{"id":7535,"date":"2007-11-18T18:36:57","date_gmt":"2007-11-18T22:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wtb.org\/?p=7535"},"modified":"2018-12-26T15:49:48","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T19:49:48","slug":"life-is-a-beautiful-mess-stories-of-hope-and-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/?p=7535","title":{"rendered":"Stories of Hope and Healing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

elana levy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first speaker on the theme of hope and healing was elana levy (<\/strong>not a typo; she prefers lowercase). elana has lived in Syracuse since 1972; the past 22 of those years were spent at 1030 Westmoreland Avenue, the only property her immediate family has ever owned since immigrating to the United States. On March 22, 2007, the house was totally destroyed by fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

elana said that she quickly learned two practical lessons.\nFirst, you never know what will happen, and therefore insurance is important.\nWhen you are not in control, insurance makes a huge difference in your recovery.\nSecond, birth certificates and important documents should be kept inside metal\nboxes or file cabinets, where fire and water take much longer to reach them.\nShe urged us: \u201cJust do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The major lesson that elana learned, however, and that she wants\nus to remember is that when disaster strikes, SHOW UP. Nothing was more\nimportant, less irreplaceable, than her angel friend, Nancy Riffer, who stood\nwith her all day while the fire department fought her house fire, and another angel,\nBonnie Shoultz, who made arrangements for elana to stay that night at the Zen\nCenter of Syracuse, a stay that lasted four months. Other angels promptly\nfilled two suitcases with beautiful things in elana\u2019s favorite colors so she would\nimmediately have some items to call her own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

elana learned other truths. She lost everything, including more\nthan 2000 books and family furniture brought from Germany. But losing\neverything was also freeing and lightening. She no longer had attachments to\nthings that would have taken her years to unhitch. As a math teacher at\nOnondaga Community College she had taught that something cannot be both A and\nnot-A. Paradoxically she learned that emotionally you can have both A and\nnot-A: that loss can be a gain. There is no knowing what will be in the next\nmoment; Buddhism is sitting in the not-knowing, understanding the nature of\nimpermanence, accepting that impermanence, being more in the moment. So elana\nhas learned gratitude for having this very moment, which heightens and\nintensifies each experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elisa Morales<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a very upbeat voice, Elisa told us of her own experiences\nwith domestic violence and shared very personal aspects of her life. (It is WTB\u2019s\npolicy that our meetings are a safe place where all women can come together, in\nsafety and harmony, to learn more about each other and to share their own life\nexperiences. To ensure that our members and speakers are comfortable sharing\nwithin the group, we are respecting Elisa\u2019s privacy and not including specific\ndetails of her presentation.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elisa now works at Vera House, where she is co-coordinator of\nthe pet foster-care program. Women suffering abuse are frequently concerned\nthat if they leave their controlling man, he will take out his anger on their pets,\nwhich cannot be accepted at Vera House. The pet foster-care program gives women\nthe peace-of-mind that enables them to leave. Statistically, 87 percent of\nabusers injure pets before escalating to people\u2014abuse is a manifestation of\npower and control\u2014and 85 percent of women will not leave an abusive situation\nif they must leave their pets behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elisa is also a Vera House advocate working with\ninternational victims (including migrants, immigrants, refugees, and victims of\nhuman trafficking and bondage) and is assistant coordinator of the Syracuse\nArea Domestic and Sexual Violence Coalition, whose goal is to help the legal\nsystem understand how victims fall through the cracks. She works with law-enforcement\ntraining and with sensitivity training for judges, who are petitioned for orders\nof protection. She brings to them her own history of being refused assistance\nuntil she received help from state police and attorneys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elisa is grateful for the experiences that have made her the\nstrong woman she is today. She considers herself a survivor, not a victim. She\nsees life as a revolving door, with new opportunities constantly presenting\nthemselves. She believes that difficult people teach us compassion, patience\nand tolerance. She, like elana, has learned to be present in the moment. Her\nexperiences have taught her the truth of the saying that we were put on earth\nnot to see through each other, but to see each other through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marian Gedow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marian came to the United States in 2000 as a Somali refugee.\nShe wanted to tell us her story because millions of refugees come here every\nyear, yet most Americans do not know why. Marian explained that only three\npercent of Somali women have any opportunity for education. She was one of the\nlucky few, and in 1982 she earned a BA in economics from the Somali National\nUniversity, where she then became an assistant professor. Because Somalia is a\nformer Italian colony, Marian was able to earn a scholarship to Italy and in\n1988 earned a master\u2019s degree in finance from the University of Rome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marian returned to teach economics at the University of\nSomalia for another three years until civil war broke out in 1991. One day, after\nleaving work, she discovered that her house had been destroyed. She took her\ntwo sons from their schools, and together they walked, with no food or water,\nfor 70 miles to her grandparents\u2019 rural home, passing people dying on the\nstreets. Although others were leaving the country, Marian wanted to stay and help\nher people by working with international NGOs (nongovernmental organizations)\nthat had finally arrived to give humanitarian relief. She returned to Mogadishu\nand became a translator for an Italian NGO. She felt that giving food was not a\nlong-term solution; what the people needed were tools, supplies and seeds, so\nshe designed projects that provided food in return for agricultural work. The\ncivil war continued, with clan fighting clan; Marian knew that most of the\nvictims were women and children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1992 Marian founded her own NGO, a women\u2019s farming\norganization to help women in rural areas and to fight famine. Since there were\nno public services, Marian also opened an elementary and middle school\nespecially for young girls. She traveled to Kenya to share with the\ninternational community what was happening in Somalia. In 1994 she attended the\nfourth African Women\u2019s Conference in Dakar, Senegal, planning for the fourth\nWorld Women\u2019s Conference to be held the following year in Beijing. The women\npresented photographic evidence and stories of Somalia\u2019s crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of 1995, the warlords had decided to kill all\neducated people and all those cooperating with NGOs. Two of Marian\u2019s coworkers\nwere killed, and military men twice came into her house. Because there was no\nsecurity force to help her, she decided to leave the country, walking with her\nmother and children for 35 days to the border of Djibouti. Italian friends sent\nher money so that she could travel, with no visa or current passport, to\nIslamabad, Pakistan, where she became a refugee. For five years, she was an\nadvocate there for about 300 Somali women, most of them heads of their\nhouseholds but with no income. Because Marian speaks four languages, she was\nable to work with the United Nations and foreign embassies, verifying that\nthese people were at risk in their homeland, this being a requirement for\nresettlement. Finally it became necessary for Marian to write everyone\u2019s story\nin one month\u2019s time in order to meet the United States\u2019 timeline for accepting\nall 300 families, 800 people in all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By August 2000, Marian had helped all these people find\nresettlement throughout all 50 states of the United States. She chose to be the\nlast to leave Pakistan so that her countrywomen would not be left without an\nadvocate. Ironically, she was the only one to be relocated to Syracuse, where\nshe received a furnished apartment for herself, her children and her mother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Marian lost all of her material possessions, her\neducation could not be taken from her. Refugees are given four months to find employment.\nMarian, because of her education, had a choice of two jobs: one in a bank, the\nother providing refugee assistance. In January 2001, she became a translator\nand provided refugees with medical transport and assistance; she sent one\nfourth of her paychecks back to Mogadishu. Two years later, she became a case\nmanager at the Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement office in Syracuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 17 years of civil war, Somalia still has no peace, no\npublic services. Marian became an American citizen in January 2006 and decided\nto visit Mogadishu the following December. Her school building was still there,\nand she gave $1000 to reopen it. When she returned to Syracuse, she applied for\nand received from the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse a matching grant for $5000,\nwhich has been matched yet again; all this money has been spent to support the\nschool for a year. The school now teaches 200 children, mostly girls. Education\nwill empower the girls to become powerful mothers. The warring men do not care\nabout the children, but these women will provide a future for the next\ngeneration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After listening to these powerful stories, we broke into\nsmall groups to share our own stories of loss and redemption. Then we gathered\nin a circle, unifying us. We had all received strips of colored fabric; now we\ntied our strips to those on either side. Tanya Atwood-Adams, our Program\nCommittee chair, said that in doing so, we have bound ourselves together in a\ncomplete and unbroken circle, the ancient and universal symbol of unity and\nsacred space. The circle is the simplest of geometric forms, yet it is the\nstrongest. It represents wholeness, the infinite, eternity, timelessness, the\nfeminine spirit, movement in cycles. Its shape is found in cells and seeds; in planets,\ntheir stars and systems; in the circular cycle of seasons; and in life itself, the\nembryo. The circle holds in creative tension both latent and flowering energy.\nIt includes all, accepts all, giving no individual or point-of-view preference,\neach flowing from the center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We as women share much in common and are vulnerable in many\nof the same ways. Let what has been shared here today bring us closer together,\nhelping us be sensitive to the hidden and sometimes unspoken pain of others\nwhose actions might confuse or hurt us, sharing our strength and taking our\nstrength from the circle of women: women transcending boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We ended by singing \u201cLet the Circle Be Unbroken,\u201d with the following words rewritten by Renee-Noelle Felice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let the circle be unbroken
In our lives, yes, in our lives.
Let the circle be unbroken
As we strive, yes, as we thrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are circles within circles,
No beginnings nor an end.
There are circles within circles,
Loving friends, yes, loving friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After listening to the powerful stories of three women, we broke into small groups to share our own stories of loss and redemption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-7535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-programs","tag-dialogue",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7535"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8222,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7535\/revisions\/8222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}