{"id":115,"date":"2009-07-28T05:12:02","date_gmt":"2009-07-28T13:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/?p=115"},"modified":"2009-07-28T05:12:02","modified_gmt":"2009-07-28T13:12:02","slug":"domestic-violence-as-the-face-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/?p=115","title":{"rendered":"Domestic violence as the face of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"76038400\"They go at it twice a week. It escalates throughout the night, until somewhere between midnight and 6 a.m. the yelling and the thumping wakes me up. I lie there and listen, trying to convince myself that this is their choice, they have been married for 30 years, it’ll be over soon. But lately their words have become clearer and they are definitely threatening. I imagine one of them dead, and me having to say to the reporters, “Well, I listened to them for years, but never did anything.” Also, after a bad night, I wake up trembling and spikey. And shut down. Anxious and afraid, I spend the day jumping at the slightest sound.<\/p>\n

So I wrote them a letter, with the name of a therapist, and I said that if they didn’t stop, I’d call the police. And I gave a copy to my landlord. I think they will be evicted now. It will probably take a month.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the day they got the letter, I crept around the house, afraid they’d come over. I saw the wife get the mail and walk into the house. Then there was thumping. Violence is so unpredictable. Am I next? And, of course, it calls up all the sensations of when I experienced domestic violence personally. As a child, there was so much fear and dread. And that conspiracy of silence–we never<\/em> talked about it in my house. I’ve just broken that covenant. I’ve brought in the outside world to their private hell. Since they brought their private hell into my little world.<\/p>\n

I have this expectation that my life now will be free of violence. I have a non-violent husband and non-violent friends. Must I be reminded of the horrible way people can treat each other? Must I be reminded of my own experience?<\/p>\n

Well, yes. That is the face of God. It reminds me of that poem we sometimes read at the Zen Center in San Diego, “Please Call Me By My True Names<\/a>,” by Thich Nhat Hanh, about the pirate who rapes the little girl. It easy to feel compassion for the little girl, but the real shocker in that poem is the part where we must say,<\/p>\n

And I am the pirate,
\nmy heart not yet capable
\nof seeing and loving.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am my next door neighbors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They go at it twice a week. It escalates throughout the night, until somewhere between midnight and 6 a.m. the yelling and the thumping wakes me up. I lie there and listen, trying to convince myself that this is their choice, they have been married for 30 years, it’ll be over soon. But lately their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenjones.bravoecho.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}