Author: scblair

A Pastoral Response to Newtown

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I’ve had a lot of anger and sadness swirling around me the past few days, a lot of which is concerning the Newtown shootings. Sadness obviously at the senseless tragedy of it all, and anger at the perpetrators of these kinds of crimes. There’s been a lot of responses to the tragedy, but none of them seem adequate. However this post is about the best I’ve seen and I’m reposting it in its entirety.

Newtown- A Time to Listen

I live maybe 50 miles from Newtown, CT. But it shouldn’t matter how far you live from there in miles, what happened there should hit close to home for all of us. It is one of those things that is simply not supposed to happen.

As I read the commentators, the blogs and the other statements, I hear all the normal lines and a few new ones. “Arm people in the schools.” “Ban assault weapons”. “Put God back in the schools.” “It’s time to listen to the gun lobby.” “It’s time to confront the gun lobby.” What most of these lines have in common is that they blame others for this tragedy.  “If only our country had (fill in your own favorite), this would not have happened.” Translation- “If everyone had only listened to me and people who agree with me, this would not have happened.” I fear that this incident will yet again drive people to their own corners with others who believe as they do and from those corners they will shout at people in the other corners because this is what passes for dialogue in our society. And, as usual, nothing substantive will change in our society and divisions between groups will simply widen.

Now, to be clear, I do have my own point of view on guns that I believe has wisdom and would help.  However, as a professional health care chaplain, I have the great good fortune to have been taught a different way.  The first thing and I think the hardest thing we learn as chaplaincy students is to listen first and speak second- if at all. The first person we are taught to listen to is ourselves.  Before I can listen and truly hear others, I need to listen to my own anger, my own powerlessness and admit to the part of me which would love to have someone or something to blame and punish for this tragedy.  All of that acknowledgement is a necessary prelude to hearing the anger and hurt in others.

Then I have to remember the lesson that has been reinforced so many countless times in my professional life- most of all people want to be heard.  Yes, they also want to be agreed with, but very often being truly heard is enough. And, if you don’t let them know that you hear them and take their feelings and point of view seriously, you cannot expect that they will hear and respect your point of view.

So I am hoping that maybe this tragedy is so horrible and enough people understand that the old debates have not helped, that maybe we can resolve to find another way.  Maybe we could start with the idea that living in a country where people walk into movie theaters, malls and now even elementary schools and kill people is unacceptable and it’s so unacceptable that everyone needs to listen to everyone else who thinks they have a way to help even if they are sure that the other person is wrong. And maybe we can even start with the understanding that there is no simple solution and its highly unlikely that any one of us possesses the whole truth.

But in the end, I am convinced that respectful listening to all others and they to us is foundational, and without it these incidents will not go away.

Trusting the Process

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Not long ago I thought I’d be shutting this site down, as I wasn’t sure if I was going to be a chaplain anymore. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be one on one hand: I’d had about enough of the stress, the politics, and the poor time off. Hospice seems to breed burnout for precisely those reasons. However I was recently offered a full time job at a hospice that seems good.

Trouble is I have two other jobs waiting in the wings. The key word there is “waiting” however, as neither one has made an offer and have been slow – in one case extremely slow – in interviewing. Both of these jobs have their pluses and minuses as well. While it seems clear that I should go with the “sure thing” I’m hesitant.

As usual I’m overthinking things, I think. Commitment to a job does not slam the door on everything else forever, obviously. However I tend to think of these things as permanent. As my wife said, I can give this a trial period in the same way that they’re giving me one. Plus I have to recognize my hesitation is due to a fear of the unexpected, and also a fear of the expected.

One of the things you hear a lot in CPE is to “trust the process”, meaning that the CPE group is designed to raise problems and growing edges, and any quick solution to those issues is not going to help. They in fact hinder the process of growth, change, and self discovery. Here too I see that I need to trust the process, trust that God is in it, and care less about being sure about my decision.

I get too concerned sometimes about making the wrong decision, often where there is no wrong decision. Mistakes are survivable, and I have no idea what lies around the next bend in the road.

No-handed trust

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It’s been just over two weeks without a job, and the fear is starting to kick in. I’ve had three serious interviews, but one was only for a per diem position and the other didn’t pan out. The third, with CCO, is still in process. However the fact that things aren’t sure yet bothers me. it’s unrealistic to expect a job so soon I know, but my unemployment is still not settled (I apparently haven’t worked anywhere) and my final paycheck hasn’t yet arrived. I had hoped those would have been resolved by now, so doubt is stealing the peace I had.

However I think that this is all still part of my own learning to trust God wholeheartedly. As a teen I would occasionally go on ropes courses with my youth group. The phrase you heard all the time was “let go of the rope!”, meaning the rope that connected you to the safety line overhead. Holding on to the rope made you feel more secure and was a purely instinctual reaction: “if I hold on to the rope I won’t fall”. However holding on to the rope also immobilized you as you couldn’t use your hands to move around or balance yourself. You had to trust that you weren’t going to fall even if you weren’t holding the rope – you had to let the rope hold you.

This is a hard task for anyone, especially those of us who are still struggling with confidence and trust in God, ourselves, or even those closest to us. Trusting God isn’t holding on to Him with both hands, hoping you won’t let to, it is trusting enough that he has you that I can let go with both hands.

Next steps

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Last Wednesday, on my youngest son’s fifth birthday, I was fired. I had been there nearly seven years. However it was not exactly unexpected, and as i see now, not unwelcome.

I have had a tremendous sense of peace since then. Not just the peace that comes from not having to wonder who might die today, but a sense of peace that comes from a deep sense of trust in God’s plan. I haven’t always had this trust, and I expected to fall apart when the hammer came down. Knowing that the prayers of many are covering me, and having grown through my own reading, have allowed me to simply rest in the assurance that all things are working toward the good.

At this point I am not sure if I will continue in hospice chaplaincy, do some other kind of ministry, or change paths completely. So I’m not sure if this will go on or not. But I’m not worried about that right now.

The Fearful Pastor

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While occasionally the Gospel Coalition Blog makes me wince, I thought this article/reflection was right on target concerning how often even our ministerial leaders work from a perspective of fear and distrust. As do we (and me) I’m sure.

“Perhaps this is an infrequently shared secret of pastoral ministry; that is, how much of it is driven not by faith in the truths of the Gospel and in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but driven by fear. It is very tempting for the pastor to load the welfare of the church on his shoulders and when he does, he ends up being burdened and motivated by an endless and every-changing catalog of “what ifs.” This never leads to a restful and joyful life of ministry, but rather to a ministry debilitated by unrealistic and unmet goals, a personal sense of failure and dread.” Paul Tripp

Read the whole article below:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/07/08/the-fearful-pastor/?comments#commentscomment-34176

When Prayer is Trivial

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While driving out to my first visit today I ran through the presets on my radio as I usually do. Not finding anything of interest music-wise I jumped to the Christian talk station to see what was on there. The speaker (don’t remember who, but he’s well known and I think nationwide) was talking about the need for us to pray in order to maintain our connection to God. He laid out several other benefits as well, but then made a bit of a quizzical move. God apparently wants us to pray, but God doesn’t want to be bothered with “trivial prayers”.

Prayers for mundane things – he used the example of picking out his clothes – are trivial in that they aren’t about important matters, or about things we can take care of ourselves. He got a laugh about his comment about his clothes-picking skills, but I was a bit perturbed.

I did a quick little search for “trivial prayers” on Google and got an interesting list of results: nonbelievers who said that any prayer was trivial or that prayers for personal gain were trivial, as well as people who called their own prayers trivial because they didn’t seem to be about important things. I even ran across a video of a minister teaching that God doesn’t want our “help me! help me!” prayers or petitions at all.

I brought this up to my client that I saw today, an elderly man with heart failure who prays the Rosary daily every day he can. He too was surprised and not very happy with the comment. He said, “Any prayer is important to God! Something that seems trivial to someone else can be very important to me. Say I cut my finger and I pray that it gets better. You could say ‘just put a band-aid on it, don’t bother God!’ But if that cut gets infected I could lose that finger. Prayer is all the more important to me!”

I replied, “I think the only kind of prayer that is trivial is one that isn’t said.”

And it was probably the smartest thing I said all day.

Works and Grace

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This morning I was having breakfast and skimming through the latest Christian book catalog that came through our mail when my son noticed the title of one of the books was on learning to “pray better”.  He asked, “How do you pray better?  Don’t we pray good enough already?”

I think this question goes to the heart of a lot of the problems we face as Christians, and maybe especially as Americans.  We have such a tendency to find ourselves, no matter how much we talk about grace, looking at our faith as a matter of how much effort we put in to it.  Sometimes that work is actual “work” – penance, good deeds, giving financially or of time. All these things in themselves are good, but we can easily fall into the trap of seeing these things as preliminaries and prerequisites for God’s grace to happen.

The Protestant mourns for his fellow Catholic brother, whom he sees as “works based” regarding salvation. Yet Protestants are just as trapped by the need to “do more” and “do better”. A glimpse through any Christian book catalog or bookstore shelf of popular Christian “inspiration” will prove my point. So much seems to be about doing more, doing better, gaining and striving. I think this comes out also in theology with the insistence that one’s theology be “right”. I remember growing up that faith wasn’t just about knowing Jesus, but knowing Calvin. You had to know the right things in the right way – not just Biblical truth but the correct interpretation of Biblical truth.

This, I think, is just another form of works. Grace is something we accept without any merit on our part, and to make that grace beholden to anything we do (and I think belief can be a form of works as well) negates that.

Can I pray better, read more, give more? Surely. I stink at all of these. But I gave up worrying for Lent.

What are You Fasting From?

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Ok, maybe my grammar is a bit sketchy title-wise, but I like it.

I never fasted in my life, save for bloodwork or the occasional operation. Most of this came from my Presbyterian/Calvinist upbringing, which saw fasting as something a bit too “Catholic”, which is code for works-oriented. It was spiritually good but unnecessary at best, idolatrous at worst. Lent tends to be interesting at times because, as I’m the hospice chaplain in a secular company, I’m seen by some as this pillar of sacredness. Especially by our Catholic staff. It freaks them out when on a Lenten Friday I pull out a ham sandwich and dig in. It has provided some opportunites to teach what I know about grace and works.

But I’m rethinking things a little this year. Not so much about abstaining from food or drink or whatever. I understand why fasting from things that are pleasurable is supposed to connect us with the suffering of Christ. However there have been plenty of folks who, rather than fast from something, try to increase the good that they do. I think that’s a good way of looking at things and not quite so self-centered. But I was thinking today that if I’m going to fast, I’d rather fast from the things that pollute my life…worry, fear, self criticism. Life without chocolate only promotes misery and desire. But life without worry for 40 days? Hallelujah! What would it be like to not be afraid for 40 days, or critical of myself or others, or anxious? What can be more enriching and spiritual than that?

So I’m going to fast from worry. What are you fasting from?

Notes to a New Chaplain: 1

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I thought it might be interesting to pass on some thoughts on chaplaincy to those who might be thinking of it as a career.  It’s a pretty specialized field, and it’s hard to find someone who is a chaplain at times to talk about the position. Plus I think there’s a lot in chaplaincy that can – and should – carry over to ministry in general.  So here goes-

First of all, don’t take yourself too seriously.

I know that might sound a little strange as this blog comes off as really serious most of the time. This is where I get that serious stuff out. However I’ve found that the best approach to ministry, especially with the dying, is lightness. Things are dark enough already, and adding weight to weight just doesn’t help.

I take my position seriously, but I don’t have to take myself seriously. I don’t wear a collar or anything else that readily identifies me as clergy. If I do come to work wearing a suit people usually assume I have a funeral or a job interview. Others wear clerics and that’s fine – in some places like the VA hospitals it’s a requirement. I can see times where adding weight and seriouslness to my position is beneficial, as when I need to take on a position of authority in a situation or with a family. However I have seen many times when that collar doesn’t even get you through the door.

Then again, it isn’t just the collar but how it’s worn that makes a big difference. I’ve had some chaplains be so tied to the externals of their position, whether through collars and vestments or even through how they pray, that it gets in the way of their calling, which is soul care. I think if your identity is too tied in with externals it can be a hindrance. Your identity as a chaplain and as clergy in general needs to be tied to who you are and what you bring to the situation. And what you as a chaplain bring to an encounter is, at it’s core, yourself and Whom you represent. Yes we are often called to do things that only we can do because we have been given the external mantle of clergy, whatever that mantle looks like. But if you can’t divest yourself of all those same things and lay them at the cross in service of another you aren’t a minister of Christ.

Dealing with Anger

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One of the challenges some chaplains face, myself included, is the need to be liked and avoid conflict.  We want people to feel good and comforted, and this is what often leads us into the profession.  We’re the Rogerians in the room: providing that unconditional positive regard to all comers. Trouble is that when conflict takes place, it can feel like failure. So when conflict is on the horizon we dodge it. I can talk myself into twists trying to avoid or minimize whatever the problem is. Which tends to make the problem worse. Then when that conflict does erupt I tend to look at myself as the cause of it, as if conflict and anger are wrong and my fault. In doing so I take responsibility for their feelings and reactions, which isn’t healthy or logical.

One of the harder parts of my own development as a chaplain is raising that emotional boundary between myself and others. It’s easy in the caring professions to open one’s self up too much and to care too much for the other person, which neglects ourselves. This isn’t just chaplains but nurses, social workers, and on down the line. Sometimes this self-neglect takes the form of taking on what the other person needs to do – the “fix-it” or “savior” mentality, an outward focus that neglects the self’s boundaries. However I also see that this self-neglect can be inward focused as well, where I don’t try to fix the other person as much as make their problem my own – their problem is a bad reflection on me, so I take it personally. This can happen a lot with handling anger. This still avoids the problem though, and all I end up doing is taking their anger and internalizing it because it’s directed at me.

What I fail to do though is see that even though it’s directed at me it is still their anger, their emotion. How they choose to express it is their issue, not mine.