child abuse

Well another week has come and gone.  At home we have these four vases on the fireplace.  Two are mine and of these two, one is almost full to the top of beautiful Italian marbles and the other is quite empty.  For my birthday, a good and dear friend gave me these two vases.  The theory goes that on some day of the week, one removes a marble from the full vase and places it into the emptier one, well at this time in my life.  The full vase represents how many weeks I have until I am 85 and the empty one includes the marbles I have  moved each Sunday night since my birthday.  Each Sunday night, we review our weeks and share what we're grateful for and what worked and what could be better.  Well, except for last Sunday.  We forgot.  And now that week, two weeks ago seems a little lost.  Tonight, we'll do two marbles.  It brings me to intention.

I used to believe intention was soft.  I found it overused in conversation.  It didn't feel strong; it felt squishy.  I was on vacation at Canyon Ranch and they have a spirit walk there with stops on the walk being serenity and peace and other joyful things in life.  One stop on the walk is intention.  I rounded the corner and intention was a wild, racuous, loud, out of control fountain!  For the first time, for me I realized intention could be loud, outrageous, hard.  It was a huge awakening for me.

Now for my quote for this entry...

"I shall not pass this way again; then let me now relieve some pain, remove some barrier from the road, or brigthen someone's heavy load."  -- Eva Rose Park

It has become my intention, since Grand Jury duty, to change the level of understanding in our community about child abuse.  In the past, I've read the statistics.  I've seen the stories.  I've heard them secondhand.  And yet in Grand Jury, hearing from the children fundamentally changed my life and approach to this issue.  I don't think I ever did the math.  Two children a day were reported abused in Jackson County last year.  I have spent a great deal of time learning these past few months about child abuse in our community and around our country.  I am struggling deeply with the secrecy that surrounds the issue.  The children can and MUST be protected from any future traumatization and abuse.  I'm talking about secrecy about the issue and the perpetrator.  I don't undestand it.  All of the cases heard before the Grand Jury in January and February were not on the news or in the paper.  I couldn't understand.  I realize if the perpetrator hasn't been arrested, it's an all together different thing.  If they have, it's public information.  I want us to know, to talk about it, to not accept it as the course of living in our community.

There's a systems issue too.  There's the opportunity for greater, different and more collaboration.  Not unlike the meth problem in our community in 2004, we had great providers, strong programs and enforcement and yet coming together and forming the Jackson County Meth Task Force raised the understanding, awareness and commitment of community to erradicate the epidemic of meth in our community.

I believe we can apply the best of what we learned with the Meth Task Force and apply it to child abuse.  I believe we can raise awareness, help children and families heal.  I believe we can change the face of child abuse in our community by seeing it, reading it and understanding it.  That's why I'm moving ahead with our remarkable community partners to form Jackson County CAN (Child Abuse Network).  Our first event is this coming Thursday, April 30, 2009 at noon, at Vogel Plaza in downtown Medford.  Join us, learn more, learn what you can do.

We shall not pass this way again!  Until next time...