Amelia-Love, Grief, and the Body That Knows
Held Through Thresholds Shalom has held me through some of the biggest thresholds of my life. It is where I came home to my body.It is where I had a ceremony to become a woman.It is where I met my husband.It is where I mourned him.And it is where I eventually stepped into leadership. I […]
The Life That Was Waiting for Me
Kelly-46 A Purpose to Tell the Truth A part of my purpose in this lifetime is to tell the truth. Maybe that is one of the reasons I’m here: to speak honestly, to share, to take what I’ve lived, learned, and transformed, and offer it back in some way that might be of service. I […]
Maxine-This is Me
What Is Still Worth Doing For the last several years, I have found myself thinking about what, exactly, I still wanted to do with my life. My husband was sick for seven years before he died, and illness has a way of shrinking a life. In the beginning, we could still go places, still do […]
Angela-There You Are
A Life Splitting Down the Middle In 2008, my life felt like it was splitting down the middle. My relationship with my spouse had ended for what would become the final time, and we had two young children together. I felt deeply trapped. I couldn’t imagine leaving because of them, and I couldn’t imagine how […]
Speak Up and Wait
Jennifer-61 When “Speak Up” Isn’t the Solution Recently, Melania Trump encouraged victims connected to Jeffrey Epstein to come forward and testify. And something in me didn’t just disagree. It tightened. Something about that lands hard. Not because encouraging truth is inherently wrong. But it ignores a deeper, more painful reality. Many of the victims already […]
John-Discovering Shalom
Before Something Begins There’s a moment before something beginswhen you don’t yet know that your life is about to shift. A story told by someone you trust.A change in them you can’t quite explain.Something in you leans in, even as another part pulls back. That’s how it was for me. Barbara’s Change I first came […]
The Path I Didn’t Know I Was Asking For
Maria-63 The Crisis This story begins in a moment of crisis that unlocked a door to an entirely new identity and life path. If I had known that my soul was asking for a new direction, I might have recognized what was unfolding. Instead, I experienced it as too-much-to-hold, system-overload news. In deep despair, I […]
Marguerite-Blooming Lotus
When Everything Unraveled There was a time in my life when everything seemed to unravel at once. Loss came first.Nine people in seven months.Including my father. Grief doesn’t move in a straight line. It comes in waves, in moments you don’t expect, in places you thought were safe. And while all of that was happening […]
Stephanie-God is in the Pots and Pans
When Life Had Gotten Very Small I found Shalom at a time when my life had gotten very small. It was November of 2021, just as the world was starting to open back up again. I had spent over a year in lockdown with my partner at the time, and what had always been a […]
Beth-Love Will Forever Be a Gift
Before I Knew What to Call It I sometimes think that my story with Shalom began long before I knew what to call it. Lawrence and Joy are my aunt and uncle, and I was a teenager when I first touched that world, going to some teen retreats at the London Schoolhouse. Back then, I […]