Seeking the Scapegoat

Her head bowed low enough that her pretty chestnut hair covered my view of her equally pretty face.  Her hands balled up in her lap, she rubbed the back of one with a tense thumb.  I could tell she wanted to shake her legs in that fast jerking, looking for relief from the pain in her mind, way.  She controlled her legs but not her voice.

“I swear to you it was all lies.  I did not do what they said.  I swear I didn’t.”  The words came as if squeezed out of a balloon held by a clown.  The sound grated on her own ears, so she bit her lip.  I could see the tears falling on the backs of her hands. 

I understood completely. I said nothing.  Rather, I got up and entered her pain.

Scapegoating is purposeful isolation in a brutal attempt to dissuade truth by blaming, lying and gathering others who join in the hatred.  It is a powerful tool used to manipulate not only the scapegoat but everyone who believes the accusations and lies and subsequently join in the destruction and rejection of a life they once claimed to love.  The scapegoat is unforgiven, unwanted and unable to change the situation.  It’s a brutal form of community abuse from which many never fully recover.  The isolation and losses are astronomical, but the inability to combat the lies that excuse scapegoating is where destruction is most powerful.

She needed to know she was not now, nor would she be, alone. I knelt in front of her and reached through her locks to put my hands over hers.  I waited for some time, saying nothing but being with her broken heart.  Then, in the gentlest voice I could muster, I whispered, “I believe you.”

It was enough.

The bottled-up sobs fear had hidden in the back of her heart opened like uncorked champaign.  She wept and wept as the pain of it convulsed her lungs and rattled her frame.  No one had believed her.  Not one person, not even family or friends.  The smear campaign had been executed with precision, and those who knew her weaknesses, or worse, her failures, were happy to apply them to the lies and judge her unworthy. 

With the skill afforded to those who are more determined to keep control of the narrative (and the people involved in it) than they are to embrace morals and ethics, the one who began the barrage of lies, half truths and manipulation until every single person was maneuvered into buying the deceptive paradigm, was successful.  Thus, this stunningly beautiful, tenderhearted, deeply intelligent woman in front of me had been branded mentally ill and herself a narcissist.  She tried to tell the truth, but the problem with that branding is that it includes a command to never believe anything the person branded says.  Thus, the truth is securely hidden under the insidious label.

I knew none of what was said was true.  If it had been, she would not have come to me.  Rather she would have begun planning the revenge that narcissistic people thrive upon.  No, she did not want revenge.  She wanted truth to come out.

See, that is why scapegoats are hated. 

Truth.

Truth that the one who starts the smear campaign does not want known.  Truth that those who buy the lies do not want to face.  Truth of ethics and morals being denied, truth of hurtful ways and words.  Scapegoats cling to truth like my German Shepherds cling to fetch balls.  Getting them to let go is a nearly impossible task.  Truth is life to the scapegoat. They— well, we—refuse to let it go.  The whole world can throw us out, and we will still stand upon truth.

I have long lived the life of truth and have also been scapegoated—more often than I care to remember. 

The price of living in truth is high.  She had not surrendered to the command that she admit how she was wrong and apologize.  She was not only not wrong, but she was also non participatory.  She had not done anything she had been accused of doing.  However, all the circumstances were rewritten and reframed until her rational reactions became irrational attacks in the eyes of those manipulated.

The price for truth is astronomical for a scapegoat.

This practice is not new.  It has been so for millennia.  The ritual is most well known as it is recorded the in Hebrew Scripture.  Take a goat, once a year, and symbolically lay the sins of the whole nation on its back.  Blame the innocent goat for that sin and then, send it away to die a lonely death in the wilderness.

The church has been using this cruel practice on humans for millennia.  So have families, clans and communities.  Set blame on the one who is telling the truth…focus everyone on the very human and normal failures by exaggerating them into irredeemable actions and insist that unforgiveness is the only answer.  Torture the one who is blamed, until they, out of need to survive, leave.  In some cases, I have seen scapegoats tossed away like garbage as they are left without another thought.  The art of scapegoating is precipitated on forgetting good and determining a human being is without value—which breeds loathing.  It’s easy to drive away someone who is thought to be so worthless they incite hatred.

There is no way to heal scapegoated relationships unless the scapegoater changes from hateful lie holder to a truth seeker.  I have seen that happen only once.  Mostly, the scapegoater moves on to another target, leaving the broken person weeping in my arms.

Recovery begins with letting go of the desire for truth to come out.  Telling people that they must let go is hard.  All who have been scapegoated want vindication.  Truth is center in their lives, and they are desperate for it to be honored.  It is usually not.  Helping people accept and release, so that healing and newness begin to flow, can take months.  The pain is utterly devastating.  This is especially true of church situations where Truth is supposed to be not only normal but absolutely demanded.   Healing requires repeated assurances that truth is center with you and will be respected, while allowing all the scapegoat’s emotions and disappointments to surface and run their course. She had a road ahead full of tears and accepting loss. 

When she finally stopped sobbing, I sat quietly until she gathered herself and then I showed her a safe room and gave her a promise to believe her always.  She settled in and then she slept—for three days.  I let her.  Aloneness brought on by inappropriate rejection is the most stressful and taxing punishment one can endure.

When she wakes up, I will help her begin her story, teach her how to be brave enough to tell it even when the lies come at her again, and help her find safe people who love as Jesus loves. 

For now, while she sleeps, I am working on a painting for her.  It has one word at the center. 

Truth.