From “Walk with Me: A Journey through the Landscape of Trauma” by Ellen Corcella
What is our place in the world? I am a first-generation American, a daughter of an Italian immigrant and granddaughter of Irish immigrants. My siblings and I were born and raised in Kentucky, but we were outsiders. We were born in Kentucky, but we were not of Kentucky: we had no relatives in Kentucky, we were Catholics in the Protestant Bible belt, and we spoke a foreign language – my father with his Italian accent and my mother with her East Coast accent – all of which distances us from the community.
When I moved to the East Coast, I was seen as someone from Kentucky. When I moved to Indiana, I was perceived as an outsider from New York. As I studied to become an ordained minister and chaplain, I was constantly reminded about my profession as an attorney. My daughter was also displaced from China to the U.S. We made quite a pair, set apart as a family unit and failing to match the model held up as “ideal” by our culture, requiring a mom, dad, and children.
Dislocation and disorientation undergird the biblical narrative. The Israelites wandered the desert for forty years in search of God’s promised land. Ruth moved to a foreign land to remain with Naomi. Mary and Joseph fled Jerusalem, living as refugees in Egypt to protect their newborn son, Jesus. Jesus was a traveling teacher, collecting strangers as he wandered in and around Jerusalem without a place to call his own. The long arc of the Bible suggests that dislocation and disorientation provoke some sort of spiritual upheaval that leads to spiritual relocation.
I was more like the Israelites than Ruth. I resented having to reorient myself to new chaplains, new medical personnel, new processes and procedures. I did not understand how experiencing disorientation and having to reset and reassert my place in the world could help me become a better chaplain. I was not convinced that dislocation and disorientation could be valuable prerequisites to spiritual revival.