{"id":26676,"date":"2026-03-18T08:46:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T12:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=26676"},"modified":"2026-03-18T10:07:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T14:07:20","slug":"26676","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=26676","title":{"rendered":"Silenced by Shame"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Out of Hiding (Official Lyric Video) - Steffany Gretzinger &amp; Amanda Cook | The Undoing\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XFkDqQtfs0w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Silenced by Shame<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Wednesday, March 18, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Author and CAC team member Cassidy Hall reflects on the cost of making choices out of shame and the \u201ctoxic silence\u201d it creates:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For over five years, I actively participated in one of the most toxic silences of my life. I was in a romantic relationship with someone who wouldn\u2019t publicly date me because they weren\u2019t open about their sexuality. At the mercy of someone else\u2019s comfort\u2014or lack thereof\u2014I participated in a silencing of myself in public places, around family members, with friends, at work, even at the grocery store\u2026. This kind of silence, brought on by shame, creates long-lasting damage and knots to be untied for years to come. Silence where love cannot prevail is a place of toxicity, a place of stunted existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Hall describes the positive effects of \u201cloving silence\u201d cultivated through contemplative practice:<\/em><br><br>We need to name <strong>toxic silence as the silence that causes harm, shame, minimization, and damage to our world. And we need to name loving silence as the silence that is generative and creative, a silence that deepens our unity with self and others<\/strong>\u2014the kind of silence that cultivates a more expansive and loving world\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I finally stepped away from that relationship\u2019s hamster wheel of toxic silence, I began to see how I had silenced other parts of myself. Beyond the ways I was hiding my sexuality, I also hid parts of myself informed by intuition\u2014places of creativity and aliveness, places of openness and community, places of clarity and calm\u2014ultimately the places where a loving silence thrived\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In the Christian context, the toxicity of silent bystanders creates and feeds countless acts of violence:<\/strong> the sexual abuse in many church settings and its continuation through empty apologies; Christianity\u2019s lack of reckoning with its history of colonization; denominations\u2019 refusal to honor and elevate the leadership and dignity of women, people of color, refugees, people with disabilities, and people from other marginalized communities; churches filling with Christian nationalism and white supremacy culture; the countless times the silent acceptance of bad theology has caused an LGBTQIA+ person to hate or harm themselves; and more. This is the silence of harm, violence, shame, and toxicity\u2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Toxic silence is embedded in the fabric of our daily lives\u2026. <strong>Yet a [contemplative] loving silence can also be pursued, and we can seek and find it even in the chaos of our days<\/strong>. Sometimes it seeps in with our efforts to repeat an internal mantra or take an intentional pause, and other times it pours in like the colorful morning light through the east-facing window. This is the contemplative silence I continually seek and practice. This silence regenerates, regulates, allows for the emergence of loving presence and action. <strong>The more we engage in the silences that&nbsp;<em>aren\u2019t&nbsp;<\/em>toxic\u2014the beautiful, loving, and infinite possibilities of silence\u2014the more we encounter silence as a creative, generative force and not a destructive one.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/app-link\/post?publication_id=2863497&amp;post_id=191172402&amp;utm_source=post-email-title&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=2dkj2&amp;token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozOTkyMzY2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxOTExNzI0MDIsImlhdCI6MTc3MzgzMzE1MCwiZXhwIjoxNzc2NDI1MTUwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjg2MzQ5NyIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.jICtgpBK6a7s7A8dpK4cTKtpFXUWNBDSio_uPi_2viA\">Is Jonah a historical book? Does it need to be?&nbsp;<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@bradleyjersak124315\">BRADLEY JERSAK<\/a>MAR 18<\/td><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@bradleyjersak124315\"><\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/3e05ee9e-eebe-4d38-a77b-44359ac2241d?j=eyJ1IjoiMmRrajIifQ.ND0qR5RKsmVnltuWgIlyr3BY7uwq2Kt9ZzX29UJK4cg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!rQgn!,w_379,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F99de3c72-87fd-4dc4-b4ae-b7133e2d7ae0_812x1204.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><\/td><td><\/td><td><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I was grateful for another fascinating discussion with Pete Enns in my \u201cPeace and Violence in the Old Testament\u201d class today at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/5bbb4fa9-adea-4a50-8842-baed94de6da8?j=eyJ1IjoiMmRrajIifQ.ND0qR5RKsmVnltuWgIlyr3BY7uwq2Kt9ZzX29UJK4cg\">SSU\/JFI<\/a>. One intriguing topic was around legend vs. history in books such as Jonah.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jonah is a wild ride. I love that book and have some opinions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s start with a caveat, echoing Pete\u2019s humility. <strong>I\u2019m fairly convinced of many things I don\u2019t actually know for a fact to be true. Convictions I don\u2019t feel the need to prove to myself or others with certainty.<\/strong> When it comes to biblical interpretation, I certainly don\u2019t require my friends, colleagues, or students to agree with me. So I won\u2019t impose a theory of Jonah on others as dogma. So I present these thoughts as a&nbsp;<em>thoughts&nbsp;<\/em>and as a fellow learner.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is the Person or Book of Jonah History?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>One common question: When the NT preachers or authors (Jesus and Paul especially) reference OT characters like Adam or Jonah, did&nbsp;<em>they<\/em>&nbsp;think they were historical figures? And if they&nbsp;<em>weren\u2019t<\/em>&nbsp;historical stories, does that negate their argument? And when Jesus associates his resurrection with \u2018the sign of Jonah,\u2019 what if Jonah didn\u2019t literally rise from the dead? Even if the story were historical, the prayer from the sea creature still seems obviously poetic. In fact, I don\u2019t know any conservative scholar (even literalists) who argue that Jonah died and was resurrected\u2014even though the song reads that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is the text from Jonah to which Jesus refers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Jonah 2:3, 7 \u201cI cried in my affliction to the Lord, my God, and He heard my voice; o<strong>ut of the belly of *hades*<\/strong>&nbsp;[not just the sea creature]: You heard the cry of my voice. I descended into&nbsp;<strong>the earth<\/strong>,&nbsp;<strong>the bars of which are *everlasting barriers*<\/strong>&nbsp;[supposedly!]; YES let my life&nbsp;<strong>ascend from corruption<\/strong>, O Lord, my God.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus calls this the sign of Jonah. That he would descend to&nbsp;<em>hades<\/em>&nbsp;and ascend again, puked out from its embittered belly, its so-called *everlasting* [\u03b1\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9!!] barred gates be damned&#8230; a great text to show how \u2018eternal hades\u2019 is undone by the Resurrection).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>I don\u2019t think Jesus needs to take Jonah\u2019s poetry literally to make his point about the resurrection. And if Jesus doesn\u2019t need to take Jonah 2 literally, do we need to read the book historically?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some go so far as to say that if Jonah (or Eden, or Noah, etc.) is a Jewish moral legend, that undercuts my belief in Jesus\u2019 actual resurrection. Does it?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The More-than-Literal Point<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I was once&nbsp;<em>very<\/em>&nbsp;into apologetics (mistaking it for evangelism) and this was all very troubling. I wasted a lot of time trying to find biological evidence of a fish that could swallow a man and spit him out alive for three days. Meanwhile, I missed the more- than-literal point that God is making through Jonah. Which is? That the Jewish revelation that God is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness extends even to our most hated enemy. And at the time, Assyria was at the top of the list. <strong>I was inclined to play my apologetics games far more than taking up the cross of loving my enemy. Just like Jonah.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, whether to read the story as literal history&#8230; we can. But I don\u2019t think we&nbsp;<em><strong>need to&nbsp;<\/strong><\/em>be faithful. Whatever Jesus thought about the story, he was already reading the song creatively as poetic prefigurement (foreshadowing his resurrection) to make his point. I see no problem with that. Could Jesus\u2019 point be this simple?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><em>\u201cJust as in the Jonah story, where the song from the sounds like a resurrection,&nbsp;<br>that language anticipates something surprising I\u2019m about to do in real life.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It would be a little like me saying to my son (a big&nbsp;<em>Lord of the Rings<\/em>&nbsp;fan),&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>\u201cI am going to be at your apartment next month, on this date, for sure. Count on it. Just as Gandalf showed up at dawn for the Battle of Helm\u2019s Deep, expect me to arrive at your place Tuesday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m symbolically referencing a fictional story my son knows and loves. I\u2019m doing so symbolically to illustrate my assured and actual arrival.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>He gets the reference.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>He does&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>&nbsp;feel the need to remind me that the LOTR is not historical.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The reference does&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>&nbsp;raise any doubt that my arrival will happen as promised.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Whether the Jonah is history or legend has no impact on the promise.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But neither would I feel any need to&nbsp;<em>prove<\/em>&nbsp;Jonah IS fictional.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This is where we could learn from Jewish rabbis today. Those I\u2019ve engaged roll their eyes at Christian modernists (liberal or conservative) who obsess over what \u2018really happened.\u2019 At last, the right use of the phrase \u201cmoot point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">On Shrines&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>One student wisely brought up shrines. They are an excellent illustration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, there is a tomb of Jonah. My student had been there. I haven\u2019t. But I have been to the tombs of the patriarchs at Hebron (Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and Leah). <strong>And I\u2019ve also been to the resting place of Mary the Mother of Jesus&#8230;&nbsp;<em>both<\/em>&nbsp;shrines (Gethsemane and Ephesus<\/strong>). I felt the holiness of accumulated devotion in those spaces. But I\u2019m not at all sure that they were buried there. And I don\u2019t need to be. As shrines to their memory, they tell a story. And over time, they have become sacred space where we can experience the beauty and power of their lives (or at least their story).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My Shift<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>So a shift happened in me along the way. It didn\u2019t occur overnight. But as a young Evangelical with a modernist bent toward literalism, I feared (and was taught to fear) that if I discovered the earth was over 7000 years old, or if the Garden of Eden isn\u2019t somewhere in Iraq, or if Noah\u2019s ark didn\u2019t actually sit on Ararat, or if Job and Jonah were legends, I would diminish or even lose my faith. <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The motto was, \u201cIf the waters did not cover Everest, Christ is not risen.\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No. That doesn\u2019t follow. And weirdly,<strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> I didn\u2019t lose my faith\u2014only my ill-gotten certitude. Even better, God got bigger and more mysterious and filled me with more and more wonder &#8230; and the Bible became a more intriguing adventure and far richer treasury &#8230; and my trust grew dramatically when I didn\u2019t have to believe God slaughtered all those people across the Bible\u2019s pages. <\/span><\/strong>The barriers to experiencing Scripture as a place of encounter and communion with God were removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And just as importantly to me, when my dear Baptist mom sits in her armchair reading these stories for strength, comfort and encouragement, believing she is immersed in the Word of God,&nbsp;<em>now I know she is<\/em>. I don\u2019t have to mess with that experience because <strong>that IS how the Bible is to be read\u2014as a venue for encounter and communion with and by the Spirit of Christ.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Did Jonah happen? I don\u2019t know.&nbsp;<br><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Is Jonah true? Absolutely.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>=========<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Individual Reflection<\/strong>&nbsp;Hall talks about how stepping out of one silence revealed other places she&#8217;d been hiding. Where have&nbsp;<em>you<\/em>&nbsp;been living in a silence that feels like safety but is actually a slow shrinking \u2014 and what part of yourself has been waiting on the other side of it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Group Discussion<\/strong>&nbsp;Jersak says he didn&#8217;t lose his faith when he loosened his grip on literalism \u2014 he lost his &#8220;ill-gotten certitude,&#8221; and God got bigger. Where has your own faith required you to give something up that you thought was holding it together \u2014 and what did you actually find when you let it go?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Silenced by Shame Wednesday, March 18, 2026 Author and CAC team member Cassidy Hall reflects on the cost of making choices out of shame and the \u201ctoxic silence\u201d it creates:&nbsp; For over five years, I actively participated in one of the most toxic silences of my life. I was in a romantic relationship with someone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26676"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26676"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26683,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26676\/revisions\/26683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}