Battered and Scarred (Tara Taylor Quinn

'Twas battered and scarred and the auctioneer thought is scarcely worth his while, to waste much time on the old violin, but held it up with a smile.' Myra B. Welch wrote the much quoted poem, The Touch of the Master's Hand, and today I am reminded of it. That old violin couldn't get three dollars at the auction block and yet, within seconds, was suddenly worth thousands when a master violinist stepped forward and picked up the bow. With a few strokes, he coaxed beautiful music from the abused instrument and then everyone wanted it.

I had the honor this week of meeting, via telephone, an 'old' violin, who has spent her life giving those few strokes to hundreds of other 'old' violins, helping turn them into priceless individuals. The woman's name is Sandra Ramos. She's in her sixties. Has wild red hair. Lives alone in a purple quonset hut with a tin roof that leaks. The hut used to be part of a military base. She doesn't own a computer and doesn't know how to use one. She doesn't have a television set. She has the ear of senators. Of countries. She's changing the world.

Sandra doesn't need technology to know. She just needs heart - which she has in elevated degrees. Enviable degrees.

One of the first things Sandra said to me was, 'I have opinions and I agree with them.' The seemingly egotistical statement is most telling, though when you hear what followed. 'When I want someone to agree with my opinions, I look in the mirror.'

She's used her ability to listen, and to really hear, to make a difference to every woman alive on this planet today. Back in the early seventies, as a product of the sixties, Sandra opened the very first battered women's shelter in the United States. Yes, folks, the very first!! Every shelter in the United States came after Sandra fought her battles, won public money for the care and healing of battered women. A shelter system in Canada is also fashioned after Sandra and her work.

Think of it. The very first battered women's shelter. And here I thought our government did that. Instead it was a woman. One woman. She opened that first shelter in her own three bedroom home where she lived alone with her three children. She opened it by accident. Sandra saw women alone with kids, in need; she saw space in her home; and she had to put two and two together. In short order, she had 23 people living in that three bedroom home. She was told, 'Sandra you can't do that. You have to follow the law; you have to do paperwork. You can't just help people because they have a need.' Her response? 'Why not?'

Sandra says it was harder for the governement to get woman and children out after she had them in, than it was for them to prevent them from getting in in the first place with their paperwork. So she chose to use the back door. And fight for new front doors.

When she was charged for having broken a law that stated that an individual couldn't have three or more unrelated persons living in the same residence, she didn't fear jail. She didn't kick people out and save her police record behind. No, Sandra listened to heart, to reason. She declared that the law was unconstitutional. She fought the charges. And won that battle.

She didn't win them all. She was denied funding. Her women were moved out for a time. And when she had a fully functioning successful shelter, so successful she had to have a board, her board fired her.

That didn't stop Sandra. It couldn't stop her. This woman is driven from the inside out. Her energy speaks to me. I relate to it as I have lived by, less powerful probably, but similar forces since the days of my own slowly dawning enlightenment, dawning since my birth. Sandra can't just sit back and accept what the world tells her (or anyone tells her) just because it is said. She listens. She tunes in to her heart. And then she acts.

And in so doing, one woman has moved mountains. Of course she's had a phonemenal amount of help and support, but SHE is the one who moved those supporters to actions of their own.

There was a time when a gentleman stopped outside of one of Sandra's shelters to drop off a donation of used goods. Sandra met him in the parking lot and before he left, she'd coaxed him out of a $1000 donation.
I thank God for Sandra, and would urge every woman and man alive to do the same. Women are battered and abused in every single walk of life. And abuse often doesn't take the form of physical beatings. Often, and more insidiously, the abuse takes the form of mental manipulation, of the tearing down of a woman's confidence by her significant other until she is little more than an isolated being there to make his life as he wants or needs it to be. Women are physically less muscled than most men. We are often more emotional. Both of these traits are our greatest blessings, our greatest strengths. But they also make us very vulnerable to intimidation by someone who is bigger and physically stronger. Someone we cared for and committed our lives to - for better or worse.

It's hard - sometimes seemingly impossible - to break away from such control. Frighteningly because often times we don't even know we're being controlled. And breaking away isn't the hardest part. That comes when we have to face ourselves, to see what we allowed ourselves to become. To face the fact that we didn't see, that we weren't able to save ourselves sooner, or to prevent the circumstances from the beginning. For many of us, we also have children who have been effected and we have to look at them, to see how our choices have hurt them.

These circumstances aren't new within the past thirty years. Women have been abused since the dawning of time. (Or maybe shortly thereafter.) The difference today is that we can talk about it. We can educate each other. We know. AND...

WE HAVE SOMEPLACE TO GO. Thanks in large part to the hard work and courage of one woman. Sandra Ramos. Sandra doesn't care if it's against the law to help a battered woman in need when the choice is to help her or let her die. Ladies, this really is life and death. Many many more of us are alive today because of the shelters that are now government entities in pretty much every county across the nation. And we are alive because of others who have followed in Sandra's footsteps, people who have opened and are opening up private shelters to house abused and battered and homeless women and children.

Today Sandra is the founder and executive director of Strengthen Our Sisters (if you need a place to go, look her up NOW). SOS was founded in 1987 with a 2 bedroom apartment facility and now consists of 7 shelters, a computer school (because even while Sandra doesn't 'do' computers she recognizes that women need computer skills to help themselves as they recreate lives in todays world) 2 thrift stores, a daycare, a computer repair shop, legal services, a car donation project, a shelter for women with substance abuse problems, a place for seniors, support groups...

Oh, and did I mention, Sandra is also a college professor? She teaches social issue classes at two universities, raising awareness and educating men and women to the world of domestic violence in all of its generations. College credit classes.

And somehow, every day, Sandra finds the time and wherewithal to hike up the mountain where she lives and meditate - to go within and listen. To continue to hear the call.

I hope we all hear the call, too. Post here, now, and let's come together, giving thanks to Sandra and to all women everywhere. We are a blessed creature. We deserve to be fought for, to be cared for. We deserve to have women like Sandra at our backs, and she deserves and needs our care, too. I'm hoping to gather some support for Sandra here, anything I can pass on to her that strengthens her heart. Words that she can read and hear, to know that her work is appreciated. Anything that is said here, I will be passing along to Sandra. And if there's anyone out there who has the ability to do more, please, please look up your local shelters and donate. Food. Clothes. Toys. Even that old washer or dryer that still works but isn't quite right for you anymore. An older car that still runs and can provide transportation for a woman to and from work.

Or look up Strengthen our Sisters and donate directly to Sandra.

'Twas battered and scarred and the auctioneer thought is scarcely worth his while...'