{"id":57,"date":"2014-03-26T18:36:48","date_gmt":"2014-03-26T18:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/?p=57"},"modified":"2014-03-27T18:23:29","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T18:23:29","slug":"retro-wednesday-circle-of-grace-as-elephant-orphanage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/retro-wednesday-circle-of-grace-as-elephant-orphanage\/","title":{"rendered":"Retro-Wednesday: Circle of Grace as Elephant Orphanage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"images\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was first posted in 2010.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I received a thoughtful email from someone who used to attend Circle of Grace about my last post. \u00a0She had some insightful responses and agreed with my assessment of Circle of Grace as a place of spiritual healing. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>She went on to remind me that many folks who ‘came through’ Circle of Grace often returned to traditional churches as she, herself, had. \u00a0 She returned to the church in which she had grown up and with whom she had a deep connection\u00a0but<\/i>\u00a0she continued, she would never had been able to do that without her time at Circle of Grace. \u00a0She said that she, too, pondered why we hadn’t grown and concluded that we needed to remain small to do the healing work we do.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>It reminds me of what my spiritual director shared with me some time ago. \u00a0She had seen a\u00a060 Minutes<\/i>\u00a0special about an elephant orphanage in Africa. \u00a0A woman began a refuge for baby elephants whose mothers had been killed by poachers or who had physical defects (e.g. blindness) that had caused their ‘tribe’ to abandon them. \u00a0She and her workers take in these baby elephants and provide medical care and nourishment. \u00a0When a baby recovers sufficiently they go about the business of teaching the baby how to be an elephant- including pounding the ground with small logs to teach her\/him how to read sound through the ground. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Some of the babies are so damaged or ill they don’t make it. \u00a0Some are able to be reunited with their ‘aunties’ and assimilate back into the wild. \u00a0Some recover but are never able to return to the wild and a new ‘tribe’ has evolved at the orphanage. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>“That’s what Circle of Grace is like!” \u00a0she exclaimed. \u00a0“Some people heal and return to the church of their childhoods. \u00a0And some people find themselves to be more at home at Circle of Grace and become a part of its ongoing healing ministry, forming a new and different kind of ‘tribe’.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I remembered that comment after I got the email this week: \u00a0two very different people seeing the same thing from different perspectives. \u00a0A final thought my emailing friend shared was that she now takes stands and provides a much needed witness in her more traditional church.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I’ll keep pondering all these things and we’ll keep talking about these things. \u00a0For too many years I assumed we were supposed to follow a certain pattern and achieve specific things: membership, space, programs…<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Now, I just want us to walk as faithfully as we are able and do the work to which we are called. \u00a0I want us to keep on living into who we are and not into any superimposed idea of who we think we should be. \u00a0It’s an ongoing learning experience. \u00a0It is always challenging. \u00a0We’re always going to have to question our assumptions and let some of them go. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>But I don’t guess we would do it any other way.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was first posted in 2010. I received a thoughtful email from someone who used to attend Circle of Grace about my last post. \u00a0She had some insightful responses and agreed with my assessment of Circle of Grace as a place of spiritual healing. \u00a0 \u00a0She went on to remind me that many folks who … Continue reading Retro-Wednesday: Circle of Grace as Elephant Orphanage<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":[],"categories":[6,7,5,13],"tags":[15,14,16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}