Ronald White:  

My life up to middle age was about 1) recovery from the impact of child abuse; 2) after HS graduation, the September 1966 accident in Ann Roseberg's VW bus that nearly claimed my life, leaving me with a severe brain concussion; and 3) dealing with the emotional trauma of having bought into the countercultual movement of the 1960's which was violently crushed beginning with the death of Dr. King and finally ended with Kent State and Jackson State in 1970, events witih which I never effectively dealt. Believe the adage that children learn what they live. I became my abusive parents in many ways, and hated myself. After the Sixties, I compromised my core beliefs and spent a lot of years putting myself back together in ways that never really fit with who I am. My life fell apart for decades - that in spite of looking on the outside like everything was just fine. I was elected to and served on the Rockford City Council while I was still not fine. I was appointed as an Advance Man to Presidents Ford and Reagan for their trips to Northern Illinois though I was nothing close to a conservative Republican. I even became a middle of the road businessman. Eventually at the end of mid-life, I got into long-term counseling to re-learn who I am at my core and that I am OK. Since then, I decided it is time to give back. You see, I believe that we endure painful trials specifically to learn the lessons that shape us so that we can help others to not make the mistakes that we have made, to not go through the pain that we have endured...or at least that should be our hope. For nearly a decade, I have volunteered through RAVEN, a batterer-intervention-program (BIP) in St. Louis, MO, to provide intervention in the lives of men who abuse their partners. RAVEN is an educational and group dynamics program designed to help men learn to choose alternatives to abuse and violence in their personal relationships and their lives in general. RAVEN was serendiptously introduced to me when I attended Eden Seminary in St. Louis. RAVEN was my secular placement for the year prior to my placement in the pulpit of a small church. I seeing a glaring need for increasing public awareness about the nature and prevalence of personal relationship abuse and violence (PRAV). Few people know the vocabulary, the definitions of abuse and violence, of dominance and control, of the difference between abuse, violence, and physical violence as they appear along the continuum. While a few agencies exist and provide limited services to a small number of people in the cities across the United States, a gaping hole exists in available public services when compared to the need. My intent is to r...Expand for more