Redeeming The Past

In 1990, Father Michael Lapsley, an Anglican priest and monastic from New Zealand, exiled to Zimbabwe because of his Anti-Apartheid work in South Africa, opened a package which violently exploded. The bomb, suspected to be the work of the Apartheid-era South African secret police, blasted away both his hands and one of his eyes. Now 22 years later, Michael Lapsley tells this remarkable story in his memoir, Redeeming the Past.

He recounts what led up to this horrendous event, particularly his rising awareness of the radical social implications of the Gospel and his identification with the liberation struggle. He describes how, in a nation damaged by Apartheid he became a wounded healer, drawing on his own experience to promote the healing of victims of violence.

He writes, "My visible brokenness creates a bond with others whose brokenness is often less visible but just as real. The truth is that pain unites human beings. In my work as a healer, many people say they can trust me because I know pain. In the end, though, what matters most is whether we are able to transform pain into a life-giving force."