Word

Be strong Maggie,

You can do this.  You can love and serve your son by sticking to your word. If you hold onto the grounding until May, he will know he can trust you to keep your word. He will know that he is valuable to you - he is worth watching and monitoring. You notice him. He matters.  And I think that pointing out that he is acting abusively is absolutely correct.  Help him see himself and take responsibility for his behavior.  Let's not have another victim charging through the world leaving a path of damage and destruction.

I loved the bird. I love the way Spirit intervenes when we need help most.  He needed an excuse to remember he is a loving person. He needed to reconnect with you.

I don't know the situation well enough, but I read shades of B#2 between the lines and in my memory.  He was never asked to or made to or forced to take responsibility for anything he did to us or to friends.  He was too cute.  He was so charming.  He got away with everything - even outside the home, because Daddy protected him.

You want more for your son. Teach him that he can count on you.

I know what you are going through is tough.  I hope Husband is with you.

You are working from a loving place though.  Be strong, be courageous, trust yourself.

I have been reading more Derrick Jensen.  The following passage actually gave me hope...


The first step in taking down civilization is to realize in our own hearts and minds that the dictionaries lied to us, that civilization is not “a high stage of social and cultural development,” or “a developed or advanced state of human society.” I am not talking about convincing some hypothetical mass movement of people, which will not happen within this culture. As I said earlier, when fathers are raping daughters, when lovers are beating those they purport to love, there is no hope for the salmon. I am talking about me realizing this in my own heart, and you realizing it in yours.
The next step in taking down civilization is finding a few other people who feel the same. It is hard enough to take on this entire abusive social structure— where everything is set up to protect the abusers—without having to fight our friends as well. It can be lifesaving to have friends who will say, and mean, with courage, love, and determination glistening in their eyes, “Yes, it is unacceptable to me that salmon be exterminated from this river. I will do what it takes to save them.” I am talking about groups of people coming to this understanding, and beginning to act upon it. 

-chapter entitled What It Means to Be
Human from “Endgame, Volume II: Resistance”
Derrick Jensen

I feel like you and I are bound in courage, love and determination to look at the damage violence has caused in our lives, and to stop it.  Our attempts may be misguided and faltering - because we don't have appropriate role-models. Much of the time we have no idea what we are doing.

But we are doing something. We are doing something different. We are trying.

And we are taking an unflinching look at ourselves - weaknesses, whininess, cluelessness aside, we are looking and seeing ourselves and deciding not to be victims, but to be voices.  Even if few hear us - we will speak to each other and to anyone who might hear.

And we will fight.  We will continue to fight with our family, with ourselves, with patriarchy and the rape society we live in. 

I love you.  Thank you for being with me.  Stay strong.You are a good, caring mother.

Love and hugs,

Clare