IIC 44: Rape, Incest, Shame, and Silence: A True Story Reexamined, Part 3

Dr. Peter guides a listening exercise deeper into the story of Princess Tamar and Crown Prince Amnon, looking at the incestuous rape and entering into the internal worlds, the inner experience of each of the characters, inviting you to not only listen to the story, but to listen to yourself as you listen to the story.  What are you noticing happening inside?  What can those emotions, impulses, desires, attitudes, beliefs, memories and images that come up in you tell you about your history and your experiences?

[00:00:12] Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis Carpe Diem, where by God’s grace, you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. We are going beyond mere resilience to rising up to the challenges of this pandemic and becoming even healthier in the natural and the spiritual realms than we were before. I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski, and I am here with you to be your host and guide. This podcast is part of Souls and Hearts, our online outreach at soulsandhearts.com, which is all about shoring up the natural foundation for the Catholic spiritual life, all about overcoming psychological obstacles to being loved and to loving. This is episode 44, released on November 30th, 2020. Thank you for being here with me. This is our eighth episode in our series on shame and it is titled Rape, Incest, Shame, and Silence: A True Story, Reexamined Part 3. We are continuing to deal with this heavy, difficult material around the rape of Tamar by her brother Amnon. We opened that up with episode 40. That was Part 1. We continued it with episode 43. That was last week’s episode, with Part 2. Now, in Part 3, we’re continuing to learn all about how to apply what we learned about shame in the conceptual episodes — those were 37, 38, 39, that’s where we learned all the concepts — we’re continuing to bring them in to a real life story.

[00:01:55] So it’s important, if you haven’t listened to episodes 40 and 43, those are really important to get the background of the story. We’re picking it up in the middle of the story here. So if you haven’t listened to 40, if you haven’t listened to 43, go back to those. 41 and 42 were all about King David’s childhood. Those are really helpful for background, but not quite as critical as 40 and 43 for understanding what’s going on in this podcast episode. If you’ve listened to those other ones, you know about the cautions, you know that there’s heavy material in here. You know that I’m bringing out all aspects of this, not just the the facts, but also all the implications, you know, themes of betrayal, abandonment. The meaning of contextual factors is coming out. That stuff is heavy and we need to be real about those things. There’s no way to be neat and tidy. We have to have the discussion. We have to be bringing this into the public sphere, into Catholic conversations, but we want to do it in a thoughtful and prudent way. Right. So given that it’s important to deal with these topics, given that it’s necessary, that doesn’t mean that you have to be at the forefront of the of the conversation if it’s too much for you. Right. Be thoughtful about where you are. Be thoughtful about where you are in your journey.

[00:03:21] Be thoughtful about what activates you. Be attentive to your window of tolerance. Be attentive to what’s happening inside you. If it gets to be too much, as we’ve talked about in so many previous episodes, take a break. Step back. Reground yourself. There’s no harm in that. There’s no shame in that. In fact, it’s a beautiful thing for you to take care of you as you deal with the kinds of materials that we’re addressing in these podcasts. So if you notice that you’re leaving your window of tolerance, emotions are no longer at moderate levels, but they’re climbing into hyper-arousal, where you’re overwhelmed with emotion. Or if you notice you’re shutting down, numbing out, hypo-arousal, take some actions. Step it back. Take a break. Okay. Brief review of levels of listening. All right. There’s three levels of listening. Level one listening, just the facts. Level two listening, this is where we listen beyond just the facts, just beyond what we are hearing the other person say, to really getting at what the other person means. We’re listening for those deeper layers of meaning. We’re listening for the other person’s whole experience, not just the words, not just the content, but we’re listening for the emotions, the intentions, all that stuff that’s going on inside of them in a really non-judgmental way so that we can really grip on to what the other person’s inner experience is. We’re also paying attention to different parts of them, different conflicts that are going on between parts in them.

[00:05:00] That’s level two. Level three, listening with. This is much rarer, but this is where we’re simultaneously listening to all of ourselves and all of the other person. We’re paying attention to our own parts and the other person’s parts. We’re seeing how those parts are interacting, how different things going on inside of me are relating or connecting with different things going on inside the other person. What’s resonating, what’s not resonating, what’s happening in the interpersonal field, right? That’s the self as instrument tuning in to another person’s frequency, tuning in to another person’s wavelength in compassionate connection. Okay. In the last episodes, 40 and 43, where we dealt with this story, I read the story. I’m not going to read the story again. You can go back if you need to hear those stories to those other episodes, I’m going to read chunks of it as I break it down, though. Okay, so where we left off was Tamar had made the cakes. She had presented them to Amnon. Amnon had rejected them. So we’re going to pick it up from that point. “And Amnon said, ‘Send out everyone from me.’ So everyone went out from him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, ‘Bring the food into the chamber, so that I may eat from your hand.’ And Tamar took the cakes she had made and brought them into the chamber to Amnon, her brother.”

[00:06:32] All right, we’ve got a boundary violation here. Amnon sends everybody out. Authority of the crown prince, everybody out of here! We’ve got a tremendous power imbalance. The only one with the authority to challenge the crown prince was David the king. And David ordered Tamar to be there. Right. If the servants don’t leave, at best they may lose their positions. At worst, they could be executed. From a purely human perspective, if we’re not looking at this through the eyes of faith at all, they’re in a catch 22. There is no good option for them on a purely human understanding of the situation. It’s understandable that they just obey orders. If one witness, though, if one of those servants had acted, if one of them had sounded the alarm, if one of them had intervened, if one of them had created a scene, had refused to leave, whatever it was, how different could the outcome have been? Right. But you have to risk the enmity of the crown prince. And that could mean death. That could mean torture. You know what this reminds me of? Kind of the conspiracy of silence here. It reminds me of the Theodore McCarrick report that just came out earlier this month, November 10th. This is from the Vatican, 410 pages, about how the whole sordid story of his exploitation came to be. How could that have happened? Right? So much silence. So many people who could have spoken up but didn’t because they were afraid.

[00:08:10] Because he was a powerful man. McCarrick was a powerful man, a charismatic man, a man familiar with wielding the reins of power, familiar with learning how to reward and how to punish. That’s what Amnon reminds me of, actually, is Theodore McCarrick. Got history repeating itself here. Right. What happens? He says, bring the food into the chamber. Come into my bedroom. Right. The trap is closing, right? I got the theme of Jaws running through my mind. You know, just the sense of tremendous foreboding here as I listen to what’s happening in me. What are you noticing in you? What are you recognizing happen in you at this point in the retelling of the story? Sit with that for a little bit. Get familiar with what’s going on there. Take a break and pause it. Okay. “But when she brought them near him to eat, he took hold of her. And he said to her, ‘Come. Lie with me, sister.’ She answered him, ‘No, my brother, do not force me. For such a thing is not done in Israel. Do not do this wanton folly. As for me, where could I carry my shame? And as for you, you would be as one of the wanton fools in Israel. No. Therefore, I pray you, speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you.’ But he would not listen to her.

[00:09:55] And being stronger than she, he forced her and he lay with her.” All right. How you doing? Check in. Make sure that you’re sensing how you’re doing. We don’t want to rush anything because this is really powerful stuff. Right? When she brought them, that’s the cakes, near him to eat. He took hold of her. The predator is making sure of his prey. She can’t flee now. Flight in this moment would be Tamar’s first instinct. And Amnon knew it. It was impossible to call for help because Amnon had sent the servants away. Nobody was there to take her part. He says, “Come lie with me, my sister.” Let’s take a look at these six words. “Come lie with me, my sister.” It’s an invitation to consensual sex. And it sounds like this whole idea was really erotic for Amnon. Part of his elaborated fantasy was that she would fill him up. She would make him whole. She might give him her virginity, because she desires him too. That’s the fantasy that I think is going on here. The fantasy, the hope, the elaborated imagination here for Amnon is that Tamar may have the same sexual and romantic fantasies about him that he has about her, and that’s arousing for him in this really disordered, this really incestuous, this really awful way. And more than that, this could go on and on. They might have this secret relationship.

[00:11:50] This affair, if you will. That could go on and on. All about the relationship. That’s how I read this. He emphasizes, “Come lie with me, my sister,” as though emphasizing the sister part of this, as though that’s part of the appeal. It’s very, very, very distorted, very sick, very warped. Tamar keeps her cool. It’s really amazing to me how well she operates in this situation. I think she had special graces to cope with this because her response is not a typical response. Tamar’s response is far more adaptive than would be possible for most people in that situation. Far more adaptive. She had it far more together than most people are going to have it in that kind of situation. Her sympathetic nervous system has got to be ramping up in a major way at this point. I’m assuming it’s going towards fight or flight, because it sounds to me like she’s talking really rapidly. That’s not an indicator of shutdown. That’s not an indicator of hypo-arousal. But she’s still making a lot of sense. She’s still putting together a cogent argument. She’s not completely left her window of tolerance. She’s thinking quickly and she’s thinking clearly. She can form these arguments. She says, “No, brother, do not force me.” It’s very clear. I will not do this. I am not on board with this. I am not volunteering. If sex is going to happen, it’s going to be because you raped me.

[00:13:27] First rejection. Wham. Hits him like a ton of bricks. Tamara could have consented and afterward pretended that nothing happened. Who would know, right? They could have come up with some kind of cover story. But the way the Scripture is written, it’s so very clear that Tamar never considered violating her integrity, and she was always a holy, blameless victim. What does she say next? “For such a thing is not done in Israel. Do not do this wanton folly.” Wham! Second rejection. Major violation of social norms. Major violation of Deuteronomic law. Deuteronomy 27:22 forbids a man from sleeping with his sister. Also forbidden in Leviticus, chapter 18, chapter 20. The punishment for seeing your sister naked in Leviticus 20 was to be cut off from the Israelite community, to become an outcast, to become exiled. Major consequences. She continues on, all in the same breath. “As for me, how could I carry my shame?” Wham! Third rejection. She’s a virgin princess. She would become a nobody, a social outcast, a pariah. She would be unmarried and unmarriageable because nobody wanted to marry a non-virgin unless she was a widow maybe or possibly divorced, not somebody in her state. What does she say next? “And as for you, you would be as one of the wanton fools in Israel.” Fourth rejection. Wham! She appeals to his identity. She wants him to think about the implications for his identity. Then what happens? She senses that her four rejections with their four arguments are not working.

[00:15:32] She’s appealed to what’s good, true, and beautiful. That had no impact. She appealed to social and religious norms. That doesn’t faze Amnon. She appeals to how she would be ashamed. That doesn’t matter to Amnon. He’s still gripping on to her. She even points out how he will shame himself. That no longer penetrates into Amnon’s consciousness or his awareness. There’s a quadruple rejection, a quadruple refusal. Emphasized, re-emphasized, re-emphasized again, re-emphasized again. And what’s going on here for Amnon? Think about that. Listen. See if you can hear what’s going on for Amnon in that moment. This might be really difficult. I know a lot of good therapists that cannot enter into the mind of a perpetrator. So if this is really difficult, most people don’t do a very good job of this. What’s going on? What’s happening inside of him? Listen in. See what you can come up with. Maybe take a break here, work with it. Check in, too. Right. Because this is heavy stuff. How are you doing with that window of tolerance? You okay? Ask yourself. All right. This quadruple rejection, this quadruple refusal, destroys Amnon’s fantasy of consensual sex. It destroys all that his imagination had elaborated about the possible sexual relationship, ongoing sexual relationship that he might have with Tamar. And his conscience is now burning in the presence of Tamar’s principled resistance. The contrast is so strong between her virtue and his vice.

[00:17:23] Amnon’s part that carries shame is likely rising and about to take over. Does he listen to that shame as a signal? No, he does not. Can shame serve its inhibitory effect? Remember, shame’s got this inhibitory effect, keeps us from doing things we shouldn’t do. Is that going to work with Amnon in this situation? No. Amnon will not allow it. What happens instead? This is how I understand it, admittedly speculative, right? But we’re learning to think along these lines, not necessarily to get everything right, but to be able to practice trying. Because the more we do this, the better we get at it. So what happens instead, right? We got shame rising. It’s about to take over Amnon. He’s seeing himself, right, as he is. Right. But Amnon, parts that carry anger and hatred rise faster. They come up like firefighters to take out the pain of the shame, to drown out Amnon’s awareness of shame and to justify the impending rape as a consequence for Tamar’s wounding his pride by her virtue and innocence. That’s what I think happened there. That’s what I think was going on. Hatred, anger, wells up, takes over, dominates in order to protect Amnon against his shame. Catholic psychiatrist Conrad Baars talks about emotional substitution, how one emotion can rise up to squelch out another emotion. And you see that happening. It’s another way of understanding what was going on inside Amnon.

[00:19:07] The hatred, the anger, rose up to distract from the shame, to pull attention away from the shame, to keep the shame from taking over. Tamar is taking all this in. She realizes what’s happening here. She can probably feel the heat of the anger. Can you imagine being held by your arm? He’s got ahold of her, right. The grip tightening. Right. She shifts her approach. She shifts her approach and makes one final argument, one that seems to hold out a possibility of legitimate sexual union. She says to him, “Now therefore, I pray you.” And that, I pray you, that’s like sort of a way of saying, I beg you, I ask you, I plead with you. “Speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you.” Right. She brings the king in, the civil authority, their father, the arbiter of marriages, right? Some people believe she was just trying to escape from Amnon’s hands by any means possible. She didn’t necessarily mean that any kind of dispensation for marriage was possible. It was unlikely that a request would have been granted. She was just saying anything to play for time. I’m not so sure. It’s impossible to know exactly what she was thinking, but I think it’s likely that Tamar may have believed that a marriage was possible. She may not have been aware of the Levitical prohibitions in Leviticus 18 and 20. She may have been much more familiar with Deuteronomy.

[00:20:52] She may have seriously believed that, given the nature of the situation, given this intensity of desire, David might have agreed to a dispensation to the Levitical law, might have allowed it to happen. Either way, we know she was desperate. And in the end, it didn’t really matter why. Scripture says, “But he would not listen to her. And being stronger than she, he forced her and he lay with her.” Okay, so here we are. How is that landing with you. How are your parts doing? What are you noticing inside? What’s going on with your body? If it’s getting too much, take that break. Reground yourself. Amnon would not listen to her. He would not see her as she was. He would not see her as a person. I don’t know what to say. Right. This happened. This was real. This rape happened. “Then Amnon hated her with a very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her.” That language still drives me nuts. “This love with which he had loved her.” I can hold on to it as the infatuation with which he was infatuated with her. I mean, let’s not get believing that there was actual real love here. Like there was any kind of charity in this. All right. “And Amnon said to her, ‘Arise, be gone.’ But she said to him, ‘No, my brother, for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other, which you did to me.’ But he would not listen to her. He called the young man who served him and said, put this woman out of my presence and bolt the door after her.”

[00:23:30] Okay. Amnon was rejected. She did not want a consensual relationship with him. This led to a huge shift emotionally, a huge shift in terms of his desires. He went from, he must have her immediately, to he must get rid of her immediately. What’s my read on this? Again, speculative. How is it landing with me? Part of the intense attraction that Amnon was experiencing was that the sexual union was forbidden, but he was going to have it anyway. After she rejected him, after there was no possibility of a consensual relationship, something that would go on and on, some kind of tryst, you know, some kind of secret affair, now she’s going to pay the price. Now he’s going to make her pay the price. He’s just going to take what he wants. He goes on a power trip. It’s no longer relational in any sense. Right? Before, it was relational in a really twisted, warped way. He wanted to have some kind of ongoing relationship with her, not as a person but as an object. Now he’s just going to take what he wants. He’s going to break sexual taboos.

[00:24:41] He’s going to do this. The rules no longer apply. He is above the law. Amnon, he emphasizes the sibling relationship with Tamar as though that were important. These are acts of rebellion, acts of independence, acts of autonomy. This is Amnon making up his own rules. He’s the crown prince. He can do this. He doesn’t need relationships anymore, doesn’t need a relationship with her anymore. Just going to get rid of that. I can take what I need by exploiting others. It’s also, I think, a way of establishing power and dominance over David, their father, by having sex, not with his concubines or wives, but with his daughter. Amnon hated Tamar with a great hatred. Amnon did not get what he hoped for. It was so unrealistic. But when you elaborate these fantasies, when you get so self-absorbed in your own system, you don’t see other people anything like accurately. Sexual arousal is now gone. He had wanted her. She had never wanted him sexually. Hatred is now covering his shame. He’s getting coals heaped down on his head by the contrast of his vice with Tamar’s virtue, with his guilt contrasted with her innocence. I think Princess Tamar’s words stayed with him. Remember what she called his intentions to have sex with him? Wanton folly. Remember what Tamar said he would be if he carried out his evil designs? A wanton fool of Israel. And crown prince Amnon, at some level, might have been really intense, but unconscious, he was burning with shame.

[00:26:41] Knowing those words of Tamar to be true. He was a wanton fool of Israel. And so, externalize the responsibility, blame her, get rid of her as soon as possible. But she said to him, “No, my brother, for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other, which you did to me.” Here’s what’s amazing to me. Even after the rape, Tamar is still functioning. It’s remarkable. Again, I think she’s getting special graces because this is not typical, especially given the tremendous implications for Tamar future. She’s still fighting for her dignity. She can feel his hatred. She’s still appealing to him. She is appealing for Amnon to marry her. It’s possible that Tamar is aware of Deuteronomic law, but not Levitical law. That would be very typical. There’s probably a greater access to Deuteronomy than there is to Leviticus. This is the opinion of Scott S., who did a really great post on this in a 2016 discussion on the Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange. Deuteronomy 22:28-29 said, “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman 50 shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not put her away all his days.”

[00:28:17] Hmm. Okay. So there’s a kind of protection there. But Deuteronomy doesn’t say anything about brothers and sisters, right? That’s where you get into the Levitical law, where the punishment for incestuous — it’s not even about necessarily sex. It’s just about exposing the nakedness, which could be interpreted as having sexual relations with a brother or sister. That is banishment. It’s also common law in Near Eastern cultures at the time that if you rape a woman, you marry her. I’m looking at this as still her trying to make a last ditch attempt to salvage her life. She’s desperately trying to save her future, making a futile gambit to avoid lifelong shame. Because the shame of being an unmarried and an unmarriageable woman made marrying her rapist seem preferable. That’s how bad it was. The idea of being a pariah, the idea of being an outcast, just so horrible. She’s also trying to salvage the situation morally as best as possible, perhaps even for both of them. Right. Saving him from shame, too. She might have been able to still gather up some kind of love for him. That would be heroic sanctity in my book. But he has no intention of any of that. He had no intention of that when he desired a secret, illegitimate, illicit, ongoing sexual connection with her, a relationship with her. And he certainly has no desire for that when he’s being overwhelmed by his hatred and his anger that are covering up his shame.

[00:30:18] It’s not going to fly. He actually probably enters into the fantasy that his anger, his rage is caused by Tamar. So he rejects her. He banishes her. But now the woman won’t go. She points out instead another wrong he’s committed, a greater wrong. This is not landing well. Scripture says, “He would not listen to her. He called the young man who served him and said, ‘Send this creature away from me and bolt the door behind her.'” Right. The Hebrew here is zot, which doesn’t really mean woman. That’s how it’s translated in a lot of dynamic, equivalent translations. “Send this woman away from me.” It really would translate better as this one. That’s the most literal translation. Robert Alter translates it as send this creature away, because he really grips on to how dehumanizing Amnon’s being here towards Tamar. Right? That’s how dehumanized she was in his eyes. She’s a problem. She’s got to go. She’s got to go now. He would not engage with her. He would not see her even as a person. He was too busy trying to protect himself from the horrible implications of the shame generated by his act. He calls the servant to put her out. This is symbolic. This is banishment. This is rejection. The servant bodily throws her out and bolts the door. Talk about rejection. Talk about shaming. Shaming as a verb, right? The servant throws her out like trash into the street.

[00:32:23] There’s an irony here, right? Bolting the door behind her makes it seem like Tamar had made some kind of shameful proposal to Amnon. Like she’s the one that’s being treated like she’s some kind of prostitute. Again, I can’t help but think that the exercise of power is also something that Amnon is trying to use to protect himself. I am beyond the rules. The rules and the laws don’t apply to me. I am the favored crown prince. I am in command of this situation. It’s a futile attempt to try to reestablish some kind of homeostasis within his own system. How are you doing with this? What kind of emotions are going on inside you? What are you noticing? What’s tough to take? What’s surprising? What’s coming up that’s surprising you in you as you listen to this, at whatever level you can listen? Okay, so she’s now out in the street wearing her long robe with sleeves for thus were the virgin daughters of the king clad of old. The servant put her out, bolted the door after her. “And Tamar put ashes on her head and rent the long robe which she wore. And she laid her hand on her head and went away crying aloud as she went.” She is not going quietly into the night. Oh, no. She is grieving multiple losses. She’s going to let the world know what just happened. She’s not hiding.

[00:34:06] She is not going to make this easy for Amnon. She stays with the vulnerability. I will make you see me. I will not be invisible. So much respect for this woman. I have so much respect for this woman. I mean, what’s coming up in me right now is just, I’m actually, like, hoping I can continue to speak. I have so much respect for what she just went through and how she’s coping with this situation that must just seem impossible. She’s got ashes on her head. She’s got tears on her robe, her ketoneth. And probably, in a cruel twist of irony, there’s probably blood on this robe, blood from the violation of her virginity. That’s also a public indicator of her shame, how she has been abused and exploited, how she has been shamed. She laid her hand on her head. That’s symbolic, right, symbolic of God’s heavy hand on her, how she experiences the heavy hand of God. Imagine what her God images are like in this moment. How could this have happened? And she cries, she cries aloud. I mean, I’m actually hearing this as I’m listening as inarticulate screaming. I mean, not even words at this point. Not even words at this point. Because what I think is happening now is that she has exited her zone of tolerance to the top side, and she is in full fight or flight, and she is no longer functioning very well.

[00:36:00] I mean, it’s amazing she to me that she’s held out this long, so much respect for her. Maybe she hoped that her public protest and her grief would force Amnon to marry her in observation of how she understood the law of Deuteronomy. Maybe she hoped that her public mourning would force her father’s hand, would force King David’s hand, to take up her claim against Amnon, and that Amnon would get just punishment. It’s hard to know. Well, who comes along next but Absalom. This just keeps getting tougher and tougher. So pay attention to where you’re at. Pay attention to where you’re at. Check in, look inside. This is all part of the listening and practicing it here. “And her brother Absalom said to her, ‘Has Amnon, your brother, been with you? Now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother. Do not take this to heart.'” Okay. I am about to lose my gourd here with this kind of like, total lack of empathy, right? So this is where, like, if I had seen this, if I was right there, in fact, I can feel it right now, I would not be able to enter into Absalom’s world. I like it’s so hard to register what could be going on. This is so unattuned. This is so unempathetic. It is so dismissive. It is so frustrating that I want to swear.

[00:37:54] “Do not take this to heart. He is your brother.” That’s what makes this so terrible. It’s part of what makes this so terrible. And he’s using it as a way to get her to try to shut up because she’s being inconveniently noisy. Now, I don’t know, maybe he’s doing it because he’s about to get overwhelmed and he can’t take her intensity. You know, maybe he’s just trying to keep his gourd together in this moment. And the best way he knows how to do that is to shut her up. That’s a possibility. I mean, that just kind of occurred to me. I’m making this up now as we go along. Kind of little off my script. I don’t know. I mean, maybe his intentions were good. I assume that, you know, maybe his intentions were good. I’m not seeing it. It’s not resonating much with me right now. So what happens next? “So Tamar dwelt a desolate woman in her brother Absalom’s house. And when David heard of all these things, he was very angry.” Well, now, isn’t that special? David’s very angry. “But Absalom spoke to Amnon neither good nor bad, for Absalom hated Amnon because he had forced his sister Tamar.” Okay, let’s break this down. Absalom, he says, “Has Amnon your brother been with you?” Not our brother, your brother. My take is Absalom knew exactly what had happened. He had sensed it. Maybe he saw the blood, the torn robe.

[00:39:38] You know, the emphasis on “your brother,” that emphasizes the incestuous nature of the rape. I wonder if Absalom didn’t know that this was in the offing. I wonder if he didn’t know that this would have been possible. He’s certainly not struggling to figure it out. He’s right on top of it. She doesn’t even have to utter a word. He takes one look at her. He knows exactly what happened. Why? I want to know, right? There’s part of me that wonders if he didn’t know this was coming and was unable or unwilling to stop it. That’s what’s resonating with me right now. “Now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother. Do not take this to heart.” I cannot think of a less attuned statement in all of Scripture right now. Again, I think he must have just been trying to get her to be quiet so that he could wrap his mind around, like, his own self, like he could try to somehow take care of himself. He certainly wasn’t attuned to her. I don’t know. He’s the crown prince, right? We’re going to keep it in the family. We’re going to do the hush hush thing. Right. Well, that secret family culture thing sure didn’t work out. What happened is the whole sordid story eventually got written down in the Bible, the most read book in all of human history. Now I got some suspicious parts that really think that Absalom here sees an opening to take Amnon out.

[00:41:37] I think he did care for his sister. I really do believe that Absalom did have some feelings and cared for his sister, but I don’t think that was the whole story at all. Remember, who’s second in line? Who’s second in line to take over the kingship, if somehow Amnon was out of the way? Why, Absalom. Absalom is next in line for the crown after Amnon, and I can’t help but wonder if there aren’t some wheels turning in his head. “Absalom hated Amnon because he had forced his sister Tamar. He spoke neither good nor bad.” He didn’t confront him then, when it would have been helpful to Tamar, when it would have been a show of support. And we’re not talking about like a huge power differential here in terms of age. We are in terms of power, right? We got the crown prince versus the second-in-command prince, 18 versus 20. Right. All right. So he’s a younger brother. They’re both adults. No. I’m wondering about Absalom playing the long game for power and dominance with cold vengeance and murder in his heart from that moment. Right. He’s got a justification now. He’s got a very objective reason for eventually murdering his brother. He can carry out the sentence required by Leviticus, but more out of revenge than justice, and more out of opportunistic overreach than anything having to do with fairness or equity.

[00:43:20] I don’t know, that’s what I heard. That’s what I heard in my system. Now I’ve got some pretty strong skeptical parts. I got some parts that could be pretty jaded, really. But I’ll tell you, they’ve got their experiences. All right. How’s it landing with you? Can we really want to be staying in touch? This is a real learning exercise. How are you doing with all of this? “When King David heard of all these things, he was very angry.” Well, you know he was going to hear about it. This kind of stuff can’t stay under wraps, especially when you’ve got, you know, Princess Tamar, like creating a ruckus in the street. Here’s what I want to know. What were you angry about, David? This is what the inquiring mind want to know in me, right? Because I got parts that are really angry, too. What were you angry about? It never says. I can think of a lot of reasons why he would be angry. I don’t know. I don’t know. But what we do know was that there was no visible consequences for Amnon. He just skates on as usual. He’s just moving on as usual. David protects his crown prince son, his first son. David protects his son, protects the crown prince. He protects the abuser. He protects the rapist. Who he doesn’t protect? His daughter, the victim. Such indulgence.

[00:45:17] Either he can’t or he won’t stand up to Amnon. Now, maybe it would have been heroic for David to start now, to put the hammer down, to really stand up now, after two decades of indulgence, of permissive parenting, letting them kind of grow wild. You know, was he going to step into that role of father now? I don’t know. Parts of Amnon know how hard it would be for David to now pick up the mantle of responsible parent, of responsible father, especially with all the baggage he’s got with Bathsheba that Amnon could throw up in his face. This is a consequence of his pattern of failing to discipline his sons. This isn’t new. It’s how I’m reading it. And maybe in the intensity of my own emotion. I’m not being fair. I’m open to that possibility. I could be wrong about this. I wasn’t there. I don’t know their souls. This is how it’s landing with me. A lot of prominent anger in my system right now as I go through this again. And it’s not like I haven’t gone through this a number of times and putting this whole thing together. Still there. “So Tamar dwelt a desolate woman in her brother Absalom’s house.” Dude, that’s the end of the story. At least that episode in the Scripture. It’s the last we hear of Tamar. She’s no longer able to dwell with the virgin princesses because she’s not one anymore.

[00:47:04] She’s been defiled. She’s a desolate woman. Emptiness, the sense of being destroyed, the sense of being damaged goods, the anguish, the misery, the numbness, the deadness, devastation, ruin. We’re into hypo-arousal. She’s now really down-regulated. She’s shutting down, going into that numb place. She’s had three major, heartbreaking, colossal, colossal failures by three of the men that should protect and care for her. Her brother Amnon, the crown prince, raped her and abandoned her. Absalom, her brother, shushed her and minimized everything. And David, her father and her king, was passive and did nothing. It’s not just a question of David failing as her father. He also failed as her king to bring justice to one of his guilty subjects. That’s what I’m hearing. Can you imagine having these things all hammer at once? All these things fall at once. I mean, talk about a mind-blowing, heartbreaking, body-wrenching, soul-crushing experience all wrapped up in one, all happening within the space of just a few moments. It’s not surprising to me that Tamar may lose the will to live. Her losses are immense. What happens when her adrenaline wears off? No one heard her. Her safe place is no longer safe. Her voice was silenced. I mean, this is David, the killer of Goliath, right? The victorious in battle. A man loved by God. What? The shame and humiliation. Now she can never marry. She can never have children. She’s going to carry the effects of the rape for the rest of her life.

[00:49:32] She’s an outcast. And here’s the thing. This is what just gets my goat. David’s silence means that anybody else that wants to help her have justice, their hands are tied. The king has spoken loudly through his silence. So the king perpetuates the wrong. I’m only at the beginning of the losses for Tamar, right? Can she sing Psalm 23? She would have heard it, right? “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” Yeah, but who wrote that? Who’s sang that? That’s right, David. King David. Daddy David. Yeah, he wrote it. Now, some people, you know, they say that Psalm 23 was written in a late version of Hebrew. It probably dated to the Second Temple period, which is basically the fifth century before Christ, 500 years after all the events we’re talking about. Okay. All right. You know. That final version, yeah, maybe that’s how it came out. But I believe he wrote it and I believe he sang it and I believe she heard it. And I think she sang it up till this point. That’s what I’m hearing when I listen. All those psalms, were they real? What’s real? That’s the thing about trauma, is that you start to lose track of what’s real. Did he love me, my dad? Did he even know me? Does God love him? Does God love me? What is going on?

[00:51:52] And then you get into what did I do wrong? Did I cause this? How come no one protected me? How come no one listened to me? Where is God? And this is what kept me up on that Thursday night when I first started to dive into this passage in this way. This is why I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about Tamar in this struggle, in these moments. And I was angry at God. How could you have let this happen? Now I understand, “His ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. As high as the heaven is above the earth are his thoughts above my thoughts.” I get that, trying to be humble. But he did answer me. And I did find comfort in this. He answered me and he said, “I lavished graces upon her.” This is what I heard in my story. I lavished graces upon her. What God was telling me is that he didn’t abandon her. What he was telling me is you don’t know the rest of her story. It wasn’t written in Scripture. I can easily go into a worst case scenario. He still loved her in ways that I don’t understand it. Right. I can’t claim to make sense of it. I’ve got tears running down my eyes. You know, we can say things about the mystery of suffering and blah, blah, blah, and some of that just makes me want to swear again. I don’t get it, but I believe him.

[00:54:13] I believe that he did lavish graces upon her. I’ve seen that in the clients that I have had that have suffered terrible traumas, those that were open to those graces, there were tremendous graces that came to them. I can’t explain it. Okay. So let’s check in. Where are you at? Right. This stuff could be really heavy, right. Share it with somebody. It’s hopefully somebody that’s listened to the episode. You know, you can invite somebody that you trust to listen with you. You can write things down, put them into words, really helps to be able to put your experience into words, because you can think about it, right, engage the intellect and the will. Right. And really notice what points in the struggle were hardest for you. Might not be the ones you expected. Parts of the story that really got to you, tells you something about yourself, tells you something about your history, tells you something about your parts. All right. I want to thank you for being on this whole journey with me. I know many of you pray for me. I really appreciate that. I pray for you as well. It’s great to be together. You can reach out to me if you feel that’s on your heart, if that comes to you in your discernment, crisis@soulsandhearts.com, (317) 567-9594. That’s my cell. Okay, let’s pray to our patroness and our patron. Let’s mean it. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.