S4E2 Definitions: Encountering Trauma

What then, is trauma, exactly, and how do we understand it to be different from other wounds that we experience over the course of our lives? 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. Listen in as Pepper and Curt lay 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.