Part One: It’s ok to be scared. (I am too).
(This blog post was written by Lauren Handy from inside the Alexandria Detention Center and uploaded here by PAAU staff)
I am often asked how I gather courage to fight when I’m scared, and if I am ever scared. The short answer, the one most don't believe, is I am always scared. The long answer? Each day I am filled with this constant and churning fear, anxiety and grief. It creates this tight ball of hurt that's deeply buried within me. Some days it's paralyzing, most days it's bearable.
It's not courage (because I have very little) that motivates me to fight... It is hope. Through the years I have cultivated a disciplined, practiced, and living hope. This has been vital in pushing past my all-encompassing fear of living.
I have hope that another world is possible... but only if someone is willing to do something. Frankly, most people aren't doing anything and often it's because fear of harm, shame, rejection, making mistakes, and the unknown is holding them back.
But it's ok to be scared. I am too.
I have always been a fearful person and knowing myself, I will always be scared. I experienced sexual violence as a young child and that shaped core aspects of my being. And so, as a child I grew up fearful and shy. I couldn't talk to strangers, use the phone, go to the doctors, leave the house... and that's still true to this day! Just a few months ago my mom was with me in the waiting room of the doctors because I was scared to go alone. At almost 30 years old I need a nightlight to sleep!
This is all very embarrassing to admit but it's important to be real and truthful about these things. I am not a hero and definitely not a Saint. I am just one person in the patterns of history trying in small ways to make the world an easier place to love our neighbors and build community.
Because isn't that our greatest fear? That long loneliness of being unwanted, unloved, and abandoned?
Now that we established that I'm always scared I will share two instances where I summoned hope to keep fighting and making good trouble.
Why I found myself at Delmas 31 in Port-au-Prince is too long for this story about fear...but to put it simply I made my way to Haiti in 2017 to live and work with an order of nuns founded by Mother Teresa called the Missionaries of Charity. My job involved working at a children's hospice. Before going I understood intellectually I would possibly see infants to 9-10 year olds dying, but I didn't fully register it until I was thrown right into the midst of mass human suffering.
The first 2 weeks I fought myself each day to not leave early. I cried myself to sleep each night to the sounds of children wailing. The only thing that kept me going was the first day Sister Lucia told me a saying from Mother Teresa herself, "If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." I held onto those words often, desperately repeating them back to myself waiting for that moment when this hurt would turn to love.
Of course, that moment arrived when I met Christella. She was admitted into the hospice on the verge of death but unlike the other children, I have never seen a child so young look suic*d*l. It haunts me to this day. She was almost 2 and she came to us emaciated, scars on her back, and open wounds on her private parts. I was shocked to my very core when I saw myself reflected back in her dull dead eyes.
All my hurts and fears bored back into me when our eyes connected. I fell to my knees and wept. For myself, Christella, and all children abused, abandoned and unloved.
The long loneliness gripped me as I gathered Christella into my arms...
The Sisters watched me silently as I cried. I almost felt bitter at the Sisters' stoicism but more likely their tears had run out long before. Still I was gripped with panic when one told me to prepare my goodbyes with Christella. I started shaking... It was too much to bear!
In this storm of emotions I looked back into her eyes. I refused to acknowledge her impending death. And I finally understood what it meant to die for someone, to sacrifice everything... no cost too great. It was my proximity to death that I understood the demands of Love. I understood why God died.
In that moment of understanding I have never felt so helpless and scared. It's one thing to be scared for yourself but it's another to be scared for another who is vulnerable and defenseless. I started rocking Christella, ugly crying over her body, when I remembered the words I was told the first day, "When you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love"
I became very still and started firming up my resolve. Chistella didn't need a sobbing mess. She needed someone who was audacious enough to keep trying. Keep loving. I did it for her because Christella's survival was greater than my own fears. I could not justify inactions based on being scared. So I stayed up that entire night and through the next... when finally a breakthrough. She regained her will to live and started accepting food. We both survived that night and I learned no matter what to keep going forward.
And I did keep going forward. I went back to America and started Rescuing in earnest. I found that my capacity to love grew along with my capacity to endure fear. I was getting arrested for civil disobedience 2-4 times a year for Red/Pink Rose Rescues, direct action at UCSF and anti death penalty work.
So when March 25th, 2022 came (I was on my way to another Rescue) I wasn't expecting to have my life changed in ways I never thought possible.
Part 2 coming soon