kindred conversations

And coming up on the present time....

We're now ending a visit with my aunt Alice, and it's been a lovely time. Alice is a missionary counselor, or more precisely "mental health resource person"; her job includes (but I'm sure this is not exhaustive!) psych evaluation of missionary candidates, seminars and one-on-one counseling at conferences of her mission (she just got back from one in Malaysia), debriefing with missionaries returning from the field, crisis interventions, and referring people for long-term counseling in the place where they are. I think it's a fascinating profession; last time I visited I was too young (or too shy?) for such conversation, but on this visit Paul and I really enjoyed talking with her about her work.

We also had a fruitful discussion about our work. The possibilities of retreats at Plow Creek are beginning to seem more concrete to me; we've heard recently that a couple of different living spaces are opening up at Plow Creek, so in any case when we come back it probably won't be to a guestroom! So we're talking about possibilities and plans... one important element is what the schedule of a weekend retreat will look like, and my aunt contributed a suggestion we like better and better the more we think about it. Karen Mains, an author and Christian leader I've read and respected a long time, is currently (in Illinois, too!) leading a new, very simple counseling practice she calls "listening groups." A small group of people meet, and each person is given a set amount of time; twenty or thirty minutes is the norm. During her time, each person is free to talk about whatever she wants to talk about; when she stops talking, the group will sit in prayerful silence till she makes it known she has nothing more to add. Then the group begins asking questions--but only questions of clarification are allowed. No judgments are given, and no advice; the group listens until the person's time is up.

Very, very simple. And yet, as many people know (and as science is beginning to prove--Alice cited medical experiments correlating the experience of being listened to with actual regeneration of brain cells), this can be very healing. We've discussed the idea of having one or even two listening-group sessions at each retreat. It's an important part of our philosophy to listen first to what God is already doing with a person before trying to "minister", so the listening group, besides its healing effect, will give us a chance to listen for the Spirit in each person's life.

We also visited my cousin Madelle and her husband Carlos, who's from Argentina; they lived there until a few years ago when the political crisis and economic depression there convinced them their only option was to move to the U.S. I'd never really spoken to Carlos before (he doesn't speak English and I don't speak Spanish) but Paul and I had a great conversation with them both, Madelle translating, and learned that Carlos worked for years with recovering drug addicts from the rehab center run by his church in Argentina--employing them in his construction business and accompanying them with friendship and Christian wisdom. (Not a thing to be underestimated, especially with addicts. It's the difficulty of walking a straight line with someone pulling in all directions: comforting them in sadness and confronting them when they steal your things, offering honest friendship and refusing unhealthy dependency. You have to be very grounded in your faith.) We learned all this while eating breakfast with them: apple pancake and fascinating stories. And I climbed a tree with their daughters!

Well, I could go on, because the third highlight of my visit is an utterly fascinating book called Spirit of the Rainforest, about the Yanomamo (aka Yanomami) people group of the Amazon; a group my grandparents worked with a branch of, as missionaries. There's been a lot of anthropological study of this people, and missionaries have been widely criticized for changing their culture... and the author of this book apparently went in and gathered and transcribed testimony from the Yanomamo themselves, in an attempt to get the real story. What emerged is--well, like I said, utterly fascinating.

And far too long to recount here! I will therefore return to my attempts to finish the book before leaving tomorrow...