This essay describes the body's states of nervous system activation after traumafocusing on intimate partner violence and sexual assault against women-as signs of resistance and posits that caregivers should attend to these phenomena as the body's way of communicating. Trauma triggers nervous system responses. and understanding these responses helps caregivers to read the body language of survivors and thus avoid retraumatizing them in pastoral care. Fundamentally, rather than being seen as symptomatic of a disorder, the aftereffects of trauma should be seen as a survivor's witness to the profound harm experienced as well as to the image of God in the survivor. This approach offers ritual and social ways of addressing this harm.

The article explores the disenfranchised grief of the chaplain from the perspective of the author's own experience in hospice chaplaincy. Borrowing from the works of Kenneth J. Doka on disenfranchised grief, Robert C. Dykstra on crisis ministry, and James Dittes on grief work in ministry, this article focuses on the grief work of chaplains. In doing so, it analyzes the theological perspective of remembrance, explaining how personal remembrances connect the chaplain with his or her own repressed grief in a way that communal events can not accomplish because of the chaplain's responsibility for the grief of the community in these settings. From the perspective of the Christian faith in its sacramental connections with the Lord's Supper, the spiritual practice of honoring the deceased and praying for their guidance is posed as a possible model of healing remembrance.

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Proximity with issues of death and dying is one of the troubling aspects of ministry for many clergy. This article articulates the role of the minister as a liminal figure, a person who serves a ritual function in times of grief and loss, and who enables the creation of meaning in the in-between space between death and life. This liminal role is compared with that of the funeral director, as elaborated by Thomas Lynch in his memoir, The Undertaking. This paper suggests that while the liminal position is a difficult one for the pastor, it also provides some of the deepest satisfactions of ministry.