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	Elizabeth’s Survival Kit The Garden of Roses October 22, 2009 http://web.me.com/virginiajones/Compsassionate_Gathering/The_Garden_of_Roses/Entries/2009/10/24_Elizabeth%E2%80%99s_Survival_Kit.html Elizabeth wrote this survival kit to help other clergy abuse survivors cope with their wounds. With a few refinements, these suggestions work for anyone who has been emotionally abused or traumatized in any way. Suggestions from my Spiritual Survival Kit. Techniques, which I have found helpful in recovering a sense of spirituality after abuse by priest/church. Explore within your comfort zone. Go where you feel welcome, wanted and safe. If it is safe for your body and your soul, your heart and your head, it is place you can grow and heal. Find someone to talk to: a counselor, a spiritual director, a mentor, or a friend. Find someone who knows the spiritual and emotional “loaded ness” of your abuse and how it connects to your definition of self. Hang out at Book Stores. Wander around the religion section of Powell’s Books or your library. See what catches your eye, read what appeals to you. Internet: Read Abuse Tracker, Bishop Accountability, The Advocate and SNAP. Find out you are not alone. Be a helper. Lend a helping hand, and a listening ear to another victim of abuse. We heal together. We heal when we work to restore our spirituality and to put an end to abuse. Practice reframing your abuse. Your abuse is your poison, your suffering, and your truth. Is there a way that pain can reveal to you the way to peace? Favorite books and authors that have brought healing gifts to my life. Each can be found on the web. Anything by Matthew Fox. Theologian, Dominican priest, now excommunicated. Teaches of the mystics, Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Mechtild of Madgeburg, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and others. Focuses on the values of constant creation and goodness. Shows the interconnecting themes of all the great faith traditions. Presents the theology of blessing as contrast to a theology of sin and damnation. Anything by Neil Douglas-Klotz (Saadi Shakur Chishti). A Sufi master teacher and linguist who has spent his life studying and transliterating the original words of Jesus in the language of Aramaic. Gives a whole new meaning and life to the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes. Anything by Marcus Borg, Historian. A look at Jesus from the perspective of history and logic. “Meet Jesus Again for the First Time” as a radical reformer. Anything by Karen Armstrong. A former British nun, herself abused while a religious, on the historical, cultural and philosophical aspects of Christianity and other world traditions. Her autobiography, Through the Narrow Gate, is especially powerful for those of us abused by priests and nuns. Anything by Carolyn Myss, another former Catholic. A spiritual writer who started with intuitive and medical healing and now is focusing on the work of Saint Teresa of Avila. Gives tools for building a spiritual life and healing ourselves. Robert Grant, a Catholic psychologist, who specializes in the treatment of victims of torture. Articulate discussion of turning trauma into a spiritual opportunity in “ The Way of the Wound “. Books on the Clergy Abuse Scandal, especially those by Richard Sipe, Father Thomas Doyle and/or Jason Berry, each one a gem of hope for those abused and hurt by the Church, complete list found on SNAP website. Contact: ergoeke@comcast.net
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