There is a long standing tradition of marking material with potentially difficult or painful material with some sort of warning. In movies we slap PG and R ratings. On hard-hitting TV shows dealing with tough realities, we sometimes see an intro suggesting that the show contains material “not suitable for children”. On websites and forums, including this one, sometimes one will find the phrase “Trigger Warning”.
Like PG and R movie ratings, its purpose is to mark difficult material. The phrase “trigger warning” comes from literature on trauma recovery. Anything that symbolizes or reminds someone of a past painful experience has the potential to reawaken or “trigger” vivid memories and strong feelings associated with that experience.
Trigger warnings are meant to be like the highway signs warning of S-curves. They are meant to give a reader time to prepare themselves for emotional jolts. However, if we are not careful, they can start looking a lot more like an NC-17 movie rating.
Movie ratings are all too often used to express social judgments and exclusion. G may officially stand for “general audience”, but in most peoples minds it also means good clean family friendly fun. A movie with too much “bad” language is marked PG. Producers often prefer to release movies unrated rather than risk an NC-17 rating because many advertisers and theaters refuse to promote or show NC-17 movies as a matter of policy.
Sometimes this judgment may be merited. Often sex and violence in movies are gratuitous. It does nothing to push the message of the movie forward. It is added to increase sales or win artistic kudos for being “edgy”. It seeks to titillate and entertain and impress.
But what happens when the violence is not gratuitous? What happens when the violence is just real life? What happens if lessons learned from violence gave a person reason to dedicate their lives to seeking social justice? Should we be marking the lived experience of human beings with warnings? Are some experiences, however difficult, transformative and healing?
Isolation and even shame is a huge part of the pain of trauma. Stories of trauma and the lessons learned from them are not merely stories, but lived experiences. By marking lived experiences as triggers, we are essentially quarantining a part of that person. We are saying “This part of your life is so horrible that you are forbidden to talk about it unless you surround it with signs and rituals.”
So horrible? Or so sacred? We can also look at the signs and rituals, and see them as a demarcation of the sacred. When Moses tried to approach the burning bush, God said “Do not come closer…this is holy ground”. Then follows hell and hope: a recitation of the horrors of slavery, but also God’s promise to personally deliver Moses’ people from those horrors. (Exodus 3:1-8). God effectively gave Moses a trigger warning. But this was not to turn Moses back, but rather to empower Moses to play a role in God’s mission.
When Moses met God face to face on Mount Sinai, his face was so touched by the glory of God that his own people told him to cover his face – they could not look at it. How did Moses feel when he was effectively shunned by his own people, even his own brother Aaron (Exodus 34: 30-31)? There are times when we need to keep even holiness at a distance. None the less, the people continued to listen to Moses and include him. In fact his power grows. Though Moses was at a distance, he was not alone. The difference between feeling awe and passing judgment is found in our willingness to listen.
When a survivor of violence has found wisdom and hope, their experiences become sacred ground. They are a burning burn that speaks of hell, but also of hope. We can never share the experience of a survivor, but we can join in their mission. There is a limit to how close we may come, but that doesn’t mean we are without response. Moses took off his shoes to become more connected to holy ground. Moses’ people stood and listened. They acted even when they didn’t fully understand. Do we?
