Episcopal Church Women

One Silent Witness: Following a brief but troubled relationship, Deitra asked her boyfriend to move out of their apartment. He refused. On the day of her murder - June 3, 2000 - neighbors reported hearing glass breaking and they tried unsuccessfully to intervene. She was shot to death by her boyfriend who then killed himself. Deitra was the mother of four children and only 36-years old. The Deitras of the world are legion. They are everywhere, including next to you and me in the pew on Sunday morning.

The ECW's National Board has selected Live in the Light as the theme for the new triennium. Living in the light means, among other things, taking every opportunity to bear profound witness of the good news in Jesus Christ.

Further, we who live in the Diocese of North Carolina are also keenly aware of the continuing call of our bishop, Michael B. Curry, to "make disciples and make a difference" and to "live each day in light of the Gospel."

One way the ECW in central North Carolina of reaching these ends is through the Harris-Evans Conference. Hosted every three years by Episcopal women, the conference brings people of faith together around a social justice topic. In 2005, the theme of Harris-Evans was You Don't Know Me: Domestic Violence and the Church's Response.

With the help of social workers, family service professionals and clergy versed in the topic, and mindful of the progressive model set by St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem, those gathered for two days in mid-October at The Summit at Haw River State Park were told the uncomfortable truth: Domestic violence, which crosses all racial, socioeconomic and professional lines, doesn't just happen to the unchurched. Too often though the faith community is ill-equipped to deal with it. Indeed, in various instances the response to such violence has been silence, disbelief or even advice to turn the other cheek.

Recent actions taken by the state legislature and courts to counter violence against children, the elderly and intimate domestic partners past or present were reviewed at the conference. So were local and national resources, so were myriad facts. Among them:

• Domestic violence is the No. 1 cause of homicide among pregnant women
• Domestic violence is the No. 1 cause of injuries among people aged 1-44
• In the U.S. there are more shelters for abused animals than for abused women and children.

Finally, Harris-Evans attendees - women all - accepted the challenge to think of ways to raise awareness in their parishes about this problem which has reached epidemic proportions. Many mirrored St. Anne's strategies for education, protection and prevention, which have included everything from having a Domestic Violence Awareness Sunday in October (Domestic Violence Awareness Month), to talking to the congregation's adolescents about healthy and unhealthy relationships, to designating Angel Tree gifts for the local women's shelter, to making a parish pledge of non-violence.

[The Winston-Salem Convocation's Prayer Shawl Ministry for battered women was a direct outgrowth of the You Don't Know Me conference.]

Demanding and difficult as it is, domestic violence, like other topics addressed in the forum of the Harris-Evans Conference, gives the people of the Diocese of NC the opportunity to walk in the Spirit of Jesus and make a difference. The Very Rev. Marilyn Engstrom, Dean of St. Matthew's Cathedral in the Diocese of Wyoming and Chaplain for the ECW's 2006 Triennial Meeting, has asked, "If we light a candle at the Great Vigil, but don't carry light into a dark, scary world, then why bother?"

Her answer is straightforward: We bother so the light can shine through us.

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