Let me offer an image here, that of a sculptor, of an artist whose hands shape and mold a humane culture. Let us turn to an image: of hands that craft with precision and artistry. Creating beauty instead of destruction, the hands mold along two lines.

One tradition of these sculptors is rational in origin. As they take as their job the creation of a non-paternalistic culture, they employ logic. Because they have studied child abuse in a sensitive and informed fashion, we already have such artists sculpting a model of care. Leaders in the field of child sexual abuse have all proposed non-paternalistic prevention programs. Nigel Parton (1985), David Finkelhor (1986a), Diane H. Schetky (1988b), and David Hechler (1988) have offered plans that have in common these features: a new form of democratic relationship between the state and family which aims toward collectivism and away from individualism (Parton 1985, 185-186); an expansion of audiences for programs that include children, patients, and professionals (Finkelhor, 1986a, 224-254); and criticism of exploitative media attention (Schetky 1988b, 213-214).

The most comprehensive set of recommendations for prevention is provided by Hechler (1988): panels of expert validators should be chosen by courts to interview children alleged to have been sexually abused; panels of doctors should be designated by courts to conduct expert medical examination of children who have been allegedly abused, and all doctors should have the legal option of referring cases of suspected abuse to such panels rather than reporting them to their states' central registries; standardized protocols should be created for child sexual abuse investigations, whether conducted by social workers, police, or prosecutors; charges of sexual abuse should be reassessed when the allegation is related to a divorce or custody proceeding; offender treatment programs should be established by those committed to objective research; polygraph examinations should be disallowed as a source of evidence in sexual abuse cases; education and training for professionals working in the child abuse field should be expanded, and licensing procedures should be implemented; multidisciplinary teams should be formed to facilitate the handling of child sexual abuse cases; and there should be public funding for therapy for child victims, whether or not a court finds that the child has been abused, and, when successful prosecution occurs, sentences should include restitution to the family in an amount that will at least cover the cost of therapy for the entire family (241-260).

It is restitution that is an important underlying principle in the concept of restorative justice, an idea that is helpful in the way we frame the question of child sexual abuse. As John Braithwaite (1996) defines it, "Restorative justice means restoring victims, a more victim-centered criminal justice system" (15). Pioneered in Ontario, Canada, in the 1970s by the Mennonites, victim-offender mediation has come to national prominence, including endorsement by the American Bar Association (Evers, 1998). Proponents such as Braithwaite believe that victims suffer "a loss of dignity" when crime occurs (15). Restorative justice seeks to mitigate the sense of victim shame and disempowerment that result from criminal action.

How would a restorative justice framework inform our understanding of child sexual abuse? First, we would see that abuse is a crime committed against an individual—not solely against the state. It would follow, then, that the first response would not be solely a call for legislation, the kind of response that Governor Whitman proposed in 1994. There would be, instead, calls for greater education regarding the long-term effects of child abuse. Second, restorative justice would allow non-traditional methods of dealing with the aftermath of abuse—methods such as family group counseling and reparation boards—and pose strategies for dealing with the restoration of a sense of community harmony.

I am aware that restorative justice, and the republican values it represents, may be subject to criticism (see, for example, Scheingold, Pershing, and Olson, 1994). Yet, it must also, I think, be granted that community awareness of the extent of damage caused by child sexual abuse—and the sense of shame that should fall on the perpetrator—would be enhanced greatly by victim advocacy. Perhaps if we were more willing to look at the problem more comprehensively, the parents of fifteen-year-old Sam Manzie would not have failed to persuade authorities that their son posed a danger to others. Had the New Jersey Ocean County Superior Court Judge James Citta had the benefit of a more informed view of the causes and effects of child sexual abuse—a view that could have been promoted had the state given attention to education—perhaps eleven-year-old Edward P. Werner would be alive, playing with the walkie-talkie he hoped to earn with his school fund-raiser. When Eddie came to Manzie’s house to sell candy, Manzie raped and murdered him on September 27, 1997. In pursuing a uniquely legal solution, perhaps we have spent five years foolishly.

Restorative justice is part of the tradition that moves the rational hand of the sculptor. The other hand follows a non-rational tradition. Just as the rational tradition stresses the formation of concepts that can be grasped by the intellect and analyzed through systems, the non-rational tradition emphasizes love and mercy and pity and comfort. This concept of non-rational understanding is delineated by Rudolf Otto in his 1923 classic, The Idea of the Holy. Merging the Latin word numen (literally, a nodding of the head in an expression of consent) with the word omen (not only a sign but also a good wish), Otto defined a category of a priori thought to offset the bias we find in our Western culture toward the rational. He termed the non-rational element the numinous, a state of mind that can be discussed although it eludes definition. It can, thus, "be evoked, awakened in the mind" (7). Because it allows a sense of community consciousness (8-11), of awe before that which is a mystery to us (13-19), and of fascination (31-40), the numinous is that element of consciousness from we derive the essence of our being.

The presence of the numinous is complementary to feminist theory, especially regarding the epistemology of women as presented by Carol Gilligan (1982). An acknowledgement of the presence of the numinous in human consciousness implicitly acknowledges the presence of narrative in the complex relationships Gilligan characterizes in her image of the web (62-63). As Otto recognizes, a means of direct expression of the numinous--itself a complex web of nonhiearchical visions of human connection--rests in reading. Otto himself refers to the sixth chapter of Isaiah, as well as passages from William Wordsworth and John Ruskin, as texts that are numinous in character. These passages, Otto believes, afford a heightened sense of consciousness, a sense of awe, and a sense of fascination.

These passages achieve this effect, I believe, because they are narrative in character. Stories, as Leslie Marmon Silko reminds us in the opening pages of her novel Ceremony, (1977) "aren't just entertainment. / Don't be fooled. They are all we have, you see, / all we have to fight off / illness and death./ You don't have anything / if you don't have the stories" (2). In accepting the non-rational, along with the rational, as an image of protection and sustenance, we allow for the power of narrative, for the magic of stories. In the case of victims of child abuse, narratives are especially crucial because they embody five important aspects of consciousness.

First, narratives--descriptions the ways that things flow into other things--are an aspect of all of our lives. Presupposed by experience, narratives are part of the fundamental essence of the human condition. Second, as Hayden White (1978) proposes, narratives are essentially true in the sense that they express the consciousness of particular social groups and individuals living in specific contexts. Third, narratives yield a sense of legitimation (Robbins 1992). In telling a narrative, the individual puts into context the details of experience and, thus, constructs meaning. Fourth, narratives afford a sense of voice to the writer. They break silence and secrecy and solitude. Fifth, and perhaps most significantly, narratives capture metaphor. As Shengold (1989) writes, "Metaphor leads to memory and the experiential: this is the first phase of the process of insight. A genetic principle is at work in relation to attaining the feelings of conviction and of 'the real.' When we use metaphor freely and creatively, we resuscitate something of that period of wonder of the second year of life, when we establish both a sense of self and a registration of the external world by laying down mental representations, equating as well as differentiating the inner and outer worlds" (298). As stories reveal metaphor, they provide awe. They provide what Otto calls a "creature-feeling" that lets us realize that we are part of something far greater than ourselves. We become fascinated as well as daunted. We come into contact with the essence of that which we are contemplating. Whether the rational side of our lives can capture the essence, the meaning, of a narrative is perhaps incidental. As postmodern theory has taught us, meaning is contingent and multiple, rendering ultimate interpretation futile. What is important, however, is that the stories are told.

If we apply these five general aspects of narrative to victims of child sexual abuse, we recognize the power of the numinous and its conveyance through narrative. Reading the stories of other victims and writing one's own narrative affirms a fundamental condition of the human experience: the impulse to tell something about ourselves. Because the autobiographical impulse may have been robbed from a victim of child sexual abuse, this essential human right must be restored. As the narrative impulse is restored to the individual, it allows validation of the individual's experience. A narrative read or written by a victim captures essential parts of the pattern of abuse, thus allowing the individual to construct meaning out of chaos. As the individual achieves a sense of voice, the individual will also achieve a sense of confidence and a subsequent abandonment of self-doubt.

Ultimately, narrative allows the individual to reconstruct the metaphor of a fragmented life. If it is true, as Lionel Trilling (1950) believes, that we live by metaphor, then it is essential that victims of sexual child abuse learn to discover the metaphors of their lives. While they may discover that child abuse is an act of soul murder, they may also discover that their lives are the vehicles of both beauty and courage.¹³

I will, of course, keep on arguing against the deadly rationalizations produced by paternalism. For better or worse, the world is often persuaded by logical systems, and many of us have invested sufficient intellectual capital in mastering argumentation. Yet let us do something else. As sculptors, let us use narratives as well as arguments. Let us make a point of telling stories, and let us make a special point of telling Megan's story, for there is both tragedy and bravery and lessons for the rest of us in it. Let us create an elegy.

To complement the absolute rationalism that has come to us from Aristotle with the fresh perspective of the numinous, we could try to listen for the voices of children who are suffering sexual abuse and the adults who have survived. Perhaps we could even provide room in the national consciousness for their narratives. For three decades, members of my generation have spent immeasurable time and energy memorializing fallen presidents, unjust wars, and summers of love. Perhaps it might be possible to spend some of that energy (and the trailing dollars) looking more carefully at the hidden violence that threatens one-quarter of all women. We must be willing to listen for voices unlike our own and make available the stories told in books such as Billie Holiday's Lady Sings the Blues (1956), Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), and Martha Baldwin's Beyond Victim (1988). We could read the stories of the courageous women recorded in Ellen Bass and Louise Thornton's I Never Told Anyone (1991) and Ellen Bass and Laura Davis' The Courage to Heal (1994). Perhaps such stories should be required reading.

Perhaps if we would follow a model of care, we would have listened more carefully to Maureen Kanka's grief when urged her audience in 1994, "Don't sugar coat it. Tell them what happens to little children by sex offenders (Stile 3 August 1994)." Perhaps the first day of school on September 7, 1994, would have been so very, very different.