Wise answer!!!

I think both, simultaneously is a wonderful, wise answer.  I guess I am thinking of the hermits or monks who retire from the world to pray for us all, versus the monks who are in the world helping people.  Which one is more productive for self and for others?

Healing in community may be the best - which I suppose is support groups.  But the idea of one-to-one, it appeals to me right now.

I know that people have come into my life to teach me something important, and often, later, there is someone else who shows up - just to test me.  Sometimes they stay, sometimes they move onto other teachers, other situations.

How do I feel about my mystical moment with my son?  It still feels light - like a bright moment.  I have not talked to him yet.  I am not sure how to, or what to do with this that will help both him and his wife.  I love them both so much, and I want them to make it as a happy family.  And I know it can happen...

Your oldest son is at a hard place.  It is painful to be his age.  I felt lost until I was about 17.  I was fairly suicidal until I was 17.  Then one day I realized that everyone was so caught in their own pain, they really didn't care who I was or what I was doing.  That was so freeing.  It changed me.  It was so much easier to be a nonconformist, and to do whatever I felt like doing, to interpret the world any way that made sense to me.  I was free to reject everything!  I am glad that your son can talk to you.  And understanding changes everything.  You don't accept the behaviors, but they make sense.  He doesn't seem like he's foreign any more.

Do you feel negative emotion toward me?  You have my nail prints scarred into your skin where I grabbed you.  I caused pain, I was out of control.  Is there a little girl inside somewhere who is still hurt by me?  I can apologize to her...

I have had mixed feelings about Mom.  I thought she was a saint for many years, until I realized I was furious at her for not protecting us.  Then that was balanced when I "felt" the young mother totally overwhelmed by a new baby every year.  I felt so much sympathy.  But she chose to be manipulated by the Catholic Church rather than be wise and healthy and care about what was happening to us.  But, then when I have had those moments of frankness, when we could talk - she honestly owns up to making mistakes, and I cycle back around to a level of forgiveness and another layer of understanding.  It is a complex relationship, complicated by the fact that I got promoted and demoted in the family - quasi-parent to child and back.  I do wonder what would happen if the sexual abuse came to light - Dad on kids, brothers on sisters.  Could she handle it?  Would she still be strong, or would she fall apart?

I wonder what your healer threw away...

When I wrote for the newspaper, I did a huge article on the underground railroad that took kids from this region and placed them in prostitution in various parts of the country.  I learned how the kids were lured, how the procurers identified likely targets.  I was sick by the time I finished writing it.  I don't know if it ever made a difference.  But I knew what was happening, and couldn't "unknow".

I think the whole of violence is too big for one person.  Somehow we have to think cooperatively and bring people with different parts of the problem together so they can see the whole picture together.  Then maybe they will be led, they will know what to do.  But first you have to break down the barriers.  I imagine that those who work in the field are exhausted and overwhelmed and battered emotionally, psychically, psychologically...it has to be one of the worst, yet one of the highest, most noble callings possible.

Keep talking.  Someone will hear you.  Someone will know what to do...have faith.

I love you,

Clare