Redeeming the Past: My Journey from Freedom Fighter to Healer

In 1990, Fr 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 and was immediately struck by the blast of an explosion. 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. His memoir tells the story of this horrendous event, backing up to recount the journey that led him there - particularly his rising awareness of the radical social implications of the gospel and his identification with the liberation struggle - and then the subsequent journey of the last two decades. Returning to South Africa, Lapsley saw a whole nation damaged by the apartheid era. So he discovered his new vocation - to become a wounded healer, drawing on his own experience to promote the healing of other victims of violence and trauma.