Chaplaincy – in the twilight of life

(Ed. I am very pleased to welcome a new blogger to Blogging Chaplains. Anna Fischer is an aged care chaplain from Queensland, Australia. Anna (not her real name) has asked for anonymity to protect the vulnerable people she works with.)

Anna Fischer

June 2017

“You know, Anna, this place really is God’s waiting room, they now come in older, and more incapacitated and they are not ever going to leave here – that’s what aging-in-place really means!”.  I guess I was a little shocked by this statement but then I’m not sure what I really expected.

We live in a world that so deftly sidesteps death that it’s something that occasionally happens to other people – but not to us. We have outsourced death. We have handed the responsibility over to a sector called ‘the providers of aged care’. These providers bear the full weight and responsibility of an entire community’s aging, frailty and death. When this sector is doing it’s best work, it is caring for people with dignity, as they prepare for their impending death.

Now, in one sense, all of life is God’s waiting room. We are all born – and to borrow Heidegger’s somewhat obvious phrase – and we all exist as beings-towards-death. But the environment of a residential care home tends to foreshorten the time scale between being beings-towards-death and death itself.

The poignant poem of Ecclesiastes 12 deeply captures the fleeting nature of life as it enters the end stages. With a solemn beauty, we glimpse the possibility of insubstantiality and fleetingness being encapsulated and transformed, before all becomes mist and is dispelled again.

Remember the Creator in the days of your youth:

Before the days of adversity come,
and the years approach when you will say,
“I have no delight in them”;
² before the sun and the light are darkened,
and the moon and the stars,
and the clouds return after the rain;
³ on the day when the guardians of the house tremble,
and the strong men stoop,
the women who grind cease because they are few,
and the ones who watch through the windows see dimly,
⁴ the doors at the street are shut
while the sound of the mill fades;
when one rises at the sound of a bird,
and all the daughters of song grow faint.
⁵ Also, they are afraid of heights and dangers on the road;
the almond tree blossoms,
the grasshopper loses its spring,
and the caper berry has no effect;
for man is headed to his eternal home,
and mourners will walk around in the street;
⁶ before the silver cord is snapped,
and the gold bowl is broken,
and the jar is shattered at the spring,
and the wheel is broken into the well;
⁷ and the dust returns to the earth as it once was,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it. (HSCB)

The poem captures the depression that accompanies so much aging, the gloom, the tears, the regrets. It captures frailty, and shuffling along on a walking frame, that supports shaky legs and a bowed back.  Teeth fall out, eyes grow dim, visitors are few and sleep elusive. The world fades and grows distant through poor hearing.  The sprightly step is gone the frail-aged fade away, and then suddenly, connection with this world is severed. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

It seems that in the end the teacher can only say “Absolute futility. Everything is futile.” From the perspective of the view of life under the sun, this is truth. Life runs its course and ends in death.

Can a chaplain do or say anything helpful here, in the world of beings-towards-death?

There is just one more thought from Ecclesiastes, the teacher closes his book in another voice. (Ecc 12:12-14)  The teacher returns to the Creator, whom he also calls God, and claims that there is a different type of wisdom, which differs from the usual wisdom that fills so many books about life. This is a wisdom that lies beyond life and death, and endures even across the grave. This is the wisdom that a chaplain brings. The wisdom that has that task, of helping people remember – or even find for the first time – the Creator of their youth and make peace with him, so that there is nothing hidden, good or evil that lies between them and their maker. 

On Entertaining Angels.*

David Pettett

There was a time many years ago when I was in theological college that I was trying to work out what Christian ministry was all about. One pastor told me to forget about all that stuff they teach you in College. His conclusion was that it just didn’t work in the real world and in the pragmatics of dealing with people’s lives. He thought you just had to get on with helping people through the struggles of their lives. He was still keen to share the gospel with them but had come to the conclusion that these would be rare opportunities as he spent his ministry responding to the practical needs of the people around him.

Another senior minister who after 30 years of ministry told me he shaped his preaching more around the business practices and successful lifestyles of his well to do congregation members than a call to radical gospel centred, Christ focused, discipleship. He believed this better communicated with them simply in terms of establishing trusting relationships. With trust he thought it would be easier to bring the challenges of the gospel to bear on successful people who found it difficult to see themselves as sinners needing a Saviour.

I have seen professional men and women who had attended weekly Bible study groups during their university days struggle to work out what it is to be a Christian in their profession. They had gained a good grounding in the scriptures but it had not helped them do the hard work of integrating their Christian life with their professional life. The two remained in quite separate compartments.

Each person in these three stories lacks what Tim Keller calls Theological Vision.[1] He defines theological vision as, “faithful restatement of the gospel with rich implication for life, ministry, and mission in a type of culture at a moment in history.” He means that we must firstly get our theology right and at the same time get our practice right. But our theology and practice will only engage with our culture in a meaningful, gospel centred way, if our theological vision ties the two together. In other words, unlike the professionals mentioned above, we have to do the hard work of integrating our theology with our practice. Inevitably this will mean that in reality our practice will look different in different cultures and in different times because our theological vision integrates our unchanged theology with our contemporary context.

One area I think we need to learn this lesson all over again is the area of hospitality. We know that biblical hospitality is about being generous to the sojourner and the needy. Yet how often do we think we’re being hospitable when we’ve just had a pleasant dinner party with the neighbours? How often do we think we’ve been hospitable when we’ve invited a group of friends to a BBQ because our children are at the same school? These aren’t bad things to do, but in terms of being generous to those in need, they are not necessarily biblical hospitality.

Biblical hospitality can be fairly radical and challenging. Like the family I know who on Christmas Day invited a stranger at church, who had nowhere else to go, to share their Christmas dinner. Other members of the family, looking forward to the usual excesses of the day, were somewhat horrified when they discovered that the tattooed stranger in their midst was no angel.

Theological vision ties us to radical, and sometimes scary, Christian discipleship. It is in the end a simple integrating of our theology with our practice. It can be hard and scary work. It can also be very rewarding. Just ask those who have entertained angels.

Frank had recently been released from prison and had been referred to a church by the prison Chaplain. Three men in the church who had trained as mentors for people coming out of prison welcomed Frank and helped him to have some sense of belonging. One couple got to know Frank and his background and invited him home for a family lunch. They gave other members of the family a heads up about his circumstances and there was a certain amount of nervousness in the air as lunch got off to a start. Nobody knew what to say or what questions to ask until the host asked Frank to tell the family how he had become a Christian.

Frank’s story is a fairly common story for a man caught up in our justice system. But as he began to speak about how at his lowest Jesus found him and brought him home these family members began to realise here was an angel in their midst. Here they were offering true hospitality as they had stepped out of their comfort zone and reached out to a man in need, a man who needed to be part of God’s family. Here they realised that just as God had stepped out of his comfort zone and called them home, they were now being called on to reach out to others in the same way. Here, a family who knew in their heads the theology of Christian hospitality, began to understand how Christian hospitality can work in reality. Here they were reaching out to the stranger and the person in need. Here was a family who were beginning to understand theological vision.

* This blog first appeared on sydneyanglicans.net in October, 2013.

[1] Timothy J. Keller. Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City. Zondervan. Michigan. 2012

The Public Square and God's Comfort

David Pettett

In my previous article, I wrote about the tensions faced by a Christian chaplain who strives to bring the uniqueness of Christ into the pastoral encounter while ministering in the multi-cultural, multi-faith, public square. This tension is often faced by a chaplain who ministers in a public hospital or prison where the requirements of Government forbid chaplains to proselytise. A chaplain may well be the only chaplain of any Faith in a particular institution and, by the nature of the role, is expected to bring sensitive spiritual care to people of all Faiths and none. The question then is how does a Christian chaplain, who believes that God’s final word to humanity is in Christ, effectively minister to all people without compromising his or her own beliefs.

When Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger gave the keynote address at the New South Wales CPE annual conference in 2014 she began by saying that it is when she is fully and deeply grounded in her own Faith she is then able to reach out to people of other Faiths. To be an effective chaplain this attitude of being deeply rooted in your own Faith is essential. It demands and demonstrates integrity. It generates a confidence in one’s own ministry that is not threatened by strong beliefs of another Faith tradition. It is also not threatened by deeply held personal beliefs of another person. At the same time, it communicates to the other that this chaplain is a person of integrity and is also someone who has something valuable to offer in the pastoral encounter.

The chaplain takes the person they are into the pastoral encounter. Being comfortable with who you are and the Faith position you personally hold tends to communicate hope and strength if it is held without any sense of superiority. Your comfort with yourself and your position will enable you to bring comfort to others.

The apostle Paul describes the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as the “Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” (2 Cor. 1:3) It is this compassion of the Father the Christian chaplain seeks to bring to the pastoral encounter. Its purpose is to bring comfort.

Paul describes himself in this passage as sharing “abundantly in the sufferings of Christ” (v.5). He is here describing himself as deeply rooted in the Christian Faith. “Abundantly sharing in the sufferings of Christ” enables him to bring comfort to others. As he does this, others may also see that, even in their own sufferings, they are able to share the same comfort the Apostle has. A comfort that comes from the “Father of compassion and all comfort.”

Clearly, Paul is speaking to believers in this passage.[1] The suffering that a non-Christian person has, cannot be described as a “sharing in the sufferings of Christ”. And yet, as the chaplain shares themselves with others who are suffering, the other can see that this person, the Christian sharing the sufferings of Christ, knows what suffering is about and, perhaps more importantly, knows what comfort in the midst of suffering is about. This comfort, which comes from God the Father, can speak to the person the chaplain seeks to bring comfort to. To bring this comfort, the chaplain needs to be deeply grounded in their own Faith. That is, they need to share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, because it is only then that they will know God’s comfort, which they can then bring to others.

Being who you are as a Christian enables you as a chaplain to bring real comfort to those in the public square who are suffering, whether that place be a hospital, a prison or any other context where Christians do not “own” the space. Sharing deeply in the sufferings of Christ grounds you in your own Faith and thereby enables you to bring comfort and encouragement to a hurting world.

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[1] Paul has addressed this letter to “The church of God that is at Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:1) and he addresses his readers as “brothers” in v.8.

Christian pastoral care and multi-culturalism

David Pettett

In a recent post on the value of measuring outcomes of pastoral interventions in hospitals I asked the question about what is meant by ‘the spiritual needs of the patients’? What are ‘spiritual needs’? How are spiritual needs defined? When pastoral carers and healthcare professionals speak of ‘spiritual needs’, do they mean the same thing? Are we speaking the same language?

I suggested that we are not speaking the same language but that Christians who engage in pastoral care in public institutions never the less have a vital role to play. Ultimately the ‘outcomes’ of Christian pastoral care cannot be measured with any scientific accuracy. This is not to say that pastoral intervention has no ‘value’ or benefit. When patients are surveyed about how they feel after a pastoral intervention they generally report a positive outcome. These can sometimes be seen in shorter hospital stays, improved pain management and better cardiovascular outcomes.[1]

A survey conducted after a pastoral care intervention may record these measurable benefits but in fact Christian pastoral care brings a whole lot more. However, as the term ‘pastoral care’ itself is used more and more in a secular context, the distinctiveness of Christian pastoral care risks losing its unique focus and benefit. In another earlier post, I argued that a biblical understanding of the human condition, of who God is and of where the world is heading is the necessary basis for bringing real compassion and empowerment to suffering people in hard places. Pastoral ministry that relies only on psychological insights into the human condition and does not bring a biblical understanding is not pastoral ministry as Jesus brought it to those he encountered in their suffering and it is not the legacy Jesus left us.

My fear for pastoral ministry in the public square is that the unique insights into the human condition which a Christian understanding brings is at risk of following the secular agenda in an attempt to remain active and relevant in the public sphere. Yet if Christian pastoral carers lose the uniqueness of the Christian message in secular institutions, Christianity will lose its prophetic call to a world in need.

Pastoral care is not simply ‘intentional friendship’. In trying to work out how people from different faith backgrounds can work together in pastoral care David Oliphant claims to have developed the ‘philosophy’ of ‘intentional friendship’[2]. He offers this idea as the lowest common denominator by which people of different faiths and none can work alongside each other to bring ‘pastoral care’ to those who are suffering.

I must admit I do not understand why Christians see a need to lose their unique and prophetic voice in the face of multi culturalism and because they life in a multi faith community. Isn’t this the very context in which, to be faithful to our God and to be respectful of others, we must speak more of the uniqueness of Christ? If all our pastoral care is doing is achieving shorter hospital stays, better pain management, better cardiovascular outcomes, and respecting people of other faiths, then we fail as Christians in the world.

I am not advocating for disrespect of anyone of another faith. I am arguing for Christians to do better at working out how to be Christian in a multi-faith context. And I am arguing that this does not mean reaching an agreement on what we have in common and leaving the rest behind. What a grey world that would be. Multi-culturalism allows and celebrates our differences. It is the job of Christians to work out how we can best bring our unique message into a multi-faith, multi-cultural context in a way that respects both the demands of the government institutions in which chaplains minister and also respects people of other faiths and none who are created in the image of God.

To that end my future posts will explore how this can be done.

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[1] See for example, Duncan Blake. Clinician and Carer Both Help Suffering, in Australian Journal of Pastoral Care and Health Vol. 5, No. 1 March 2011. pp. 11-14.

[2] See Dr Oliphant’s thesis here: http://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws%3A2377/datastream/PDF/view

Empathy, emotional clusters and the accurate identification of the functions of pastoral care.

by Rev. Stuart Adamson

In the first section of this three part series on blogging chaplains back in September 2016, I looked at the way integrating pastoral experience and ongoing reflection on scripture can enhance our pastoral practice, and how, with an encouragement to enjoy learning and play with ideas, teaching resources can be modified and enhanced.

In this second section, I look at empathic listening and my concept of what I call "emotional clusters". After explaining what I believe emotional clusters are, I will outline how I believe they can help chaplains more accurately identify the pastoral need in the person they are caring for.

It is an act of love and respect to patients, parishioners, people we might be caring for, even a friend, if we take the time to listen to their heart - to really listen to what is going on for them.

But empathic listening is no exercise in parroting - merely restating and obvious emotion in another.

I call effective empathic listening "exegeting hearts".

We are big on exegesis of scripture in the Anglican diocese of Sydney. And for good reason. We have a high view of scripture as the Word of God and its power to change hearts. But I wonder if we might not be more effective pastors if we were less ready to jump to conclusions, and more ready to listen to people's hearts. The mouth speaks of what the heart is full.

I spent some time with someone today who I was determined to listen to.

As I listened and reflected back his emotions to him I developed an appreciation of his whole emotional state.

He was utterly exhausted. He was torn between private and work responsibilities. He felt he couldn't go on any longer. That he was approaching burnout. But he was highly motivated by a sense of duty, a desire to do the right thing and to be seen to do the right thing to the extent that he was prepared to keep working to his ongoing detriment.

In my early teaching of the six functions of pastoral care (or eight, as they have become in my training sessions (see the previous instalment in this three part series)), I taught that sustaining is the relevant pastoral function when someone is feeling overwhelmed.

The concept of emotional clusters brings greater nuance to the chaplain’s in-the-moment assessment of the one they are caring for.

Exhaustion. Feeling like he had come to the end of his rope. Physical depletion and personal illness. These were the words and phrases that came up in our discussion.

Together they cause the word overwhelmed to spring to mind.

In addition, an intense feeling of wanting to shout out in frustration, to be at a loved one's side, and an agreement that he was wanting to clear the decks and be there for them, but felt he could not leave his post. Added into the mix was a self loathing and an anger.

Together these finely nuanced expressions of emotion combine to build a strong feeling of being trapped. The function? Liberation.

Care that was both sustaining and liberating was needed.

But those needs were arrived at after much listening, after a patient identification of nuanced emotions that together formed emotional clusters that suggested two of the pastoral functions.

We prayed. He determined to raise the matter then and there with his employer.

He needed to give himself permission to stop and take practical steps to ensure the gathering vortex of unhealthy levels of stress did not draw him down to ongoing illness and burnout.

Empathic listening led to the identification of emotional clusters. Those clusters suggested two functions of pastoral care which facilitated, under God, ministry that was both sustaining and liberating.

(Editor's note: Stuart has written a followup article to this one. Follow this link: http://bloggingchaplains.blogspot.com/2022/06/empathy-emotional-clusters-and-accurate.html )