Welcome to Season 4 of Being Known Podcast where we are looking at trauma through the lens of hope and not fear.

This week, Curt and Pepper look at the questions:

• What then, is trauma, exactly?

This much we know: although many of us are able to avoid awareness of trauma, no one avoids it altogether. It touches us as individuals and as systems, including those places we seek and expect to find refuge from it, such as our families and churches. Eventually, it extends to entire cultures where with our violence we resort to systematic cultural brutality and the support of building an empire.

Fortunately for us, the Bible is no stranger to trauma, and neither is Jesus. In fact, it is his example to which we will turn over and over to discover what it means to turn our attention toward, rather than away from trauma, for it not only to be healed, but for us to be recommissioned to create beauty in its very midst.

This episode lays the groundwork for knowing not just what trauma is, but what it begins to look like when we move from being its victims to becoming its victors.

Links and References:

• The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson, MD (chapter 4 specifically)

We invite you to stay connected with us via social media and YouTube:

• Instagram

As always, we invite you to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode and welcome your reviews on Apple Podcasts.

Welcome to Season 4 of Being Known Podcast where we are looking at trauma through the lens of hope and not fear.

Description:

In this season, we want to offer hope to our listeners. Hope for those who know what trauma is up close and personal, as well as for those who may have little to no idea that they have encountered it, let alone that others have. And that hope is ultimately to be found in Jesus, who appears to have made it his mission to redeem trauma wherever he finds it.

Part of that redemptive process includes our telling the story of trauma as truly as we can—so that evil doesn’t get to have the last word. 

Each episode in this season will relate to an area of trauma, including:

• Trauma and the mind

Links and References:

• The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker

We invite you to stay connected with us via social media and YouTube:

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube (where we post the unedited videos of each episodes)

As always, we invite you to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode and welcome your reviews on Apple Podcasts.

Curt and Pepper spend time spotlighting each episode of Being Known Podcast season 3 which is based on Curt's book, The Soul of Desire.

Video version available on our YouTube channel!

What happens when we faithfully practice dwelling, gazing and inquiring within the confessional community—within the house of the Lord? As it turns out, nothing short of the emergence of beauty and goodness within the community itself, the very place where the hard work of hope is done.

Goodness and beauty that then spills out into every other domain of life that the members of the community occupy. Furthermore, the very hard work that happens in the community—unlike Las Vegas—does not stay in the community, but extends through the lives of the participants to become the artistry of new creation wherever their footfalls land, be be that in their family, their place and form of occupation, their friendships and their churches.

Join Pepper and Curt to find out what glimpsing into heaven might be like—God’s heaven that is already here and is surely coming.  

This episode is further discussion on chapter 10 of The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson, MD.

First, we dwell. Then we gaze. But eventually, these states of mind lead to our inquiring, asking questions with curiosity and without condemnation.

We live in a world that rarely creates space for such inquiries. But we will see that the questions we explore in this episode are the ones that God has already asked of us—and will continue to ask as he enables us to collaborate with him in creating and becoming the beauty and goodness that he has imagined before the foundation of the world.  

This episode is further discussion on chapter 9 of The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson, MD.

It requires little effort to gaze upon a brilliant sunset. But what about our trauma?

What about the parts of us that we hate the most?

Who wants even to glance at that, let alone gaze upon it?

But as we will see (no pun intended), it is when we take the time, by dwelling, to look upon our wounds in the presence of others—and do so long enough to fully take them in—that we begin to experience what new creation not only looks like, but what it feels like in our bodies as our souls are renewed.

This episode is further discussion on chapter 8 of The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson, MD.

To remain in one place while not being continually entertained or stimulated from something outside ourselves is increasingly difficult. But if we are to become outposts of beauty and goodness—like any artist—we must be willing to remain in the presence of others and of ourselves, over and against our impulse to run away as quickly as we can to reduce our distress as expeditiously as possible.

Join us as we delve into the heart of Psalm 27:4 and discover how dwelling is a necessary step in becoming aware of our longings and our griefs, as well as those of others, and how staying put—as odd as it initially might seem—is the first step in our movement toward flourishing. But not only this. For we will see how dwelling “…in the house of the Lord all the days of my life…” is so much more than you might have imagined.

This episode is further discussion on chapter 7 of The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson, MD.

The emergence of beauty and goodness in our world requires that we first imagine it to be so.  But trauma and shame shatter and atrophy our imagination, leaving us fearful of imagining, let alone naming the beauty and goodness we long for. For new creation to dawn, it must be led by our willingness to imagine a world we cannot yet see.

Moreover, once we catch our first glimpse of a newly imagined future, making it more permanent requires lots of practice. And that practice requires perseverance, because if we want our imagination to wire for beauty and goodness, we much repeatedly fire it to do so.

Join Curt and Pepper as we imagine with you what beauty and goodness can become, and how the people who take the stage in the biblical narrative know exactly how hard it is to imagine a world that they have never seen before.

This episode is further discussion on chapter 6 of The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson, MD.

Trauma, shame and their healing, at their heart, take place in the context of intimate human relationships. How does participation in a confessional community create space for the healing we are seeking to emerge?

In this episode, Pepper and Curt explore these ideas and more, inviting you to begin to imagine how being part of a vulnerable community not only makes possible the healing and vocational recommissioning we are hungering and thirsting for, but does so in a manner that simultaneously grounds and strengthens our formation as spiritual creatures like few other practices do.

Listen in as we discover how confession is about so much more than sin, and what happens when men and women, together—that’s right, we’re going to talk about sex!—commit themselves to creating and curating beauty, rather than devouring it. Moreover, we’ll see how this takes place, surprisingly, in the very presence of their trauma and shame, and not in their absence.

This episode is further discussion on chapter 5 of The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson, MD.

It takes very little to see that if longing and beauty go hand in hand, then trauma and shame are more than willing to make sure that none of that ever lasts, and in some cases makes sure no handshake ever happens. For truly, as sure as we are people of desire, we are people of grief.

From our brains to the rest of our bodies, from our inner lives to our relational realities, our grief so fills our minds that we hardly notice that so much of life’s work consists of managing our grief, looking for trouble so we can head it off before it finds us. Given the brokenness and pain that seem so ubiquitous, no wonder we mostly see ourselves as problems to solve rather than beauty waiting to be revealed.

Join Pepper and Curt as we unflinchingly name our grief—without forgetting that we were made for so much more.

This episode is further discussion on chapter 4 of The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson, MD.