Divorce Healing Ceremonies

Helen Keller once said, "What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us."

Having been married young myself (and divorced following four years of marriage), I have a profound respect and admiration for individuals who are willing and able to recognize the caring and commitment that they shared within their marriage union, despite the unraveling of their lives together.

Also, as a child of divorced parents, I hold in the highest regard those parents who are able to place their own pain aside, never speaking ill of the "other parent," if that parent is loving, caring, and non-abusive to their children.

Co-parenting is a modern-day reality. If you did not know any peers or co-workers, between the ages of six and twenty-six, whose parents had separated or divorced, you quite possibly were raised prior to the 1960's or 70's.

Today, not only are divorces and mutually-agreed-upon-separations more common, they are more openly discussed and understood. Quite in opposition to what right-wing, conservative radio and television personalities would like you to believe, today is a much, much healthier time in which to be a child from a "broken family."

Far from the religious right's damning judgements that the ethics and morality of our world disintegrates with every divorce, the truth is that these days, parents of all gender identities, sexual orientations, and economic backgrounds are being held to much higher standards of commitment by the laws of our land! Rather than being able to simply 'disappear' from their families, mothers and fathers are more likely now than ever before to be held accountable for financially supporting the children they choose to bring into this world, and they are also more likely to remain involved with their children's upbringings, despite living in different homes.

I dislike this term, "broken family," because while my parents were divorced, our family was most certainly not "broken" ... we were all buoyed, strengthened, and able to work together to rebuild from the ground up! Both of my parents re-married while I was in my teenage years, and I now have four loving, devoted, kind, and caring parents -- where some only have two, or one, or none! I know how very, very lucky I am that my "broken family" rebuilt itself by working together in healthy ways over the years.

And today, as a Humanist Minister, I truly hope to offer some measure of hope and assistance to divorcing & separating families.

If you or someone you love is experiencing the heart-wrenching trials associated with "letting go" of relationships that are no longer healthy and happy -- please let them know that they can contact a compassionate, non-religious, understanding & respectful Humanist Minister who can guide them through this most important of life-processes!