Holding the Stories against our Bones: Processing the Trauma of CoVid-19 on the Navajo Nation through storytelling

“"We need to find careful, sustaining ways to help people put word to the raw places, to find rituals that heal and sustain, to speak grace into this trauma." ”

Team Members/Contributors

Kristen J. Pikaart Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services Contact Me

About this pastoral study project

Poet Mary Oliver talks about how in order to live in this world, we must hold what is mortal "against our bones", until asked to let it go. In this project, I seek to respond to the human and spiritual disaster incurred on my community of the Navajo Nation during the CoVid-19 Pandemic. As Chaplain, I had a front row seat to the extraordinary events of the past six months, witnessing death after death. Now I look ahead at how the church can be a leader in the next phase of this journey--accompanying people through grief and trauma. I believe the way to start this is through telling the stories. In order to let go, we must have a communal moment of holding the stories to our bones. Because the church knows ritual, knows the sacred power of story, we are poised to take the lead in this work: joining with multiple other institutions of healing, joining with multiple other faith traditions, in particular the ancient Navajo spiritual traditions. My work contains three distinct sections: a time for recovery, for renewal, and for planning for the work of leading and collaborating the task of healing grief in the context of the Navajo Nation. The end result of this work is a well-researched plan for community storytelling events that will begin to heal grief trauma in intersectional, intercultural settings. This will be of use not only in my community on the Navajo Nation, but for my chaplain colleagues in other areas, as well as for church leaders.