I used to be a grief facilitator. We worked in pairs. My job was to say what might be hard for the grieving person to hear and to take in. My partner's job was to apply the salve to the wound that had been lanced. The rest of the community's job was to be there with and for each other to hold each other, to cry with each other, to truly hear each other and to recognize that all of us were fragile and vulnerable and people who didn't have all the answers but did have each other's backs and held each other's hearts in our hands. The five years I was involved as a facilitator in this work of helping others close the door gently on their past and move with faith into their present was the one and only time in my lifetime that I ever experienced true community among men and women together who knew what they knew and learned what they didn't know together. There were times our team would finish a weekend and come back together to decompress, to marvel at the miracles of healing we had witnessed together from the beginning of each program evening to the end of the program and to critique what went well and what didn't go well (not our favorite part of being team together - we wanted to stay on the high). Our vulnerabilities and our insecurities would come into play from time to time and there would be those who would want to leave the meeting. Our president at that time - a very wise and thoughtful woman - said during an especially difficult gathering when people wanted to quit, walk out, stop talking or sharing or expressing themselves - "We are a family. Families sometimes disagree. They sometimes fight. The worst thing any of us can do is leave the process or leave ourselves or each other. We are all going to sit here and we are going to be present to each other in love and in understanding. No one can leave this room until we are united again as a group of wounded healers who truly do love each other and can be honest and open with each other even with our differences."

MIP is probably the closest I have come to that blessed time in my life. We are a family. There are times one or several of us are going to disagree with each other, not understand each other, or fight with each other. We can leave but the question I have is: "Where are we going to go that will be better for us than here?" We can stop sharing, expressing ourselves, being open and honest with each other imperfectly, but will that truly help us in the long-run? My answer is no.  As Betty often states, we are in process and healing according to spiritual principles (if I'm understanding her accurately) is a process.  We're going to hit some.  We're going to miss some.  But - if we stay with the process - we will experience healing together and we will experience new life together - even though we can't see each other and don't even know much about each other's homes, professional life or families.  I am grateful for MIP and I'm grateful for the healing that continues in me with the help of others who have been wounded, too.