That's just silly...

A while ago, someone wanted to have a chat about Downton Abbey.  As soon as I could get a word in edgewise, I simply stated that I stopped watching the show.  The other person was shocked and asked why.  I said that I simply could not watch the storyline of Anna's rape and her denial of it. I know that it is historically accurate, but denying rape, denying the horror of sexual abuse is too close to home and not something I can watch ... safely.

"Well, that's just silly!" was the response.

No, actually, it's not silly at all. It's healthy."  I replied and ended the conversation.

I call myself silly at times, mostly when I am feeling childish and confused, not particularly liking either of those feelings.  But setting a boundary on what you are willing to expose yourself to is not silly.  It is not silly at all.

I am extremely grateful to Becky for calling me to warn me of Anna's rape.  She also warned me of the plot line of her pretending it didn't happen.  I am not sure what I would have done had I watched that.  Becky's call was quite merciful.

One of Becky's favorite shows is Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.  I used to watch it ... before my world came crashing down.  Every now and then, I try to watch it so that I can share the viewing with Becky, let her talk about a favorite show.  But I just can't.  Just recently, probably because the main star is working on the problem in real life, a storyline was about the hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits across the country.  I was glad for the awareness, but I could not even watch that.  Society's response to sexual abuse, from Hollywood to the Church is distressing, despairing, and too much to face most of the time.

It is not silly that I stopped watching Downton Abbey.

It is also not silly that I asked my (now former) pastor to keep safe my father's bible.

He dropped it off today.  The first thing I did was weep.  Then I opened the zippered leather cover to pull out the photo I had not seen until his funeral.  I think the older person is a neighbor, but that is me in my father's arms.  I am so very grateful that this photo is not lost.  I have so very, very few of them with me.

I put the photo back, trying not to look at the service bulletin or the speech notes, and zipped the bible closed.  For now, I tucked it away in the deacon's bench.  But it is difficult for me to have it near. There are too many thoughts and feelings tied to my father and his death and that bible.  It is not silly that, for me, it is safer if someone else kept it for me.  I just don't have someone else here.

I have watched what could be termed "dark" television shows.  Sometimes, I watch because I know full well the world is a sinful place and I like to see others navigate this wretched life.  Some of the shows I watch to think.  For example, I am re-watching "Battlestar Galactica" for the umpteenth time at the moment.  It is such a fascinating study of forgiveness, amongst other things ... despair ... hope ... faith ... trust ... hate.  But I cannot watch the rape storyline of "Downton Abbey."

And that is not silly.