Date: January 23, 2021
From: Joanna Rudenborg
To: Stewart Ruch
Cc: Cherin Marie, Eve Ahrens, [redacted advocate], William Beasley, Keith Hartsell, Eirik Olsen

Stewart,

Thank you so much for this gracious and encouraging reply. I know my email was incredibly long and contained a good number of difficult challenges, any of which could have sparked defensiveness or shutdown. It’s lovely to find that instead it both made sense to you and moved you. It means so much to everyone involved, that your heart was open to receiving our stories and questions and suggestions, and that you have already assembled a team to work on the next steps.

We also appreciate the clear communication and timeline about details and action items to come. We would be glad to make time to get together with you via Zoom. We’ll figure out days and times everyone’s available, and get that information to you, soon.

Thank Katherine for her recent email, too; I hope to reply before too long.

It seems to me that usually the best case scenario for an assault or abuse survivor is to receive validation, loving support, and a safe place to begin to heal, and I am so thankful that I have all those things. But there’s something uniquely healing in the further opportunity to bring a dark story, full of shame and regret, to a place where people not only respect and validate it, but choose to sit with it, and to gaze into it with a brave curiosity—and then decide to use it for something life-giving, going forward. That’s how I feel, and how I know others feel, about the prospect of our stories catalyzing changes that protect other people or help them find healing. From where I sit at this moment, I can’t think of anything more honoring or hopeful than seeing my experience of harm transformed, like that, into something redemptive. So thank you.

Joanna (with [Eve] Annemarie, [redacted advocate], and Cherin)