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Friends United Meeting |
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September 2003
The Healing Power of Finding One's Voice
By Bill Robbins, with Bonnie Stephens
The students whose writings are included in this story are living in homes on the main campus of White's Residential and Family Services, a Friends ministry to hurting children. White's works with more than 1,200 needy children each year, 300 of whom come to live on its beautiful 70-acre campus that is nestled in an 800-acre tract of woods, creeks, ponds and fields. Many of the young people in White's care have been devastated by abuse and neglect during their most vulnerable years as children, while others have suffered from poor decisions they have made in their young lives. All are in need of healing. House parent Bill Robbins has helped many young people in his cottage "find their voices" through the written word.
I drove nervously to the Adams' stately Victorian home, where I had once practiced my arborist skills, for the first day of a Writer's Workshop. Having worked outside most of my life with at most two or three people around, the thought of being cooped up with 14 strangers was overwhelming and somewhat distasteful.
Born into poverty and growing up in migrant worker camps, I was well aware of social classes in America. Working as a lumberjack then as a certified arborist, I was more at home with a chain saw than with a pencil in my hand. Disabled arborist and houseparent of 16 teenage girls in placement at White's Residential & Family Services, my life looked like a patchwork quilt without a pattern; yet, there I was, committed to four days in a doctor's house with articulate college professors and published authors, and I hadn't written anything in 20 years.
Then the miracle began.
Pat Schneider, a published writer and founder/director of Amherst Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI), led the workshop. Born into poverty herself, she began her first writing group in 1984, in the old factory town of Chicopee in western Massachusetts. Only women who lived in public housing could participate. Since that first writing group, workshops using the AWA method have multiplied. Writing group leaders, working with under-served populations whose voices have been cut off, are discovering new ways to apply the method to their settings and are astounded by the results.
Pat sat us down in chairs in a circle and explained the few but powerful rules: 1) Everything written would be treated as fiction, 2) All comments about the work would be positive and would be addressed to the narrator of the story, and 3) All the stories written would be confidential and would not be talked about outside the room we were in.
With these simple rules, she began to create a safe place where we could find and use our "voices from the heart.' She explained that each of us had been writing ever since we had learned to talk, albeit in air rather than on paper. Each time we shared the story of our day, we were writing half of a dialogue. Each time we shared a painful memory, we were writing tragedy. With each exclamation of joy at some new discovery within us or around us, we were writing a story of promise, hope or adventure.
This poem by Douglas Steere states the value of an encouraging listener better than I can.
To "listen"
another's soul
into a condition
of disclosure
and discovery
may be almost
the greatest
service that any
human being
ever performs
for another.
After 30 hours of writing together, there were no longer class, education, ethnic or age differences in the group. We had shared so much of each other's lives, dreams, and possibilities, we felt like family. Pat had created a safe place where we could find our voices and share freely.
Within a week, I understood that the life-changing event I had experienced was meant for sharing — it was part of a plan that God was working out. My mind raced as I thought of re-creating the safe writing group for our cottage of teenage girls. I knew that it would be a great way to build closeness, self-esteem and self-reliance, as well as help with writing skills.
I was thrilled when half of my girls responded to the invitation to write. With the help of Paula Adams, a trained workshop leader, eight to ten girls and the two of us met every Friday night for two years, sharing our lives, tears and dreams. The fictional aspect, nothing-but-positive feedback rule, plus the confidentiality helped all of us to find our voices. We looked forward to laughing and crying together every week. Many of them keep in touch by letter and say, "Mr. Robbins, just want you to know — I'm still writing."
As you read these pieces written by teens that were or currently are in placement at White's, kids that have been neglected, troubled or abused in some way, you will be hearing voices from the heart. Their pieces are brave and strong.
An excellent starter is the phrase "I am from." Here's where it took some of our girls in these unedited pieces.
I am from many places:
I am from troublesome times,
I am from my family's flesh.
I am from untold things,
I am from evil to good.
I am from a world of sorrow and much agony.
I am from my friends whom I seek for a shoulder.
I am from all this and more to come.
— Autumn
The trust, honesty and freedom to share were hard to give up when my wife and I were asked to move to a boys' cottage. In Pat's workshop, the women outnumbered the men, so I wasn't sure there would be enough interest among my fifteen new boys to start up another writing group.
After about a month of settling in and getting acquainted, I asked the big question, "Do any of you guys like to write?" When half of them raised their hands, I let out a huge sigh of relief. "Would you like to join a writing workshop and write together for 2 hours each week?" Again, the same ones responded.
For the past one and a half years, these boys have given up Friday night movies and popcorn to spend two hours writing and sharing with Paula and me. Here are some pieces from the boys:
I am from my grandfather's son,
I am from the bullet that hits the target.
I am from the deep dreams I have late at night under the cherry tree.
I am from a rock to a marshmallow.
I am from the sweet smell of maple syrup to the sourness of sourdough.
I am from the space above to the sea below.
I am from one star to the next.
I am from my ancestors past.
I am somewhere between Heaven and Hell.
— Shawn
Home? Home!
To enter into that place once more is what I am searching for. A place
I am loved, the place I knew as home. I imagine myself pulling up into
the drive. I get out and smell the air around me and think on all the
events that have happened in this very yard my gaze stands fastened on.
I see myself walking up to the door, knocking, then falling into the embrace
of my mother whom I love so much. We hold fastened in the embrace for
what would seem like forever — in that sacred bond between mother
and child. In her arms I feel safer than I am anywhere. In tears I go
inside. As I enter I see a child. In shock I stand in pain, remembering
all that once was and all the times we were together. Oh, God, how I miss
these things, which I once took for granted. I miss the love I knew. I
am so sorry I denied it.
— Chad
When I hurt my back and could no longer do tree work, I couldn't imagine ever doing anything as satisfying as my profession of 35 years. All I can say is that God in His grace had a plan for me and here I am, five years after my injury, more satisfied with a pen in my hand than I ever was with a chain saw. I thank God for giving me kids like these to work with. I feel needed and blessed every day that I share their stories.
Stephanie, a resident, writes: "Writing group is great. It's a good way of getting what's inside out so you can see it. It's healthy — much better than keeping things locked up. It's fun, too."
I thank God for our kids at White's and for providing a way through writing to help them. We cry, we laugh, we find a voice we didn't know we had — and somehow, through it all, we share, we become a family and we heal.
Bill Robbins is a house parent at White's Residential and Family Services near Wabash, Indiana.
Copyright (c) 2003 Friends United Meeting
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