CPSP Pastoral Report

We live in a time in which it is incumbent upon us to find ways to live, instead, with a theological hermeneutic of Proximity and not a theology of certainty. Time is fleeting; time is finite. Brian Childs reminds us that the raison det’re for short term pastoral counseling is that time is finite and we thus must be good stewards of our time even within the economy of the counseling relationship. So what does it mean to embrace a hermeneutic of proximity in a time when the fearful tendencies would have us rush to theologies of eschatology and certainty? What does it mean for us to try to go against our cultural soothsayers who prophesy end times and the need for the gathering of the flock into small circles of certainty? Institutions of certainty, standards, laws, and rules to guarantee certainty are the warp and fabric of our popular culture. To live in a time where we build walls to keep out “foreigner” immigrants for fear that the certainty of our economic and cultural purity will become more certain, what does it mean to embrace a hermeneutic of proximity?

Proximity as it is received in the present day hermeneutic of non-certainty means partialness, incompleteness, limitedness, now-but-not-yet-ness, unfinished-ness. Proximate pastoral/spiritual care means time-limited healing relationships; it means that the pastoral relationship is only a part of the whole constellation of relationships where the subject goes for healing; it means that all healing is not done in psychotherapy exclusively.

Proximity in pastoral care means not fixing, it means living with the ambiguity of not knowing how much of a difference I have made in my healing relationship with another at any given time. It means giving partial input. “I plant, someone else waters, and God or the greater journey gives the increase.” Proximity means salvation is a process and not an event. “Road to Damascus” salvation events are markers along the way, but not the end result of a stereological outcome of life. Proximity is living with paradox and ambiguity; it is “being with” rather than indulging in the Nike Theology” of “just do it.” Proximity means courtesy to the stranger however uncomfortable that may be.

There is an important time/space issue in the hermeneutic of proximity. The efficaciousness of a given experience is not always validated just because given time lines are expected for something to come to fruition. Take education, for example, some education programs insist that a given “formula” of times lines be observed for the educational experience to be efficacious. In Clinical Pastoral Education, for example, some educators believe that if one does not “do” a four unit (1600 hour) hospital CPE Residency that the validity of the learning experience is not valid. Not valid in the sense that one cannot learn in a shorter period of time or within another context how to minister effectively to hospitalized human beings in crisis. This is a false hermeneutic about the efficaciousness of education within a predetermined time paradigm.

Long distance internet education and staggered seminar education events are demonstrating that adult learning can be accomplished just as efficaciously through distance learning paradigm model as it can with an in-house residency.

Time/space issues differ culturally in terms of how time and space make for contributions to good learning. Native Americans are oriented more toward space, places and land; Anglos are oriented more toward linear understandings of time. Time is not the primary criteria for the validation of human experience for the Native American; rather space and sacred places are a more important criteria: the sweat lodge, the Hogan, the Kiva; whereas for Anglos it is the linear goals and objectives as demonstrated in “outcomes” that ware important. Raymond Lawrence observed that contemporary outcome education “might better focus on establishing the criteria of everyone become idiosyncratically different.” Every learner is unique.

In 1848 the great European Depression was brought about in part because the rail system in Europe was overbuilt in response to increasing industrialization. Industrialists rushed to accommodate the needs of conserving time in getting their products and raw goods to the market and as a result over utilized the resources to build railroads thus creating a crisis in the marketplace. The rush to conquer time, created a crisis of another sort.

A Theology of Proximity would be a corrective to the Theology of Impulsivity so present in our contemporary culture. It would be a corrective to the “Just do it” Nike “theology”, the fix-it Evangelism theology. Fix-it theology is fixated on the epiphany event. It places abiding trust in the orgasmic, transformational moment or experience. Did you ever try to talk someone out of their orgasmic salvation conversation experience? Did you ever try to get a CPE student to talk to you into a different dynamic descriptive language about what happened to him/her when they had the transformational conversion experience? Even to try to talk about it, for some, brings on another “crisis of faith”. When all religious experience is expected to be a “spiritual high”, what happens to how we deal with the “dark night of the soul” religious experience? Can anything good come from the darkness? Can we stay with a person in their darkness without growing impatient about their filibustering with our problem solving, crisis intervention methodology?

So much of contemporary mega-church culture theology is like Wal Mart marketing. Everything for everyone can be found under one big airplane hanger roof. Take your pick. No sacrifice. Low cost. The ladies and children go the sanctuary for worship and healing and the men go into a big movie screen room to watch the Dallas Cowboys and eat KFC while they wait on their wives to finish worship. Sound bite theology. The purpose driven life/church. One formula does it all. Jesus is your personal friend, the spiritual cozy Other. Duct tape theology replaces “Fear and Trembling” and “Sickness unto Death”. Everything can be taped back together with prayer and fasting. As Thomas Keating commented, when he was young he could drink his friends under the table; now that he found God he could fast others under the table. Who’s got the most readable and facilitative contemplative practice? The wanna-be native American Buddhist, the wanna be out of body experience seeker. Impulsivity seeps its way into our quick fix culture. We have instant coffee, instant credit, instant sex and why can’t we have instant God and instant spirituality. Ask the people who suffered through Hurricane Katrina.

So Proximity theology is a paradox for quick-fix approaches to understanding the human condition.

Within our CPSP community, a theology of Proximity keeps us less anxious about forming our organization around what others might think about us if we did not copy their model. We trust our indigenous creativity that is happening in our Chapters instead of trying to monitor everyone closely to make sure all conform to some bureaucratic standards. We are watchful that we not create Standards that would impede our phenomenal International growth as an organization. Unlike the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) we avoided the trap of drawing up Standards to satisfy the Department of Education (DOE) as a source of external validation. Many would agree the Federal Government’s DOE is a questionable body to be identified with for external validation. Also, our International CPSP members and their Chapters do not adhere to the DOE in their countries. CPSP knew if we moved in the direction of the DOE as has the ACPE, we would not only be setting up a Western Imperialistic paradigm for understanding the culturally diverse needs of all CPSP members but also those in other lands who would want to become a clinically trained pastor by participating in clinical pastoral training programs.

We of CPSP take seriously our motto to “travel light” by making it more amenable to attend annual national conferences by spreading around the locations at which we hold these conferences. In addition we are now creating Regional Gatherings of the CPSP Community that are being held in various parts of the country.

Proximate living is tenuous and tentative. As William James once said, faith is like that. “Faith”, said James”, is living with tentativeness, doubt and ambiguity.”

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Foy Richey is a Past President of the CPSP