Past presentations have explored some of the anguish in Dunbar’s life. Today let me suggest a possible source of her confident drive – her hope and her courage.

Dunbar was born in 1902. Four years earlier, her mother published a translation of a French novel – her only translation of a French novel – the easy-to-read story of a distinctive eighteen-year-old young woman, Colette. It is not hard to imagine that this romance lay somewhere around the Dunbar home and that Helen read it sometime during her pre-adolescent or adolescent years. In brief, the heroine is described quite positively as having “extreme individuality,” “extreme originality,” and “freshness” – as being “very unlike the rest of the world”. With Colette as the role model endorsed by her mother, perhaps it is no wonder that Helen Flanders Dunbar moved into the world establishing two enduring patient-centered movements for “healing and wholeness”. 4

Now let me focus on the situation at hand – the annual bestowing of the Helen Flanders Dunbar Award for Significant Contributions to Clinical Pastoral Training.

On this occasion last year – 2009 – we examined several heady questions: “How is wisdom lived? How is understanding grasped? How is knowledge gained?” Yes, “How is knowledge gained?” We will come back to that. “How is it that conviction, commitment, and covenant help foster life’s meaning?” Yes, “covenant”. We will come back to that, too. 5

The year before that – 2008 – our honoree’s words advised that “if the Spirit wants … [us] to do something … , the Spirit will not mind repeating the instructions.” That is, once the guidance “has been repeated so that it is clear,” and once we have “had time to check it out in the community of faith,” we “do not need to act impulsively” – we “only need to act obediently.” Yes, we are called upon “to act”. We will come back to that. 6

The year before that – 2007 – we considered “how to function as a knowledgeable professional AND retain one’s soul” – how to “start with engaged service, move toward active inquiry, move on to contemplation, and move still further toward guiding a future generation.” That is, how we might transcend any concern for
“the axioms of faith, the art of ministry, and the laws of the spirit” – to focus on what actually takes place – and needs to take place – in “the serious interaction of one human with another”. Yes, what “needs to take place”. We will come back to that. 7

The year before that – 2006 – we considered an amalgam of these concerns – “having strong feelings, taking bold action – without being self-righteous” – recognizing that we are “called to act in the face of uncertainty, knowing that we are inadequate – but probably the best available – knowing that we do not know the end of the story or even where it lies.” We considered while it might be “easier to fulfill the exact command – obsessively tithe of mint, anise, and cumin – the minutiae – to act as if we know with certainty what to do” –more likely we are called upon to accept that it is “harder to fulfill the inexact command – faithfully perform mitzvah – gut level acts of justice and mercy – to accept that we do not know for sure what to do – that we must act but in a world of unknown unknowns, with minimal reassurance that what we do is right.” 8

Anton Boisen rightfully is remembered for his faithful working out of his received “conviction that one must break ‘a hole in the wall’ – the wall ‘separating religion and medicine’.” Flanders Dunbar rightfully is remembered for her steady “commitment to removing that wall forever.” 9

Our honoree today wandered in a manner reminiscent of Boisen, and he established in a manner reminiscent of Dunbar.

Boisen, Dunbar, our honoree – I doubt that they ever met. Oddly enough, they symbolically share a meaningful date. Boisen spoke of the “cutting loose from the beaten path” of our lives – the “starting forth into unknown territory”. Boisen’s three decades of wandering – living within over three dozen communities before settling down – began self-consciously at age 25, in 1902. Dunbar was born in 1902. Today’s honoree’s two decades of wandering – living within about a dozen communities before settling down – began self-consciously at age 25, in – 1966. You thought I was going to say “1902” – right? No, the connection here, odd as it may be, is that our honoree’s favorite “congregation” of sorts – a touchstone in his life – was first dubbed “The Volunteers” in – 1902. 10

The plenary’s focus this year is on the journey – literally “the pilgrim’s progress” – toward recovery of spirit and soul. Now, by “recovery of spirit and soul” I am not sure that we need to imply that either is something we had just last week and then somehow lost. Rather, I think we might consider that the situation is somewhat like that proposed by Plato – that we have been wandering about UN-whole, wandering about searching for a missing something – a missing something that we somehow know must exist and the recovery of which we sense might make us more whole. 11

I know that sounds vague, but I suspect it does come close to describing how today’s honoree wandered, slowly living within others’ wisdom, slowly grasping some measure of understanding, slowly gaining the requisite knowledge – to act, within a community of faith – to act, within a covenant of peers – to act, both on the level of here-and-now relationship and on the level of providing for future sufferers’ needs.

Today’s honoree wandered into the military, then wandered into the railroad world, then wandered into a Methodist college, then wandered into a Baptist college. This is sounding a bit like Boisen, isn’t it? 12

While Dunbar knew exactly what she wanted to do – attending medical school, graduate school, and seminary simultaneously, it was Boisen who wandered from foreign language teaching, to career forestry, to social activism, to battlefield chaplaincy, to psychiatric research, becoming what he himself called a “Presby-gationalist” along the way.

Today’s honoree, blessed with a beautiful voice, finally realized that he wanted to become a Minister of Music. For reasons not entirely clear, he ended up taking a unit of clinical pastoral experience with Chaplain Walter Jackson, in Louisville. As today’s honoree phrases it, “that one unit .. made me question my chosen path … .”

He took off a year from his pastoral duties in Sullivan, Indiana, to work with Chaplain Joe Boone Abbott, in Birmingham. He was hooked. Now his path was entirely clear. As today’s honoree tells it, “That year … was the start … , and I knew that CPE would be my destiny. I learned so much about myself that year … that I knew I wanted … the same for other men and women.”

He went back to his home congregation for a year – but only a year – before heading off to work for two years with Chaplain Ken Reed, in Indianapolis, and for six months with Chaplain John Galloway. From there he went to work for three years with Vern Kuehn in Richmond, Indiana, before becoming a player in Rush Jordan’s conglomerate of interlocking directorships at Dayton, Ohio.

That’s quite a collection of mentors: Abbott – a Baptist student of depression, Reed – a Methodist student of grief, Galloway – a Presbyterian student of “The Gospel According to Superman!” – and Kuehn – another outspoken Presbyterian. That was only the start.

To begin making this long story short, today’s honoree ended up in southwest Ohio, convinced of the value of pastoral care, counseling, and psychotherapy, but needing to invent an enduring conceptual structure for making competent services happen. He felt called upon to act – to create something from nothing – to do what he had to do – to create a new model for which there was no guarantee of success.

He brought together a diverse array of congregations – and non-congregations – into an entity called “The Covenant Society for Pastoral Counseling,” within which, through institutions’ payments of an annual contribution, each member gains access to pastoral care, counseling, and psychotherapy on a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week basis – at one-half of whatever would have been the member’s out-of-pocket cost. 13

Today’s honoree saw the problem and acted – on both a one-to-one and a systems basis. He made services available to a wide-spread patient population, made collegial support possible for isolated clinicians, and made a structure for nurturing the next generation of clinicians.

Eventually his became one of the largest programs in the country for the clinical training, education, and transformation of a new generation of pastors. Eventually he and his colleagues around Dayton decided that the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy’s comfort with individuality, originality, and freshness – with being “very unlike the rest of the world” – was attractive, and that becoming the “Miami Valley Chapter” of CPSP would best meet everyone’s needs.

Please congratulate the ninth recipient of The Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902-1959) Award for Significant Contributions to the Field of Clinical Pastoral Training, a proud son of Tennessee, a Tennessee “Volunteer,” a man of hope and courage, The Rev. Dr. John Edwin Harris.
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Robert Charles Powell, MD, PhD is the leading historian of the clinical pastoral movement. Many of his published writings are posted on the Pastoral Report. Readers can use the PR's search engine found on the left side-bar to locate his articles. As a practicing psychiatrist, his writings reflect his daily investment in his clinical practice of providing psychotherapy and care to his patients. Contact Dr. Powell by clicking here. Perry Miller, Editor