הַעִידֹתִי בָכֶם הַיֹּום אֶת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת הָאָרֶץ הַחַיִּים וְהַמָּוֶת נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ הַבְּרָכָה וְהַקְּלָלָה וּבָחַרְתָּ בַּחַיִּים לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה אַתָּה וְזַרְעֶךָ לְאַהֲבָה אֶת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לִשְׁמֹעַ בְּקֹלֹו וּלְדָבְקָה בֹו כִּי הוּא חַיֶּיךָ וְאֹרֶךְ יָמֶיךָ לָשֶׁבֶת עַל הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע יְהוָה לַאֲבֹתֶיךָ לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב לָתֵת לָהֶם פ
I have born witness to heaven and earth concerning you:
I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse
Choose life that you may live, you and your descendants,
To love the LORD your God, to hear God’s voice and cling to it
For God is your life and the measure of your days
To dwell on the earth which the LORD promised to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Issac and to Jacob – Deut 30:19-20
To be a victim….
To be a victim is to believe that my actions make no difference, that however I choose the outcome will be nothing and mean nothing. I can choose neither life nor death. That choice has been stolen from me by the one who attacked me.
To be a victim is to see the open door and refuse to walk through it. It is to believe that the current reality is better than risking any new reality because taking risks can only lead to more of the same or worse.
To be a victim is to confuse reality with truth. To be a victim is to see the surface effects and the context of our actions and to assign to them the most soul destroying meaning possible. To be a victim is to refuse to question this hurtful hermeneutic because questions are just illusions and alternatives are mere excuses.
To be a victim is to believe that our choices don’t matter. To be a victim is to believe that acknowledging the role of choice in an interpretation makes that reading untrue. To be a victim is to believe that the only truth is a reality that is forced upon us.
To be a survivor…
To be a survivor is to believe that truth can only come from the way we respond to circumstance and reality. Reality by itself can never be the final word. It is incomplete: it is a book without a reader, a song without an audience. To be a survivor is to believe we are responsible for being that reader, for being that audience.
To be a survivor is to believe that our choices matter. Regardless of outcome, they have an intrinsic value because they define who we are. To be a survivor is to believe that who we are and who we are becoming matters.
To be a survivor is to believe that the worth of our choices is not dependent on their outward expression or the immediate results of our actions. To be a survivor is to understand that if our outward choices looked like they were in agreement with the rapist it is only because we had chosen a good that was more important than anything the rapist wanted. To be a survivor is to understand that our outward compliance was in fact a profound rejection of everything the rapist wanted. Where the rapist wanted to hurt and maim, we wanted to save and protect. Where the rapist devalued life and all that was sacred, we sought to preserve life and honor what was most essential and holy.
To be a survivor is to understand that the truth lies in the way we respond and why and not just in the visible reality of our actions. To be a survivor is to refuse to confuse reality with truth.
To be a survivor is to open doors and walk through them joyfully. To be a survivor is to know that the end of the journey is not in our hands. To be a survivor is to understand that we are only responsible for walking through the door and for each door that follows, one choice at a time.
To be a survivor is to take the long view, to understand that our actions may have impacts we can never fully know and understand. To be a survivor is to trust that the choice that seemed to have no impact at all may lead to a set of changes remote from us, in lives and worlds far away from anything we will ever know. To be a survivor is to let go of the need to always connect the dots and to act in faith one step at a time.
To be a survivor is to believe that our story is not just for us alone, but also for all who went before us, all who travel with us, and all who travel ahead of us.
Elizabeth Grace Frank-Backman
