… watching for the brushstrokes of God
Trauma is an open wound. For those who survive trauma, the experience of trauma can be likened to a death. But the reality is that death has not ended; instead, it persists. The experience of survival is one in which life, as it once was, cannot be retrieved. However, the promise of life ahead cannot be envisioned.” ~ Shelly Rambo
Where do you hold or see open wounds?
On the edge of war, one foot already in,
I no longer pray for peace:
I pray for miracles.
I pray that stone hearts will turn
to tenderheartedness,
and evil intentions will turn
to mercifulness, …
I pray that all the “God talk”
will take bones,
and stand up and shed
its cloak of faithlessness,
and walk again in its powerful truth….
I no longer pray for peace:
I pray for miracles. ~ Ann Weems
How far do your prayers go?
“Over and over we must know that the real target of evil is not destruction of the body, the reduction of rubble of cities; the real target of evil is to corrupt the spirit of man and to give his soul the contagion of inner disintegration… Therefore the evil in the world around us must not be allowed to move from without to within.” ~ Howard Thurman
How do you keep alive a sensitivity to the Spirit?
Sometimes there are no words in the face of fear and despair.
How does one companion in such a time as this?
“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories…water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés
What stories do you water?
“And so by fateful chance the Negro folk-song — rhythmic cry of the slave — stands today not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side the seas.” W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
What songs rise from your experience?
With the Eyes of the Heart 