In a world marked by division, disruption, and deep emotional and spiritual fatigue, how do we keep showing up—with purpose, compassion, and hope?

BE WELL is a monthly exploration of trauma healing at the intersections of faith, justice, and education, created by the Trauma Healing Initiative at McCormick Theological Seminary. Each episode gathers theologians, practitioners, educators, and artists to explore how trauma-informed approaches help us teach, learn, lead, and live with greater wholeness.

About this episode:
In Part Two of Identity in These Bodies, we move from reflection to practice. How can classrooms, congregations, and communities create spaces where people’s stories are honored without being consumed? Guests Rolf Nolasco and Najeeba Syeed explore how collective trauma lives in our bodies—and what it means to build communities that hold those stories with care. Together, they share practical frameworks for teaching, ministry, and community life that prioritize embodiment, hospitality, and grace. From creating “awkward spaces” where honest learning can happen to recognizing every body as sacred, this conversation invites us to imagine healing communities where people are truly seen, supported, and nourished.

You’ll hear about:

• How queerness, migration, race, religion, and gender converge in the body as both burden and blessing.
• Why poetry, art, and storytelling can express truths about embodiment that ordinary language cannot.
• What it means to live as an “embodied interruption” in spaces shaped by whiteness, bias, and exclusion.
• How belovedness, sacred texts, and creative practice can help reclaim the body as a vessel of wisdom and healing.

Guests:
Dr. Rolf Nolasco is a distinguished academic and pastoral theologian at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. His work extensively explores the intersections of trauma, embodiment, and theological anthropology, with a particular focus on how lived experiences of race, gender, and sexuality inform our understanding of the sacred. Rolf brings a compassionate and incisive lens to the ways bodies carry both profound suffering and inherent wisdom, offering insights into theological responses to trauma and the journey toward embodied healing. He is the author of several influential books and articles that bridge psychology, theology, and the lived reality of diverse human experiences.

Dr. Najeeba Syeed is an acclaimed scholar, mediator, and advocate whose work bridges the fields of interfaith studies, conflict resolution, and social justice. Her expertise encompasses the complexities of identity, particularly how race, gender, and religious affiliation intersect with experiences of trauma and resilience. Najeeba approaches the body as a site of profound meaning, exploring how both historical and contemporary injustices impact our physical and spiritual selves. Her contributions emphasize the power of dialogue, empathy, and collective action in fostering healing and justice across diverse communities. She is recognized for her pioneering work in peacebuilding and restorative justice, bringing a unique blend of academic rigor and practical engagement.

Who this is for:
This episode is for pastors, chaplains, educators, and community leaders seeking deeper ways to understand how identity and embodiment shape the experience of trauma and healing. It will also resonate with listeners navigating the intersections of race, gender, faith, migration, or queerness in their own lives—especially those looking for language, theology, and creative practices that affirm the body as a sacred site of wisdom, resilience, and transformation.

Listen, share, and subscribe—because we believe that we can be well!

In a world marked by division, disruption, and deep emotional and spiritual fatigue, how do we keep showing up—with purpose, compassion, and hope?

BE WELL is a monthly exploration of trauma healing at the intersections of faith, justice, and education, created by the Trauma Healing Initiative at McCormick Theological Seminary. Each episode gathers theologians, practitioners, educators, and artists to explore how trauma-informed approaches help us teach, learn, lead, and live with greater wholeness.

About this episode:
From race and gender to queerness, migration, and religion, our bodies carry the marks of what we’ve survived—and the wisdom we’ve gained along the way. In Part One of Identity in These Bodies, guests Drs. Rolf Nolasco and Najeeba Syeed explore the body as both a site of trauma and a source of sacred knowing, reflecting on how embodiment shapes identity, resistance, faith, and belonging. Together, they invite us to see our bodies not as problems to solve, but as living texts that hold pain, beauty, memory, and possibility.

You’ll hear about:

• How queerness, migration, race, religion, and gender converge in the body as both burden and blessing.
• Why poetry, art, and storytelling can express truths about embodiment that ordinary language cannot.
• What it means to live as an “embodied interruption” in spaces shaped by whiteness, bias, and exclusion.
• How belovedness, sacred texts, and creative practice can help reclaim the body as a vessel of wisdom and healing.

Guests:
Dr. Rolf Nolasco is a distinguished academic and pastoral theologian at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. His work extensively explores the intersections of trauma, embodiment, and theological anthropology, with a particular focus on how lived experiences of race, gender, and sexuality inform our understanding of the sacred. Rolf brings a compassionate and incisive lens to the ways bodies carry both profound suffering and inherent wisdom, offering insights into theological responses to trauma and the journey toward embodied healing. He is the author of several influential books and articles that bridge psychology, theology, and the lived reality of diverse human experiences.

Dr. Najeeba Syeed is an acclaimed scholar, mediator, and advocate whose work bridges the fields of interfaith studies, conflict resolution, and social justice. Her expertise encompasses the complexities of identity, particularly how race, gender, and religious affiliation intersect with experiences of trauma and resilience. Najeeba approaches the body as a site of profound meaning, exploring how both historical and contemporary injustices impact our physical and spiritual selves. Her contributions emphasize the power of dialogue, empathy, and collective action in fostering healing and justice across diverse communities. She is recognized for her pioneering work in peacebuilding and restorative justice, bringing a unique blend of academic rigor and practical engagement.

Who this is for:
This episode is for pastors, chaplains, educators, and community leaders seeking deeper ways to understand how identity and embodiment shape the experience of trauma and healing. It will also resonate with listeners navigating the intersections of race, gender, faith, migration, or queerness in their own lives—especially those looking for language, theology, and creative practices that affirm the body as a sacred site of wisdom, resilience, and transformation.

Listen, share, and subscribe—because we believe that we can be well!

In a world marked by division, disruption, and deep emotional and spiritual fatigue, how do we keep showing up—with purpose, compassion, and hope?

BE WELL is a monthly exploration of trauma healing at the intersections of faith, justice, and education, created by the Trauma Healing Initiative at McCormick Theological Seminary. Each episode gathers theologians, practitioners, educators, and artists to explore how trauma-informed approaches help us teach, learn, lead, and live with greater wholeness.

About this episode:
What does it take to tell the truth about the past so real healing can begin? In this episode of the Be Well Podcast, writer, chaplain, and clinical social worker Kenji Kuramitsu helps us name how historical harms don’t stay “back then”—they live on in our bodies, our families, and our faith communities. From Japanese American incarceration to the wider “wake” of slavery, colonization, and racialized violence, Kenji invites us into truth-telling and theological reckoning not as an exercise in despair, but as a pathway toward repair—and a more just, healed future.

You’ll hear about:

• How inherited history can become “barbed wire” that must be untangled.
• How historical trauma can restrict our emotional range —because expressing rage or grief was once dangerous for survival.
• Why embodied practices like music, dance, worship, and play can help people express big emotions safely and communally.
• What it means to bear witness without being “sterile” or detached — and how the work can “prick” us when we’re close to suffering.

Guest:
Kenji Kuramitsu is a writer, chaplain, clinical social worker, and educator committed to the intersections of faith, healing, and justice. Kenji brings deep insight into the legacies of historical trauma and the theological imperative for truth-telling and repair. He has served in clinical, congregational, and campus ministry settings, and his work often explores themes of race, memory, and resilience. Kenji holds degrees from the University of Chicago, McCormick Theological Seminary, and Loyola University Chicago.

Who this is for:
This episode is for pastors, chaplains, educators, therapists/caregivers, organizers, and anyone trying to hold grief, anger, memory, and hope at the same time—especially if you’re wrestling with the “echoes” of historical harm in your community, your family system, or your own body. It’s also for leaders who want trauma-informed, faith-rooted language and practices that don’t bypass the pain, but help make space for truth-telling, dignity, and repair.

Listen, share, and subscribe—because we believe that we can be well!

In a world marked by division, disruption, and deep emotional and spiritual fatigue, how do we keep showing up—with purpose, compassion, and hope?

BE WELL is a monthly exploration of trauma healing at the intersections of faith, justice, and education, created by the Trauma Healing Initiative at McCormick Theological Seminary. Each episode gathers theologians, practitioners, educators, and artists to explore how trauma-informed approaches help us teach, learn, lead, and live with greater wholeness.

About this episode:
When life feels uncertain, fragmented, or unfinished, many of us ask the same quiet question: Where is God now? In Episode 2 of the Be Well Podcast, contemplative leader and spiritual director Julian Davis-Reed guides us into the sacred space of the in-between — where clarity hasn’t arrived yet, but transformation has already begun. This episode offers a gentle, trauma-informed exploration of how spiritual practice, faith, and community can sustain us through seasons of transition, ambiguity, and change.

You’ll hear about:

• Sensing God in the unresolved, trusting that transformation begins before clarity.
• Reframing scripture and self to cultivate humility, solidarity, and spacious faith.
• Practicing prayer, breath, and honest community to cultivate a resilient and supple faith.
• Using art and story to resist scarcity and nurture belonging and courage.

Guest:
Julian Davis Reid is a Black artist-theologian from Chicago whose work invites us to rejoice, lament, and hope together. A pianist, composer, producer, speaker, and writer, Julian is the founder of Notes of Rest®, a contemplative musical ministry that invites the weary to practice God’s transforming rest. Julian also steadily releases and performs new music, most recently having released Vocation, Notes of Rest Hymns Vol.1, and BEHOLD (with The JuJu Exchange).

Who this is for:
For anyone living in the in-between — pastors, teachers, healers, and seekers who are navigating change, doubt, or disruption and want spiritual practices that make space for both grief and becoming.

Listen, share, and subscribe—because we believe that we can be well!

In a world marked by division, disruption, and deep emotional and spiritual fatigue, how do we keep showing up—with purpose, compassion, and hope?

BE WELL is a monthly exploration of trauma healing at the intersections of faith, justice, and education, created by the Trauma Healing Initiative at McCormick Theological Seminary. Each episode gathers theologians, practitioners, educators, and artists to explore how trauma-informed approaches help us teach, learn, lead, and live with greater wholeness.

About this episode:
When marginalized communities compete for visibility or resources, it fractures relationships and weakens collective power. In this opening conversation, we name the dynamics often called the “Oppression Olympics”—and chart a different path. Our guest, Julian DeShazier, offers a trauma-informed lens for understanding power, practicing solidarity, and moving toward healing that is personal, communal, and systemic.

You’ll hear about:

• How trauma shapes inter-group dynamics and “scarcity thinking.”
• Why comparison and competition undermine liberation—and what to do instead.
• Faith-rooted practices that ground courage, accountability, and repair.
• Practical moves for leaders, educators, and congregations to cultivate belonging across difference.

Guest:
Julian DeShazier is an affiliate faculty member at McCormick Theological Seminary and a Chicago-based pastor, hip-hop artist, and community organizer. His work sits at the intersection of theology, social justice, and cultural engagement, centering solidarity over competition and the healing of systems as well as souls.

Who this is for:
Pastors and chaplains, educators, organizers, and anyone seeking spiritually grounded, justice-centered tools for navigating conflict, building coalitions, and healing together.

Note: Content includes frank discussion of historical and present-day harms.

Listen, share, and subscribe—because we believe that we can be well!