I LOVE THIS!! https://youtube.com/shorts/y_Y_EbzAzjk?si=YAoP-arkuOJf8eUH.
Carney apologized to Trump because as a responsible leader he recognizes that protecting reputation and doubling down on rightness has never been the way to pave the path to peace and collaboration.
I love this because as a recovered gossiper – ten years in recovery, and as a new keeper of the space and hearts – as a nurturer who has done the very hard and very expensive work of learning to listen from my heart I know exactly how difficult it is to apologize and to hold space, while making space for grief – my grief- and the grief and fear of all others to flow.
I know how excruciatingly difficult it is to get to this place.
I know how excruciatingly painful it is to accept persecution and injustice, and still stay in, and/or circle back to love.
Maturity and wisdom begin to recognize that seeking accountability and building a way forward isn’t made better by grandstanding even if one is right.
An apology given because an apology is craved fills a need. It builds space. It’s not about being right or wrong. Perception – experience is everything. Therefore, instead of fighting and right defending, I have found that accepting the idea that my good intentions were not clearly communicated, and that some sharp edge which I missed in the humanness of expression and interaction caused harm.
Offering an apology creates space for all involved to process from grace and healing. It says, I see you. I value you. I wounded you.
This knowing gained as God has accompanied me on an Emmaus walk through life has helped me to be patient with life that very often feels like a fiery furnace. And when I flow out of peace my Baba Ndiri’s coaching helps me to circle back to peace, and to extend peace in spirit to those whom I would have previously cut flat down with my fiery tongue, and whose opportunity to connect I would have burnt to ash in the incinerator of forgetfulness.
To do this, I had to learn how to cry again.
Vulnerability matters.
This past summer as I watched the days go by, Camp-meeting approached, and the administration of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church remained silent, regarding the concern about convicted sex offenders attending Camp-meeting, I came to social media hoping that it would spark conversation and progressive momentum to protect children and create space for connection and rehabilitation for known and convicted sex offenders who would usually attend.
I’ve been praying that some positive action is being made even though fear and survival mode flight, freeze, fawn, fright, faint, or flock kept the administration from acknowledging my expressed concerns.
I had already apologized a few weeks earlier for not communicating as clearly as I thought I had. My words had caused them to feel afraid — afraid that I was threatening them with public exposure — when in truth, I was seeking accountability and discussion, in the loving process of truth and reconciliation, for something which they feared would ruin their reputation.
And that is an understandable fear because they are human. In general human interactions survival mode driven by fear is real. Blame and scapegoating driven by shame are real. Gossip is real — and we all fear the sting of gossip as much as we fear the bite of a venomous snake. Gossip has long been used as a weapon of war, wielded against opponents in a right-fight. Yes, war. A right-fight with reputations deliberately left shredded on the battlefield.
And there is a profound difference between a right-fight and a focused, private invitation to the table of truth and reconciliation.
We rarely acknowledge that when we tell our version of a story — with all parties deliberately individually identified — to people who are not at the table to facilitate reconciliation, our intention, whether we are conscious of it or not, is to gather an army. And that army’s mission is not healing. It is the social assassination of the other.
I recognized long ago that there has likely been a campaign of disinformation set in motion to discredit and alienate me in order to protect their reputation.
I just keep singing glory over it all, because my job is to nurture and encourage growth in integrity, while holding space for connection and healing someday.
“Glory” is the song that God began to sing with me in victory which is already certain.
I shared this song and prayers with them throughout the communication process which began on February 6, 2024 when I made the first step towards seeking restitution and reconciliation.
And as I have processed with God, and waited until the fullness of it all dropped back down to my heart, as I moved through Jesus’ prescribed accountability process I have been able to tell the story publicly to the general population to help facilitate restitution while I wait for the victory of reconciliation.
Victory will be to see relationships restored, healthy forums to wrestle with truth and reconciliation created, with grace, hope and love at the core, so that the truest profit of healing and wholeness as it is in heaven can be experienced here and now on Earth.
“…The biggest weapon is to stay peaceful
We sing, our music is the cuts that we bleed through
Somewhere in the dream we had an epiphany
Now we right the wrongs in history
No one can win the war individually
It takes the wisdom of the elders and young people’s energy
Welcome to the story we call victory
The comin’ of the Lord, my eyes have seen the glory
One day when the glory comes
It will be ours, it will be ours…(Common and John Legend, Glory)
We are not interested in exclusion, or in public executions with children seated to watch.
That kind of culture is what allowed children to stand, posing, smiling, beside the dangling, charred bodies of lynched and tortured men and women as if the gruesomeness was an acceptable norm.
We seek healing, transparency, and transformation now, on Earth as it is in heaven.
We are here. Diverse. Equal. Included.
Glory.
Nurturing Kindred 