by heart and hand

The post of a friend yesterday had me thinking on the adults whose physical presence whilst I was growing up – made my skin crawl. I didn’t have the vocabulary of today’s “Protective Behaviours”… my generation only had the “Stranger Danger” talks and none of the people in my skin-crawler category were strangers.

I did however, have a mum who listened and who acted on the times I expressed how these people made me feel.

None of them ever touched or hurt me but my senses were on high alert as they should be.

I only realised yesterday, that I had a list of five…

I was 14 the first time a friend told me she had been raped. I couldn’t count the number of similar conversations I’ve now had. For these and other reasons I’ve had a long term interest in sexual development, the factors that influence, healing that can take a lifetime (or not), and all the attached how’s, when, and whyfors (yes that’s a word – I looked it up to be sure I hadn’t made it up).

It was a field of concentration that lassoed my mind for a lot of years.

You know that something has become a habit when the way you behave in a way from that thing feels abnormal.

I became aware that my mind was so channelled in this area of thought that I needed to get out of it and I didn’t know how. Thinking and researching this area had become such a normal component of my days that thinking and researching in others less heavy felt strange. I was habitually and magnetically being drawn back to this dark place.

The set of circumstances from 9 years ago that I mentioned yesterday shook all this off me. It had been important for a time but, along with so much else, I’m so grateful to have been shaken out of this rut. The image I have is of a rag doll being lifted and shaken and bashed about a bit to get the dirt and dust off and out of my fibres. It was certainly how I felt.

Darkness has many tactics.

Light has more.

I have long stopped being shocked by peoples experiences – or by who has committed them. I feel the grief of the accounts, but no shock.

The ‘sitting beside’ someone stuff – and the research stuff affect me entirely differently. The sitting beside is grief-ridden but nevertheless a privilege to be included in someone’s deep world.

The research stuff makes me backpedal like a cartoon figure trying not to fall over a cliff. I never want to be caught in that dark rut again. When topics arise aside from a personally related account – I only ever go in as a visitor. I’m not sitting down to tea. I’m not there for the circus-like fascination. It is purposeful, focussed and brief.

I’d described that time 9 years ago in terms of my faith having been like a smashed cruise ship leaving me a raft. I’ve written about that before and won’t repeat it now but when I came across an OLD sermon called “The Glorious Shipwreck” by GW North, I paid sincere attention to the part where he said “God will shipwreck you – do not rebuild the same ship”

So a young mum friend tagged me in an article a few weeks ago which I went to with some of that reluctance. I went because I figure God allowed me all that learning for purpose and because this gorgeous young mum is in the place I was 25 years ago of trying to piece together how to approach these subjects with her children.

And it turned out the article was brilliant. And it had a link to this book “Good Pictures Bad Pictures” which is brilliant but which I’ve even delayed telling people about for reasons I don’t fully understand, but have decided today’s the day.

There are millions of predators online at any given time. These are people actively seeking, grooming and laying bait. The world is a different place from when I was a child in that the potential for children to be lured has increased – manifold. Porn is just one player – but a major one. I cannot imagine a single persons life forward from this point in time, with internet access who won’t be affected at some level.

This book opens the topic of internet porn for parents to discuss with children as young as about 7.

This is the first book on a sexually charged topic that I’ve ever seen – written to be read aloud with a child – that ticks all my boxes for innocent language that still actually covers the topic in a non insipid way.

The innocent language means it can be read with children whose life has allowed them innocence thus far. Whose minds won’t be introduced to concepts and word pictures that can, in the efforts to equip – ignite imagination and create issues. It means parents can speak into it at whatever place a child is – with true equipping for wise living alongside an innocent imagination.

And if a child’s life has not allowed them innocence to the time of reading – their level of need can be addressed from a base point that doesn’t contain the triggers than can re-traumatise.

This book carries my highest recommendation possible.

This doesn’t mean sit down with your child and read it immediately. In fact reading books like this WITH a child feels a bit, well – contrived to me. But I love the concepts and the language it uses to convey its message. It is a wonderful example of the fact it can be done this way.

It’s not cheap… but I do think it’s worth it.

I’ll keep it in the car for a while so people can check it out if I’m in cooee. If you want to go ahead and buy it the best price I found was bookdepository.com

And an equal topic is that of having enough slowness of life for these issues to a) intentionally be raised and b) relationally arise as children are in their OWN time/space continuum where significant and deep conversations are unlikely to arise in the minutes rushed space between activities. But that’s another subject.