Roots Matter

Healing History, Honoring Heritage, Renewing Hope

Parker

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781498230612
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Religión

Roots Matter recognizes the impact of transgenerational trauma, as a result of chattel slavery, on the African American community. It emphasizes the importance of discovering the silent stories (those that were overlooked and ignored); unearthing the secret stories (those that were intentionally covered up); and being attentive to the reverberations of the severed stories of slavery and how they influence family history and family members. Interrupting the transference of generational trauma through mourning, forgiveness, and prayers for healing accelerates the transference of generational resilience. Through celebration and blessing, the fortitude, courage, and determination in the family narrative moves current and future generations toward healing and wholeness. Roots Matter prunes the family tree of trauma, the silent, secret, and severed stories that stunt the growth of the family, and tends to family roots, fertilizing them with the recognition of the resilience, achievements, gifts, and talents of the ancestors, thus creating a healthier environment for future generations to flourish.

Part I

Roots Matter: Healing History, Honoring Heritage, Renewing Hope

Origin of the Idea

I was first introduced to the concept of generational healing when I attended a training for healing prayer ministers at Christian Healing Ministries (CHM) in Jacksonville, FL. Founded by Dr. Francis and Judith MacNutt, CHM is dedicated to praying for those in need of healing in the physical, emotional, and spiritual areas of their lives, and teaching others about this often overlooked aspect of Christ’s ministry. I was familiar with the concept of generational curses and blessings in my own family religious tradition, African American Baptist; however, the systematic study of generational family relationships and patterns and a special healing service to pray for healing of those relationships and patterns were new to me. I was instructed in the use of the genogram to identify recurring circumstances and repetitive behavior and significant events in my family. I was given an extensive list describing family connections and incidents to help me recognize who and what in my family needed healing prayer. And, in the Episcopal tradition, a generational healing Eucharist was held to pray for the healing of those identified places of brokenness.

When I read Maurice Apprey’s article, “The African-American Experience: Forced Immigration and Transgenerational Trauma”1 a few years later, I recognized the importance and relevance of this subject in the African American community. In his article, Apprey refers to the story of one family portrayed in the novel Thereafter Johnnie by Carolivia Herron.2 Herron’s novel is a biographical account of herself as a product of incest and of the six generations preceding her that began in rape. Having counseled and prayed with women who had sexual abuse and incest in their family history and had been victims themselves, I knew I wanted to pursue healing transgenerational trauma. Africans and African Americans experienced the brutality, inhumanity, savagery, and cruelty of chattel slavery for 246 years. Sexual abuse was only one of many traumas that occurred in the eight generations who lived and died during that time. The consequences of traumas are reflected in the emotional, physical, economic lives, and health of today’s African American community.3

Healing is the alleviation of or relief from pain and brokenness wherein a person experiences therapeutic, medicinal, and/or spiritual health-giving restoration due to curative treatment and repair.4 A significant part of healing is knowing personal, family, and cultural history. It identifies the strengths and weaknesses in the family and culture. It creates a solid sense of self, a “density of being,” a groundedness in knowing one’s self and all that it encompasses. It fosters empathy, forgiveness, tolerance, and acceptance of others. Understanding transgenerational trauma and how it affects the lives of the living and future generations lightens the previously unknown emotional, physical, and spiritual burdens of the past. Learning and practicing the spiritual discipline of generational healing prayer and its benefits creates a greater awareness of self in relation to family, community, culture, and God.

Limitation and Key Assumptions

As a candidate in the Doctor of Ministry program at San Francisco Theological Seminary, I chose for my dissertation topic “Using the Genogram as a Tool for Healing of Transgenerational Trauma in the African American Church Community in Virginia” because I wanted to: a) underscore the importance of personal, family, and cultural history, and the profound importance in recognizing its impact on lives; b) focus attention on the lasting effects of unresolved transgenerational trauma in individuals and families; and c) develop a generational healing service that incorporates African and African American culture. I wanted to give individuals and families another approach to breaking generations of traumatized learned behavior and attitudes so they can bring about a restored, repaired, and renewed identity that gives them the ability to provide a more stable, less stressful way of life for themselves and future generations.

I limited the scope of my study to chattel slavery in Virginia from 1619 to 1865 because: 1) my advisor strongly suggested that my initial topic was too broad and would eventually become unmanageable, and 2) I am familiar with the two regions of the state that are pertinent to the more focused topic. My ancestors were from plantations in the Chesapeake area of Virginia where chattel slavery began in North America in 1619, and I currently live in Richmond, Virginia. The historical resources in both locations were a major factor in developing the curriculum. Of all the states in the Confederacy, Virginia was, by far, the leading exporter of slaves to other southern states by the antebellum era. “In terms of capitalization, the slave trade centered in Richmond was the largest single variable in the national economy. In 1858, Templeton and Goodwin’s auction business in Richmond generated nearly $3 million in gross sales in 2011 dollars. Some months saw as many as 10,000 slaves bought, sold or hired out in Richmond alone.”5

The genogram is a pictorial display of physical, psychological, spiritual, behavioral hereditary patterns visualized and identified through a systematic method of recording family history and relationships.6 Created by Maury Bowen, who developed the family systems theory, and Monica McGoldrick, who expanded his concept, the genogram helps distinguish family relationships and arrangements of significant events in families.7 This tool will assist the family member in recognizing the traumatic situations and unhealthy relationships that need healing prayer and also recognize the strengths, talents, and achievements that need to be celebrated in the family.

Ethical Methodology

The project segment of the Doctor of Ministry (DMin) requirements was a six-week, two-hour class. The class was an exploratory exercise in developing a method to attend to the transgenerational trauma of the transatlantic and domestic slave trade within the context of the African American church community in Virginia. Chattel slavery was designed, developed and implemented in Virginia. The traumatic impact of chattel slavery on the enslaved Africans and African Americans, and its effect on subsequent generations was the focus of this class. Studies of the Jewish Holocaust, Native American massacres, the Armenian Genocide, and the African American slave trade describe the intergenerational transmission of trauma, grief, and loss. Health care professionals, social scientists, historians, and theologians have identified economic, social, religious, cultural, and educational patterns of behavior that are processes perpetuated from generation to generation.8

The class objectives were to: a) understand the lasting effects of trauma; b) recognize the importance of family history and how it influences the present; c) appreciate the resiliency of the human spirit and the healing power of faith and prayer; and d) design a spiritual discipline to facilitate healing of transgenerational trauma in the African American church community.

The desired class size was ten to twelve participants, small enough to create safety and intimacy, yet large enough to be a viable group if there were absences. Twenty were invited; twelve were actual participants. Because this was a pilot class using sensitive and evocative material that had not been presented in this particular context, the decision was made to have participants who knew the DMin candidate. This would encourage a sense of familiarity, trust, and safety. All of the students were colleagues in ministry or had professional relationships with each other. There were two men and ten women. The age range was thirty to eighty years. Six were ordained clergy (none were pastors), and six were lay people. Two were high school graduates with professional training in their businesses; one held a PhD, and the remaining held one or m...