Freedom to Heal: Small Ecclesial Communities and Trauma Healing

Three experts will present on the perils and possibilities of trauma-healing occurring through an ecclesial context: Kevin Considine, Stephanie Edwards, and Carina Yépez.  The presenters examine distinct understandings of how theological discourse, ethics, the arts, and spirituality undergird the precarious relationship between trauma-recognition, trauma-healing, and creating small ecclesial communities of justice, healing, and belovedness.  Considine will speak from his text and life praxis articulated in Analogy of the Wound (Lexington 2025), Edwards will speak from her text and life praxis articulated in Enfleshed Counter-Memory (Orbis 2024), and Yépez will speak from her text and life praxis articulated through the series Mujeres currently being installed at the Art Institute of Chicago. Callid Keefe-Perry will offer a response and facilitate conversation among the presenters and the audience. The point is to better understand various manifestations of trauma and the challenges and opportunities for ecclesial communities to become spaces for healing.