Season 4, Episode 2: Sarah Travis

On this episode of the Mad and Crip Theology Podcast we talk with Rev. Dr. Sarah Travis about her Invited Commentary "Of Ghost Stories and Field Hospitals: Worship Leadership Amid Trauma." 

Read Sarah's commentary here: 
https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cjtmhd/article/view/42973

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Transcript

Welcome to this episode of the Mad and Crip Theology Podcast with Amy and I Miriam. Um we are so delighted to have on one of our contributors for the Spring issue on Trauma and Resistance, Sarah Travis, with us today so Sarah we uh welcome you to introduce yourself and talk about the work you you submitted to this um issue.

Sure thank you it's so great to be here thank you so much for the invitation um I'm Sarah Travis I am the associate professor of the practice of ministry and faith formation at Knox College at the University of Toronto um I've I've written a number of books one is about trauma and um preaching which is my um my key area um so this article came about um as I I started thinking about the whole concept of um of trauma and how it it haunts us um the idea is that trauma comes um comes about because the events of the past don't stay in the past they come into the present and um you know I I ran into a friend one day who had been through a really terrible experience and um was was suffering it was a a very traumatic event and and when I looked at her face I thought oh my goodness she is haunted and and you may be familiar with that look that people get when they're they're carrying things that are too heavy for them um so the piece really looks at um at the idea of of how trauma hunts liturgical spaces and I begin by talking about my own experience um very many years ago when um my my son died um at the age of three and I I found myself in in a sanctuary in Advent and um I wasn't able to sing and I wasn't able to celebrate and um so it it got me thinking about the ways that trauma haunts the sanctuary and that people are um people bring their their trauma with them and there are traumas that are shared by the community and so how do we find ways um to address that trauma and um it turns out that that one of the ways that we do that is simply by being in community and making space for that trauma uh which is one of the things we can do as as lurgical leaders um is to to make space for that

trauma. Thanks so much for that Sarah we really appreciate that um that summary of your piece and I when I when I read your piece for the first time I was um I felt a really a resonance with it I felt that the metaphor of haunting that you chose was very a powerful and but also very familiar one is my mom passed away last year so I think I understand some of that feeling of haunting uh very well so I really appreciated I felt like when I read your piece you you had articulated something I hadn't figured out yet so I really appreciate that you kind of went before me and um were able to put that into words for me so I'm grateful for that. Oh thank you. Um well we were going to ask you about why you chose the metaphor of haunting but I think I think we kind of talked about that a little bit I I I was I was thinking when you were talking um have you ever when you were writing did you think about the similarities or the differences between sort of like this this ghost this ghost of the past and and like um the Holy Spirit sometimes being called the Holy Ghost how do you see the the holy spirit's work kind of you know um being present in this during this haunting? Oh what a wonderful question um I hadn't thought about the connection with the Holy Ghost um but what a wonderful image um of the Spirit I'm trying to I'm trying to think how how does the spirit interact with us in those haunted spaces um it the first thing that comes to mind is the the Holy

Spirit um is refreshing it um it helps us see things as they actually are and it it brings new life where there is death and um so I think I think the spirit I'm not sure the spirit chases away the trauma entirely um but perhaps embraces us as we as we try and carry things that are very heavy.

I love

that yeah I was thinking too about um you know I think you wrote a little bit about it in your piece too about the disciples after Jesus's death and how they must have experienced that feeling of haunting. Yes yes um because that's Jesus in so many situations was as and of course they thought that that he was a ghost like what else could they think um and sometimes when we find new life we experience the same thing that it's actually hard sometimes to discover new life um because we we don't expect to find it and we don't recognize it um because our eyes are also blinded by

trauma. I had and had question sorry this one wasn't sent to you either sorry we're making you think on the on the topic but you're a professor so you do this all the time! Um so I attend the church um the church I attend has people who have many

different experiences of trauma

there's there's lots of queer people in the church there are many now our churches now have um queer refugees from Kenya and Uganda and and other countries in Africa and so that has really impacted our congregation and we we haven't um

always haven't found the words for yet. Ah yes. Because it just been changing over the last year and the congregation itself has had

some carries memories that that haven't always been healthy or other congregations. What is my question? My question is how would you um if you were in ministry there or um worshiping with them how would you hold these multiple traumas like they're all connected but we have multiple traumas from different contexts coming together and yeah I just wonder your thoughts about about holding multiple and collective trauma in

worship. Um hmm. Hm that's a great question and a a challenging one because

traumas ex people experience trauma in such different ways and to different degrees and respond to it so differently um I tend to always go back to the need to name it um that especially in preaching when we name trauma and name those multiple traumas

they stop being hidden for one thing um and they can actually be be addressed and it it raises people's awareness because I don't think um you know there's there's a saying you know "be nice to people" because or "be kind because you never know what someone else is carrying" and in worship we forget we forget that the person next to us is probably carrying something remarkably heavy so I think the first thing to do is name it um

and you know we we find tools to address it um through scripture that relates stories of people who have already been traumatized um by telling the stories of of people's trauma um in sensitive ways when we have permission to do so and um and increasingly I am convinced that we need to let people tell their own stories um more more often um and I don't know exactly what that looks like in preaching that's not and I keep going back to preaching because that's my sort of main area but it's it's not something we know how do we're used to a Lone Ranger Preacher who has one perspective and so always the more perspectives we can include the more aware the congregation becomes and the potential for actually addressing these things becomes possible yeah. And that's actually happening somewhat here because it's a lay-led congregation as moment so more people taking turn giving testimony.

Oh wonderful! Yeah thanks Sarah that's

helpful. Sarah I want to ask you so I we sent you a question um asking you to dig into a little bit of something you had mentioned in your author's note I want to like just I want to sort of get us there gently so what I've been um I teach at Emanuel College a course called Mental Health and Christian theology so this um this it's actually happening right now as as as we're talking today and so um last or this week we did a a week on feminist trauma theologies just because I really want to sort of bring some of that um trauma talk so to speak in into the classroom um and so we watched the film Women Talking and I had the students um read some some sort of uh Serene Jo a chapter from Serene Jones book and also um a chapter from the recently published um feminist trauma theologies Anthology with by Karen O'Donnell and Katie Cross and so um it's been interesting to hear the students talk about sort of because this semester for some reason I have a lot of MDivs in my class and so I'm I'm listening listening to them talk and a lot of them have been saying you know they're kind of nervous about how to do how to work with uh people in their congregation who've experienced trauma um I was thinking about one of the students who said that they they've been told they should only meet with um meet for pastoral counseling or spiritual care with congregants three times before they refer basically refer out uh to Community Counseling and so we we've been sort of sitting with that idea of I feel like over the past few years I've been teach this is my third time teaching this course I like six years I've been teaching it the pendulum is kind of swinging I've been finding to um more to referral over the past few years so it's like we this is beyond our this is out of our scope of practice as ministers we must refer and so I wonder I wanted to pick your brain a little bit about um because I've been talking to the students more about this idea of operating in tandem you know there's um both both have a lot to offer the minister has a lot to offer and so does the the spiritual caregiver the the therapist the psychologist whoever ends up we end up referring to I wonder if you have any thoughts on that on this sort of like Community Care um like a Circle of Care that goes beyond sort of like the we we don't want to abandon people either we don't want to abandon people to to a therapist um so how can we um or how can sorry my Siri for some reason thought I was talking to her um how can we be there for people and make them feel like uh they can come and talk to us about their spiritual stuff too? I love that idea of a Circle of Care and um I think spiritual care and psychotherapy belong together even if they're being done by different people um because um increasingly the I know a lot of students in our Master of uh Pastoral Studies program are are walking that fine line between what is pastoral care and what is psychospiritual care um and and I don't know a lot about whether they how different they are um but I know each practitioner whether you're a a minister or a a psychotherapist you bring your own set of skills um one of the skills that psychotherapists have I think is a a degree of self- knowledge that ministers don't always have because they haven't been trained that way although increasingly they are um but there's a sense that sometimes I think as ministers we we do come to or worship leaders or who in the church we we come to a point where we realize that we can't carry it anymore we can't carry the trauma of others um and that we we have run out of of ways to support and I think that's when we refer but that doesn't mean abandon um I I think I think pastoral leaders need to understand that most of the time they can't fix it you know it's it's not a matter of making it all better um but rather engaging it in a authenic and deep way um and bringing theology to bear on what people are experiencing so that theological piece is so important and and I mean the fact that your students are reading like Serene Jones who brings it together so in a stunningly beautiful way um but I think as I talked in the the re the reflection paper about unhaunting it's a communal and a collaborative task um and really for many people trauma is so heavy that we need to bring all the resources that we possibly can to bear on on the healing of

it. I appreciate that thank you so much for sharing and I wanted to ask you just one follow-up question about that um if you if you sit and you think about the sort of like the current sort of canon of feminist trauma theologies that we have to choose from I told my students this week I was actually kind of giddy when I was trying to figure out the syllabus this this time I did some changes and I thought oh my gosh I have things to choose from people are writing in this area and it's really exciting so um from from what you've seen from some of this work do you think that um it's headed in the right direction do you think that we're we're moving in the right direction or do you have any thoughts on many maybe um anything that might be missing right now that you'd like to

see? Thank you for that question um it's just kind of a challenging one I I think it's amazing that the field is sort of proliferating that there are more and more resources and I know that you mentioned Karen O'Donnell you know she has just um launched a new project about trauma and theology so it's so exciting to bring those things together I I think the scholars are definitely moving in the right direction um I think the challenge is where does this engage directly with the life of the church um that it's it's

um it's hard for pastoral

leaders to educate themselves about the knowledge and the ideas that are out there um so how how do we bring it to a practical level um a lot of what's happening is still at a very um high academic level and not not that the church is incapable of engaging with the academy but how how do we how do we find ways to make that easier so that pastoral leaders have access to these amazing

ideas? I hope I hope I think we hope our podcast is one us more contribution to to making some of these ideas more accessible that's my hope um while you've been talking but but of course there's still that gap between academia and church and even the gap between

denominational and congregational practice so we keep working on that um something you said reminded me of your book which is on my shelf over there Decolonizing Preaching

I wondered about about

um well you can say whatever you want to say on that but but sometimes it's white people preaching on issues like indigenous justice or racism or islamophobia or places in the world and how do we how you can't summarize everything you see your book but how do we attend to that knowing our location and trying to be decolonial in our preaching? Hmm sure. Because I see that as related to trauma. Absolutely absolutely um again I think we go back to that idea to having to allowing people to represent themselves in their in their own voices um and relying on resources that come from the communities that we are are trying to address um yes white people sometimes have have a belief that they know a lot about other people and um it's only by engaging with those people that we learn the truth um or or a perspective on the truth um so yes I think bringing actual physical voices in to tell stories and also making full use of the resources that come from other communities um we will we will learn um as we read and we watch and we pay attention but we really it takes an intentional act um to both recognize the limits of our own knowledge and um be willing to be open to the knowledge that others share with

us. Yeah that's helpful I know I've heard too many on healing as a disabled person where where people haven't engaged in disability theology or talked to disabled people you know so that right that's key!

Yeah no one should be talking about disabled people without talking to disabled people! I know it's it's like should be common sense but yeah! Not so common

maybe! Um Sarah I wanted to ask you a question um it's interesting I I was just thinking as we were talking um I'm sure you're aware recently Emmanuel College where Miriam and I go to school we recently had like a what's called a trauma informed pedagogy um program that happened so basically we were learning as teachers and future teachers how to incorporate sort of trauma informed um the knowledge like practices into our teaching so that we can make our class classrooms better we could be better teachers and so um I I heard some of the students talk about this idea of they're so overwhelmed uh some of the some of the PhD they're so overwhelmed with how much is being asked of them as teachers um as they're heading into the classroom I'm and I I think I I sort of alluded to a little bit uh if you minutes ago about hearing some of my mdbs talk about being so overwhelmed with having to carry or know so much about trauma as they're heading into the field so to speak so what what do you think about um how can we help people to feel less overwhelmed about trauma um like what are some of the ways like I for me I'll just speak from my own experience I find sometimes trauma can be overwhelming to talk about because it like Miriam had said it manifests in so many different ways. Yes. Um so what are some of the ways that we might be able to um maybe make it simpler or make people not feel so overwhelmed when they're heading out into the field? Do you have any thoughts? That's a great question um

I mean I think one of the reasons students are overwhelmed is that they're also dealing with their own traumas um and so naming that and and finding trauma informed pedagogies that that allow them to learn in the midst of that trauma and um figure out things for themselves so that they're able to be present um with people in the field um when they are engaged in ministry um I seem to remember my PhD my THD studies as being a very traumatic time um in a a broad sense of the word um I know my faculty is struggling with this how what are our expectations of students um in terms of being able to understand trauma um but also how do they how do they engage with their own stuff both in in school and in the world beyond school um what are our expectations of students in the classroom and how they will manage the stories they hear from others um because it is you know I was engaged I'm teaching a course now on qualitative research methods which sounds like the least traumatic course well I mean the subject matter can be traumatic but you don't expect to encounter a lot of trauma in your readings or your presentations but we had an ethics presentation which of course started with um some of the horrific things that have been done in the past um in in the name of medical experimentation um including Nazi Germany and so we watched the beginning of this presentation and I thought oh my goodness this is heavy this is hard and we're hearing I mean un unimaginable stories of of trauma um and and things that we see reflected in our world today in very disturbing ways um so I can see why students are are overwhelmed because I mean not only do we have to be trauma informed we have to be decolonizing and we have to be aware of disability and and there's SO many things and and I think

um leaders in the church will benefit first of all from having brief introductions brief and clear introductions to these kind of topics um they don't need to know everything there is to know um but things that they can work into their own practice of ministry in effective ways that help them do help them to um to support other people and and be able to navigate the stories of

others. Yeah that's so helpful thank you for that and um when you were talking I was thinking about um I I actually did a a presentation as a part of the trauma informed pedagogy program uh for the graduate students and so you know some of this overwhelm came up during our seminar time and um we did we moved into a time of thinking about case studies and talking through them and so you know the overwhelming emotions were coming up and at the end I said to them you know there's a lot of wisdom here in this room and I think it's good for us to as well to learn to trust ourselves and how we sort of it's like kind of like an intuitive or a gut response sometimes when it comes to uh responding to trauma so I think um maybe some of that reassurance and encouragement also really helps on the journey of of learning about some of this stuff. Absolutely!

Yeah. This has been a I'm always so I feel so priveleged having these kind of

conversations it's like oh wow we have 40 minutes with us deep and caring person so thank you for giving us the time andfor um sharing sharing and encouraging and and caring for for the church and it's many forms whether its seminaries or congregations. We we wanted to we wanted to give you an opportunity to say anything we didn't cover or if you have any questions for us just um a brief opportunity for that.

Thank you um I I just want to say thank you for this opportunity um I I think one of the things we don't do enough in the church or in the seminary is to just talk um to have opportunities to reflect together on what's happening and I think the work that both of you are doing is so incredible and so important and I'm I'm very glad to be a part of it so thank you so

much! Well thank you Sarah we really appreciate you taking your time to be with us and um I know that uh going forward with with teaching and and other things that your piece is going to be one that is I'm sure will be shared very widely and will help help people to think in new ways about trauma so we really appreciate it! Thank you. Thank you!