Echoes of Mercy, Whispers of Love
My Journey and A Theology of Hope
by
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A friend asked me about those who read my story and may never see healing for a broken relationship. Reconciliation with a loved one where there has been so much rejection, betrayal of trust, or angry conflict may not happen. Or perhaps someone seems stuck in endless cycles of severe crisis, mental illness, and depression. What then?
I have to answer that no matter how many good things happen, or how much healing and recovery deepen, there will always be more challenges and more agonies of the heart to carry, to pray about, to struggle with. I can’t say that I’ve arrived. I don’t think anyone can. Sometimes there is a great deal of struggle in my day, just to keep my confidence, my serenity, and my hope. Depression and the grieving process again zaps out my energy, my joy. I’m still vulnerable to getting too drained, too angry, too impatient, and not really deeply trusting the amazing grace and redeeming love that have been there for me so often.
I’m not afraid of my anger now. I don’t like getting angry, and I don’t always get the higher marks for how I respond out of my anger. But I know anger is my friend. It helps me to appreciate and “hear” what needs to be changed. Maybe it is a time to reckon with what can’t be changed, but there are still some choices to make. I can ask for help. I can step away and take a “time out.” Maybe it’s my ongoing challenge with boundary issues. Maybe it’s a time to say “no” instead of “yes.” There may be another level of surrender to make, to pray for. Maybe there is a deeper level of forgiveness to pray for, to seek.
Do I still get angry with God, like in 1984? I haven’t recently been tested with the greatest disappointment and outrage, with that much loss. However, I was tested again in 1995 with a huge disappointment and loss. Sometimes I still feel my anger with these past experiences and how they impact present opportunities and relationships.
I really don’t know how vulnerable I would be in the face of the worst tragedy . . . And none of us can know that ahead of time. The best “insurance” we can have to help us cope, heal, and get through tragic events and tragic losses is to invest in relationships with loving friends, spiritual counselors, and family who commit to stay with us. They hold us with loving presence, with accepting words, sometimes in their arms, and pray for us as we cry and vent the deep pain and rage of our soul.
Sometimes it takes a great deal of courage, determination, and prayers to make the next step to gain a bit more of okayness, or healing. So many things can make a difference. And there is often the amazing grace that comes once again, just when we are seemingly unable to do anything more . . . when our anger, and fear, or hopeless giving up are too big, keeping us immobilized; or stuck in negative self talk that can lead to self-destructive behaviors.
Yes, finally, in the journey of healing and overcoming grief, mistakes, tragedy, and losses, after many healing experiences of feeling deeply loved in hours of therapy,
or conversations with spiritual counselors, with family, and friends, along with using guided imagery meditations, walking in nature, being lifted and loved in encounters with God,
in prayers, in worship, with music,
or kneeling at altars with others who pray with us and for us,
we find the hope and peace returning. Our lives begin to feel more normal again. The dark night of the soul gives way to a day with sunshine.
One of the scriptures that has meant a great deal to me through all these years is one that Paul gave us in Romans 8: “In all things God is working for the good . . .” We are often in the middle of realities that are not good, in all of the ways we experience the impact of suffering and tragedy. Yet, when we keep on surrendering our pain, our illness, our fear, our rage, our desires, we often find the “gift,” and the blessings come in spite of, and along with, suffering and tragedy.
No, we will never make all the best “faith answers” make sense to ourselves or others in the hours of the greatest suffering, the greatest outrage. But if we can believe that there is enough Love to keep on doing our best to help make a difference, for ourselves, for others, then we can endure longer with courage. We can be faithful to our commitments. We can keep on being a part of the work of building a “beloved community” and overcoming “mountains of despair.”
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About the Book
Echoes of Mercy, Whispers of Love connects the work of Alfred North Whitehead, process writers, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Henri Nouwen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others, to present a defense or “apologetic” for faith, hope, and love in action. This kind of faith and hope leads to transformed lives and transformed communities. A theology of hope provides a framework for counseling troubled, despairing persons in the midst of acute suffering, loss, and tragedy. Doty identifies the need for a healthy religion that will inspire, transform, and enable personal and community healing. This is the work of peacemaking in families and in our world.
This book will connect with an audience that includes all believers and all who live with doubts and questions. All seekers for peace, hope, and truth in our post-modern era will find this a stimulating and helpful dialogue with the hard questions. Doty poses searching questions for reader’s reflection. This book promises to provide inspiration, Hope, and a rare opportunity for spiritual formation in the midst of life struggles.
“Hooray for Pauline Doty! Her courage encourages us to lower our lofty traditions—so they may speak with the hurt, pain, loss, grief of our everyday lives. She invites us by her example—trust our own experience, follow our own questions, create our own “process” of life in faith and action. By confiding in us, Doty lends confidence that God (by many names and revelations) goes with and before us, all ways and always. This is a book for all whose “process” of life and work wants healing to lead to hoping, the practical to the prophetic. What a call to confront in urgent grace the “outrageous”—within and around us!”
– Rev. John Auer, Retired, Forty years’ United Methodist congregational urban ministry
About the Author
Pauline Doty studied theology, philosophy, pastoral care and counseling at Anderson University (BA), Chicago Theological Seminary (MDiv) and Columbia Theological Seminary (ThM). She has 36 years of experience in urban ministry and pastoral care. She is committed to overcoming divisions and prejudice caused by racism, poverty and homophobia. Her perspective for ministry is ecumenical and inter-faith. She has been a member of
Pauline has been a member of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors since 1991, first as Pastoral Counselor in Training, and since 1998, Pastoral Care Specialist.
Her ministry as chaplain and advocate has been in hospitals, homes, homeless shelters, churches, and in the community. She works with individuals and families who seek understanding, healing, and recovery. Attentive to issues of substance abuse, sexual and physical abuse, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, and faith questions in the midst of grief, illness, and loss, she has led support groups in churches and for The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
She is a Board Member of the Madison County Affiliate of NAMI. She lives with her sister Judy and two special cats, Blackie and Majesty, in
“I am impressed by the sensitivity of her presentation of the ideas of Whitehead and others in his ‘process’ tradition. She represents this position with scholarly accuracy but also with literary skill and personal appropriation. Hence her work is of value not only to scholars but also more widely to a lay audience.”
John B. Cobb Jr.
Professor Emeritus