The Cleansing
by: Tery Maine

 

The road stretched out before Cindy as she passed the Chowchilla exit. It was a familiar road. She had traveled down it twice a month for nearly five years now. Her mother asked, " How long will you have to keep going to see Luanna?" Cindy had answered, "Until I’m finished." The answer was truthful, but much more complicated than it seemed.

What did it mean to be finished with therapy? She had started seeing Luanna in preparation for sex reassignment surgery. Mo st girls just drop out as soon as they have their letter to the surgeon. Others disappear right after surgery. Cindy hung in there. Why? Well, as one who did therapy work, it helped if she was clear of floating issues. Then, too, a surgical procedure doesn’t solve all problems. In many ways, clearing up the gender issues was almost like the first step. Now, she could begin a growth phase. Take care of that " unfinished business" that she couldn’t deal with while she still had to deal with transsexualism. And then, there were those little surprises, like the one that happened just two months ago.

She shivered once again as she thought about it. It started with a broken down car and a taxi ride home. The taxi driver was one of those garrulous types who chatted all through the trip. As they came close to Cindy’s house, he said, "So, are you married or anything?"

"No," said Cindy. Inexplicably her anxiety began to rise at that question.

The car pulled up in front of her house. As she reached for her purse to pay the fare, the taxi driver gently took her hand and looked at her nail art. Then holding her hand he looked at her and said, "You know, I think you’ re real pretty. Do you think that maybe we could go out for dinner or something?" The mildly uncomfortable f eeling she had before now reached the peaks of anxiety. Her heart began to pound. She struggled to keep from hyperventilating. She said quickly and, she hoped calmly, "I’m very flattered, but I don’ t think so." She paid the fare and ran for the door of her house. She didn’t calm down for an hour.

She wondered about this event. Why should she have panicked the way she did? It was broad daylight. She was 20 feet from her front door. There were people in the yard next door. This wasn’ t dangerous, yet she felt just like somebody was going to rape her. What an odd thing to think. Why should rape have come to mind and not being beaten or killed? Sure she was insecure about her appeal to men and concerned about telling a man she cared for about her past, but it her reaction still seemed out of proportion.

In discussing the incident with Luanna the issue of her high school experience with physical and emotional abuse came up.

"Do you think that the fact you’re male peers abused you could have affected your feelings?" Luanna sat placidly across from her. She was a consummate professional, yet warmly human as well. Cindy usually had little trouble talking with her.

"Maybe. It’s hard not to fear men when from fourth grade through high school they beat you up almost daily."

It was a slight exaggeration. She really only was physically beaten up about 8 to 10 times. Of course, there were the times she was pushed down a flight of stairs and the numerous times she was kicked in the groin and punched in the stomach or face. But those really didn’t count as beatings per se. She knew she was minimizing, but she was too tired to stop.

"Did you ever, as a man, have any homosexual experiences with another man?" Her heart jumped a bit. She paused, "No. I didn’t get into the gay scene. I wanted to be a woman, but I couldn’t see myself as a man in bed with another man."

" Did you have any bad experiences with any gay men?"

Aside from a couple of pick up attempts she hadn’t.

" Well, there is this one thing. I don’t know what it means. For the past six months or so I’ve occasionally had this sensation of a penis being withdrawn from my rectum. But it’s probably nothing."

Luanna was silent.

Later that week, Cindy decided to write a chronicle of the abuse she faced. She started with the grade school days, then junior high and high school. She almost was overwhelmed when she saw it all in one place. Beatings, cursings, stolen books, stolen clothes, harassments, threats and assaults. She recounted how at her senior picnic two members of the football team hung her by her legs over a 70 foot cliff and then dropped her on a ledge a couple of feet below the edge of the cliff. She remembered having all her clothes stripped off her in both junior high and high school in playgrounds just a chain link fence away from a busy street. She remembered thinking that she felt like she had been raped. There was that word again.

Friday afternoon she finished her writing and lay down on the couch to rest. As she lay there, it came back to her. She had experie nced flashbacks before. Brief vivid glimpses of the past replaying themselves in the present complete with sight, sound, smell, feeling and emotion. They leave you with a creepy feeling. This one left Cindy with much more.

She was back in high school. She was in the boy’ s shower. She was 15. The way she knew was the shower. This was the shower room on the West Side of the gym. Only during her sophomore year was she on the West side. The room had two showers on each of three walls. A narrow door provided the only access to the room. Suddenly, the door darkened.

On Cindy’s first meeting with Eddie, he didn’ t introduce himself. He just punched her in the stomach. Since their last names began with the same first two letters, they stood shoulder to shoulder with each other for roll call. He wasn’ t quite as tall as her, but he was muscular and stocky. He weighed a good 75 pounds more than the skinny effeminate boy standing in the shower all alone that day.

Then piece by agonizing piece it came back to her. She wa s back in that high school shower. She heard the sound of the dripping water. She heard his foul language. She felt his fists hit her face and stomach. She smelled his dirty, sweaty body. She felt every rude touch of his hand. She relived his violation of her body as he forced himself on her.

He stood up. She was laying on the floor. She saw him standing there. She saw his smirk of satisfaction. She heard his final degrading attack on her dignity.

" Say you liked i t."

She said nothing.

He kicked her in the stomach.

"Say you liked it."

Silence. He kicked her in the groin.

"Say you liked it."

Slowly painfully the words formed on her lips, "I liked it."

"I knew you did."

Eddie took a shower. Cindy staggered out the door. Got dressed. Went to class. And forgot all about it for 28 years.

Cindy was back in her living room. She never really left. She was aware of her surroundings as sort of a background, but her reality for that few minutes was an event that happened almost thirty years ago in high school.

She was in tears. She was trembling. She was curled up in a tight ball. She felt filthy. If she had been any other person, she would have gone and taken a shower. But she never felt comfortable in showers. Now, she knew why.

She reached for the phone. She was going to call her friend Tracy. Then she remembered Tracy was taking care of a friend’s mother and Cindy didn’ t have that number. Besides, she felt so filthy, she wasn’t sure she wanted to tell anybody. Four years ago, she wouldn’t have. Much can happen in four years. The hermit who was Carl had come down from the cave. Cindy’ s life was connected. She wanted. No not wanted. She needed to tell. She called Luanna. She got the answering machine. Luanna must be in session.

"Hi, Luanna. I hate to bother you. But I just had a major league flashback. I - I well—there’ s no easy way to put it. I was ----" the word stuck in her throat "---raped when I was 15 years old. Oh, this is Cindy 209-555-3278."

She hung up. She lay on the couch. Curled up in a small ball. She fe lt like if she could just pull in on herself enough she would fall in on herself and never have to come out. Then she paced. She made it through every room of the house. She tried to watch a video she rented. She didn’ t remember hardly anything about the m ovie. She will have to rent that movie again. She wrote a letter to a friend in Wisconsin and sent it by e-mail to her. It really did help . A phone call an hour later from her therapist helped some. She lay on the couch crying out to God to take away the pain. She heard the words of Paul, "God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are the called according to his purpose."

"Fine, Lord, but right now I’m hurting." Then she remembered a prophecy which had been given to her just a week before. It said, "You will tread paths of darkness, but you will bring light. You will face dragons, but you will slay them. You will endure great pain, but it will be the pain of healing." Then came the words of the Psalmist, "Weeping lasts for the night, but joy comes in the morning."

While the pain didn’ t go away or even become less, somehow Cindy felt stronger. Like the pain may be rough, but she would endure it. And somewhere in her mind came words she had spoken to many others going through trials that we go through things so we can help others who are going through the same things.

"In the words of Tracy, Lord, Jaywalking would have been nice."

She continued to tremble for three days. Sunday night she was in church. She could hardly sit through t he service. She trembled like she was in the arctic wearing a mini-skirt, even though the temperature outside was almost 100. The youth pastor was preaching that night. Cindy always liked Debbie’ s preaching. She hoped it would give her something to take ho ld of. The sermon was good. Nothing really clicked though. Then at the end of the sermon, before the altar time, the musicians were beginning to play something really soft. She said, "No. We don’ t need that. We need something upbeat. We need a fast song. We need ‘When I think of his goodness’" Cindy cringed. Evangel was a very Pentecostal church. This song really set things going, because the line says "When I think of his goodness and what he’s done for me, When I think of his goodness and how he sat me free, I can dance, dance, dance, dance, dance all night." Cindy was barely standing, much less dancing. When Cindy raised her hands, they were shaking. When she put them down, they were rock steady.

Out on the right was the Farmers Insurance regional office . That meant Cindy was coming into Merced. She was still about two hours from San Francisco. She thought back over the past 10 weeks. They had been rough. After the initial anxiety settled down, she still experienced anxiety attacks, periods of spontaneous crying. Of course, she doubted her memories. When she haltingly told Tracy about them, Tracy said, " Oh, I knew that already. Then she gave Cindy a few details about the rape which Cindy hadn’t told her." Cindy thought, "Thank you, Lord, for giving me this confidence."

Worse than the anxiety attacks and the bouts of depression was the feeling of being dirty, spoiled, messed up. None of the words seemed to fit. One of the things which was very hard for her to deal with was the knowledge that she was no longer a virgin.

In a day and age which treats virginity lightly, as something to be discarded at the earliest possible moment, Cindy’ s feelings may have seemed odd. She did not see virginity as a lack of sexuality, but rather as a preservation of sexuality. In fact, it was the center of her sexuality. She felt that sexuality was so valuable that it was not to be squandered for a cheap thrill or a series of one night stands.

Writing in her journal, she described it as a bright jewel kept in a deep part of her being that she had guarded carefully both as male and as female. Now, to find out that what she guarded hadn’t existed since 1967 was very disorienting. Even though she had not done anything wrong herself, she felt that part of her was taken away and could never be regained.

As she passed Livingston, where she normally stopped for lunch, she noticed that the restaurant was closed for remodeling. She was disappointed, but kept driving. An old chorus came to mind as she drove, " Know ye not, know ye not ye are the temple."

Based on a verse in I Corinthians 3, the verse says two things. First, that a Christian’s body is the "temple of the Holy Spirit." Secondly, anyone who "defiles" that temple is in big trouble.

As she thought about that, something clicked for her. That was the word that fit. Defiled. It really did have the sense of something precious, yes even sacred, being treated abominably (in the old theological sense of that word). It was like slopping hogs in the Ark of the Covenant. " Defilement, that was the word I was looking for. Dirty and soiled and polluted all described the outside of the feeling, but defiled describes the inside," Cindy said the words deliberately and with emphasis. Luanna listened and watched. There was an unusual intensity in her look. Maybe it was just a reflection of Cindy’ s own intensity.

"So, what you are saying is that you have this feeling of being defiled. But what is defiled can be cleansed."

Cindy was slightly surprised to hear those words with such spiritual import spok en in such a secular setting. It was the answer she was seeking. This precious jewel was neither stolen or destroyed, it was ruined. It was still there, buried under layers of garbage. The garbage could be removed. The temple that had been defiled could be cleansed.

Cindy was energized as she spoke of cleansing. She spoke of how Old Testament Law prescribed cleansing rituals for things defiled. Certainly, those rituals were for another time and place. But the idea was sound. Scriptures flooded to mind. " Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." "Create in me a clean heart, O Lord." " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ God’s son cleanses...."

She decided to begin a new Bible study on the temple and see it in relation to her own experience. At last, she had a hope that the dirty feelings could go away.

Sunday morning Cindy awoke about an hour before she normally started getting ready for church. She tried to get back to sleep, but she just couldn’ t. Unlike times when she was just nervous or worried and couldn’t get to sleep, this time she felt as though she had been awakened for a purpose. She had been a Christian long enough to know that purpose was generally to pray.

As she began to pray, the words began to come, "Lord, cleanse this temple of mine." As the words came, so did images. She saw herself in Solomon’ s Temple. As she passed through the court of the Gentiles she said, "Lord, cleanse me of any effect this rape has on my relationships with people in the world." She then passed through the treasury area and prayed, "Lord, cleanse me of the effects this rape has had on my use of the resources you have given me." As she passe d into the Court of Israel, she looked back and saw the places she had passed through shining as though they had been freshly scrubbed and polished. In the Court of Israel she prayed for cleansing of the effects of the rape on her relationships with other believers. Passing the great altar, she saw the sacrifice lamb and gave thanks for the Lamb of God who was slain for the sins of the world. Passing into the holy place she stopped at the lavar and washed feeling the effects of the rape on her body being washed away. In the Holy place she saw the lampstand and the oil, symbols of Christian ministry and of the Holy Spirit. She prayed, " Lord, cleanse me of the effects of the rape on my ministry." Passing on into the Holy of Holies, in tears she prayed that the Lord would cleanse her of the effects this rape on her relationship with God himself. She then saw the Shekinah Glory of God above the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. She also noticed the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the Holy place was gone. She wept, as she knew what this meant. The Shekinah was not intended to stay inside her but to flow out through her into the rest of the world.

The alarm rang. It was time to go to church. The service had a special spirit that day. Everyone commented on it. There was a comforting flow of God’ s spirit in the service. At one point, the music minister began to lead a song not listed on the song sheet, "Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving I’ll be a living sanctuary for you."

People throughout the building spontaneously kneeled to pray. Cindy was among them. She prayed, "Lord, I want to be your sanctuary. Please cleanse me." The answer came in just a few words spoken directly to Cindy’s heart in a heavenly voice she knew all too well. "I already did it years ago, and you never knew." Now, she knew. And the darkness of midnight gave way to the gray expectancy of Dawn.

  

  

  

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© 1994 by Tery Maine. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.