Quina Aragon, an accomplished author, editor, and spoken word artist, shares her profound journey through trauma and healing. She discusses her multicultural identity and the intersections of faith, resilience, and community support in overcoming adversity. Quina highlights the role of storytelling and lament in navigating suffering, while emphasizing empathy in confronting sociopolitical issues, like immigration and colonialism. Her meditative reflections invite listeners to explore the transformative power of God’s love in their own lives.
Quina Aragon's multicultural heritage shaped her understanding of faith, highlighting the importance of community amidst diverse beliefs and experiences.
Her journey toward faith involved confronting personal trauma while discovering that fulfillment comes from a relationship with God, not achievements.
Kina advocates for the practice of lament as essential to spiritual growth, emphasizing the need to acknowledge both joy and sorrow in the human experience.
Deep dives
Kina Aragon's Diverse Background
Kina Aragon shares her rich multicultural heritage, being of Filipino, Puerto Rican, and Jamaican descent. Raised in Florida after being born in the Philippines, her diverse upbringing included exposure to various beliefs, bridging Catholic traditions from her mother and a more indifferent view from her father. This mixed background fostered a vibrant family life characterized by unity amidst diversity, although it also presented challenges such as feeling like an outsider in a predominantly white environment. Ultimately, her family dynamics and experiences growing up played a significant role in her later understanding and exploration of faith.
Journey to Faith and the Pursuit of Meaning
Kina's journey toward faith unfolded during her high school years, marked by a struggle for belonging and a growing sense of emptiness despite academic and athletic successes. After an emotional breakdown, she picked up a Bible for the first time, feeling an immediate connection to the Psalms and their poetic expression of pain and longing. This moment led her to engage with her faith more deeply, ultimately allowing herself to be mentored by a friend’s Christian family as she learned about grace and salvation. As she navigated the challenges of balancing a new faith with personal trauma, Kina discovered that true fulfillment resides in a relationship with God rather than in achievements alone.
Confronting Trauma and Finding Healing
In a candid reflection on her teenage years, Kina describes the multiple layers of trauma she experienced, including the divorce of her parents, emotional abuse from a coach, and the death of a friend. She notes how entering into faith simultaneously brought both comfort and trauma, resulting in a tumultuous emotional landscape where she felt unworthy and ashamed. Over time, she realized the importance of acknowledging her past pain and how unprocessed trauma can affect one's ability to cope and experience life fully. Utilizing therapy and deepening her relationship with God, Kina embarked on a path toward healing, offering her insights into the significance of lament as a vital element in the Christian journey.
The Power of Story and Lament in Spirituality
Kina emphasizes the importance of storytelling and lament in understanding the complexities of the human experience, particularly in the context of faith. Her book, 'Love Has a Story,' invites readers to engage with their own narratives through the lens of Scripture while reflecting on God's enduring love. She articulates that genuine spiritual growth requires an honest confrontation with both the joys and sorrows of life, allowing individuals to pour out their complaints to God without fear of judgment. By normalizing the practice of lament, Kina advocates for a holistic approach to theology that encompasses both the beauty and the pain of the human story.
Exploring Love in the Context of Cultural Narratives
In her reflections on social and political challenges, Kina connects personal narratives with broader systemic issues, like immigration and colonialism, that reflect historical injustices. She explores how understanding her background informs her perspective on subjects like Puerto Rican identity and resilience amidst oppression. Through her writing, she addresses the myths surrounding American exceptionalism and emphasizes the need for awareness and honesty about the nation's historical narrative. By insisting that the love of God resonates deeply in individual experiences of struggle, she demonstrates that confronting societal issues is an integral part of understanding God’s love and presence in the world.
Quina Aragon is an author, editor, and spoken word artist. She is the author of the children's book trilogy—"Love Made, Love Gave, and Love Can"—which poetically retells Scripture's story through a Trinitarian lens of love. She is also the author of Love Has a Story: 100 Meditations on the Enduring Love of God, which invites you to explore God’s love as it has existed and moved throughout (and before) time, and how it intends to transform your own life story.
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