Powerful Words

Chaplaincy is Christian ministry in hard places, bringing a Christian voice to the public sphere. Chaplains do this in partnership with Churches which may not have a voice in these places.

Chaplains are equipped with theological and pastoral care training. They are skilled in speaking with people who would not necessarily identify as Christian but find themselves in difficult life circumstances.  They bring Christ’s compassion to people experiencing distress or trauma. In times of anxiety and uncertainty Chaplains offer the message of the hope, peace and forgiveness found in Jesus Christ.

Anglicare Centre for Pastoral Development (ACPD) and CASE magazine recently co-hosted a conference on chaplaincy in the Public Space called 'Powerful Words" convened at New College, The University of New South Wales.   New College has kindly made the sessions available to the public. An outline of the session is listed below together with a llnk to audio files..



     David Pettett             Peter Ellem               Rhys Bezzant                Peter Frith             Kate Bradford

Keynote Address: 'Our Days and God’s Years: Pastoral Care in Times of Change' Dr Rhys Bezzant

 

Seminar 1 ‘A Captive Audience - Christian Ministry to people in prison’  Rev'd David Pettett

Seminar 2 ‘Chaplaincy at the Crossroads’   Rev'd Peter Ellem

Seminar 3 ‘Chaplains in the firing line: The Lindt Café siege’  Rev'd Peter Frith

 

Radio-Play Part 1  ‘The Job Verbatim: What not to say’  Kate Bradford & actors

Seminar 4 ‘Responding to Job’   Kate Bradford

Access to all the sessions is available here: http://www.newcollege.unsw.edu.au/audios/audio-archives

Notes on the International Prison Chaplains' Conference, Sept 2015

By Colin Sheehan.

I was pleasantly surprised by the recent International Prison Chaplains Association (IPCA) Conference held in Sydney, Australia in September 2015 at St Ignatius College, Riverview. The Association holds an international conference only once every five years. Here are my rough notes as I took them.

For me – apart from the pleasure of personal fellowship with Chaplains from far afield - Hong Kong, Germany, Sweden, Congo, New Zealand, New Guinea etc. – there was also good thinking on other matters by two gifted speakers, namely:
Rev. Dr Ulrica Fritzon (ordained minister, Church of Sweden, currently on study leave from placement as Prison Chaplain in Malmo, Sweden; has worked in the Restorative Justice program, Pollsmoor Prison, Cape Town SA, and
Rev Hennie Human (National Director, Spiritual Care, Correctional Services, South Africa).

1. Rev Dr Ulrica led the 90 minute plenary session on Monday morning
   
   Her topic: Restorative justice and reconciliation - (supporting her were two Chaplains from Pollsmoor Prison - Jenni and Jonathan)
   
   Matters covered included – terminologies, such as …
   
   Restitution – the return of something to its original state (e.g. of dignity or of power) made necessary because …
   
   Crime creates irreparable damage; trauma and guilt.
   
   Living and time merely preserves the trauma does nothing to return something towards its original state.
   
   Restorative justice - allows the victim to find from the perpetrator some language to describe the event
   
   Sharing the story and painful experience - victim and perpetrator are benefited ...
   
   See John de Gruchy - reconciliation and restorative justice: the art of R~
   http://www.restorativejustice.org/articlesdb/articles/4385/view?searchterm=reconciliation
   
   Punitive systems - do not recognise the language of trauma or of guilt
   
   Whereas the experience of listening - depending on God and his ways makes reconciliation a possibility
   
   Reconciliation begins by being reconciled in the grace of God
   
   Hope is generated in the face of (and despite) the trauma of extraction (the taking away by force) & of evil
   
   
   Dr Fritzon's session looked in some detail at the Restorative Justice Program run by Chaplaincy in the Pollsmoor Prison
   
   It is: a confronting outspoken and faith based program run over 6 days with a further ten weeks of follow up –
   
   'The program is one that is not natural to the ways of Sweden (where confrontation is avoided)'
   
   The program - 3-4 offenders together with facilitator / supporter
   
   Day 1 intro - damage caused by crime, families share their experience
   
   Day 2 damage caused by crime and reality of the crisis - offenders back ground Victims share their experience
   
   Day 3 core values
   
   Day 4 responsibility accountability and confession
   
   Day 5 repentance forgiveness and reconciliation
   
   Day 6 closing function – with the voluntary involvement of the offender family - a very NB aspect
   
   The follows - Min 10 weeks follow up in preparation for the 'victim-offender dialogue' – with studies in:-

• lying (pathological lying perpetuates the hurting of the victim);
• habit formation (can be both good and bad);
• reconciliation and forgiveness (we will never forgive you ... that's okay - I'm not here for your forgiveness I'm here to listen to you);
• Anger – all given in preparation for the meeting with victim, family and community.
  
  NOTE: at the end - has anything changed? (the victims loss remains) - But they (the offender and the victim) have touched each other in a safe environment and there has been conversation
  
  Why do it if you are an offender?
  
  Participation arises out of a desire 'to become a better person'
  
  Many think they are too hopeless.
  
  They think it is not possible.
  
  Hurt people hurt more people… but the program is premised on the idea that:

• Offenders are not evil - almost always they are very hurt ... it is a very releasing (liberating) truth to discover as an offender that they have responsibility (even when their parents failed them in their parental responsibility).
• They are encouraged to not stop at this painful connection or insight but to go onto take personal responsibility for offending (they don't have responsibility for what their parents failed to do for them)
  
  Confession - gospel –
  
  But there's no common absolution or forgiveness in this program – there is however individual, personal and public confession in the front of other inmates. This is done in preparation for their meeting with the victim(s) and their families – this is where offenders practice personal confession.

Restorative justice (RJ) is 'asymmetrical' – i.e. this is not mediation; this is not aimed at sharing blame. There's none to share.
This understanding helps when approaching the meeting between the victim and the offender –
RJ isn't mediation - there isn't a shared moral inventory (or playing-field) crime is a violation - it should be recognised and the offender must take responsibility for the offence.
Change-focus-paradox – when an offender shifts from self to 'the other' and seeks to answer Qns … as a result of my behaviour

• Who has been hurt?
• What are their needs?
• Whose obligations are these?
  
  To do so the offender must change the focus from ego (me myself and I) ... The paradox is that this shift also does something for the offender
  
  By helping 'the other' he discovers that – he's actually helping himself

• I have been enabled to say I am so sorry - CAPABILITY ACT
• Victim has received admission of responsibility from the offender - CONFIRMATIVE ACT
  
  Truth - in this process - will not be pleasant
  
  But it is far better than glossing over the results and effects of the offending behaviour and pretending that things are okay
• Offenders may fear the confrontation - what the victim might say / what he (as offender) might be expected to say
• RJ is: stop pretending that things are not as bad as they really area real RJ reveals the detestable reality
  
  The address concluded with

1. An analogy - The Spiders web – Dr Ulrica insisted that these truths bear on us as humans in community …
• We humans live together (closest persons are interconnected)
• We are born in relationship and we continue to grow into and out of relationship
• When we violate each other we also violate ourselves.
• The spider mends the broken connections.
• If the broken connections are not mended the spider will die – is that the truth for humanity also?
• Our lives (all lives) are dependent on mending the broken connections.
2. Martin Huber - philosopher theologian argued that an offender must addresses guilt in three spheres OR fail

legal sphere - where he atones for his legal guilt by serving a prison sentence
In front of God
Between you and me
If we imagine that we are guilty only towards ourself ... then we never remove or have guilt 'covered' / 'remedied'

In very simple yet profound terms – this touches the direction of guilt – for the offender who has taken a life …

FOR it was not the Judge's husband that I killed it was her husband that I killed

Confession - expresses a relief – uncovers the guilt shame and sorrow


3. The movie: Railway Man – a true story of POW Eric Lomax who harboured bitterness and hatred towards his wartime captors who cruelly and heartlessly tortured him in captivity – the final reconciliation scene is a moving testimony to the power of reconciliation to make restitution and build genuine lifelong friendship in the place of bitterness, anger and hatred.

4. Then finally a 20 minute Q&A

• An offender should never go into this RJ program with a requirement to get forgiveness.
1. It's about taking responsibility.
2. Some victims may never want to meet the offender

Offenders need to take on responsibility despite what a parent or other person in the family that he grew up in may have done to cause him harm.
Sitting with the family (has its own challenges).

1. Prepare the family - guide them, they aren't used to speaking to each other, the family may not even know whether or not their offending family member was guilty or not.... The Family has opportunity to take their own responsibility.
   
   My own personal take-away? A sense of shame at the NSW Service for taking a recent U-turn towards retributive justice inspired by the raw legitimate pain of victims of serious crime stirred by certain very unhelpful radio shock jocks and newspaper tabloids who promote the theory that violence must be met by violence. Nothing is ever easy. Trust in a system that celebrates the culture of violence and is devoid of hope is a stark contradiction to the benefits espoused at this conference arising from restorative justice. My prayer? – That the NSW Upper House inquiry into current practices for classifying Serious Offenders will reject retributive justice and embrace principles consistent with restoration and reconciliation.
   
   2. Rev. Hennie Human took our second plenary session - Wednesday 23rd September – he also spent 90 minutes with us
   
   His topic: Transformational Correctional Ministry (he deliberately did not use the phrase 'prison ministry' – chaplaincy is not in isolation
   
   He argued that we must challenge and interrogate our Role of spiritual care or chaplaincy in the correctional environments?
   
   Our Relevance?
   
   Our Impact?
   
   Show us? Anecdotes? What statistical data is there in support of our role in the system?
   
   What is our contribution towards rehabilitation?
   
   What value is added for the many services (including Chaplaincy) that work in the system?
   
   We are & must be evaluated against other services (welfare, psychology, education, training, work)
   
   Chaplaincy is subject to Influences (internal and externally) on the environment ... We are not 'stand-alone-people'
   
   e.g. the White paper on the South African correctional service – set goals for the entire service …

• Moved from punitive to rehabilitation
• Individual needs based programs
• Programs to address criminal behaviour
• (Raised the question as to what is to be the Involvement of faith based organisations?)
• Demilitarisation of the system
• Multi-faith demands recognition - making room for others
• Offender rehab path
  
  Dinosaur phenomenon - do we still need you? Must we still have chaplaincy? Or are you dinosaurs?
  
  Has the Chaplain kept track of what is happening in the environment? Are we complaining …
  
  They (the department / the inmates) are not hearing us?
  
  They aren't making room for us? ... We may be denying that we have not been moving with the times
  
  See Diagram ... Exploration in the face of change internally and externally
  
  Perhaps we aren't relevant?
  
  Maybe we do need to change?
  
  We must not stay in the past,
  
  We can't survive on the past,
  
  Offender behaviour has change dramatically since 80's 90's in South Africa
  
  Previously it was easy to get inmates to work – they needed compensation, they needed respite from boredom,
  
  BUT Violence has risen; there is more gangsterism in the community and in the gaol
  
  Has Chaplaincy adapted: does it continue to show its relevance
  
  'People do not resist change but resist to being changed' Peter Senge[1]
  
  Transformation: A process that never stops in chaplaincy; continue good research, listen to needs of the system, - change in
• form
• appearance
• Nature or character.
  
  Correctional ministry transformation is like a grub becoming a chrysalis becoming a butterfly
  
  Concluding remarks  / challenges from Rev Human
  
  1. What are the elements of transformational change?

• Redefine our goal - role of spiritual care
• Redesign our services
• Redefine the role of the church and church (faith) communities in this process
• Impact measurement...
• Monitoring and evaluation process.
• Training of staff
• Care of caregiver
  
  Redefining the role of the chaplain?
  
  Relational - for Identifying with:
  * God;
  * Inmates;
  * Victims;
  * Family of victim and inmate;
  * Correctional services: the officials, Mgt, the systems; the conditions ... With a view to Influencing the Community
  
  2. What is the purpose of correctional ministry - what is the prison chaplain come to do?
  
  Assist with redesigning and adopting positive lifestyles
  
  Restoring relationships
  
  Healing emotional wounds anxiety guilt feelings Low self esteem
  
  Develop ...Hope
  
  Professor Swanepoel - Uni. SA ... What are the spiritual needs? What do they want us to be for them?
  * Moral development
  * Restorative forgiveness programs
  * Self-development programs
  * Family relationships programs
  * Pre-release programs
  
  3. Impact of programs
  
  Quality assurance by correctional services for the programs ... Is it assisting
  
  Measurement instrument
  
  Spiritual care progress report
  
  4. What is the role of the churches and their faith groups (the grace community)?
  
  Forgiveness
  
  Grace
  
  Acceptance
  
  Restoration
  
  Reconciliation
  
  Care
  
  Support
  
  Prevention
  
   
  
  Towards the victim, offender, and their families – it is an integrated ministry
  
  Requiring ongoing Training
  
  Retraining
  
  Facilitator skill development
  
  Spiritual assessment
  
  Report writing
  
  
  
  Quotables:

• No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but the lowest ones, (1994) Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa
• Aim to influence humane conditions and dignity ... Human rights...
• By Talking, influencing and bringing about change – for example, doing so in such a way that palliative care in a prison ward for the dying looks feels and expresses humanity towards a dying inmate.
  
  
  People will try to tell you that all the great opportunities have been satisfied
  
  In reality the world changes every second blowing new opportunities in all directions including yours - Ken Hakuta[2].

[1] Peter Michael Senge, American systems scientist who is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute, and the founder of the Society for Organizational Learning
[2] "Dr. Fad" since 1983, is an American inventor and television personality. Hakuta, as Dr. Fad, was the host of the popular kids invention TV show, The Dr. Fad Show, which ran from 1988 to 1994. The show featured kids' inventions, and promoted creativity and inventiveness in children.

Warp and Weft of Chaplaincy

Kate Bradford
Oct 2015

Warp and weft are weaving terms for threads in fabric production. The warp threads are the longitudinal threads that run the length of a roll of cloth. Weft threads are the latitudinal threads that cross from side to side, passing above and below the long warp threads. Weft is an old English word meaning ‘that which is woven’. The weft threads create patterns by weaving above and below the warp threads.

As a metaphor, warp and weft refers to the entire fabric of something. When chaplains minister they are working with the fabric of another’s life.

In the fabric of people’s lives, the lengthwise warp threads run from eternity to eternity carrying the deep structure of universe and beyond. Christian care aligns with the great themes of scripture and the way in which God is reaching out to people with his message of hope. These long threads carry doctrines, narrative theologies, systematisations of themes and overarching narratives.  

The weft are threads of life woven through the eternal longitudinal threads. These threads move across, in and out, in front and behind of unseen realities that delineate all that is both seen, and unseen. Warp threads are tied to human history. They are situated within culture; language; society; geography; families; worshipping communities; and places of work and recreation. The social sciences provide insights into the objective facts of the warp threads; however, the fields of psychology and spirituality provide us with insights into the subjective experiences of lived realities. 

The Bible itself is a book of warp and weft. It is woven along the eternal threads of the grand themes of salvation and redemption, yet in many places these themes are told through the rich deposits of lived lives ─ situated in history, culture, language and events ─ many of which are told through the personal responses of individuals. The ‘law’ correlates to the warp and the ‘prophets’ and ‘writings’ contain the residue of lives threaded through eternal structures.  The narratives and wisdom writings of Scripture illuminate the weft threads of Israel and the infant church and individual experience as in the Psalms.

As chaplains minister, they help people align their weaving around and along the deep structures of the universe, working deftly with eternal truths, observable objective facts and subjective realities of individual experience and existence.

At the heart of chaplaincy formation and training is the art of working with the weft threads of another’s life, in the God-created reality of the world. The chaplain is listening to God, attuning to the warp threads, which set times, limits and boundaries. They are also listening deeply to the sufferer, to their situational and emotional worlds while being mindful of their own thoughts and reactions.

The chaplain’s only access to knowledge of the warp threads is through revelation from God himself, ultimately in Jesus Christ as revealed in scripture, illuminating the deep structure of the reality we see and responded to, and experienced through a rich personal devotional life embedded in Scripture and prayer.  It is the chaplain’s own understanding of the revealed Biblical themes of creation, fall, sin, brokenness, sacrifice, grace, repentance, forgiveness, redemption, image, light, life, love, hospitality and self-giving service that will chart the course of care and support.

The weft threads are guided by a well-informed understanding of situations. This understanding is gained from a firm grasp of situational understandings from scripture: how do societies, families and relationships work? What does it look like when things are intact, and what is it like when these structure breakdown?

The social sciences of anthropology, geography and sociology can give insight into the external data of a situation of the weft through studies of religious phenomena, cross-cultural studies and family systems theories. The more subjective fields of psychology and spirituality give insight into people’s emotion and experience. Particularly helpful are insights gained from studies such as Bowlby’s attachment theory or Fowler’s stages of faith.

In chaplaincy training, the purpose of writing up and presenting Verbatim case studies is to methodically review actual pastoral practice.

The introduction of the case study catches general sociological information and the conversation captures emotions, feelings and further facts that illuminate the state of the weft. As the conversation unfolds, the sufferer reveals more of themselves and their specific situation or crisis, and the chaplain helps the sufferer weave their weft according to deep eternal truths, concrete realities of the situation and individual emotional responses to which are tied even deeper needs.

In writing up a verbatim the data is evaluated through several lenses. One such lens is commonly known as ‘Spiritual Assessment’, which is both a horizontal and vertical assessment. The horizontal review collects sociological and emotional data, which gives some insight in to the patient’s underlying meaning, belonging/relationships and desires and fears; the vertical review assesses the sufferer’s transcendent faith system, loves and hopes.

Another lens, often referred to as a ‘Theological Reflection’, reviews the situation from the point of view of the chaplain. The first part is a personal assessment which involves an activity of ‘free thought association’ to see what images, feelings, thoughts, scripture verses etc. come to mind, and to check if  biases or prejudices in the chaplain’s thinking emerge, and then review  any hunches or possible ways forward that come to mind.

The second part involves theological assessment which identifies which warp threads or theological themes or issues are defining the sufferer’s case, and then thinking creatively for possible ways forward given the actual situation on view, and the sufferer’s personal experience and resources to weave a new weft pattern in and around the warp threads in place.

The ministry is always a ministry of working warp and weft of fabric that bears God’s image and seeks to see the fabric align with its eternal weaver.