{"id":733,"date":"2025-05-21T19:11:38","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T19:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/msbrazelton.wpenginepowered.com\/?page_id=733"},"modified":"2026-06-02T19:23:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T19:23:33","slug":"testimony-by-rebecca-badge","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/brazeltoninstitute.childrenshospital.org\/es\/nbi-community\/poetry-and-practice\/testimony-by-rebecca-badge\/","title":{"rendered":"Testimony by Rebecca Badge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reflection by Lisa McElaney<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Rebecca Badge\u2019s poem Testimony, written for her two daughters, is a lifeline for me in COVID times.\u00a0 I want to believe it.\u00a0 But sometimes that means I have to assert belief. So many of the those I work with are contending with ongoing challenges in the face of the pandemic and the\u00a0 necessary work of racial reckoning. The exhaustion is palpable and resilience is stretched.\u00a0 I feel called to renew my own faith in humanity \u2013 and in humility – when I read these lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Testimony<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

by Rebecca Badge<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to tell you
that the world is still beautiful\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want you to look again and again, 
to recognize the tender grasses,
curled like a baby’s fine hairs
around your fingers, as a recurring 
miracle, to see that the river rocks
shine like God, that the crisp 
voices of the orange and gold 
October leaves are laughing at death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want you to look beneath
the grass, to note 
the fragile hieroglyphs 
of ant, snail, beetle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want you to understand that you are
no more and no less necessary 
than the brown recluse, the ruby- 
throated hummingbird, the humpback 
whale, the profligate mimosa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to say, like Neruda, 
that I am waiting for 
“a great and common tenderness,” 
that I still believe 
we are capable of attention, 
that anyone who notices the world 
must want to save it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>
\n

Lisa McElaney M.S., LMHC is a clinician in the Center for Early Relationship Support at Jewish Family and Children\u2019s Center of Greater Boston (JF&CS). From there, she is embedded as an Infant\/Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant at Horizons for Homeless Children and Dimock Community Health Center, both in Boston. Prior to becoming a counseling psychologist in her fifties, Lisa was a documentary filmmaker and Principal Investigator on NIH supported research about women\u2019s and children\u2019s health at Vida Health Communications, Inc. As a psychotherapist, Lisa is trained in trauma informed modalities such as EMDR and Child-Parent Psychotherapy.\u00a0 Currently, she and her team of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultants at JF&CS are engaged in a Workforce Expansion Project which includes training in infant and early childhood mental health consultation using a racial equity lens and cross-cultural understandings of early relational health and systems of care. She is married to the photographer\/contemporary artist Abelardo Morell, who collaborated with Kevin Nugent on his book, Your Baby is Speaking to You.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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