by Gwendolyn Plano
For most of my professional life, I worked with college students helping them with one difficulty or another. Sometimes the problem was easily resolved (i.e., moving the student from one residence hall to another or finding the needed resources). But, more often than I wish to recall, the presenting problem required much more than common ingenuity; it required wisdom, compassion--and justice.
Residential colleges are microcosms of the whole, and as such, they experience the joys and the sorrows of larger communities.
No one knew that while I worked with students who were victims of date rape or battery, that I knew first hand their fear. I kept my life hidden behind closed doors. What was my shame, though, is our collective indignity.
The statistics are staggering--every 9 seconds in the United States, a woman is assaulted or beaten. We collectively ignore the facts and listen as commentators argue about whether or not a NFL player should be suspended for hitting his lover so hard that she lay unconscious. How will a suspension impact the team? they ask.
A few months ago, former President Jimmy Carter issued a call to action to end the abuse and subjugation of women, and he referred to it as the “worst and most pervasive and unaddressed human rights violation on Earth.” In his new book, he relates subservience to violence, and asks all of us to look afresh at our organizations and systems.
Of recent, I've been asked to explain Perfect Love. It is easy to say what it is not: it does not have a hierarchy of value, it does not hurt or diminish, it is not male or female.
The Perfect Love of which I write, is a love that is without human limitations or conditions. It is a love that holds us, permeates our being, cherishes our very existence.
Through hurdles great and small, I've come to know this love.......and that is why I write, for through this love I now know joy.
Residential colleges are microcosms of the whole, and as such, they experience the joys and the sorrows of larger communities.
No one knew that while I worked with students who were victims of date rape or battery, that I knew first hand their fear. I kept my life hidden behind closed doors. What was my shame, though, is our collective indignity.
The statistics are staggering--every 9 seconds in the United States, a woman is assaulted or beaten. We collectively ignore the facts and listen as commentators argue about whether or not a NFL player should be suspended for hitting his lover so hard that she lay unconscious. How will a suspension impact the team? they ask.
A few months ago, former President Jimmy Carter issued a call to action to end the abuse and subjugation of women, and he referred to it as the “worst and most pervasive and unaddressed human rights violation on Earth.” In his new book, he relates subservience to violence, and asks all of us to look afresh at our organizations and systems.
Of recent, I've been asked to explain Perfect Love. It is easy to say what it is not: it does not have a hierarchy of value, it does not hurt or diminish, it is not male or female.
The Perfect Love of which I write, is a love that is without human limitations or conditions. It is a love that holds us, permeates our being, cherishes our very existence.
Through hurdles great and small, I've come to know this love.......and that is why I write, for through this love I now know joy.
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