Peace Treatments

This weekend I met a women who most would have labeled a crack head.  She told me a story about how when she was on the street, one day she felt an overwhelming sadness and despair.  She sat on the street corner at Hastings and Main and cried and cried and cried and people walked past.  She said if just one person had of stopped and looked at her, seen her humanity and asked her how they could help, she would have felt like she was not so alone.  Now many years later, she has found the love of God, is in recovery, and struggling to become whole again.   I thanked her for  honouring me, for letting me into her circle and telling me her story.  From now on I will take a risk, notice and engage the people on the streets instead of walking past, shaking my head and judging that they actually want to be there or had the capacity to change if they truly wanted to. This weekend I met a man who was out on a weekend pass from his sentence.  He was born into an organized crime family and his e

I start my training in the Alternative to Violence program tomorrow.  My hope is that once I've gone through the training I will be accepted as a volunteer AVP worker in the prisons.  Since I began school I have heard a lot about "reframing" your life.  Seeing how the experiences of your childhood, formative years, educational years and early adult years can be threaded together to create the tapestry of who you  are, who you were called to be and meant to be all along.  This passion for restoration and transformation hand in hand with justice began well before I learned anything about reframing my life story.  But now, when I take that look back and see the threads,  it all makes such sense.   Take my view of the victim and the offender - I have always been "for" both.  Some people in restorative justice lean their compassion and empathy to one or the other - I have never done that.  A victim's story tears me up and so does the offender's story.  I am

Pain.  It sucks.  And does it have a purpose? This came to me tonight as I answered a loved one's post. " In order to be ready for tomorrow's possibilities, we have to use today's pain to explore yesterday's promises"  When I figure out what it means I'll  post again.   Meanwhile, here are some thoughts -  we humans tend to avoid pain like the plague.  When in pain we get busy, get distracted, fill our lives with pain numbing activity and things.  I'm convinced though - if we allow it - God wants to use it.   There is a reason He said "Be still and know I am God". He meets us in the midst of our pain and reveal to us things we never even imagined.  Why He uses pain is beyond me - perhaps it is because He knows we surrender our own control when the pain of doing it our way is finally too great?   I do know this - of this I am certain - He is good, His purposes and plans shall never be thwarted, and at the risk of sounding trite, "

We all do things that we regret, that cause guilt, even shame.  How we respond to our failures has everything to do with whether or not we learn and grow from them.  I once had a blog called "3forward2back".  It was called that because several years ago I determined in my heart to learn from my mistakes - that when I fail and either sin by omission or by commission - that I would confess, repent and if appropriate, find ways to make it right.  This was the covenant I made with myself because I was personally sick and tired of making excuses for my behavior, and finding other things (or people) to blame my stuckness on.  I don't say all this to brag.  On the contrary.  It is God who gets the glory.  Learning to take responsibility for my life (my actions, attitudes and behaviors) instead of blaming others or circumstances has totally freed me from fear.  It's a mystery and I think that is the point.   Owning our sin, taking responsibility for, and confessing it opens t

The provost from the university has still not responded to my portfolio submission, though last week I was speaking the ED assistant, who told me that "they", being the academic admission committee "were really impressed".  It was to have taken 2 weeks, then a month, and now we're past both.  Oddly, I'm ok with it.   This is my fleece so to speak.  If they award me the credit I need to remain in the program, then this time next year, at the grand ole age of 50, I'll be graduating with a BA in Leadership, and checking out graduate schools.  And if they don't award the credit I need, then it will be evident that God has another plan.  That doesn't mean I still won't apply to a graduate program, only that perhaps I won't need a BA to get into one.  Still waiting, and kinda enjoying it.

Following along on my previous post, one of the struggles that I have had for most of my adult life is an uncertainty.  I venture forth into territory I've not been before, and the slightest hint of resistance, failure or defeat, I retreat. I think that's why I'm so adept at starting new things and seldom finish.  Or, conversely, something will happen,  like a mistake I've made or a misunderstanding that strains a relationship I value, and I become so heavily discouraged, I just want to give up.      The inner dialogue is one that is negative and defeating.  This is another outward working of my parent's divorce.  My world became utterly uncertain on that day and by extension, so did I.  Uncertain about who I was, what I felt, where I belonged, what I could say, who I could say it to.  Every  person has moments of uncertainty - they are uncertain for as long as it takes to remember who they are and what they are here for - but for those who grew up in disfunction,