Just this week, I started taking a course through the Therapeutic Writing Institute. I signed up about a month ago and made note of the start date in my little paper planner that so many of my friends mock given the age of electronic everything. The start date was Monday, June 26. This has been a hard week, but I think the universe was setting me up for support in a crucial time.
Last night, I finally got around to reading the first assignment for this course — the first two chapters of Christina Baldwin’s Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives Through the Power and Practice of Story. I became a Christina Baldwin fan earlier this year when I attended an evening gathering/workshop at which she discussed the power of story and writing. She got me journalling again. I then went to a weekend workshop in Round Top that she led through Storycircle Network and fell deeper in love with her manner and sensibility. I took this photo with her at the workshop. So when I saw that she was teaching a class this summer that I could take, I signed up.Already, with the first assignment, I’m in love with her book and feel much gratitude for her writing. In Chapter 1, she tells a story so beautiful that I’m going to quote her at length:
Amen, Christina. I do want to be remembered back into alignment with myself and my purpose, and I do want a chance to respond to thoughtlessness and cruelty with a ritual that creates the possibility of reconnection. Rifts hurt. When they happen, I crave the opportunity to heal and be healed and to return to a place where we remember who we are and why we are important to one another. I don’t know how to do that right now, but I want to spend the next week or two or three with this story in my head, and I hope it will guide my actions.
It Started With Coeur d'Alene 
Taline, yes! I've read Storycatcher and I so love that Bebemba ritual as well! It reminds me of my Prayer of St. Francis bracelet too … that we should try to have the opposite reaction of what we might initially think. I'm so impressed with your continual journey in learning and growing! Miss you!
Hi, Aunt Tanny it's me Armineh. That is a cool story of how the tribe forgives its inhabitants. But you have a cooler story of forgiveness. Acts 2:38 says: Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. "You don't need to have other people tell you all the good things you've done to know you're forgiven. If you know Jesus you will have forgiveness. And the Holy Spirit will keep you on the right track. Love you Aunt Tanny! I hope you are still enjoying your improv class!
Sugar, thank you for your thoughtful comment. I agree with you, but I do think there's a place in our lives for both kinds of forgiveness. Your describe a vertical forgiveness – between us and God. I'm describing a lateral forgiveness – between us and others. I think both kinds of relationships are important and they are healed in different ways. Does that make sense? I love you so much.Michelle – Thank you too! I miss you too. Maybe we can meet at Thyme and Dough soon?
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