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Our human hunger for connection was underscored by the works of Fr. Ronald Rolheiser. In his book “The Holy Longing,” Ronald differentiates between sex and sexuality and hence our untamed need for connection beyond sexual intimacy. We are wired for friendship, family, community, love, and creativity. We are programmed for belonging and relationships, and we become frustrated when this does not happen.
Ronald explains that the word sex comes from the Latin secare, a word which literally means to cut off or divide from. We experience ourselves, at all levels, precisely as sexed, as cut off, divided from, as unwhole. At birth, by cutting off the umbilical cord, we were cut off from the connection between our mother and us, and throughout life, we groan and ache for reconnection for this warm, safe place of belonging; the womb. A place where we felt known and loved. A place where we don’t struggle for our needs – they just come to us. Ronald said that we ache for consummation, for a reuniting with this place of wholeness.
“The sense of being sexed, cut off, is as present in us as our heartbeat. It permeates every level of our personalities and colors all of our relationships.” At The Voice, we are challenged by these understanding, and we are committed to fostering healthy relationships, where true connection and intimacy can occur at all levels. We are committed to connecting people to people, people to resources and we are committed to the reconciliation of broken relationships.
Our passion for connection is also informed by thoughts and readings from authors and people who have lived their lives from the abundance of mutual understanding and intimacy with people and nature. Here are few of their works:
“A blessing is not something that one person gives another. A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship in which both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one another. By making a place for wholeness within our relationships, we offer others the opportunity to be whole without shame and become a place of refuge from everything in them and around them that is not genuine. We enable people to remember who they are ~ Rachel Naomi Remen; My Grandfather’s Blessing.”
“We do not serve the weak or the broken. What we serve is the wholeness in each other and the wholeness in life. The part in you that I serve is the same part that is strengthened in me when I serve. Unlike helping and fixing and rescuing, service is mutual.” ~ Rachel Naomi Remen
“The intentions of a person’s heart are deep waters, but a discerning person reveals them” – Proverbs 20:5
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