Joni S. Sancken

If there has been an unappreciated fact of the past four years, it is how we have all been going through it.

I say “unappreciated” because ever since mid-March 2020 almost everyone has seemed bound and determined to try to get “back to normal” or to establish some kind of “new normal.”

But we all went through a pretty harrowing experience. Granted, for some it went deeper and lasted longer than it did for others for various reasons. Yet it seems almost all of us bear the marks of that collective trauma, and in most respects, it remains an untreated collective trauma.

In All Our Griefs to Bear: Responding with Resilience after Collective Trauma (galley received as part of an early review program), Joni Sancken explores collective trauma in terms of and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic experience and ways in which people might well respond to it.

Even though few of us really need an introduction to collective trauma after having lived through the past few years, the author does well in setting forth what it is and some of the reasons it may come about. Collective traumas, as experienced by collectives, do best when there is some kind of collective response. The author highlights three areas in which she believes Christians can do well in collective trauma response: lament, storytelling, and blessing.

Through lament the trauma is recognized for what it is, named as such, and the challenge it presents set before God. Traumas indicate a world which is not entirely at right, and the first step often must be to recognize and declare it. Through storytelling we can contextualize and make sense of who we are and what we have experienced. And we can provide blessings and serve as blessings to others as a means by which to connect and as a way for people to be seen, recognized, and valued.

The author throughout refers to and is informed by psychological and sociological expertise on matters related to collective trauma and resilient response.

This is a good resource. We all would do well to recognize and lament what we’ve all experienced, to try to find ways to make sense of what we’ve experienced in the story of who we are and what we are about, and seek to be blessings to others - and to be willing to receive the blessings others might give us.… (lisätietoja)