Leigh's Road

I went inside. My mother asked how I enjoyed the ride. I said it was ok. I went upstairs and lay on the bed. What do I do now? I was, and I still am, convinced my mother would not believe me. How could she? She had tea with a trainee priest. She wouldn’t believe me.

Not only was I sexually abused by this man. What he did caused me to doubt my mother, my father, my brothers. How could I say such things about a future priest?

I was 11 years old. I had in my short time met a vicar and a chaplain. But I had never met a priest. What were priests all about? Robinson introduced me to Catholicism and, as I told the Judge 51 years later, “I didn’t like it.”

I was just a lad, nothing special, a nobody, my word against his. I remember thinking to myself, I mustn’t tell anyone because, they would not believe me. And I would get into trouble. I never said a word to anyone, not even my friends. I kept quiet, kept it to myself. After all I had survived this torture.

A couple of days later, after school, I was at home. Robinson came through the back gate. He knocked the back door and walked in, telling my mom, he was going to give Geoff a ride. He did, but not the kind my mother was thinking about. My mother told me to go with him. I didn’t want to, but I did.

We always ended up in Leighs Road, Shelfield, his mother’s house. Although I never met his mother. Did she even exist?

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+DROOLING OVER BRILLIANCE: CHILD ABUSE SURVIVORS' GIFTS

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Every person passes through the gates of childhood.  All of us experienced a beginning, a long middle of one sort or another, and then an end to this block of passing time.  Some people exit childhood smoothly as they graduate into a new world where their decisions are their own and there is nobody left to blame either for what goes right or for what goes wrong.  Others never quite cross that bridge as we are left in an unclear place of confusion and tangled perceptions that leave us forever standing at one gate unable to enter completely through the next one.

Because the early experiences of our life build the body-brain we will spend our entire lifetime existing in, the nature and quality of those experiences affect all of us profoundly.  The differences between us happen not only through our individual genetics and innate personality.  Our differences are also greatly impacted by the quality of the earliest relationships that told our genetics and our personality what kind of a world it was that we were born into and hence likely to live the rest of our lifetime residing in.  It was the nature of our early relationships that formed who we were as we exited — or tried to exit — the end gate of our childhood.

Those of us who were raised by people who didn’t know what they were doing — like I was — can spend the rest of our lifetime struggling to overcome the obstacles that were put in our way to living in a state of happy, calm well-being.  Our ability to make wise and therefore healthy choices was hampered by the exorbitant amount of stress chemicals dumped into our growing body during our most critical stages of early development.  This process of reacting to trauma in early life changes how the body-brain develops.

Humans, as members of a social species, are designed to respond on every possible level to the signals our attachment relationships to other people give us from the time we are conceived.  Access to healthy human attachment relationships builds healthy (and therefore happy) people.  Access to troubled, toxic and scary terrorist people gives us — in our BODY — fewer choice options throughout our lifetime.

Those of us, and we all know who we are, who were presented with stumbling blocks rather than with helpful boosts forward in our early years enter a second arena of growth that ordinary people do not.  We enter another stage in our lifetime — if we are most fortunate — that is a stage of healing.  Minimizing and ignoring the truth about how the most important people in our early life treated us is not helpful to our healing process.  Neither is hating them.  Healing is about learning, willingness to grapple with harsh realities, and about allowing the process of positive change to unfold in all possible areas of our life.

But this healing stage takes time, just as did our period of life we call our childhood.  True, all adults can encounter hardships in the later stages of life.  But those who were hampered by trauma and abuse in their earliest developmental stages of infancy and childhood will NEVER process future difficulties in life the same way that they would have if their childhood had not been one of ATTACK rather than one of ASSIST.

My current take on all of this is that the essential nature of who a person is actually comes out of any kind of childhood — good or bad — on equal ground — at the center of who we are.

HOW that center self (I call our soul that was called into being by God at the moment of our conception) can learn and express itself throughout a lifetime is GREATLY — and often permanently — changed through harm in childhood.  Being able to distinguish the center core self from the trauma-changed-in-its-development BODY is critical to our healing and well-being if we came from an early relationship environment that hurt us greatly.

I left the gate of my first 18 years of life not a little bit hurt, but massively wounded.  If I had not been so strong and tough — and so curious and willing and able to MOVE FORWARD in my life NO MATTER WHAT — I would not be alive today.  Of that I am certain.

I was both lucky and blessed when I entered my adult life.  But I was ALSO completely LOST!  I had it to my advantage that I instinctively knew I had to learn how to play-act my way through a life that evidently was full of people.  I knew NOTHING about who people were, truly.  My childhood had not taught me that.  In fact, it had taught me the opposite.

So more like an autistic person than an ordinary one, I learned to watch, to mimic and to pretend I was like everyone else.  I didn’t know what I was missing.  And it is far more comforting and comfortable for members of a social species to ‘fit in’ and be ‘the same as’ others of our species than it is to appear as a ‘different’ outsider.  This is true no matter how a culture claims to value individuality and uniqueness.

But saying we are like other people does not make this sameness true.  The quantum leaps in my healing in my ‘later years’ as I approach my 60th birthday happen because I am now able to stare straight into my own eyes and see how the bizarre, trauma-filled confusion of my first 18 years of life made me a very unusual person who is simply NOT like most other people and never will be.

Infant and child abuse survivors are extremely unique people!  Hiding our uniqueness from ourselves and from others does not make us well — it makes us sicker.  We are rare gems of all kinds of human intelligence all the way down to our molecular DNA level.  We became extremely special people in order to survive the unsurvivable during the time we spent preparing for the rest of our life between the two gates of our childhood.

We have gifts ordinary people can’t imagine.  Most of us don’t begin to imagine them either because we have been so misguidedly busy trying to fit in, hide our uniqueness, denying what really happened to us and how we were able to adapt ourselves to make it through horrendous infancies and childhoods not only INTACT — but also being extremely SPECIAL.

As far as I know the so-called mental health profession spends all of its time looking for what is ‘wrong’ so that early severe trauma survivors can be changed to be more and more like ‘ordinary’ people.  Who among those professionals spends any serious time helping survivors examine what makes them unique and extraordinary people who endured what only a miracle of resiliency — us — could endure?

Survivors’ journey through the adult stages of their lifetime will be as unique (I am not saying harmful!) as was their journey through the first stage of life.  I say it’s time to dig our own gems out of the mucky silt, wash them off and find out how they glisten!  If our more ordinary non-traumatized fellow citizens then drool over our brilliance, we can show them the loving compassion that nobody — or so very few — showed us when we needed it most.

But nobody is going to find our gifts for us.  That is our own task of healing.

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View the original article here

West Memphis 3 confession, witness corroboration and physical evidence - update

These articles describe graphic crimes of abuse

Death Penalty Recommended for Teen-Ager March 20, 1994 …Prosecutors presented evidence suggesting Mr. Echols was a devil worshipper and the younger teen-ager his loyal follower. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/20/us/death-penalty-recommended-for-teen-ager.html?scp=18&sq=west+memphis+3+murder+case&st=nyt

Youth Is Convicted In Slaying of 3 Boys In an Arkansas City CORNING, Ark., Feb. 4 The teen-ager, Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., 18, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of a boy whom he had admitted chasing down. He was convicted of second-degree murder in the deaths of the other two boys….Mr. Misskelley told the police in two tape-recorded interviews that he had watched as his two friends beat the boys, raped two of them and castrated one. The prosecution said the slayings might have been part of a Satanic ritual. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/05/us/youth-is-convicted-in-slaying-of-3-boys-in-an-arkansas-city.html?scp=11&sq=west+memphis+3+murder+case&st=nyt

Jessie Lloyd MISSKELLEY, Jr. v. STATE of Arkansas CR 94-848 S.W.2d Supreme Court of Arkansas Opinion delivered February 19, 1996

On June 3, 1993, the crime having remained unsolved, Detective Sergeant Mike Allen sought the appellant out for questioning. The appellant was not considered a suspect, but it was thought he might have knowledge about Damien Echols, who was a suspect. Detective Allen located the appellant and brought him back to the station, arriving at approximately 10:00 a.m. Later in this opinion, we will address in detail the circumstances surrounding the appellant’s interrogation. For now, it is sufficient to say that the appellant was questioned off and on over a period from 10:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. At 2:44 p.m. and again at approximately 5:00 p.m., he gave statements to police in which he confessed his involvement in the murders. Both statements were tape-recorded….

In the early morning hours of May 5, 1993, the appellant received a phone call from Jason Baldwin. Baldwin asked the appellant to accompany him and Damien Echols to the Robin Hood area. The appellant agreed to go. They went to the area, which has a creek, and were in the creek when the victims rode up on their bicycles. Baldwin and Echols called to the boys, who came to the creek. The boys were severely beaten by Baldwin and Echols. At least two of the boys were raped and forced to perform oral sex on Baldwin and Echols. According to appellant, he was merely an observer.

While these events were taking place, Michael Moore tried to escape and began running. The appellant chased him down and returned him to Baldwin and Echols. The appellant also stated that Baldwin had used a knife to cut the boys in the facial area and that the Byers boy was cut on his penis. Echols used a large stick to hit one of the boys. All three boys had their clothes taken off and were tied up….

The appellant was asked about his involvement in a cult. He said he had been involved for about three months. The participants would typically meet in the woods. They engaged in orgies and, as an initiation rite, killing and eating dogs. He noted that at one cult meeting, he saw a picture that Echols had taken of the three boys. He stated that Echols had been watching the boys….

Damien Echols was observed near the crime scene at 9:30 p.m. on May 5. He was wearing black pants and a black shirt and his clothes were muddy. A witness testified that she had attended a satanic cult meeting with Echols and the appellant….a witness from the State Crime Lab testified that she found fibers on the victims’ clothing which were microscopically similar to items in the Baldwin and Echols residences….

Detective Allen asked him (Misskelley) if he could come with him to the police department to talk about the case. The appellant readily accompanied Allen. He was not handcuffed and rode in the front seat of the car.

The two arrived at the station at approximately 10:00 a.m. Detective Allen and Detective Bryn Ridge questioned the appellant for about an hour when they became concerned that he wasn’t telling the truth. In particular, he denied participation in the cult activity, a statement which was at odds with what other witnesses had said. At this point, the detectives decided to advise the appellant of his rights. Detective Allen read him a form entitled “YOUR RIGHTS,” and verbally advised him of the Miranda rights contained in the form. The appellant responded verbally that he understood his rights and also initialled each component of the rights form. There was no evidence of any promises, threats or coercion.

The form also contained a section entitled “WAIVER OF RIGHTS,” which read as follows:

I have read this statement of my RIGHTS and I understand what my RIGHTS are. I am willing to make a statement and answer questions. I do not want a lawyer at this time. I understand and know what I am doing, no promises or threats have been made to me and no pressure or force has been used against me.

The waiver was signed by the appellant.

After he was advised of his rights and had waived them, the appellant was asked if he would take a polygraph examination. He agreed that he would. Detective Allen took the appellant to look for his father so that his father could grant permission for the appellant to take the polygraph. They observed Mr. Misskelley driving on the same road they were on, stopped him, and received the authorization. There was no evidence of promises, threats or coercion.

Upon returning to the station, Detective Bill Durham, who would administer the polygraph, once again explained the appellant’s rights to him. The appellant verbally indicated he understood, and initialled and signed a second rights-and-waiver form that was identical to the first. http://courts.state.ar.us/opinions/1996/cr94-848.html

Damien Wayne ECHOLS and Charles Jason Baldwin v. STATE of Arkansas CR 94-928 S.W.2d Supreme Court of Arkansas Opinion delivered December 23, 1996

Where two witnesses testified that they overheard appellant Echols state that he killed the three boys, this was direct evidence; a confession is sufficient to sustain a conviction if it is accompanied by other proof that the offense was committed by someone….

There was substantial evidence of the guilt of appellant Echols where, among other things, the testimony of witnesses placed him in dirty clothes near the crime scene at a time close to the murders; where two independent witnesses reported Echols’s statement that he had killed the three boys and was direct evidence of the statement; where a criminalist from the State Crime Laboratory and a State Medical Examiner testified concerning the similarity of fibers found on the victim’s clothes with clothing found in Echols’s home and the serrated wound patterns on the three victims that were consistent with, and could have been caused by, a knife found in a lake behind appellant Baldwin’s parents’ residence….

Echols admitted on cross-examination that he had delved deeply into the occult and was familiar with its practices and where various items that had been found in his room supported the State’s theory of motive that the killings were done in a satanic ritual; where an expert in occult killings testified that there was significant evidence of satanic ritual killings; where a detective testified that Echols had made a statement regarding the mutilation of one of the victims that the jury could have reasonably concluded he would not have known about unless he had been involved in some manner; and where Echols’s testimony contained additional evidence of guilt….

Echols admitted on cross-examination in the penalty phase of the trial that he had an altercation with his father in which a knife was involved and the police were called; where he admitted that he was hospitalized that same day and that when his father came to the hospital, “I told him I would eat him alive”; where headmitted that he tried “to claw the eyes out” of a student; and where a psychologist who testified for Echols admitted that Echols had “an all-powerful God-like image of himself,” that his parents were concerned with his satanism or devil worship, and that Echols’s medical records included notations of statements by Echols pertaining, among other things, to his rage and the drinking of the blood of others….

Where one witness testified that appellant Baldwin had told him that he had dismembered one of the boys, sucked the blood from his penis and scrotum, and put the testicles in his mouth, and where an expert on ritual killings stated that one of the facts that led him to believe that the killings were cult-related was that one of the victims had been castrated and had had the blood sucked from his penis, there was sufficient evidence of appellant Baldwin’s participation in occult activities, and the trial court correctly allowed the evidence….

Twelve-year-old Christy VanVickle testified that she heard Echols say he “killed the three boys.” Fifteen-year-old Jackie Medford testified that she heard Echols say, “I killed the three little boys and before I turn myself in, I’m going to kill two more, and I already have one of them picked out.” The testimony of these two independent witnesses was direct evidence of the statement by Echols….

Dr. Dale Griffis, an expert in occult killings, testified in the State’s case-in-chief that the killings had the “trappings of occultism.” He testified that the date of the killings, near a pagan holiday, was significant, as well as the fact that there was a full moon. He stated that young children are often sought for sacrifice because “the younger, the more innocent, the better the life force.” He testified that there were three victims, and the number three had significance in occultism. Also, the victims were all eight years old, and eight is a witches’ number. He testified that sacrifices are often done near water for a baptism-type rite or just to wash the blood away. The fact that the victims were tied ankle to wrist was significant because this was done to display the genitalia, and the removal of Byers’s testicles was significant because testicles are removed for the semen. He stated that the absence of blood at the scene could be significant because cult members store blood for future services in which they would drink the blood or bathe in it. He testified that the “overkill” or multiple cuts could reflect occult overtones. Dr. Griffis testified that there was significance in injuries to the left side of the victims as distinguished from the right side: People who practice occultism will use the midline theory, drawing straight down through the body. The right side is related to those things synonymous with Christianity while the left side is that of the practitioners of the satanic occult. He testified that the clear place on the bank could be consistent with a ceremony. In sum, Dr. Griffis testified there was significant evidence of satanic ritual killings….

Echols took the witness stand, and his testimony contained additional evidence of guilt. When asked about his statement that one victim was mutilated more than the others, he said he learned the fact from newspaper accounts. His attorney showed him the newspaper articles about the murders. On cross-examination, Echols admitted that the articles did not mention one victim being mutilated more than the others, and he admitted that he did not read such a fact in a newspaper….

Jason Baldwin does not contend that there was insufficient evidence of his guilt. This is, perhaps, in part, because of the testimony of Michael Carson, who testified that he talked to Baldwin about the murders. Carson’s testimony, in pertinent part, was abstracted as follows:

I said, just between me and you, did you do it. I won’t say a word. He said yes and he went into detail about it. It was just me and Jason [Baldwin]. He told me he dismembered the kids, or I don’t know exactly how many kids. He just said he dismembered them. He sucked the blood from the penis and scrotum and put the balls in his mouth. http://courts.state.ar.us/opinions/1996a/961223sc/cr94-928.html

Appeal puts 3 Ark. boys’ murders back in spotlight
By Jill Zeman Bleed AP October 2, 2010 (the article discusses both sides of the case in detail)
….Echols’ statement under cross-examination that he was interested in the occult, as well as a funeral register found in his room with hand-drawn pentagrams and upside-down crosses. Echols’ journal was also admitted into evidence, and “it contained morbid images and references to dead children,” the court’s opinion noted. Echols’ statement to police shortly after the murders that he understood the boys had been mutilated, with one suffering more serious injuries. That information hadn’t been released to the public, the opinion said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/02/AR2010100201274.html

Larry King Live “West Memphis 3? Follow-Up
September 7, 2010
During last nights show on the “West Memphis 3,” we shared statements from Diana Moore, mother of murder victim Michael Moore, and the Arkansas Attorney General, whose office will defend the conviction of Damien Echols before the Arkansas Supreme Court later this month….

Statement from Diana Moore, mother of murder victim Michael Moore:
In 1993, all I wanted was justice for Michael, Christopher, and Stevie, and closure for myself, and my family. 17 years later, still no justice, or closure.

Since the convictions, the media has made it a point to make this case all about the convicted. I would like to take this opportunity to remind people that three innocent 8 year old children were brutally murdered, and these three men were convicted on the evidence presented to 24 , (in total), juror members that voted unanimously to convict.

Not one of the celebrities interviewed in this program has ever bothered to personally read the case file at West Memphis PD, or speak to anyone involved in prosecuting this case.

My little boy died that day. I’m his mother, and wish to say that the public remains ignorant about what happened in court primarily as a result of the Paradise Lost films, and the writing of Mara Leveritt. My voice is small compared to theirs, but I believe more relevant. They weren’t there during the trials, and they didn’t lose anybody. I lost almost everything, and not a day goes by that I don’t mourn for Michael. The public should think about that before casting their lot in with Eddie Vedder and Natalie Maines.
(Eddie Vedder and Natalie Maines also replied to Diana Moore.) http://larrykinglive.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/07/west-memphis-3-follow-up/

Deal Frees ‘West Memphis Three’ in Arkansas
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON August 19, 2011 JONESBORO, Ark.
….Under the terms of a deal reached with prosecutors, Mr. Echols, Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Misskelley leave as men who maintain their innocence yet who pleaded guilty to murder, as men whom the state still consider to be child killers but whom the state deemed safe enough to set free.

Last November, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that there was enough evidence to call a hearing to determine whether to have a new trial. The hearing was scheduled for this coming December.

But it was less than three weeks ago that lawyers representing Mr. Echols began working on a deal to offer to prosecutors that would free the men.

Under the seemingly contradictory deal, Judge David Laser vacated the previous convictions, including the capital murder convictions for Mr. Echols and Mr. Baldwin. After doing so, he ordered a new trial, something the prosecutors agreed to if the men would enter so-called Alford guilty pleas. These pleas allow people to maintain their innocence and admit frankly that they are pleading guilty because they consider it in their best interest.

The three men did just that, standing in court and quietly proclaiming their innocence but at the same time pleading guilty to charges of first- and second-degree murder. The judge then sentenced them to 18 years and 78 days, the amount of time they had served, and also levied a suspended sentence of 10 years.

The prosecuting attorney, Scott Ellington, said in an interview that the state still considered the men guilty and that, new DNA findings notwithstanding, he knew of no current suspects. “We don’t think that there is anybody else,” Mr. Ellington said, declaring the case closed.

Asked how he could free murderers if he believed they were guilty, he acknowledged that the three men would likely be acquitted if a new trial were held, given the prominent lawyers now representing them, the fact that evidence has decayed or disappeared over time and the death or change of heart of several original witnesses. He also expressed concern that if the men were exonerated at trial, they could sue the state, possibly for millions of dollars.

“I believe that with all the circumstances that were facing the state in this case, this resolution is one that is palatable and I think that after a period of time it will be acceptable to the public as the right thing,” Mr. Ellington said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/us/20arkansas.html

View the original article here

+TELLING AN IMPOSSIBLE STORY

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Dear Friends,

I don’t want to be the person who has this story to tell.  I don’t want to be the person trying this hard to tell it, either.  I don’t want this story.  Period.

I don’t want this sleepless night.  I don’t want these tears.  I don’t want this pain inside that I know will never go away as long as I live.  The best I do on the good days I try so hard to have, one after the other, is to try as hard as I can not to remember, not to remember who I really am.

On the good days I write about courage.  I write about bravery, about being a hero, about enduring, about surviving.  I write about all sorts of things that do not tell my story.  This decision that I made, this commitment I have made in my own heart, this that I pray for every day of my life — “Please God, help me help someone else.”  This prayer, knowing there are millions upon millions of people suffering on this planet.  This prayer, knowing there are human beings all over this globe that suffer.  This prayer, knowing there are, worst of all, parents who have brought children into this world only to reject, abuse and hurt them.

I have hoped somehow that if I can be one of the people who can tell my story of 18 years of suffering child abuse in one coherent line that I can prove against all odds that this impossible task can be done.  I am one that knows that my mother’s story of trauma, neglect and abuse in her own childhood was too much of a story for her.  It broke her.  It broke her in so many pieces that nobody could ever count them all, let alone help her put them all back together again.  Her story was too big.

The broken woman that she was hurt me very badly.  I have never been able to say that she knew what she did to me.  Do parents who do more than the occasional WRONG act of violence on any level of any kind to a child know what they are doing?  Is what they are doing forgotten even as the act is being committed?   Neuroscience can say this can be true.

But if I am going to move forward now in my book writing into what I know is a new era in my development when I passed my 9th birthday I will not be able to count on, depend on or really even use any single piece of outside information from any source anywhere to help me.  Other than God.

And I am afraid.

Tonight, not being able to sleep, all the sleepless nights filled with tears of my childhood are roaring around outside my house.  Those nights scream in the silence I have forced upon them.  I don’t want to remember that, “Yes, Linda.  There were entire nights you were forced to stand in a corner.  All night.  All night long while the rest of the family was asleep in their beds.  All night you stood there alone in the darkness, terrified to move, terrified to sit down, aching in body from blow after blow after blow – too many to be counted — upon your small thin body.”

I don’t want to know my own story.  As I continue to write for the book I am progressing in age to encounter ‘the one who remembers to forget’.

Dare I bother her, tap her on the shoulder where she stands alone in a corner in the darkness to ask for her story?  Will she tell me, as my body memory is telling me tonight, how tired I was!  How tired past endurance I was standing there all night, and yet I did endure — but tonight that fact gives me no glory.  There is no applause at the end of such a night.  No fame, glory or fortune.

There is suffering, the kind that never goes away, never gets shared and if we are lucky, never appears in any memories with words.

Where are you tonight around this globe, suffering children?  Who is hurting you?  How can I help you?  How can those of us with compassion in our cells awaken a caring in enough others that maltreatment of children will end?

I have vowed to tell my story because somehow I hope somehow it will help others who suffer.  But I am afraid.  I am afraid I will disappear again into that void I knew so well with my mother as my mother.

Yet I see today that I will not always be able to count on the light of insight to guide my way through this book writing.  There are times back then that were so wrong and so dark that I’m not sure any light on earth would have been powerful enough to illuminate what my mother held in her heart against me — so sick was she.

“I grew up.  I escaped.  Isn’t that enough?”  I ask.  “But the ‘me’ that made it through, doesn’t she have something to offer to help someone else?”

What do I have to lose by trying as hard as I can to remember myself in my own life other than sleep and kleenex?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

View the original article here

Protest Tied To Buddhist Monk Accused Of Sex Abuse

Protest Tied To Buddhist Monk Accused Of Sex Abuse « CBS Chicago /* */var current_url='http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/08/21/protest-tied-to-buddhist-monk-accused-of-sex-abuse/';var fauxfb_api_key='53c18cbd2d90223a4dbccffb88164765';var fauxfb_template_bundle='113884962005690';var blog_link='CBS Chicago';var current_link='Protest Tied To Buddhist Monk Accused Of Sex Abuse';var xd_receiver='http://chicago.cbslocal.com/wp-content/themes/vip/plugins/faux-facebook-connect/xd_receiver.php';#wwWrapper { overflow: hidden; }#wwWidget { background: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 5px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px; width: 170px; }#wwWidget img { float: left; padding-top: 2px; }#wwWidget span#wwTemp { color: #566064; display: block; float: left; font-size: 25px; font-weight: bold; height: 20px; letter-spacing: -1px; padding: 0 8px 0 3px; }#wwWidget span#wwHiLo { color: #566064; display: block; float: left; font-size: 10px; letter-spacing: 0; margin-top: 2px; }#wwWidget a { color: #3478c8; float: left; font-size: 10px; text-decoration: none; width: 90px; }#wwWidget a:hover { text-decoration:underline;}#wwWrapper a#wwTrafficLink{ background:url(http://s1.wp.com/wp-content/themes/vip/cbs-local/images/car.png) no-repeat left; padding-left:30px;font: normal 11px Arial; text-decoration:none; color:3478c8; margin-left:15px;}#wwWrapper a#wwTrafficLink:hover{text-decoration:underline;}.hide-if-no-js {display: none;}71°H: 79° L: 61°Current Forecast »View Traffic ReportHomeNewsLatest NewsLocalInvestigativePoliticsBusinessConsumerEntertainmentHealthNationalWorldPhotosSportsLatestShows & PodcastsMully & HanleyMcNeil & SpeigelBoers & BernsteinRosenbloom & GroteJoe O & Connor McKnightLaurence HolmesMatt AbbatacolaLes GrobsteinJason GoffMaya GavinScore CardHit and RunWhite Sox WeeklyWho Ya Crappin’?Business of SportsDanny Mac’s Parodies670 The Score InterviewsScores & StatsStats TemplateMLB BaseballNFL FootballNBA BasketballNHL HockeyCollege BasketballCollege FootballRacingTennisGolfBearsWhite SoxCubsBlackhawksBullsMore TeamsWolvesFireCollegeDePaulNorthwesternIllinoisNotre DamePro GolfHeard On-AirScheduleHealthBest OfBest Of HomeArts & CultureShopping & StyleFood & DrinkNightlife & MusicFamily & PetsTravel & OutdoorsWatch + ListenLatest Watch + ListenVideoSeen on CBS 2Heard on WBBM 780Heard on 670 The ScoreAudio on DemandWBBM’s 4:30 News To GoNoon Business HourWBBM’s 8:30 News To GoThe Healthy MinuteReal Estate FeatureMade in ChicagoWBBM’s At IssueEating RightShowbiz ExpressGardening TipsPresident’s Weekly AddressMid-Day Business Report670 The Score Podcasts >>MusicTrafficWeatherWeatherChicago WeatherChicago Weather MapsChicago Ski ReportContinentHistorical Weather Data PageLocal Reporting StationsMarine ReportOops… There Is An ErrorSevere Weather WarningsTropical WeatherWeather HomeRadar Map CenterSchool ClosingsNational Airport DelaysCheck Your FlightRoad ConditionsGet AnswersDirectoryDeals NewsProtest Tied To Buddhist Monk Accused Of Sex AbuseAugust 21, 2011 10:42 AMShare this1 comment

Golden Buddha statue (AP file photo)

Filed underHeard on WBBM 780, Local, News, Syndicated Local, Watch + ListenRelated tagsBarbara Blaine, Bedford Park, Buddhist Temple, Camnong Boa-Ubol, lawsuit, Monk, sexual abuse, Survivor's Network Of Those Abused By Priests, Theravada Buddhist TempleDon't Miss This Hottest Celebrity Parents Top Paid Actresses Real Housewives Tragedy Celebrity Splitsville Marilyn Monroe Sculpture: Inappropriate?

BEDFORD PARK, Ill. (WBBM) – A protest was planned Sunday morning at a Buddhist temple in the near southwest suburbs, where a former monk is accused in a civil suit of fathering the child of a 14-year-old girl.

The group protesting: the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – which usually targets alleged abusers in the Roman Catholic church.

LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio’s Steve Miller reports

SNAP President Barbara Blaine says the group has been passing out fliers to members of the Wat Dhammaram Buddhist temple, at 7059 W. 75th St. in Bedford Park.

“We’re outside the Theravada Buddhist temple… where a monk named Camnong Boa-Ubol had sexually abused a teenage girl he met in the neighborhood. He began abusing her when she was 13,” Blaine said.

Blaine also said that Boa-Ubol fathered a child with the girl when she was 14.

A civil lawsuit has been filed against the temple, accusing officials of trying to cover up abuse and transferring the monk to another temple in California.

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They need to show up at some of the public schools when it happens there. Although that would require much more time since it seems to be happening every few weeks at the public schools.

August 21, 2011 at 1:45 pm| Reply | Report comment

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For sexual abuse victims - honour

Honour means “beauty, majesty, brilliancy, preciousness, weight or heaviness”.

To each sexual abuse victim, God gives you honour ! (of course, if you accept it and receive it). God says you are precious. You have not been forgotten…

But it starts with His glory and honour first. Here is the first time the word “honour” is mentioned in the bible…

Honor and majesty are before Him;
Strength and gladness are in His place. (1 Chronicles 16:27 NKJV)

Some more about the Source of our honour (God)…

For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor. (Psalm 8:5 NKJV)

For the Lord takes pleasure in His people;
He will beautify the humble with salvation. To execute on them the written judgment—
This honor have all His saints.
Praise the Lord! (Psalm 149:4, 9 NKJV)

Strength and honor are her clothing;
She shall rejoice in time to come. (Proverbs 31:25 NKJV)

Honor and majesty are before Him;
Strength and gladness are in His place. (1 Chronicles 16:27 NKJV)

Now, let’s love the source of our Honour Himself…

Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house,
And the place where Your glory dwells. (Psalm 26:8 NKJV)

Now we can know honour in our emotions because Honour Himself, honours us !…

A man’s pride will bring him low,
But the humble in spirit will retain honor. (Proverbs 29:23 NKJV

By humility and the fear of the Lord
Are riches and honor and life. (Proverbs 22:4 NKJV)


How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God? (John 5:44 NKJV)

Jesus answered, “If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God. (John 8:54 NKJV)

but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (Romans 2:10 NKJV)

As He says also in Hosea:
“I will call them My people, who were not My people,
And her beloved, who was not beloved.” (Romans 9:25 NKJV)

Finally, a scripture about how God gives honour to those “parts” which have been dishonoured….

And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, (1 Corinthians 12:23, 24 NKJV)

God gives greater honour to all who have been dishonoured !.

Let this be the truth that replaces those emotions that have hurt so much…

Peter

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad2

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Writing Out Child Abuse

The first thing you should know is, I’m not an organizer. I’m a heavy lifter, a workhorse, and an idea kind of person. Funny how things change.

This whole concept started when I read a couple of truly horrifying child abuse stories in the forum of one of the critique groups I belong to. I stared at the stories in open-mouthed shock.

Then the anger started.

Not the “I need to punch a wall and get it out of my system” kind of anger. This wasn’t even the “I need to go out in the desert with a firearm and go target shooting until I feel better” kind of anger. This was something colder and darker. Something deeper. And something that I knew could never be exorcised.

The second thing you should know is: I myself am a survivor of child sexual abuse.

There. I said it.

The abuse I suffered wasn’t at the hands of a family member or loved one. My family didn’t have any idea until I finally acknowledged what had happened, years after the fact. Years of hiding what had befallen me, of shame that somehow I had done something wrong, and of behaving in ways that left my family absolutely confounded, because they simply didn’t have the right information to understand what was inside me, trying to claw its way into the light.

When they found out, they spent a lot of time in recrimination. The signs were so clear in retrospect, and they just never quite put the pieces together. No matter how I assured them it wasn’t their fault, and that they couldn’t have known about what happened because I didn’t tell them, it made no difference. Parents being parents, I suppose. But nevertheless, my abuser set into motion something that had immediate and far-reaching effects for my family and the ripples in my life from what happened are still with me to this day.

To this day, I struggle with depression. My expressions of anger are occasionally more appropriate to a three-year-old (the age at which it happened, if you’re curious) than to a thirty-three-year-old man. There is still a feeling of shame, no matter how irrational it may be.

It also gave me a unique perspective on, appreciation for, and empathy for victims of child abuse. And a very harsh and unforgiving outlook on their abusers.

But for years, I didn’t have any clear idea of what to do to help others who’d been through what I have, beyond “something.”

That changed yesterday. I asked one question in the forum. When I had my answer, I got to work.

And this is the result: A collaboration between publishers, agents, and authors to help kids in situations like my own . . . and even worse. Kids who are in constant physical, mental, and emotional jeopardy and turmoil because of something that wasn’t their fault.

It’s in its infancy, but the overwhelming response in ONE DAY tells me that there are good people out there who want to make a difference. So I, and the other authors that have been contacted to assist with this undertaking, will keep on.

We’re going to tell our stories. The ones that really happened to us.

We’re also going to do what we do best. We’re going to write. We’re going to craft quality stories in our chosen genres, publish them, and donate the proceeds from our stories, novels, and novellas dedicated to this cause to charities whose only goal is to help children touched by these horrors. And, God willing, give these children hope.

Someone’s got to take the first step, though. And today, here, and now, that someone is me.

I’m J.S. Wayne.

Will you join us?

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