaceTime a lot better. I mean, it’s just (imitated sound effect) and there you are. So anyway, I’m getting lots of advice. My therapist, alas—good for her, though—has been abroad for about six weeks. She’s gone, she’s almost back, so I’ll be able to see her. She is so fabulous. But, um—ah, you know, I feel isolated in some ways, except for

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some of the people. Now, I love living here. But many of the women, and of course it’s mostly women, um—quite a few of them didn’t go to college, didn’t work outside of the home. A lot, a number of them didn’t have to, a number of them like my mother, even if she hadn’t been mentally ill, it would have broken my father’s heart to have her work. I mean, it really would have. Cause he did love her. He was confused by her, as we all were, but he certainly loved her. Um—but—it’s just that everything kind of comes together—but ironically, I guess it’s ironically, it’s coming together at the wrong time. Because, having gone through two and a half years where I could not read—I couldn’t even read literature, and I am an inveterate reader—I really couldn’t write, and I was having so much trouble speaking, which was another reason they thought I had dementia. I actually couldn’t speak. Um, I mean, there’d be something in my head, I could almost see the words— I: The pathway just wasn’t working. P: It wasn’t. It wasn’t, and you—you know the wonderful term they have now? Memory retrieval, instead of memory loss? I: Yeah, they’ve kind of broken that down into different parts of the process. P: I think that is the best euphemism. Cause at least everything I have read about memory— cause I did a thing on memory years ago—that as a teacher, I always knew this—that—if you have a system for how you remember certain things, and you remember your system, then, then the odds are that even in old age, you’re going to remember certain things. And there are ways you remember things. It was like—when I was in college (laughs) we had this musicology course, where we, we created songs, so we could remember, you know, symphonies, but also— we played charades. I took a lot of geology, we played charades for geology exams. My best one was a creeping sand dune. I: (laughs) P: Now, you had to know what a creeping sand dune was. But everybody in my study group, we all knew, so all they had to think about was me, and you know, someone else was doing, I don’t know, some kind of weird thing, and I’d think, oh yeah! That’s what she did, that’s what it is. But, anyway. Um—so on the one hand, now, I am—I mean, I taught IRL in the spring, and I just taught one, another class, I’m going to teach a class in the spring on Cleopatra, which I’ve wanted to do forever. It’s so fascinating, and the title is so good. ‘Will the Real Cleopatra Please Stand Up?’ So, I’m thinking better, I’m writing really, really well—and I find writing extremely hard. I really do, I always have. But I’m writing so much better. I’m reading some difficult books that I am able to understand. I do think part of my mental acuity is a little—not quite what it used to be. But I think part of it also is—I’ve always been an impatient person. And I am impatient. I think, honey, if you can’t make it clearer, I’m not sure I want to spend this many hours reading you. I: Mmhm. P: Which I don’t think is too much to ask, but you see what I mean—I mean, it is the kind of, it’s really a kind of spiritual angst. And I had written to Linda about that— I: Say, say more about that piece of it. Yeah. P: Well, it’s spiritual in the sense that—it really has to do with my spirit. My self-perception, of what I think I am. It’s—I think—skilled nursing up here is very, very good, except this last time. I’ve been there twice before, could not have asked for better care. Here I am with my hip, right? My hip doesn’t hurt. Doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m going to be there four days, right? They want me to have physical therapy there, and then I can come home. I live alone. I had read this thing

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in the New York Times just before I had surgery, that said, even people my age who live alone and have hip or knee replacements can go home directly from the hospital, as long as they have something like a walker, and a grabber, and stuff. Less chance of infection, they’re more comfortable at home. I go here. All the things that the aides and the nurses, it’s really the nurses, should have done, they did not do. I: Mm. P: They didn’t ask me if I needed help getting dressed. Well, yeah, you can’t bend over at all, how do you think I’m going to get dressed? At least the occupational therapist wandered in to say hello. They weren’t actually—there was no need for them to be there, but they knew I was there so they came to say hello. And they went and got me stuff, you know, grabbers, and this thing called a dress stick, which I never used but was really cool for pulling down the handles on your overhead fans. I mean, I’m tall, I can’t pull those things down. Anyway. They forgot to see if I needed water. They forgot to see if the ice machine needed to be filled with ice, because they have to, I mean—god, you’ve got this incision, you’ve got to ice it. The food of course was unbearably bad. And one day, I think, for me—no one’s taken my blood sugar. I: Mm. P: I take my blood sugar four times a day. Even though my ACL is very good. My very, very good, very foreign endocrinologist—he speaks Urdu as his original language. I love that. When Trump was going on and on about immigrants, and people saying they have to learn English, well, number one, his English is impeccable, number two, I don’t care, he speaks Urdu! And is he gorgeous, with eyelashes this long. Anyway, he’s a really good endocrinologist. I have to take it four times a day. This nurse—I haven’t been able to get her. I haven’t had—I actually had a couple of kind of painkillers, but actually I can’t take very many because I react very badly to them. But I had, I had to have a couple of things, including my Metformin, which you take twice a day with my kind of diabetes, and a few other things. Ok. So I press the button, this lovely aide comes in, I say, I need the nurse, I have my meds, cause of course that’s the only person who can give me my meds. I don’t know, it’s like nine o’clock at night, I would really like to go to bed because I’m very tired, because I’m still woozy from the general anesthesia. I: Sure. P: Well, she doesn’t show up, doesn’t show up, doesn’t show up. I finally buzz the thing at ten thirty, and the same aide comes, and she says, ‘what’s wrong?’ I said, the nurse never came. And her eyes get so big, and she says, ‘I told her!’ She said, ‘I will find her.’ I thought, whoo, she is going to find her. Well, she does. She comes in reeking with perfume. Which nobody in any kind of care providing should ever do. They should not smell of anything. And it was— she—I know perfume, it was cheap. Anyway. First she tells me how busy she is. (drums fingers) Then I say, I need my medication. She gets me my medication. Do I need anything else? I say, yes. Why has no one, no one, in a day and a half, taken my blood sugar? And she says, well, you’re type 2. I say, no, I’m not ‘type 2’. I do not identify myself by a chronic disease. I said, I have type 2 diabetes. My excellent endocrinologist wants my blood to be taken four times a day. If the local hospital can do it, you can do it. Take my blood sugar immediately. Well, she goes (groaning noise), takes it. So the next day, I eat the unbearable breakfast. By now I’ve been there two days. And—(clears throat) the head of physical therapy comes in, cause I’ve had some physical therapy, to see how I am. And I said, ‘Eric,’—he knows me very very well—I said, ‘Eric, I’m leaving this morning. Do whatever you have to do, but I’m leaving.’ He said, ‘I don’t think you should, you’re going home alone, I’d rather you be here two

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more days to make sure you really can do some things on your own.’ I said, ‘No. No. That nurse is jeopardizing my health. I’m the one who’ll have to have my feet amputated, not her. I’m the one who’ll lose my sight, not her. I said—I may play fast and loose with my blood sugar, but I’ll be damned if I have a nurse do that. I’m leaving. He said ‘ok, ok,’ so he did all the paperwork. I came home, went to bed for awhile. See, I can—I can dictate to my computer. It’s not a good dictation program, it has trouble with spelling, but its phonetic spellings are really delightful. So I dictated a single spaced, five-page memo to the executive director. And I went through the whole experience. (tsk) And I said, at the end, the first two experiences I had here, you could not ask for better care. It was excellent. I said, except for occupational therapy and physical therapy, if that’s what you call ‘skilled nursing,’ you are guilty of the worst kind of false advertising. I said—I mean—I can’t deal with it. I went home. Yeah, it was difficult. But all my friends brought me edible food, for one thing. And they took care of me, and they picked up things off the floor, and I have cleaners. I mean, I can do it—besides, the New York Times said I could. I: (laugh) P: And anything that’s in the New York Times, I believe. But, there’s been an interesting offshoot. Other people have sometimes complained about that. And I say to them, did you talk to anybody about it? No. Well, then, they can’t do anything about it if they don’t know that you’re unhappy about something. So Tim stopped me in the hall one day, he said, come into my office. I did. They fired the nurse, they said, she will never work at this center or the other one, I said, great. Um—I had said, you know, you don’t have an exit interview. You don’t know what’s going on. So he asked me and my neighbor, who is concerned about some things, if we were willing to try to write a model questionnaire, which we did. And I suggested some things about training that would be good. I: Mmhm. P: It’s really not the, the aides. Part of the problem is that the aides are so young, but they are so amiable, they try so hard. But there are some people who should not be allowed to deal with human beings. I: Mmhm. P: My god, though, have some people been nice to me, though, recently. So, I get home. I’m walking around, and stuff. And, you know, I broke my elbow a few months ago, having never broken a bone in my life. I: Mm. P: Up there, in assisted living—and they still have the offending piece of furniture there, but— two aides were working on a computer nearby, and they rush over and say ‘oh my god, are you okay,’ I said, yes, because I thought I was, they said ‘we’re going to have to call the nurse because you fell on this property,’ I said fine. They find a nurse within nanoseconds. She’s wonderful. Everyone’s so concerned, they say ‘are you sure you’re not hurt? Maybe you should go to the respite room.’ I say, no, no, no, nothing’s broken, I’ll go home. So I go home. The next morning, you know, I can’t move my arm at all, or my wrist. I talk to my various doctors, and they say, Beatrice, you have a broken elbow. I: Turns out something is broken. P: It is broken, but they don’t put casts on broken elbows. I thought at the very least, I would have a cast that all my friends could sign. No. I had to go to parties—we made this sign that said ‘please do not touch, this elbow is broken.’ But, I get home after seeing my orthopedist, and

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being told I wouldn’t get a cast, and I get a call from the head of nursing, who’s very, very nice. I mean, I like her, I’ve always liked her. And the first—you know, ‘how are you,’ and I tell her what the problem is, first thing she says is ‘would you like to come up here and stay here for a few days, until you’re able to use your hand a little better?’ And I said—‘Paula. There’s no way I’m going to go into skilled nursing.’ She said, ‘Yeah, I know, but I thought I’d ask anyway.’ Then she says ‘but you could come into respite.’ Cause they had—they hold a couple of rooms, you know, if you’re in the hospital and you come home, especially if you live alone, but maybe you’re a little uneasy, or maybe you come down with the flu or something, just as soon have someone else near you. I: Sure. P: Very nice thing that they do. I say, actually, you know, no, I don’t think so. Little did I know how little I could do. Nonetheless. Betty Jones comes over, cause she’s been helping me for months, when I wasn’t able to use my shoulders at all. She peeled a banana for me cause I couldn’t peel a banana. I mean, it was that bad. You know, it’s actually funny. Some of what I discovered I couldn’t do, cause by now I could do lots of things with my hip, I just couldn’t use my arm. Paula calls the next morning, just to make sure I got through the night ok. My goodness, are people treating me nice. But, as with the Kiwanis—in other contexts-- I’m also burned out, because I am outspoken, and I know sometimes I shouldn’t be. But a lot of times I’ve been outspoken where someone needed to be. I: Mmhm. P: I want to hear someone else be outspoken for me. Not to me. Not to me. I mean, I like that. And I understand, for some of the men. But the president just came here, before you came here, to bring back something that I couldn’t take to lunch because I wasn’t going. The person who usually gives me a ride has strep, he wasn’t going. Harry Adams over there wasn’t going, and Joanne wasn’t going, and it had to be at the meeting. So, I’d emailed Harry, and I’d emailed him earlier and said ‘you may wonder why I’m not going to be there.’ Cause I never miss Kiwanis. And I just said to him, ‘don’t think I want to pay membership for that kind of behavior, but I’ll think about it.’ So as he’s leaving, he says, ‘well, I hope you’ll be back soon.’ I said, ‘I don’t know, Harry, but you know, some of you guys oughta talk to those guys. Cause they’re not going to listen to a woman. They haven’t yet. They don’t listen to their wives, they’re not going to listen to me. They need to hear it from one of their own. I don’t think he’ll say anything. There’s this—kind of little itch [inaudible] to him that I don’t fully understand, but I really don’t think he’ll say anything. So, anyway, yeah, yeah it is spiritual. I mean, the things that I believe in, the things—the way I’ve tried to enact my life for at least, well—I mean, to be completely accurate, forty years, at least forty years—other years yes, but getting here, finding—cause when I came here, there were so few women on the faculty—and there were some women here who were definitely not feminist, but we glommed together. We caused a hell of a lot of trouble. There are reasons why department chairs aren’t called chairmen. Because a bunch of us men and women at big university senate meetings, which in those days was the entire teaching faculty and staff, so we’re talking the main auditorium, that whole place filled with all the vice presidents and the president. And every time a committee report was made, and it would say, from ‘so and so, chairman’, someone would raise a hand and say ‘I move that we strike the man, and use chair.’ And Will Davis in French would always say, well, I refuse to be referred to as a piece of furniture, like a stool. And he was a horrible man. Truly horrible man. I have to say that probably a quarter of the several hundred people laughed hysterically. But, you know, it’s

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interesting. When I became department chair, um, Neil Richards, um—he and his wife went to St. Mark’s, he died a number of years ago. He did all this wonderful silver, things like—I have a little silver T with holes in it, and he did those. His son now does it. Anyway. Such a (laughs)—such a card. He stopped because my building was right next to his, and I’m ambling in with my coffee, he says, ‘Beatrice, I have something for you.’ I think, oh god, what did I do. He opens up this little box. It’s a tiny gold bent-wood chair, cause he had worked in gold too, on a little gold chain. He says ‘here! Now that you’re a piece of furniture, you need one of these!’ (laughs) And so I think I’ve paid my dues. And yet I know—politically I know—I haven’t. But I’m so tired of this. I: Yeah. P: I mean, last Tuesday (sighs)—cause, you know, I mean, maybe it—I did once say to my psychiatrist, I said, you know, I actually don’t have bipolar disorder, I’m a Gemini. I’m a true Gemini. Which I am. What are Geminis characterized by? Swings of enthusiasm and despair over something. Right? Um, tendencies to do lots of things and to talk fast. I mean, it just sounds like a cheap diagnosis of bipolar disorder. It really does, in some ways. And she laughed, and she said, ‘you know, that’s actually true, I think you really are a true Gemini, but you also have Bipolar II.’ I said, ok. But the point is—you know, usually my sense of humor carries me along. Or I see something funny, or something beautiful-- and it’s been a very long time. And it’s not the medication I’m taking, cause I need some adjustment on my medication, even I can tell that. Because I am becoming depressed, and it’s not just because of this. I mean, I can tell. I: Mmhm. P: Not really badly, I mean, and I’m not—I’m perfectly safe, I do not have, I do not have a homicidal personality. I’m entirely too curious about what may happen tomorrow. It may not be good, but I’m much too curious. So I don’t worry about that. But—my kind of depression is really, really bad. And nobody should feel that way. And I am beginning to—now, number one, I’ll be damned if some of the jerks at Kiwanis are going to plunge me into a depression, but the problem is, I do need to have my medication adjusted ever so slightly, and I think, I think I know what it needs to be. (phone ringing) P: Oh. I: Oh. P: That’s my phone, but why is it my phone? (dealing with phone) Oh, I know what it is. I know what it is (laughs) it’s thinking, but it’s doing something. No, no no no no no, I don’t want to do that. Who? I don’t know anyone in that area code. I: Oh, I get many calls from people that are not people. P: Don’t you hate that? I: Yes. P: Don’t you hate that? So, I mean, anyway. What else can I say to you. I: I think it’s—(phone alarm) oh, that might be mine, actually. Yeah. P: Is it your alarm clock? I don’t want to take too much of your time. I: No, you’re not taking too much of my time, I don’t want to take too much of yours. P: I just have to go to a meeting at 6:30. I: Oh. Well, we should be able to manage that.

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P: Well, actually, this is even better than talking to my therapist, in the sense that I can see— cause I’ve been thinking of that question for awhile, you know, the things you’re looking at. And—I really did, I did right to Pat last Tuesday and said, ‘I’m suffering even more existential angst than I was after Easter.’ And various people say, ‘you love to sing. Enjoy the singing. Do not listen to what’s being said.’ But St. Mark’s has never been like this for me before. I mean, prev—rectors have introduced me to bishops as the resident Unitarian. We have one bishop— he’s not around anymore—wonderful guy. (tsk) And when he found out that I was actually Unitarian, it turns out that he was on his way to Meadville Seminary one day, in Chicago, to sign up. And he walked by this beautiful Episcopal church, and just stepped in to see what was going on. He said he liked the liturgy so much, and the music so much, he thought, ‘I think I’ll join the Episcopal church,’ which he did. I: A lot of times, that’s what it comes down to. P: Yeah. And when the bishop comes up to preach—he really does preach well. (sigh) And I, I—it’s not fair to put so much of that part of the angst on Joan, but—um (clears throat) aside from the fact she’s hard to work with, this literalism. And when I, I told her how hurt I was that she didn’t want me to process—now, I still can’t process, because I can’t walk up those steps well enough, or down. But she said, ‘I said that?’ I said, ‘Yes, you did.’ She didn’t mind that I didn’t take communion. She wasn’t really keen on my not acknowledging the cross, but she didn’t want me processing with the choir. Which was then ok for me, cause then I could wear red shoes, cause no one could see my red shoes. But, um—I said, ‘Yeah, you know, no other rector—continuing, supply, visiting—no one has ever said I couldn’t do things.’ I: Mmhm. P: Ever. They never said I couldn’t teach Sunday School. They didn’t say I couldn’t be on committees—she hasn’t done that quite yet, though I don’t like the way she’s treating outreach, but that’s a whole ‘nother story—um, you know, I, I, as I said, in the beginning, there were some people, some older people, cause we had some really doctrinaire people, including one person who used to sing in the choir, who’s one of these guys who’s making my life so miserable. I: Mm. P: And he, he and his wife go to that nice Episcopal church in Hamilton. And someone once said to him, and I was standing right there—I thought you went to St. Mark’s. He said, ‘oh, no, it’s too liberal.’ Part of me wanted to say ‘oh, you’re not kidding it’s too liberal for him.’ He’s so deeply conservative, on everything. Everything. So—I have to deal with the deaths of my friends. I’m trying hard. I: That’s a big piece, that— P: And I mean, grief takes awhile. But—I mean, I’ll get through it. Other people have died. Feeling that I’m losing St. Mark’s—I mean, if I didn’t go—that really would, I’d really have trouble with that. And if I go, then I want to sing. Cause not being able to sing was just too painful. So I know that decision. But as far as Kiwanis goes—(tsk, sigh). I think—I think about the number of people who’ve spoken to me over email or called me up, or stopped me on the street. And not all of them women. Some of these men that I would never have met. You know, they were in business, or like my favorite friend, actually doesn’t even live here, he lives in Hamilton and has a wife who’s in the final stages of Alzheimer’s. And so the only time I see him is on Tuesdays. And I will go to the Christmas event in part because he’s playing Santa Claus, and he’s a wonderful Santa Claus, even if he didn’t give me what I asked last year. I only had twelve things on my life. But, um—you know, I think about all the loss that would be. I’ve

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made wonderful new friends here. And actually, ironically (laughs) Mona, next door, was my next-door neighbor once. Olive Wearing, just beyond her, is an old, old friend of my friends Suzanne and Dick, who now live in the northwest. They were here, and she’s very close to their children, who happen to be my godchildren, who live in Minnesota and New York City. Leah Moning, I’ve known forever-- Holly, her daughter, Eve Bryant, I’ve known forever. I mean, there are all these people, that I’ve either known forever—and there are lots of people I’ve never known before, cause everyone says ‘we don’t want to live in that retirement community, it’s too expensive, and everybody went to—was on the university’s paycheck.’ Number one, it isn’t too expensive. I mean, it’s not cheap. It’s not too expensive. And lots of people didn’t have anything to do with the university, I mean, it’s wonderful. I mean, and then the people here who did, with one exception, um—are some of my oldest friends. So, I should be really, really happy. And a lot of times I am. But not last week, and not this week. I: Seems like—that’s—seems like you’ve explained for awhile now why maybe you’re not necessarily going to feel quite that happy. I don’t feel that ‘should’, I guess, maybe as strongly as you do. P: Mmhm. Ok. I: Is that coming from other people, or is that coming internally, where it feels like—this shouldn’t make such an impression on me, but it is? P: No, no, no—I was talking to this friend of mine, who I was—I met at Kiwanis, but she’s a very old friend of Peggy, Mabel Early, she and Mick go to the Presbyterian church, but, but it’s interesting, they’re UCC, they’re not Presbyterian. But they are so nice and she is so wise, so wise. I was talking to her about some stuff, and then talking to Pat Summers on the phone Sunday night, and they were saying, what part of me was saying, too, to myself —and I’ll use the word I rarely use—it’s the same old shit, when it comes to Kiwanis. And it’s coming on the tops of—I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t ask that my friends die. Um—I didn’t ask that they hire someone who is about as evangelical—and that’s not bad, but as fundamentalist a Christian as I think I’ve ever encountered who’s actually a part of a mainline church—right, so, it’s not that I did anything wrong. But the trouble is, all of this undercuts what has for so long given me such pleasure. I mean, I loved being a troublemaker when I was at the university. Cause I was surrounded by some older women who really were—I mean, they were second wave feminist. I’m third wave feminist, I guess, technically. And those women had courage, because—(laughs) there were—there were three black faculty members when I came. One of them was female. And she was a full professor, which means she was one of five full professors who were female, when I came,. Five out of a faculty of out of 200. What does that tell us. But I mean—we had the best time. It was tiring. We knew we were going to pay a price, which we all did. We got tired of things that people, some people would say to us. But then, you know— gay rights started becoming an issue, um, the university hired a handful of more nonwhite people—but we were able to get in on that too. And, I mean, it’s really invigorating to cause trouble when you think you’re doing it for a good reason. And then, when you get something for it, you think, ‘yeah, how about that.’ I: And you have people around you. P: And you have people around you. A lot of people here would not understand why these remarks would bother me so much. I: Yeah.

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P: Part of it is—as I said before—I cannot believe, I cannot believe that I was blindsided by that. I mean, I was lulled into some false sense of security. Even though it had been getting better— getting worse, rather—(taps table several times). I don’t know. I: Well, I—what keeps coming up for me is that image you described at the beginning of your brother getting the dog out, and recognizing an injustice, and then you’re the one that gets hit for it. P: Yeah. Yeah. I: That’s a confusing, and—on top of the original injustice and the betrayal, there’s also the confusion of— P: Yeah. But you know—that’s really helpful. Everything you say is really helpful, because, um—during the anti-war movement, I was badly conflicted about Vietnam. I mean, I am a pacifist. I’m very glad that a lot of Nazi soldiers got killed, in one sense—that I think anyone who does that is no longer human. The things that the Nazis did, in particular. Or the Trail of Tears. All those things. I mean, part of me really does believe in the angry god, except that I can’t. Part of me sort of hopes sometimes there is one, who will just say—you’re not human anymore. You’re not even a slug. You have no right to be around. And yet deep down I don’t really believe that either. I do think horrible things should happen to people, I do not believe in retaliation or an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth. Because obviously, it doesn’t work. It’s never stopped. The death penalty has never stopped murder. And it never will. So. Where was I going with this—oh, um—So during the anti-war movement, I was badly, badly conflicted. And when I was a senior, in 68—you know, we would sit around with our male friends, while they were watching their numbers being drawn out for the first year of the lottery. I: Mm. P: And then the first male student was killed, and the chapel choir went to a town which is so far north it is on the Canadian border. On Valentine’s Day, in about five feet of snow, to sing at his funeral. He came from a Marine family. He had joined—he had joined up. He felt that as a member, as a citizen, he was healthy, he should-- he should go. So he did. And he was killed in battle. And we went and sang the Navy Hymn, among other things, which is why most people in the choir laugh at me that I always cry during the Navy Hymn—except they do it gently, cause I’ve explained to them why I do. And Laura McAdams, who is so good, she always leans over and says ‘go ahead, Beatrice, I know why you’re doing it.’ And then she does, too, so we’re ok. So we sang that, and a couple of other things. Sitting right in front of us—Patton was tiny, and this church was tiny. And the whole front row, directly in front of the choir as we’re facing the congregation, were his grandfather, his father, his uncles, his cousins, and of course there were no women Marines there. All of them in their uniforms. And there’s his draped coffin. And so I’ve always carried that with me. And so I get to Wisconsin, right? Now, a lot of people who were in Wisconsin when I was in Wisconsin during the antiwar movement will talk about it as a wonderful time, you know, being on the barricades—um, and horrible things happened there. Um, a guy died. I: Mm. P: Someone bombed the Army Math Research Center. Only they didn’t bomb it, they bombed the lab next to it, where this guy was doing his work, as a good graduate work does, at about three o’clock in the morning. Now, I have these feelings. It’s like those creeps who shot Malala. Ok. If you’re really going to do that, and you’re the one who has the big gun, and she’s this little girl, and she’s standing about that far away from you—and you can’t even hit her and kill her?

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What kind of a terrorist are you? For that matter, if you’re going to practice some kind of civil terrorism, and you’re going to blow up the Army Math Research Center—which, now, was probably doing bad things—couldn’t you at least get the right, the right place? I: Mmhm. P: I mean, it’s bad enough they killed someone. But I mean, really. I can have no respect for activists who do stuff like that. Plus—the women made the coffee. The women ran off things, flyers. The male activists, everyone knew who they were, because they all went to the same—I went to the same deli for lunch. You always saw them on tv. They were always quoted in all the papers, including the national papers. The women never were. They also slept with them, as far as I know from someone who told me. But—they weren’t part of it. Yeah, nationally, there were some women, but for the most part, same old thing. I: Reproducing the same stuff in a different setting. P: Mmhm. (tsk) Now, I am struck by the apologies that people should make to the antiwar activists, because they were right about Vietnam. They did some really dumb things, but they were right. And I think the conscientious objectors, I have a lot of —a lot of admiration for those. I mean, they had a hard time. And they were bashed by a lot of people. But at least the ones I read about, and I knew several, um—they were enacting their beliefs. They weren’t bombing things, killing the wrong person. So anyway, I was, I was so confused by that. But anyway, when I went home—where my mother voted Republican, my father voted Republican, my aggressive brother voted Republican, my sister-in-law voted Republican—and actually, I am a registered Independent. I vote, I registered as an Independent the first time I voted, and I always forget who the candidates were, but I remember saying to the person, who said, ‘well, are you a Democrat or a Republican?’ I said, ‘I am an Independent, and I hate the fact that I have to choose between a knave and a fool.’ My father goes (horrified gasp). I said, ‘I’m sorry, but if you think those guys are worth voting for, you’re crazy.’ Nonetheless, I did vote for someone. No, I didn’t—I’m sorry, I didn’t. I voted the local people. And the vice presidents weren’t so bad, but the presidential people, ugh. So every time I went home, you know, for the holiday, part of the summer—(clears throat) All they talked about was the war, and the antiwar movement. They were convinced—and of course, the women’s movement. They were convinced that I was a bra-burner, and I said at one point, ‘you know—actually they didn’t happen.’ They said ‘yes it did, we read it in the newspaper.’ I said, ‘well, if you read it in the Wall Street Journal, it didn’t happen.’ Then, they said that I was out throwing bombs and burning things, because Madison was always in the newspaper. I: Mmhm. P: I said, ‘You know—you really don’t know me, do you?’ So I was personally responsible for the women’s movement, which as we all know, was going to ruin the country because it would take jobs away from men. It hasn’t yet. And it was—they were going to get better wages? Well, Kennedy—JFK signed the equal pay act in 60—what was it—2. It’s on the books. It hasn’t happened. It’s not going to happen in my lifetime. I really don’t think so. I hope so. I hope I say that to enough people that someone will say ‘I’ll do something about it.’ But I doubt it. I doubt it. I mean, things really are not good. But. I did get a little tired of being—I mean, later on—now, I regard it with a certain amount of humor. Here I am, a deeply shy, incredibly well-behaved person. I mean, I always was. I’m not now. And I’m mad. And that is a characteristic, especially of feminists my age, but not just my age. We worked so hard to change things. And we took so much grief for it. And to have these boors—and, god, I wish I could

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just—I don’t have it to show you, because I loaned it to someone, but the Times—(drums fingers) I want to say it was on Thursday. There was this editorial that was so good, written by a woman whose name didn’t really mean anything to me. She was so good. She talked about the problem of women being angry out loud. And I thought, ‘were you there? Were you sitting over at that table? Were you somewhere in that room?’ It’s absolutely true. Absolutely true. And Peggy, and my friend, um, Faye, has said that. ‘You’re not supposed to do certain things out loud.’ It’s like when certain people would criticize Hillary Clinton. Now, I would have liked a different woman to be candidate. I really wish we had a female president, even if she were not all that great, just to have one, before I die. But, um, people would say—people around here, women would say—that they didn’t like her hair. That they didn’t like what she was wearing. I would say, ‘what don’t you like about what she’s wearing?’ They would say, ‘she’s wearing pants.’ I would say, ‘well, she has to sit in weird chairs in front of cameras all the time. Maybe she’s doing it for modesty. Maybe she’s doing it for comfort.’ And then they’d say, ‘her voice is too shrill.’ Right? And I would say—‘Ok. This is a woman whose speaking voice is not as deep as mine. If she sang, she’s probably a soprano. Now, when you have a voice of a higher register, and you’re impassioned, and you speak louder, your voice will get higher.’ So that’s what’s wrong with her? Her voice is too high? Really, really, really. But I, but I—as far as Kiwanis goes, I think my strategy is good. I was going to ask the president for a formal leave of absence, which is usually what people do if they’re going to be away for something, a good deal of time. And I thought—but other people kind of disappear sometimes, and don’t show up for several weeks. So I told my friends, I said, ‘I’m going to disappear. I’m disappearing myself.’ You know, the way they do in Central America, except I’m doing it to myself. I said, ‘so, no more lunches. I will go for committee day, which meets one lunch a week, or a month. My dear friend Mitt Johnson is there, and my dear friend Len Moore takes me there. And what I will probably do is not eat lunch, but stay out—cause we were at Giovanni’s—go have lunch by myself at Giovanni’s, and wait until they get to Committee day, and then I can go in. I don’t want to listen to that stuff. I really don’t. Um—and I will not go to coffee. I was talking to Eric, who always takes me. He used to be in Kiwanis, and he stopped out for a similar reason. He lives on the other side of the street. And I wrote him, and I said—I wrote, cause I do everything by email, even though he’s (laughs) five minutes away, anyway—I said, ‘I just can’t go for awhile.’ He writes back, he’s so good, he says ‘Spring’s soon enough, Beatrice.’ I wrote back and said, ‘it’s a deal.’ I may go back earlier, hmm, but probably not. I told Kevin at—at Kroger's, cause every time I walk in with Eric my coffee’s always ready, cause I’m always there. I said, I’m not going to be here for quite—quite awhile. She said, are you ok? I said ‘Physically yes, spiritually no.’ I did say spiritually. I: Mm. P: I said, no. I don’t want to deal with some of those people right now, so I’m not going to be here. She said, ‘it’s waiting for you when you get back.’ So I think that strategy’s good. And— I know how to deal with grief. It’s just—it came so fast, so many people. I: It’s so much. P: And you know, the thing that happens when you live in a place like this—um—I mean, I know by name and sight almost everybody. A couple of people, I swear, don’t exist—including some in our neighborhood, and we’re a very chummy neighborhood. But, um—people die. You know they’re going to die. And it’s true of this town too. You know, this town is so small, that when someone dies, either you knew that person, or your best friend did, or the person was

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someone that everybody knew, you know—I mean, it’s, it’s life, I can deal with it—um. St. Mark’s, I’ve got to get better at filtering out Joan. At one of the adult forum things, a little while ago—she gave an opening prayer, and I can’t remember what it was, but I thought it was awful. Awful and uninformed. And she visited me once, here, and as she was leaving, she asked if she could say a prayer, and I said, ‘please, no.’ I really don’t want--- it’s interesting. When Sam was here, which was when I had no memory and stuff, he came to visit me three times, three times in a week. Twice in the hospital and once up there. And each time he asked if I would like a prayer, and I said yes. And they were beautiful prayers. And he knew all about me. We’d laughed over my resident Unitarian status. But there was—there was a difference. And I know, not all—some people didn’t like him too much, and I—but I always did. And I always had good conversations with him. But there was something different about it. And I—maybe it was, he knew perfectly well I didn’t want to hear about sin, I didn’t want to hear about redemption, um— I didn’t want to hear about Jesus dying. I mean, I know what the Romans did, and I know why they did it. And it had precious little to do with Christianity. It had to do with the way it was practiced. The same thing. The Romans were not good to Jews, every once in awhile, and I read online that they invented anti-Semitism. It wasn’t anti-Semitism at all. It’s because those two religions were monotheisms. They could not understand them. All they asked—I mean, they had, what, a dozen different religions in Imperial Rome, including mystery religions, which are really, kind of hairy things, fascinating but hairy—if you paid your taxes, you didn’t mess with the divinity of the emperor, and there were a couple of other things but not much—they didn’t care. They were notoriously tolerant of other religions. Much more so than other ancient peoples and certainly modern peoples. I: Mmhm. P: They really were. But when Sam made his prayers, at least to me, I mean it was—it was kind of nice. I mean, it reminded me that he was thinking of my well-being. Because I was so scared. I: They were for you? P: Yeah, cause I afraid I wasn’t going to come out of it. I: Of course. P: I mean, my doctor came every single day. I: Good. P: And he always had to ask me the questions, and I knew from here—as I slowly began to, kind of, you know, return, I knew why he was doing it, but—whenever he left, he’d always say, ‘you are going to be ok, you are better, it’s going to take time but you are going to get better, you will remember things.’ And you know, he was right. In about four to five days, I was so much better. And for awhile they wouldn’t let my friends come and see me, because—it, it was so agitating to me. I: Sure. P: Because when you look at someone and you know you know them—and you cannot even speak their name— I: Mmhm. P: It’s appalling. Absolutely appalling. I mean, you think about people who—with dementia. I mean, I have learned so much, partly living here, and my mother had Alzheimer’s. But—there are some of the loveliest people in nursing and in assisted living who are so fragile mentally now. A number of whom I have known for a very long time. I never say, ‘do you remember me,’ ever. I always remind them who I am. And sometimes they remember, and sometimes they

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look right at me and immediately greet me. And, we talk about things, and I always try to remind them of things that we’ve done together that were fun. And you know, Sheila Rogers, when she died—she did this incredible thing, when I was moving my house and she, she— deteriorated really is the accurate word for her, in the sense that—you wouldn’t have known her in her prime, but she was incredible. So vigorous, so funny, and, and—when dementia started eating away at her, it did it so quickly. I mean, it’s hard to describe. I: Vicious. P: Really. Oh, it’s a terrible thing. And then, of course—he’s very fragile now, but—actually, he’s doing pretty well, I think, all things considered, but for him to see this vibrant, wonderful woman, and he was really losing her—but whenever I saw her, cause a lot of times, um, people in the memory unit and in nursing, if they’re able to, a lot of them are not physically able to, or people in assisted living, go up to the big house, to the auditorium—a lot of the time there are interesting musical events. There’s this wonderful, wonderful Foreign Legion band, and I love, I love brass music, and they are really, really good. They come a couple of times, maybe three times a year, and they’re up there, so everybody goes up to see them. I mean, people who aren’t snobs. Which I’m not. Anyway, so Sheila would be there, and Mark would be there, and I would always tell Sheila the same story, about the move. And I remember the first time I did it, when anyone else was around, and when one of her daughters was in town, and she got this—she had this great smile. It was just captivating. She had this wonderful smile. She looked a little bit at me—she couldn’t really open her eyes. And she really couldn’t talk. Um, I said to her daughter—‘I’m not imagining it, she’s smiling, isn’t she?’ She said ‘oh yeah.’ She always did that. She always did that. And I love—I, I’d done this thing, years ago, this amazing seminar, when I was into my serious gerontology phase. Cause I hung out with gerontologists, and I went to gerontology meetings, and I did scholarship in gerontology. And in fact I, I was better known in gerontologists, cause almost no humanists were doing anything in gerontology when I started. They were all social scientists. And science, which is—is logical. But I said, there’s so much in literature that you can use, and in the arts. So actually, I’m going to do a thing on creativity and old age, moving beyond something I did in the 70s. And my two tech students, who’ve been helping me, just for their last two hours of working for me, cause they’re not in a class, well, we can have ten hours of their work, and it’s usually like doing computer things, but I didn’t need that, so they’ve been doing a literature review for them. I: Oh, that sounds great. P: And I gave them parameters, one of them is a sociologist, and she found some stuff I swear I would not have found, and I’m really good at finding stuff. And the other one, um—and they didn’t do it together. I thought they were going to. They did it separately, and they did not overlap. Amazing. Anyway, so I’m going to write on that. But I had gone to this wonderful seminar, that, um, the gerontology school held, quite awhile ago, for people who run nursing homes. And it was at a time, when I didn’t have a class and stuff, it actually went on for a whole day, and I asked Jan if I could go, and Ivy Brown, and they said sure, so I did. It was an eye- opener. I mean, I thought I knew about dementia, because of my mother. And I thought I knew about Alzheimer’s and other kinds of dementia. I: Mmhm. P: My god, there’s so much to know. But it was fascinating. Very exciting. So. Well.

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I: Well, I think—if I’m reading you right—that we might be coming to the end of the time when we talk about this, because I think—I really appreciate you going through this while you’re in the middle of this. It sounds extremely difficult. P: Well—actually, I’m glad I did. Besides the fact that I liked what you were asking me, because that helped a lot, for me to focus. I: Mm. P: And—I’m not using you as my therapist. I: No, you’re not. P: But it helps to talk with someone with your kind of experience. Um—cause I’ve been doing a lot of dictating to my computer about this, things that probably no one will ever see. Well, they might. This is how I—this has always been how I cope, except now I can dictate to it instead of having to type it. And my handwriting is so bad I have to do something. Um—but no, it’s really, it’s very helpful. And as I hear myself—I think that’s the thing about speaking out loud, too, that—it’s one thing to hear it in your head. I: Mmhm. P: It’s another thing when you actually speak it. Even dictating has that effect on me. I: Mmhm. P: And I know writers who say that too, who dictate—either dictate to a live person or, now, a lot of people are dictating to their computers, that—what it sounds like, and what the vocal inflections sound like, you—sometimes you start realizing things that you don’t realize by yourself, because it’s in your head. Because you’re not actually hearing it. You know, they say that for proofreading—I am notoriously bad at proofreading—(coughs) and the trouble with proofreading is, if you worked really, really hard on something, like a (whispered) dissertation (normal) or an article or something—and you proof your own work—you see what’s in your head. I: Mmhm. P: Right? I mean, there’s gotta be some psychological word for that, but—I mean, it’s an interesting phenomenon. And I remember Dan Miller, who’s retired now, but he’s one of the creative writers at the university, was telling me about that one day. And he said, this is what you need to do. He said, take the text, give it to someone—preferably a friend—and say, ‘read this to me out loud.’ He said, don’t let them read it silently. You have to hear it. He said—they will stumble over typos, but more importantly, if they get to a part that doesn’t make sense to them—it doesn’t actually matter whether, whether they’re in your field. It’s whether the logic falls down. You’ll hear them pause, you’ll hear their question. And so I always do that, and it never fails. It really works. I: Mmhm. P: Which I think is very interesting. I: Oh, absolutely. No, that’s great. P: So I will always say that to my students. I say, ok, you’re writing a big paper, this is what you have to do. And they have admitted that it works. Ok. I: So, that was the last thing I was going to ask you about, which you’ve already started talking about, was just, how was the experience of talking about this today. P: Well, if I say very helpful, it sounds as if I’m turning you into my therapist, and I don’t mean that. But, um, it’s a safe place. Um, you know me but you don’t know me. I: In some ways, yeah, that’s kind of how I was thinking.

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P: It allows me to, um, kind of trot some things out. I think the business of my mother hitting me with the hairbrush, which has always horrified me—I appreciated your coming back to that. Because I come back. When I think of my mother, I think of those two things. The hairbrush, and the mouse. I: And the mouse. P: Otherwise she was scary as hell. And she actually had, when she had her psychotic break and had to be hospitalized in New York City, the only person who was allowed to see her was my father. And I left here—it was in the summer—and went and lived with him for several months. He was still working in the city. And I took care of the house, and stuff, cause he went in, he went in on the same train I took with him when we commuted together. 6 am train. He worked until 5 or 6 at night, then he went uptown to see my mother, then he came home. And the next day, he turned around and did the same thing again. So, I basically took care of him. And when he was home on the weekends, he could see her in the mornings, Saturday morning and Sunday morning. And then we would take, um, in addition to designing big, big, big ships, he built tiny little boats. So he would take one of the rowboats, and I would take one of the rowboats, and we would row out into Oyster Bay, as we had done for, you know, forty years together. We always did this. And we’d sit, and we’d talk. And I learned things from him I’m not so sure a daughter should hear about her mother, but I’m glad I did. Because he filled in so much stuff—plus, about his mother, and how frightened he was. I mean, he was 23 when he married, she was 19. I: Mm. P: But having had a mentally ill mother, and a quite distant father, and, you know—being a very shy man, and all of a sudden he’s doing this high-powered stuff—I mean, he was working with Onassis, and the worst rear admiral they ever hard in the Navy ever. A really famous man, and a really awful man. Um, and you know, he had, you know—security clearances that no one gets except for that particular rear admiral. So he was way out of his league in many ways, with a wife who he couldn’t understand, and every time she had an enthusiasm, like she wanted to take up something, he would of course go and buy everything she needed. And then in months, she’d destroy it. And he would love the things that she was doing, especially artistically. He could design ships. He couldn’t draw anything. He would try sometimes, when I was a little kid, to draw little faces. (whispers) They were awful. I: (laugh) P: I told him off. I always laughed at him, I’d say (singsong) I can draw better than you can, (normal) which I could. Um—so that, and that was really an important experience, to be, you know, to be with him. And when she came home, um—it still was very difficult. She was so medicated. I: Mm. P: And she didn’t like how she felt. She took herself off every medication by herself without weaning herself. I: That’s rough. P: I was horrified. I: Mmhm. P: I mean—some of that stuff you should not just stop taking. Oh. I will tell you a very happy story about my father, alright, there are some happy stories. I feel, I feel they should at least have that. Um—this, this always went on when I was in graduate school, but especially when I came out here. And I was divorced almost immediately. I was married three and a half years,

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which were three years entirely too long. Happiest day, when I got divorced. And they’d just put through no-fault divorce in Ohio, so I didn’t have to prove infidelity, which I could have— I: You didn’t have to go through with that. P: I didn’t have to do it. Said ‘bye!’ Anyway. So I would go home a number of times a year. Because (considering noise) my mother was very hard to deal with. My father was easier to deal with, because we were very, very similar personalities in many ways, which drove my mother crazy. But—if she wasn’t already. But, um—especially in the summers, like maybe my brother would be there with his family, and my father would say to me, ‘It’s a beautiful day. Let’s go fishing.’ I’d say, ‘Well, yes, let’s go fishing.’ So we’d go downtown, we’d get bait, we’d take tackle, we’d take usually one little boat when we were fishing, we’d go out in the middle of the bay, which is quite a big bay, we’d sit there watching the boat, waving at people we knew, admiring the sailboat races, and fishing. And very early on, I could not stand the sound of the fish dying in the buckets. I just couldn’t. So I said, ‘I can’t do this. I’m not going to put bait on my hook.’ And for once, my father didn’t say ‘oh for god’s sakes, toughen up.’ Then, pretty soon, I thought, yeah, but fish could get caught on the hook when you’re pulling it in. So I said—I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to put a weight, a sinker, on my line. He said, ‘fine.’ After awhile, he decided he didn’t need to catch fish. We had a perfectly good fish market. And it wasn’t really exciting fishing, we were just having a nice time. Cause we would be out there for hours, you know, looking at the mansions, and oh, we had a great time. And this was after he’d unburdened himself so much with me. I: Mmhm. P: So—any of the disagreements, substantial disagreements we’d had politically, did not matter anymore. (laughs) So what we would do—and it never, I wrote about this and sent it to family members—it never registered with anybody that two people—I had fished my entire life, and I was always much better than my brother—my mother used to throw my fish away because girls can’t catch more fish than their brothers. Just as girls shouldn’t run faster than boys. I: Oh, to even it out? P: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean really—girls are not supposed to be better than boys in anything. And my father had grown up fishing. It never seemed to occur to them that we never caught any fish. We’d go, and we’d say loudly ‘we’re going to go out into the bay to go fish, maybe we’ll go to the harbor, we’ll get bait downtown and we’ll see you in two and a half hours’ and they’d say ‘Fine, goodbye.’ And we’d show up again, with no fish, and they’d say ‘well, where are the fish?’ We’d say, ‘you know, there were just dogfish out there. There weren’t even flounder. We don’t know what happened. No one was fishing today.’ And this would go on year after year. It never registered with them. So when I sent my brother—he sent around a reflection on my father, and I sent around a reflection on our father. He called me up, he said, ‘you’re kidding me.’ I: (laugh) P: I said, ‘No, didn’t it ever occur to you that two people who knew perfectly well how to fish really, really well never caught anything, summer after summer?’ He said, ‘well, now that you mention it, but it hadn’t occurred to any of us.’ (laughs) I: That’s excellent. P: So funny. [transition to conversation]

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Miriam I: Ok. So I will set this for 3:35, just to give us—we can wrap up then, if there’s time we need to-- ok. Well. Basically how this goes for me, is I have some questions that I might jump in with, but I’d mostly like to give you space to tell your story. P: Mmhm. I: So I can give you the kind of, introduction that I have. Uh, which is that, I’d like to reflect on a time in your life when you went through a period of spiritual crisis. Uh, in this context, the research for it I’ve been doing, spiritual crisis is sometimes understood as a time of intense grief or loss related to your spiritual life. It will—often times there’s deep questions about life, feelings that your life has lost its meaning—often this leads to a significant turning point in life, and a change in the way you understand life, yourself, the world. So, I’d like to just hear your story. P: Ok. I’ve actually had several spiritual crises. Um—the most recent was after my mother passed. I: Mm. P: It wasn’t so much a spiritual crisis, I don’t think, as it was an emotional—and, yeah, you know, you mean your, nine times out of ten your parents are going to die. I: Mm. P: Um—rather than, the child passing first. And—I think it hit me really hard, one because she was my mom. I: Yeah. P: She’s my life anchor. Um—spiritually, though, it affected the way I dealt with interactions with my, my church, my pastor. Um—it’s time for the BS to be over. I: Mm. P: That’s kind of where I was. Um, I’m a—joined this AME church back in Richmond, Zion. People there are fantastic. Um, we’ve got a lot of solid spiritual anchors there, whom I respect immensely, because no matter what’s going on, they stay in their spiritual positions. I: Mm. P: And do it quite well. I’m not there. (laugh) With this church, it’s a connectional church, so It’s not just an independent church-- I: It’s connected to other AMEs. P: There are a bunch of other churches that—that are global. It’s a global organization. I: Mmhm. P: Um, some of the things I had challenged were, like, us doing fundraisers. I: Mmhm. P: And all the funds going to the connectional church as opposed to assisting the local church. That was an issue for me. And after my mom passed, it was just like—you know—this isn’t what it’s supposed to be. And as much as I love the church members, I can’t—I couldn’t stand going to the church with all the politics and everything. It was about everything but Christ, and everything but Christ and his people. So I just stopped going. I: Can I clarify something—you were saying, um, you had been challenging some of these things. Was that before your mother died? P: Yes. I: So this was—there were already some disagreements, but it sounds like that changed, in that— just not going to take the BS anymore, afterwards.

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P: Exactly. That’s exactly it. Life is too short. I: What were you doing before, can I ask? Was that more of a negotiation, or did you— P: Well, one thing—I had a position in the church, as a class leader. And what class leaders, according to our doctrine, are supposed to do—you have responsibility for members, mainly new people coming in but also some veteran members, and you’re supposed to be in a position, make sure—check in with them, make sure everything’s going right. If it’s not, defer them to the appropriate resources, in church and out of church. But to be, um, to kind of be a spiritual advisor. I: Mm. P: To, to them. Uh, meet and discuss Scripture and do all kinds of stuff. Having said that, I was put in that position—oh, here’s the big thing. The AME church, every year, pastors are up for review. I: Mm. Yeah. P: So you can literally have a different pastor every year. Ok. I don’t even remember which one I was made—put in that position by. But the interesting thing was, it was myself and another member, class leader, who—were called by God to, to put a booklet together, to cover all of these basics, so it would be like a training book, with a lot of, um, with a spiritual guidance and direction that people should take, um, based on our own church doctrine, which lines up actually very well with what the Bible says. But to break that down, put it in layman’s terms, and— teach, basically. I: Mmhm. And just clarifying, sorry to jump in on you. You were saying you felt called by God to do that? P: Yes, to do that. That was the mission he’d given us. I’ve been called by God to do a lot of other things too, but. I: Sure. P: That was, that was a task. And at least, I’m drawing a blank—one, two, three—this is the fourth pastor, in an eight, nine-year period. I: Mmhm. P: The pastors didn’t want to deal with it. I: Mm. P: So they did everything from avoiding it, and this last one that currently removed us from position, meaning myself and Jackie, without even telling us-- I: Goodness. P: --that he was going to do that. Really cowardly. I mean— And that seems like such a significant change, when you have so much responsibility in the church. P: Well, here’s the other piece of it. The other class leaders weren’t lining up, if you will, with what we knew to be true. I: Mm. P: And at that point, it got down to being just three of us. And the third person helped work on some of the beginning of this—training manual, I’ll call it. I: Ok. P: But she’s also very much about herself, very destructive force. I: Mm.

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P: Um—not lining up with what she could be, for the church and God’s people. Um, so it’s been really interesting, it’s been—but after my mom passed, I was—I was done. I: Yeah. P: I just could not even continue going, dealing with the hypocrisy and the fact that our pastor does not—I don’t know if he doesn’t know what he should know, scripturally—I think he got caught up in the theology, as opposed to the spirituality, of the church. And, teaches wrong stuff. Uh, just in—just incorrect. And I’ve been in Bible study, for example. I challenged him on some of the things he said, because I knew they were scripturally incorrect. But he continues to do that. I: Mm. P: I won’t be present to—because for me, being present means that I’m sanctioning— I: Mm. P: And agreeing with, the nonsense. And I’m not. I just, I can’t. So—it’s left a hole. I know there are other churches out there that I can go to. Some of them, at least on the surface, appear to be doing the right thing. But—because human beings are very much involved with organized religion— I: Mmhm. P: There’s always the opportunity, if you will, for things to be done incorrectly. So I was just like—I don’t even want to deal with the organized church right now. I: Mmhm. P: Um, but it’s left a hole, because the fellowship between the other members is missing. I: Yeah. P: And that was—that was really important. That’s really significant. So I’m kind of in a holding pattern. I: Mm. P: Um. That’s kind of my most recent story. I: Yeah. Can I ask you—you were saying, one of the issues you were having with the current pastor there is the, he’s caught up too much in theology and not enough in spirituality. P: Mmhm. I: Can you give me an example of what those mean to you? P: Yeah, um—theology, what he was taught in seminary, and the whole—academic explanations of what the word of God says in the Bible. Um—it seems to me that it was also about teaching these pastors the value of doing what Man wants, as opposed to what God wants. I: Mm. P: And making that valuable, uh, more valuable even than the flock. They’re willing—too many of them, at least in this organized church—too many of them, I’ve seen do the wrong thing. Um, and I’m pretty convinced based on conversations that I’ve had with this pastor in particular that they’re, they’re trained to do the wrong thing. I: So, doing things more in terms of—things that will get approval from other people? Or, things that look good? Or—how, how is it in favor of— P: I mean, things like—I’ll give you an example. I: That’d be great. P: Um, during Lent. I: Mmhm.

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P: Two or three years ago, I can’t even remember now. I think it was three years ago. We, I was in Bible study, and, um—he started talking about the gifts of the Spirit, and said that people don’t get the gifts of the Spirit until they’ve converted and become a Christian. I: Mm. P: I’m like, that’s not scripturally correct. And I said that to him. That’s not what the Bible says. Um, and he basically just ignored me. I: Hm. P: And handed out this booklet, not even an AME publication, from—I think it was a Lutheran church—who said that, and went about explaining that, and it was all academic bullcrap to me. I: Mm. P: And it was, I just, and I can’t understand why a man of God, or woman of God for that matter, why you would teach something that’s incorrect, that does not line up with God’s word. Um, and it’s an important thing. Because gifts of the Spirit are given liberally by the Holy Spirit to whomever and how much he, he chooses. So—and that’s what the Word says. And to tell people something other than that sets up a—it’s just a really bad precedent. I: Mm. P: Because the gifts of the Spirit are so critical in, um, enlightening people, and in their own conversion. Um, one of the reasons people in the world that don’t acknowledge God do so well is because they’re actually operating in those gifts. I: Mm. P: It has nothing to do with accepting Christ. But people in the world who have, who operate in those spiritual gifts, tend to be very successful. They may not even be aware that that’s what they’re doing, but that’s what they’re doing. I: Mm. P: Um—and, so, for me, it was a very dangerous thing to teach God’s people that wrong information. Because it sets them up for, um, being ineffective in the conversion, in converting people, or just telling people about God. It sets them up to say in conversation with someone, um, ‘and if you accept Christ as your personal Savior, you’ll be given all these wonderful spiritual gifts.’ It’s, it’s just—devastating, to me, it’s, it could be very devastating. Um, and that’s his theology. That’s what I was saying. It’s probably some of what he was taught in seminary, and it’s incorrect. But when I presented the Biblical-- the scriptures to him, he ignored it. I: Yeah. Those both seem like important points in this, is that—there’s a mistake, at least, there’s a—and, for me not to take sides, there’s definitely what you’re seeing is a misinterpretation there— P: Mmhm. I: --and rather than engage with you on it, or even talk about his point of view, he went straight to ignoring you, passing out a pamphlet. P: Mmhm. I: Not really being there like a human being, it sounds like. P: Well, and I tried to go back, earlier this year. Right before Easter. (laughs quietly) And they were working in, um, with this pamphlet, another pamphlet. I: Another pamphlet. Lots of pamphlets. P: That again, didn’t come from the AME church. I: Mm.

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P: But it was teaching the same lie. I: Mmhm. That sense of—people who convert to Christianity get things that people who don’t never receive from God? P: Right. I: Ok. P: The,the same lie. It was in the introduction. And, the entire rest of the document was explaining the lie. I: Mmhm. P: And-- I just threw it in the trash. I just—and I haven’t been back since. Because—why lie? I: Mm. P: Why lie, especially about gifts of the Spirit? Um—that’s a big deal. I mean, the Word says you can blaspheme against the Father and the Son, but don’t blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. It is an unforgivable sin. Um, and I’m like—wow. So for me, it feels more like an attack on the Body of Christ, the church— P: Yeah. I: And it’s very deliberate, and very insidious. Because it just potentially sets up so many incorrect and spiritually devastating principles. P: Mmhm. I: I—that cannot-- because it’s like false prophecy. It cannot benefit the people of God. Because it’s teaching them the wrong things. The other piece of it is that I know that some of the elders—I mean, we’re talking people in their 80s, who are very strong, and very connected to God, um, and very steadfast in their service to the Body of Christ, to the church. I don’t understand why—and they know. They’re spiritually way ahead of where I am, um, in terms of their relationship, and their level of understanding. I can’t understand why they would sit back and not challenge those things. And even if they have challenged them unsuccessfully, why they would stay, and continue. P: Mm. P: So I figure that’s between them and God; they’ve been told to stay put. I, I get that. I: Mm. P: I’ve been told to stay put, but—as a member—but Father God knows I can’t do it. I: Mm. P: I cannot—I cannot support a lie. I: Mmhm. P: Or multiple lies. Um, which created a crisis for me, like I said. I love God, I love his people, I love being called to service. Um, actually using my spiritual gifts. And for that to be stifled, and bastardized— I: Mmhm. P: It’s at a certain level very devastating. (sigh) That’s organized religion. And it’s so bad, honestly—I was trying to encourage my kids to go to church with me, earlier, before all of this started. And, um—my son and daughter-in-law did come with me a couple of times—they felt the same stuff. I: Mm. P: Um, and then my daughter and daughter-in-law came for an event at the church. I think it was a dinner theater thing we were doing. This was under the previous pastor. And—they’re very

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against organized religion, but my thing is, you can not agree with organized religion and still practice a relationship with God, which is what I do, and which is what they say they do. I: Mhm. P: Um, they’ve got their own belief system, and I respect that. I just want it to be founded in the Word. Um, which—they’re not. They’re not using that. I gave my daughter a Bible one year for Christmas, one of her presents, and she really resented it. I: Mm. P: And I said, well, you’re not there yet, but you might get there, so keep it, don’t throw it away, or give it away. Um, and it’s funny because, at her age, I was going through my first spiritual crisis. I: Mm. P: And it was really around the same kinds of issues, um, maybe not specific, uh, doctrinal beliefs—I was in a bad marriage. Abusive husband—physically, emotionally. And I went to my pastor for advice, because I did not want a divorce—I didn’t believe in divorce, I’ll put it like that. But I knew if I stayed, that man was going to kill me. So I asked my pastor, and the only thing he could say is ‘God hates divorce.’ I’m telling him, ‘seriously? He’s beating me, choking me out, and that’s all you have to say?’ I: Does God hate that? P: Huh? I: Seems like God would hate that too. P: Oh, exactly. And like—so I was angry. I: Yeah. P: And stayed away from the church for a long time. Did divorce the man. But I—it was just, it just doesn’t—church leadership doesn’t apply what God says in his Word to everyday situations, contemporary situations. It’s like they aren’t trained to understand and then to do that. Um— I’m sorry, I’m diabetic and I stay thirsty. I: That’s what it’s for. P: I appreciate that. Um—so this is—oh, and the other big piece of my, my crisis all those years ago. I was 25, so—29 years ago, I, um, I was called by God to preach. I: Mm. P: And the pastor that I was under—this was in a Baptist church—or actually, he called it nondenominational, but with a Catholic and Baptist kind of foundation. I: Kind of a mix, ok. P: Um— I: That’s an interesting mix. How was that? P: It is interesting. Well, he was raised Catholic, but had converted—um—I don’t know what you call it, cause they’re both Christian, but changed over to Baptist and then a couple other denominations where he, he became a member, or whatever, before going to formalized seminary. So—that was different. I: So a lot of it was coming out of his personal experience, how he was structuring things. P: Yes. I: Ok. P: Um, which I was ok with. But he led me to believe he was in support of my preaching—at the time, I lived in the city, and I called every seminary that I was aware of in the city. They wouldn’t even let women take the classes that led to preaching. And this—this man—like I said,

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tricked me into believing that he was being supportive, but he wasn’t. And I found out in the— he belonged to the Baptist Minister Alliance. And they were all laughing and joking about me wanting to become a preacher. (in response to raised eyebrows) Yes. And I’m like—which I found out because we went to visit churches where the ministers were, members of that alliance were pastors. And I kept getting this—‘hee hee, ha ha’ kind of vibe from them. So I asked my pastor, and he said, well, yeah. We were kinda laughing, and don’t think women belong in the pulpit, and I’m like—wow. Really? Seriously. So that was—I mean, I know what— P: Not even willing to tell you to your face. I: Exactly. P: And it’s like, I know what I know. I don’t care who does or doesn’t believe it, receive it. I know who and what I am in Christ. I: Can I ask you what your call was like? P: What it, what it was like? I: Yeah, how did you experience that? P: (sigh) I had been searching for a church home—um, and it was interesting. My, my call to preach came very unexpectedly, but—during, during a worship service at the church that I’d been going to, and, we were praising God, and—actually, a prophet spoke that to me, and I was like ‘hang on, I don’t wanna be a preacher.’ Um, but I got confirmation, afterwards, from like three different unre—three different people that don’t know, didn’t know each other, had no interactions, and so I prayed about it. And I’m like, ‘is this what you want me to do?’ And it was real interesting, because—I know I wasn’t called to be a pastor of a church. I: Mhm. P: It was more to be an evangelist. I: Mhm. P: And I was not—I didn’t want that. I: Mm. P: And the Lord told me, basically, I can receive it or not receive it, but he had occasions for me to speak on his behalf. I was like—ok. Occasions… occasionally… I think I can handle that. So it was really different from what most people interpret their call to be. Mine was not for a permanent position at any given church, it was basically to be ready for when the Holy Spirit would give me something to give to his people, to tell his people. I: Mhm. P: And it’s interesting, because I’ve had occasion, actually, at my current church, to give Word to God’s people. And it happened, not that first Easter season, Lenten season, where he was giving out false doctrine, but the very next year. He asked me to participate in the service, um, Seven Last Words of Christ, basically, and to take one of those words and deliver a brief message. Which I did. That felt right. I’ve also preached, if you will, at a funeral. Um—it’s, it’s just been real interesting. But I’m a writer, so—I’ve had numerous occasions to—and a poet—to be given a poem— I: Mhm. P: And to share that from the pulpit with God’s people, so, you know, it’s opportunities to do that. I: Is that—sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt you, just making sure I understand you correctly. P: Mhm.

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I: When you say ‘to be given a poem,’ you mean, God’s giving you this to speak? (in response to nod) Yeah. P: Yes. It’s a big difference between when I’m writing it, when it’s coming from me, and when it’s coming from the Holy Spirit through me. It’s just—the Word is super-prophetic. It’s—I don’t know if I said that. Cause one of my gifts is the gift of prophecy. I: Mhm. P: I’ve had it for as long as I can remember. And it fre—I mean, it freaked me out as a kid. Because I would get these—it came in the form of dreams. I: Mm. P: Or daydreams. I’m daydreaming, and then I get these visions. Um, usually of death. I: Mm. P: Something tragic happening. And—I’ll put it like this, by the time I was twelve, my mother told me to stop telling her about my dreams. It was really intense. The irony in that is that there’s a prophetic gift throughout my family. My—most of us have that. But none of us had the—rooted in the organized religion. We didn’t have the opportunities for mentors to help us process what we were getting, and to experience—and you know, things manifest in different ways. I: Sure. So you were getting very intense imagery from a very young age. How was that for you? P: I found— I: (overlapping) How did you process it, I guess, in the absence of mentors? P: The first thing I remember something that was very direct, I was eight, in third grade. And I got this image of one of my classmates getting hit by a car, being knocked, um, a great distance in the air, and his leg being broken. And—I got that image three times before it actually happened. And when it did, the only thing—my interpretation was, ‘I’m a witch.’ I: Mm. P: Because I was thinking I caused it. I didn’t understand anything at that point. (cough) And then, um— I: And when that actually happened, were you there to see it, was it— P: I wasn’t there to see it, but he lived close enough to go home for lunch— I: Yeah. Sure. P: And then come back to school, and he got hit on his way back to school from lunch. And it happened just like I saw it. I: Mm. P: Knocked fifty feet in the air, and his leg was broken in two places. I don’t know if I said that initially, but that’s what I saw, that’s what happened. And, it really— I: Pretty terrifying— P: It freaked me out. Um, and then when I was a little bit older, like, seventh grade, seventh or eighth grade, I was talking to this girl. You know how you meet people in school, you really like them, but you don’t have classes between, joint interacting— I: Sure. P: Well—saw this girl in the library. And she was excited because she and her mom were taking, having a girls’ weekend. They were going somewhere and getting a motel room. Cause she was in a house full of boys. And as she spoke, I saw—I didn’t see what was going to happen to her, but I knew she was not going to survive the trip.

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I: Mm. P: And—every time I tried to open my mouth to say, ‘don’t go’, I—it—it literally was like my mouth was closed. I: Mm. P: I wasn’t permitted to speak that to her. And sure enough, on the way back home-- it was storming really bad that Sunday. And they were in a car accident, her and her mom—ran into a utility pole. Her mother was killed instantly—no, Millie was killed instantly. Her mother died on the way to the hospital, I think. I: Mm. P: Um, and I was like—(gasp out). I knew that, at that point, it was coming from, from God. And I was frustrated, because it’s like—why are you giving me this and not allowing me to warn people? The same year, my cousin had leukemia. I was twelve, he was sixteen. And being sick like that, you know. I mean, back then, chances of survival were next to none. I: Sure. P: Um, and one night, my family, we were just sitting around talking, and I kept wanting to ask about Eric. And I felt like it was urgent for me to ask about him, and find out what was going on with him, because—and the urgency came from knowing he was going to die. Three days later, he died. Um (drinks water) you don’t know me, but, it really pissed me off. Not that he died, but that I was given this information and not allowed to share it. I: Yeah. P: So I asked God. I was in, still at the funeral home, and I—I’m like, ‘what do you want from me? What do you want me to do with this? Why are you giving me this, and not allowing me to warn people?’ And I got back, as clear as day—it wasn’t an audible voice, but it just, in my spirit, that—I wasn’t given these things to warn people. I was given these things so that I could be available to comfort people as they go through their losses or whatever. And I’m like—oh, ok. I can deal with that now, cause it was the not knowing what my purpose was. I: Sure. P: And I, it continued. It still continues, to this day. It’s interesting, though—it’s not always in dreams. Um, most of the time it is in dreams, but sometimes it’s, it’s while I’m awoke. And I’ll get these images. They don’t—the only thing I can say is that I know when it’s from God versus when it’s my own imagination. Cause being a writer, you have to have an imagination. I: Sure. P: It’s really kind of crazy, wild. Um—I know when it’s from him and when it’s not. And—I, I prepare. It was like he was giving me the information so that I could go through my grief process or whatever process I need to, and then I am available. I: So you could be ready a little bit early for whoever is going to need your help in the aftermath. P: Yep. Yep. Uh-- I: Can I ask—you had mentioned, between that, that first time when you thought you were a witch— P: Mhm. I: And by the second time you had figured out this was coming from God. How did you figure that out? P: (gasp out) The only thing I can say is I’ve always known there was a God. I mean—and I’ve got memories that go back to when I was nine months old. I: Wow.

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P: I’ve always known there was a God. I’ve never questioned that. And I think that it was knowing that, and acknowledging that, that made me—that helped me gain understanding. I: Mm. P: One of the things that happened was I started going to church, with my grandparents. My parents were believers but they didn’t go to church. And, so, that was for economic reasons. Um, just the way they believed. And mainly my mom. Dad had his beliefs, he was comfortable with it, he had no need for church. I: More of an individual kind of— P: Mhm. My mother believed, always, and—up until the time she died, even though she wasn’t attending church, she was sending her tithes in through the mail. I: Mm. P: I think it’s because we have open conversation at home, and then I started going with my grandparents to church, and it was just kind of a combination of knowledge—my first school was an Episcopalian school. I: Mm. P: So we had Mass like three times a week. I got in trouble there cause part of the, the service was in Latin. And part of that was praying in Latin, like, as a group. And I was even younger, I was—first grade. Six. And—one of the nuns was looking at me like, ‘go ahead and pray.’ I: Mm. P: I refused to pray, because I didn’t understand what I was saying. Even at that age, if I’m talking to God, I need to know what I’m saying. I: Mhm. P: I’m not going to do this without an interpretation in English of what I’m saying. I: Sure. Just speaking the sounds of somebody else’s language would feel— P: Right, and, well, I felt it was prayer. I: Mhm. P: But I’m not going to pray something when I don’t know what I’m speaking. Now, that was me at six. So you can only imagine. I: (laugh) P: I’ve always—I never even thought about it before, but I’ve always been the voice of challenge. And it was—the challenge, though, wasn’t about the traditions, and the rituals, and stuff. It was about my understanding the foundations, and the reasonings for those things. I: Mhm. P: I—it needed to make sense to me. And if what I was given didn’t make sense, I usually would say that—like, ‘well, that don’t make sense.’ And people took it personally, when what I was saying was, ‘that doesn’t make sense to me, and I’m still looking for an understanding.’ So—I completely lost where I was going. I: Well, I know I’ve been asking you questions to meander around a little bit there. P: That’s ok. I: But you had started talking about the, the first crisis you had, when you were twenty-five— P: Mhm. I: And how that kind of progressed forward. P: Yeah, I, um—I had my daughter the year I was turning thirty-one. She was born in May and I’m in August. So-- and I hadn’t been in church, I hadn’t been in anybody’s church for, since I

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was twenty-five. And—she was getting older, and I realized her only experiences with church were weddings and funerals. I: Mm. P: Her father’s a minister too. Um—that’s a whole other—that’s a whole other conversation. I: Yeah, that sounds like that might be another branch, that— P: Mhm. Um, in fact, he was the one who was teasing about my being called to preach. I: Really. P: Yeah. Yeah, I had other issues that—that he sensed, and picked up on, I guess, and then proceeded to manipulate. I: Mm. P: It is what it is. I: Mm. P: Um, yeah. So that was all part of my crisis. Anyway, after she started getting some age on her, I realized I needed to get her into a church. (cough) So she could learn—what I couldn’t teach. I mean, the whole importance of going, and fellowship being had, and hearing the Word of God, a message through his ministers—she needed to experience that, so she could make an informed decision about whether or not she believed in Christ. And of course, I decided taking her to her dad’s church made the most sense—would be the most nonthreatening. Even though he really wasn’t involved. Um, but that’s what I chose to do. And-- she got it. And by the time she was twelve, she accepted Christ. So I—I said it was ironic that now, she’s twenty-eight now—so, she’s been twenty-five, maybe even a little bit younger, she’s not wanted anything to do with organized religion. I think in part, in large part, that has to do with her being a lesbian, and things people have said regarded her being a lesbian and going to hell, and all that foolishness. Because we talked about it—she was like, in her teens. My sister had—said something very devastating. She didn’t mean any harm, but, she was like ‘I just don’t want you to go to hell.’ I: Mm. P: ‘Can’t you choose something else’—so, it, and, my—they were really close. Plus, there were some other things that my sister had said, her and my mom actually, and-- she had, didn’t want to have anything to do with them. It was about me. So, it was a combination of family drama and dynamics and that whole thing that, she was like, ‘psh.’ I said, you accepted Christ. You know you believe. I said—so, rather than listen to all of these people, why don’t you ask him? I: Mm. P: If you really want to know, ask him. She’s like, ‘no.’ And I tried to—actually show her some things in the Bible that I discovered and got an understanding of that makes it ok. Um, it was ok. It is ok. Uh, you have to be true to who God created you to be. But she said, but she had said, still thinking on what people had said— I: Mhm. P: That it’s a setup. ‘Well, if he created me this way, and then he’s going to turn around and send me to hell for it, it’s a setup. I don’t want to worship a God that would do that.’ I said, ‘but that’s not what he does. That’s what people say he does, but that’s not what he does.’ And as far as I know, she’s never taken that step to actually ask God, and ask him for an answer. So—her and my daughter-in-law—they don’t do organized religion, because of the ugliness of people in church. So, even that—even that is part of my own crisis, um, as her mother—and loving, and knowing what I know, because honestly, she was—she was one year old, and I saw who she was.

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I saw that a big piece of that was her being a lesbian. I just knew. And—I’ve always been ok with it. Because I don’t see condemnation. And it’s really frustrating trying to communicate with other Christians— I: Mhm. P: --Who have a very different interpretation of what the Bible says, on that issue, too. I mean, there is—there are several things. But again, my mother’s death triggered it for me, because we don’t have a long time in this world, and we don’t know when our end is going to be, so my thing was to stop wasting time. I: Mm. P: In organized churches. I: Mhm. P: Who have such limited understanding, which directly reflects their limited relationship with God. Because the more you know God, the more processes you go through, and the—He just takes you to different levels. So it’s really frustrating, being at my level—and I’m not saying I’m superior. I just have—clearer understanding. Um, and when, in encountering these pastors—which is what I meant when I said, that should know more, should be further along— it’s like—and it’s not even a judgment. It’s just an observation. It’s very challenging for me to submit myself to spiritual leadership that’s nowhere close to where I am— I: Yeah. P: -- Because it’s like, I want to slap ‘em, ‘dummy, just do what you need to do to get to this level.’ Catch up. P: Right, and it’s very frustrating. And I know it’s wrong to be frustrated by it, but I go to church, and it’s funny because even with all that, I still glean something from the preaching. I want—I want to say most of the time, but it’s not most of the time. Some of the time. But to go in, and try to—(breath out) clear my spirit and be where I’m supposed to be—(sigh). To listen to—I want to say false teaching, but it’s, it’s—incorrect teaching— I: Mm. P: -- is more in line with where I’m at, what I’m dealing with. And then dealing with, there are some members of the church who challenge me too. It’s just like, oh my God, stay away from me. But I know that’s not what my frame of mind should be. Because I can’t get impatient, I shouldn’t get impatient, with people because of where they are or are not. I mean, I really shouldn’t. So that’s my issue to work through. I: So you’re seeing that as like, this is, this is where they’re at in their own path, so I shouldn’t get frustrated with them cause— P: Cause I know this is where they are. I: It’s just where they are. P: It’s just where they are. I: But still frustrating. Yeah. P: Yeah. Because I’m not gaining what I need to gain with any consistency. And I’ve come out exhausted. It just, it just—exhausted, as opposed to being refreshed. So. I don’t know. It’s— that’s my jumbled-up story, kind of where I am. I: Yeah. So where are you now? P: (pause) In the same place, of frustration. Which is why I have been resistant about going to other, visiting other churches.

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I: Sure. P: To do that—and I fear having the same kind of experience. I: Mhm. P: It’s too much, for me. I’m not where I could be—but I’m unwilling—and God doesn’t force anybody to do anything, ever. Um—that’s just a process that I haven’t been willing to go through yet. Other thing that’s been really interesting—since before my mother passed, a lot of people that I know have died. I: Mm. P: I mean, a lot. This year alone, I was talking to Jackie, my partner in crime if you will. We just got together the other day, and, they’ve lost several members of their family this year. I: Mm. P: Um, and it’s kind of been like that. Like, before my mom died, two of my younger brothers died. I: Mm. P: And they died a year and a week apart from each other. I: Gosh. P: Which was devastating to my mom. She was—my dad had died earlier, um—and after Mom died, my sister said—half our family is gone. And it’s true. Half our family. We were a family of eight, now we’re a family of four. And it’s just been—so all of that has been contributing to my—where I find myself. To my crisis, if you will. Um—and I know, eventually, I’ll go through my process and get what I’m supposed to get. I’m still doing what I need to do, based on my calling. Um—yeah. The, the prophetic gift is the biggest one. I’ve also operated in the gift of healing. But it’s not—it’s just like the preaching. It’s not going to be something that’s continuous— I: It’s not a 9 to 5 job. P: Yeah, it’s more like, as the occasion comes up, and the Holy Spirit enables me, empowers me, to touch—and I’m very, very leery of touching anybody. Like, there’s certain things I won’t do. I won’t visit people in nursing homes. I: Mm. P: I have before, which is why I’m where I am. Spiritually, I become overwhelmed, because of the spiritual activity in those places. Um—mm-mm (no). I: Spiritual activity in the sense of – people are near death, or in other ways? P: That. People near death, and people going through changes— I: Mm. Yeah. P: And being more—their spirits kinda, I don’t want to say come and go. But they—spiritually, in terms of spirit realm, they release their spirits. They are not as contained as younger, healthier people. And it’s, it’s just too much for me. I—it overwhelms my spirit. I: Mm. P: Same thing going to the hospitals to visit people. I will do that faster. Especially if I feel like I’m being called to do that, because it’s also part of one of my gifts is comforting those who mourn, those who are sick. That’s part of my—my work. Um, I find other ways to do that, but— I: What are some of the ways that— P: Like, I’ll—I’ll write people. I’ll send them cards. I will call them on the phone, even. And pray with them—I am a prayer warrior, too. Um—that’s how I kind of attend to them. I’ll visit

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them at home. But I-- and I don’t do that a lot, but I have done that. Um, but I’m not—I’m not visiting you in the hospital, unless God tells me to. I: Unless you’re called to. P: And it’s funny, because—it’s not funny ha-ha, but—it’s odd that two of the three people that I know—and I know more than three that have passed this year, but these three were connected in life. Two of them died—one in a hospital, one in a nursing home—and I didn’t know that they were even in that condition. I: Mm. P: The one, the one woman—I had ministered to, prayed with, um, just had a active participating in her life, at certain points. It’s been a few years. She died on Easter Sunday. Um, second person I know that died on Easter Sunday—one of my cousins did a few years ago. But, um, yeah. Just—it’s just been interesting, to me, the way things are unfolding—um, I need to get more serious about my, my callings, and my work. And get more consistent. (cough) I feel like everyone needs to get more serious about who they are, for God, and in his Kingdom. But I, but I’m so saddened by—the greed. I: Mm. P: And the politicking, that takes place in the church. I mean, it’s nothing new. Jesus overturned the tables dealing with that very issue. People turned his house, the house of God into—what did he call it—a den of thieves. I: Den of thieves. P: I’m like—and that’s what I feel. I: Mm. P: Like the churches are dens of thieves. And they have no heart for God or his people—they become secondary to what they personally can get out of it and gain. And—(sigh) I just, I don’t want to be around it. Because it does anger me. Um, but it also—hurts my feelings. It hurts my spirit. Um, to see it, and to—not be in a position to do anything about it, really. That’s not my job. That’s not what I was given to do. I was just to do whatever the Lord led me to do, and told me to do, like that training manual. That’s a really bad term to describe this work. But it’s so foundational. It’s so—at the core of what God wants to give to his people. An understanding. But God is patient. That’s one of the reasons, I think that’s the main reason, he still has me connected to Zion, is that—in his timing, that thing could be released, and received. I: Does that work go on, on that project? P: Does that what? I: Is that work still going on, on that project? P: No. He put it—he put a halt to it. Um, we’ve gotten pretty far. It’s almost, almost complete. Honestly, the part that, where we left off, is the beginning of the glossary. I: Mm. P: A glossary that he wanted added in, as a resource, and a reference. But no. When Jesus says stop, I stop. I: Mm. P: And it’s funny, because Jackie and I will both—we’ll both get, get directions from God, for lack of a better word. Even when we haven’t—cause we haven’t seen each other much, the last few years. Her mother’s in a nursing home, and has been since 2015. Um, and she takes care, and tends to her and her father, who’s—who has been going through some different medical issues. Um, she actually lives in, at her parents’ house. Uh, so she’s had a whole other set of

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issues and circumstances to deal with. But it’s funny, because—we’ll both get the nudge from above. Or, sometimes it’s just that we will pick up in our spirit something’s going on with one another. So we’ll call. I: Mhm. P: So it was really good to get together with her the other day, and spend time. Cause we haven’t really had the opportunity to do that for a long time, so. I: That’s somebody it’s very good to sort of—be in the physical presence, and— P: And to, to relate, back and forth. Um, and, again—it’s clear that God put us together, um, spiritually. What’s funny about it is, she reached out to me, and I hadn’t lived in town very long. She reached out to me and I knew that even back then, God wanted me to go to Zion. Which I was resisting. Um, I didn’t even know why I was resisting it at first. But I was obedient eventually, and went there. And—even back then, the church was packed. Um, I’m like—Lord, I am not ready for them and they are not ready for me. Because they were very—what’s the word I wanted to say—very unexpressive. And I’m very expressive, in my worship. I: Mm. P: Always have been. So I was used to going to churches where that was— I: More the norm. P: Mhm, where that was more the norm. And they were all so reserved, and still—and I’m like, I can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t understand how you could be in his presence and be like a dead person. I: (quiet laugh) P: Seriously. I—so, for me, it’s either, they’re resisting—and something’s wrong, and there’s, you know-- and I talked to God, I’m like ‘eh, they ain’t ready for me.’ I: Mhm. P: You know, kind of thing. Anyway, I used to work at a place in town. Zion is just down the street from—I mean, it’s literally one building between the two. I: Yeah. P: And—so, Jackie came in a few times, and we talked. I mean, I knew that she went to the AME and I could pick up, in her spirit, that she wanted to establish a relationship with me. But I also knew that spiritually, she was going to challenge me in ways I was not ready to deal with. And I didn’t even articulate it, or understand it clearly—it was just spiritual instinct. I’m like, nn-nn (no), I ain’t ready to deal with her, kind of thing. Because she would challenge and support all at the same time. I: Mhm. P: And when I, what I was going through-- I got up here because I married another man who turned out to be somebody totally different than he presented. I: Mhm. P: Um—yeah. That was a bad deal. That—that lasted about a year. Um, me and bad—picking bad companions. I: Mmm. P: But—and Jackie and I were actually connected because my husband and her ex-husband were cousins. I: Huh.

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P: So we were connected in that way, even though I didn’t know her ex-husband. I think I had seen him once or twice, cause he lived up in, um, Cleveland. Um—anyway, do you have any questions? I: Sure. No, I was just—sitting with that for a minute, because I think it’s interesting how, headed to Zion, you were in conversation with God of ‘they’re not ready for me and I’m not ready for them,’ and then when she came in, it was like ‘I’m not ready for her.’ P: Mhm. It is interesting, and it’s interesting to me that you have the connections in the land of the living, in the natural. I’ll put it like that. But that just reminds me that everything begins in the spirit realm. I: Mm. P: And then it’s manifested in the natural, in the physical world. And if you forget—if I forget— I sometimes forget that. And it’s like—I shouldn’t be surprised. So there was a spiritual connection. The Lord had divined a spiritual connection between Jackie and I before either of us were even in this world. And then we stumble upon it, or whatever. It’s just—it’s kind of cool, the way things operate. Um, and when I was ready and willing, then I did go back to Zion. And probably for the better part of nine months, was going, uh, before I actually joined. I didn’t join until I had the all clear from God. Um, yeah, there’s nothing worse than being in the wrong place. But, I have gained a great deal, a great deal from that church body. And what’s funny about that is, my—my ego, my arrogance, was that I was being sent there to teach them. I: Mm. P: I was sent there to be taught, as well. So—it was—and I have learned a lot, spiritually. And even just in terms of normal human relationships, I’ve learned a great deal. I—one of the deaths was the son of one of our elder women. She’s had a lot of loss. She had a lot of loss. But she and—including one of her sisters-- died a few years ago. And she and I shared a birthday. So this member, this elderly lady, um—and she’s truly an elder in the church, just lost her son. And I’m like—I don’t want to just call her. I’ll send her a card. And, if the funeral happens to be there, which it may very well, I will attend that if at all possible. Cause she’s a sweet woman, very strong. Oh my God, just very anointed and walking in her gifts. I: What’s that feel like for you, when you encounter these people who are strong, who are anchors? How can you tell? What are they doing that makes them— P: They—(sigh) speak the truth. I: Mm. P: They study. Like this woman, once a month, gets up and does what she calls ‘Food for Thought,’ and it’s like a little mini-sermon, but it’s teaching, and—her prayer—I mean—when some people pray, it’s just like they’re going through the motions, and they’re saying words. When other people pray, you feel the power in their prayer. And I recognize that’s just because they’ve got a strong prayer life, and they are in active relationships with God. For me, that’s wonderful. I: Mhm. P: I love being somewhere where people are doing what they’re supposed to do and being who they’re supposed to be, because they’ve worked through and advanced so many levels spiritually. It’s, it’s—it’s a welcome relief for me, because—I’m, I’m not the—I’m not the most advanced and the biggest one. I: Yeah.

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P: I love being around people that I can learn stuff from, and whose life lines up. It’s not just they talk it, they walk it. I: Mhm. P: Um— I: Kind of—at least the feeling I’m getting is kind of the opposite of the feeling you were getting with the pastor, of— P: Mhm. I: You should be in a position to provide leadership here, and you’re not— P: Yes. I: And I’m having to pick up the slack when I should be getting energized. P: Right. That is exactly right. And the perplexing thing is that they are both in the same place. I: Yeah. P: Um—like I said—I admire them-- I: That’s a hard thing to sit with, it sounds like. P: Yeah. And it’s funny, because Jackie’s dad, um, man. I probably had only been in town for a couple years, two or three years. I: Mhm. P: And—the Lord told me that this man was my new father in the earth. And I’m like—wow. And I was kind of shy about saying anything to him. It took a couple, few months. And I’ve—I finally told him, and he just chuckled. And I said, you know that that means, even if —cause this was after my split with the second husband—I said, if somebody even wants to go out with me, they’ve gotta get your approval, and he just laughed. But, he’s strong, very very strong. Man of few words, but when he speaks, there’s much power. And it’s like—like the scripture, ‘pray without ceasing.’ I: Mhm. P: Well, I’ve gotten to the place that pretty much—most of the time, I, I’m—talking to—which to me is prayer—talking to the Lord, um, continually, when I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Now lately, not so much, but. This man is always singing to the Lord, I mean, just—he’s just—daily, every day, doing thing, um, for the Lord, the Lord, I know, has given him to do— picking up the slack at the church financially. He’s retired, but. I: In all sorts of ways. P: Our membership has dropped so drastically. There’s only a handful of people who are active; I’m not one of them. So—cause we have to pay a connectional fee. I: Mhm. P: (sigh) I: All that good politics stuff. P: Mhm. And I think the last time I heard, it was like $120 per member every year. I: Hm. P: That’s a lot when you’re talking about people who are living in poverty, people who are retired and on fixed incomes—that’s a lot of money to be asking for with no clear return. I: Mm. P: So what do we get out of this? And it’s just—that’s just the pragmatic me talking. If we are to give that money to support the connectional church, how—and there are ways that it’s supposed to come back to us. Like, they have several publications which we’re supposed to receive. As far as when I was there, say it was one of the quarterlies—we might get one a year,

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late. Um, the others we don’t get at all. And it’s just—it’s just wrong. I’m sorry, it’s just wrong, the way they’re doing stuff. And I admire my new father, and this lady who just lost her son—they truly are pillars. And even though they clearly know that what’s going on is incorrect, they still stay in their positions. They still praise and worship God and share what he has given them to share. They still do what they were called to do. I: You said lately—and I’m jumping in a bit because I don’t want us to run out of time on this one— P: That’s ok. I: You said lately not so much for you. That in the past, you’ve been able to talk more back and forth with God. P: Right, um—because before I stopped going to church, frankly, I was walking and talking with God, or singing. I mean, like—and even if it wasn’t, um, like an audible expression, I was constantly communing. I mean, to the point where it became my norm. I: (alarm goes off) Ok, it’s doing it’s 3:35 thing. P: Ok. That was, that was my norm. So when I—somebody, I guess, the pastor preached something, and used that scripture. And—I had to think back and realize that that had, that had gradually, over time, as my relationship improved—so that I was then—cause like I said, not so much now, but then, I was pretty much praying without ceasing. Like, all day every day. Um— you know, not falling on my knees— I: Sure. P: --Or getting on my face, but just—communing with God through the Holy Spirit all the time. That had become my norm. And—I need to get back to that. I miss being in that place. I: How did you notice it stopping? P: It just hit me one day that I wasn’t doing it anymore. And—I knew I wasn’t doing it because I wasn’t—this is going to sound weird— I: That’s fine. P: Because I wasn’t going to church, and I wasn’t getting my spiritual food, of any kind, because these things don’t happen in a vacuum. When you are around people who are strong, like these folks are, it inspired me and encouraged my spirit to seek, um, and develop an ongoing relationship with God. I’m not out of relationship with God, I’m just not practicing—I’m just not doing things the way I had been doing them. And I miss that. I: Yeah. P: Um— I: Yeah, earlier you said something about—I need to process this, and then, I know I will be back— P: Mhm. I: Sounds like there’s a sense of faith or certainty for you there— P: Mhm. I: That this part will end. P: Yes. Absolutely. I: Either—and you—well—I’m trying to figure out how to phrase this. You’ve had experience with several spiritual crises over your life. In your experience, is it more going back to the way you were connected before, or is it connecting in a new way, or how do you get— P: It can be both. Um, it has been both. Sometimes I have to go back in order to, what’s the phrase I’m looking for—in order to tie up loose ends, spiritually.

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I: Mm. P: I, you know, when I go back, um—I’m not even necessarily thinking in those terms, but that’s the reality of why I had to go back. Um, and with this experience, I know I’m going to go back to Zion because I have not been released to do anything else. I: That’s still where the call is pushing you. P: Right. And cause I—I have always been called to go to certain churches. I did make the mistake of going to one on my own—yeah, I’ll never do that again. I: What was different? P: It was, it was a hot mess. I: (laugh) P: They were—the pastor and co-pastor were husband and wife, and they basically had put themselves up on a pedestal and were pimping God’s people. I: Mm. P: Like—having them come over and clean their house. I: Ugh. P: And calling it service for God. How is that service for God? I: Yeah. P: A lot of money issues, in terms of getting money from people. I: But when you feel called by God to a place, you’ve gotten more of a sense of —there are people here who are connected to what I’m connected to, in a real way. P: Right. Yeah, um. And from whom I will learn a lot. I: From whom I can learn. P: One of my almost-prayers, cause I haven’t really asked for this, but I feel like I need to, is to gain the—to be as steadfast, and immovable, no matter what’s going on. Kinda want that, but I kinda don’t. I: Mhm. P: Because—there—I know there are going to be aspects of my own personality and character, spirit, that are going to have to be changed, or suppressed, or whatever. I’m not ready to do that yet, so I haven’t asked that. But—I’d like to get there. But I know there’s going to be personal sacrifice to get there. I: Well, I know—we’ve got about five minutes left (laugh)—but one of the things I wanted to clarify, to make sure I’m on the same page with you, is—I know I’ve heard of people use the gift of prophecy to talk about things that are going to happen in the future, I’ve also heard people use that to talk about speaking truth to power, or kind of being in a position of speaking prophetically, and I wondered how that was for you. Whether you just saw that in terms of the visions and the dreams you were having, or if that was part of the challenging people— P: It’s both. I: It’s both, ok. P: It’s both. I—and even recognizing that because he gives me information, but—say, my second husband, perfect example. I used to see with my prophetic, spiritual eyes, and lean on that more than with my natural eyes. I: Mm. P: By my second husband, I saw who he was intended to be. I: Mm.

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P: Without recognizing that that’s what I was seeing. Um—because I did try to interact with him as if he was at that place, at that level. I: As if he was who he could be. P: And—loved that man that I saw. I: Yeah. P: And ignored the man that he was. I: That was there in the natural. P: In the natural. And that, I found out the hard way, can be really devastating to people. Because, one, they have no idea what you’re talking about, or why you have these certain expectations. And it can send them in a reverse, reverse mode so they actually stop being where they were and, and it’s just devastating. Um—and it took—that’s a whole other hour conversation. I: Sure. P: But I—so I’m very careful now to see and hear what God gives me about a person—doesn’t mean that I need to communicate that to them. It’s just giving me insight. So I have to be very prayerful about how I interact with that individual. I: Seems like there’s a pretty careful thing you’ve learned to do of sorting through that information, choosing how to act. P: And that’s what I mean by processing. Processing in and processing out. Because yeah, it’s devastating, also, to hold on to all that stuff. And it can be super-overwhelming, and detrimental. And that’s something, actually with Jackie that I’ve learned to process out, and not hold a lot of stuff. I: Mm. P: Because it – like I said, it can overwhelm and devastate you. But yeah, for me it’s both. It’s the dreams and visions as well as the—and sometimes, he gives me a word for someone—he did this once. I had left this job, and there was a woman there who I had talked to. I mean, we didn’t have any kind of special relationship. I knew she was a believer and she had been going through some changes. And literally, this was months after I left the job, the Lord gave me a word for her. And what I’ve also learned to do is write it down, so I don’t screw it up, misplace words. And it was for me to give to her. I wrote it down, put it in an envelope, and went over to the job during a time when I knew they went to lunch, and I gave it to her, and said “this is a word for you from the Lord”—and he’s given me no other interactions with her whatsoever. I: That’s just it. P: So he gives it to me, and when he tells me to release the information, I release it. I: Alright. Well, I know I could easily talk with you for a couple more hours. P: Oh, I know. I: But it’s 3:45 and I don’t want to make you late.

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