In one of her many ramblings during her two hour visit; Kay Willis was speaking of a relation of hers. I'll call the fellow Jim and the fact that Jim was sexually abused by his uncle as a child. Kay said, "He [the uncle] turned Jim into a faggot."
There is so much wrong with that statement but I'm not going to preach those points to the choir.
This statement was made at the lunch time table in the middle of a meal. The circumstance left me in a dilemma; confrontation, flight or nothing? I did lift a silent and short prayer. I was lead to a place of calm peace and remained at the table listening to this horribly hurt woman continue to talk. The phrase, hurt people hurt kept resonating in my head. After Kay left my father sought me out and we had a genuine and warm conversation. It was one of the nicest, kindest and sweetest things this man has ever done and he's done a lot of nice things.
So, why did I react the way I did? Firstly, my folks have to live here in Carteret County and interact with people like Kay on a daily basis, she is related to everyone in the small hamlet in which they reside. Secondly, in all likelihood I deal with people like Kay everyday but those people are surreptitious and therefore I am oblivious to how they feel. Thirdly, nothing that I would have said to this woman would have changed her opinion; she showed me who and what she was and now I know.
Kay is the archetype for the gap in our society between kind and enlightened people and those who are marginalized by poverty, comfortable ignorance, lack of education, a lack of drive to better self and a belief that minor and obscure verses in their Bible speak definitively on all topics. In the end, I don't feel anger or anguish. I feel some disgust but mostly pity for Kay, people like her and those who she has damaged with her behavior and beliefs.
No comments:
Post a Comment