Today I’m unlocking a paywalled piece from about two years ago, about monks, perpetual prayer, and my father’s favorite movie, The Night of the Hunter. I’m often compelled by monks and monkishness in a way I’m not at all compelled by any other religious community. Likely this is because I have met very few monks in the course of my life. Monks discipline themselves, rather than others – I don’t readily associate them with pastoral abuse because I think of them as having been charged with the keeping of only one another in practice, and with humanity in theory. This may not be true, historically, but the association lingers regardless. I do not go inside a church building, I do not purchase anything from the Spiritual Disciplines table in a bookstore, but I quite like a monk. They render the constant-surveillance of God less terrifying, because they dedicate their lives to staring back.
Sending you courage and care from one who's been there. "Where do I put these feelings?" is indeed the question. I've spent the last 11 years of estrangement learning to be my own mom/dad. Over time it really does get better, and you may start to feel, as I did, that the person you were in that relationship is someone other than yourself now -- someone you can learn to care for, re-parent, or release into the cosmos.
FWIW, my friend who was an incest survivor told me "Night of the Hunter" was her dad's favorite movie too. There's a type...
Sending you courage and care from one who's been there. "Where do I put these feelings?" is indeed the question. I've spent the last 11 years of estrangement learning to be my own mom/dad. Over time it really does get better, and you may start to feel, as I did, that the person you were in that relationship is someone other than yourself now -- someone you can learn to care for, re-parent, or release into the cosmos.
FWIW, my friend who was an incest survivor told me "Night of the Hunter" was her dad's favorite movie too. There's a type...
Thank you for writing this. Reading it today felt like receiving an unexpected gift that is both beautiful, useful, and emotionally meaningful.
I have to preface this by saying I am talking about the original Mister Rogers Neighborhood, ofc, and not the animated one.
[pregnant pause]
Daniel Tiger lives in a clock.
Don't you, don't we, also live inside of our own clocks? Our bodies ticking out a rhythm with heartbeats and breaths?