A service like the one you had at AMBS is an amazing undertaking. I’m sure it was difficult to plan, and as I’ve seen in your responses on social media, you knew from the start there was no trauma-and-harm-undoing magic answer. What you may already know is that a service like this also reverberates and has impact through time and space, far beyond the reaches of the room in which it happened and those participating in and experiencing it. So you planned, and worked, and consulted, and prayed, and finally, you held a service of lament. And people who attended and participated, including survivors, report they found the experience transformative, felt honored and valued. That is wonderful. In the service and in published documents, you apologized. You made commitments. But now there have been calls for people who did not attend to stop being critical and cynical and have faith in you to do the right thing. Do you have any idea how many more of us are out here watching closely, hungry for information? We are also deeply affected because of our shared history of sexualized violence. Were we mentioned? Were the words “We know John Howard Yoder is […]
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