The Miller Spotlight

Never in thirty years, studying complicity with abuse in the faith community, have I had more encouragement and interest in my work than now.  All thanks to Roy Moore and the State of Alabama. Not in my wildest imagination could I have imagined that such encouragement would come from a southern state.  Of course, this encouragement isn't particularly intended by Alabamans--so many of them that I know read some of my work in 1995. That's when, published in the popular, young Baptist "tabloid," known as Baptists Today. What was published back then was both detested and devoured by the critics of the Convention's traitors, such as the rebel Jimmy Carter, who was speaking his own truth back then, too, though it would be years before he would throw in the towel on the Southern Baptist Convention. The struggling paper, published every three weeks, had an extremely courageous editor, Jack Harwell, bruised and beat up because he'd dared to speak truth already in t...

I cannot keep up with all that's going now, bearing fruit from the seeds planted twenty-five years ago!  I find it totally exhilarating, empowering, yet exhausting as I look back and ask why it has taken so long. On the other hand, I am in awe at what's happened in ONLY 25  YEARS.  Considering the centuries of groundwork done to keep patriarchy so entrenched that the evil of sexual abuse still remains so awkward and taboo in so many circles to even speak about.  Many times I've asked myself why this should be so awkward, and always I find the same answer after searching the "data base" of my soul and experience. I'm totally convinced it's because we see this problem as SEXUAL abuse, rather than sexual ABUSE.  Same as we see DOMESTIC abuse rather than Domestic ABUSE.   I keep going back to the illustration Rev. Elizabeth Stellas gave in a retreat I attended to help women work thru the trauma of whatever type of sexual violation had been experienced ...

I'm a reluctant caregiver. That makes me an oddball in my profession of nursing, I know. I sense that some of my colleagues have seen this as a problem, or even a character fault.  Maybe it is. Now, don't get me wrong. I do care. Immensely.  About many things, and about people who are interested in changing lifestyles or attitudes or endemic psycho-social issues or family issues to improve quality of life and health for all. Otherwise, I detest care-giving. Some say I should have been a teacher, a writer, or a lawyer. I've got a low tolerance for resistance to change, though I am capable of accepting things that cannot be changed if every last option for change has been explored before reaching that conclusion. That's why I suggested a new way  to pray The Serenity Prayer several years ago--something that's also included in  Enlarging Boston's Spotlight: A Call for Courage, Integrity, and Institutional Transformation . There's a lot of room in the nur...

Yesterday Jim Zeigler, the Alabama State Auditor speaking to the fact four women had come forward to accuse the much-older Roy Moore of sexual abuse in their teen years,  told the Washington Examiner : “There is nothing to see here … the allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls.” Zeigler also defended Moore by citing Biblical examples of men involved with younger women. “Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. … There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.” These allegations are being called a smear attack by Republicans, even though one of the accusers was a Trump supporter!  The recent groundswell of evidence to show the long-standing, wide-spread problems some of us have been writing about f...