MARCH 21,2003

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

I have been thinking about leadership as a task: We are all leaders in particular contexts, or we would not be here. But I am thinking specifically about leadership in CPSP, undoubtedly related to thoughts about my own mortality.

I am aware, with some nostalgia, that the founding generation, which was old to begin with, is passing on. That?s the way the world was created. We have threescore and ten, or four score, and some get a little extra, but not much. In twelve years I will have had my fourscore, if I make it that far. CPSP is not going to get much more out of me.

I cannot think of anything more important than the emergence of strong, wise leadership for the decades to come. Without it, we will be a forlorn community. We see the crisis in our national life and on the international scene, the fruits of unwise leadership, overly cautious or incautious, bullying or indecisive. The whole world is anxious this week because of the flaws in the leadership of nations.

Competent leadership consists of:
-strength that does not bully.
-a caution that is not afraid to act boldly.
-a vision of what is up ahead that protects a community from too many bad surprises.
-and perhaps most importantly of all, empathy for the weakest among us.

None of us exercise competent leadership consistently. Like our time on the baseball diamond or on the links, some times in the batter's box are better than others. Our batting average or golf score is just an average. Sometimes just showing up is an act of leadership.

In 1990 fifteen persons showed up to create CPSP ex nihilo. Many others said they would come. We expected 30 to 40. Each one of those fifteen was very important. We knew we were contemplating a potentially dangerous course. Had we been fourteen instead of fifteen, we may have opted to withdraw from the field.

Following the organizational meeting, five dropped out before a shot was fired. Two dropped out a couple of years later, two died, Al Anderson the year before last, and Don Gum last year. Two are in semi-retirement, still with us but not active, and four of the original fifteen are still active and present with us: Perry Miller, Bill Carr, David Moss, and I.

Don Gum is second of the fifteen to die, after Al Anderson. The river of life takes us one by one. Don was a flawed and broken person. He also had a considerable energy and creativity. He accomplished more than some of us who have no discernable major flaws. And he showed up. Ninety percent, they say, is just showing up, and he showed up. You have to wonder, if he had not shown up, whether we would have this community that surrounds us. We were conscious of how few we were, and fourteen is a lot fewer than fifteen. Besides, Don was a strong leader in the wider community, and President of the College of Chaplains, which gave us some political cover. We needed it, particularly given some of the other characters we had aboard. Don was second president of CPSP. In his own idiosyncratic and sometimes disconcerting ways he contributed to our well-being. I think it appropriate that we stand for a minute of tribute to Don. May he rest in peace.

The six of us who remain are mostly ?has-beens.? The sun is setting on us. As a tribute the six who are still with us, I read this poem which was sent to me by my friend Deryck Durstan, attributed, I think falsely, to Dr. Seuss:

Dr. Seuss on Aging
I cannot see.
I cannot pee.
I cannot chew.
I cannot screw.
Oh, my God, what can I do?
My memory shrinks.
My hearing stinks.
No sense of smell.
I look like hell.
My mood is bad ? can you tell?
My body?s drooping.
Have trouble pooping.
The Golden Years have come at last.
The Golden Years can kiss my ass.

I do not suggest we venerate the fifteen, or the remnant thereof. Many others who came into CPSP later have contributed even more to our prosperity. To name only a few, I point to Myron Madden, Ben Bogia, Richard Liew, and Ken Blank. George Hull, Beng Imm Low, and Henry Uy put this meeting together. Foy Richey has demonstrated considerable energy and leadership in his role as President. John deVelder negotiated our place now as a sponsoring organization of Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling, and is Vice President of the JPCC?s Board of Managers. All members of CPSP will now receive a subscription of the JPCC from this point on. I also want to commend Jim Gebhart, who has conducted in a highly effective manner a major revision and upgrading of our Standards and at the same time entered into conversations with the DOE on the subject of recognition of CPSP.

CPSP is not just another organization. We represent specific values that should never be negotiated away: Three principal values called CPSP into being, values that remain central to our existence as a community:
1. A return to theology.
2. The conviction that a clinically trained person is one who is committed to continuing personal transformation.
3. A commitment to a communal, participatory political structure in our own organizational life.

1. A return to theology.
Recovery of soul is the metaphor that we have used to highlight this issue. The return to theology is not a cheap shot at psychology. A minister who is not broadly familiar with psychology, who is unaware of the significance of Freud and his revolution, is by definition unlearned and predictably incompetent. But psychology is not our home. Theology requires obedience to the requirements of love and justice, whereas psychology claims to be a science, and as a science has a tradition of relative non-commitment to specific values.

Our knowledge of the human heart is deepened by the contribution of Freud and his heirs. It is in parsing the inner world of the human heart/soul where psychology and religion meet. But Solomon was psychoanalytically informed almost 3,000 years before Freud. He was called wise because he knew the workings of the human heart and its recesses. He knew that a woman who really loved a newborn child would rather see it raised by an abductor than slain, and thus he deciphered who the real mother was. He knew a woman who would allow the child to be put to the sword rather than have her aggressiveness thwarted was unlikely to be the mother.

As David was dying Solomon's half brother, Adonijah, who thought he should be king instead, made an attempt to roll over Solomon. He lost. Solomon was merciful, and released him on good behavior. "If he proves to be a worthy man, not one of his hairs will fall; but if he is wicked, he will die." Shortly, however, Adonijah asked permission to marry Abishag. Abishag was the beautiful young maiden, sought for through all Israel, who was commissioned to minister to David's in his last days, in the hopes that she would revitalize him with more salutary effect than chicken soup. Abishag?s ministrations notwithstanding, David soon died. When Solomon heard of Adonijah's request, to take Abishag to wife, the merciful Solomon's response was swift and decisive. He summarily ordered Adonijah to be put to death. Solomon knew that the symbolic power of Adonijah's wish to have his father's last consort, and Solomon saw that Adonijah's political ambitions were still active, even after having been pardoned. Solomon was wise in the ways of the human heart.

Theology as a discipline differs from psychology in that it deals in the question of what is commanded. In this regard we are informed by Karl Barth, for whom obedience was a central issue of attention in theologizing. The Talmudic tradition also emphasizes the matter of obedience in a dramatic way. But the truth is that all religion is built on one or another call to obey what is commanded. Anton Boisen himself gave a particular spin to the issue through his vision that he and we must break down the wall between medicine and religion, not that he thought that to be the only thing commanded, but rather a singular command in addition to other commandments. Every clinical case, therefore, should be examined under the auspices of the question of what is commanded, of the patient, the physician, the medical team, the family members, friends, and chaplain.

Parenthetically, we know that people tend to think of what is commanded in terms of commandments, often prohibitory commandments. What has come clearer in recent years is that story and narrative are sometimes more effective bearers of what is commanded.

This focus on what is commanded is not taking place in most clinical pastoral training. I know from my travels. What generally passes for theologizing is an embarrassment, or should be. What we typically observe under the label of theologizing in clinical pastoral training programs is free association on biblical texts. What biblical passage does this case bring to mind? The response of course is, nine times out of ten, the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son. This is the inflation of the value of free association beyond all reason.

Another common gambit in launching into theologizing is to pose the question, ?Where is god in this case?? This could be called the search for the absent god. She is in the cafeteria, perhaps. Wondering where god is, say during the holocaust is a poignant undertaking, and not an unworthy venture. However, it is quite secondary to the primary theological question, "Adam, where art thou?" In other words, where are you in relation to what is commanded?

Most theologizing is limited to the task of establishing contact with one's feelings, which is certainly a commendable enterprise. Not to be in touch with one's feelings is dangerous to oneself and others. However, contact with one?s feelings is not the alpha and omega of theological reflection. Serious theological reflection calls for examination of the context of feelings and the requirements of love and justice.

Take, for example, the Iraq War: We may have feelings about the war. We may be filled with pride and patriotism, or have feelings of revulsion at the pretext for the war or the destruction and loss of life involved. Theological reflection on the war would mean an exploration of the requirements of the commands for love and justice, a process that goes beyond a simple exploration of feelings.

Serious, disciplined theological reflection in clinical training is rare, replaced generally by a mix of 19th century piety, medieval catholicism, and pop psychology. (I refer you to a recent article in the Journal of Religion and Health that encourages patients to meditate on the 19th century hymn, "In the Garden.")

A psychologically informed minister is a blessing to any community, and a minister uninformed psychologically is a potential menace. A minister who does not know how to think theologically is even more of a menace. Recovery of soul in CPSP means in part the recovery of a capacity to theologize.

2. A revivified personal authority founded on the requirements of continuing personal transformation.

The clinical training movement has been haunted from its beginning by the conflict between the exploration of the self and the development of pastoral skills, the one rather inward looking, and the other more outwardly oriented. Each is important in its own way. Each wishes to assert preeminence. Boisen and Dunbar were unequivocally on the side of person transformation and Cabot and Giles on the side of skill development. The movement has never really faced up to the conflict, but generally has sided with Cabot and Giles. They sell better in the marketplace. While Boisen lived the personal transformation agenda was preeminent. When he died the tide began to turn.

A focus on personal transformation is quite problematic politically. Until a little past mid-century pastoral clinicians tended to be characters. They were wild. They defied convention. Smoked themselves into lung cancer, drank into alcoholism, and misbehaved generally. And how we miss them. The rough-hewn idiosyncratic and often obnoxious characters many of whom were still around mid-century were almost nowhere to be found, replaced by the politically correct and experts in public relation.

I have been to a trainload of meetings of Boisen's followers in the past four decades, and
I have the impression that with more and more persons who are allegedly clinically trained, I have the distinct feeling that nobody is home. They have the appearance, in the wonderful words of Harold Bloom, of a "rabblement of lemmings." If you pretend to follow Boisen you are obliged to become so uniquely yourself that you become a distinctive and memorable person.

In clinical pastoral training that is faithful to its origins, the question, "Who are you?" takes precedence over the question, "What skills do you possess?"

Much foolish talk abounds of late deriding the notion of "outcomes" in clinical training. Of course we expect outcomes. Who can imagine a supervisor saying: "Come join my training program. We will have no expectations for what you will accomplish by so doing." However, because some of our colleagues have transformed outcomes into paint by numbers process does not invalidate the necessity of holding to a concept of desired outcomes. One of our desired outcomes is that of personal transformation, and more specifically, a transformation that penetrates the typical narcissism and grandiosity that seems inevitably to accompany a call to the ministry. The late Reuel Howe was a professor at Virginia Theological Seminary during the middle of the last century, and someone who appreciated the value of clinical pastoral training. He wrote in vivid language about his idea of desired outcomes in clinical training:
"I want [the students] "dunked" -plunged deeply into life, brought up
gasping and dripping, and returned to us humble and ready to learn.
Until all students are faced with the tragedies, the contradictions, and
the stark questions of life, they cannot understand the need for
redemption or God's redemptive action. I want my students to lose, as
soon as possible, their easy faith, their ready answer. I want them to
lose their personal conceits and their illusions about themselves, their
illusions about their fellow men and their illusions about God. I want
their assumptions about the ministry and their assumptions about how
they are going to conduct their ministry completely destroyed."

Howe sought explicit outcomes, but the outcomes he sought are more difficult to codify than some of the more specific, concrete skill acquistions. A silly check list will not measure what Howe was seeking.

3. A more communal political system in the clinical pastoral community itself
Soon after CPSP appeared on the scene, one of our collegial organizations made an effort to replicate the Chapter model, and called for support groups among clinical supervisors. Such groups did in fact spring up in various quarters. Such groups will not accomplish much. They forgot what Paul Tillich wrote in Love, Power and Justice, that love and power must not be separated in a particular structure, or the structure is lame. Support groups with no power are effete. Chapters are not support groups, though they should have some of the marks of a support group. They have also the power and obligation to pass on the credentials of all its members annually, to guarantee the continuing education of all Chapter members, and to monitor the ethical conduct of all Chapter members. Chapters which are not performing all these tasks are not fulfilling their mandate and are subject to discipline by the Council.

We should never evolve into a guild, (groups with exclusive rights of trading in a particular field) in the sense of creating a lock on the profession, so that anyone who wishes to work must come through us. Such guilds poison the well, are unbecoming to our calling. Such a lock on the right to work breeds strife and anxiety, domination. One of the main sources of antagonism toward CPSP was that we had breached the guild. DOE has a policy not to recognize only one organization in a given field.

Paid bureaucracy is poisonous. A highly paid bureaucracy is highly poisonous. For thirteen years CPSP has not paid a dollar to any one of its leadership, not even for secretarial services. We do need to hire secretarial support. However, I urge the next generation not to salary its key leadership, but to pay only for administrative support, not for leadership. The minute you begin to pay my salary, the minute my own personal goals and ambitions become entangled with the objectives of the community. I have never had to consider implications for my personal income in making a leadership decision in 13 years.

Chapters in CPSP place the balance of power close to home. We practice home rule.
We believe power and authority belongs in the context of a community where we are known, not in the files of some bureaucratic official in a faraway city who may or may not know me, but certainly does not know me well.

We convened this meeting under the dark shadow of a declaration of a new morality in our national leadership: the declaration of international martial law.

The President disclosed in his State of the Union speech that he had assassinated in Yemen a significant international terrorist. Five others who were in the car that was targeted, and were also killed. The guilt of the alleged terrorist has not been documented, and certainly not vetted by accepted standards of due process. The guilt of the unidentified companions obviously has not been established, except by association perhaps. The President boasted in his speech that these people are no longer a problem to us. This is martial law, and it is a radical departure from national policy and morality. Covert assassinations by our government are not new. They have been staged by former Presidents. Eisenhower ordered the assassination of Patrice Lumumba of the Congo. Kennedy tried to do the same to Castro. The Diem brothers of Viet Nam were killed by the CIA, though Kennedy probably thought they would simply be removed from office. Chile's army chief of staff was kidnapped and murdered on directions by Nixon and Kissenger. The democratically elected President of Chile, Salvator Allende, was attacked and killed by forces in alliance with the CIA. All these covert assassinations, and others as well, have heretofore imputed shame to the perpetrators. The new policy is that there will be no shame. Assassinations will continue, and they will be shameless. The new claim of the ruler's right to execute without due process throws us back historically several hundred years. It has been thought for some time now that such action is an improper arrogation of power. The current President has dismantled enlightenment principles of justice and due process and has replaced them with brute force of American hegemony. By so doing he has made us citizens of a terrorist state.

The character of our national life cannot but rub off on us. Ask any German who lived through the Nazi era what it meant to be a German in the 30s and 40s and subsequently. One did not have to support Hitler to be stained by his perversity and destructiveness. As Americans we will not escape the stain of George Bush's assassinations, or other forms of aggressiveness. Travelers abroad are already trying to distinguish between being American and supporting Bush. Such protestations go only so far.

Self-awareness, examination of and reflection on our covert motives and unconscious agenda, deep self-scrutiny of the intricacies of what makes for a loving and just decision---these are the warp and woof of the clinical process. This process may be more difficult to parse in the immediate years ahead. They are inimical to all that we stand for in CPSP: self-deception, self-inflation, unreflective grandiosity, and more especially, to bullying of the weak by the strong. The former leads to the wisdom of King Solomon; the latter to the foolishness of King Herod.

Under the Nazi regime in the 30s Karl Barth called on faithful people to go on doing theology as if nothing had happened. Of course, something was happening, and he knew it, but he stayed his course. What Barth was calling for was the importance of staying focused even though the world seemed to be collapsing around him. Indeed he was himself dismissed from his teaching position and driven out of Germany for his opposition to the Nazis.

It is not clear how the new character of our national life under the current administration will impact CPSP as a community. It need not blur our vision. But the cost to us of remaining faithfully theological and clinical, of remained focused, may be significantly dearer in the time before us.