APPENDIX
Joint Statement of the Parties
“Representatives of the Williston Federated Church and Pamela Gude have participated in an extended mediation process, and are pleased to announce that they have come to a mutually satisfactory outcome.
During the mediation, there was discussion of important issues, losses, and the pain that has been caused and experienced on both sides. From this discussion, important lessons were identified, and both sides searched for an outcome that would settle the conflict and create an outcome that would be of benefit to others.
Among the insights that emerged from the discussion are the nuances of best practice in responding to the needs of victims of sexual aggression and the importance of constructive conflict engagement in faith communities.
Among the solutions that the parties have identified are an expansion of the right of appeal for congregants at the Williston Federated Church and training for church leadership and all who have an interest in how to best respond to those who have experienced sexual violence.
Above all, what has emerged is a commitment to each other’s well - being, to solidarity with those who lack voice, and to a future for all involved that is peaceful, respectful and friendly.
The parties to this conflict wish to publicly acknowledge each other for the hard work of engagement on the issues and express their relief and gratitude that they have found a satisfactory outcome with each other.”
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Friday, March 21, 2014
witness
i woke up this morning wishing i were dead.
it's not that unusual. it is the baseline condition of my life. that's how i know i am awake in the morning: when the level of pain in what we'll call my "soul" reaches the point where i simply can't lie in bed any longer.
if i were dead, though, i could not any longer do the work of bearing witness to everyone i meet of the damage done by the williston federated church, its power-loving fraudulent pastor, or its congregation of people who have abdicated moral standing in favor of some happy spirit lite by which they gather in the name of a fiction, behave contrary to that fiction, call themselves good people and call it a day.
i'm not even a musician anymore. i have a closet full of instruments that used to be beautiful and i can't even bear to open the cases to perform basic maintenance on them because when i came to the williston federated church i was a musician and i turned all of my gift over to that fiction of a god and that lie of the church and now to even so much as sing "happy birthday" when asked makes me feel sick.
and the shallow people of the church would just as well pass off the damage they do and turn their backs on the broken shells they suck dry and go on with their cheerful fraud and forget each case as an unfortunate incident.
so every day i have to bear witness to the whole house of lies. united methodist church task force? fraud. they sit at conferences and talk about how they're going to support victims but they won't clean their own house because they have no moral standing.
united church of christ?
an even bigger pack of lies.
so it's back to letter writing, standing on the corner, and the laying of curses.
when i find the graves of your ancestors, i spit on them and curse the whole lot of them for bringing you forth. each object i have touched in that church, each brick i have carefully picked to bear the curse: be uneasy. feel off-balance, uncomfortable, vaguely sick. be ashamed, do all to each other what you have done to me. know there is no safe haven.
of course i know that curses aren't any more real than the stupidity of prayers said by the desperate and gullible but since you believe in such fairy tales, i call on those same fairy takes to bind each stone of your benighted building in an interlocking curse to pass from generation to generation to amplify in your own souls and the souls of your children and grandmothers the damage you did you me.
and that's why i'll be back out on your corner: to remind you of it each time you pass that misbegotten building for you are never, ever to be allowed to forget, williston federated church and joan newton o'gorman, that you are the single worst thing to have happened to me and every day when i wake up wishing i were dead i want you to remember it. i want your children to remember that i too believed as you believe in the fairytale god and his useless son. i sang with all my heart the glory of the nonexistent and preached the same love and forgiveness until i learned that when your best friend's husband crawls on top of you and sticks his tongue in your mouth that what your church has for you is shame and ostracism.
it would have been ok after the assault. i thought i would fall back on faith. i thought i would be ok because i had the church.
but the church is a farce and that hope and the stripping of dignity by the church did more damage than anything else.
they always call it love, the abusers of your body, of your spirit, the ones hungry for power and in love with authority.
as long as any thing touched by my hand exists in that church, as long as any debt is owed to me, as long as i can hold in my hand any things of the church, the curse will stand.
someday i will throw out all the useless bibles i carried around while i was under the delusion, but not before i shit on every page.
so there's the sum of your teaching, williston federated church: one might as well pray to cheese, because at least cheese exists. i came to you with a vibrant, joyful faith and i through your teaching i realized that there is no god, and no fellowship. i learned it from the pastor, i learned it from the choir, i learned it from the "service".
i learned it from every person in every pew.
you have been assaulted? you are being stalked in the church? not our problem. you think taking up more work in the church will help you? we call you unfit. you wish to appeal? you have no recourse. you wish to protest? we turn you out.
it's funny, because when i served on the board of deacons at another church, one thing we talked about was the problem of why people leave churches instead of talking, instead of staying and working out issues.
well, that's why.
i miss the delusion, though. it was comforting to believe some invisible being created the world and cared about me. i miss the feeling that there was a congregation of people, a brotherhood in this god and the message that we are all together, we work out our differences and all things may be forgiven and all people have a home here.
what i learned is that when evil is done to you, those in love with authority will use power to turn you away from that supposed fellowship of god and i therefore conclude that such god was only ever a construction of authority, a tool of shame and control over the weak and the willing, the hungry and the afraid.
what i learned is that none of it is true.
you have no recourse. we will cast you out.
oh yes? do you doubt it for a moment? if there really is a god and all are united in brotherhood, if all are welcome, then why do new churches keep splitting off when one faction can't control another? why, in this great brotherhood, are those who speak up made unwelcome and sent away? why do the churches keep splitting and splitting? why do they preach against each other?
don't tell me it's because people are flawed; by that argument you've just proved the point. people are just fine. it's your headless, heartless, fractious, fictional institution that's the problem.
and i will be a witness to it as long as that cursed building stands. for every new brick laid, for every stroke of new paint, for every flower planted, i lay the curse: be uncomfortable. wither in sickness. for every morning i wake in pain, may you and your children and your children's children rest uneasy and in sickness for a hundred days.
here's a slice of gouda; ask it to make us all healed.
it's not that unusual. it is the baseline condition of my life. that's how i know i am awake in the morning: when the level of pain in what we'll call my "soul" reaches the point where i simply can't lie in bed any longer.
if i were dead, though, i could not any longer do the work of bearing witness to everyone i meet of the damage done by the williston federated church, its power-loving fraudulent pastor, or its congregation of people who have abdicated moral standing in favor of some happy spirit lite by which they gather in the name of a fiction, behave contrary to that fiction, call themselves good people and call it a day.
i'm not even a musician anymore. i have a closet full of instruments that used to be beautiful and i can't even bear to open the cases to perform basic maintenance on them because when i came to the williston federated church i was a musician and i turned all of my gift over to that fiction of a god and that lie of the church and now to even so much as sing "happy birthday" when asked makes me feel sick.
and the shallow people of the church would just as well pass off the damage they do and turn their backs on the broken shells they suck dry and go on with their cheerful fraud and forget each case as an unfortunate incident.
so every day i have to bear witness to the whole house of lies. united methodist church task force? fraud. they sit at conferences and talk about how they're going to support victims but they won't clean their own house because they have no moral standing.
united church of christ?
an even bigger pack of lies.
so it's back to letter writing, standing on the corner, and the laying of curses.
when i find the graves of your ancestors, i spit on them and curse the whole lot of them for bringing you forth. each object i have touched in that church, each brick i have carefully picked to bear the curse: be uneasy. feel off-balance, uncomfortable, vaguely sick. be ashamed, do all to each other what you have done to me. know there is no safe haven.
of course i know that curses aren't any more real than the stupidity of prayers said by the desperate and gullible but since you believe in such fairy tales, i call on those same fairy takes to bind each stone of your benighted building in an interlocking curse to pass from generation to generation to amplify in your own souls and the souls of your children and grandmothers the damage you did you me.
and that's why i'll be back out on your corner: to remind you of it each time you pass that misbegotten building for you are never, ever to be allowed to forget, williston federated church and joan newton o'gorman, that you are the single worst thing to have happened to me and every day when i wake up wishing i were dead i want you to remember it. i want your children to remember that i too believed as you believe in the fairytale god and his useless son. i sang with all my heart the glory of the nonexistent and preached the same love and forgiveness until i learned that when your best friend's husband crawls on top of you and sticks his tongue in your mouth that what your church has for you is shame and ostracism.
it would have been ok after the assault. i thought i would fall back on faith. i thought i would be ok because i had the church.
but the church is a farce and that hope and the stripping of dignity by the church did more damage than anything else.
they always call it love, the abusers of your body, of your spirit, the ones hungry for power and in love with authority.
as long as any thing touched by my hand exists in that church, as long as any debt is owed to me, as long as i can hold in my hand any things of the church, the curse will stand.
someday i will throw out all the useless bibles i carried around while i was under the delusion, but not before i shit on every page.
so there's the sum of your teaching, williston federated church: one might as well pray to cheese, because at least cheese exists. i came to you with a vibrant, joyful faith and i through your teaching i realized that there is no god, and no fellowship. i learned it from the pastor, i learned it from the choir, i learned it from the "service".
i learned it from every person in every pew.
you have been assaulted? you are being stalked in the church? not our problem. you think taking up more work in the church will help you? we call you unfit. you wish to appeal? you have no recourse. you wish to protest? we turn you out.
it's funny, because when i served on the board of deacons at another church, one thing we talked about was the problem of why people leave churches instead of talking, instead of staying and working out issues.
well, that's why.
i miss the delusion, though. it was comforting to believe some invisible being created the world and cared about me. i miss the feeling that there was a congregation of people, a brotherhood in this god and the message that we are all together, we work out our differences and all things may be forgiven and all people have a home here.
what i learned is that when evil is done to you, those in love with authority will use power to turn you away from that supposed fellowship of god and i therefore conclude that such god was only ever a construction of authority, a tool of shame and control over the weak and the willing, the hungry and the afraid.
what i learned is that none of it is true.
you have no recourse. we will cast you out.
oh yes? do you doubt it for a moment? if there really is a god and all are united in brotherhood, if all are welcome, then why do new churches keep splitting off when one faction can't control another? why, in this great brotherhood, are those who speak up made unwelcome and sent away? why do the churches keep splitting and splitting? why do they preach against each other?
don't tell me it's because people are flawed; by that argument you've just proved the point. people are just fine. it's your headless, heartless, fractious, fictional institution that's the problem.
and i will be a witness to it as long as that cursed building stands. for every new brick laid, for every stroke of new paint, for every flower planted, i lay the curse: be uncomfortable. wither in sickness. for every morning i wake in pain, may you and your children and your children's children rest uneasy and in sickness for a hundred days.
here's a slice of gouda; ask it to make us all healed.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
i am done waiting
i am done waiting for the keystone cops to assemble themselves, a thing they could do right quick when they were racing around to humiliate and ostracize the victim of the assault because "we have to follow the pastor no matter what she says because she's our spiritual leader!"
jesus. h. christ.
if the pastor wanted commit spiritual abuse and discrimination and leave assault victims open to predation IN THE CHURCH BUILDING and tell lies on top of it, would you still... oh, wait. nevermind. that happened.
we're irrelevant and useless in the church
we're irrelevant and useless in the church
and we stoop by our volition to archaic superstition
we're irrelevant and useless in the church.
the bottom line is that wednesday is ash wednesday. you can go to service and have the prideful pastor impose ashes on your foreheads, but as long as i'm outside with my trombone you will need to think about which of your sins you are not really asking forgiveness for, you are not really atoning for because you have not made them right. you have not fixed what you broke. you have not welcomed those you have hurt. you haven't even said "sorry" so when you go and stand before your imaginary friend and ask to be forgiven the sins you confess, i'm going to be out on the corner calling bullshit.
we're back to forty days, forty protests.
forever and ever, amen.
jesus. h. christ.
if the pastor wanted commit spiritual abuse and discrimination and leave assault victims open to predation IN THE CHURCH BUILDING and tell lies on top of it, would you still... oh, wait. nevermind. that happened.
we're irrelevant and useless in the church
we're irrelevant and useless in the church
and we stoop by our volition to archaic superstition
we're irrelevant and useless in the church.
the bottom line is that wednesday is ash wednesday. you can go to service and have the prideful pastor impose ashes on your foreheads, but as long as i'm outside with my trombone you will need to think about which of your sins you are not really asking forgiveness for, you are not really atoning for because you have not made them right. you have not fixed what you broke. you have not welcomed those you have hurt. you haven't even said "sorry" so when you go and stand before your imaginary friend and ask to be forgiven the sins you confess, i'm going to be out on the corner calling bullshit.
we're back to forty days, forty protests.
forever and ever, amen.
you have nothing to offer me.
more to the point, you have nothing worthwhile to offer.
lent is about to begin.
maybe you'll give up spiritual colonization. maybe you'll give up blind obedience to love of authority. maybe you'll give up outdated and irrelevant superstition.
or maybe you'll just keep doing what you do.
williston federated church, i learned it from you more strongly than i could have gotten it anywhere else: there is no god. you have taught me well.
see you on the corner.
lent is about to begin.
maybe you'll give up spiritual colonization. maybe you'll give up blind obedience to love of authority. maybe you'll give up outdated and irrelevant superstition.
or maybe you'll just keep doing what you do.
williston federated church, i learned it from you more strongly than i could have gotten it anywhere else: there is no god. you have taught me well.
see you on the corner.
Friday, February 28, 2014
I AM OUTCAST FROM THIS CHURCH
here's a good lenten project: remember daily what you broke. remember daily the humiliation and ostracism you put me through. remember daily that you are the worst thing to happen to me, ever.
you read that right. you are worse than being assaulted by my best friend's husband.
remember that you are poorly led sheep with no moral standing, no relevance, and no strength to stand up to anything uncomfortable.
you are headless, you are heartless in the church
i can tell by your behavior that you never met the savior
you are heartless, you are headless in the church.
you read that right. you are worse than being assaulted by my best friend's husband.
remember that you are poorly led sheep with no moral standing, no relevance, and no strength to stand up to anything uncomfortable.
you are headless, you are heartless in the church
i can tell by your behavior that you never met the savior
you are heartless, you are headless in the church.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
lenten project
in the days when i used to believe there was a god, i used to have a lenten project.
for my lenten project this year i want to be standing on the corner, black cowl, to remind the williston federated church that i was cast out, humiliated.
never let them forget the harm done.
intertwined curses: never forget what you broke. never forget your abdication of moral standing. never forget that you broke a life. never rest easy as long as you walk this stone, sit under this roof; be uncomfortable, be off-balance. hear that sound? see that shadow?
know as surely as i stand here that there is no redemption, no resurrection, no forgiveness.
it is a blind alley, the church. it is an empty meal.
it is irrelevant, useless, and dangerous.
for my lenten project this year i want to be standing on the corner, black cowl, to remind the williston federated church that i was cast out, humiliated.
never let them forget the harm done.
intertwined curses: never forget what you broke. never forget your abdication of moral standing. never forget that you broke a life. never rest easy as long as you walk this stone, sit under this roof; be uncomfortable, be off-balance. hear that sound? see that shadow?
know as surely as i stand here that there is no redemption, no resurrection, no forgiveness.
it is a blind alley, the church. it is an empty meal.
it is irrelevant, useless, and dangerous.
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