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(please notice the tags marking all brilliance that is juliet marillier--i ran out half way through. oh well, i guess i'll just have to read it again. . .for the fifth time).
i used to have a little ball of tightly wound scratchy twine that i kept close by. . .to remind me that i could do hard things.
to remind me that my daily weaving of starwort had a purpose.
that i had a hard task, and sometimes it was hard to face it again, day after day.
but i did.
as i thought about hosting this book group i wanted to have each person make their own little ball of starwort.
and then i found some soft organic multi-colored green yarn.
and it felt just right in my hands.
and i realized that i was no longer weaving starwort of one kind or another.
i had done hard things and other hard things.
and the yarn felt soft and not as harsh under my fingers.
and i thought of the quote i loved in storyline about victor frankl's (who survived the holocaust) theory of finding a "redemptive perspective" in our suffering. i have thought about it at least once or more every day since i read it.
suddenly that it what that yarn was for me. not prickly and tough, but softened. redeemed. "Frankl doesn't mean to say tragedy is actually positive. The negative turns in our lives remain negative turns. But if we are going to heal, we must find something meaningful that came to us because of our tragedies.
i passed around a basket with yarn and scissors and asked each woman to think of some starwort that they were currently weaving, like sorcha in the story who was given the impossible task of weaving starwort shirts to free her brothers from a curse, or to think of a negative turn in our lives and find the redemptive perspective from that.
i also passed around "swan feathers" and asked the women to make crowns--and that each feather would represent a success, just like sorcha had, of a hard task.
i have wondered about my own redemptive perspective from weaving starwort--and have thought of many. and after a long phone conversation this morning and more than a little prayer and a re-read of a paragraph in storyline, i thought of another. . .
you see,
i am a
sensitive soul.
surprise.
and
sometimes that comes with a high cost.
i long to
share my deepest most heart.
and i do.
i lay it
out on tables for examination again and again.
i do this
to myself, i know.
it's the
way i share.
i share
on my blog.
i share
with my friends.
i find
myself walking up to the pulpit and sharing at testimony meeting.
or in
classrooms.
but i am
a sensitive soul
and
sometimes it hurts to share.
it makes
me feel vulnerable and scared and exposed. . .
but
somehow i can NOT not do it.
the words
are out of my mouth, or on the page
and there
i am, again, naked.
and most
times there are others who say, "thank you. i didn't know i was the
only one that felt that."
but
sometimes that is the not the response.
and
sometimes that hurts.
and i
twitch for days afterward, wondering, should i have kept my heart shoved tight
in my chest?
should i
have kept my lips closed and my thoughts to myself?
and as i wondered about this and felt perhaps full of fear and regret and vulnerability questioning myself i came across the phrase that struck me to the core. . .wounded healer.
"Bishop Desmond Tutu was put in charge of a commission to bring healing to his nation after the atrocities of Apartheid. When asked what kinds of people he wanted to serve on the commission, Tutu said he wanted victims. Victims, he said, whose lives had been torn apart. He wanted those who had been raped, who had seen their parents killed, who'd had their houses burned to the ground.
But, he said, they cannot have stayed victims. If they serve on commission, they must be people who have forgiven their oppressors. These people, Tutu said, will be the wounded healers of South Africa.
When I heard that phrase, wounded healer, I knew that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to do something meaningful with my pain."
i want to take that very sentence of donald miller's and make it my own. . .i want to be a wounded healer and do something meaningful with my pain.
although sometimes it may still hurt and i may have to handle the starwort again. . .
but mostly it's become soft under my fingers now
and if i can pass that basket along asking others to see and feel the power of redemption
than perhaps i can be most like sorcha. . .
a healer.
with more than herb and poultices as my tools.