Part 1: “THE RIVER OF LIFE JOURNEY CENTER”

Many years ago, my professional clergy colleague Jerry & I, decided to expand our ministry by creating a professional pastoral counseling practice. Our vision for this practice was to offer guidance & pastoral care for people who were seeking new ways to move forward in their life, towards increased balance & spiritual wholeness as they moved through the various challenges that they encountered throughout their life. After we developed the purpose & vision for our practice, there were many other things to address before we were prepared to begin living into our vision, the first of which, was to create a title for the practice that would summarize something that would express who we were & what we would be addressing.

The title for this writing today is the title we created for our new pastoral counseling practice. We felt then & still think now thirty-five years later that: “The River of Life Journey Center” would be a place where people who were struggling not only to survive but to thrive, could come for help as they journeyed through the waters of life seeking wisdom, insight, courage, compassion & peace.  It cannot be denied that our life is a journey, not stagnate, but rather an ever-moving experience, always moving in fluid fashion, flowing, like a river, fluid, unpredictable & alive in many ways.  

Once we developed the Title for our pastoral counseling center, we sought out biblical resources that we could draw from that would enrich the vision we embraced to help people on their journey toward balance, wholeness & healing. We  chose to draw from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible because the language of this book is written like a flowing  river of life, in a spiral fashion that introduces & sets up contrasting ways of living in the space between various viewpoints, images, & themes, then drops them only to resume them later. Key words, phrases & thought patterns are repeated in an almost refrain-like fashion. This pattern is particularly clear in the third chapter of the book where eight themes are listed in fluid fashion leaving room for people to choose how they will live & navigate-between the two alternating themes. It is this movement between the various viewpoints, images & themes that shapes a person’s life.

The themes are stated in no particular order, other than to state that the eight themes will occur as we journey through our life. The eight themes begin by stating:

“For everything there is a season & a time for every matter under heaven;

a time to be born, & a time to die;

a time to plant, & a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, & a time to heal;

a time to break down, & a time to build up;

a time to weep, & a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, & a time to dance;

a time to throw away stones, & a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, & a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, & a time to lose;

a time to keep , & a time to throw away;

a time to tear, & a time to sew;

a time to keep silent, & a time to speak;

a time to love, & a time to hate;

a time for war, & a time for peace.”

These are the themes the writer listed as the themes that we will encounter on our life journey.

~Posted by Rev Kathryn Bindig, MDiv. MS; Pastoral Care Minister with assistance from Rich Muscatello; Director of Business Development & Strategy