Sharing the Medicine: The Journey Back to Innocence from a Life of Tragic Loss and Trauma

by Rev. Dhyana Kluth

Twenty-three years ago today I lost a beloved friend when we were ambushed by bullets in a drive-by shooting the media portrayed as a "botched robbery" in beautiful Balboa Park, San Diego, California.  My friend, John, and I had spent almost the whole day together, attending two plays at The Old Globe Theater where we were apprentices, playing chess and drinking cafe lattes in between shows. Had we been aware of anything other than our reconciliation we would have noticed the pickup truck which drove by three times before targeting us as we walked back across the bridge to our parked cars after the last show and closing party. 

I spent the following Christmas in Creede, Colorado with John's family and learned to laugh again even as I wrestled with why I had survived the shooting and what for. I knew then that I had to shed the old escape routes which I had become accustomed to before I even became a teenager thirteen years before. I somehow knew deep in my bones that I couldn't keep numbing my pain, that I was being called to minister and that that required letting go of some old habits. Thinking back, as I recall, it was after I'd gone to church with his family and we were out having dinner or drinks that I was feeling the wisdom of my soul urging me to stay sober to think these thoughts thorough, and to really be in my body and feel the emotions and pain in order to let them go; that this embodiment was the way to release myself from suffering.  

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