Life had always been hard for Paul Potts. Very early in his life he found refuge and solace from his loneliness in his voice and the music he could make. Music became not only his friend but his passion. Although, riddled with self-doubt, he discovered the one place he could feel good about himself. That place was the protective but creative world of his own music. Recently, however, life had become so overwhelming that he had all but stopped singing. As clinicians we could almost predict what would begin to unfold for Paul Potts. He was a broken man.

Back to the YouTube clip. One member of the judge's panel asked, "What are you here for today, Paul?" He says, "I'm going to sing opera". You could see the rolling eyes of the judges. The music starts. He waits. Awful moments of awkwardness seem to be developing as the music started to play. He was silent. Was he going to be able to sing? I fully expected to see this frightened and awkward looking man so consumed by anxiety turn and walk off the stage in utter humiliation. Before I could finish this dreaded thought, I heard this clarion sound that must have emerged from the depths of this man's soul. I not only knew the depth of my own emotions at that unexpected moment but I could see from the camera shots the tears in the eyes of the audience and hear the spontaneous eruption of applause and shouts that began to thunder as he sang.

He was an unlikely candidate to be a winner. Somehow, however, he found the courage to trust and to honor his passion---his music and love of opera. His is a very poignant and heart warming story of human courage, humility and the transformative power of human passion.

I don't want to force the analogy too far but in many ways CPSP is an unlikely winner. First, I will share with you a bit of history. About twenty years ago some of us had come to believe that the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) had lost its soul in a bureaucratic quagmire and a misuse of its power, even against its own members.

Raymond Lawrence, the author of The Underground Report, gave voice to what became for some an ultimate concern about the ACPE and its direction. Three of us met to plan a meeting to be held in the Episcopal Church’s Phoebe Needles Conference Center near Roanoke, Virginia to discuss the ACPE situation as well as explore the possible necessity of forming an alternative to the ACPE. Although the invitation went out to all members of the ACPE, only sixteen of us showed up and one was the President of ACPE who would serve to both listen to our concerns and also to provide ACPE's point of view.

The limited display of interest and response was a disappointing beginning. During the overnight intensive meeting, however, CPSP was born. The birth of CPSP stirred within its founders both hope and vision but also fear and trembling.

In a matter of only months following the formation of this new pastoral organization, several of the fifteen founding members dropped out likes flies sprayed with DDT. The future of CPSP was not looking good.

We soon found a way to make matters even worse for ourselves. This new organization, who only a few months prior introduced itself to the world as the College of Pastoral Educators and Psychotherapists (CPEP) proclaiming that we would be a serious player in the clinical pastoral movement decided during a knock-down-drag-out meeting in Little Rock, Arkansas to change our name to the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy (CPSP). So far we've stuck with this name.

To the outside world CPSP looked awkward, out of place and a sure loser. Many thought they would see CPSP soon walk off the stage of the clinical pastoral movement humiliated by our failed attempt. Our critics judged us harshly. Their eyes rolled at the foolishness of CPSP's mission to establish a grassroots pastoral certifying and accrediting organization that had no paid leadership, avoided hierarchy and centralization of governance like a plague and who gave small groups we called Chapters enormous power to shape their life together as a community of clinically trained clergy.

During these eighteen years CPSP has made it own mistakes. We've looked and I'm sure acted foolish. We've faltered, stumbled and failed many times along our path. Even more regrettable, we've even failed and disappointed one another at times when we should have been bigger and wiser. We've faced down bullies who thought we had no right to exist. We've had our times of self-doubt and discouragement. I'm sure this path as described will be found within our future path as well. Life is hard and complex. CPSP knows this far too well. We are human. Somehow CPSP as a community has continued and to re-discover the truth as our Covenant states, "... life is best lived by grace..." we keep finding a way to be a very human, gracious and often a humble community.

What has kept and continues to keep CPSP on the stage of the clinical pastoral movement? I think it is because of the passion, imagination and creative force found in the individual lives of those who make up our community. In essence, CPSP and its way of being a community calls forth those unique people, many of us who have fallen on hard times in life, but who yet know that we can make music within the clinical pastoral movement that comes from our souls and the passion of our hearts as human beings and pastoral clinicians.

CPSP, like Paul Potts, is an unlikely winner.

Perry Miller, Editor