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“Our protocol convening The Healing Circle is how we should be engaging with each other,” said Dr. Bravada Garrett Akinsanya, founder and CEO of The African American Child Wellness Institute and co-host of the Friday edition of The Conversation with Al McFarlane.
“In our African cultural tradition, important conversations take place in a circle where everyone has equal access to the center which is a place of power. We refute the hierarchal nature of the way power is not shared in American tradition. Although virtually assembled, we can spiritually envision our connection in that circle,” she said.
“We acknowledge that we reside on land stolen from our Lakota brethren. We honor our elders because it is their shoulders we stand on, and, because they are closest to our ancestors.”
“We honor our ancestors because they are closest to our Creator,” she said.
“As we pass the virtual talking stick among our hosts and guests, we welcome new knowledge through the disbursement of trusted and often vital information from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and philosophical perspectives coming from wonderful connections in the Twin Cities and around the country and our world like special guest, Dr. Elizabeth Hoorn Petersen, founder and director of the South African Faith and Family Institute (SAFFI),”
There was a mighty, awe-inspiring, mystical aura enfolding Dr. Petersen. We had heard much about this pioneering healer from Healing Circle colleague, Dr. Oliver Williams, former executive director of the Institute for Domestic Violence in the African American Community.
Dr. Peterson described meeting Dr. Williams as a gift, acknowledging his work as one of the first scholars doing culturally specific work in the field of domestic violence. After meeting Petersen, visiting her in Cape Town, South Africa, and seeing her work with the South African Faith & Family Institute (SAFFI), in action, and Williams welcomed her to the U.S. on several occasions over two decades, enabling her to share her story and the essence of her work with faith leaders of nine denominations.
“I had a calling when I was very young, holding fast to the belief that we must nurture people,” Petersen said. “In my teenage years, it was clear I was supposed to work with men who abused their intimate partners and that I had to work with religious leaders on the faith dimensions of gender-based violence, patriarchy, and the common exclusionary practice of male dominated religious leadership that is still in place case today.”
“Women have seldom been regarded or encouraged to be faith leaders, nor is that my role. I work with religious leaders, coming alongside them to strengthen their capacity as they intervene with individuals and families that, painfully, had been affected by such dysfunction.”
After graduating as a social worker in 1993, the first job Petersen embarked upon was in a shelter for abused women and children in South Africa. It was a time right at the brink of the end of apartheid. Most of the women who came with their children were Black. It was clear to her then that their children had probably never experienced a Black man that had not been violent and abusive, she said.
“I recall how my eight siblings and I came home from school or church quite often complaining about all that was wrong with apartheid society living. And our parents pointed out, ‘You’re disturbed about whatever is wrong because God wants you to do something about it!’ It was their extraordinary wisdom not garnered from formal education, but by their faith and seldom giving certain issues energy they knew they could not control. That was the heritage they left inside of us — to be the voice for those who had little freedom to speak. To change the direction of their lives and ours, as well,” she said.
After Petersen’s mother suddenly transitioned to the company of our ancestors in 2007, she knew her work was to start an institute that tackled the root causes of the oppressive systems of belief in which Black women and children historically had been forced to live.
“The honor of women and children is the foundation of a healthy society,” Petersen said. “Our sacred teachings compel us to take care of women and children and firmly uphold the principle of equality. To violate the most vulnerable members of our society is to spit in the face of God. In all congregations, there are survivors and perpetrators. It is our moral responsibility to reflect seriously on how we can support the struggle of women and children for full dignity in our homes, in our communities, and in our religious institutions and to treat each other with respect. We cannot turn a blind eye to domestic violence, and we cannot deny that it exists.”
What SAFFI seeks to do is to tackle the root causes of oppression and violence, byproducts of the twin evils of white supremacy and patriarchy. It was a concept Peersen said she struggled with as she began to learn English at the collegiate level. “In 2009, we officially set out to train field workers that were supposed to be facilitators. I wanted them to start out in their own communities and introduce the work of SAFFI to faith leaders through a sensitive workshop. This kind of work had never been done before. The questions the workers confronted had more to do with patriarchy than the critical work needing to be addressed in changing mindsets of how women and children should be treated,” she said.
The shelter was only the first part of her work. She had to convince the women that a Black male should work in the shelter, and be a role model for the children. “It really set me up for the critical work of helping faith leaders understand what belief system governs them, and discover what God expects of us in our intimate lives and relationships.”
“It’s like some people of faith really don’t want to engage with their own humanity, a reminder of their own darkness,” Petersen said. She said she asked the faith leaders who had come aboard “Why do you focus on certain theological questions and Sunday school stories? Why have you gone on for decades preaching the same themes that can easily be misinterpreted and don’t serve the people? Where are the resources within your own faith tradition?”
“That’s the essence of our work,” she said. “We’ve developed training over the years, and it’s very much merged with academic research and practice. The two speak to each other. The main focus must be the work of mental health and faith practitioners. We cannot ask a magistrate to clarify scripture like, ‘if a man says, ‘the Bible says I am the head of the home and women must submit’. Or if a woman, victim, survivor says ‘…but I am married and we are of one flesh,’ but she knows and everyone else knows he’s sleeping around and is sexually violating her.”
“We cannot ask social workers or the police to make sense of it all. It’s the sacred responsibility of faith leaders to fill that role,” Petersen said. “SAFFI creates safe spaces for religious heads to critically reflect on theologies that inform the way we interact with each other in intimate relationships.”
Petersen calls upon leaders from all faiths to support survivors, hold perpetrators fully accountable, and offer the possibility of healing for them too. “We, as people of faith, need to break the silence and acts of violence against women and children. I call upon all faith leaders to step into true leadership on this issue. We must take a stand. We must be in alignment with God,” she said.
And Dr. B., closed the Healing Circle program saying, “We acknowledge these special moments with our sister, Dr. Elizabeth Petersen and are in gratitude for having received acclimation, confirmation, affirmation, and the gift of substantiation which connects human beings to all living things, the earth, the wind, and everything around us. As we enjoy the knowledge of connection, we are never alone. We’re always present in a greater I am because we are; and we are because I AM! And so it is!”
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