A few days ago Betsy and attended a special screening of Atom Egoyan's new movie Adoration. Egoyan is a Canadian film maker known for some remarkable films like Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), and (my favorite of his so far) Ararat (2002). The screening was held at Innis College at the University of Toronto, where Egoyan is a Distinguished Visitor. He showed up after the screening to answer questions from the audience for about half an hour.
Like many of Egoyan's films, questions of identity as mediated by both history and the representation of history are front and centre. Egoyan is also very interested in how trauma is ritualized and socially processed.
This has obvious roots in Egoyan's biography--it was when he came to the U of T as an Undergrad that he began learning about his Armenian heritage and the legacy of the genocide. At the time Father Harold Nahabedian (also of Armenian heritage) was the Chaplain at Trinity College. Harold taught Egoyan the Armenian Alphabet and other cultural lessons, and Egoyan remembers that time fondly.
During the Q and A period I asked Egoyan about the relationship between his own experience of coming-of-age and the appearance of that theme in his work. He didn't really answer the question, but Betsy, my wife-the-art-historian, pointed out that artists rarely have good answers as to why they create certain things. It's part of the old "Fallacy of Authorial Intention" problem familiar to anyone who has studied critical theory. The better question is probably "how" they create. My sister Lynne used to interview a lot of artists, I bet she would back me up on that.
Here is the trailor for Adoration:
Good movie. Heavy on character study.
-t
Showing posts with label trauma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trauma. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Father Oneko
Today's NYTimes has a stunning portrait of a Roman Catholic priest--Fr. Chrispin Oneko--from Kenya now serving in Kentucky. It's really inspiring to hear what some priests (Roman or otherwise) do in their parishes with simple love. But what really got my attention is when he had to reach out to his congregation after a traumatic incident back home:
One morning in January, Father Oneko received a phone call from his family in Kenya, where a disputed presidential election had just set off a wave of intertribal anger and violence.
A mob had set fire to his parents’ house because they had given shelter to a family of a rival tribe the mob was chasing. Father Oneko’s 32-year-old brother, Vincent Oloo, arrived in time to help their elderly parents escape the burning house. But the mob turned on Father Oneko’s brother, shooting him dead. He left a wife and three children.
“My parents were just crying and crying,” Father Oneko said. “My father is crying and saying, ‘Now I’m losing all the children, who will bury me?’ ”
Father Oneko phoned his friend the Rev. John Thomas and then Mrs. Lake, his faithful volunteer administrator. She was stunned at the news, and for half an hour listened to and consoled her priest — a sudden role reversal. Father Oneko was troubled to hear his mother wailing on the phone and to know that he could not go to Kenya to perform the funeral. His parents insisted it was too dangerous for him to come.
Mrs. Lake called three of the church’s Silver Angels, a club of elders. They phoned more church members, and in two hours 60 people had assembled at a special noon Mass in memory of Father Oneko’s brother.
At the end of the Mass, they lined up in the center aisle as if for communion, and Father Oneko stood at the front receiving their embraces one by one.
He was overwhelmed by the outpouring of sympathy. Children in the parish school in Hopkinsville made him cards; one showed his brother with a halo, in the clouds. The bishop and priests of the diocese e-mailed and phoned their condolences. St. Michael’s and the parish in Hopkinsville took up a special collection for his family that totaled $5,600.
“It seems the whole church is praying with me,” Father Oneko said a few days later, as he read through the children’s cards. “You feel like you’re not a foreigner, just a part of the family. It makes me know how much I am to them.” (source)
This kind of touching story shows how trauma and grief can create opportunities for new kinds of healing and relationship in communities that are open to transformation. This kind of thing bonds a congregation to their pastor in a deep, deep way. Worth noting, the obvious mutual bond between priest and parish did not result in growth in numbers. When he was transferred to another post after four years, attendance was still hovering around the same numbers it had before he came. Another reason why ministry should not be judged according to Average Sunday Attendance!
-t
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Last Full Day in Turkey
Went to Christ Church in the morning. There were more people than I expected: about 50 expat types, few or no Turks. But then there are Turkish-speaking churches in the city (one is even Anglican). It was what I might call a high-ish low mass. No Deacon (although there is a candidate for Orders in the congregation) and a few other nit picky details mean I won't quite call it a true "High Mass" in the Anglo-Catholic sense of those words, but I'm sure my congregation back home would have found it very high. They did use plenty of incense and formal choreography and manual gestures of different kinds.
Since the organist is away right now for the summer Ian lead the hymns with his voice (which is very good). The acoustics of the church are excellent. We sang from the New English Hymnal (the same used at SMM, incidentally) and prayed from the Traditional Language Rite as contained in Common Worship 2000 (a recent Church of England liturgical revision). The sermon, given by a licensed Lay Reader, was good and the rest the service was a solid and sometime; touching affair. I always love seeing parents help their kids receive communion and light vigil candles.
Amazing to think that when Ian took the post of Chaplain to the British Consulate twenty years ago this building they have was virtually condemned. He managed to get the money together to make to make it safe, but there is still much to be done for the preservation and restoration of this historic building. Nor is just an outpost for a couple-dozen english-speaking expats and their culture: Christ Church has been an important center for refugee care for years.
Incidentally, one of the people I met today was the widow of the British Consular General (Roger Short) who was one of the twenty-five people killed in the 2003 bombing of the British Consulate here in Istanbul. It was a brutal attack that also wrecked the newly refurbished Anglican Chapel on the Consulate grounds. That has been rebuilt, but only after a fight that went all the way to the British Parliament (the powers-that-be wanted to rent the chapel out as party space to a nearby hotel). Considering the recent shooting at the U.S. Consulate and the bombings elsewhere in Istanbul, I have to say that I was feeling a bit uneasy today as I visited a dodgy part of town to visit a historic church (now a mosque with Betsy).
The caretaker at this particular mosque was actually quite friendly. He let us in and pointed out significant parts of the site with his limited English. Mostly he could just say, "Byzantine original." The church is in very sad shape, but an ongoing restoration project will hopefully correct that. As is customary here, I gave a donation for the mosque--20 Lira (about $18 CAD) which was more than the cab ride. But I want to leave a good impression and pave the way for others.
Speaking of the Consulate, we did walk by the American and British Consulates today. The American one looked like a bunker. The windows have been boarded up (to protect from snipers, I suppose) and there is a huge wall (like 20 feet) around the perimeter. Their precautions are justified, I know, but it was depressing to not even be able to see the American flag. The British Consulate had a more sophisticated set of defense-works that involved human and vehicular barriers of various sorts, yet the Union Jack was flying high enough to be seen over all the concrete and ballistic glass.
Again, I was feeling uneasy being nearby either place. But the prevailing wisdom is that the country dodged a bullet last week when the ruling party barely escaped being outlawed. If they had been outlawed riots were possible. I haven't written much about this before because I didn't want to alarm anyone, but this is certainly not the safest part of the world I've ever been!
Anyway, we saw some other monuments today and also met with the only Turkish Anglican Priest I know of. He had faced a lot of hardship here, but does not regret his choices. We had milkshakes as a Finnish cafe with his family.
Betsy's illness comes and goes. I hope it doesn't cause too much trouble on the airplane trips. In the morning we go shopping and then in the evening we fly as far as London. We'll spend the night in a hotel by Heathrow and then fly to Canada the next day.
-t
Since the organist is away right now for the summer Ian lead the hymns with his voice (which is very good). The acoustics of the church are excellent. We sang from the New English Hymnal (the same used at SMM, incidentally) and prayed from the Traditional Language Rite as contained in Common Worship 2000 (a recent Church of England liturgical revision). The sermon, given by a licensed Lay Reader, was good and the rest the service was a solid and sometime; touching affair. I always love seeing parents help their kids receive communion and light vigil candles.
Amazing to think that when Ian took the post of Chaplain to the British Consulate twenty years ago this building they have was virtually condemned. He managed to get the money together to make to make it safe, but there is still much to be done for the preservation and restoration of this historic building. Nor is just an outpost for a couple-dozen english-speaking expats and their culture: Christ Church has been an important center for refugee care for years.
Incidentally, one of the people I met today was the widow of the British Consular General (Roger Short) who was one of the twenty-five people killed in the 2003 bombing of the British Consulate here in Istanbul. It was a brutal attack that also wrecked the newly refurbished Anglican Chapel on the Consulate grounds. That has been rebuilt, but only after a fight that went all the way to the British Parliament (the powers-that-be wanted to rent the chapel out as party space to a nearby hotel). Considering the recent shooting at the U.S. Consulate and the bombings elsewhere in Istanbul, I have to say that I was feeling a bit uneasy today as I visited a dodgy part of town to visit a historic church (now a mosque with Betsy).
The caretaker at this particular mosque was actually quite friendly. He let us in and pointed out significant parts of the site with his limited English. Mostly he could just say, "Byzantine original." The church is in very sad shape, but an ongoing restoration project will hopefully correct that. As is customary here, I gave a donation for the mosque--20 Lira (about $18 CAD) which was more than the cab ride. But I want to leave a good impression and pave the way for others.
Speaking of the Consulate, we did walk by the American and British Consulates today. The American one looked like a bunker. The windows have been boarded up (to protect from snipers, I suppose) and there is a huge wall (like 20 feet) around the perimeter. Their precautions are justified, I know, but it was depressing to not even be able to see the American flag. The British Consulate had a more sophisticated set of defense-works that involved human and vehicular barriers of various sorts, yet the Union Jack was flying high enough to be seen over all the concrete and ballistic glass.
Again, I was feeling uneasy being nearby either place. But the prevailing wisdom is that the country dodged a bullet last week when the ruling party barely escaped being outlawed. If they had been outlawed riots were possible. I haven't written much about this before because I didn't want to alarm anyone, but this is certainly not the safest part of the world I've ever been!
Anyway, we saw some other monuments today and also met with the only Turkish Anglican Priest I know of. He had faced a lot of hardship here, but does not regret his choices. We had milkshakes as a Finnish cafe with his family.
Betsy's illness comes and goes. I hope it doesn't cause too much trouble on the airplane trips. In the morning we go shopping and then in the evening we fly as far as London. We'll spend the night in a hotel by Heathrow and then fly to Canada the next day.
-t
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Trauma
When I first started doing Social Work in Los Angeles after graduating College, I was not terribly surprised to discover that most of my clients showed evidence of having gone through psychological trauma. At the time I thought, "well, this population is disproportionately affected by violence and abuse." But when I started doing pastoral care in seminary and beyond I discovered that I was wrong--it's not just "the population" of people I was seeing in Los Angeles that show such prevalent signs of psychological trauma, it's rampant across all sectors of society. Now I'm not sure if this is an increase from historic levels, but I am positive that our methods of healing psychological trauma have vastly improved. I also think that another difference of our age is that people have an expectation that they will be reasonably healthy and happy.
So it is that many of us who want to help people have learned first hand about how to help those who have experienced trauma of one kind or another. This kind of work is hard and hazardous, but also incredibly rewarding. It's amazing to be able to work with someone to achieve the wholeness God has intended for them.
If any of you reading this blog are interested in learning more about helping people affected by trauma, I highly recommend this book: Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman, M.D.
It's a ground-breaking work that shifted much of my thinking on the subject to a new level. It's particularly good at explaining the dynamics of Borderline Personality Disorder and why therapists have such trouble treating it. It was assigned reading for a course of Pastoral Care and Violence that I took at YDS with Kristen Leslie. I have a lot of respect for Kristen--she's the real deal. As an aside, she does a great version of "Simple Gifts" on the Hammer Dulcimer. I also learned a lot about this subject from Bede Mudge and Mary Gates. Yet learning about trauma is a whole different thing from learning how to treat trauma in a care-giving scenario. That, I'm afraid, only comes from encountering people in need, listening to their stories, and allowing oneself to be changed by them. I'm fortunate to have been able to refine some of those skills under the supervision of some masterful practitioners. And yet I'm still a newbie at this.
The key seems to be self control in the midst of disturbing revelations. In other words, maintaining a relaxed but firm grip on oneself even as you see and hear things that are quite disturbing. Yet it's not enough just to sit there like a stone--you have to know when to give back some of the things swirling around inside of you, the care-giver. It's about figuring out the right balance between receiving the revelation and responding to it. Respond too much or too quickly and you shut down the disclosure and impose your own interpretation. Give too little and the client feels isolated and unheard. Worse, you miss the chance to transform their story by adding to it.
Another note worth mentioning: trauma is very much about the story. The client's account is the absolute most important artifact of their experience. In some ways maladaptive responses to trauma can be said to be misinterpretations of the person's own story. Therefore, healing can come in the re-articulation of history when that re-speaking leads to better integration and adaptive response. Efforts to achieve psychological healing through litigation often fall short because they bring out a story, but it's not necessarily the client's and it's not done in a way that necessarily encourages new responses within the client. This is why it is a huge mistake to force a new interpretation of events onto a client ("maybe he didn't mean it like that..." "in her culture it's okay to do that..." "I'm sure that will never happen to you again...").
Notice, BTW, that Trauma is central to the Christian Story. The moment of Christian Salvation is affected by God's reinterpretation of the story of Christ's death. And therefore we keep telling that new story that brings healing to the world.
Good stuff.
-t
So it is that many of us who want to help people have learned first hand about how to help those who have experienced trauma of one kind or another. This kind of work is hard and hazardous, but also incredibly rewarding. It's amazing to be able to work with someone to achieve the wholeness God has intended for them.
If any of you reading this blog are interested in learning more about helping people affected by trauma, I highly recommend this book: Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman, M.D.
It's a ground-breaking work that shifted much of my thinking on the subject to a new level. It's particularly good at explaining the dynamics of Borderline Personality Disorder and why therapists have such trouble treating it. It was assigned reading for a course of Pastoral Care and Violence that I took at YDS with Kristen Leslie. I have a lot of respect for Kristen--she's the real deal. As an aside, she does a great version of "Simple Gifts" on the Hammer Dulcimer. I also learned a lot about this subject from Bede Mudge and Mary Gates. Yet learning about trauma is a whole different thing from learning how to treat trauma in a care-giving scenario. That, I'm afraid, only comes from encountering people in need, listening to their stories, and allowing oneself to be changed by them. I'm fortunate to have been able to refine some of those skills under the supervision of some masterful practitioners. And yet I'm still a newbie at this.
The key seems to be self control in the midst of disturbing revelations. In other words, maintaining a relaxed but firm grip on oneself even as you see and hear things that are quite disturbing. Yet it's not enough just to sit there like a stone--you have to know when to give back some of the things swirling around inside of you, the care-giver. It's about figuring out the right balance between receiving the revelation and responding to it. Respond too much or too quickly and you shut down the disclosure and impose your own interpretation. Give too little and the client feels isolated and unheard. Worse, you miss the chance to transform their story by adding to it.
Another note worth mentioning: trauma is very much about the story. The client's account is the absolute most important artifact of their experience. In some ways maladaptive responses to trauma can be said to be misinterpretations of the person's own story. Therefore, healing can come in the re-articulation of history when that re-speaking leads to better integration and adaptive response. Efforts to achieve psychological healing through litigation often fall short because they bring out a story, but it's not necessarily the client's and it's not done in a way that necessarily encourages new responses within the client. This is why it is a huge mistake to force a new interpretation of events onto a client ("maybe he didn't mean it like that..." "in her culture it's okay to do that..." "I'm sure that will never happen to you again...").
Notice, BTW, that Trauma is central to the Christian Story. The moment of Christian Salvation is affected by God's reinterpretation of the story of Christ's death. And therefore we keep telling that new story that brings healing to the world.
Good stuff.
-t
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