ABSTRACT
This chapter examines service and burnout dynamics between stable institutions with resources and political leverage, often colleges and universities, and adjacent lower income communities willing to join in community-engaged partnerships. Naming partnership breakdown reveals a multi-level array of recognized and unrecognized dynamics and issues, which play out at different speeds and with diverse effects. The chapter engages these realities including their intertwined impact on emotions, senses of history, and determination of resources. The Caring Breath practice from Chapter 6 is differently used to build clarity and forward-working determination and a body-drawing exercise encourages creative communication about sources of tension and emotional or mental conflict. A new use of the contemplative exercise, Lectio Divina, invites one team to tell their story via text while other partners listen and engage. The process over time intends to spark the rebuilding of “a story of us.”
