On December 4th, Vimary Couvertier-Cruz, Tangie Purvis, JC Wilson, Jene Colvin, and Johnny Kline were part of a performance called Mourning Has Broken, a multi-media, interactive play in three acts. Set in current-day Chicago, it seeks to address and ameliorate, i.e., “metabolize” the collective trauma all of humanity is undergoing as a result of historical, ongoing, and unrelenting warfare, including urban warfare. Chicago Theological Seminary’s Dr. JoAnne Marie Terrell and students of the course TEC 484
Theological and Ethical Perspectives on AIDS and Violence have written and produced this timely and relevant play in recognition of the 100-year anniversary of World War I and many subsequent wars – World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and the Iraq War – and the long-term consequences of such massive violence for our lives together. The story follows the lives of centenarian Olivia Bible Whisler and Chiquita Jones, her nursing assistant, permitting us to recoil in horror at the violence of militarized police, giving us inner perspective on the dynamics of repressed trauma and the need for mourning, and calling us to the work of building a fence around the most vulnerable of our neighbors.
On December 8, 2014, The Univ of Chicago Children’s Trauma Center announced that they have raised the age limit up to 18 for children needing trauma care!!! Now all children on the southside have access to trauma care. This is a major step in the right direction and though there is still work to be done, we celebrate this news. View the story in the Chicago Sun Times here http://chicagosuntimes.com/news/u-of-c-medicine-wants-to-raise-its-age-limit-to-pediatric-trauma-center/
