Bliss, Catch It If You Can
By Terry Reis Kennedy
Of course you know what it is; otherwise you wouldn’t keep trying to catch it. It’s that sense of delight we experience now and again, a freedom from ourselves, you might say.
According to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, holding onto the sense of delight is important. He says, “When the world melts away, when there is bliss, or even when there is a temporary feeling of happiness, hold to that state and stay with it, and do not allow yourself to fall back into ego emotions and thoughts.”
But what is the source of this bliss, this Ananda? Where do we go to get it? Sai Baba explains, “From man comes a series of spiritual rays whose quality is delight, bliss. All man need do is to manifest that bliss. The idea of search is in error. Everyone already knows the truth. All that is needed is to put that truth into practice, to manifest it.”
So, the spiritual rays are already within us. “Pure bliss is the innate nature of man,” Puttaparthi Sai says. But why then aren’t we always feeling blissful?
The Beloved Guru gives an example, “The Lord’s name is like a mountain of sugar. So long as the sugar is on the tongue you feel the sweetness in taste. Similarly, so long as the heart has love, peace and devotion, you feel bliss.”
The realization that comes, after pondering this teaching, is that once love, peace and devotion are no longer in the heart, once hate, anger, jealousy, greed and fear, for example, push out the bliss-giving emotions, then the devotee has forgotten God. The ego has taken over. This is why Lord Sai repeatedly asks, “Why fear then I am here?” If you maintain a sense of constant, integrated awareness of your connection with Omniscience, Omnipresence, and Omnipotence, at all times then you can hold on to the bliss.
Meanwhile, Bhagawan Baba warns that the acquisition of wealth and possessions should not be mistaken as the means to achieve bliss. There is a difference between enjoying worldly comfort and enjoying inward bliss. One does not need worldly comfort in order to experience Ananda.
“Man still believes that bliss can be got from the external world,” Sai Baba says. “He hoards wealth, authority, fame and learning, in order to acquire happiness. But he finds that they are all fraught with fear, anxiety and pain. The millionaire is beset by the tax gatherer, the cheat, the donation hunter, the house breaker, and his sons and kinsmen who clamor for their share. Happiness of material origins is short lived and has misery as its obverse.”
But no one can steal the bliss you are feeling when you watch the sun setting beyond the fields, or the moon rising above the distant mountains. Catch those moments. Hold onto them. According to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, feeling such delight is what you were born to do.
-30-
Terry Reis Kennedy can be contacted at cosmicpowerpress@yahoo.co.in
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
What I wrote for Women's Views on News
Terry Reis Kennedy
I am a feminist at four. Growing up in a paper mill town in the USA, I see for myself that women’s lives are filled with work while men, even the hardest working men, have time off.
I watch my mother work two jobs, as a hotel maid and a sewing machine operator in a clothing factory. My immigrant Polish grandmother is also a hotel maid, a servant to the richest person in town, and she takes home the priests’ laundry—from our parish church rectory—much of which she does by hand. My dad works in the paper mill.
With everybody working all the time, we still just barely make it financially. But no matter what is going on, the men—my dad, my uncles, the priests— always get preferential treatment. By they time I am seven I have run away so many times we lose count. I am determined to find another life.
I do. I am the first “girl” in our family to go to college. In the ‘70s, with three children at home and a successful husband, I am very active in the feminist movement, particularly in the Boston Massachusetts area. I am working as a freelance journalist, an investigative reporter, and getting my master’s degree in poetry.
My writing, which I’ve been doing since the nuns taught me how to construct sentences, is appearing in publications all over the world. My first collection of poems, Durango, is published by The Smith, NY, NY, in 1979. It’s a big hit. However, some men critics bash it as “deranged”, “blasphemous,” and “anti-male”.
The book catapults me into the feminist limelight. I am giving readings and earning my own income from my writing. I receive fellowships and accolades. I become a college faculty member teaching literature. But something is missing. My journals are full of private inner searching.
I get divorced, move to California, travel to other countries for my work and am suddenly struck by the secret truth of my journals—that even writing at my fullest capacity on issues that are most important to me, something is still tugging at my heart, whispering that there is more to life than fame, fortune, and even helping others. What is this ineffable prompting from within? What sort of muse is this?
I find Her. In 1990 I come to India in search of a deeper identity than the perishable body/personality. I stay. I live in a remote village, near the ashram of my Guru. I am definitely in the world, but not of it. The mysterious muse, I discovered, is Me. I am That which I was seeking.
I am still writing every day. My special interests are oppressed women, especially in India, China, and Tibet, sexually traumatized children, and the lack of significant roles for women in world religions. I would love to hear/read your story. Contact me at treiskennedy@gmail.com Google: Terry Reis Kennedy. Check me out at http://terryreiskennedy.blogspot.com or Facebook.
I am a feminist at four. Growing up in a paper mill town in the USA, I see for myself that women’s lives are filled with work while men, even the hardest working men, have time off.
I watch my mother work two jobs, as a hotel maid and a sewing machine operator in a clothing factory. My immigrant Polish grandmother is also a hotel maid, a servant to the richest person in town, and she takes home the priests’ laundry—from our parish church rectory—much of which she does by hand. My dad works in the paper mill.
With everybody working all the time, we still just barely make it financially. But no matter what is going on, the men—my dad, my uncles, the priests— always get preferential treatment. By they time I am seven I have run away so many times we lose count. I am determined to find another life.
I do. I am the first “girl” in our family to go to college. In the ‘70s, with three children at home and a successful husband, I am very active in the feminist movement, particularly in the Boston Massachusetts area. I am working as a freelance journalist, an investigative reporter, and getting my master’s degree in poetry.
My writing, which I’ve been doing since the nuns taught me how to construct sentences, is appearing in publications all over the world. My first collection of poems, Durango, is published by The Smith, NY, NY, in 1979. It’s a big hit. However, some men critics bash it as “deranged”, “blasphemous,” and “anti-male”.
The book catapults me into the feminist limelight. I am giving readings and earning my own income from my writing. I receive fellowships and accolades. I become a college faculty member teaching literature. But something is missing. My journals are full of private inner searching.
I get divorced, move to California, travel to other countries for my work and am suddenly struck by the secret truth of my journals—that even writing at my fullest capacity on issues that are most important to me, something is still tugging at my heart, whispering that there is more to life than fame, fortune, and even helping others. What is this ineffable prompting from within? What sort of muse is this?
I find Her. In 1990 I come to India in search of a deeper identity than the perishable body/personality. I stay. I live in a remote village, near the ashram of my Guru. I am definitely in the world, but not of it. The mysterious muse, I discovered, is Me. I am That which I was seeking.
I am still writing every day. My special interests are oppressed women, especially in India, China, and Tibet, sexually traumatized children, and the lack of significant roles for women in world religions. I would love to hear/read your story. Contact me at treiskennedy@gmail.com Google: Terry Reis Kennedy. Check me out at http://terryreiskennedy.blogspot.com or Facebook.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Fourth of July (excerpted from WILD LIKE A WOLF, A MEMOIR OF MY LIFE).
Flood Tide
In summer, sometimes, a flood tide comes to Duxbury Harbor. One auspicious July, when I was so in love with Lee Kennedy, the father of our three children, Lee Michael, Shaila, and Eugene, when I was so full of hope that I could integrate my family life and my love life and my writing life, the flood tide came and it raised the level of the water about 12 feet. The salt sea south of Boston rolled up onto the grassy banks above the beach, all the way up to the porch front of our neighbors, the Fawcett’s house. From our built-in-1786 colonial, across the street, we felt as if we were directly on the waterfront.
In the heat of that late afternoon, the air grew thick with the scent of beach roses mixed with the marshy heathers. Because the harbor water, peaceful as a lake, was so close to us, we could hear the nearby sounds quite clearly. It was as if the water acted as an amplifier. The setting sun colored the flood tide deep orange and the ice cubes tinkling in the Fawcett’s cocktail-hour drinks signaled the end of the day.
Duxbury residents prided themselves in punctuality, and they were given to little rituals that marked their south-of-Boston hours. Early morning jogging , beach combing, or sailing…, breakfast, brunch, lunch, tea time, cocktail hours and after-dinner cordials, Saturday morning Yacht Club gatherings, Sunday afternoon golf games. Each activity was scheduled and necessary. It didn’t matter that everyone had the usual problems of life, sometimes fiercely troublesome; it didn’t matter when births happened, or deaths happened, the New England Puritan ethic prevailed, if only on the outside—for show. It was the little rituals that held us together somehow; I’m speaking of how couples stayed together, and how town meetings were run, and how the police behaved. Duxbury was a sane town, except for the occasional suicide or cheating husband, or pregnant adolescent, except for the tragic day that a brilliant boy went stark raving mad and shot and killed his paternal grandmother.
When tourists drove through town to view the original Pilgrims’ landing site, which Duxbury really is, or to see the lilac trees that John Alden brought with him as mere roots on the Mayflower from England, we all felt safe. We didn’t know who the alcoholics and prescription drug addicts were. No one screamed or howled with rage or regret in Duxbury; and no one shuddered with electric lust either. There were only sighs and quiet tears. The little rituals kept anyone from being alone too much to succumb to self pity. And at night you could walk the streets unafraid. Perhaps we all would have gone stark, raving mad without the scheduled rituals.
But when flood tides came to Duxbury they transformed those of us who lived there into playful spirits, nymph-puppets of the unseen gods. The usual took on an exotic flavor. That auspicious July flood-tide night, even workaholic Lee arrived home early. The kids were about 7, 8, and 9 then. It was the summer of my first (and only) thong bathing suit—bought by Lee—and delivered by him. He usually bought all the clothes he wanted to see me in and disliked most of the purchases I bought for myself. When he was around I wore his designer choices; when he was away, I was comfortable in my own off-the-rack casual wear. Even my wardrobe was split between the authentic me and the me I was supposed to project as wife of a rising super star—the papers were already referring to Lee as the “Building Tsar of Boston.”
At flood tide, though, there are no roles to play; we are stripped to our primal selves. We swim naked in the salt-lick satin waters, the collective unconscious so aware of our sea origins.
As soon as Lee’s car turned into the driveway the kids went rushing out to announce that the flood tide had come. Quickly we all changed into our bathing suits, grabbed our towels and went running down the pathway beside the Fawcett’s that led to the harbor beach and the raft, the place we usually swam when the regular tide was in. At low tide, we dug clams in the mud, watched the gulls circling, hunting, and swooping down on their own shellfish treats; and sometimes we just walked out to the raft, hopped on it and waited for the tide to come in and lift it up. Before long, we’d be rocking and having a shouting, splashing good time. But tonight we moved in silence. Even the full moon was in awe of the splendid happenstance.
We all slipped out of our bathing suits and slid into the bath-warm water. As we swam across the silver sheen, mirroring the night sky, the drops of water that fell off our bodies looked like liquid crystals. Slowly we formed a circle and held hands. We barely needed to tread water because there was so much salt in it we were buoyed up like rubber ducks. In this hushed and solemn moment I felt that nothing could ever break apart our family. I felt our oneness, our immortality. Then we let go of hands and Lee who was next to me turned and kissed me passionately on the lips. His erection nudged my thighs. We wrapped ourselves together. Only then was the silence broken as the children, so happy to see us so demonstrative in front of them, giggled with embarrassment. We frolicked like this for more than an hour, staying in the flood tide until it began to recede. I intuited that each of us knew that we had been part of an amazing event, an Earth ritual, perhaps; and that what we had shared that night was sacred.
Yet, within just a few short years I would begin breaking apart our cozy nest.
I would get tired of waiting for Lee to come home, waiting and wishing for him to grab me in his arms and make love to me. To ease the long wait between companionship and love making, I began another life faraway from Duxbury. I threw myself wholeheartedly into being the writer I knew I was born to be. At home I was a dutiful housewife and a devoted mother. At the Blue Parrot in Cambridge, down the street from Harvard and the Radcliff Institute for Women’s Studies where I attended weekly poetry workshops, I was a free spirit. My friends were poets, artists, activists, journalists and fellow feminists. We met in smoke-filled cafes, drank espresso, and avoided all things mundane. Manic in our quest to save the world, for respect, for recognition, we talked until our jaws ached. I became such an ardent worker in the Women’s Movement that I often saw my own life as one of oppression. I was not just fighting for the rights of other women; I was also fighting for my own equality. The more involved I became with work outside of the home—outside the safe suburban parameters of Duxbury—the more I longed to live on my own, financially and emotionally independent of a man. What’s more, I started to fantasize a life of sexual freedom. I was only a few feminist footsteps away from feeling totally claustrophobic in the confines of monogamy. And once I got a job as freelance arts reviewer with the Patriot Ledger, a city newspaper in Quincy, on the outskirts of Boston, there was no returning to the wooden spoons and pruning scissors—at least not on a permanent basis. I was off and running, to only God knew where.
In the end, I turned out to be a worse workaholic than Lee—putting my work, my “mission” before everything else—even before my own children. Some days I only slept for three or four hours, sitting in my studio writing, writing, writing. Soon I came to realize that all my declarations of undying love for Lee might have been lies. How else could I explain that once I was out of the house and even before our divorce was final I had fallen in love three times? Had the flood tide washed away the moral code I had once so proudly lived by? Or was that a lie as well? Only time would tell— time and five marriages later.
But cradled in the arms of that Flood Tide Night, the future did not exist, and even now, decades later, what matters, what remains, is that moment.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Sex Abuse by Catholic Clergy
Sexual Abuse by My Parish Priest: How the Trauma Robbed Me of My Childhood and Almost Left Me without God
By Terry Reis Kennedy
Yes! Here I am—another survivor of a sick priest’s obsession with sexually abusing children.
I was nine-years old when the curate of our small-town church in Vermont lured me into his life. It started with rides to the local swimming areas, always with a group of other girls. Then there were rides to see Catholic shrines at further distances. My hard-working blue-collar parents and my immigrant grandmother were thrilled that I was in the company of one of God’s own. I was pretty happy too. It was fun to go to the lakes, have cookouts, and sing with my friends in the car on the way home—until the priest started having sex with me.
I had always loved God from the first minute my grandmother told me about Him. She pointed out the Divinity in each and every plant in her garden. God was in the pink peonies; He was what made the blue delphiniums so mysteriously brilliant. God sent the rain to grow the potatoes and the red-current bushes. God sent the sun to shine on the tiny nests of birds. God was anywhere I looked, my old grandmother taught me. If God was everywhere, as she said, then why did she warn me to stay away from strangers? I didn’t question her; I just did what I was told. I loved my grandmother as much as I loved God.
By the time winter came, my world had turned to Hell. It was far worse than the Hell that Grammy said awaited sinners and those who did not believe in God. It was the Hell that only a sexually traumatized child can know, a Hell that few are able to articulate. But I am no longer silent. My gag has been removed. And my mask is gone. I am able to speak openly about this Hell. And I will keep on doing so until my very last breath. The sins of the reverend fathers are not the sins of the children!
The abuse of my body and my mind was not as painful as the amputation of my heart. Left with only a stump, I could no longer love. I could go through the motions of love, yes. But like the blind who have to learn how to “see” in a different way, that is what a sexually traumatized child must learn to do, “feel” without feeling. Until one day a miracle might happen, as it did for me. It took many years and extensive therapy, and, of course, the Grace of God, before I could function normally again.
When I was nine, I weighed about 25 pounds, if that... The priest was about 6 feet tall and weighed close to 200 pounds. He was in his 20s. First there was kissing and then fondling and before long, full-blown rape. In the beginning, this happened on a daily basis. The rapes were anal, most of the time, especially after I started to menstruate. It sounds unbelievable to most who hear the stories of children like me, but we keep quiet out of fear.
I was terrified to tell the nuns at my Catholic school or my parents because the priest told me that he was God. I believed him. He said that when he put on his stole, a supposedly holy vestment that looks like a starched white scarf, he became God on earth. He wore this scarf when he heard my confession, which was right after he used my body to satisfy himself. He told me that I was a very bad sinner and that I was the one who made him do the things he did to me. At the time I did not know he was doing it to dozens of other girls as well. I thought I was the only one.
He said that God would destroy me and my family if I told anyone. In the 1950s, I think even grown-ups believed priests. I was unable to extricate myself from this priest until I was 19 years old. The priest continued to pursue me even when I was getting my undergraduate degree at college. I went to several other priests seeking solutions to the problem. All they ever did was hear my confession and grant me absolution. I grew more and more depressed.
Finally, after graduation, I got married to get away from the priest. Right away, I had three children and left the Church. I rationalized it was too difficult to go to Mass and take care of my children that were very close in age. Motherhood saved me from remembering. I was so busy there was no time to look back over my shoulder. I had to have a hysterectomy for cancer when I was 26, which I believe was caused by the childhood sex with a fully developed man. My depression worsened. I began therapy at that time. By now, I was really angry with God. I chose to stop praying. Eventually, I went to graduate school believing that with a career, I would no longer be depressed. And it worked. I totally blocked out everything that had happened to me. Or, so I thought.
When I entered my late 40s, memories of my childhood sexual trauma erupted like a volcano from my subconscious and poured into my conscious mind. By then I had lived a life of ruined relationships, failed marriages, and my family, except for my youngest brother, disowned me. My father was dead. My mother speculated that I was making the whole story up when I confronted her. When she threw me out of her house and her life, I died again.
Meantime, I had shifted from one job to the next. The better the job, the faster I fled. I ran and ran and ran, but I got nowhere. In 46 years I had moved 39 times. After my first divorce, I even moved away from my teenage sons and a daughter when I fled New England for California. I was not in an asylum, but my mind was not working. I made sure that I stayed broke and on the run. My kids, as they grew older, resented me more. They did not understand what was wrong with me.
All the while, something was pursuing me. I did not know it was my own Child Self trying to catch up to me, trying to get me to save her. Each day when I woke up I did not know what would happen to me. I was plagued with agoraphobia and panic attacks, but I carried on as best I could. I took up excessive drinking which led to drunk-driving citations which put me behind bars. After bouts of remorse and long periods of absolutely no drinking, I’d be off and running again. I kept hooking up with abusive men wondering why the world was so cruel. I sought all sorts of therapy and I got all sorts of help. But until my deep, dark secret exploded, I had no idea what was really wrong with me.
In my search for answers to what possessed me to act crazy, I ended up in an ashram in India. It was there, while sitting quietly in the early afternoon sunshine, that the dark sepia images of what the priest had done to me began to surface. They came across my vision like a slide show. Sometimes they were flashbacks that rolled on like a movie. But nothing was ever in color, not even the scenes full of blood. I was shivering as if it was a freezing cold day and I was stark naked. What the heck was going on? What were these pictures?
I rushed to a therapist who was visiting the ashram from California. I explained the scenes I was beholding. She calmed me down somewhat and after working with her in the US for nearly two years, I got the courage to confront my perpetrator, who was in his 70s then. I made my peace with God and understood that all through my travails He had been right there beside me. When I had driven more than 75 miles in a complete blackout and woke up with the headlights of an 18-wheeler shining in my eyes. The California Highway Patrol officers beating on the hood of my sports car, I knew that God had saved me for something! And today, I believe that it was God who gave me the tremendous courage it took for me to sue the Church.
The priest, who had been living with a 16-year old girl at the time that I filed suit, died in a Vermont hospital of an undisclosed disease. The next morning, I was to give my last deposition in front of my lawyers and the lawyers for the Archdiocese of Burlington, Vermont. It turned out, I may have been the first person in the state to bring public charges of this kind against the Church. But my case opened up the floodgates and the ghosts of children who were sexually traumatized by this same priest and by other Catholic clergy came forward by the hundreds and told the truth of what had happened to them. Cases are still continuing in Vermont and all around the world.
I wanted my day in court. But after Judge Murtha threw my case out as being too old, it was settled anyway. The evidence produced made my position one of certitude. The Church realized there was no murkiness about the facts, so they decided to give me $50,000. My lawyers suggested that I take the money because we might not win on appeal. At the time, I thought this was the best thing to do. So, I agreed. The deal was that I was to keep my mouth shut and never tell a soul. I took the $50,000 but I refused to keep quiet about what had happened to me. I paid my attorneys, who had helped me on a pro bono basis, $24,000. With the remaining $26,000, I started up my life again.
By God’s grace, I am finally a whole person. I have good work as a writer; I have a roof over my head, sobriety, and my family of origin has embraced me now that they understand what happened to me. Every day I get down on my knees and thank the Lord God Almighty for giving me back an entire heart. Where there was once a mutilated little stump, I have a regenerated organ, bursting with love. My mother and I are the best of friends today. My children are a part of my life once more. I have grand children, a huge extended family of friends, and others who are surviving their own living Hells—a day at a time. But most important of all, perhaps, I have my Precious Self. Thank you, God, for everything!
-30-
Poet and journalist Terry Reis Kennedy can be contacted at treiskennedy@gmail.com
By Terry Reis Kennedy
Yes! Here I am—another survivor of a sick priest’s obsession with sexually abusing children.
I was nine-years old when the curate of our small-town church in Vermont lured me into his life. It started with rides to the local swimming areas, always with a group of other girls. Then there were rides to see Catholic shrines at further distances. My hard-working blue-collar parents and my immigrant grandmother were thrilled that I was in the company of one of God’s own. I was pretty happy too. It was fun to go to the lakes, have cookouts, and sing with my friends in the car on the way home—until the priest started having sex with me.
I had always loved God from the first minute my grandmother told me about Him. She pointed out the Divinity in each and every plant in her garden. God was in the pink peonies; He was what made the blue delphiniums so mysteriously brilliant. God sent the rain to grow the potatoes and the red-current bushes. God sent the sun to shine on the tiny nests of birds. God was anywhere I looked, my old grandmother taught me. If God was everywhere, as she said, then why did she warn me to stay away from strangers? I didn’t question her; I just did what I was told. I loved my grandmother as much as I loved God.
By the time winter came, my world had turned to Hell. It was far worse than the Hell that Grammy said awaited sinners and those who did not believe in God. It was the Hell that only a sexually traumatized child can know, a Hell that few are able to articulate. But I am no longer silent. My gag has been removed. And my mask is gone. I am able to speak openly about this Hell. And I will keep on doing so until my very last breath. The sins of the reverend fathers are not the sins of the children!
The abuse of my body and my mind was not as painful as the amputation of my heart. Left with only a stump, I could no longer love. I could go through the motions of love, yes. But like the blind who have to learn how to “see” in a different way, that is what a sexually traumatized child must learn to do, “feel” without feeling. Until one day a miracle might happen, as it did for me. It took many years and extensive therapy, and, of course, the Grace of God, before I could function normally again.
When I was nine, I weighed about 25 pounds, if that... The priest was about 6 feet tall and weighed close to 200 pounds. He was in his 20s. First there was kissing and then fondling and before long, full-blown rape. In the beginning, this happened on a daily basis. The rapes were anal, most of the time, especially after I started to menstruate. It sounds unbelievable to most who hear the stories of children like me, but we keep quiet out of fear.
I was terrified to tell the nuns at my Catholic school or my parents because the priest told me that he was God. I believed him. He said that when he put on his stole, a supposedly holy vestment that looks like a starched white scarf, he became God on earth. He wore this scarf when he heard my confession, which was right after he used my body to satisfy himself. He told me that I was a very bad sinner and that I was the one who made him do the things he did to me. At the time I did not know he was doing it to dozens of other girls as well. I thought I was the only one.
He said that God would destroy me and my family if I told anyone. In the 1950s, I think even grown-ups believed priests. I was unable to extricate myself from this priest until I was 19 years old. The priest continued to pursue me even when I was getting my undergraduate degree at college. I went to several other priests seeking solutions to the problem. All they ever did was hear my confession and grant me absolution. I grew more and more depressed.
Finally, after graduation, I got married to get away from the priest. Right away, I had three children and left the Church. I rationalized it was too difficult to go to Mass and take care of my children that were very close in age. Motherhood saved me from remembering. I was so busy there was no time to look back over my shoulder. I had to have a hysterectomy for cancer when I was 26, which I believe was caused by the childhood sex with a fully developed man. My depression worsened. I began therapy at that time. By now, I was really angry with God. I chose to stop praying. Eventually, I went to graduate school believing that with a career, I would no longer be depressed. And it worked. I totally blocked out everything that had happened to me. Or, so I thought.
When I entered my late 40s, memories of my childhood sexual trauma erupted like a volcano from my subconscious and poured into my conscious mind. By then I had lived a life of ruined relationships, failed marriages, and my family, except for my youngest brother, disowned me. My father was dead. My mother speculated that I was making the whole story up when I confronted her. When she threw me out of her house and her life, I died again.
Meantime, I had shifted from one job to the next. The better the job, the faster I fled. I ran and ran and ran, but I got nowhere. In 46 years I had moved 39 times. After my first divorce, I even moved away from my teenage sons and a daughter when I fled New England for California. I was not in an asylum, but my mind was not working. I made sure that I stayed broke and on the run. My kids, as they grew older, resented me more. They did not understand what was wrong with me.
All the while, something was pursuing me. I did not know it was my own Child Self trying to catch up to me, trying to get me to save her. Each day when I woke up I did not know what would happen to me. I was plagued with agoraphobia and panic attacks, but I carried on as best I could. I took up excessive drinking which led to drunk-driving citations which put me behind bars. After bouts of remorse and long periods of absolutely no drinking, I’d be off and running again. I kept hooking up with abusive men wondering why the world was so cruel. I sought all sorts of therapy and I got all sorts of help. But until my deep, dark secret exploded, I had no idea what was really wrong with me.
In my search for answers to what possessed me to act crazy, I ended up in an ashram in India. It was there, while sitting quietly in the early afternoon sunshine, that the dark sepia images of what the priest had done to me began to surface. They came across my vision like a slide show. Sometimes they were flashbacks that rolled on like a movie. But nothing was ever in color, not even the scenes full of blood. I was shivering as if it was a freezing cold day and I was stark naked. What the heck was going on? What were these pictures?
I rushed to a therapist who was visiting the ashram from California. I explained the scenes I was beholding. She calmed me down somewhat and after working with her in the US for nearly two years, I got the courage to confront my perpetrator, who was in his 70s then. I made my peace with God and understood that all through my travails He had been right there beside me. When I had driven more than 75 miles in a complete blackout and woke up with the headlights of an 18-wheeler shining in my eyes. The California Highway Patrol officers beating on the hood of my sports car, I knew that God had saved me for something! And today, I believe that it was God who gave me the tremendous courage it took for me to sue the Church.
The priest, who had been living with a 16-year old girl at the time that I filed suit, died in a Vermont hospital of an undisclosed disease. The next morning, I was to give my last deposition in front of my lawyers and the lawyers for the Archdiocese of Burlington, Vermont. It turned out, I may have been the first person in the state to bring public charges of this kind against the Church. But my case opened up the floodgates and the ghosts of children who were sexually traumatized by this same priest and by other Catholic clergy came forward by the hundreds and told the truth of what had happened to them. Cases are still continuing in Vermont and all around the world.
I wanted my day in court. But after Judge Murtha threw my case out as being too old, it was settled anyway. The evidence produced made my position one of certitude. The Church realized there was no murkiness about the facts, so they decided to give me $50,000. My lawyers suggested that I take the money because we might not win on appeal. At the time, I thought this was the best thing to do. So, I agreed. The deal was that I was to keep my mouth shut and never tell a soul. I took the $50,000 but I refused to keep quiet about what had happened to me. I paid my attorneys, who had helped me on a pro bono basis, $24,000. With the remaining $26,000, I started up my life again.
By God’s grace, I am finally a whole person. I have good work as a writer; I have a roof over my head, sobriety, and my family of origin has embraced me now that they understand what happened to me. Every day I get down on my knees and thank the Lord God Almighty for giving me back an entire heart. Where there was once a mutilated little stump, I have a regenerated organ, bursting with love. My mother and I are the best of friends today. My children are a part of my life once more. I have grand children, a huge extended family of friends, and others who are surviving their own living Hells—a day at a time. But most important of all, perhaps, I have my Precious Self. Thank you, God, for everything!
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Poet and journalist Terry Reis Kennedy can be contacted at treiskennedy@gmail.com
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