Friday I met with one of my favorite people. For more than a decade Erica Wilson and I worked together at TreeHouse. While Erica is disinclined to gamble with her money, recently she gambled with her life. Erica left behind her job, friends and family and moved to Belize for three months.

While it was not a permanent departure from her life in Minnesota, it was a significant life transition.

I asked her, “How do you gamble losing all that?“

Erica smiled with a slight shrug, “The only thing that comes to mind is that I trusted God with it completely.”

Jesus was a the temple one day and a crowd of people gathered. Jesus sat down and began to teach them.  As he was speaking, in the middle of his lesson, a group of religious people rushed up to Jesus dragging along a woman who had been cheating and was caught having sex with him.

Ahem, let me repeat that CAUGHT IN THE ACT of adultery.  

Two things stand out here for me.  One, the incredible shame and humiliation of being interrupted, caught, captured, paraded and “posterized” as an adulterer.  Second, if she was “caught”, where’s the guy she was with?!?

I almost never remember my dreams. Yesterday I wrote to my friend Anastasiya, “I wish I had pleasant dreams”. This morning, just before I woke up, I was dreaming of hanging out with musician Dave Matthews after a show.

While there are several reasons not to like Dave Matthews’ music, but I still love most of his songs.  I and Paul Thyren, a friend and fantastic co-worker of mine, love the Dave Matthews Band.   One of our favorites is “Two Step.”  Listening to the extended jam that often accompanies Two Step played live brings me peace in a surreal, mellow, “I’m just glad to be here” kind of way.

Shame Lays In The Shadows  

Shame waits.  Watching.  Looking for an opportunity; to pounce!

Shame, researcher Brene Brown explains, “is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection.”  That “there [is] something about me that, if other people know it or see it, that I won’t be worthy of connection.”

Shame tells us we will, and should, be rejected by others.

Brown goes on to explain that the “only people who don’t experience shame have no capacity for human empathy or connection…we all know that feeling: ‘I’m not blank enough. I’m not thin enough, rich enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, promoted enough.’ ” 1

When blinded by distortions of reality people flounder in pain.

Lost in loneliness.  Trapped in trauma.

U2′s Get On Your Boots hits on one such distortions:

You don’t know how beautiful
You don’t know how beautiful you are
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you?
You don’t know how beautiful you are

Each week at every TreeHouse we remind one another that we are all “lovable, capable and worthwhile.”  It’s a critical concept. When we understand, embrace and apply the truth that we are all “lovable, capable and worthwhile” it overrides the lies of not good enough.

I love this picture.

I see friendship, camaraderie, community, peace and hope.

On our best days TreeHouse feels like that.

Every time I meet someone I know they have legitimate needs and wants, hopes and dreams.

One of our hopes and dreams includes are desire for genuine community.

Community Vs. “Community Compromisers”

We want to know others and to be known by others.  Known for who we are are, not for who we pretend to be.  There are practices that compromise our safety in a community.

Guest Post by Ash San Filippo

Over the past few years, I have developed a new hobby: building things. I’ve spent many hours of my free time building everything from a new bed frame to a dish rack. With each new project, my need for tools grows. There has been one tool in particular that I have had my eye on, but have yet to purchase: a vice. Vices are unique tools. They have no cords, no blades and no handles—yet they are just as powerful as any tool hanging in my garage.

Mothers’ Day Weekend Special

On May 6-9, when you purchase plants and flowers from Linder’s Greenhouses, Garden Centers and Flower Marts, 15% of your pre-tax total purchase will go to TreeHouse in support of our work for at-risk youth.

Print out the coupon below and bring it to your local Linder’s store. You will receive a slip confirming your participation.

She sat with her back to the wall.  Slumped over with what looked like the weight of her world on her shoulders.  Tenderhearted and caring she was weighed down with pain.

She acted tough because she was strong, but even tough people can be tender and she was both.

Dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt.  She had painted her nails with black nail polish.  She looked “goth” long before “goth” became a fashion statement, trendy and a feature on SNL.

While it’s not a requirement to talk in our TreeHouse support groups most teens take advantage of the opportunity to talk and to listen, to hear and be heard, to understand and be understood.

Tonight is the TreeHouse Volunteer Recognition Celebration.  We have great, honorable, servant-hearted volunteers.  I was asked to nominate one for an award.  I chose to nominate Dawn Miller, our longest term volunteer.  You may or may not know Dawn, but you would like to know her.  She is an honorable and honor-worthy woman.

Please describe the nominee’s length/ frequency of service over the past year:

Since 2000, for the last eleven years, Dawn Miller has been a faithful, teachable and exemplary volunteer.