The College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy is a theologically based covenant community, dedicated to "recovery of the soul" and promoting competency in the clinical pastoral field.
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New Year’s Greetings to the CPSP community, the ACPE community, and the wider clinical pastoral community.
We have reasons for being hopeful in 2011 about the work to which we are all called. With the Mediation Agreement agreed to and signed by CPSP and ACPE a month ago we can anticipate a new spirit in the wider clinical pastoral community. The two communities are now pledged to be respectful and cooperative with each as we move forward. We believe it can be indeed a happy new year.
The current clinical pastoral field consists of several organizations, many different clinical approaches, different philosophies, and structures of governance. That’s as it should be. The varied and differing perspectives in the clinical pastoral movement actually enrich us all. Despite our differences, however, we are united in our hope that religious communities will be able to make better use of clinical expertise as well as academic and ideological values.
For years now CPSP and ACPE have acted like adversaries in the public arena, but by mutual agreement those days are now over. We now going forward have an agreement between the two communities that binds us to treat each other with mutual respect as worthy colleagues in the clinical pastoral field. We think this signals a new era in the discipline to which we are all committed.
I ask everyone in the CPSP community to join and commit to this new spirit wholeheartedly. In so doing we will all contribute to a more promising future for us all and for the religious communities we represent.
Raymond J. Lawrence
CPSP General Secretary
raymondlawrence@me.com
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 10:12 PM
What if the Nativity Story took place in this age of Facebook, YouTube,Google, Wikipedia, Google Maps, GMail, Amazon and the iPhone. This fun video take a shot at what it might have been like.
Enjoy!
Perry Miller, Editor
perrymiller@gmail.com
Perry Miller, Editor
perrymiller@gmail.com
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 9:44 PM
On several Christmas Eves starting in 2005 I've published John Henry Faulk's Christmas Story in the Pastoral Report. It is a beautiful and heart warming story of human kindness and even courage.
The story is relevant today. Many have suffered in this cruel economy: losing jobs, homes, a way of life, personal dignity and hope for their and their children's future.
In these times we need to be reminded that it is care, generosity, kindness and the courage to extend ourselves to the other, especially to those who have fallen on hard times, is that which makes us human. It is a story that reminds us that there is no gift more precious than genuine human connection.
Even if you have heard the story, I encourage you to listen again, especially with your children, family and friends. In many respects it is a story to be shared in community and not alone.
It is a story of the heart...It is a story for these times.
LiSTEN: John Henry Fault's Christmas Story
-Perry Miller, Editor
perrymiller@gmail.com
Editor's Note: Although one of the links provides a transcript, its best listen to rather than read.
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 11:40 PM
I have come to understand that one simply cannot pick up a copy of Charles Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’ and read it lightly as merely a story that fits the theme of the season. I now fully appreciate Dickens narrative as a profoundly challenging critique of the economic theory of the free market which prevailed in his day and which still prevails in ours. The economics underlying ‘A Christmas Carol’ asserts Steve Nallon, one of Britain’s most versatile writers and performers “are far more radical and profound than most people realize.” Nallon relates that Dickens presented a challenge to the prevailing economic theory of his day a rather laissez-faire free market approach.
It is with brilliant subtlety that Dickens confronts us with the callousness of an economic theory philosophically underpinned by the Malthusian theory of “surplus population” as the following excerpt from ‘A Christmas Carol’ relates:
"Two gentlemen enter Scrooge's counting-house collecting to "make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute". Scrooge asks them, "Are there no prisons? And the Union workhouses? The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" The gentlemen answer: yes, all are in operation. They then attempt to solicit a donation. Scrooge replies, "I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there." Scrooge is told that many can't and besides, "many would rather die." Then comes Scrooge's famous retort: "If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." He adds: "It's not my business. It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"
The expression, “surplus population,” used by Scrooge relates Nallon “has its origins in the thinking of the Reverend Thomas Malthus in his essay ‘The Principle of Population’ written in 1798.” Nallon offers the following excerpt from Malthus as an illustration of the callous disregard for the suffering humanity of the so called “surplus population” proposed in his treatise:
“A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get subsistence from his parents on whom he has a just demand, and if society does not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At nature's mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders.”
Scrooge’s economics based upon Malthus’s theories of catastrophe founded on concepts of a surplus population outstripping the natural means of sustenance lacked any social dimension. Nallon, rightly asserts that such economics defined only in material terms betrayed “a ridged economic inhumanity.” The poor were not poor because they were idle or stupid rather greed, lack of education, bad government, unjust laws, war, illness and insufficient food production were all contributing factors to their demise. For Malthus these were just nature’s way of redressing the surplus population and restoring a right balance of demand in relation to resources.
However, one might argue that Scrooge like Jacob Marley was simple being a good business man. In fact, Scrooge made this very contention himself seeking to comfort Marley’s suffering apparition who in death lamented the very chains he had so diligently forged in life. ‘But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faultered Scrooge. ‘Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, benevolence were my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’
Marley ghost in many ways helps us to understand that death is in a sense a judgment. Not the judgment of God or fellow human beings rather it is one’s own final evaluation of a life lived. Nothing compares to the grief of an individual who has not shown up in their own life in terms of love and relationships. We are simple at our best when we are in community and when we understand fully that we are our brother’s keeper. There is no salvation without community.
The hinge in the Dickens’s narrative occurs when Scrooge is confronted with his own death and poverty of his relationships. If the course of events were left unchanged Scrooge would die alone, stripped of his very burial clothes, no one to morn his passing. This lesson was not to be lost on Scrooge and seeking some relief from the despair of his very existence he petitioned the apparition of Christmas Yet To Come to “see some tenderness connected with a death.”
The spirit conveyed Scrooge to the home of the Cratchit’s where he witnessed a family in grief who remembered with fondness the life of their departed son. The moment of transformation occurs for Scrooge as he begins to understand that ‘The course of our lives will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if those courses be departed from, the ends will change.’ Scrooge began to understand that in order for the Cratchit’s son to live he must first live for him.
It is only as we live for others do we really begin to live life for ourselves. It is said in the Genesis narratives of creation that it is not good for a human being to be alone, therefore, God created another so that humankind would have community. Dickens dares to suggest that the transformation of one individual life can result in abundant life for others and it is at this time of year we are profoundly reminded of one who came that we might have life and have it abundantly as proportionality as we live it for others. As often as you have done this for the least of these you have done it unto me.
(I’m indebted to Steve Nallon and his reflection on The Economics of A Christmas Carol.)
George Hankins Hull
JHull@uams.edu
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 9:58 AM
The brochure for the 2011 CPSP Plenary is now ready for download and distribution:
DOWNLOAD: 2011 CPSP Plenary Brochure
The brochure contains: Hotel information, Registration Form, Pre-Plenary Work Shops, and Keynote Speaker introduction.
The 2011 CPSP Plenary will be held March 27-30, 2011 at the Sheraton Oceanfront Hotel located in Virginia Beach, VA.
Register and make your hotel reservations now.
-Perry Miller, Editor
______
Please contact George Hull, 2011 CPSP Plenary Coordinato,r if you you wish further information.
JHull@uams.edu
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 6:22 PM
Francine Hernandez, National Clinical Training Seminar Coordinator, announces that the Spring meeting of the NCTS wil meet February 28-March 1, 2011.
The event will be held in a new venue: Stella Maris Retreat Center located at 981 Ocean Avenue, Elberon, NJ 07740.
The NCTS is open to clinical chaplains, pastoral counselors and psychotherapist, CPE trainees and training supervisors. The design of the NCTS centers on the small group experience where all participants are expected to bring and share clinical material for consultation.
More information will be posted regarding the NCTS will be posted in the near future. For now, put these dates on your schedule and plan to attend the NCTS.
-Perry Miller, Editor
For more information, contact Francine Hernandez
angel@ehs.org
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 6:21 PM
(Rev. Alberts was asked to write this article in observance of Pastoral Care Week at Boston Medical Center)
The role of pastoral care is guided by Boston Medical Center’s stated mission of providing “Exceptional Care Without Exception.” That mission individualizes the patients and puts the well-being of each at the center of health care—“without exception.” The role of pastoral care is interdisciplinary by the very nature of the hospital’s mission. Similarly, a chaplain’s work is determined by the expressed beliefs, wishes and spiritual and human needs of patients’ and their loved ones. It is about utilizing and reinforcing patients’ and families’ beliefs in their efforts and struggles to recover or to cope with dying and loss and grief.
It is to be emphasized that pastoral care is not about where the chaplain is at and what he or she has to bestow, but where the patient is at and what she or he has to share. It is about empowering patients and their families not imposing any belief or value system on them. It is about empathy not evangelism. Respect for the patient’s right of privacy and belief is fundamental. This emphasis is not to minimize the identity and faith of the chaplain. Rather, it is to stress the pastoral care qualities of self-awareness and inner emotional security that prepare the chaplain to allow patients and their families to be who they are—“without exception.”
The hospital is a unique crossroads of humanity, and thus also calls for pastoral care that is comfortable with and accepting of diversity of belief or non-belief-- “without exception.” Many patients and their loved ones represent the various Christian denominations. A number are Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus. Some are Sikhs, Wiccans, Native Americans, Rastafarian. Others are not affiliated with a religion. A few are agnostics and atheists. And the religion of other patients, as defined by one, is “so so.”
A hospital especially reveals not only humanity’s diversity but its commonality as well, a value also to be deeply appreciated by pastoral care. Illness confronts all people with their mortality and hence their vulnerability, their humanness-- their oneness and connectedness with each other. In a hospital, the common humanity people share comes to the fore and tends to transcend their differences. Here there is the pronounced mutual sharing of struggles with life and death, hope and fear, pain and anguish, love and anger, joy and sadness. And it is these very struggles that bring out the tremendous wisdom that patients and their families possess. The role of pastoral care is to affirm these common human struggles and the wisdom they elicit by giving them air and reverence.
Availability is key in pastoral care. Like medical care, pastoral care is 24/7. The hospital’s two staff chaplains and the three Catholic chaplains make daily rounds. The Jewish chaplain makes rounds weekly. Every night either of the two staff chaplains is on call, responding to emergency page requests of patients and their families. Such requests often involve the staff chaplain contacting the priest who is covering on a given evening for the hospital’s Catholic chaplains. There is also the infrequent request for the hospital’s Jewish chaplain, or for an Imam, or for a Jehovah’s Witness elder, or for another religious leader.
After hour pages also involve the staff chaplain herself or himself responding to the emergency requests of Protestant- affiliated and other patients and their families. The response could be a visit to a patient’s bedside at any hour. Or, if appropriate and timely, sitting in one’s hallway at 3 am holding a phone, rubbing one’s eyes, listening and responding to a loved one unburden himself, referring him to the appropriate health care group, and then offering prayer.
A chaplain’s role is seeking to experience and respond to the reality of patients and their loved ones—“without exception.”
_____________
Bill Alberts is a hospital chaplain at Boston Medical Center. Dr. Alberts is a nationally known writer and an occasional contributor to Counterpunch. In addition, he is convener of the New England Chapter of CPSP. He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 6:16 PM
The 2011 Plenary of the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy will be held March 27-30, 2011 at the Sheraton Oceanfront Hotel Virginia Beach VA.
We are pleased to announce The Rev. Dr. John Patton as the Plenary speaker.
CPSP has a tradition of honoring and listening to the living patriarchs of the clinical pastoral community. John Patton is one of those living patriarchs. This will be his first time on the platform at a CPSP Plenary. We are honored to have him.
Dr. Patton served as Director of the Georgia Association of Pastoral Care & Counseling. He is Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia and a retired ACPE Supervisor. He is a pastoral counselor and marriage and family therapist.
He is a prolific writer in the clinical pastoral field. Some of his writings include: Is Human Forgiveness Possible, Pastoral Care in Context, Pastoral Care: An Essential Guide and From Ministry to Theology: Pastoral Action & Reflection. John is also an associate Editor of Abingdon’s Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling and a retired United Methodist minister.
The room rate for the event is $99 per night. Contact the Sheraton:
888-627 8231 or
757-425-9000
Shortly, the brochure for the 2011 CPSP Plenary will be published on the Pastoral Report.
-George Hull, 2011 CPSP Plenary Coordinator
Contact George Hull at: JHull@uams.eduJHull@uams.edu
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 12:46 PM
December 6, 2010
To Members and Friends of the CPSP community:
From: Raymond J. Lawrence, General Secretary
Re: The Results of Mediation
Representatives from the ACPE and CPSP met in Philadelphia on November 30, in an attempt to mediate their twenty-one year conflict. They used the services of JAMS, and in particular, retired federal court judge Diane Welsh who served as mediator.
The results of this mediation exceeded our expectations, as you can see in the joint statement below. I want to thank the members of our delegation and to praise them for their wisdom and conciliatory posture. Our team consisted of Jim Gebhart and George Hankins-Hull who with me were mediators, as well as Perry Miller and Charles R. Hicks, our attorney, were also present and participated in the decision. (Our original six-person team of mediators and consultants was reduced to five with the death of John Edgerton.) On the ACPE side were Teresa Snorton, Sally Schwab, and Tim Thorstenson.
If we succeed in living up to this agreement we will have marked a sea change in the clinical pastoral community. This will mean that ACPE and CPSP will continue in their respective missions without mutual disparagement of the other’s programs or procedures.
We owe a special thanks to the leaders of the Religious Endorsing Bodies (REBS) who last year made a public call for an end to hostilities. I believe that this prophetic witness played a large role in bringing the parties to the table.
Mediation requires give and take on both sides. We appreciate the willingness of the representatives of ACPE to have engaged fully and responsibly in this vigorous and spirited process.
Let us all resolve to implement faithfully this historic agreement and ensure that its spirit is maintained into the future.
Download Results of The CPSP/ACPE Mediation
Raymond J. Lawrence, General Secretary
lawarence@cpsp.org
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 4:01 PM
No sooner than we made what seems to be an historic agreement, CPSP must apologize to ACPE for jumping the gun in sharing the agreement with the wider community. Teresa Snorton and I had worked carefully to set 3:00 p.m. Friday as the release time of the mediation agreement. Unaccountably our webmaster thought he had a signal to release the information in the morning. It was posted no more than a few minutes when I immediately requested that the announcement be taken down, but doing so did not succeed in calling back all the distribution. I want to say to the ACPE community that I regret this lapse, it was not to my knowledge intentional, and we will see to it that it does not represent our future relationship with ACPE.
-Raymond J. Lawrence, General Secretary
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 3:43 PM
The Rev. Dr. Romulo Esteban Montilla has succeeded the Rev. Dr. John Edgerton as the tenth President of CPSP. Esteban was President-Elect for only ten days prior to the unexpected death of John on November 15.
CPSP by-laws dictate that the President-Elect immediately succeeds a President who dies in office, completes the remaining year until Plenary, and then begins a two-year term. Thus Esteban will serve as President through March of 2013.
Esteban has been significantly involved in CPSP for almost twenty years. He was certified by and is a member of the New York Chapter.
He is currently a tenured professor of counseling at St. Mary's University in San Antonio where he also directs clinical pastoral training programs. He is also a Licensed Professional Counselor with the State of Texas and has a private practice.
He is the author of several articles and books including Pastoral Care and Counseling with Latinos/Latinas (2006), Counseling and Family Therapy with Latino Populations (2005) and Viviendo la Tercera Edad (2004).
Esteban is a pioneer of indigenous clinical pastoral care and counseling training for Latin America where he has developed training at counseling centers and hospices in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Mexico
He is our first bi-lingual president and the first Hispanic to assume presidential leadership in any American clinical pastoral organization. CPSP is blessed to have this promising leader take this position of leadership in CPSP.
-Raymond J. Lawrence, CPSP General Secretary
lawrence@cpsp.org
__________________
Dr. Montilla can be contacted at remontilla@gmail.com
Posted by Perry Miller, Editor at 4:37 PM