Moreover, they often come convinced they'll just listen because they could never, or are not yet ready to, dive into their own wreckage. Yet the group reassures them that they are not alone. Like a windshield shattered by a baseball, each crack and fissure is part of the pattern. Having to put it into words, processing it, they face their pain squarely. They lay their burden down.
Warriors become peacemakers.
One alumnus, Claude AnShin Thomas , is a disabled Vietnam combat veteran who now helps lead meditation retreats for veterans. The lights came on and I saw this soldier lying in the bed in front of me. I remembered my own experience of being wounded, repaired, and how lonely and hard the recovery was. I transposed my situations onto the conditions presented before me. Standing in the intensive care unit, a former library, with beds jammed into the room with barely enough space to move, I felt for this young man suffering in complete darkness and isolation.