This came up In Memories this morning. Dear Bruce Bannon...

This came up In Memories this morning. Dear Bruce Bannon, featured in the photo is no longer with us having died this year. Until we meet again, Bruce.

Posted January 18, 2019 (one year ago):

At MaineWorks you will find a circle that is a repository of peoples' deepest pains, failings and brokenness. Even the fire pit is wobbly and missing a leg. I look at it with great affection because despite this it is working just fine and we huddle around it. ..as if to say 'Hey fire pit, you are rocking it today.'
It is also a circle where you will be seen more deeply. Beyond the transgressions, criminal offense, addiction, behavior born of addiction, pain and trauma. Someone will see that if you show up with your greatest pain the brokenness can also be a breaking open...and the light that begins to shine out of our brokenness will blind us with beauty. Yup. Just another morning at MaineWorks.

6 AM and a little MaineWorks Circle is inside today...

6 AM and a little MaineWorks Circle is inside today protected from the freezing rain and snow....and Margo Walsh has asked this employee to read Derek Walcott's poem LOVE AFTER LOVE. And though MaineWorks is all about work and boots and time cards, MaineWorks is truly about moments like this. And she asks what is it you want to FEEL this new year. Not DO. Or GET. What is it you want to feel?
'I want to feel peace.'
I want to know forgiveness.'
'I want to know who I am.'
'I want to let go of resentments.'
'I want to be less stressed.'
And I am in a little circle of humanity. A circle of humanity looking to become more human. Less stressed by external stuff. More in alignment with who they really are.
I am smitten.

Dealing with life when the odds are stacked against you.

MaineWorks Circle: Dealing with life when the odds are stacked against you. Overcoming odds. Overcoming obstacles. Getting beat down. And standing back up. Hopefully, a bit wiser for the hard knock. Handling difficult pasts and trying to build hopeful futures we walk a tightrope with the gusts of stigma, and assumption, and fear, and remorse tossing us about.....and it is hope that will often right us. But it is a delicate human walk. #pioneersofrecovery #wedorecover #mainerecoveryfund

MaineWorks employee.

MaineWorks employee. Showing up. Learning about himself. Speaking up. Asking questions. Offering us his smile. His humor. Keep going. Keep going.

MaineWorks Circle: He is new to MaineWorks and overjoyed.

MaineWorks Circle: He is new to MaineWorks and overjoyed. He's got a job, safety gear, new boots and food. I ask him if I may photograph him and he says something like 'Hell yes, I want people to see I'm doing well.'

John Stetson, loyal MaineWorks friend and collaborator next to a photo of Dave Johnson...

John Stetson, loyal MaineWorks friend and collaborator standing next to a photo of Dave Johnson, former MaineWorks employee who dared to express that he wanted to learn to make guitars early one morning in the MaineWorks Circle. Enter John Stetson, who partnered with MaineWorks, Maine Recovery Fund and Dave to help make a dream come true. Dave is holding the first guitar he built with John's guidance.....and now? Dave is offering to help others build THEIR own guitars.
Life in recovery, can be tuned just so.