How the BLEEP did that happen?! - Episode 24
[I recommend going in numerical order with the Episodes. They build on each other.]
Episode 30 contains the full resource list.
Following up on the idea of 'anchoring' a student/followers most TRANSCENDENT experiences and beliefs to a FIGUREHEAD, I want to mention an important film. "SPOTLIGHT" won the Academy Award for Best Picture along with Best Original Screenplay in 2015. This film is absolutely brilliant and was a dark revelation for me.
It tells the story of editor Marty Baron of The Boston Globe who assigns a team of journalists to investigate allegations against John Geoghan, an unfrocked priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys. Led by editor Walter "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton), reporters Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Matt Carroll (Brian d'Arcy James) and Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) interview victims and try to unseal sensitive documents. The reporters make it their mission to provide proof of a cover-up of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church.
The Church and many other people who were heavily invested in the cover-up kept saying things like - "Yes but look at all the good the church does!" They wanted so badly to not look at the dark truths and instead solely promote the positive aspects. There’s a devastating thing that happens when journalist Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), who was a Catholic, realizes what this has done to him.
The excerpt below comes shortly after they review documents which prove the conspiracy.
MIKE
Really pisses me off. You know, I actually liked going to mass when I was a kid.
SACHA
Why’d you stop?
MIKE
Typical shit. But the weird thing is, I think there was a part of me that figured one day, maybe I’d go back. I was holding on to that.
Sacha watches him, not expecting this.
MIKE (CONT’D)
And when I read those letters, something just cracked.
Mike, played by Mark Ruffalo is devastated. For Mike, the LIES have made him doubt goodness itself. His faith has been broken. Everything he believed was good, has been poisoned.
When I watched this scene again recently... I felt that brokenness afresh. This is how I and many others feel.
So what are the possible consequences of anchoring our own transcendent goodnesss to a person or organization? In the event of an abuse, it's devastating. Our goodness is injured. Our own personal morality is deeply affected. The resulting schism, calls into question ALL GOODNESS and creates a crisis in the psyche. The very best of you is tarnished. It is in fact, Spiritual Rape. The deepest of Moral Injuries.
To be continued....
Mark Vicente ©2017