The Courage to Speak

It is strange what brings me to my computer.

Over the last year, I have done everything I can to avoid it. I have had to bully and cajole myself into sitting down and attending to the monsters that lurk in its electronic belly. I begin fearful and reluctant, am relieved, and then confused as to what the problem was. Why couldn’t I sit down and get the work done?

I am reading Lee Koffman’s The Writer Laid Bare in preparation for attending one of her workshops. In it she says

My writer’s block wasn’t procrastination but an existential crisis where I lost my most fundamental identity.

p. 84

It isn’t that I haven’t been able to write in that classic “writer’s block” type of way. It is that I have held back so much from my writing since finishing my PhD. In my dissertation, by contrast, I held nothing back. I explored all of the mess and found how it fitted together.

Since that submission, I have been holding back. I sense that dam is about to break.

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I worry about how the religious will judge me.

I live in a highly religious region. We are part of each other’s lives. The religious have already had a lot to say. ‘You’ll lose your faith.’ ‘You don’t understand how families are supposed to be.’ ‘All that matters is God’, as if I am supposed to stop being myself and stop living this life in order to behave in ways that tick some cosmic box.

A writer draws from themselves, their experiences, their feelings. Feelings that are uniquely theirs.

My life has been shaped by the sound of religion, the incessant demands to give and be more, leading me to a fundamental discovery: religion became so loud, touted by so many, that the still, small voice of God was drowned out.

While writing my dissertation, I drew on all of my being, my life, my knowledge, even my spirituality, to write as truthfully and genuinely as I could. In the process, I learned how to write better. Academic writing is like no other writing—I confess, aside from poetry, it is my favourite type of writing. Total nerd, I know.

The louder religion became, the quieter I tried to make myself. I allowed my identity to sing through academic engagement but in my everyday religious world, I aimed to make myself smaller, quieter. I tried to keep out of things. This impacted my teaching. Drew criticism from those who once were my greatest fans.

Nothing drains confidence like that moment when someone you thought was for you turns out to be against you, turns out to be afraid of you, to think you are the one harming them. I don’t even know how it got to that. My actions were being interpreted by a third party and so I am left doing the only thing I can think to do. Leave them alone.

What has brought all of this up?

Today, just now, in fact, I read an essay a past student wrote about being in my class.

Such beautiful writing! I am genuinely proud of this young person and their development as both a writer and a pre-teacher. They are going to be an excellent teacher. Big things are ahead.

The essay reminded me of a time when I felt more confident in my teaching. Less criticised. And so I am here, writing.

I remember the particular conversation being reflected on—gay marriage—and what an intense conversation the class had. We were studying Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at a time when gay marriage was being discussed. I had a feeling it was going to come up in the class. How could it not?

My students wanted me to tell them the “right” answer. Such a nuanced subject with so many strong views requires a gentle approach. I refused to give my personal opinion, allowing a fuller picture of the debate to emerge. I played devil’s advocate with all of the points raised for both sides, ensuring that the topic was explored to reveal its complexities. My only concession was, at the end of the class, to answer their question ‘Would you go to a gay wedding?’ with ‘If I was invited, yes’.

My classes are safe places for students to speak. This might be the first time they venture to voice their opinions about something. When they do, what matters is not whether they are right or wrong but the courage to speak.

We must garner this courage to speak. Wisdom is needed with when to say something, how to present a view, and how to provide evidence for that view. What matters, in my classes, is that students speak. I gently remind them to be kind and to remember that others may think differently than them. I ask them why they feel the way they do, helping them to understand how they came to that viewpoint.

Always, always, this must be done with care.

My class might be the very first time they have tried on a new view. After saying it, they might not like how it sounded. The last they need me to say is ‘You look fat in that’.

I am gentle with my students because I know that the world will not be gentle and that they need to develop an ability to cope in that world.

This is where I find myself, breaking my existential writer’s block and speaking.

Religion has not been gentle with me. It has taught me that being a woman makes me less, that breaking with groupthink will get me excluded, and that if I am not obeying, serving, or doing something for the church with every spare minute I have then I am letting God down.

What religion is supposed to teach me is that I have something to add to this world. All of us do. Even the people apparently not in the “in group”. And that we all matter.

When my students say the thing that they want to say, the whole class is made better. Even if they are an odd-bod or different or what they have to say is jarring and difficult, full of anger, or simply thoughtless. What matters is that they speak. That they learn how to take turns, to listen, to learn, and how to change their minds.

Time and time again, in the classroom, we have started with one basic answer, and then, together, built something moving and impactful. An answer we could only arrive at together.

I tell them when it happens. They benefit from knowing that we are made more when we are together, that each one contributes in their unique way, making everything better.

The message religion often sends is that you are made better when you do what *insert authority figure* says. There is no real acknowledgment that we are all improved, together. Rather, the individual is used for the benefit of an organisation until their worth is used up in the eyes of whoever it is calling the shots.

So, the existential crisis trope?

I had a feeling, way back when I started my studies and religious folks made fun of me, denigrated me, and told me outright that I would ‘lose my faith’, that I would, indeed ‘lose my faith’—and find a faith much deeper and more meaningful than I had ever experienced.

As my writer’s block begins to clear, as I lean further into saying the things I mean to say and into contributing to making this world better for everyone—including those who think I am making it worse—I can see that I have walked through fire.

And that very little of the religious life made it through with me.

I am entering the most important stage of recovering from trauma, the stage of posttraumatic growth. This is where the survivor searches for and sees the lessons embedded within the wounds of what has happened to them.

It begins as a moment of looking up and seeing the past as a gift. Horribly wrapped, sure. But a gift, nonetheless. It is a moment of understanding that within the wound, there are profound lessons, gifts of wisdom, and insight.

As the writer’s block—the existential crisis of shedding my skin—comes to a close, it opens a door to a future beyond what I imagined.