A little bit stronger

Healing implies a state of vulnerability.  Saying you are healing is admitting that something wounded you enough to bring you down.  So when is healing over? Is it over when things are back to normal? Or does the scar left by the harm mean the healing is never complete?  A constant battle with scar tissue, constant vulnerability.

Macrory Hall is finished and ready for use again.  We’ve worked through and our building is healed.  Now that we are moving forward with our projects in our natural home, I wonder exactly how much damage has been done.  It surely runs deeper then paint and tiles?  

Our youth club uses a strong restorative discipline and we have been working diligently at this discipline.  We have observed, discussed, and analyzed the current situation in club and gradually made changes to make club a better.  So much progress has been made. The difference can even be seen from one week to the next.

Yet, as I reflect how far club has come in the last few months, I can’t help but remember my first night at Macrory, before the break-in and vandalism.  The kids’ behavior couldn’t be described with any adjective comparable to good.  Much of the behavior could likely be accredited to their belief that they had the right to behave that way in their club, in their hall.  Most nights now I see them as completely different kids. So is all of this progress going to hold strong as we move back to our own hall? Or are we more damaged then we thought? Is our journey of healing longer then we thought? I guess only Saturday will tell.

The thing about wounds is most take a long time to heal, longer then we think.   Sometimes I forget that you can’t rush the process; it’s ok to be in the healing process.  Healing implies progress and it can’t be rushed.  So, here’s to healing, in the things in my own life I can’t control or change, healing in the lives of others as they struggle through the past and their current situations, and healing in the organizations I work with and have grown to love deeply as I watch different forces try to knock them around.  Care, love, and attention will see us all through.  Cheers