***trigger alert: as this is a post about colorful language, be aware that there is colorful language abounding after the jump***
Clergy, sometimes it’s OK to use swear words. That’s the summary. For the full text click below, but language aboundeth herein…
A while ago an email drifted through my inbox from The Gospel Coalition. Ususally I delete them, mostly because I find most of them to be uninteresting or not that helpful. Thankfully they list the subjects of the email right off, so you can delete them fairly quickly. But this one caught my attention, because one of the articles in the email was called “Moms, Don’t Trust Your Fickle Feelings“.
“OK”, I thought, “don’t rush to judgment – see what they say.”
And I got mad. Continue reading
photo: A.Kumm-Hanson, Iceland 2016
From Amy Kumm-Hanson; I thought her words spoke a great deal about the difference between the nature of Chaplaincy and its place in ministry.
Chaplaincy is not a cerebral ministry of long hours spent in a pastor’s study in preparation for preaching. It is holding hands through bed rails and wearing isolation gowns and being willing to literally stand in suffering with God’s beloveds. It is not about translating Hebrew or Greek from ancient texts, but about translating scripture into something now that matters to the mother who is delivering her stillborn child or the son losing his father to cancer.
The theology of the cross is particularly apparent to me in my hospital work. This theology holds that God’s love for all of creation is most clearly seen in the act of dying on the cross. That God did the most human thing of all, which is to die. The theological conviction that shapes my ministry as a chaplain is that God knows what it is to suffer and to die, and there is no place that God is unwilling to go, even death. This is good news for all of us who feel immersed in suffering, our own or that of others.
Read her whole post here.
anyone having flashbacks to their CPE supervisor’s office?
If you Google “CPE” chances are pretty good that it will start autofilling “horror stories” in the search box. It seems like there are much more stories about bad experiences in CPE than good. Perhaps this is just bias toward the negative, but it certainly does seem to be that CPE is not a good experience for many.
If you follow that search you’ll see why. I read stories about supervisors that destroyed boundaries and exercises designed to tear people down in front of their peers. One person even wrote that “Clinical Pastoral Education is nothing more than a systematic ‘weeding out’ of orthodox seminarians through a process of enforced radical leftist indoctrination.” It’s criticized as being unnecessary, unhelpful, “navel-gazing”, pseudo-psychoanalysis. So why is it still required for those entering ministry? Is there something wrong with the program? Are supervisors adequately trained and supervised themselves? Or are seminarians missing the point of CPE entirely? Continue reading
Our humanity, as well as our caring nature, often calls us to be sources of strength and encouragement to those who are in crisis. This is true of Doctors, Chaplains, Nurses – in fact the whole hospice team. We hate to be the ones delivering bad news, especially when we feel like the other needs comfort rather than reality when reality most likely is going to be awful.
F. Perry Wilson, MD, MS
Dr. F. Perry Wilson, in a video report on MedPageToday, reports on a recent study concerning what doctors and surrogates believed a terminal ventilator patient’s chances of survival to be. The study found major discrepancies between doctors and families, and while doctors were often more accurate in their assessment that knowledge was rarely transferred to the families in the study. Families were often too optimistic regarding chances of survival. There were several factors involved in this, including religious belief or hope for a miracle, the need to not “give up”, and even magical thinking (“If I circle 50% it might be true”).
The study and analysis reveal how medical clinicians and supporters, including Chaplains and Social Workers, can reframe “hope” to mean hope in a peaceful death rather than hope for a full recovery.
One piece of the puzzle that was not addressed was that this unwarranted optimism could easily be seen as part of the grieving process for families. While education about realistic expectations is certainly necessary and needed, resistance to this advice in favor of “hope” shouldn’t just be written off. Denial, bargaining and magical thinking are part of the grieving process and may show that they are trying to wrestle with acceptance rather than avoid it.
Can an Atheist be a chaplain?
It may seem like a ridiculous question, I know. However Great Britain recently named its first “Non-Religious Pastoral Carer” within its national health system. This sparked debate about whether or not it’s even possible for a non-religious person could technically be a “chaplain” given that the title itself has an obvious religious connotation.
While the argument is interesting, I don’t find it very helpful though. It becomes an argument about semantics and definitions. But frame the question this way and I think it gets interesting: Can someone of one faith provide spiritual support to another of a different faith, or of no faith at all? Put it that way and I think you are getting to a core question for those serving in Chaplaincy already, as well as those planning for ministry. Continue reading
(watch the video above before you read on: it’s funny, creative and has cute doggies)
I wanted to share my most recent verbatim which I’m also using for my certification. It’s in a bit of a different format and is definitely longer than most of my posts. Read on and I hope you benefit from it. You’ll catch why I included the video at the end of the paper. Continue reading
The following is from a remembrance service I did at a facility some years ago. At the end of the service we passed out stones to the families and staff in attendance. I hope you enjoy it.
…Joshua said to them: “Cross over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.” Continue reading
I’ve been reading the excellent book Simply Sane by Dr. Gerald May, primarily for my personal benefit but secondarily for professional benefit. It wasn’t recommended to me by anyone, and I honestly can’t remember how I stumbled upon it, but I’m glad I did.
Dr. Gerald May
It’s an excellent book for those doing pastoral care as well as teachers and educators. I recently read a passage that struck me as to how well it spoke to the position that many Chaplains find themselves in: wondering what to do.
I had an older woman come on service a few days ago who appeared to be greatly depressed. When I introduced myself and gave the usual opening “how are you today?”, her response was “I want to die. Can you give me a shot?” Continue reading
I’ve been trying to write a post about the “death with dignity” movement, but found it very difficult to write something that didn’t turn into a book.
While there has been a great deal of discussion about the rightness or wrongness of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, I’ve found less discussion about what “dignity” means in this context. I found this post by David Mills and wanted to share them in regards to what it might mean for a Christian to die with dignity. The biggest takeaway may be that while one side sees neediness, exposure and helplessness as antithetical to human dignity, Mills sees these at the very heart of Jesus’ own death. His attitude towards the indignities placed upon Him actually made His death more dignified. It’s a lesson we can take away as we seek to conform to Christ.
He was a dignified man suffering all the embarrassing ways cheerful young women the age of his granddaughter deal with the body’s failure as cancer begins shutting down the organs. Dying in a hospice, you lose all rights to modesty as you lose control of your body.
Continue reading
The Chaplain's Report 