[amc] Fw: On Becoming a Wounded Healer
- From: "Ray Gingerich" <RGingerich@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Austin Mennonite Church" <amc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 22:22:48 -0500
Ask Ruth Anne, Barb or me about this training if you are interested. Ray
----- Original Message -----
From: AAIM Austin
To: Recipient list suppressed
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 4:37 PM
Subject: On Becoming a Wounded Healer
This mailing is a service of AAIM to alert the Austin Interreligious community
of events that may be of interest to them. AAIM does not necessarily endorse
the events listed.
On Becoming a Wounded Healer
A Ministry of Hope, Healing and Justice of
Gethsemane Lutheran Church
with
David Doerfler, M.Div.
Who:
For anyone who has faced or is facing personal grief, pain, conflicts and
struggles that do not lend themselves to simple answers and solutions; anyone
addressing conflict within themselves or in the world around them. in their
families, work or school settings, in their churches, mosques, synagogues.
anyone seeking the healing process for self and others.
How can your wounds become openings and occasions for healing, new vision and
new life? How can failings, suffering, pain, doubt, despair. in your own life
provide the foundation for grace-filled connections to the wounds of others?
When:
October 17 21, 2005
Monday through Friday
8:30am to 5:30pm
(5-day intensive format)
Limited space available
Number of participants is restricted to assure optimum opportunity for
processing
Where:
Gethsemane Lutheran Church
200 W. Anderson Lane, Austin, Texas
Immediate registration is strongly encouraged so that the individual
pre-training work with David can begin as soon as possible
Registration Cost: $400*
(*includes extensive pre-training materials, other tools for introspection and
self-awareness, and a process of personal support and advocacy)
Self-determined payment plans available.
Every opportunity will be made to assure that the cost of registration
will not restrict participation.
An Opportunity for You
In the midst of war, terrorism, personal insecurity, and the demonization of
other people, cultures, races and religions, this training experience provides
the opportunity to learn from the "inside out" how to facilitate healing
dialogue and how to apply this healing process to a myriad of everyday
circumstances and conditions. Perhaps even more importantly it provides
individual participants the opportunity to dialogue with themselves, to look
inside and do their own healing so that they can help others do the same.
When unexplainable loss and grief have occurred, or when senseless violence has
created intractable pain and ambiguity, fear and doubt, or when the numbing
reality of daily life has begun to overwhelm you, this experience can give you
an intimate opportunity to understand and experience the healing process. In
the face of tragic violation, whether in the sands of Iraq, the streets of our
communities, or in the sanctity of our own homes, what can we do? With all the
horror and hopelessness and helplessness of these turbulent times what can you
be about in your homes, your congregation, but most importantly within yourself
to make a difference? We are but a microcosm of what is happening in the world
around us.
The understanding you will garner from this experience can be life-changing and
can provide a foundation for hope-filled work within yourself, your
congregation and your community. This opportunity is about you and me in
everyday life and how we can choose to heal. The self-awareness you will
receive is applicable to the healing process at any level and circumstance for
all of us who have been personally violated, for all of us who have violated
others, for all of us who have experienced loss, grief and trauma, for all of
us seeking common ground alternatives toward healing and justice.
What participants have experienced.
I found "On Becoming a Wounded Healer" to be a unique opportunity to experience
the healing process in my life.
This training was monumentally important to me...The potential and need for
growth and healing is in us all--we just don't know it. I do believe this
profound healing can change us--and the world.
A rich, enriching time of growth. I felt I was in a safe place to experience
and feel what is real for me.
I feel more whole spiritually, better equipped emotionally, clear mentally, and
connected to myself.
What was most helpful? Learning what is possible within the extremes of human
suffering.
______________________________________________________
I believe that the healing process is not just pulling together torn pieces
with new seams, or patching gaping holes and losses with shreds of what is
right, or just or good or necessary. Healing will require the weaving of
something new with a warp of the experience of suffering and the weft of the
threads of love, specific tools and inspired craftsmanship. I doubt this work
can be done alone.
Margaret Manz,, January2005 training participant
ON BECOMING A WOUNDED HEALER offers a unique opportunity to receive the
assurance of personal safety and acceptance, to use empowering tools for
self-awareness,andexperience a sacred, structured time for processing and
healing: a safe place, tools and time just for you.
******************
Other Testimonials:
"I have never before been able to share my deepest, most excruciating pain and
shame like I did. I shared things that were never mentioned before. Being able
to do this with our group was literally life-changing for me. I feel like a
whole new, free person. I have never experienced a workshop, retreat or session
of any kind to be so intense, transformational and profound. I can't think of
an experience I would recommend more. And to top it all off, I know I will be
friends with the others from the group for a long time to come. The sharing,
growth, healing, understanding and even bonding was absolutely amazing. Thank
you!!"
Jennifer LeBaron, participant
August 23-27, 2004 session
"The training was so much more than I had anticipated. David was masterful at
creating a safe space within which grace descended and minds and stories
stopped. We had the opportunity to look deeply inside and expose the stories of
pain and shame. I feel that whole layers of fixation in me dropped away. It has
been extraordinary to watch myself in situations where fear would previously
have arisen, and no fear arises."
Fred Perloff, Therapist
Ashland, Oregon
"We all learn slowly. For me, with intensive experience in prisons since 1962,
it came as new learning to experience, more directly than I ever had, the
excruciating pain of victims and their survivors. I thought I knew that, but
David took me much deeper. Like any worthwhile spiritual growth, it comes with
some pain. To confront one's own internal victim and one's own internal
offender is a challenging process. However, I would not trade it for anything.
Most of all, it took me to the depths of the meaning of deep forgiveness. to go
with people who have been hurt to the bottom of their pain. I find myself more
centered, more rooted in the place God finds me, stronger, more peaceful than I
was before the training."
Father Stephen Chinlund, Executive Director
Episcopal Social Services of New York.
Our congregation invited David to lead us through a Lenten journey on
Forgiveness and Reconciliation. David's extensive work within the Texas prison
system and Victim Services provides an unprecedented perspective of the power
of God's gift of forgiveness. As some who attended commented: "We truly
experienced the power of forgiveness." and "It was good to be reminded of how
important it is for the church to be a sanctuary for forgiveness and renewal,
not just a place for the righteous among us."
Michael W. Enrude, Pastor
Zion Lutheran Church
Fredericksburg, Texas
David holds an absolute allegiance to his faith in the power of unadorned truth.
This truth creates the deepest internal healing possible. David is very gifted
and very spiritual; he helps you cultivate the courage to take that journey
inward by accessing the yearning people have for their own healing. He
challenges you to remove the blocks to your authentic living by (leading) you
to be accountable for who you are in the world. He provides a path for making
who you are on the outside congruent with who you discover yourself to be on
the inside. This process creates wholeness and the resolve to continue to live
in ways that embrace growth, healing and inner strength. David's depth and
compassion as well as his wisdom and capacity to love furnishes the balm that
lets you face your truths, the majesty of what lies beyond yourself, and the
courage to live from the center of who you are.
Marilyn Peterson Armour, Ph.D., M.S., Psychotherapist,
Assistant Professor, University of Texas, School of Social Work.
As an owner of my own business, I was always conscious of my status in the
community. And yet deep inside, I was torn by the awareness of my addiction and
the harmful, destructive repercussions of my offending behavior. David not only
helped me face what I had done, but helped me realize who I really was--a
person of worth and value. He gave me reason to keep on living and to learn to
care again. He led me back to life. Through his honesty and compassion, his
strength and vulnerability, his understanding and love, he helped me discover
those same qualities in myself .That makes him my hero. I pray he will always
be in a position to facilitate that process of healing for others who are lost
in their own grim darkness but looking for the light. No one can do it better.
Richard H.
Austin, Texas
David, you're doing ministry at its most basic level helping heal the hurts of
human hearts! You've heard me use the term "the Word became flesh," and you
know how much that means to me personally when individuals actually practice
what they preach.From what I have seen, you, too, deserve that designation. The
word of grace and love and reconciliation has become flesh in David Doerfler,
and I am sure there are many with whom you have worked that will be eternally
grateful for what you have done.
Ron Birk, Communicator
Former ELCA Campus Pastor
Southwest Texas State University
San Marcos, Texas
The Trainer:
David Doerfler, the founder and facilitator of Concentric Journeys, brings a
unique balance of experiences, from the most extreme to the most everyday,
qualifying him to help individuals and groups from all walks of life in their
journey of healing, renewal, and the search for justice. His professional
experience is diverse and extensive. It includes work as an ordained Lutheran
minister, college football coach, former prison guard, and creator-developer of
a treatment/corrections and aftercare program for sex offenders and their
victims within the Texas prison system. He was most recently the State
Coordinator of the Victim Offender Mediation/Dialogue program for the Victim
Services Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). It was
there that he began and developed the process and program that provides an
opportunity for victims of violent crime to meet with their offenders in order
to facilitate a healing, "re-ordering" process for both. The VOM/D program has
been nationally and internationally recognized for its accomplishments in the
field of restorative justice and healing, including in the books SIGNS OF
HOPEIn Praise of Ordinary Heroes, The Mystic Heart of Justice, Living Next Door
to the Death House, Chicken Soup for the Prisoners Soul, Scream at the Sky, and
Facing ViolenceThe Path of Restorative Justice and Dialogue, as well as in
Texas Monthly, Hope and Rolling Stone Magazines. David has appeared on CBS 48
HOURS, the Rolonda Talk Show, and in the filming of a special documentary by
the NHK Japanese Broadcasting Company. His work was highlighted on the Court TV
documentary entitled, "Meeting with a Killer", nominated for a 2002 Emmy award,
and most recently highlighted on Oprah: "Coming Face-to-Face with Your
Attacker" (10/25/04).
In addition to facilitating a great number of the mediated dialogues himself,
including dialogues in death penalty cases between victims and their offenders
before the offenders' executions, David trained volunteer and staff mediators
to facilitate this process within Texas, developing proven tools, policies and
procedures in the implementation of this renowned process . Since leaving TDCJ,
he has continued to train interested individuals, pastors and other spiritual
leaders, program personnel, and Victim Services and Department of Corrections
staff, mediators, counselors and attorneys in other states and countries
interested in the replication or adaptation of this process.
David has completed consultant/development/training work for the Harvard School
of Public Health, and in the states of Oregon, Colorado, Alabama, New York,
Wyoming, Utah, Kentucky, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Vermont, Oklahoma,
Wisconsin, Tennessee, as well as Canada, England, University of Lueven-
Belgium, among others, including establishment of the process in Edinburgh
Scotland and for the California Department of Corrections, Office of Victim
Services and Restitution.
David is committed to applying the power of this healing process to everyday
conflicts as well as the sexual abuse and boundary violation issues of
clergy-parishioner relationships. He is a standing member of the Restorative
Justice Council on Sexual Misconduct in Faith Communities, a national
collaborative effort to provide a victim-centered model for persons harmed by
clergy/religious sexual abuse, focusing on healing of child and adult
abuse/exploitation/harassment, and accountability for the persons who created
the harm.
In addition to his training and consulting work, David is on the staff of
Gethsemane Lutheran Church, Austin Texas where he is responsible for advancing
the Ministry of Hope, Healing and Justice. He presently facilitates an
aftercare group for newly released offenders and is involved in the development
of a mentoring program for releasees using local congregational resources.
Additionally, David facilitates defense-based victim liaison/outreach work in
federal and state death penalty cases. He also facilitates retreats and
individual healing/renewal/recovery opportunities, including restorative
processes between adults-abandoned-as-children and their parents, and in other
estranged, divisive relationshipsinterpersonally or on a professional-corporate
level. David is also Chaplain for Hospice Austin, a non-profit organization
that serves terminally ill and bereaved persons in the community.
David has learned first-hand what the criminal justice system can offer, from
the first outcry of the victim to the final disposition of the offender's
sentence, to the aftermath and struggle of both victim and offender to find a
sense of meaning and justice and accountability. He understands and appreciates
the intensity of feelings evoked when nothing makes sense and a victim or an
offender is left numb, depressed, angry, resentful, alone, insecure, and empty.
He knows the anxiety and fear caused by such indescribable levels of stress,
and his experience with death row offenders, death penalty mediated dialogues,
and the Texas execution process has provided him with a uniquely deep insight
and understanding that can be powerfully applied to other daily life-and-death
struggles. He has experienced his own pain, loss of direction, and loss of self
as both a victim and in consequence of his own offending behavior. He has also
experienced hope and grace and a renewed sense of meaning in his life.
For further information contact:
David Doerfler
Email: david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Phone: (512) 263-7442
www.sanctuarytexas.org
www.concentricjourneys.com
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