UNITED STATES
O’Donnell Clark and Crew
Kelly Clark
I am a spiritual man. Now, don’t misunderstand me: I did not say I am a virtuous man, or a good man, or—God knows this and so do all my friends—a Far from it on all counts. I am a deeply flawed and broken guy. But, in spite of all that—or, more precisely, because of all that—I am a spiritual person, by which I mean that I see and understand the world and my life primarily in spiritual terms, brokenness and healing, death and resurrection, darkness and light. Both my religious faith and my program of recovery from addiction teach me how to do this, and there is a lot to be said for it as a way of life. Trying to live according to spiritual principles gives me hope and joy in the everyday, in family and friends, in sunsets and snowstorms. But there is a downside as well, which is that my spiritual program requires that I regularly check myself and my motives: in personal relationships, in lifestyle, in professional endeavors. My life and my faith teach me that there is some darkness in the best of us, some light in the worst of us, and that I am not fit to be a judge of anyone but me, and often not even that.
All of which can be really inconvenient when I go to work. For I fight child sexual abuse for a living. For nearly two decades now, most of my law practice has been dedicated to pursuing justice on behalf of men and women who as children were sexually abused by trusted adults: teachers, priests, pastors, Scout leaders, coaches, relatives. We file lawsuits against child abusers and the institutions that enabled it; we often work with law enforcement to try to prosecute the offenders; we work with educators, regulators and legislators to try to improve policies and laws in institutions of trust where we expect our children to be safe. This is what I do, 50 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. It is meaningful work and I believe in it and I hope that it makes a difference in keeping kids safer than they otherwise would be.
But this work can be difficult at times, with tragic stories of pain and suffering, cowardice and cover-up, dishonesty and disingenuity. The survivors I work with are often in a lot of pain—depression and disorientation, drugs and or alcohol abuse, relationship or vocational struggles. We have lost three men to suicide in the last decade and had another dozen scares. Some days I get so sad, other days so angry, and yet other days I get to a place of despair—which, for me, is a kind of numbness that can paralyze me into inaction. When that happens I find that I have gradually taken on too much of the pain of others, I have forgotten to take care of myself, and so I slowly sink beneath the quicksand. When these times approach, I have to be especially conscious and aware, and check myself and my motives often. I have to tap into the spiritual resources inside me.
For the truth of the challenge is that my soul does not want long to endure such emotions as overwhelming sadness or despair, loss or futility, and so, almost inevitably after a few minutes or hours of such feelings, anger comes rushing in, deep anger. Soon after the deep anger comes the emotions that are, at least for me, truly toxic, poisonous, self-defeating. Emotions like rage—which is different from anger in both degree and purpose, and revenge—which is wholly different from justice, and, worst of all, righteousness and self-righteousness—which says that I am, we are, qualitatively different, nay, even better than those on the other side of our work.
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