Starting from Center: Work with Drug Court Professionals

The group of Judges, Court administrators, Probation Officers and others – all generous folks who work in Drug Treatment Court Programs in Michigan and elsewhere – sat quietly in the circle of trust. Near the close of retreat they found themselves in a very different place than when they entered retreat three days earlier. It was a new experience to feel rested, safe, and quietly reflective around their lives and common work. It was March 2006 at Seasons Center for Renewal of the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo.

A series of introductory Circle of Trust retreats was titled "Starting from the Center: Courage and Renewal Retreats for Criminal Justice Professionals," named after a phrase used by Karen Tse.

She is a young attorney and theologian, founder of International Bridges to Justice. In an article “The Power of Persuasion” (US News and World Report, August 7, 2006), Ms. Tse is quoted as saying: “You can read a thousand books and have a thousand people tell you what the right methodologies are – but to be anywhere, you have to start from your center and your core. It’s from that place of stillness where you’ll know how to move forward and how to move others with you.” Her words resonated with an electric excitement among Courage and Renewal facilitators and participants, who recognize their own message in her writing and her work.

 

Why offer Courage and Renewal retreats to individuals at work in the Criminal Justice System? The words of participants might serve to demonstrate the importance of retreat opportunities for these wonderfully dedicated folks. “I am overwhelmed with work with addicts and very wounded people,” one writes. “I have not been on a personal retreat in more than ten years, in fact I never take time for myself. I need restoration – and my community needs me to be more patient. When I am overloaded and exhausted with caregiving, patience is the first thing to go!”

Another tells us, “I am now a Court Administrator. But I have gone through the Drug Court Program myself and am so grateful for what it offers to flawed folks like me. I love my work, but I am thoroughly worn down by the demands of this job and the constant need to be there for others. I feel drained and very needy.”

Up-coming retreats – in September in Scottsdale, AZ, and in March, outside Atlanta, GA– will begin on Monday evening and close with lunch on Thursday. They will bring together applicants from the National Association of Drug Court Professionals and the National Drug Court Institute. Marianne Novak Houston and Beverly J. Coleman, facilitators with the Center for Courage and Renewal in Seattle, will facilitate this work, and are buoyed in their efforts by the poetic reflection of a former participant, Dale Anderson, in the work that follows. His words flowed from him to the community at the close of a retreat in September, 2006:

The tearing your experience
at your soul’s painful shyness
is but a small thing
in the grand sweep of the cosmos.

But, it is your pain,
your soul’s cry to break
open and out
and to take flight.

You can ignore it as you might
a small bird fallen from its nest
whose value you measure
against the nearly suffocating weight
of loss, and pain, and fear in the world –
and your hurry to get on to your meaningful work.

Or, you might stop,
and gently raise it
to a place of safety
where it can be nourished,
grow, and learn to grace the day
with song.

– Dale Anderson, Conflict Management Professional who works in conjunction with the Drug Courts of Kalamazoo County