When bad things happen to a community

By Sharon Spivak
Saturday, August 03, 2002

In the small Maine town where I grew up, I had hundreds of mothers, dozens of fathers and a plethora of aunts and uncles. Now, some of these people I was actually related to, but most were just "town folk" who knew my family back through many generations.

These "town folk" celebrated the day I was born and watched me grow over the years, always curious to know things such as how was I doing in school, did I have a boyfriend, would I be selling Girl Scout cookies this year and any number of day-to-day questions. As a child, I found it comforting to know that I was never far from help if I needed it. Anyone in town would have helped me because there was virtually no one in town who did not know (and love) me.

Yet while there was clearly a sense of "shared parenting" in this small rural town, there were also curious boundaries. Reaching out at times of loss and need was routine for the "town folk," but reaching out in the midst of scandal was something else altogether. Scandal evoked a different response. With scandal came public silence; private gossip. The deafening silence, the curious looks, the surreptitious watch between the closed metal slats of the venetian blinds, the endless rustle of whispers - sometimes judgmentally powerful enough to drive a person away forever!

I always found this behavior curious. People who treated one another like a member of their extended family under pleasant conditions withdrew, maintaining curious distance and cautious surveillance, in the wake of a scandal. I could never understand how "family" could be "family" only when it was easy. Why couldn't "family" be "family" when things got tough?

Years later, I find myself pondering similar questions, not yet satisfied that I understand the phenomenon a whole lot better today than I did years ago. I suppose it is not always easy to reach out to someone in pain. We ask ourselves, "Would she or he prefer to be left alone? Should I intrude?" And when a friend is suffering the shame of a scandal, the task of reaching out is all that more difficult, isn't it?

Don't our questions come out of concern for the person involved? "Isn't he or she humiliated enough? Shouldn't I just pretend that I don't know and act 'normal?' Should I make the situation worse by confronting her or him?" I guess these are good questions, but . . . when I am brutally honest with myself, I have to admit, that what keeps me from reaching out to others suffering the shame of a scandal is not only my concern for their feelings - it is concern for my own sense of discomfort as well. It's the fear of not knowing how I will be received. Will my act of reaching out be welcomed or will it be rejected? Will it be seen as loving concern or "nosy" humiliation?

We, the Board of Directors and members of the Nashua Area Interfaith Council, have been finding ourselves in a similar dilemma over recent months. In the wake of charges of professional misconduct, members of our Catholic "extended family" are suffering and we, like so many others, find ourselves experiencing myriad feelings. We are suffering shock, sadness, disbelief, confusion, tension, disillusionment, anger, empathy, pain . . . so many feelings and on so many different levels.

We yearn for truth in a room full of accusations and questions. At this time, especially, the Nashua Area Interfaith Board of Directors and it's members feel the need to share our feelings - to share our questions - to share our fears and our anger. We made time in June to allow for just this and were not surprised to find as many different thoughts and feelings as we are faith communities. One member remarked, "We are not here to condemn, but to honor our pain." Another shared, "We have no way of knowing the truth, but we know and love our friends and I choose to live in the tension of not knowing and loving still."

Others share that they cannot believe accusers who come forward only posthumously thinking that such accusers can't be telling the truth. This was balanced by another who said, "I know what it's like to carry a secret around most of my life. For some, the only time it feels safe to come forward is after the perpetrator has died." While the discussion was not meant to find answers - all of us fully aware that for many there are none - it did offer the chance for us to speak with one another.

One member found comfort in this and shared, "Since first reading the news, I found myself needing our monthly meeting more and more because I was confident that we could talk about our feelings in a safe place." Perhaps nothing says it better than this, "This is a new beginning in which the custom of silence has been broken and we are reaching out to support one another in discussion and prayer."

While the news may evoke many different feelings for us as individuals, one thing was universal as the NAIC opened its meeting up for sharing recently - we all feel pain-filled heaviness. We feel pain for the victims. We feel pain for the innocent who are "guilty by association." We feel pain for those members of the Catholic faith whose very foundation has been shaken. We feel pain for parents who now question that which they never questioned before. We feel pain for the church, which must now rise to the enormous challenge before it.

What can we, the NAIC "town folk" offer? We offer our prayers - each in his and her own faith community. We offer our sense of empathy for all who suffer. We offer our hand - reached out in unconditional support - no matter how you have been burned by this fire, please know that you are not alone.

We offer ourselves - members of the "extended family" of faith communities - here for the difficult times as well as the good times. Please know that you are all in our thoughts, in our hearts and in our prayers.

Sharon Spivak is an active member of Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua as well as the vice president of the Nashua Area Interfaith Council. She works as a professional Jewish educator.