Perpetrators and the Image of God 5

INTRODUCTION

Dear Readers...

Welcome to where roots are riotous

“And don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It’s quiet, but the roots there are riotous.”

– Rumi –

Dear friends,

This is an invitation to a journey into love, life and hope. We begin by acknowledging that for many, this journey begins in suffering. Suffering is an experience that we all share. Trauma inflicted through abuse of power, meanness, neglect, abandonment, or violent oppression is especially difficult for the human spirit to bear. Yet, the stories of our scriptures and traditions strive to help us make sense of pain and persecution and connect us to the powerful threads of love, hope and renewal that flow out of our connection with God and with each other—the riotous roots that give us life. So, we set out to write a book, a Barefoot Guide, that would be a resource to help ourselves and faith communities to better see, share and connect to their own resourcefulness, their God-granted resilience and practices around theology, congregational and community life.

Our guiding questions come from four places:

Spirit: How do we already connect with the healing power of God’s spirit flowing in and through and around us?

Theology: How, in congregational settings, do we activate and connect with our theological traditions or streams relevant to living a faithful, healing life? Community Life: How do we care for each other in our interpersonal relationships, congregations, and social structures? Science says that what creates healing and hope is the quality of our relationships, so how do we see and enhance what we are already doing to care for each other? Practice: What are the relevant spiritual practices we can activate in our liturgical life, prayer, social justice work, music and arts, youth engagement and other spheres of life?

But in telling our stories to each other,... we may arrive at clearer and more helpful questions. These questions then point to our next right action, our next helpful step. This is how life can work, one faithful step at a time.

Telling our own stories of hurt, resilience and hope

However, as we started writing, what emerged was that we all had our own stories of hurt, resilience and hope to tell. We needed to begin with our own journeys realizing that the telling of these stories was important for our own healing and connection and that through the telling and listening, we were able to meet each other in a new way. This is what we offer, not as answers to the questions we set off with, but as explorations and invitations to you, individually and in congregations, to join with us. This is not an instruction manual on what to do with suffering. That is not how suffering and healing work. We are only inviting congregations to tell and wrestle with their own stories and to listen for how God is listening and speaking, to be on a collective journey with your own questions. This is a quest, rather than the easy arrival at a collective answer.

This kind of journey, while seldom arriving at clear answers, if arriving at all, does ask for action. We may begin with questions about what has happened to us, often questions of bewilderment, cries of despair and confusion. But in telling our stories to each other, in community, in congregations, and helping each other to reflect, whether in conversation or prayer, we may arrive at clearer and more helpful questions. These questions then point to our next right action, our next helpful step. This is how life can work, one faithful step at a time.

Why a Barefoot Guide?

Like all other Barefoot Guides, this book has been written by people working in community to be used by people who are also working in community. Primarily, this is a book of real stories, questions and reflections. We try to appeal to diverse human senses and ways of learning, so you will find illustrations and poetry to accompany and illuminate the text.

This was written as a collaboration, in a series of “writeshops” and many deep dialogues. We hope that through the stories, you will experience our collective striving to integrate and practice our deepest spiritual calling—to love God with our whole heart, body and mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves.