So, I have a book review published in the Religious Education Journal this season, October-December 2012. For those of you who may not know, this is the oldest educational research association in the United States (it is now world wide); and, it was originally founded by John Dewey (so, please do not let the word “religion” scare you away from learning about it). Though I realize that this is not exactly a major academic achievement, nor relevant to most people living in the world, I thought I should share it anyway because it is my first journal publication. I am as surprised as anyone that my review made their cut, especially because it provides my honest insight into religious education. And, since this journal is only known to a small, select in-group, I will post my humble contribution here for anyone who may kindly take the time to read it. And, thank you for caring!
Here it is:
Spirit and Trauma; A Theology of Remaining by Shelly Rambo. Louisville, Kentucky, 2010. 186 pp., $ 25.00 (softcover).
In Shelly Rambo’s book, Spirit and Trauma; A Theology of Remaining, she extends the ultimate Christian metaphor of Pascha – death and decent in Holy Saturday – to some therapeutic theories of trauma. She accepts that humans understand their lives through story and story telling, and therefore they need a beginning, middle and end to participate in the “practice of attention” (150) or to be “witnesses” (42) of trauma. Furthermore, traumatic experiences, like Holy Saturday, provide a dark climatic event from which the protagonist (victim or survivor) must recover and rise through, and for Rambo find “redemption” (156). Her book is broken down in five chapters: 1. Witnessing Trauma, 2. Witnessing Holy Saturday, 3. Biblical Witness in the Gospel of John, 4. Middle Spirit, 5. Remaining in Love.
The act of “witnessing trauma”, or living with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is explicitly, theologically romanticized into repetitive exploitation. “The lens of trauma” for which she never affords a solid neurological, physiological or psychological explanation, is woven into literary deconstructive theory as well as theological investigations of time, which open the door for her long, detailed commentary of Holy Saturday. Trauma, for Rambo, is the “place of remaining”. It is the decent into Hades that awaits the force of spirit to persist through, on and into the next event, or toward the resolution – one’s redemption. And, to drive this narrative, she applies the theological commentary from Mysterum Paschale, by the much-revered Hans Urs von Balthasar. Here trauma becomes the bodily symbol – a physical mark of impact upon the body, mind and brain – that fragments and shatters. It denotes a lack of meaning, dissolution of bodily integrity, and dintegration of purpose. “Meaning is dead. Hope is dead. Love is dead” (73). The imaginative bridges that may cast and link one into the future have been absolved in the black hole of time, taken down by trauma. “’On this day the world’s meaning dies and was buried without any hope of the resulting hiatus ever being bridges: there was no hope of ever closing the rift opened up by this death’” (73). The interruption of time within the mind of the trauma victim serves Rambo’s purposes of interrupted story telling, because the triggers of the past traumatic memory-event, often prevails over the present chronology of ordinary life events. The capacity to bridge, or to push time forward, through the present and into the future is damaged, and this leaves a void in time and space, in the mind of the trauma victim, that is like black religious poetry, The Dark Night of the Soul.
Rambo fails to explain that the brain pathways connected to traumatic experiences often disconnect from the neurological web network of the comprehensive brain. Trauma victims detach from the physical positing of the traumatic experience in their brain as an adaptive strategy, because the anxiety from the event(s) is too painful and stressful to integrate neurologically and physiologically into ordinary daily life, and within their entire body. However, these neurological routes may be “triggered”, captured or fired in unsuspecting ways. Various circumstances embedded within conscious everyday experience, as well as within unconscious circulating mind may be wired to these alternative pathways, and thus set them off. This often leaves the victims to feel powerless over their own mind and body; they may suffer depression, and remain open to various psychiatric disorders such as bi-polar and/or schizophrenia. Furthermore, in the case of early-childhood trauma, difficultly with language and language acquisition is common and can relate to reading and cognitive disorders. Trauma victims may have mistrust within their present environment and present relationships, which may stifle their imaginative and physical journey into the future. The emotion of the traumatic event is bound into the alternative neurological pathways, and this disintegration of matter may prevent the victim from building hope in future events, and thus a future. Therefore, the victim’s may become broken, fall into a void, and lose their sense of time passing.
The interval of the theological commentary that attempts to poetically unpack the fall out of trauma is long and laborious to walk through. This book may be helpful to ministers or educators looking for a Biblical metaphor and extended discourse on trauma, waiting, transformation and so on, to extend to their congregations. However, if you are interested in a expert’s medical, neurological or physiological understanding of trauma, Dante Cicchetti’s work (University of Minnesota) might be much more suitable.
Melissa Lynch
Fordham University
Milk and Honey Education 