The Cracked Pot
For all too many people, childhood was not an idyllic time; it was a time of facing unimaginable fears, resulting from horrific abuse. But as Jim Cyr’s story courageously reveals, the wounds of childhood not only heal, they can lead to the loving grace of wisdom, and a heartfelt desire to help others achieve wholeness, too.
Now a minister and a story teller, Jim suffered with five congenital birth defects that required many painful and humiliating surgeries, from his childhood through his teen years. At the same time, he was sexually and ritually abused as a young boy. And, as an adult, was diagnosed and treated for Dissociative Identity Disorder. To cope with familial abuse, Jim split into fifteen different personalities. “Sprouting” protectively, these separate identities filled the cracks caused by numbing, long-term violation, and helped him to survive.
Despite it all, Jim Cyr’s memoir is filled with hope: candidly sharing all stages of his healing journey (from self destructive, unconscious drives, to awareness, to the slow mending of his cracked heart and mind), it offers inspiration, as well as the hard-won advice of a survivor, Jim’s will to live, and his honesty, despite a crushing childhood, offer a shining path of light for all those who suffered a childhood of abuse, and wonder how they will ever manage to feel whole.
THE CRACKED POT: FINDING GRACE IN THE CRACKS OF CHILDHOOD ABUSE
“St. Francis is a splendid and yet merciful mirror of Christ.”
G. K. Chesterton
A Workbook for Biblical Storytellers and Franciscans
This is a workbook for biblical storytellers interested in using stories of St. Francis of Assisi as midrash (a story to illuminate, explain or comment on another story) for biblical stories. This is also a workbook for Franciscans interested in using biblical storytelling to augment stories of St. Francis. The stories of St. Francis and stories from the Gospels often illuminate each other and provide rich commentary on each other.
A Biblical Storyteller’s Guide to St. Francis presents a summary of the life of St. Francis of Assisi and a summary of how to tell a biblical story followed by six stories from the life of St. Francis that are paired with six stories from the Bible. The reader is led through a six step process with each story to illuminate the connections between the stories. Brief commentaries on the biblical texts are provided to help put the biblical stories in their contexts for oral telling.
This book provides a rich trove of stories to be enjoyed and told.
Price: $ 15