Introduction
We continue our series looking at some of Madonna’s songs with today’s offering Oh Father. It is both very disturbing yet full of hope too. Madonna has tried in various songs to exorcise the demons of her childhood. This song is a testimony to how she overcame the pain she endured at her father’s hands. Now she has children of her own she has started to re-examine and ponder the deep, and sometimes dangerous, dynamics of family life. She has found deep and wonderful love with Guy Ritchie and her songs have acquired a new joy since they got together in 1998.
However, she makes no secret of how her mother’s death, when
she was just five years old, hit her very hard. Her relationship with her
father was far from ideal – just listening to the lyrics – and seeing the video
- of today’s song shows that: Seems like yesterday/I lay down next to your boots
and I prayed/ For your anger to end /Oh father I have sinned.
We don’t know what type of abuse Madonna suffered from her
father; the video implies violence, alcohol and maybe sexual abuse. It
also implies that the Church, in the person of the family priest, didn’t do
anything to help; yet we see glimpses of the confessional and of the priest
leaving at the end when there seems to be a fight going on.
In the Mind of a Victim
The song is very disturbing as so much of it is written from
the point of view of a victim. The singer believes she has sinned – maybe
her father, like so many abusers, blamed the victim for the abuse. We see
that she is glad she managed to get away but for a long time she didn’t think
this would be possible. The song is also good in that it shows signs of
hope, Madonna has moved on from un-channelled anger and the feelings of being a
victim to wonder why her father acted like he did “Maybe someday / When I look
back Ill be able to say/ You didn’t mean to be cruel/ Somebody hurt you
too.” She also recognises that her father didn’t want to live in that
way. It maybe that she is trying to rationalise his behaviour and not
recognise that as the adult he was capable of making different choices, it maybe
that she has come to understand some of what was going on for him.
These are all very typical thoughts and feelings for people
who have undergone any type of profound hurt or abuse. We go through
stages of blaming ourselves, dealing with rage and anger, even hatred, but often
can get to a place where we want to try and understand what was going on.
Sometimes people can get stuck at one of these stages and find it impossible to
move beyond a certain emotional response.
Of course for Madonna, and for many Christians, there are
additional factors introduced by Christianity into the process. As
Christians we are told to forgive, as Christians many of us have been brought up
to see God as the Father – and if our own father has treated us badly it can be
difficult to see God as the idealised father. Forgiveness for those who
have been so badly wounded can be both a curse and a blessing.
Forgiveness: A Curse and a Blessing
As Christians we know that forgiveness is a large part of our
faith. We have been forgiven and we know that Jesus commands us to forgive
those who have hurt us. Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to
forgive us as we have forgiven others. The mother of Lesley Ann Down – one
of the victims of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady – was a devout Catholic who
attended daily mass and prayed her rosary regularly. However, she had real
problems praying the Lord’s prayer – central to both the Mass and the Rosary -
as she could not say the words “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those
who trespass against us” and who can blame her?
Yet at the same time we know that forgiveness is necessary for
our own souls, our own ability to move on and grow. Yet it is difficult to
forgive when such pain has been inflicted – and when a perpetrator doesn’t
repent.
One of the things that confuses and troubles people is that
they are often asked to forgive before they are ready to. In MCC East London I
remember a parishioner who had suffered horrific sexual abuse when she was a
child and had been told by an evangelical church that the reason why now, as an
adult, she was mixed up was that she had not found the grace to forgive her
father. It was a shameful thing to say.
Janet needed to be told that forgiveness can mean different
things in different contexts. To forgive does not mean to forget. It
does not mean to abandon any desire for justice. It does not mean acting
as if nothing had happened. To do any of these things will harm us further
and stop us healing, as these actions try to hold the poison within us and
still get better; it just can’t happen.
However, forgiveness can mean that we no longer let the person
who abused us have power over us any more. It can mean we don’t live our
lives in reference to what happened before. It can mean we find wholeness
and peace. It can mean we let go of the anger that eats us up. All
that is part of what it means to forgive; especially if the person has not asked
us for forgiveness. All these things must happen if we are to find peace
and healing.
There are profound consequences for our mental health if we
carry on carrying around profound anger within us. It maybe that when
dreadful things were happening to us we found various ways to cope with what was
happening; one of the difficult things for survivors of abuse to do is to learn
new coping strategies and not rely on the emergency ones that saw them through
the hard times.
When we burn with anger with someone who has profoundly hurt
us we carry on living our lives and acting with reference to the one who caused
us the pain in the first place. We are still letting that person have
power over us. It’s a way of extending the abuse already
perpetrated. However, if we understand forgiveness as a way of letting go
of the anger we find that it means we stop the abuser having power over
us. We find ways of moving on – not denying that anything happened,
certainly not forgetting or letting go of any desire for justice, but we find we
start to live our own lives again without reference to the one who hurt
us. The freedom of forgiveness is that it moves us on, not wipes out what
has gone before.
Conclusion
Forgiveness can be the hardest thing we are
ever asked to do; it can be made harder by not fully understanding what is
asked. We are not supposed to forget what has gone before, to give up any
hope of justice, or act as if nothing has happened. Forgiveness is about
moving on, letting go of the anger and pain, stopping the person who has hurt us
have power over us anymore and not living our lives with reference to them
anymore. It maybe that this process of healing allows us, as it
seems to have allowed Madonna, to look on the painful events and seem them in a
slightly different light. We are called to forgive – not to extend or
deepen our pain but to set us free from it. Amen.
(Rev Andy Braunston)