76: Walking with Survivors of Gun Violence with Nelba Márquez-Greene

Host: Brandon Nappi 

Guest: Nelba Márquez-Greene 

Instagram: @theleadersway.podcast berkeleydivinity.yale.edu/podcast

Brandon:    Welcome to the Leaders Way podcast. I’m Brandon Nappi. My wife Susan, who is the Executive Director of the Office of Public Health Practice here at Yale University, had this great line when we were new parents, when we were not sleeping, we were exhausted, and we finally, after many months, found the time to go out on our first date after becoming parents. And I can remember, you know, just trying to stay awake over dinner, and she said, “You know, I’m a really good mother when I’m not with my children.” And it’s a line that we …  that we remind her of so many years later.

And we were reflecting on just how hard it is just to be a parent, to be in relationship as a human being, to be in relationship with other people. It’s the most beautiful, delightful, joyful, loving thing to be connected to other humans, and it is … it is incredibly heartbreaking. And so I’m struck by our Christian tradition, by what happens when we say God is Trinity. Because as soon as we say God is Trinity, we say that God is relationship. And then to be made in the image and likeness of a relationship must mean that we are invited over and over again to connect with others, to create communities of belonging, and to devote our lives to getting really good at relationship. And relationship at every level is incredibly beautiful and incredibly difficult. And maybe you feel like her, like you’re really good at being in relationship when you’re not around other humans, right? 

We’re going to have a conversation today with someone who is exquisitely good at relationship. This is Nelba Márquez-Greene, a community scholar at the Yale School of Public Health. And in her public health research, she centers the role of relationship and makes, I think, a really compelling case that relationship and creating communities of belonging where everyone’s shared humanity is celebrated may be the most important way that we reduce gun injury in this country. So being in relationship to others is incredibly difficult. We disappoint ourselves, we disappoint others, we hurt one another. And yet we know that the kind of love and compassion and support and affirmation that comes being in relationship to friends, family, community members, our neighbors, strangers that we encounter, is what makes being human so rich.

So let me introduce Nelba to you. She holds a bachelor’s of music degree from Hart School of Music, a master of arts and marriage and family therapy from St. Joseph College here in Connecticut. Nelba taught and supervised at the Family Therapy Program at the University of Winnipeg’s Aurora Family Therapy Center. And she later worked as a coordinator for the Klingberg Family Therapy Center’s outpatient child and adolescent psychiatric clinic. She also has served as adjunct faculty at Central Connecticut State University. Nelba founded the Connecticut Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Diversity Committee and served on its board of directors. For her advocacy, she received the 2004 Minority Fellowship Award by the AAMFT, the 2004 Distinguished Professional Service Award, and the 2013 Service to Families Award. In 2017, she was awarded the key to the center at the Aurora Family Therapy Center in Winnipeg. In 2018, she was profiled as one of the 100 women of color and a YWCA Women’s Leadership Award recipient. She was featured in People magazine’s October 2019 issue as one of the 10 women changing the world, also recognized by Chelsea Clinton and Hillary Clinton in their book of gutsy women. She’s testified and advocated at the state and federal levels on many different mental health initiatives. She’s hosted TEDx talks. She’s a nationally sought after speaker. And we’re just so thankful for her presence here at Yale University. So I hope you enjoy this powerful conversation about faith, about connection, about belonging, and about the enduring power of relationship to heal our world.

Welcome to the Leader’s Way podcast, a show for people who are not ready to give up on the world. We convene sacred conversations with luminaries, scholars, and spiritual leaders who explore the creative vision needed to lead change in our aching world. I’m Dr. Brandon Nappi, Lecturer at Yale Divinity School and Executive Director of the Office of Transforming Leaders at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. I’m so glad you’re here. (Music)

Nelba, welcome to the Leaders Way podcast. 

Nelba:           It is so great to be here, also great to be on the other side of the interview. 

B:         Oh my gosh. I love your podcast and I hope folks will find you. Tell us the name of it. 

N:        So the podcast that I have at Yale is a part of the Yale School of Public Health and it’s an initiative that really gets us to our mission, which is listening to survivor voices. So it’s called “Shared Humanity.” And I interview people who’ve been impacted by gun violence, whether that’s through personal loss or injury, or they work on the recovery and care side. And it’s just great to hear directly from people most impacted. 

B:         Oh, I hope folks will go and give a listen, because it’s so important to have these conversations. But ultimately, because it feels like such a hopeful podcast. Folks might not immediately sense that it would be, but your voice and the folks that you’re having conversations with, sometimes while they’ve endured great loss, also have an incredible spirit of truth telling, of passion, of hopefulness, and I just have really enjoyed it. 

N:        And if you listen to the podcast, most of them will end with, “How can we best support you?” So the listener also has an opportunity, if they want to support that guest or learn more about their mission, they can do so. 

B:         Yeah, that’s fantastic. I feel like we need a full disclosure here. I’m going to step into the confessional myself in the Leader’s Way podcast. So we are friends. So if folks are sensing a connection or a history, it’s because I feel like we’ve become family friends over the years. And so to sit down like this feels like we’re at my kitchen table. 

N:        It does. And thank you for the invitation. 

B:         Yeah, of course. So you are a community scholar here at Yale, at the Yale School of Public Health. Maybe folks haven’t put those two words together traditionally. What is a community scholar here at Yale, and especially for you? What does that mean?

N:        It’s an incredible vision by the new Dean of the Independent School of Public Health. And her name is Dean Megan Ranney for folks who don’t know. When she was dreaming and thinking about the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative, which is a field, firearm injury prevention, she has been involved in for well over a decade as a emergency room doctor, as a public health person, as someone who’s seen and experienced multiple tragedies, whether they be at the community level or individual level. She wanted and envisioned a center that would be top-notch in academic rigor, research, all of that, but also centering the voices of survivors. And also not just being a global center or a national center, but being responsive to our state and our local neighborhoods here in New Haven.  

And in order to do that, she had actually been following me on Twitter for over a decade. And I was very, very active in those days on Twitter and always talking about that being the missing piece that the activism world and the lived experience world often felt very separate. So she leaves Brown and she accepts this job at Yale and she goes, “Hey, you live in Connecticut and you would be perfect for this role I have in my head.” And I said, “Absolutely not, because I don’t want to go back to academia.” Academia is kind of really hard and very… You have no idea what the vision is. In this vision, you could fit and you could help be a part of something. And I heard her vision– and it’s tough to listen to Dean Ranney and turn her down.

 So that’s how I’m here, community scholar, connecting research with community, voicing input on all of the teams, and it’s a really beautiful place to be.

B:         Universities have not always been so skillful and so attuned to the needs of communities even when they have on paper wanted to be. So this is a real moment of opportunity for you. And what do you feel like, and we don’t even have to pick on Yale, we could a little bit, but what do you think are some, let’s think in general, challenges that universities tend to have when scholars, brilliant scholars, researchers who maybe know the field from an academic perspective, when they want to begin engaging with community members, with the lived experience of folks, what are some of the challenges and how does your role sort of help the university to be more aware of the needs of community members?

N:        I feel like a big part of my role is to remind people to slow down. The rhythm of academia and the rhythm of building relationships are quite different. Our rhythm in academic institutions tend to go really fast, and they can be grant-focused, where-are-the-dollars-coming-from focused. The rhythm of relationships and establishing trust is much slower, right? Also positionality-wise, academics, academia, academic institutions tend to feel and believe and know that they are the experts, right? And in order to embrace a model of community scholarship, it requires an acknowledgement that we don’t know everything. And sometimes that can be the hardest thing. 

So an acknowledgement that we don’t know everything, a willingness to de-center ourselves, and also a willingness to understand that the rhythm of academia and the rhythm of establishing relationships with people who very often have much fewer resources, much less power, and are suspicious of us for good reason, it has to be done in a sacred way and that takes time.

B:         Yeah, time. I mean, we talk about this so often, when I’m working with students right now, I’m teaching a preaching class and … all the good things in life take time. 

N:        They do.

B:         And yet we’re really impatient, sometimes for good reason. We want change; we want healing. And I’m struck in listening to you, how many different ways of knowing there are. I mean, it’s one thing to know academically, to know statistics, to have researched something, it’s another thing to know something from experience. And I wonder sometimes if our research always values the on-the-ground knowing, the lived experience.

N:        I don’t know that it always does, but in my experience here, in this role, by and large, I work with people who are trying. Because what we’re not saying is the lived experience is more important than the expertise you carry. I’m not saying that, and nobody’s saying that. What we are saying and we are trying to develop is a model that honors both.

So the biostatistician on our team, Dr. Tony Tong, he is as important as the community scholar. Dr. Sarah Lowe, who works in– her field of expertise is trauma-impacted communities. She is just as important as the biostatistician, you know, Dr. Kerrie Raissian and Dr. Chris Morrison, you know, Jen Leaño, Dr. Trina Nelson, the team members, we should be able to function in a way kind of like a body where the foot is not more important than the hand. And–do you understand what I’m trying to say? That’s ideally how it should work. What gets in the way? The rhythm of doing the grants and the rhythm of … but when we can have an ethos that honors all of it, we can get somewhere in a different way and we can create something new. 

B:         Yeah. You know, in life, I wonder if it’s the temptation to think that your unique thing, your unique way of knowing, your unique discipline, is the best. We tend to kind of default to hierarchies, but I love how you’re transcending the binary. It’s not either/or; we need both experience and we need research and it’s like, you know, a bird needs two wings to fly. It flies in circles, I suppose, if it doesn’t have both wings. So what an amazing role that you get to be, I guess in some ways, the body of the bird, holding … holding two wings together. But I don’t know if it feels like that. What does it– what does it feel like for you? 

N:        It feels like a privilege. It feels like a great responsibility. It feels like a role that requires real mindfulness and embodiment in order to do well. And I’ve learned a lot in two years. I’m grateful for the grace I’ve been given as I learn. Right? Because it means learning so quickly things I haven’t been exposed to before. I’ve actually never worked on an official research team in this way. And I learned that here at Yale. I actually have had a number of challenges where I’ve had to say, Oh, do I go to bat for this or do I stand down? Right? So learning when to brake and gas pedal. But that’s what great supervision is for. I have some great supervisors here at the Yale School of Public Health. That’s what working in a partnership–I am co-located in the office of community and practice in addition to the firearm injury prevention initiative. And that helps with their extensive resources and how to do community work with ethics, with grace, with mindfulness. It’s just, it feels like a privilege. Yeah.

B:         When you are connecting with community members, what is it that they want Yale researchers to know about this community? I’m thinking, especially here in New Haven, but you know, you think about community members from around the country, I presume that you’re connecting with. Are there some common themes, you know, they come to you and they’re sharing their experience. What do they want you to know to take back to Yale to help inform the next generation of research around firearm injury prevention? 

N:        You know, community isn’t a monolith, so it’s always going to be dependent on the level which they represent. When I speak to other survivors within Connecticut, because I am also a survivor of gun violence in Connecticut, immediately there’s curiosity. Because by and large, they know that Nelba Marquez-Green is not going to join something she doesn’t believe in. Right? So it’s like, wait, you’re over there? What are y’all doing over there? And I can say, here’s what we’re trying to do. There’s only certain things I can control, right? But I can invite you into a place where you can ask your questions and we will answer them until you’re satisfied. And then you can make the decision you need if you want a partner or not. So there’s that level within the states of survivorship.

Then there are groups and orgs who have been in the field of gun violence prevention for a really long time, looking for ways to partner with an institution like Yale to further its goals and to figure out how we can be mutually beneficial. And then there’s this aspect of, wait, doing research with and alongside voices of survivorship–Oh yeah, that’s exactly where we need to go. So there’s all kinds of levels. And then we, you know, we partner with organizations, with individuals, with other academic institutions, with potential funders. We’ve got lots of dreams and we’ve got a very good beginning.

B:         I feel the gravity of your dreams. Would you share sort of what you’re hoping for?

N:         I would. I’m going to try to do it without crying. Because the city of New Haven is very dear to my heart for many reasons. New Haven and Newtown are about 45 minutes apart. And how we paid attention and pay attention when people die in Newtown versus when people are lost to gun violence in New Haven are very different. I always say that empathy drives resources. And we have very limited empathy when it comes to gun violence deaths in urban settings or with suicide. We create mythology. We create narratives in our mind. And we seem to only perk up in empathy when the victims we deem are worthy of our love and our time and attention. 

So one of the dreams we have, I have, I’m going to speak exclusively for me. I’m going to take this moment selfishly just for me and say would be to have a cash assistance fund for mothers who–for families, moms particularly, who have lost some folks to gun violence, a child to gun violence, a loved one to gun violence here in the city of New Haven, for New Haven moms, for cash assistance for whatever they need, whether that be for a funeral or whether that be for surviving children and karate lessons, you name it. So a special fund for cash assistance would be one of my goals.

 To endow the community scholar position, right? So that I don’t constantly have to worry. My dean doesn’t constantly have to worry if my contract can be renewed another year and to expand the community scholar role into other disciplines at Yale. What if we had a community scholar role in climate change and health? What if we had a community scholar role in maternity and mom’s health? All the other cool things that Yale does. So that would be another one, expand the community scholar role. And if I could do one more thing, it would be for special community projects. Here is something, because I lost a child in Newtown, I still have plenty of people who pay attention and want to do things. 

So I just got a call from Angie Thomas. And Angie Thomas is the author of The Hate You Give, among many other beautiful works. But that one in particular resonates because it’s a story about kids and kids impacted by gun violence, right? And she’s like, “Hey, Nelba, I’ll be in town on this day. You got any group of kids in New Haven that I can talk to?” So we’re working on that now. We’re working on doing something on the date of this recording. We’re working on doing something with a co-op. And those kinds of projects where we can be a blessing require money, require financing. So a special fund for community projects would also be something really cool because gun violence is a public health issue. Storytelling is a public health method. And this idea that Angie could come, that we could have a day of shared facts, shared stories, shared information, and shared action and talk to kids about public health and gun violence is amazing.

B:         Oh my gosh. I’m excited. And those philanthropists who are listening in, you’ve heard it. 

N:        I would love that. 

B:         There’s dreams looking for funding. 

 N:       Can I tell you the name of the project I already have in my brain for the moms? The Rizpah Project. And do you know why?

B:         Tell us about this. Tell us. 

N:        Do you know who Rizpah was? So Rizpah is a woman who appears in the book of 2 Samuel and there are like three words dedicated to her, but it doesn’t matter. Because her presence, her witness in grief was so powerful that she got for her sons who died in battle a proper burial. And we were given the extensive privilege of having proper burial for our children and our loved ones because Newtown was so compelling to the imagination, to the heart of so many people. But it is my position that the mothers of New Haven and the mothers of Bridgeport and the mothers of Hartford are just as worthy and often have to deal with their grief alone. So if given the opportunity, I would call this the Rizpah project and that would be a joy.

B:         I mean, you mentioned the scripture, obviously, with the reference to Rizpah. And I know you’re a person of deep faith and you’ve thought a lot about how we can better support clergy in their supporting of communities who are going through trauma, all sorts of trauma. And I wonder if maybe we could talk a little bit about how clergy can be better responsive, can be more fully responsive in moments of challenge. What can they do to provide support? And I mean, clergy, you know, are many of our listeners. They’re carrying incredible burdens of themselves personally. They’re often working in positions, you know, getting, you know, a third of the paycheck they could be getting somewhere else. Their hearts are completely dedicated to the work and serving others. And they’re not necessarily always trained in trauma and they don’t always know what to do. And as a person of faith, I wonder if you can speak to this, this sort of need for clergy to be responsive to trauma and violence when it unfolds. 

N:        Sure. So first, I want to level set by acknowledging that the environment we are currently living in for folks who pastor is incredibly difficult. Without question, what I see as just a simple congregant is the burden to solve society’s issues that present themselves in the pew. I have this quote about teachers, whatever we don’t solve in society lands in a teacher’s lap. Well, whatever we don’t solve in society also lands in a clergy’s lap. And increasingly, there are more and more pressing problems. So I just want to level set. I want to level set by saying I know COVID took its toll. And the levels of folks in need financially also takes its toll, especially for congregations that depends on tithes and giving. All of these pressures I have enormous respect for, and it’s really hard. So I don’t want to seem as though I am dumping on an already vulnerable, vicariously traumatized and primarily traumatized group.

So I want to go really gently here, and that would be a justification for another part of the Rizpah project to have as a part of that project training, professional development for clergy to learn tools for how to deal with families that might be sitting in their pews impacted by gun violence. Because we can’t just treat it from a perspective of grief and trauma. We have to treat it from the perspective of grief and trauma and injustice. And if your church doesn’t already have a model for dealing with injustice or a voice in the injustice space, it’s going to fall short to go to church and hear, “God must have had a plan.

Dry your tears.” You won’t have anything to offer that hurting person because gun violence survivors sit at this intersection of grief, injustice and trauma, and all need to be addressed at the same time.

So with that being said, I would say clergy self-care is paramount. If you are not okay, I will not be okay. If my trauma drowns you, I’m going to feel guilty for having come to you. And that was my experience after Newtown. I felt like I was not only carrying this thing of having to bring my family back together and a dead six year old, but I had to be very careful who I spoke to about it because I could bring just about anybody to their knees and still can. So then I was incredibly protective of my story because I didn’t want to hurt anyone. So I need someone with stronger legs than I have. And in order to have strong legs, you have to be okay. You have to have a–there is nothing wrong with having supervision, with having mentorship, with having coaching. Clergies need systems of care so that after they talk to me, after they talk to that person who’s been deeply impacted by something else, they have a space to go to so that they can be okay. 

They also need teams, right? I know too many clergy who for financial reasons at their churches and their houses of worship, they are the pastor, they are the folks who clean up. They are the folks who have to organize all the things. 

B:         Unclog the toilet. 

N:        They have to do everything. Everything. Everything. So learning to assess who else in your congregation might be able to help. There is nothing wrong with asking for help. And I think we need to make it okay for clergy to ask for help. We need to make it okay for clergy to say, I need to tap out for two months a year and take a sabbatical because we’re going to burn them out.

B:         So, just to maybe interrupt you, but pause for a second, just to celebrate, there are so many clergy listening right now who are thinking, thank God, Nelba understands me. It’s maybe the therapist/social worker in you. So empathetic. You see these pastors and these spiritual leaders for what they’re experiencing. And what a gift that is because I think a lot of people see them as superheroes. A lot of people expect them to be superhuman. And I’m just, I’m touched that you started with self-care as the first step, right? So I asked you like, what do they need to know? What training do they need to do? And you actually slowed, slowed me down to say like, oh, let’s take, let’s take care of ourselves first. So thank you for that. 

And you also named this coaching component, which I think is so important. We’ve seen this in our own programming. You know, we run probably between 15 and 30 programs each year for clergy. We run a leadership program for clergy. And this has emerged as the … as the number one need. Clergy needs someone else to walk with them and to mentor them. And who do you call when you have a situation in front of you and you don’t know how to meet it? How do you…  how do you meet it with grace? How do you minimize the amount of harm you’re going to do? So thank you for sharing that with us. For starting.

N:        For sure. And they also need that oxygen mask, those supports for their families. When their families, we expect clergy to show up and just give a hundred percent no matter what is going on at home. When their families or the communities they are a part of are not okay, it’s going to be real difficult for us to have that expectation. And I’ll give an example that I’ve actually never talked about before, but I think will paint the picture. When Anna was killed, we had only lived in Sandy Hook four months. So we did, we hadn’t established church roots here in our new town, but we have family that are clergy. We had a church we had been a part of for three years in Canada. And we had our former church in Hartford, all of whom their pastors came together to give the homegoing service for our child. And I’ll never forget our pastor from Canada. His name is Terry. His name is Terry Janke and Reverend Paul Echtenkamp from Hartford. And my aunt all came together. It’s funny. Their common language is Spanish, not English. They all came together to practice, to organize, to give this incredibly sad homegoing at the First Cathedral of Bloomfield. Yes, right. A historically black church that has been a sister church to us for many, many years. I mean, Jimmy and I are from here. We are from the community. We have extensive roots in church community. And these were the people who came for us and said, “We have you. This is horrible and we have you.” 

So our pastor, Canadian pastor from like Northern Manitoba gave this service at this black church in Connecticut.  And he had the entire, I want to, I don’t want to sound irreverent here. The day of my daughter’s funeral was one of the saddest days of my life.

We also gave her the best homegoing that two parents who love both Jesus and their children could have. And our pastor did his job. He got up there and he gave a sermon that I still quote to this day. And he had everybody on their feet, everybody on their feet in common sorrow, common anger, common joy, common love. The service was called Jesus a Savior for Many Seasons, and the Importance of being People of Winter. And I’ll never forget the sermon. I think the people understood many things that this terrible thing had happened and that this Canadian white pastor was getting up and doing this thing–and my Puerto Rican aunt and Reverend Echtenkamp– and that this was incredibly difficult. And that Bishop Bailey, Archbishop Bailey was giving up his pulpit to these people he had never met before. And they were all working in concert to honor a six year old.

And the reception he got, the reception everyone got was just something of real beauty. And I remember saying to him sometime later, If you ever wanted to come back to the US, you could become based on that reception, a mega church leader. And he looks and I’ll never forget his entire face changed. And he looks at me, he goes, “Nelba, with all due respect, as much as it was an honor, I would never sign up to do anything like that again.” And it reminded me of the humanity of our leaders, the humanity of folks we expect to have all the answers and to lead us, not just on a regular Sunday, but in the most extreme moments of hurt and give hope to people listening. And that’s why I remember the wellbeing–because I remember our story. 

B:         Gosh, thank you, Nelba. Wow. You know, I’m struck by this theme of seasonality.

You know, I think it’s only natural when we set out on this faith journey that we want to imagine the times of abundance and the time of joy. And for all of us in our own ways, fall and winter come as well. And what a privilege clergy have to keep us grounded, to keep us remembering our foundation, our faith when even the coldest of winters arise. And so I appreciate you starting with such a moving memory of really beautiful and powerful pastoral care. 

Can I ask a more awkward question? Were there pastoral moments that you felt like some (totally anonymous) were maybe not handled so gracefully? What didn’t feel so loving and compassionate in the moments? 

N:        I think those moments of pastoral care that don’t feel loving are pretty much all rooted in a misunderstanding of winter. In order to give pastoral care in a spirit and season of winter, you have to understand winter for yourself. You have to first of all understand that Jesus too was a man who understands suffering. For me, one of the most difficult misapplications of faith in the moment when we were just there in the firehouse was that somehow then, because we had lost Anna in this tragic way, that we could use this moment to transform not just our witness, but witness to other people about the goodness of God in the moment. Like in that firehouse, “try to minister to those other families and tell them that they may not see their child again. If they want to see their loved one, they’ll come to Jesus now.” You know, I think that was poorly timed. I think it was theologically unsound. When people are hurting and most vulnerable, that is not the time you do that. At least for me, it was greatly uncomfortable. I said, I just need that energy away from me.  

What I can best do to hold Christian witness in this moment of tragedy is to provide care, not to provide a strong-arming. I mean, I’ve been to funerals where I’ve heard pastors say, “Well, if you’re crying here and you miss your loved one, you know, and you want to see them again, you’ve got to come to the altar and profess your faith.” Right? It’s such a strong-arming and I don’t see my faith in that way. I don’t see Jesus in that way. 

So that would be one thing, to not take advantage of the vulnerable. We will see it now with, at the time of this recording, we are on all bated breath, thinking about the island of Jamaica and Cuba and Haiti and, you know, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico even. Well, if we’re going to show up and provide care in Jesus name, please let’s not do it with an agenda. Just show up and provide care. That’s it. The agenda should be care. Don’t make people do things in order to get the food or in order to get the, you know, gift card. Don’t do that. It felt really uncomfortable and manipulative of me. 

Number two, who you center, right? When you are responding to people in extreme distress, if you’re going to take their information and use it to write a book or to go on Oprah or to, you know, get yourself on TV, you know …  there’s a code of ethics, just like there’s a code of, you know, I’m a licensed clinician, just like there’s a code of ethics for me. You know, show up honestly, show up with the agenda of offering ministry. Don’t show up with the agenda of becoming, you know, somebody that–that was really poor care. And again, a misunderstanding of winter. When you are ministering to people in a winter season, it should always be from a spirit of protection, from a spirit of safety, from a spirit of “my job is to care,” not “my job is to get something back because I did this thing,” right? There is no, there should be no transactionality. There should be no this tit for tat. 

And then just … sometimes it’s okay to say as a clergy, I don’t know why this happened, but I’m going to hold your hand through it. And I’m not going away as your church family, we will be here. So I knew that my church family in Canada, they were holding round-the-clock, 24 hour, people signed up, we’re going to pray for the Marquez-Green family. Here are the time slots, everybody pray. That’s how my church showed up. They couldn’t do potluck, but they could pray. That was one way. There were other church communities that asked, What is it that you need, right? There is no recipe for responding. There are best practices for how to respond, certainly around ethics and other things, but every family will be unique. So the best way to help is to be in relationship.

Because when you’re in relationship, you can get information. Does that family need money for counseling services? Does that family need help? Maybe they need assistance with food, right? How will you know what a family needs if you’re not in relationship? If you just make a declaration of how you’re going to support those families over there without doing the work of being ears on the ground, you have to be rooted in community. You have to be rooted in relationship. 

So right now what I’m looking for when I look at this potential damage in Jamaica is, Who’s in Jamaica? What are the Jamaican organizations that are already doing the work vetted by the people? And how do I listen to those voices? How do I find them? And how would I pastoral care to those families? I would say the same thing that really helped me.

Listen, I don’t know why this terrible thing happened and I’m so sorry. But this is how I can support you now. Here’s my menu of how it can be. I can give a donation. I can be on a prayer call. I can do this. What would be most useful? Certainly not the Pat Robertson approach, which is getting on a whatever and saying, you know, “This happened because …” right? And “God is enacting punishment.”  That’s another misunderstanding of winter. The truth of the matter is this. Everybody’s not going to have a Sandy Hook and thank God. But if you live long enough as a Christian, you know that everybody has a winter season. And that winter season could be personal. That winter season may not end up on the cover of a newspaper. But everybody endures winter. And if we’re going around saying, “Oh, when you endure winter, that means you’re a bad person.” That’s not why winter comes.

So that’s another misapplication that we can get better at. 

And then professional development. Take those classes in mental health first aid, in responding after tragedy. Folks have good information out there. You and I are potentially going to sit and do some classes, right? I would love that in the future. I can certainly give tools just from my perspective and my professional background. And there’s lots of people–just remember there’s lots of people doing good work and you are not alone. So you don’t have to make up reasons for winter. Sometimes we just go through winter. 

B:         Yeah. Oh, thank you. Just to make that explicit. Nelba and I are cooking up some continuing education opportunities for clergy here at Yale and here at Berkeley. So stay tuned and look for those. 

I want to connect two dots or weave together two threads. Two threads that you’ve mentioned. And one thread is slowness. And then the other is winter. When you’re in the middle of January, there’s no rushing out of it. The way through January is the way through January. And we don’t do ourselves any favors by pretending it’s May. And so sometimes I think clergy feel like they have to fix. That fix-it energy. And oh, I get this. I mean, so many of us entered ministry, like, we’re going to heal the world. We’re going to fix the problems. And it comes from a really sweet place. Often a really loving place. And yet when you’re on the receiving end, right? If someone’s trying to fix you, the implication is you’re broken in some way. Right? And so being broken is different than being in winter. 

N:        It is. 

B:         You know, when I’m hearing your invitation to clergy amid self-care and continuing education, for folks to move slowly at the pace of trust, at the pace of relationship, and I love, love, love how you said you have to know winter in yourself to meet winter in another person. Oh my gosh. I mean, if we could teach folks here at Yale Divinity School just that, it would be more than enough. 

N:        Pastor Terry, in that moment, used our winters in Winnipeg. And if you’ve never experienced a winter in Winnipeg, I can tell you … it varies. Do you have to plug in the car? Yes. You have to plug in your car. I heard the stories. We had engine plug things installed, right? And I know what it’s like to walk from my parking space. I used to teach at the University of Winnipeg and I worked in their outpatient center. And I know what it’s like to walk in the cold, unwrap myself, and there are icicles in my hair because the condensation of my own breath would freeze. I know what it’s like. And I remember Pastor Terry saying, “You’ve learned a little bit about winter from your winters in Winnipeg. There are ways you have to dress. There are ways–in order to endure. There are ways you prepare in order to endure.” And I think that’s what’s missing. We are so …  because we desperately want to fix teaching people a light gospel with a redemption story at the end that’s always about transformation, renewal, power to purpose. And that’s not always how it works. Sometimes winter just sucks. 40 degrees below zero. And you have to endure and prepare and know again that spring is coming.

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Let’s talk for a moment, if we can, about members of church communities. We sort of focused on clergy. This, I presume, becomes … tragic moments become a moment of great confusion for members of a congregation. What do I do? Do I reach out? Do I not reach out? Who do I talk to? How do I help? Right? We start sending things that no one needs. I presume there’s also some really helpful folks who are curious and willing to walk with you. Can you offer some encouragement to members of a congregation going through a tragedy, a generic tragedy in the world– What should they be doing? What questions should they be asking?

N:        This is such a great question. One of my biggest laments when it comes to thinking about people of faith is that they often don’t feel that they are valuable unless they have a million dollars, unless they have a big whatever to offer. And here’s the thing. We are a powerful demographic, right? Specifically, when it comes to gun violence prevention, I always say this, the gun violence prevention movement needs two teams, like a policy team, right? So you can be invested in policy. Right now, if you’re someone who deeply cares about climate change and how these islands are being devastated, right? Then we can do a little research on who the candidates are and what the policies are that are working on finding solutions and making things better for people impacted by flood, by fire, by other kinds of disasters. 

And the other part is in care. So there’s policy, and then there’s care of people who have been impacted. So I would say to congregants listening, you’re actually incredibly valuable. We need you in the game. And again, following the same framework as clergy, making sure you are well first. Do not get into the water if you don’t know how to swim, right? So first, make sure you know, I actually swim at this level. So I can get in that type of water. So to what level you engage, there’s no shame in saying, you know, I’m not a person who’s going to write a letter to my congressman, but I make a mean casserole. And I can do a casserole for my local Moms Demand Action leaders who need support or who are supporting mothers who’ve lost children to gun violence, right? Everybody can engage in some way. I had a friend who also lives in our town who started as what I call a correspondence friend. She came to one of my events and then she would write an email. She was just a– I have to vet people, right? Because still to this day, we get people who don’t think the Sandy Hook shooting happened. So I’m always on bated breath, I’m always on bated breath when I get these friendly emails. I’m like, what do they want? I got to be honest with you. I have a little PTSD in this area. So she started as a correspondence friend. 

And then for some way that only God could organize, we both moved to the same town. We both moved to the same town and you know this friend. Somehow she found out where I lived and I was like, oh my God, I hope this woman is okay because I really like her, but I’m not real sure. And then she became a porch friend. So she would drop off on the anniversary, a tray of brownies or flowers and after some time–a porch friend.

B:         I’ve never heard this before. A porch friend.

N:        There’s different levels of engagement that you can be.  And then I finally let her in the house and she still teases me to this day. She said, it took you four years. I’m like, yeah, it did. Yeah, it did. She’s a kitchen friend now. I would take that girl to the end of the earth because a relationship was established. Trust was established. Safety was established. And are there lessons we both learn in being in relationship with one another and being in different sides of gun violence prevention? Absolutely. But that’s how we learn. We invest, we slow, we take time and we listen. 

B:         And I love that invitation to just know yourself. There’s no shame in doing what you do. 

N:        There’s no shame.

B:         So that’s really beautiful. That feels really, really practical. For folks who want to be involved in gun injury prevention, you know, they hear the podcast, maybe they’re at the first step. Where would you encourage them to go? Where can they learn more other nonprofits and organizations that you would encourage them to connect with? 

N:        Absolutely. First, make an assessment of your skill set. What is it that you are good at that you would feel good doing? Right? Is it being a part of a local org that works with teens that have been impacted? Is it being a part of an org more dedicated to policy? You have to first know. And if you don’t know and you’re like, I don’t even know that, go to a meeting. You don’t have to wait for the next national tragedy. It is very likely there is a victim of gun violence in a 10 mile radius of you and a group dedicated to answering the problem, creating solutions within a 20 mile radius of you. So you can attend a local meeting and say, I’m just here to be a listener and learn more. 

I think there is an internal knowing we discount when we try to go too fast. We want to be involved, but we don’t know how that makes sense to me because nothing new should feel familiar or easy. Right? So go listen, invest and then find when it’s right. That’s what I did for Yale. It took me 13 years to find a spot in the gun violence prevention movement that made sense to me. That didn’t feel exploitive. That didn’t feel like it was taking advantage of me. But you know what? When my internal knowing went off, I was like, yeah, this could be a good opportunity. It went off super freaking loud. And I’m here. 

B:         Now, you’re part of this amazing research team here at Yale looking at gun injury prevention. Can you share a little bit more about what the team is up to? What are the kind of thorny questions in particular that they’re asking? 

N:        There’s so many ways the research team engages: writing papers on the intersection of trauma and gun violence, and then actual research projects that are supported and done at the institution. Dean Rennie is involved with an amazing one looking at 4-H and attitudes and behaviors of gun ownership and gun handling through 4-H, right? Engaging with people who are gun owners who do use guns for hunting or personal protection and finding common ground and looking at what interventions actually keep us all safe. Right? That’s super cool. And she does that with Mary. 

We have another one being funded right now with Fund for Safer Futures that is looking at working with young people and measuring if social media interventions changes young folks’ attitudes on whether they pick up a gun or not. And we’re doing that with an incredible organization in the Hartford area called Hartford Communities That Care and their long arm and reach of partners and a group called Project Unloaded out of Chicago that goes to different cities impacts impacted by gun violence and teaches the social media intervention and encourages young people to make their own social media campaigns, encouraging their peers to not pick up a gun. That’s really cool. 

We have another one with the state of Connecticut evaluating and building capacity for existing gun violence prevention orgs, working on their logic models, assessing what tools they need to get to the next level because they’re doing such important work. Our community projects basically always answer, How do we leverage the resources of Yale to strengthen our community partners that may not have the same resources? We just need money to continue paying for the projects. 

B:         So, you know, let’s end where we began, with your podcast. You call it “Shared Humanity.” And I think that’s so beautiful. And I’d love to hear how you landed on that name. 

N:        So I have this incredible supervisor who you may or may not know. And one of her gifts and talents is she listens to people’s hearts. And I had this idea of this podcast on a whim and I was struggling to come up with a title for it. And I was just describing what I wanted to do and kind of my pain and lament behind why I wanted to do this project, which is so often that people closest to the issue don’t get a voice. So we get invited to the table and people want our voice for a particular thing, but never for our own thing. So I said to her, Susan, I want to do this thing and I want to do this podcast and maybe … and I just want people to listen to us. And she had been talking about this concept of Shared Humanity for a while. And she said, no, but it sounds like that’s the title of your podcast. And I said, no, no, no, that’s your thing. And she said, no, it’s the work. And that’s how I have this borrowed title that comes from an ethos at the School of Public Health and specifically at the Office of Community and Practice. Broadly at the School of Public Health, we’re calling it now Linking Science and Society. But in the Office of Community and Practice, they have this ethos of Shared Humanity, which I got to borrow for the podcast, which felt really special and very generous.

B:         Well, I mean, Shared Humanity is something we’ve all borrowed from God. Right? 

N:        Yes. From God and one another. And hopefully, and that’s what I, that’s how I feel about people who ask, “Oh, you seem to have so much joy.” It’s like, you know what, when I can’t find it from within, I borrow it from outside. I can borrow it from music. I can borrow it from a neighbor. I can borrow it. So I encourage folks listening who are clergy or congregants and feeling helpless in this moment– So it’s not inside. I get it. These days are heavy. We’re in a winter season in the United States, but we can find moments of borrowed joy and borrowed hope.

B:         Well, thank you, Dr. Susan Nappi for the Shared Humanity, the executive director of the Office of Public Health and Practice, a luminous leader. And we hope a future guest on the Leaders Way podcast. 

N:        Who happens to be your wife.

B:         I know a guy who knows a guy. So, I’d love to hear about a favorite scripture that supports you in all of this work. I mean, healing work for all of us is joyful. It’s heavy. It’s all the things. It’s all the seasons. And I wonder if you’d share with listeners a certain scripture that might keep you anchored amid the transitions from season to season.

N:        You know, it’s interesting. You talk about pastoral care that’s effective. You talk about pastoral care that’s not effective. I think even at our best, we can make mistakes. And even in the moments where we have many lessons to learn and we’re not in our best, we can still have moments that are valuable. And this scripture, I actually learned from an interaction with a clergy that ended up doing a thing that wasn’t great, but I still learned from them. And it’s from the book of Nehemiah and it’s Nehemiah 6:9. And Nehemiah says, “They were all trying to frighten us, telling us our hands would be too busy for the work. And I prayed, ‘Strengthen the work of our hands.’” Yeah, strengthen the work of our hands is a prayer I say often.

B:         Nelba Márquez-Greene, thank you for being here. Thank you for all the work that you do. We hold you in our hearts. I’m just so thankful for you. Thank you for being on the Leaders Way Podcast. 

N:        Thank you for asking me all these questions. I’ve loved being here. Thank you. 

B:         Thank you for joining us today on the Leaders Way Podcast, a show for people who are not ready to give up on the world. We hope you found the episode expansive and nourishing. If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on your favorite platform. Your support helps us to continue bringing you sacred conversations with luminaries, scholars, and spiritual leaders who are dedicated to transforming our world. For more information about our guests and to catch up on past episodes, visit our website at berkeleydivinity.yale.edu.

Follow the show on Instagram at theleadersway.podcast to stay updated on future episodes and events. Until next time, I’m Dr. Brandon Nappi. Walking with you as you lead with courage, wisdom, and compassion.