An Inspiring Recovery Story: 8/29/25 DN-R Justice Matters Column

Emily Bartley, a former resident of Gemeinschaft
Home's Women's House, is now devoting her life to 
helping others in recovery. 

Peer Support Is Vital For Successful Reentry and Recovery

Reentering the community after more than a year in jail was terrifying. My addiction to methamphetamines had cost me everything, including the custody of my daughter. The thought of facing recovery alone felt daunting and near impossible. Isolated and scared, I was ready to give up.

Yet in that dark place, a shift began, a realization that I had a purpose. 

My journey from incarceration to my current role at Strength in Peers is more than my story; it is a testament to the power of peer support and the hope I carry for others.

I needed help reentering the community because I had lost everything. I walked out of Rockingham Harrisonburg Regional Jail with only the clothes I was wearing when I was arrested. I first began to build my support system at the Women’s Gemeinschaft Residential program and through them I found out about other support groups and resources in the area. 

The support I found in reentry programs in the Harrisonburg community was crucial to my journey, as I began to find my footing and a new sense of compassion for others. My own recovery became the foundation for my current role, where I now use my lived experience to provide empathetic guidance to others who are walking a similar path. I started as an intern, and after becoming a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist, was offered a full-time position providing one-on-one peer support services primarily to people experiencing homelessness and who have recently been released from incarceration. Seeing my own journey come full circle from needing help to providing it motivates me to continue offering a safe place to those who feel as lost as I once did.

My personal journey has given me a deep understanding of the barriers people face when they reenter the community from incarceration, and I use my experience navigating community services and overcoming challenges to help the people I serve. At Strength in Peers we offer a wide range of services for those coming out of incarceration, including help  with obtaining vital records, applying for employment, and securing public benefits. These services provide a practical foundation, but the true power lies in the peer-to-peer connection. 

I have witnessed countless individuals turn their lives around, but one participant’s journey stands out. This person came to Strength In Peers after spending over a year at Rockingham Harrisonburg Regional Jail, the same jail I was in. They were familiar with our organization after attending some of the peer-led substance use recovery groups that we offer there. Over the past eight months, I have had the privilege of watching him rebuild his life. He has found stable employment and housing since his release, and has worked hard at rebuilding relationships that were broken with his family and friends during his addiction and to build a support network for himself from nothing. The anxiety that once defined him has slowly given way to a quiet confidence.

He is now approaching his two-year sobriety milestone and has even applied for an internship to become a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist. Seeing someone find the hope thatmwas lost in his addiction is an incredibly powerful experience and I am grateful to be a part of it. This work is more than just providing resources; it is about walking beside someone on their journey, sharing mutual experiences and reminding them that a different life is possible.

My journey from incarceration to becoming a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist has taught me that recovery is not a linear path, and that it looks different for everyone. The greatest lesson I have learned, both for myself and the participants that I work with, is that a strong support system is key. So my work at Strength in Peers is more than just a job; it is a testament to the hope that a person’s darkest moments can lead to their greatest purpose. The hope I give to others strengthens my own recovery, a continuous journey of growth and service. I am living proof that with the right support, it is possible to not only survive the challenges of reentry but to thrive and help others find their way, too.

- Emily Bartley is a former client of Strength in Peers and now offers help to others as a full time Peer Support Recovery Specialist at 917 North Main Street.

Why We May Love Collecting 'Brown Stamps'

Back in the '60's and 70's many merchants offered green stamps with every purchase, one for every dime on your receipt. Books of stamps could be redeemed for all kinds of cool products from the Sperry & Hutchinson gift catalogue.

I once heard Garrison Keillor describe some people as being afflicted with a unique kind of Alzheimers, one that causes them to "forget everything but their grievances."

Too many of us find ourselves failing to count our blessings and instead collecting what we might call "brown stamps," mental records all of the perceived wrongs we have suffered throughout our unfortunate lives. As convinced victims, we believe I a debt for which we deserve payments that are long overdue. That sense of being owed gives us a feeling of power we may otherwise feel we lack.

By contrast, if we register all of their many gratitudes in our mental bookkeeping we see ourselves as owing the world--and our Creator--a debt we can never fully repay. That represents a kind of power and a motivation of a positive kind.

So much depends not on our circumstances but on our bookkeeping.

I'm not an accountant, and sometimes even have trouble keeping track of my bank balance, but I at least know that the difference between having an overdrawn account and a viable one. It's all about whether I regularly make more deposits than I do withdrawals.

In a similar way, the difference between mental wellness and mental misery is whether our assets are seen as exceeding our liabilities, our credits exceeding our debits.

The good news is that our circumstances don't have to be perfect, nor do all the people in our lives need to behave has they should. Many won't, but we need to have enough positive experiences and life-giving connections with God and with others that more than make up for what is negative in our lives.

Again, a lot of that has to do with our record keeping, and whether we are mostly collecting green stamps or brown stamps.

Are there times when we need to lament, mourn, repent, and/or grieve? Absolutely. We need to set aside times to name and fully experience our pain and our losses in order to experience much needed catharsis and ongoing healing.

There is a time for everything, but the majority of our time needs to be focused on the good stuff. 

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"In conclusion, my friends, fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honorable."

Philippians 4:8 (Good News translation)

https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2025/07/for-quality-relationships-practice-41.html

On Not Taking Our Daily Bread For Granted

Granddog Benson savors the last morsel from his dish.

When our middle son gave me instructions recently about feeding their family's black lab while they were away, he told me about one of his strange behaviors. "When I put food in his dish," he said, "he waits for me to give him verbal permission before wolfing it down."

What a thoughtful dog, I thought, taking a moment to acknowledge his dependence on his master for his meals.

Humans could learn from Benson. In the German language our family spoke when I was growing up, essen meant people eating a meal whereas fressen was typically used for animals devouring their hay, grain or other food, Or we might jokingly use the word to describe a fellow human "eating like a pig."

Taking a moment before a meal to express gratitude to our Creator for the food we're so dependent on seems like an appropriate practice. It could be also be a good time to show some appreciation for the hard labor so many from all over have put into planting, tending, harvesting and making our food available to us.

As someone has observed, every morsel of a plant or animal that gives us life has had to give up its life for our sake, which means every meal could be thought of as a kind of eucharist for the soul as well as nourishment for the body.

In an odd way, maybe even Benson seems to get that.

Countless Trucks Are Bringing Needed Food--But Not Just To Gaza

One of numerous trucks supplying the "food distribution center" at the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community. 

We've all been shocked by photos of hundreds of eighteen wheelers lined up to bring desperately needed food to Gaza. There's something about this that seems unsustainable and unacceptable. Surely the world can't keep up this kind of effort and on such a scale.

But on second thought I reflected on the multitude of trucks on US highways and interstates bringing in exotic foods our more affluent communities feel entitled to. In the past century we've gone from shopping at  modest size family-operated grocery stores to having huge supermarket chains like A & T, Krogers and Safeway appearing in every community, accompanied by the need for ever more trucks to keep them stocked. 

Prior to that, the majority of food items on US tables were either home grown or were harvested, milled and marketed within relatively short distances. Ships and railroads of course brought in more varied fare over time but from the 1920's to the 2020's the US saw huge changes in food production and marketing that have required major expansions in the trucking industry. So both conditions of extreme poverty and of excessive wealth have created an over dependence on planet-polluting systems of truck transportation.

According to one Israeli source, an average of 73 food and aid trucks were brought into the Gaza Strip daily before the war for its two million people, many of them already having lived in refugees camps for decades. As a result of the unimaginable devastation inflicted by Israel's military, UN agencies estimate that 500-600 trucks are now needed daily to meet even the most basic needs of Gaza's population. Fewer than half that many are currently being allowed in, however, according to the Los Angeles Times and other sources.

Let's urge individuals and nations everywhere to renounce war and engage in just, sustainable and compassionate ways of seeing that everyone on earth has enough to eat.

This is a view of Gaza today, looking much like the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing.

Trillions For “Defense” Will Not Save Us

 

The combined military spending of the world's
nations is staggering--and immoral. 

"The regenerated do not go to war, or engage in strife. They are the children of peace, who have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and they know no war. Since we are conformed to the image of Christ, how then can we kill our enemies with the sword? Spears and swords made of iron we leave to those, alas, who consider human blood and swine’s blood as having well nigh equal value."    

- sixteenth-century reformer Menno Simons

According to The Visual Capitalist, combined spending worldwide for military purposes reached $2.7 trillion in 2024. The U.S., with less than 5% of the world’s population, increased its spending by 5.7% last year, to a staggering total of $997 billion. Much of that spending is money borrowed from future generations.

By comparison, China, with a population of over four times our own, spent $314 billion, and Russia $149 billion. 

While estimates vary, the cost of eradicating world hunger, homelessness and preventable deaths from lack of medical care would be far less than we are currently spending on ever more deadly means of destruction. We can only dream of what such investments could do to help bring about world peace and stability.

I find it disheartening that even some of my Christian-minded friends support acts of massive destruction and human butchery by nations they favor, seeing it as a kind of necessary evil committed by a more innocent party. Thus "lesser evil-ism” becomes a justification for actions that are morally unjustifiable no matter who engages in them or for whatever reason, just as we would no longer defend torture, cannibalism, or slavery.

Yet we continue to see desirable ends as justifying whatever regrettable means necessary to achieve them. Maiming and murdering men, women and even innocent children, along with destroying their homes and means of livelihood are seen as forms of “self defense” or as necessary for eliminating an evil enemy. Citizens on both sides firmly believe their cause is just, and that whatever barbaric acts they engage in are therefore justifiable, right and divinely approved.

But if the vision and teaching of Jesus and the prophets were to be taken seriously, we would urge every nation in the world to beat their military swords into plowshares, and to study war no more. If humanity is to survive we must all stop rationalizing irrational and genocidal behavior. 

Unsurprisingly, no application of so called "just war" principles has ever been known to actually prevent a war. Not a single one. Not ever . And when it comes to "war crimes," it's high time that we rule out war itself as the most heinous crime imaginable.

Jesus consistently taught and demonstrated what it means to defeat evil by doing good rather than inflicting harm. When his disciples asked him to call down fire from heaven to destroy their Samaritan enemies, Jesus rebuked them in no uncertain terms. And when one of them drew his sword in Jesus's defense his response was swift and clear: “Put your sword away. Those who wield the sword will perish by it.”

Even if we set religious and moral reasons aside, a total rejection of war as evil is not some utopian fantasy, but absolutely necessary for human survival.

2024/https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2023/03/will-more-war-help-bring-about-more.html

https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-sword-in-romans-13-is-for.html

Seven Retirement Blessings I'm Grateful For

I hope to keep on growing in the remaining chapter of my
life here in Park Village at the Virginia Mennonite
Retirement Community.

The following are just a few of the many blessings I enjoy these days:

1. The pleasure of leisure time for working the soil, nurturing plants, pulling weeds and harvesting produce from our smallish 10' x 60' vegetable garden.

2. Having more time to read books, take a leisurely nap, write a blog, and/or engage in community work on criminal justice and other issues I care about.

3. Enjoying more quality time with Alma Jean, my spouse and soulmate of 61 years.

4. Occasional morning coffee and conversation with friends at the Main Street Cafe on our VMRC campus.

5. Sharing kitchen times for baking bread and for making vegetable stews, oatmeal pancakes and caramel puddings.

6. Doing crossword puzzles and other fun things with my wife and with some of our beloved grandchildren.

7. Still being able to meet some clients as needed one day a week at the Hometown Pastoral Counseling Group in Dayton.

God is good. All the time.

In 1492, Columbus Landed On Ayita (now Haiti)

I found this book by Pulitzer prize
winning author especially revealing 
regarding US policy toward Haiti.

I was intrigued by a reference in Garry Wills book about Thomas Jefferson's refusal, as a citizen of a southern slaveholding state, to recognize the revolutionary new black government of Haiti during his presidency. This added to my curiosity about how that long standing policy, unchanged until 1862, may have affected Haiti's ill-fated history. 

As background, the island on which Haiti is located is where Christopher Columbus planted the first European flag and lay claim to land long inhabited by a native Taino and Arawakan people.The French later built a large settlement there in the 18th century and established huge plantations employing slave labor. As a result the French profited from enormous amounts of indigo, cotton and raw sugar exports, according to Wikipedia, and by the end of the century were involved in a third of the entire Atlantic slave trade.

Then in 1791, not long after the US colonies successfully gained independence from the English crown, slaves staged the successful Haitian Revolution. In its aftermath as many as 5000 French occupiers, men, women and children, were brutally massacred.

Meanwhile, Jefferson endorsed the formal recognition of the new French Republic after the 1792 revolution that overthrew the monarchy of Louis XVI. This resulted in the massacres of well over three times as many French as died in the aftermath of the Haitian uprising.

According to Wills, Timothy Pickering, a former Secretary of War and later a senator from Massachusetts, decried the double standard Jefferson applied to the two nations, one led by white Europeans and the other by black former slaves, as follows:

Dessalines is pronounced by some to be a ferocious tyrant; but whatever atrocities may have been committed under his authority have been surpassed, have they equalled in their nature (for in their extent they are comparatively nothing), those of the French Revolution, when "infuriated men were seeking," as you once said,. through blood and slaughter" their long lost liberty? ...If Frenchmen, who were more free than the subjects of any monarchs in Europe, the English excepted, could find in you the apologist for cruel excesses of of which the world has furnished no example, are the hapless, the wretched Haitians ("guilty indeed of skin not colored like our own), emancipated by a great national act and declared free--are they, after enjoying freedom for many years, having maintained it in arms, resolved to live free or die; are these men not merely to be abandoned to their own efforts but to be deprived of those necessary supplies which for a series of years, they have been accustomed to receive from the United States and without which they cannot subsist? (Wills, p.44)

To be clear, as a follower of Jesus I do not support armed violence of any kind by any individual or any nation, but this does raise the question of how a more just US foreign policy may have led to a different Haiti than the unimaginably dysfunctional and impoverished one we see today. 

And to what extent might ethnicity or skin color still affect our relationships with other nations?