Judge not lest you be judged ..........

This week has been one where I have been very ashamed of my fellow believers. It is sad as I had just spent 3 days at a conference with other people just like me and had come home thinking there was hope for the church and really wanting to find one to attend regularly...

On Monday morning I go to work and there is Fiona. Fiona is 8mths pregnant, a heroin addict and a street sex worker. She looked very sad as she searched through our clothes to try and find something to hide her bump. I asked if she was ok and she said no, she didn't expect to be down here(St Kilda) again and certainly not pregnant. She felt judged. I said that there was no judgement inside Gatehouse and she smiled. She then proceeded to tell me that her and her husband had been going to church and that they had got off drugs and were doing well for about a year. They got engaged and all was good. Then she got pregnant and the church threw them out. And now here she is with a habit again, 8 mths pregnant and selling her body instead of getting ready for the birth of her first child. Seriously where is that in the bible? Where is the unconditional love? I asked if I could pray for her and she said yes, tears streamed down her face as I asked God to show her his love. Inside I was furious if she would have told me the name of the church I would have rung them up and said "see what you have done, are you proud that your self righteous actions have caused this?"

On Wednesday I was reading my fb and one of my school friends posted ".....thinks it is all a crock of shit." of course I had to look. Turns out the Australian Christian lobby has a hateful site called saving marriage. I am not going to link to it because I don't want anyone else to have to read it. It has a section that details arguments against homosexual marriage. It states that once this is allowed it opens the door for to incestual relationships and that same sex parents will harm their children. More hate, more vilification. Again angry I posted on my friends fb that I was sorry and that not all people of faith were this bigoted.

I am sick and tired of two diminutional Christianity. Anti abortion and anti homosexuality is what they preach. They stand out side abortion clinics with signs and placards(and sometimes bombs) heaping hate on woman who have made the hardest decision of their lives. They hold meetings to discuss the evil that is incarnate in the homosexual person and how they will destroy the fabric of out society.

Last night 200 children were killed in afghanistan when an American bomb missed it's target and landed on a school instead, tonight 200 people will sleep on the street in the Port Phillip region alone, our indigenous community is being ripped to shreds by a unjust and undemocratic law that removes their rights, Again. Where are the churches rising up against these injustices?

Aren't we supposed to bring reconciliation and peace?

I know that their justification will be about people knowing THE truth, about making disciples of all nations but what they fail to see is that THE truth is one of love and peace and compassion and that discipleship is not about moralizing or telling society what is wrong or right but about the One. The One person God has put in front of me right now. To hold that person with compassion showing them God's love for them. So that he may reveal himself to them. This is not done on by angry protests or meetings but by the everyday relationships we choose to build with our community.

Alone and without an advocate

I arrived home from work yesterday to find Tilly's first school report waiting for me. I have been dreading this moment.

Those that know Tilly know that she is a bright flamboyant child who has a mind of her own.

The thing is she is struggling at school, struggling with being a round peg shoved in a square hole and the report shows it.

In teacher speak each person who sees her talked of Tilly needing assistance to learn and concentrate and become a functioning member of the class. Nicely for sure never using the words naughty or having lack of concentration but there it was for all to see.

She already has a reputation as being the "naughty child" from teachers and kids alike.

The only person who advocates and believes in her at school is her teacher who despite knowing Tilly last year chose to have her in her class.

Now that teacher is leaving for very personal family reasons and although I completely understand I am freaking out. Why? Because it means my little girl will be alone and without anyone who will advocate for her.

I am frightened she will be labelled and that is it for the rest of her school life. Thing is I know that underneath is a clever little girl, I just dont know how to help her show it.

Being a mother is the most difficult thing I have ever had to do because there is no control and no rules and everyone has an opinion of what is the right thing to do. Today I just feel over whelmed by it all. By the mountains of washing that never get put away, by the house that never stays tidy for more than 2 mins no matter how hard I try, but most of all by the deep aching desire for my kids to win at life and not being able to do a darn thing about it.

It all begins with childhood

Yesterday was a particularly difficult day for me. And the things that occurred still sit heavily in my brain and heart and are what have prompted me to begin to blog again.

I will try and keep this short but there is such a lot to it.

On Monday my beautiful Tilly (6y) ,who all those who know me and her can confirm tests every boundary set for her, was reprimanded at school for indecent exposure. The thing is she was encouraged to do so by a bunch of 11 year old boys, who are still laughing about it and didn't even get in trouble. This is where it starts. Boys are taught that it is ok to treat little girls like this and as my mum said "in a few years time they will think it is ok to do what ever they like to 13 year old girls"

Once a month as part of my job as a centre support worker I take a woman to see her children for 1 hour- can u imagine 1 hr a month is all the time you get to see your kids, I miss mine if they go away for a night. This woman's life has been a series of abuses by men. We sat in the winter sun waiting for them to come and she told me of the heart ache of not having her children living with her and she cried broken sobs. During the access, which was actually for the most part lovely, she had to endure hearing her kids call their foster carer "mummy", on the phone and I saw her wince as it physically hurt her. On the way home in the car she shared with me her hatred of boys then men who have assaulted her and what it has done to her over the years. Yet most people would see her as a "bloody junky" that needs to simply stop taking drugs.

I get back to the center and there outside is this beautiful young lady that couldn't have been any older that 18 but probably more likely to be 16,scantily dressed even though it was cold and about to sell her body, to finance her boy friends habit. Some of the older sex workers talked of him sitting across the road earlier in a hotted up car, music blaring. It was if a line was being drawn from Tilly at 6y to my above mentioned woman in my head. I wondered if that boy was allowed to tease small girls into doing stuff that was inappropriate just as those boys in my daughters school had done;when he was young, had his dad, uncles, older male friends, encouraged him to look at the female form as a sex object rather than with respect?What had happened to make it ok in his brain to exploit someone he confesses to care about?Because it is in childhood that these opinions start to be formed- it makes me sad that our young boys are growing up without being taught to respect and honor woman in the name of equality and sexual freedom.

I did not sleep well last night as I have 2 girls, one who is approaching her teen years with a frightening pace and I worry for them. The sexual objectification of young woman appears to be normal in our society and accepted by all forms of main stream media. Why what value does it add? What will my girls allow boys then men to do to them because it is socially expectable in the future?How do I protect them without sheltering them? And the big picture question how do I as a liberated free woman affect social change to stop the cycle happening again and again? The answer I have to all of those questions is I just don't know, I just cant be quiet about it any longer.