The Power of Human Connection Reaching Beyond Time, Space, and Covid
Dr. Doreen Dodgen-Magee • January 6, 2022
A reflection on finding hope in a digital Mother's Circle Spring 2020.
In March of 2020, as the world was shutting down due to Covid-19, I received a call from Sr. Donna. We had met 4 years earlier when I had sought her out on a trip to Chicago. So many of the mothers I had met doing gun violence prevention work had talked about her as being the person who changed everything for them after losing a child to a gun
or the prison system. We hadn’t spoken in a while so, when the phone flashed her name, I answered excitedly.
Sr. Donna, however, was not excited. She was heart heavy and concerned. How would she be able to support the mothers, grandmothers, and other women when everyone was shut up at home? How would they weather this frightening time without the help and resources that their Mother’s Healing Circles provide?
Healing circles, for this community, are a lifeline. Many who sit within them refer to them as “therapy I don’t have to pay for.”
For sixty minutes, the circle creates a space wherein everyone is radically welcome, exactly as they are, to offer what they have and take what they need from a group of others who can uniquely understand their struggles. These places required, however, physical presence and shared space. Two things that the pandemic rendered unavailable.
As Donna shared stories about the women I’d met in circle a few years earlier, I began to imagine what their experience during quarantine might be like. Cramped quarters with children and grandchildren now confined to home all day. Loss of access to social services and places like PBMR that provided them with emotional and physical support. My heart, knit to Donna’s, felt heavy. As we bore witness to the reality of these women, it became imperative that we find a way to offer them space
within their precious circles.
Zoom became our answer.
Would it work, we wondered? Could we create a safe and emotionally powerful space in a digital platform? Would the lack of reliable internet and digital devices make it too difficult for people to join, adding discouragement to injury? We weren’t sure but we decided to try.
Our first circle was so powerful that the women asked for weekly circles, and every single time we were gob-smacked by the synergy and love that found us. Sometimes it took people half the time just to get into the Zoom session but, even then, they would cheer at having “made it.”
Early on a mother shared through angry clenched teeth and sad guttural sobs that her incarcerated son had died, of Covid, in prison. Other weeks women spoke of the reality of being front line workers in a world where not everyone respected them, wore masks, or offered kindness. Over time, people made their way into the calls with no help at all and the bonds became thick and the circle wide. Some women dressed up every week, donning incredible hats, lipstick, and showing off home done manicures. Others called in from bed. Everyone was welcome, just as they were, and we became a sisterhood
sitting together through an unbelievable time. These women became my teachers, their wisdom and tenacity are astounding.
Eventually we dropped to meeting every other week, then every month, but we continued meeting all the way through the pandemic. As the world began to open up in the summer of 2021 I told the group, as soon as it is safe to travel, my first trip (from my home in Portland, OR) would be to the first in person circle in Chicago. I longed to meet these important teachers of mine in person. Then last October, it finally happened.
As the mothers trickled into the space, my heart began to pound. When the mother who had lost her son to Covid early on, arrived my tears began to flow.
While we had never been together in person, I had felt her agony over her son’s death and the resulting rift in her family with real intensity for months. We hugged, stepped back and looked at each other, then hugged some more. She told me she’s found healing in the last few months, how she became a circle keeper herself, and how she sees ways in which her family was in danger of horrifically falling out after her son’s death. She shared that she had, as a result of the training and ensuing insights, worked diligently and intentionally to address these wounds and make efforts to bring her family back together. She shared that they’d be having their first Thanksgiving together in years then told me all the details of who was bringing what. We shared like we’d known each other for a thousand years and shared recipes regularly.
The power of human connection cannot be taken for granted.
When image bearers (and who isn’t one?!) come together intending to support and care for each other, not even thousands of miles or undependable internet can keep it from happening. While the costs of the pandemic were many, the mothers from PBMR found silver linings every week…then offered them to each other as they relished in the goodness of giving love, hope, peace, and, every so often, an incredible gospel song to the sisters they found in a checkerboard of faces on screens of all sizes.
Doreen lives and works as a Clinical Therapist in Portland, OR. She is a committed friend and supporter of PBMR.
On Thursday, October 29, 2026, Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation and Father Dave Kelly accepted an award as Finalists for the 2026 Opus Prize, a global faith-based prize for social entrepreneurship. Every year, The Opus Prize Foundation partners with a different Catholic university to honor work that addresses some of the most persistent social challenges of our time. We were nominated by our friends and strong collaborators at DePaul University along with two other amazing changemakers across the world: Siyakhathala in Cape Town, South Africa, was founded in 2009 by Ms. Nontsasa Nyovane to assist children that have lost both of their parents to violence or HIV/AIDS. DePaul Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine, was started more than 20 years ago by Fr. Vitaliy Novak, C.M., the 2026 Opus Prize Laureate winner, to assist those experiencing homelessness throughout the country. Click here to read DePaul University's recap on the evening , and watch a video below introducing the finalists from DePaul University:
“When we are willing to step outside our comfortable circles, we discover that God has been waiting for us there all along.”
“ It is difficult to hate someone whose story you know. ”
In an age marked by polarization, suspicion, and division, the greatest need in our world is not simply better arguments but deeper relationships.
“ A nation becomes stronger, not weaker, when it is willing to examine itself honestly. ”
“The first message of Jesus is that of compassion. Mission will follow.”
“We’re all doing the same work. We all have the same issues, but we all have our own approaches to the work, right? But turns out, it's one fight. This is one united front.”
“If we truly want safer communities and a more just society, then we must be willing to imagine and invest in a better way for everyone.”
“We learn from those who continue to love, even when they have been betrayed.”
"We all know love when we see it. All the rest are labels."
Advent always begins in darkness. It tells the truth about the world as it is— a world where violence wounds lives and communities, where incarceration separates families, and where fear too often speaks louder than hope. And yet, Advent also insists that the story does not end in darkness. For those who live under the weight of isolation— for survivors of violence, for their families, for communities whose resources are stretched thin— the promise of Advent is not a naïve denial of pain. It is a quiet, steady flame that refuses to go out. This season reminds us that God does not wait for the world to be tidy or whole before drawing near. God comes into the places where the night is longest— into prison cells and courtrooms, into hospital waiting rooms, into homes where grief has taken up residence— and whispers, “I am here.” Advent hope is not passive. It is the hope that allows us to take the next step, to believe that healing is possible, to accompany one another with tenderness and courage. It is the hope that teaches us to look for light before we can see it fully. As we move through this season, may we honor the truth of the darkness without being claimed by it. May we carry hope not as a fragile wish, but as a reason to continue— a reason to keep showing up, to keep loving, to keep believing that God’s dawn is already on its way. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Amen.
Reimagining Justice in Illinois: A Restorative Justice Blueprint for Illinois’ Criminal Legal System
The following text is an excerpt from an article of the same title, first published on the RJHubs website by Karlyn Boens. Joe’s story brought these themes to life on a human scale. “I never had a chance to be a kid,” he shared. Growing up in constant survival mode, childhood was something he had to skip to stay alive. At PBMR, he experienced something different: “I could let my hair down. I discovered I was good at talking to people.” What Joe encountered was radical hospitality and accompaniment—restorative practices that rarely appear in legislation or policy yet quietly transform lives every day. Where systems had seen risk, PBMR saw relationship. Where institutions had offered surveillance, PBMR offered presence and belonging. His story illustrated what it looks like when the human rights lens is made concrete: a space where connection, dignity, and possibility are not conditional, but assumed. This conversation captures what restorative justice demands of us in Illinois. It is not about launching more programs or pilots. It is about: A paradigm shift in how we understand safety A culture shift in how institutions wield power A system shift in how decisions are made, data is collected, and accountability is defined Imagine an Illinois where: Human rights guide decision-making Restorative justice is the standard, not the exception Communities lead the healing Data includes lived experience, not just charges and convictions Redemption is not selective Adults are not excluded from restoration And every child has the chance to just be a child This panel did not hand us easy answers. Instead, it offered an invitation—a call to build the ecosystem our communities have been waiting for, one relationship, one policy, one practice at a time.
