The Church of the Stigmata

Those of us who have been abused by and in the church are a stigmata of Christ. We are St. Thomas touching the wounds of Christ. We are St. Francis of Assisi with bloodied hands and feet. When another in the Body is hurt, we bleed together.

You talk of salvation while you disown our inclusion in the Body. We are that unbecoming and unmentionable part of the Body. The hidden part. The part that defiles your purity laws. Because those who we had trusted, even our shepherds, took advantage of us. We tried to use our voices, but you didn’t listen. How much more do we need to bleed before you believe us? Instead, we bleed for each other.

Trauma and attachment injuries have brought us to the place where we no longer feel our own wounds. Instead we bleed tears of blood for our hurting siblings. Dissociation and freeze mode were our go-to coping techniques for protecting ourselves. You ask us to recount our traumas and often they come out jumbled. Or not at all. Conversely, we give a clear account, but it sounds like we witnessed the crime, rather than survived it. In a way we were witnesses. Do you know what it feels like to not feel your body while being raped? To feel like an observer in the midst of your own abuse. This distancing from ourselves kept us alive, but now makes it difficult to connect in normal relationships.

We were taught to hide our shame, to cover it up, but the blood dripping from our hands and feet is hard to hide. We wrap it up and it soaks through again. The stigma of the stigmata. We are the lowly; the unbecoming. We are the Body of Christ; wrapped in swaddling cloths and tossed in the gutter.

You talk of good news and abundant life. You say “I’ll pray for you”, but I’m pretty sure you won’t. You’ll wonder if I’m a “real Christian”. You’ll tell your friends I’m bitter and angry, but you’ll ignore the blood on my hands and feet. You won’t bring the salve or the anointing oil. You don’t bring the frankincense and the myrrh. You won’t bring new cloths to wrap my wounds.

Because we have been rejected by the Body, we find new fellowship. We find each other. We apply the healing salves and the fragrant oils. We gently wrap each others wounds. We try listening to each others stories. Especially the painful ones. We wrap each other in the swaddling cloths and weighted blankets of care. So that we can rest.

Like the women who went to Christ’s tomb; we are a ragtag group. We no longer conform to a cohesion of beliefs or to the expectations that we display spit-shined faces groomed for that 90 minute period each week. We are still trying to figure out who we are individually and how to live outside the building that was the scene of the crime. Promises to tweak the sermon and change the style of the music aren’t going to heal these wounds. We already know that accountability is just a catch phrase and keeping up appearances is all it takes to keep the machine humming along. To keep the dollars coming.

We left and we probably won’t be back. Most of us no longer want to be part of that system. We don’t want to feel dissociated from our Body anymore. We don’t want to be broken and misused. Abused.

Thankfully many of us have formed communities of our own. This fellowship happens in places outside of that building or corporation you call church. It happens in places that are safe and nurturing. When one hurts, we all bleed. When one is comforted, all are comforted. This is the fellowship of the stigmata.

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