Topic: Stained Glass
Have you ever noticed? In families with addictions, just as in churches with perpetrators. Or maybe we should reverse it and say churches with addictions and families with perpetrators--works the same no matter how you slice it.....
People in denial would prefer to believe the addicts or perpetrators instead of those who want to see change in the institution.
Those who really shatter the stained glass are the "trusted" ones. Yet others, by believing the cover stories told for self-protection, manage to not see the shattered glass. Or to ignore it by not taking a stand.
It's often lonely to be within the system, looking courageously at the broken glass. Sometimes all you can do is weep. Before finding ways to create new glass formations that may or may not involve the people in denial. Whether from a position inside or outside of the broken system in denial.
That's what Parker Palmer would call standing "in the tragic gap." Which is really the only place that offers hope. Either for the hopeful. Or the system.
