Some musings on trauma

Since the onset of the dual pandemics in their current metastatic states, I have been studying to understand trauma and the paths to healing.

Etymology online defines trauma this way:

trauma (n.)

1690s, "physical wound," medical Latin, from Greek trauma "a wound, a hurt; a defeat," from PIE *trau-, extended form of root *tere- (1) "to rub, turn," with derivatives referring to twisting, piercing, etc. Sense of "psychic wound, unpleasant experience which causes abnormal stress" is from 1894.

I find it most interesting that wound and hurt relate to defeat....most often wound refers to a physical state, while defeat is a psychological state

Simply, we are our woundedness.  Around the time of nascent American psychology, we see that trauma takes a clear emotional connotation.

However trauma has had this connection to psychic states since the 5th century.  Augustine writes of this in his Confessions:

"TO CARTHAGE I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might love, in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a way without snares. For within me was a famine of that inward food, Thyself, my God; yet, through that famine I was not hungered; but was without all longing for incorruptible sustenance, not because filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I loathed it. For this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores, it miserably cast itself forth, desiring to be scraped by the touch of objects of sense. Yet if these had not a soul, they would not be objects of love. To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I obtained to enjoy the person I loved. I defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscense, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lustfulness; and thus foul and unseemly, I would fain, through exceeding vanity, be fine and courtly. I fell headlong then into the love wherein I longed to be ensnared. My God, my Mercy, with how much gall didst Thou out of Thy great goodness besprinkle for me that sweetness? For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying; and was with joy fettered with sorrow-bringing bonds, that I might be scourged with the iron burning rods of jealousy, and suspicion, and fears, and angers, and quarrels." The dual pandemics of this age: COVID-19 and COVID-1619 bring about a persistent traumatic stress disorder that can lead to a psychic numbness, a profound futility of thinking, bringing a learned helplessness on a grand scale. Nothing seems to be within our control, connections and relationships are broken, unity seems impossible with all the identity politics.... What is one to do? This is the perfect time to love without limits....without conditions, without agreeing to my theology or my politics....do small things with great love. Slowly, methodically, gently your own wounds will begin to heal; fresh oil, wine and binding bandages will emerge in the guise of community. As the waters cover the sea, the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of God as keep our eyes on the Lion of Judah. He is King of Kings and over a Kingdom that will never be shaken.