Welcome to the House of Belonging

“Roots hold me close, wings set me free”. “Spirit of Life” by Carolyn McDade is a much loved hymn, I certainly love it. I wonder how many times I have sung it out and loud and proud in my life. I love that we sing of roots holding us close before wings that set us free. This makes sense because before you can fly free, express your full humanity, you must first feel that you belong, you need strong roots before you can be set free. This brings to my heart my understanding of our flaming chalice, the symbol of our free religious faith, rooted in belonging, in history, in tradition, but not held back by any of this. It is this sense of belonging though that enables us to fly free, to express our souls, to who knows where. Before we can know freedom, we must first feel secure where we are, that we belong. We can then begin to express who we truly are, without fear of rejection. Belonging must come before freedom. We need roots that will hold us close, love us unconditionally, before we can even attempt to fly free.

I remember when I was a young man I thought that freedom and the attainment of it were the things of the highest value in life; that liberation meant escaping the shackles that hold us back and stop us being all that we were meant to be. That I needed to escape where I had come from, the drudgery of my life. I sang songs about freedom as I left behind all that I saw as unimportant. When I look back now what I see is a man who was a slave to freedom.

Over the last few years I have learnt about belonging; and I have learnt that belonging is really about love; I have learnt something about what love actually is. I am not talking about romance here. No, I am talking about that unseen force that connects all life and that enables us to form deep and meaningful relationships with ourselves, with each other and with all life. I name this God, others may use different words. To me this is the essence of belonging, to live in and through love. To love who you are, the life that you have and the tasks that this life asks you to fulfil.

It is this love that allows me to belong, that enables me to connect with all that exists now, all that has been in the time before now and all that will be in the future. It is love that has become the roots that hold me close so that I can stretch out the wings that will set me free and allow me to glide in the wind. To know love is to know that you belong and it is this that is perhaps the ultimate freedom. Before you can be truly free, to express all that you were born to be, you must first believe that you belong; belong as you are, exactly as you are in this time and place. It is the roots of belonging that give us the freedom to stretch out our wings and fly in the wind, free. This is the highest form of love to me.

A sense of belonging is a deeply precious thing. It is belonging that helps us become who we are meant to be. It is a sense of being rooted and being held and loved by these roots that allows us to spread our wings and fly free; it is a sense of being rooted that enables us to not fear the wind, but to embrace it and to let ourselves go. When you feel that you do not belong you cannot thrive, you shrivel up and perhaps die.

Now of course we do not need to belong in exactly the same way; our roots need not, in fact should not, be identical in order for us to belong. Each root has to find its own way into the soil. To truly belong is to be welcomed exactly as you are warts and all and beauty spots too. Not every tree in the forest is rooted in an identical way, it is the same for folk in community. We do not have to try to be like those here, in order to truly belong, in fact we don’t want you to comply in order to belong here.

I am going to share with a favourite by a favourite. “The House of Belonging” by David Whyte

“The House of Belonging” by David Whyte

I awoke this morning in the gold light turning this way and that thinking for a moment it was one day like any other. But the veil had gone from my darkened heart and I thought it must have been the quiet candlelight that filled my room, it must have been the first easy rhythm with which I breathed myself to sleep, it must have been the prayer I said speaking to the otherness of the night. And I thought this is the good day you could meet your love, this is the black day someone close to you could die. This is the day you realize how easily the thread is broken between this world and the next and I found myself sitting up in the quiet pathway of light, the tawny close grained cedar burning round me like fire and all the angels of this housely heaven ascending through the first roof of light the sun has made. This is the bright home in which I live, this is where I ask my friends to come, this is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love. This is the temple of my adult aloneness and I belong to that aloneness as I belong to my life. There is no house like the house of belonging.

A new life has recently come into my house of belonging, Molly the Havanese puppy. She has had no trouble finding a sense of belonging here. She has easily settled in. Everyone who meets her says how at ease she is with strangers, both human and dog like. She has a comfortable sense of herself. She feels a part of the community around the chapel and in the town too. Now fortunately she has had no bad experiences as of yet, thank God. She has never been hurt or rejected. I suspect that this isn’t the case with anyone else either within the chapel community or the wider community. I suspect that she thinks that the buildings and gardens are all a part of her house of belonging and all the people here a part of her family. Whenever we leave the house she goes looking for her family, she is so excited about who she will meet, particularly the familiar. She knows that she belongs here and thus feels free to express herself, if only it was so easy for we folk. It is not so easy for we to be ourselves, unlike Molly who is totally at ease were herself. I have never known a dog so in love with their own reflection. She stops at shop windows to admire herself and when she approaches my bedroom mirror she happily touches her nose against her own reflection, as she would when meeting another dog in the street. Molly is happily herself.

To belong you need to be yourself, while paradoxically in order to be yourself you must first of all feel that you belong. When you feel that you belong you will no longer feel the need to fit into, because you will be at ease with yourself.

Brene Brown has said

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

I like Brene Brown, I particularly like what she has to say about the difference between “Belonging” and “Fitting in” that they are not the same thing although they are often mistaken for one another.

Brene Brown explains that “Fitting in” is really about assessing situations and becoming the person that you believe you need to be in order to be accepted and acceptable. Whereas “Belonging” does not require us to change who we are, but to be who we really are.

Belonging is an innate desire to be a part of something larger than ourselves. This is a primal yearning, deep within the soul of us and thus we often try to acquire it by fitting in and seeking approval from others. Now not only does this not satisfy this yearning it actually becomes a barrier to it. In so doing we lose our identity and feel even more lost and lonely. True belonging you see only happens when we present our true, authentic, imperfect selves to the world, “warts and all” and beauty spots too. Unless we are at home within ourselves we will never feel that we belong anywhere. This is why Molly is such a good teacher to me, she feels that she belongs as she is, exactly as she is.

John O’Donohue’s in his wonderful book “Anam Cara”, relates belonging to longing and yearning. He suggests that we need to find a balance in belonging and that often our problems stem from not being truly at home with ourselves; that we should be our own longing; that the key is to be-long within ourselves. If we belong within ourselves then we will feel at ease and belong wherever we are. Therefore the sense of who we are, our identity will not be ruled by the need to fit in, to belong, externally.

The problem of trying to fit in and not belonging stems from a sense of being different, something I know I’ve experienced at times. This can be a real barrier. Now of course sometimes these barriers are put up by those who would exclude certain types of people for being different. We have seen horrific examples of this throughout human history. People exclude for racial, political, religious, gender and sexual identity. There still are barriers that exist, although thankfully many have come down.

That said it can still be difficult to join a group where you feel that you are different from the others.

Most people find it difficult to join something, to belong to something when they feel different to those already present. It’s the same with any group or community, including church and chapel communities. It is hard to walk into anything you have never been to before. I know it took me some time to pluck up the courage and explore religions community all those years ago

We say here that all are welcome, to come as you are regardless of who you are, where ever you have been and where ever you are going. You are welcome as you are exactly as you are in this moment. That said people are still reluctant to walk through the door and when they do they often find it hard to belong here, even amongst us. The reasons for this are many and varied and how we resolve it is not easy either. I think that the key is to be as open and welcoming as we can be. They key is to cultivate a true sense of belonging, which begins within ourselves. For if we belong we will not need to try to fit in and hopefully the stranger will more easily feel like the neighbour. As Philip L Bermoan wrote in “The Journey Home”

“Truly spiritual people are in the habit of cultivating the nearly forgotten art of basic hospitality, perhaps because they realize that when we are able to make others feel comfortable, the pleasures of belonging are close at hand.”

They key is to cultivate the pleasure of belonging.

The key is to bless one another with our presence and they will feel that they belong amongst we people who belong here as they are exactly as they are in this moment. For as Rachel Naomi Remen wrote in "My Grandfather's Blessings"

"A blessing is not something that one person gives another. A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship in which both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one another. By making a place for wholeness within our relationships, we offer others the opportunity to be whole without shame and become a place of refuge from everything in them that are not genuine. We enable people to remember who they are."

A sense of belonging is a deeply precious thing. It is belonging that helps us become who we are meant to be; it is sense of belonging that give us deep roots that will enable us to fly free; It is a sense of belonging that enables us to be ourselves, in whatever company we find ourselves without feeling the need to fit in; it is a sense of belonging that allows us to become good neighbours and to bless the whole world with our welcome.

Here I hope you find a place where you belong. Here I hope you find a house of belonging.

I’m going to end with a blessing by John O’Donohue “For Belonging”

“For Belonging” by John O'Donohue

May you listen to your longing to be free.

May the frames of your belonging be generous enough
for your dreams.

May you arise each day with a voice of blessing
whispering in your heart.

May you find a harmony between your soul and

your life.

May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted.

May you know the eternal longing that lives at the heart of time.

May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.

May you never place walls between the light and yourself.

May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world

to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in

belonging.

Below is a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"

Belong Here

“Talking Heads once sang “you may find yourself in a beautiful house
with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, well how did I get here?”

How did I get here? The song was of course “Once in a lifetime.” And how did I get here? Is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot recently. I’ve been experiencing a few once in a lifetime moments recently.

Another question I’ve been asking myself too is “What have I done to deserve this?

Another one has been, do I really belong here?

I recently won “Slimming World Man of the Year 2016”, something I had to keep under my hat for a couple of weeks. It has been quite a ride ever since, especially once the news came out.

Now as part of winning the competition I spent a night in luxury suite at the Ritz. I took my mum along and she loved it. On arrival there was a knock on the door. I answered it and there before me stood two men in uniform who walked in and introduced themselves as our butlers and that whatever we required they would provide.

How did I get here? Do I belong here? Well I did win.

It was an amazing, if somewhat surreal, couple of days, in which I was worked to be fair. I spent one afternoon trying on outfits with a stylist and a whole host of women. It was fun and I got into it and in the end chose something I could wear for the "Press Call" that followed the next day. That night we ate at Savini at Criterion at Piccadilly Circus. A place I doubt I will ever eat in again. The next day came the "Press Call" and then home to prepare to lead worship the following day. The next day the news came out and over the next week it spread. No doubt in the coming months more will come out and hopefully a great deal of good will come from it. So far there has been a very positive response to it all.

So yes a truly once in a lifetime experience. It was wonderful to find myself in such places and the truth is I did deserve it and do you know what I didn’t feel like a fish out of water. After all I had earned it. I belonged there. I rarely feel that I don’t belong anywhere these days. I belong anywhere because I have learnt to be at home within my own skin within myself. I know who I am and I am at ease with who I am. I know who I am warts and all and beauty spots too. I am at ease with myself, imperfections and all. I can be myself anywhere and in the company of anyone because I no longer have to strive to fit in, to be a part of someone or someplace else, to seek the approval of others.

To belong you need to be yourself, while paradoxically in order to be yourself you must first of all feel that you belong. When you feel that you belong you will no longer feel the need to fit in, because you will be at ease with yourself.

Brene Brown once said

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

I like Brene Brown, I particularly like what she has to say about the difference between “Belonging” and “Fitting in” that they are not the same thing although they are often mistaken for one another.

Brene Brown explains that “Fitting in” is really about assessing situations and becoming the person that you believe you need to be in order to be accepted and acceptable. Whereas “Belonging” does not require us to change who we are, but to be who we really are.

Belonging is an innate desire to be a part of something larger than ourselves. This is a primal yearning, deep within the soul of us and thus we often try to acquire it by fitting in and seeking approval from others. Now not only does this not satisfy this yearning it actually becomes a barrier to it. In so doing we lose our identity and feel even more lost and lonely. True belonging you see only happens when we present our true, authentic, imperfect selves to the world, “warts and all” and beauty spots too. Unless we are at home within ourselves we will never feel that we belong anywhere.

John O’Donohue in his wonderful book “Anam Cara”, relates belonging to longing and yearning. He suggests that we need to find a balance in belonging and that often our problems stem from not being truly at home with ourselves; that we should be our own longing; that the key is to be-long within ourselves. If we belong within ourselves then we will feel at ease and belong wherever we are. Therefore the sense of who we are, our identity will not be ruled by the need to fit in, to belong, externally.

The problem of trying to fit in and not belonging stems from a sense of being different, something I know I’ve experienced at times. This can be a real barrier. Now of course sometimes these barriers are put up by those who would exclude certain types of people for being different. We have seen horrific examples of this throughout human history. People excluded for racial, political, religious, gender and sexual identity reasons. There still are barriers that exist, although thankfully many have come down, although far too many still remain.

It can be difficult to join a group where you feel that you are different from the others. I experienced it myself when I began my Slimming World journey. Such groups are seen as the domain of women, only 3% of members are men in the UK, that is still nearly 50,000 men, but it is a minority. Being concerned about your weight and joining such groups is not considered a manly activity and therefore getting through the door and beginning the journey can be doubly daunting for men. I certainly experienced this when I first joined. I remember looking round the room, feeling very self-conscious at the time and just seeing a room full of women. It would have been easy to use this as an excuse to just run, but thank God I didn’t. One thing I will be endeavouring to do over the next twelve months is to encourage as many men as possible to live healthier happier lives. There are after all more over weight men in this country than women, probably because we feel it is unmanly to face up to the problem.

Most people find it difficult to join something, to belong to something, when they feel different to those already present. It’s the same with any group or community, including church and chapel communities. It is hard to walk into anything you have never been to before. I know it took me some time to pluck up the courage and explore religions community all those years ago

We Unitarians say that all are welcome, to come as you are regardless of who you are, where ever you have been and where ever you are going. You are welcome as you are exactly as you are in this moment. That said people are still reluctant to walk through the door of our places of worship and when they do they often find it hard to belong there, even amongst we who offer religious freedom. The reasons for this is many and varied and how we resolve it is not easy to answer either. I think that the key is to be as open and welcoming as we can be. They key is to cultivate a true sense of belonging, which begins within ourselves. For if we belong we will not need to try to fit in and hopefully the stranger will more easily feel like the neighbour. As Philip L Bermoan wrote in “The Journey Home”

“Truly spiritual people are in the habit of cultivating the nearly forgotten art of basic hospitality, perhaps because they realize that when we are able to make others feel comfortable, the pleasures of belonging are close at hand.”

They key is to cultivate the pleasure of belonging.

The key is to bless one another with our presence and they will fell that they belong amongst we people who belong here as they are exactly as they are in this moment. For as Rachel Naomi Remen wrote in "My Grandfather's Blessings".

"A blessing is not something that one person gives another. A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship in which both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one another. By making a place for wholeness within our relationships, we offer others the opportunity to be whole without shame and become a place of refuge from everything in them that are not genuine. We enable people to remember who they are."

A sense of belonging is a deeply precious thing. It is belonging that helps us become who we are meant to be. It is a sense of belonging that allows us to find ourselves in beautiful place and feel that we are home. It is a sense of belonging that enables us to be ourselves, in whatever company we find ourselves without feeling the need to fit in. It is a sense of belonging that enables us to truly make every moment a once in lifetime experience. It is a sense of belonging that allows us to become good neighbours and to the bless the whole world with our welcome….

May you find a place where you belong…May you find a house of belonging…

The Wounded Healer

A friend recently sent me the following by Rachel Naomi Remen. It came at a time when I seemed to hearing the phrase "The Wounded Healer" quite a lot. It chimes with many of my recent thoughts...

“We all can influence the life source. The tools and strategies of healing are so innate, so much a part of a common human birthright, that we believers in technology pay very little attention to them. But they have lost none of their power.

“People have been healing each other since the beginning. Long before there were surgeons, psychologists, oncologists, and internists, we were there for each other. The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we all have to heal each other, the enormous power in the simplest of human relationships; the strength of a touch, the blessing of forgiveness, the grace of someone else taking you just as you are and finding in you an unsuspected goodness.

“Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.”

From “Kitchen Table Wisdom” by Rachel Naomi Remen

I’ve been hearing the phrase the wounded healer a lot recently. It perhaps sounds a little strange and maybe it is. There are those who say that you must be healed yourself before you can hope to help others, otherwise you will pour out your pain onto those you are trying to help. I understand this perspective and I see some truth in it and yet somehow the fear, the lack of faith, in it seems to miss the point. If you wait until you are whole, until you are perfect before being of use to others you may be waiting a long time, until eternity.

My understanding of my self, my own suffering and healing and my observations and experiences with others has shown me that we are all wounded to some degree, we all have cracks within us. Nobody is perfect and who would want to be. In fact I have discovered that it is our very wounds and imperfections that put us into a better position to help others come to terms with who they are. Our own woundedness helps to breed empathy and understanding. Who amongst us is not wounded in some way? Who amongst us does not bear the scars of life? And because we are wounded does this mean we cannot help others? I believe that the opposite is true. It is our very wounds and the scars formed from them that makes us better able to help others heal from their own wounds.

The ancient Greeks understood the power of the “Wounded Healer”. Their mythology tells the story of Chiron, a wise and benevolent centaur and a master of healing.

During one of his adventures Heracles (known as Hercules in Roman Mythology) visited the cave of Chiron. He had been invited to a gathering there. Now as we all know it is impolite to attend a party without bringing something for other guests and so Heracles brought along a flask of extremely potent wine. Now the smell of the wine attracted many of the other centaurs who began to fight over it, nothing much has changed over the centuries it seems. During the melee Chiron was accidently wounded on the knee by an arrow shot by Heracles. Now this was no ordinary arrow, it was poison tipped; this was no ordinary poison either it had come from the Hydra a monster with many heads that was virtually impossible to slay. Now while Chiron could show Heracles how to heal the wound caused by the arrows tip, he could not treat the Hydra’s poison. As he was immortal it could not kill him but neither could he fully recover from the wound. He would have to live on into eternity with his wounded knee. Chiron the greatest of healers could show others how they could heal, but he could never fully recover from this wound. His wound would always show. So he walked on into eternity limping. Chiron is the archetype of the wounded healer.

“The Wounded Healer” was one of the most important archetypes identified by Carl Jung. He viewed Chiron as the ultimate example of how we can all overcome the pain of our own suffering by becoming compassionate teachers and show others how they too can transcend their own pain. You see the wounded healer is someone who has gone through great suffering and learnt from the experience. Through transcending their own suffering they are drawn towards the path of service leading them to help others. This process strips away the selfish ego-based feeling of being alone and isolated in their own suffering and woundedness. Instead through seeing the wound through different eyes they can see this suffering in others and they can therefore lead others to find ways to overcome their own suffering. Their wounds may never fully heal, as Chiron’s didn’t, but they can help heal the wider ailments of humanities shared life.

The question this brings to my mind is how do we create environments where the wounded healer can operate?

In his book “The Wounded Healer”, Henri Nouwen envisioned the creation of religious communities that could become a safe haven where people could be open and honest about their own woundedness, their suffering and loneliness; a safe haven where through recognising ones pain, healing and recovery could begin. Nouwen wrote that people today are “Semitic nomads…(who) live in a desert with many lonely travellers who are looking for a moment of peace, for a fresh drink and for a sign of encouragement so that they can continue their mysterious search for freedom.” I can really relate to this. One of the reason I became a part of a Unitarian community was for this very reason. Spirituality on an individual level is fine, but it only really comes alive in community as we search for healing and understanding together. Everyone is wounded in one way or another and everyone is looking for healing and understanding at one level or another, even if they are not entirely sure what from. We are all looking for love, understanding, acceptance and meaning. We are the religious animal, to deny this is to deny an important aspect of our shared humanity. None of us though are the experts, I've not yet found anyone with all the answers and I for one am grateful that the Unitarian tradition recognises this. This is why people need to come together in community, to ask questions, seek answers and find ways to heal ourselves and one another. By coming together in our shared suffering we can breed empathy and live more compassionately.

This brings to mind a quote I read on my Facebook feed this week by the Buddhist Pema Chodron;

“The Places that Scare You”

“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”

So how do we begin to heal, to live whole lives? Well first of all we need to know our own pain our own darkness and to not be afraid to show our scars. I always remember the scene from “Jaws” when the great white shark hunters are going out to face the man killer and they begin to drink and sing sea shanties and of course show one another their scars. The scars are marks of experience of having lived the lives of shark hunters.

Now I know that this is an extremely macho setting but I think there is something in it for everyone. Our scars our wounds are symbols of the lives we have lived and we ought not to be afraid to show them. Not in some form of vainglory but as symbol of our shared humanity. To show we have lived and have healed from our wounds, although not without one or two scars.

Sadly there is a growing tendency in our age to cover up our imperfections our blemishes. Some even go as far as having intricate tattoos on their skin to cover up past physical wounds. These though are only superficial and do not really cover up the lives we have lived. Neither do they offer much to others, as we remain locked in our own shame about our own only too human imperfections. As beautiful as the tattoos can be I see a greater beauty in what lies behind the scars.

We are all wounded and we all carry the scars of our wounds, no matter how hard we try to cover them up. These wounds aren't always physical either. they can be be emotional, spiritual and mental too.

Now please do not get me wrong I am not attempting to romanticise suffering here. I know how destructive it can be. I spent enough of my life attempting to flee from it. I am aware of how destructive it can be to people and whole societies. It can lead to anger and deep rooted bitterness.

The point I am trying to make is that our suffering can be transformed. If we allow it to be our suffering can become a powerful force for the development of compassion and empathy. We all suffer and by understanding this it ought to bring us closer to one another and lead us to a place of deeper understanding and healing.

Healing can come, so long as we do not hide from our suffering. The key I believe is to uncover the wounds and get down to what is deep within them. By doing so we may just uncover deeper resources that can bring healing to ourselves and others; by doing so we can tap into that greater reality that lies at the core of everything.

Experience has revealed to me that there exists an inner most place at the core of each of us, that is at the core of all life. By understanding our own woundedness we can tap into this and we can then become better able to serve one another. This is a place of healing that remains untouched by our physical wounds. It is the holy of holies. It is that aspect of each of us that is made in the image of the Divine, the Atman, the Real Self, the Soul, the Divine Spark, the Buddha Nature, that aspect of God in everyone. Jung called this the archetype of the Self and believed that this wonderful healing resource was there deep within us waiting to be mined at any moment.

Experience has revealed to me the truth of Jung's discoveries. I believe that it is our task to unearth this true self and to let it out into our lives and to share it with our brothers and sisters in the communities we inhabit. When we do so we can begin to transform our woundedness and we can bring healing beyond our personal pain and suffering. Surely this is the whole point, to bring about connection and not to simply escape all pain and suffering. We all have the potential, the capacity to heal. It is our very woundedness that qualifies us for the task.

In many ways this is why I became a minister of religion; this is why I became a Unitarian minister, because I believe that this free religious tradition has at its core this belief that community can bring healing and wholeness to all. We say "All are welcome here, come as you are, exactly as you are, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition." surely this is our primary task, our primary purpose. If it is not then why else do we exist? Our communities I believe are not merely here to serve the individuals present within them, but also the wider human community. We are free religious communities. We do not say that you must believe this or that to commune here with us. We say "come as you are exactly as you," but we also say, "but do not expect to leave in the same condition." I know in my time amongst Unitarians I have never left in exactly the same condition. We are here to bring wholeness and not merely freedom.

We are not perfect, but then what in life is. We all bear the scars of life, some inflicted by others and some by own hands. I have discovered that it is only by accepting and fully understanding this that we make ourselves better able to help others come to terms with who they are and live a life of service for the good of all.

I am yet to meet a perfect person anywhere in life, including the communities I serve or have been a part of. That said I have met some of the most beautiful people on God's earth during my time amongst the Unitarians. I like to call them the beautifully strange, or perhaps the strangely beautiful.

We are all beautiful in our own unique ways, but nobody is perfect. By fully understanding and accepting this we can begin to invite other, perfectly imperfect beautiful souls into our lives and by doing we so we might just find ways to bring wholeness to our lives and the lives of all our brothers and sister.

Henri Nouwen wrote “We do not know where we will be two, ten or twenty years from now. What we can know, however, is that human beings suffer and that a sharing of suffering can make us move forward.” By sharing our suffering we can begin to move forward and it is this that can begin to bring about the healing and wholeness that we are all searching for, we are hoping for. This can grow from within each of us as we commune together, work together and do the works of compassion that our wounded world needs. We can begin it today, it begins in our own hearts. We are all “The Wounded Healers.”

I will end this little piece with the following beautiful words by Pesah Gertler

"The Healing Time"

Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say holy
holy.