Post Traumatic Growth

a sermon delivered by the Rev. Dr. Daniel ÓConnell to the

congregation at Eliot Unitarian Chapel in St. Louis, MO on June 3, 2007

I would like to share some thoughts about the Iraq war. I have long thought the present Iraq war a big mistake. At first, I thought American troops were committed because the administration wanted to keep down the price of oil. Then I thought it was because our current president wanted to finish the job of ousting Saddam Hussein that his father had started.

We were told that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that he was linked with Al-Qaida and the attacks of 9-11 on the World Trade Center. None of those bases for the war seem to be true.

Now, it seems to me as if the United States were a big truck, driven by mistake into the plate glass window of a store, crashing the store into pieces, setting it on fire, and injuring passers by.

What can we do? The United States could simply pull out of Iraq, like we did in Vietnam– another war based on political fear. You may remember footage of people desperately trying to hang on to the rungs of the last departing U.S. helicopter leaving Vietnam.

As far as Iraq goes, we could simply slam the gears into reverse, gun the engine, honk the horn, and squeal wheels out of there. The store would still be on fire, murdering & looting going on, the injured crying, and so forth.

Or we could do what we appear to be continuing to do, which is to act like we're stuck in the mud, and gun the engine, slam it into reverse, gun the engine again, go in to forward, gun the engine again. The U.S. doesn't seem to be making real progress. Meanwhile, more people are being injured and killed.

While this is my opinion at the moment, I wonder about the political tension for religious liberals. In other words, is it possible to be a religious liberal without being a political liberal?

This tension is been around for a long time. A visitor to a Unitarian church remarked to the minister– is everyone here a Democrat? To which the minister replied– oh no. Why, I myself have been a socialist for years.

Can you be a true Unitarian Universalist, a believer in liberal religion, but also be a person who occasionally or all the time is not a person who espouses liberal politics? I have known people– especially at Eliot who would say they are much more politically conservative than their peers but who still whole heartedly affirm UU Principles and values.

The tension for them comes in being a political minority, and when the congregation as a whole wants to take a stand seen by some as “political.” But of course the line between what is “political” and what is “social justice” often depends on an individual’s perspective.

I mention all this because it is important to remind ourselves that just because– unlike orthodox religion, just because a clergy person or prominent lay leader had a particular opinion, that does not make it dogma for everyone else.

Frankly, I am very mindful of the war in Iraq this morning. First, we just observed Memorial Day. More importantly– someone I know is going to Iraq tomorrow– Robert Hutchins– Gene and Nancy's son.

If I say I think this war was started on a set of lies, and that the war isn't worth one more American's life to continue it– then I'm saying the war isn't worth sacrificing for.

If I say the war isn't worth sacrificing for, then how is it that I am supporting soldiers like Robert?

How do I support a solider but not the cause he is risking his life for?

I might take a cue from some folks over in Columbia, Missouri. Every year over Memorial Day weekend, they have an air show at the Columbia airport– a place I’ve flown into several times.

It’s called the “Memorial Day Weekend Salute to Veterans Air Show.” And because it’s a ‘salute to veterans’ they have all this heavy artillery there to show off. And this year, the Columbia Tribune notes that the Army had a new recruiting tool called

the Virtual Army Experience, which let anyone 13 and older to “go through simulated combat, complete with life-size Humvees and mock machine guns. Participants [could] simulate gunfire to capture a terrorist.

One veteran questioned the realism of the Virtual Experience:

“Is it going to be 140 degrees in there? Are there going to be dead kids in there? Am I going to have to contemplate shooting a 7-year-old the same age as my kid?”

He went on to say:

“It doesn’t seem that highlighting violence and [machines of destruction] would memorialize someone who died a violent death.

“I understand that these are big, powerful machines, and I am in awe of them just as the public is in awe. But they are designed with the intent of inflicting mass casualty.”

The 36 year old veteran was part of the Midwest chapter of “Military Families Speak Out.” He was working in a tent outside the fence around the Air show along with about a half-dozen Columbia Peace Coalition members.

His wife, in her mid-20s, said: “We support our troops. Bring them home now and take care of them when they get here. We want to highlight the psychological damage that war does.”

She and her husband know about this damage first hand. When he was deployed to Iraq, she read everything she could find about post-traumatic stress disorder because she knew it was likely to affect her husband and family when he returned. And indeed, he has had nightmares and sleep disturbances ever since.

The Tribune interviewed a half dozen veterans about whether the U.S. should stay or leave, increase or decrease troop levels, and their opinions were all over the map. It was noted however, that to speak against the war was often confused with speaking against the soldiers.

At the air show, there was a booth next to the Peace Coalition. It was a lawyer whose booth read: “Operation Simply Shred.” And he was there to offer to shred the literature of the Peace Coaltion for people who didn’t want to carry it around. He thought the Peace Coalition was anti-American. http://www.columbiatribune.com/2007/May/20070527News003.asp.

But some of us can curse the folly of our leadership while sending visible support to the soldiers.

Nearly 24,000 soldiers have returned from Iraq wounded. Because of advances in technology and battlefield medicine, there are more injured soldiers than dead ones. But the wounded who return are often more severely wounded than in past wars.

Some of the returning soldiers will suffer some degree of post traumatic stress disorder. But what about the rest? Let’s flip this question around: How many soldiers will return with good spirits? Despite a bad experience?

A number of psychiatrists and psychologists are beginning to see that not all soldiers return from war with shattered spirits. Some come back from the trauma feeling enhanced. This isn’t to say war is good or desirable, just that there are more examples where unintended suffering leads to spiritual growth.

Here’s one example. According to The Washington Post (November 26, 2005), Army staff sergeant Hilbert Caesar was on patrol in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded. When the smoke cleared, Caesar looked down and saw that his right leg was severed in three places, flipped backward, just dangling by the skin. He thought “This is it. My life is over.”

But he didn’t die. The enemy disappeared, and Caesar was transported to a VA hospital where his mangled leg was replaced with an artificial leg of plastic and steel.

He felt despair. He was in pain. He worried he’d never be able to run again, or be attractive to women. Then he heard that eight men from his platoon had been killed by a car bomb in Baghdad. The news was devastating.

But little by little he began to shift focus. Caesar met other injured soldiers and heard them talk about their recoveries. And then it occurred to him he was lucky to be alive at all.

Caesar now completes marathons in racing wheelchairs, and has found a job with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He sees the loss of his leg as a minor setback, and believes that he has come out of the war with more wisdom, compassion and appreciation for life.

Instead of addiction and despair, can trauma move us toward a larger view of life?

Hilbert Caesar would likely say yes, he experienced “post-traumatic growth.” And he’s not the only one.

A tank gunner who lost his left hand in Iraq, says, “Sometimes it takes people a lifetime to realize what it’s all about … you go through something like this and it grows you up a little bit.”

A former Air Force pilot who was a prisoner in North Vietnam, reflects: “There is no question in my mind that the experience I had in Vietnam has had an overall very positive effect on my life.”

Not that he would recommend it for anyone else. Or that he would want to do it again. It was truly a time of suffering. But you can’t have post-traumatic growth without trauma.

Research is showing that most people exposed to combat and other traumatic events do not develop long-term mental health problems, according to The Washington Post (November 26, 2005).

And, most of us will never have go through what our soldiers go through. But we too, can experience some degree of trauma, and after a while, choose how we will react to it.

When trauma comes, so does a shift in priorities. Which way the shift goes depends on whether we think we have any control over our attitude and how we choose to act on that belief.

About 16 years ago, I was vaguely dissatisfied with my job. I was working at a small software company doing customer support, programming, installation, sales, a little bit of everything. We provided software and hardware for courier companies. They ran their business through these computers.

One day, the main computer at a Boston courier company went kablooie and their whole operation came to a grinding halt. It turned out that the advice I had given one of their on site people had been mishandled and he had done something with the computer turned on he was supposed to do with the computer off, but the Boston courier company was hopping mad at me.

This came at about the same time I had announced to my supervisors that I had become phobic about flying from a recent incident, and no longer wanted to spend half my time flying around the country doing installations and sales calls.

I was fired. Ouch. Showed up one day, given the news, cleared out my desk and was walking out the door within 20 minutes of arrival.

I was mostly angry. I was concerned about money, about how I’d live. And I also felt a little more free than I had felt in a long time. I felt both freedom, and fear.

But it hurts to get fired. I’ve had to fire people before that, and didn’t really know the feeling. But the trauma of getting fired, moved me to step back and take a bigger picture of my life.

I looked around for a similar job, but I also knew I would leave that career, that field for good, and I wasn’t sure where I’d end up. Within a year, I was in seminary.

If I hadn’t been fired, I think it would have taken much longer to get to seminary. The trauma of being fired burned. But along with the heat, came the light. I got more clarity about how I could make a difference in the world.

Can you think of a time when you experienced something bad, maybe even something traumatic, that, nevertheless, led to spiritual growth? And have the big improvements in your life been the result of smooth sailing and easy living?

For most of us, this kinds of growth come from stress, struggle and suffering.

Times of pain and suffering can force us to rely on each other, and help each other out — sometimes in sacrificial ways. The soldier Caesar insists he would go through the whole thing again for the men he served with.

We gather to promote free religious thought, nurture spiritual growth, and act for social justice. But we also gather to support one another. Especially at times of great need.

Sometimes what binds us most closely is sharing the burdens– of illness, grief, struggle, confusion, crisis. We may share our burdens with a minister, or a covenant group, or with a friend at coffee hour or over lunch.

Researchers have recently come across more evidence that how we tell our story has as much to do with our outlook as the content itself.

An essay in the New York Times last week, says that “generous, civic-minded adults from diverse backgrounds tell life stories with very similar features; so do people who have overcome mental distress through psychotherapy.”

Dan McAdams, a psychology professor and author of the 2006 book, The Redemptive Self, says: the stories people tell about themselves “guide behavior in every moment, and frame not only how we see the past but how we see ourselves in the future.”

I know that in preaching it is easier to recall the stories than it is to list the statistics. We are the creatures who tell stories. It seems to be hard wired in all of us.

The researchers found a standard paradigm when people told their life story. They did it in chapters corresponding with various ages. They also described life turning moments in great detail, including the highest highs and the lowest lows.

The researchers found a big connection between the content of a person’s story and how they told it. Moody people would have good memories, but there was always some dark detail that seemed to ruin things. They always mentioned a disappointment.

People who are civic-minded and involved in their community tend to see their life backwards, and with a theme of overcoming problems:

“They flunked sixth grade but made honor roll in seventh. They were laid low by divorce, only to meet a wonderful new partner. Often, they say they felt singled out from very early in life — protected, even as others nearby suffered.”

How do you tell your life story?

It turns out that one of the most important things a person can do with telling their story of trauma, is to tell it in the 3^rd person: to say ‘he’ or ‘she,’ to tell the story as if it happened to someone else. To tell your story as if you were describing a character in a movie.

The reason is that telling your story in the 3^rd person gives you a little more emotional distance. It gives you a little more space to frame your story. Trauma stories you tell about yourself are less upsetting when you use the 3^rd person: he or she, than the 1^st person: I.

The other big thing about telling your story in the 3^rd person, is that it more clearly shows the progress you’ve made.

Research studies had people describe socially awkward memories in the 1^st person or the 3^rd person. The latter group were later more sociable, more likely to intiate conversation, and felt they’d made more progress in their life.

It also turns out that

students who pictured themselves voting for president in the 2004 election, from a third-person perspective, were more likely to actually go to the polls than those imagining themselves casting votes in the first person.

Let us remind ourselves that most of us go through some sort of trauma in our lives. Some of it may have happened long ago, but the wound can still be there.

May this congregation be a place of healing and of story telling. By telling our stories, we can re-frame our past and produce a renewed vision for our life, our family, and our community.