The Miller Spotlight

For the past month, I've not had time to blog. Been too busy trying to put together a conference in big D.  My entire focus has been on seeking and nurturing contacts there, where I have felt an urgency to hold a multi-disciplinary, inter-faith conference on the very topic that has consumed much of my life for over thirty years:  Collusion with Abuse in the Faith Community. Instantly, I made a decision this morning to put all of that on hold. It happened when I went on Twitter to find the very first message for the #churchtoo movement to be  this  about a conference in Dallas, you might know. For those who are not familiar with the Dallas area, Denton is just north of Dallas. For those unfamiliar with United Methodists in the state of Texas, I can assure you that they are what my husband would refer to as "a mixed bag." As divided in many ways, and as inter-mingled with Southern Baptists, yet generally with a more moderate to liberal message. From all indicatio...

There are so many things we put off thinking about, most to our own detriment or that of our loved ones. Lately I've become much more aware of the problems of our most elderly, as I've faced the possibilities of my mother's likely deterioration and death that could be anytime. Or years down the road, even though she's 92. That side of the family, unlike my father's, is blessed with longevity. Yet, I'm all but certain my great, great-grandfather, who died at 93 in The Great Depression, was not forced to suffer long. Back then, there were few means of torture that we have available today--torture that gets re-framed by the "care" community who profits by keeping people alive more than assisting the suffering to die quickly. Compassion and Choices , not to be confused with the Hemlock Society, offers information that some might still consider dangerous. I do not. As a pro-active nurse, I intend to be involved in making decisions to the best of my ab...

Like any psychiatric nurse, trained to listen with a keen eye during the assessment process, I was often the first keeper of privileged information that a patient met years ago, on admission to an inpatient unit. Unlike in the therapist’s office, where the counselor and receptionist may be the sole keepers, my initial evaluation was often considered by the clinicians I worked with to be simply a reliable place to start. Yet it was only a start and could just as easily be discounted for a variety of reasons. Same as this review.  It all depends on who is reading it. In the psychiatric hospital, more so than in many outpatient units, the checks and balances that are built into the system, from each discipline over a period of days of close observation, may or may not offer a more accurate picture of what’s going on. Many clinicians believe, as I do, that the best nursing assessments are done in neither a hospital or a counselor’s office, but in the patient’s own home environ...

It all adds up to collusion: Whether we're talking about child abuse, sexual harassment, or spousal abuse, no matter if it occurs in the workplace, at school, or at a house of worship, the greatest confusion lies in how to assign blame. Some don't want to blame anybody. They speak as if there is a high road to take, especially if the victim is an adult. Juries find ways to blame females of all ages for a host of problems. So do church councils, congregants, teachers. For starters, she's blamed for not saying anything sooner. For being seductive. For not screaming or fighting back sufficiently. Not watching her child closely enough (even when that's not the case). Continuing to maintain some kind of relationship with the perpetrator. Or, most commonly, for lying, exaggerating, or being wrong about a tiny, insignificant detail that may get the whole case thrown out. I'm more intrigued with what makes a victim stand up and continue speaking out, despite the blame...

Hard to say how many clergywomen these days are victims of sexual harassment in Christian churches. Only one denomination ever tried to track that specific fact--the most progressive one, as you might have guessed. Yet that study by the United Church of Christ Coordinating Center for Women's Study is ancient. Published in 1986, it showed 48% of those surveyed revealed they had been victims of male clergy. With all the education done since, some may insist this percentage has surely changed. I'm not at all sure. My hunch is that women in ministry have just been driven further into the margins on this issue--shamed into submission. Or, like so many I've heard from, willing to work in positions of lesser prestige, even doing menial work, rather than remaining in the toxic environment where they are educationally prepared to work. The 48%, of course, excluded representatives from groups just starting to emerge in more conservative denominations in greater numbers, wher...

More than two months after J. Dana Trent's  fine article of confession , speaking from the rare breed of Baptist women who have managed to be ordained, I have finally been able to gather my thoughts to address her remarks. I have never been more outraged in my life. Where were women like Trent twenty-three years ago when I began an outcry that was read by thousands thru a series of articles published by Baptists Today? Yes, confession is in order. From a host of my sisters who chose to look the other way despite my desperate attempts to awaken them. Women closely akin to the scores who betrayed me when attempting to advocate for the removal of sexual predators on Southern Baptist foreign mission fields, rather than sweeping them quickly under the rug as if that was the normal, healthy thing to do--same as the masses were doing back in the States with other predators. Yet, people were noticing and staying silent. That's what collusion is all about, and collusion with sexual ...

Last month, my husband Ron found himself facing an even more interesting challenge than the ones he encounters every day, as a paraplegic who navigates through life from a motorized, six-wheel monstrosity known as a “power wheel chair.” His new challenge came the same day I was forced to grab one of his four-wheel walkers that had me scooting around the house from a sitting position, flying around the house backwards for the next few weeks—all because of an injury I self-diagnosed as “only a sprain.”   After all, I'd had a similar injury on the other leg a few years back. When nothing showed on an x-ray, I'd turned to a chiropractor that time, just to speed things along. In short order, I'd been able to shed my cane.   "Not nearly as bad as first time. Nor is being on wheels as terrible as you might think,” I say to friends, minimizing this interesting dilemma the two of us are managing to cope with fine as long as I don't try to venture out. Getting b...