Religions have long used the arts to support physical and spiritual healing. This includes dance, performance, music, visual arts, and storytelling. The papers in this panel explore different art forms as methods of healing. The first paper employs documentary poetic practices to explore how ordinary believers reinterpret the language of sacrificial suffering in Christian terms as they endure violence. The second paper examines documentary poems that connect biblical narratives with the lived experiences of disabled people, especially those that focus on the "hands of God." The third paper views photography as a form of chaplaincy from an Asian woman's perspective, highlighting dignity, recognition, and community connection. The final paper, inspired by the story of the woman caught in adultery, reflects on how the church often rushes to cast stones instead of showing love, especially regarding sexuality.
What does it mean to “take up one’s cross” when suffering is lived within the realities of domestic violence, poverty, and social exclusion? This presentation performs a found-text documentary poem that places the biblical command in Matthew 16:24 in dialogue with poems written by my grandmother, a domestic-violence survivor in rural Appalachia. Drawing on documentary poetic practices, the piece assembles scripture, vernacular poetry, and narrative fragments drawn from a memoir based on family testimony. The poem asks how ordinary believers reinterpret the Christian language of sacrificial suffering while surviving violence. By staging this encounter through documentary poetics, the project demonstrates how vernacular archives of lived faith can participate in the ongoing reinterpretation of sacred texts.
This documentary poem places biblical narratives in direct conversation with the lived experiences of Disabled people, focusing specifically on the "hands of God." By centering this tactile imagery, the work highlights God’s own embodiment through the Incarnation, reframing the divine as one who navigates the world in a Disabled body (after Nancy Eiesland). Too often, scripture is weaponized to link Disability with sin or a "lack of faith." This poem combats such harmful associations, instead uplifting Disabled bodies as good, powerful, and sacred. It creatively imagines a present-day Jesus who bears the marks of his experience and asks: What if the resurrected Christ used a wheelchair? What if Jesus needed to communicate in different ways after the crucifixion? By viewing mobility aids and accommodations as holy, this work invites us to see the Imago Dei in the diverse, beautiful reality of Disabled life.
This presentation explores photography as a form of chaplaincy practice. Drawing from my work as Community Minister at Judson Memorial Church in New York City and as a multi-faith chaplain in training through the FE/CPE program at Union Theological Seminary, I examine how visual practices can function as acts of pastoral presence, witnessing, and care. While chaplaincy in medical institutions often limits creative approaches to spiritual care, my work at Judson allows me to experiment with photography as a pastoral method that centers dignity, recognition, and community connection. The presentation includes a curated photo exhibition, Faces of Judson, documenting moments of gathering, creativity, and everyday life within the congregation. Reflecting on photography’s history as a colonial and extractive medium often dominated by white male photographers, I approach the camera differently—as an Asian woman chaplain using photography not to “take” images, but to practice care, relational presence, and ethical witnessing.
Drawing on the story of the woman caught in adultery, this poem reflects on how the church is often quicker to cast stones than to show love, especially when it comes to sexuality. Calling out the harmful conflation of Queerness with sin, it instead lifts up Queer bodies and Queer love as something beautiful and sacred. Through these lines, I imagine how Christ would respond to the Queer community with the kindness and assurance of love that he showed those outside the boundaries drawn by religious leaders. By reimagining these verses, I hope to offer a space where Queer people can see themselves not as outliers to the Church, but as central participants in the ongoing, beautiful unfolding of God’s creative work.