The Healing Circle

The Healing Circle.

I realize this book is the festschrift for my professor in human rights ministry, who was herself a Presbyterian and a global activist and was imprisoned and tortured and scarred.

Healing.

These days I have been feeling healed, renewed, restored from past hurts in ministry and in seminary and in life; recently I have been able to forgive some pretty painful and previously scarring hurts and begin to reconcile relationships with those who hurt me. It was a clearing-out of sorts and a way to clear the road ahead for future ministries of reconciliation. Good practice, I guess. Actually, I think it was when I realized I was at a point where I could forgive these things without feeling diminished that it was indeed time to forgive.

At GlobalServe, our new co-op, we are down by two residents. One paid the deposit, but came up from Texas with her father and decided not to stay. I don’t know why, other than that our apartment is an older building with curiously-textured walls. The other was a space the seminary had us hold open for an international student who “was certain to come,” but didn’t. I am more frustrated about that one, having turned away people who could pay for an unfulfilled promise; and for the seminary leaving us to pay for something it couldn’t deliver. I was hoping recruitment would be done by now; it took some time and energy that I don’t have space for now that school has started. On the other hand, it is neat to meet all these folks interested in what we’re doing. It’s encouraging. I’d like to have them as partners along the path.

I am anxious about working with site supervisors this week, knowing that it’s hard enough for me to ask others to give me some of their time on a regular basis, knowing how crazy busy they are. One potential supervisor for SeminaryAction has promised his help, but I don’t know if he’ll be able to follow through. On the other hand, my supervising pastor likes my work with SeminaryAction and sees it as part of the wider ministry. So maybe that’s a supervisory relationship that will work. And frankly, I see SeminaryAction as tied into the work that I do at the church. It all connects. I hope it will keep doing so, and not begin to clash/jar/compete in any bad way. At minimum, I’ll need to keep a good calendar running. At worst, maybe I’ll need counseling when this is over.