A Not So Sentimental Look at Blessings & Disasters

"I never learned to count my blessings.  I choose instead to dwell in my disasters." - Ray LaMontagne, "Empty."

This line from Ray's song, "Empty," has always struck a chord with me.  Ray doesn't mince words here.  I especially hear the word "choose" in this lyric, because hey, sometimes that dwelling is a choice. Whenever I hear this line it feels like a rebuke - a rebuke because I recognize myself in it.  But what about the real disasters?  What do we do with those?

This evening I found out that a friend had been a long time victim of domestic abuse, and I never knew.  This friend is not someone I know extremely well, nor is she someone I've spent a great deal of time with, so I suppose it could be said that there's no reason I should have known.  But that does not keep me from wishing I had.  Or wishing that I could have been there for her in some way as she endured it, and as she recently chose to endure it no more.  I never felt very comfortable around her husband, who I only met professionally once or twice, but I brushed that off at the time thinking,  "There's no telling why some people get together."  I never thought much about it.

There's no excuse for domestic abuse.  I could tell you all of the reasons why  my friend "didn't deserve" to be abused.  I could tell you how spiritual and gentle she is, and how she took the time to have lunch with me when I first really started to study the teachings of her inspiration, Thich Nhat Hanh.  I could tell you how professional she was in her career.  I could tell you how much I admire her for our shared affinity for nature and the outdoors.  But what would be the point of that?  Does it matter what an amazing person she is?  No, it doesn't, because no one deserves to be the victim of domestic abuse.   My friend is a beautiful soul, but if she were not that would be irrelevant.  Abusers want us to believe that their victims somehow deserve what happens to them, because it is in that belief that they find their own twisted absolution.  They may absolve themselves, but we can choose - as women, and as a society - not to grant them that acquittal.

By now you may be wondering if my friend would object to my blogging about her situation, but she is open and forthright about the situation in an astonishingly courageous way.  And it is my hope that her courage will embolden other women to come forward, to stand up, to shout out that it is their abusers, not they, who are inferior, who are sick, who deserve consequences - real consequences. 

Where do blessings come in to the picture?  The obvious blessings that I need to count are my husband and four sons.  These are men and boys who love, respect, and see women as equals.  I think they are literally incapable of abusing a woman.  Having grown up in a difficult environment, and buffered from it primarily by the love and devotion of my older brother, I know what an emotionally unhealthy family dynamic looks like, and I know what it does to the human psyche.  It is a great blessing that my sons, led by the example of their father, can not conceive of a home environment that is withering and abusive.  I do not live in fear, and the men and boys I live with are loving and affectionate to me.  I have no daughters,and I can only imagine that as the only woman in the household my life would be a living hell if my husband and sons were disrespectful or abusive.

But there are other blessings in life that are mixed, and there are disasters.  My friend will be a great blessing to other women as she continues to tell her story, to let abused women know they are not alone, they are not to blame, that there's a future, that there's hope, that they can find peace.  Is it a blessing that she knows of what she speaks?  I think "no."  It would be much better if she never knew the heartbreak and betrayal that domestic violence brings.  It would be so much better if no woman - or man - ever knew this tragedy personally.  I can tell, however, that my friend is taking action - action that will not lead her to dwell in her "disasters" but instead not merely count her blessings, but actually become a blessing to others.  That takes courage.  That takes transcendance.  It is humbling to witness, and a costly blessing.