Depression and the Spirit: Half-day educational opportunity

Do you often come across depressed persons in your work as a chaplain? Would you like a place to think and learn about the relationship between depression and spirituality? Are you a bit stumped as to what there is to do to care for a depressed person?

Bishop Anderson House, host of a successful lay chaplain training program each spring (see earlier blog), annually holds a continuing education venue in the fall for its graduates and other interested persons. They have found in the course of their experience in training lay chaplains that a certain degree of psychological knowledge and training is essential to a chaplain's work. What follows here is the text of their brochure about their autumn event this year that goes some of the distance in providing that training. There's still time to get in on the second offering of this interesting, highly relevant topic. If you are in the Chicago area or will be passing through next weekend, check it out:

Depression and the Spirit…
The Lay Parish Chaplains’Training Program
Continuing Education Fall Seminars

Understanding depression is important for providing pastoral care for persons
who suffer from depression’s symptoms. Even more important is developing an
appreciation for their needs and how to respond. Often patients explain that they
know they need their doctor’s help, but more important to them is to have some-
one who can listen to their religious concerns. How does pastoral care provide
hope for patients with depression? What special skills are required?

Often patients’ religious concerns are directly related to and probably caused by
the symptoms of their illness. This session will look at some of those symptoms spe-
cifically, with suggestions for responding. It will also address the spiritual preparation necessary for this kind of pastoral care.

The seminar will weave together research and ten years of Sr. Pat Murphy’s clinical
experience. It will include a discussion of descriptions of spiritual darkness found in the scriptures and in the Christian mystical tradition. The goals of the session are to increase a sense of your own comfort in this work as well as to learn how to trust in the patient’s resources and the presence of God in providing pastoral care to this population.

Patricia E. Murphy, RSCJ, Ph.D., BCC is a Chaplain and Assistant Professor with dual
appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry and Religion, Health and Human
Values at Rush University Medical Center. Pat is a respected researcher in the field of spirituality and medicine and is a master teacher who has earned respect for her integration of psychiatry and pastoral counseling in her clinical work as a chaplain. Her research and clinical experience give her unique tools to share with us in the pastoral care of people with depression- whether in our work in congregations, in hospitals and nursing homes, or with those we love in our families, friendships and professional associations.

Join Chaplains, Clergy, Eucharistic Ministers and others in a morning of increasing our knowledge about depression and spirituality while adding to our skills as a pastoral visitor.

Each Seminar starts at 8:30 am, ends at 11:00 am, and is offered at two locations:

Saturday, October 13, 2007
at Bishop Anderson House
Located at: 707 South Wood Street
Rush University Medical Center Chicago, IL 60612-3833

Saturday, October 27, 2007
at St. Michael's Episcopal Church Library
647 Dundee Ave.
Barrington, IL 60010

For more information or to register, call

Bishop Anderson House
Rush University Medical Center
1735 West Harrison Street
Chicago, IL. 60612-3833
Phone: 312-563-4825


Let me know, if you go, if you find it helpful. And thanks in advance for patronizing our pastoral training venues.

Faithfully submitted,
Maggie Izutsu

From Across the Pond

I was invited to give a workshop at a National Bereavement Conference in Birmingham, England in September this year and this happily provided an opportunity for me to make a collateral visit to The Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education at the kind behest of my intrepid host, The Rev. Dr. Peter Hammersley. Peter and I met nine years ago when we combined forces to lead a seminar on the mourning for Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey on the occasion of the first anniversary of her death. Peter is involved in a number of intriguing enterprises, one of which is the oversight he lends to doctoral work at Queen’s.

Through Peter’s kind introduction, I spent a most stimulating and constructive hour and a half with the Dean of Queen’s, David Hewlett. In a wide-ranging conversation, we concluded with the Dean’s warm invitation to students from the states who might want to pursue some form of education under Queen’s auspices. The range of what they provide is vast, from undergraduate curriculum to independent research projects, and includes M.A.s leading to a Th.D., a new degree program that they consider to be a “professional practical theological degree” playfully abbreviated “DPT” (for “Doctorate in Practical Theology”), and a small but significant foreign student group pursuing courses in mission.

As we turned our attention to the topic of chaplaincy, I was interested in the Dean’s savvy identification of “mission” as the proper lens for undertaking (and providing) training in chaplaincy. He averred to the significant increase in students seeking training for chaplaincy, what he estimated to amount to a 25% increase over the past twenty years. He also candidly mused over the school’s reticence to really seriously deliberate over the nature of course offerings that would benefit a bona fide program to meet the needs of these students.

Dean Hewlett was not at a loss to suggest a program, though, and I pass on his thoughtful and comprehensive reflections here of what he would like to see in such an undertaking: education in spiritual resources requisite for sustaining the “eccentric ministries” of chaplains, training in how to productively connect with the secular institutions in which the chaplain may be called to serve, how to conduct theological reflection (with supervised support), how to work in teams (especially multifaith), the context of chaplaincy, with especial attention to ethnographic methodology, and the history of chaplaincy, and particularly in the specific institution to be served.

Among the research projects underway at Queen’s is a study of the effectiveness of participation in social protest as an aspect of transformative education, and in particular in the formation of the prophetic capacities of future ministers. Spearheaded by systematic theologian John M. Hull (who has written extensively on why it is difficult for adult Christians to learn!) in collaboration with my host, Peter Hammersley, the story of the courage of a group of students who went to the Faslane naval base, home of Britain’s Trident nuclear submarine fleet is most impressive. The results of their analysis of the research remain to be seen, but promises to make an interesting contribution to the pedagogy of ministerial training.

Finally, Peter gave me a tour of three separate prisons in the Birmingham area and invited a lay prison chaplain to join us for lunch. She had recently encountered a challenging situation which she spoke about at some length. I asked what in her training she had found effective in getting her through this episode. Not surprisingly, she said that a good mentor had been invaluable. I was happy to hear, thereafter, of Bud Holland, the head of the Office for Ministerial Development’s collaboration with a group of folks on an effort to create a network of mentoring or “coaches.” Clearly, the chaplaincy training project will benefit by such an effort and I am grateful to Bud for allowing me to participate in conversations about this initiative.

Since my trip across the pond, I’ve been to Bexley Hall in Rochester, NY, and there’s more to report from there, but I will close for now, with a promise to file another installment soon.

Faithfully,
Maggie Izutsu

More bubblings up, CPE-related.

A few more thoughts. I am trying to piece together a reflection for my COM, and these are a few more things that bubbled up.

I think about Sammie, an 87 year old woman who had suffered a stroke, who was on dialysis, who was curled up in the fetal position every day, whose family was full of Pentecostal preachers (her daughter told me, while also telling me "How great your job is - think of all the people you get to bring to Christ and save from hell!" Um. "Yes," I answered, "Well, um, I do carry the love of Christ with me wherever I go." It was some quick thinking on my feet.) Sammie couldn't speak well - I understood about 10% of the garble that came from her throat, but she always, always wanted to see me and hold my hand, and I discovered that if I said bits of hymns or Psalms to her, she would repeat them back. She wanted the TV emphatically off when we gave time to God. She also liked to pray in call and response, where I would pray and she would repeat it ("Jesus, you hold Sammie in love, and know her and keep her from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes." "...From the crown of my head to the tips of my toes." Which actually came out "...Froma...crowa...mahead...tipsssa mahtoess" but I got the hang of it after a while). It was a very intense experience of listening really, really hard with both my head and my heart, and a sense of joy and relief and release and glory when I found the shared holiness in our speech. I loved her. She gifted me.

I think about the fact that the entire staff celebrated the month's birthdays on the 2nd Monday of the week, with a morning of cake and fruit and ice cream. Everyone signs the birthday card. It's very fun. And I had a small hint of the intra-office tensions that resembled intra-office tensions at every single other office at which I've worked in my short life. A small, funny reminder that places where people are engaged in God's work don't necessarily make better, kinder workplace environments. I wonder how you all feel about this and deal with it? Are there ways that people try to say, "But we're chaplains...shouldn't we be better somehow at coping with disliking each other?" How are internal tensions thought about, talked about, coped with?

Joyous return!

Hello, everyone!

I have returned from one of the most intense summers of my life as a CPE intern at Swedish Hospital in Seattle, WA. Holy criminy, chaplains. I don't know how you do it folks, day and day out. I loved you all before, but my respect levels just shot through the roof.

Here's a few scattered responses.

Positive:
1. I learned that I can't fake it in ministry. I spent the first few weeks trying to be a "good" chaplain - more conservative theologically, more apt to use traditional language, more into polite Christian skirts and jackets. I was doing my darnedest to play the part of a nice Christian lady. Well. I'm here to tell you that that went nowhere. My visits were awkward, and I left work feeling icky, like I'd been lying all day. My supervisor gently told me that I was, in a sense, lying all day, and that the world might not end if I actually walked into rooms as myself, messy theology and all. Lo and behold, he was right. I had some great visits with people who didn't want to talk religion at all - I honored their spirituality of motorcycles and mountains. I also was able to find "common language" with people whose theological position was greatly different than mine: interestingly, drawing a lot of source material and language from the Psalms. Metaphors work for lots of people!

2. I helped someone have a baby (I helped someone be born). Boy, does that miracle never stop feeling like eighteen Christmases at once.


Negative:
1. Drive-by ministry is not for me. I am truly terrible at letting go. I like long-term relationships. I want to be in a parish where I baptize someone and then stick around to see them graduate from high school.

2. Ministry where sketchy amounts of power are just handed to random people freak me out. The fact that there wasn't any room for conversation about the fact that our task was essentially invasive: cold calling, marching into a room where someone is physically immobilized, is frightening. Anyone with experience of bodily assault and/or sexual assault knows that the loss of privacy, of ownerships of what happens to one's own body, is traumatic. Every day was a struggle to claim what I felt was opressive power over people in order to get my job done.

3. I also couldn't quite get a grip on IPR. It was...suppposed to be about each other? It was...supposed to be about patients? It was...very odd. Our group ended up having one conflict a few weeks in, essentially a conflict between me and my supervisor, in which I was challenging some of the power dynamics within the group. That day I had also initiated a "feelings check-in" for people, just as an idea because we seemed to be having a hard time getting going being honest with one another. Well, we were honest that day, and it turned into a fight, which left us all a little jumpy for the rest of the summer. It felt artificial (and I wasn't alone in this), like some big Skinner box, or a Milgram experiment. I don't cope very well with that kind of artificiality (which is also why I have a little bit of trouble with the discernment process as a whole - but I digress). I think this goes back to the desire for long-term relationships. I like how my friends at General talk about how they have to learn to live with one another, in a very close space, worshipping and eating together most days. It means that relationships must be forged in community over time, and that is an important skill. It's one that I appreciate about faith communities in general, and in particular within the Episcopal Church.

Training for Lay Chaplains at Bishop Anderson House

I am unbelievably behind in my blogging!

Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Bishop Anderson House in Chicago at the kind invitation of The Rev. James (Jay) Risk, their executive director. Jay approached me at the Association of Professional Chaplains’ Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains’ banquet with the suggestion that I come take a look at what they are doing in the chaplaincy training effort.

A well-designed program for lay folks extending over 11 weeks each spring, the students are treated to a host of experts who offer for two hours each Wednesday evening didactic material ranging from psychiatric diagnostics to aging. In addition, students are paired with a field site and a field supervisor. The learning contracts for these sites are as clear, concise and constructive as could be—impressive.

I met with an outstanding array of people involved, beginning with the psychiatrist who offers in the program a thumbnail sketch of diagnostic categories, and ending with one student and her field supervisor. The latter was none other than Belinda Chandler, a member of the original steering committee for this project. It was wonderful to finally have a chance to talk with Belinda in person. Asking directions to her office at the hospital, the information clerk noted, “Nice person, Belinda Chandler!”

Not only nice, Belinda reflectively registered some of the trickier issues of employing lay folks trained in such a venue. Not the least of these is the legal issues of what lay folks can and cannot do. I was impressed with the dedication Belinda has demonstrated in making wise use of the human resources cultivated through the Bishop Anderson House training program. One of these uses is in helpful data gathering on who needs a visit by the professional chaplain.

At the risk of getting ahead of ourselves, Jay and I mused over the prospect of involving Seabury in extending the program of Bishop Anderson House in line with the hopes and aims of this project. Watch this space for news of developments along these lines and others.

In the meantime, please know of my admiration and respect for the job Jay is doing with the program there now.

Thanks, Jay, for your congenial hosting of a lovely and informative day.


Gratefully submitted,
Maggie Izutsu

Shelly's last spring post from ECC.

Yes, folks, I am headed out to the greenery of the Pacific Northwest on Sunday in order to do my first unit of CPE this summer. I am excited. And scared. And then excited again. And then terrified. This is how it's supposed to be, right?

I don't have a lot of experience doing pastoral care in official settings. I tend to "mother hen" my friends, and I take care of my family. But I haven't done Stephen Ministry or anything similar. I'm frankly more nervous about the small groups and the supervisors than I am about the patients. Entering a space of grief or shock carries its own charism, its own sense of being in kairos rather than chronos, and I like giving in to that. I do not particularly enjoy writing reports about it afterward! I may belong (happily!) to a particularly wordy denomination, but I do think some things are sacred.

I will be around blogging occasionally about the gifts and challenges of CPE. Who knows - maybe I'll get hooked and join the ranks! Any advice you all could offer would be much appreciated. Do you remember your first CPE? How did it go? What hooked you?

Getting mobile and networked with resources

I first met Janet McCormack, a former army chaplain, at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture’s second annual Workplace Chaplaincy Conference in November of last year. Her forceful presentation on the work of chaplaincy and Denver Seminary’s 9-year old program training chaplains which she directs grabbed my attention. I made plans to visit.

The plans finally came to fruition in April. I was warmly welcomed and my agenda skillfully crafted by Jan herself in consultation with my interests and goals. It began with lunch, at which she described movingly some of the more impressive scenarios on which she cut her chaplain teeth, including one in which she was responsible for removing the weapon from a renegade army recruit holding others hostage. She emotionally disarmed him first by breezing into the holding area, berating the hostile for having gotten her out of bed in the middle of the night. After the ordeal was over, she went outside and threw up.

Such raw courage and ability to do what the situation requires marks Jan and the people she’s trained. One of her graduates, Wayne Hall, was responsible for organizing the next-of-kin response at Ground Zero. Wayne wrote an article on his experience, praising not only the entire training at Denver Seminary, but Jan’s discipline specifically. He, in turn, was praised in an email to Jan by the chief relief officers at Ground Zero, who told her to send any of her graduates their way.

Episcopal chaplains would have much to gain by training at Denver Seminary. A hallmark of their innovative program is their “Teaching and Mentoring Program,” a labor-intensive, character-based pedagogical initiative involving concrete learning contracts crafted and executed in conjunction with faculty, lay leaders and clergy in forming the chaplain-to-be.

At a subsequent meeting Jan and I had during the Associated Professional Chaplain annual conference several weeks later in San Francisco, we discussed ways in which, short of enrolling in a full-time program there, Episcopal chaplains might avail ourselves of Jan’s tremendous talent and experience. She has graciously offered to “get mobile” on our behalf. With proficiencies in brief counseling and crisis intervention, she also offers a course in a compelling and critical overview of the chaplaincy profession in all its gore and glory. I look forward to the prospect of putting her on the road in modular instructive format to the benefit of our folks in the ranks.

Her colleague, the also impressive Naomi Paget, crisis interventionist to the FBI, and adjunct professor at Denver Seminary, has similarly agreed to go where the need is for training our chaplains. This approach, of going where the need is, interestingly corresponds with the very nature of chaplaincy work itself, a point that Jan and Naomi have made in their small but comprehensive book entitled The Work of the Chaplain. Readers will appreciate not only its direct style, its careful distinctions between the work of parish clergy and chaplains and many other insights, but also the appendices with synopses of important topics as well as supporting organizations as contacts and networking sources.

Also at the APC conference, Gina Rose Halpern (of the Chaplaincy Institute for the Arts and Interfaith Ministry; see earlier blogs) and I met with Kimberly Murman, an educational program official for the APC and received their pledge of working with us to provide continuing education credits for any of the programming we put together that they approve. This linkage gives our efforts added effectiveness on many levels, drawing future students from the ranks of the APC membership and conversely linking students in our learning venues with the large network of fellow chaplains of the APC.

In addition to providing stellar faculty for modular mobile units of education, the Chaplaincy Institute is also graciously considering taking on students from the Episcopal Church at their institution for less than what a full degree would require. This is an interesting opportunity that I hope will come to fruition.

This week, I am headed to a national training on reconciliation in L.A. sponsored by Reconcilers.net in response to General Convention’s citation of reconciliation as a key issue for our day. The presenters have traveled widely to dioceses in the U.S. and abroad offering their program which has been tested and honed over the past 12 years. I am hoping that they might be willing and able to join a growing cadre of individuals (in addition to the institutions I am visiting) qualified and dedicated to training our chaplains in flexible and adaptive modes. I look forward to filing my next report on the other side of this fascinating opportunity.

Until then,

Maggie Izutsu

Parabola interview with Bishop Katharine.

I liked this interview with Bishop Katherine very much, not least because she used scientific data to help think about spiritual life. Here's an excerpt:

P: You emphasize living the path and the truth that the scriptures are shot through with mystery. But isn’t the mystery closest at hand why it is so hard to get down to the essence of Christ’s teaching, to love one another and love God?

BK: Because we live in tension with selfishness. The question is always how can we get beyond our own narrow self-interest and see that our own salvation lies in attending to the needs of other people.

P: Is selfishness a biological inheritance? Is fallen-ness hardwired?

BK: A physiologist would point to some neuroanatomy and neurochemistry and say that when we’re threatened we retreat into our lower brain where the question is about survival. Our base instincts come from that. We defend ourselves against any threat. The human journey is about encouraging our own selves to move up into higher consciousness, into being able to be present in a threatening situation without responding with violence. That was the great teaching of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They both said we will respond in a nonviolent way and it will change the world.

P: That’s faith in action.

BK: That is what practice is about. The scriptures say grow up into the full stature of Christian. Become less animal in the sense of instinctive response and more godly, more spiritual, not divorced from our flesh but capable of using it in service to a higher aim.



I thought that was pertinent to the ways chaplains bridge physical healing and spiritual space.

Alternative therapies.

I just ran across this organization that is committed to getting people together who do different kinds of healing ministries: body workers, pastors, chaplains, energy workers, etc. It's called CAMPaM: A Method For Ministry
Complementary Alternative Modalities of Healing & Pastoral Ministry, and their website is here. Has anyone had any experience with these folks? What has it been like?

Seminarian intern thinking about bishops on no sleep during the week before finals.

This has been a relatively calm week in the office. (I'm in the middle of finals, so my brain is shot and overflowing, but the office is quiet.)

This week Andrew has been drafting a letter to the people in our database, asking them to fill out a current information sheet to submit to their diocesan bishop. It's part of a larger project of trying to connect chaplains with their local bishops (really, trying to ensure that bishops are aware of the wonderful work done by chaplains within their diocese). It's so important for those connections to be made.

During Pastoral Care Week in October, we send out a letter to all the dioceses, asking for updated information on their diocesan chaplains. Last fall, we got a - what's a nice word? - underwhelming response. It demonstrated very clearly the disconnect between chaplains and the bishops under whose care they are supposed to be functioning.

I wonder about this. My bishop is a lovely lady, and I am profoundly grateful for her, but my relationship with my diocese and COM is kind of bizarre. I never received any kind of "Here! Here's what you do while you're in seminary - take these classes, do your field ed here, etc." I ran into this last winter when I was told by someone in my parish - not my diocese - that I should do CPE this summer. It was officially one week after everyone's deadlines, and the NY placements had huge waiting lists. I lucked out with a random last-minute opening in Seattle, but it means moving and storage and plane tickets and and and....Everything is so opaque, and it's really easy to feel forgotten. So I have a little sense of what it might be like to not be known by your diocesan office. It's not easy.

I'm wondering what could be done to better these relationships? Chaplains, what would you like to see happen? In what kinds of ways would you like your bishops to reach out to you and keep track of you? Bishops, what kinds of reports or meetings would you like? How could this office support your relationships with each other?

Yoga and healing.

This week, I am pleased as punch to be able to introduce to you my beloved friend and yoga instructor from Seattle: Lisa Holtby. I've been thinking about this issue of complementary therapies, and then Lisa sent me this fabulous article written about her in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I've put it in the blog below.

Lisa has extensive experience teaching and thinking about doing yoga with people in physically compromised situations. She has taught classes for clients of Cancer Lifeline (a Seattle organization that provides emotional support and resources to people living with cancer). This experience led her to write a fabulous book, Healing Yoga for People Living with Cancer. This book reflects Lisa's compassionate understandings of what it means to be very sick, to be shuttled through a healthcare system that may or may not treat you like a real person, to be yearning for a connection or reconnection to a body radically changed.

She explains herself and her work much better than I can. Please see her website and the article below.

I would like to say a couple things about her practice and her ethic. Lisa teaches Anusara yoga, which intentionally incorporates spiritual intention into physical movement. This has been profoundly valuable for me, as a Postulant to Holy Orders for whom nothing in my life is not touched somehow with grace. It's gratifying to go to class, and have my practice on the mat be explcitly about healing me body and soul. Lisa encourages us to practice qualities we seek off the mat (courage, rest, forgiveness) with our bodies on the mat. This reminds me of liturgy, the way that what we do in liturgy is supposed to model how we are supposed to live outside church. At church, everyone is fed, everyone is offered peace and reconciliation, everyone is in touch with others, everyone is welcome. Liturgy is practice for how we want to be in the world, where we want everyone fed, peaceful, in community, and wanted.


A couple links:
Lisa's website.
Buy her book here!

I'd also like to hear from some chaplains about how bodywork has impacted their lives or practice.


Much love,
Shelly

Yoga article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Living Well: It's not a stretch: Anyone can do yoga
By BOB CONDOR
SPECIAL TO THE P-I

If you can breathe, you can do yoga. That's what Seattle yoga instructor Lisa Holtby says, and she has the credentials to support her statement.

Holtby has taught yoga since 1995 at Seattle Yoga Arts studio on Capitol Hill. She taught classes for Cancer Lifeline, a local non-profit organization that offers emotional support and resource services to people living with cancer. In 2004, she wrote a book, "Healing Yoga for People Living With Cancer." She is a faculty member for annual CURE Magazine national conferences open to cancer survivors.

And, when invited, Holtby speaks to health practitioners about how yoga can fit into medical treatment protocol. Just last Wednesday afternoon, she spoke to a gathering of Group Health doctors, nurses, researchers and other practitioners about the "power, potential and pitfalls" of yoga in health care.

"It's an interest-group meeting we have monthly to understand the range of things outside medical convention that might help patients," said Dan Cherkin, senior scientific investigator for Group Health Cooperative. "We are looking to define what is the future of health care. Can we find ways for people with diabetes or hypertension, for example, to get in touch with their bodies and make changes? Drugs have their place, but they don't help people change behaviors."

Holtby's approach is to make yoga accessible to everyone by developing routines that you can do from a chair, lying on your back or stomach, leaning against a wall for support and, of course, standing and participating in a mat class.

"What we see in the media is pictures of people (in yoga postures) who are in the best health of their lives," she said.

Here's a twist: Holtby said yoga has a quality of instant gratification otherwise too prevalent in our society.

"I tell students that whether you are sick or new in class, yoga can help you feel better right away," she explained.

Holtby recommends finding an experienced teacher who knows how to modify postures, plus committing to four yoga classes before reaching any conclusions. The first class is "a lot coming at you." By the fourth class your experience is "more meditative." From there, Holtby is a believer in "a little bit of yoga every day but whatever fits into your schedule is good."

The chair postures include back bends, forward bends, twists -- "a full practice but sitting," said Holtby. It works for someone who is challenged with a health condition -- Holtby designed it for cancer patients experiencing the deep fatigue of chemotherapy -- yet has great potential (to use one of her keywords at the Group Health talk) for office workers and others who sit at desks and computer terminals during long days.

For his part, Cherkin has explored yoga's health benefits in research. He co-authored a small study, receiving significant local and national media coverage, that showed yoga can significantly reduce lower back pain without medications or surgery. He and Group Health colleagues are working on a larger study that follows up those results and adds the comparison of yoga to physical therapy.

"We want to see if there is a difference between yoga and the stretching/strengthening component of physical therapy, which doesn't have the breathing and mindfulness elements of yoga," said Cherkin.

For example, Holtby starts her Seattle Yoga Arts classes by suggesting that each student select an intention. Someone might use the yoga postures that day as a vehicle for overcoming fear, while a parent with young kids might see the class as release from a hectic schedule and the requisite busy mind. Holtby knows: She has a 5-year-old son.

"Lisa amazes me with her calmness, insight and dedication to her practice," wrote student and Seattle physician Dr. Stephen Smith on Holtby's lisaholtby.com Web site. "What is especially impressive is that she is doing this while caring for a new child!"

"You can also hold that class for someone who is ill or someone you are worried about," Holtby said. "This mindfulness doesn't have to stop in class. You can do the same thing while doing the dishes."

During her Group Health talk, Holtby made the point that "yoga is a way to learn how to differentiate sensation versus pain" and that yoga can be "a way to come home after invasive treatments." She and the practitioners discussed how these inviting concepts can become more inherent to mainstream medical practice. The outlook for yoga in the medical setting is optimistic but realistic.

Holtby allowed that among the "pitfalls" of yoga is the largely unregulated teaching profession and that instructors will be more accepted by doctors and others if they can quantify their training and experience. She also endorsed "modifying appropriately" and that instructors can encourage progress of yoga on the medical track by maintaining a "do no harm" credo with small groups and one-on-one.

After the Group Health talk, Cherkin said that it is a slow process persuading doctors to add yoga to the therapy list. He noted a gap between the growing number of physicians who might say, "Oh, go ahead, yoga probably won't hurt," to health providers who suggest yoga as one of the possible treatment options. Cherkin sees the sense of trying to close that gap.

"Slowing down is not what we do," he said. "What we tend to do is go, go, go. We don't value slowing down. Yoga is a way for people at all stages of health to get more in touch with your body and yourself."

Berkeley in Bloom Revisited

I was so happy and interested to read of Shelley’s forays into complementary therapies and the challenges they pose. My recent visit to The Chaplaincy Institute for Arts and Interfaith Ministries in Berkeley began with a kind of alternative class in singing.

The task for the day was to work in dyads, each student presenting what was personally painful for them with her (there was only one man in the class) chaplain-partner poised to sing a two-minute prayer to the pained partner that would address the ailment. Gratefully, the “participant-observer” method I engage in my work did not entail my being in one of the dyads.

What began as rather pablum prescriptions, “May you find peace…” was gently and creatively prodded by instructor Polyanna Bush to bring greater concreteness, more incarnational reality, more guts into the encounter. There were tears aplenty, an abounding in positive trajectories, and a sense of gratitude on the part of all the students who bared their souls and felt met, held and healed in the process.

It may sound a bit too touchy-feeling for some, but I have to admire what they are about: creating a caring community of fellow ministers who attend to and attempt to heal the woundedness that so often gets in the way of being an effective minister. The woundedness that gets polite if still somewhat shamed lip-service in most seminary settings, or provision of side-lined learning avenues like CPE, but never the full-tilt, front-and-center integral treatment that I saw at Ch’I.

This is, in fact, their mission, their niche. This healing work does not preclude the more academic study they also undertake. I attended a very fine lecture on eschatology and another on pastoral care: both first rate. Having just visited a Pentecostal seminary, I took exception to the theologian’s initial characterization of evangelical eschatology, but was gratified by his graceful and gracious incorporation of my question into a larger more generous assessment which he himself espoused.

An evening panel of employed chaplains, graduates of the school, gave courage to the continuing students. Neither are board certified by the Association of Professional Chaplains, but both found lucrative settings in which to function at high levels of professional and personal efficacy. They evinced the ethos of the school and there were impressed, grateful listeners all around.

For me, one of the highlights of the trip was my lunch in a eucalyptus grove with the two co-directors. The story of their building this school, this community, was most impressive and inspiring, beginning with Gina Rose Halpern’s travel to the Soviet Union with Patch Adams and his instruction to her to begin to draw for a screaming, inconsolable pediatric burn victim. The child’s awed silence as the figure appeared on the page was the inception of an engagement with the magic of the arts and their healing power and a determination to share and train that gift with and in others.

Ch’Is model of week-long courses once a month enables students from as far as Michigan and North Carolina to come to California, study intensely, return home to reflect and prepare for the next round. In eleven of these modules, graduates have a start in becoming versed in the major world religious traditions, are equipped with palpable techniques, such as the singing instruction, and learn to bring all of themselves and a rich array of skill to the task of a ministry of presence. They are ordained as interfaith ministers. We are in conversation about the possibility of our chaplains coming out to take part in just one, two or three of the modules, short of earning the full degree.

An influential bishop visited with the Steering Committee of the Chaplaincy Training project last fall. He spoke of his hospitalization experience, where his colleagues “dispatched the visit with a tasteful collect” and how this ministry paled in comparison with the pat on the knee and the caring inquiry on the part of nursing and cleaning staff simply rendered, “How are ya doing today, honey? Is there anything I can do for you?” I was awed by his candor, humility and vision.

In the same way as it has become commonplace to acknowledge the power of music to reach people and address issues otherwise untouchable, I have a feeling that there are people and places among us who would be well-served by these interfaith ministers.

Faithfully submitted,
Maggie

A week of instability.

Thinking, of course, about the horrors at Virginia Tech. And also, on a more local scale, a young woman, a grad student at Columbia University was abducted, raped and tortured for 19 hours before the man set her bed on fire and left her to die. She escaped by using the fire to burn off her restraints and run. The man was at large this week, and he had been spotted at the nearest grocery store to Union and at the deli across the street where we all get our coffee 19 times a day. It's been particularly scary to just walk around my neighborhood: everyone's acting "normal", but it's not comforting. RAINN reports that in America, a woman is assaulted every two-and-a-half minutes. And the vast majority of sexual assaults are not by random crazy strangers: they are by "friends", dates, family members or acquaintances. I wish, when something this tragic happens, one of the articles would remind us of that. This is happening all the time. It will have happened a couple times before you finish reading this post.

Today in chapel we held a special service commemorating those who died at Virginia. I was surprised to hear that no one prayed for the gunman, until finally, mercifully, Rev. Carl Gerdau, from the pew, intoned, "And for our brother Cho" at the very end of the prayers of the people. I think about how grateful I am that in my New Testament class, when we prayed on Thursday, we prayed for all those who died, for the families and friends, for the community, of course. But we also prayed for Koreans and Korean-Americans, and for all those who are alienated, for all those who we render "alien", and for Cho. On campus at Union, there are several Korean and Korean-American students, who have been badly shaken by this, and worried about their own safety. I've noticed that the wikipedia page on South Korea has been disabled for revision until May 4 - it's likely that people were trying to alter it in ugly ways in response to the Virginia Tech tragedy.

This makes me wonder about blame: we are so ready to start looking for whose fault it was. Was it the professors who knew he was troubled? The school kids who ignored him? His family? Anyone but us, right? We certainly don't know anything about isolating and alienating people.

This also makes me think about how the New York Times reported that the school wasn't immediately put on alert after the first shooting because it was considered "just a domestic quarrel". Apparently men shooting women is so common it's not worth shutting down the campus. I mentioned this to a group of five friends at seminary, mentioning that just a few weeks ago, a young woman was killed at the University of Washington by her stalker ex-boyfriend. She had done everything: moved, got a restraining order, warned some of her co-workers. Three of the other five people said, "Yeah, that happened at my campus too." What??!! We have decided as a culture that this kind of violence is tolerable, that intimate partner violence is just something that happens. We don't talk about domestic violence or rape in church, even though it is certain that someone or many people in the congregation has/have experienced it. We are so scared, so scared that is violence is actually us, that we participate in hushing up pain, in looking the other way, in not looking at the very real ways women are punished for being women every day.

I realize now that this is not an Easter-y message. But it is what is happening. And God asks us to look at what is really there, and not what we want to be there. We are asked to look straight at the crucifixion, and Jesus looked straight at the woman with the hemorrhage. No hiding. No ducking, no convincing ourselves that it's not happening in our congregation, in our school, in our hospital. I was so grateful to the New York Times Sunday magazine article of a few weeks ago that took seriously the pain of women in the military, experiencing great trauma while sacrificing much for their beliefs (it's still available online here). It's real. And we called to heal, absolutely. Our Messiah was and is a healer, and if we truly the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus, we must heal too. But first we must we willing to look at where it hurts. We must be willing to name certain violences, instead of just pretending there are multiple isolated incidents of this kind. We must retrain our eyes to see what we try not to see: the lonely, the afraid, the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the violated, the scared, the alone, the alienated among us.




As a couple of final notes, Andrew recommends the college's website: they've done a truly admirable job dealing with the tragedy online. Go here to see. I also highly, highly, highly (can't emphasize this enough) recommend the Faith Trust Institute, a collection of advocacy and informational materials for congregations and other faithful people thinking and talking about intimate violence. The woman who founded it, the Rev. Dr. Marie Fortune, also has a lovely blog.

-Shelly

Easter.

Hello! I'm back in the office after a Triduum spent in the Pacific Northwest. It was beautiful, properly spring, lots of little bulbs popping in my mom's eastern WA garden, the pear blossoms about to burst.

This year I felt a bit of an "Easter creep." Some years Easter comes with a bang, and I'm startled into new awareness. But this year there was a long, slow build. I'm thinking a lot about my family, about how I want to structure my own intimate relationships, about my first year at seminary nearly coming to a close. I've been stacking the blocks very carefully, one little piece of information about myself at a time.

My mom and I went to an Easter Vigil service at a small church in Western Washington, near where my cousin lives. It was interesting for a couple of reasons. The first was the stellar choir - there was no good reason other than sheer and utter grace to have such powerful voices concentrated in a teeny little church, bringing the congregation to tears. Amazing solos, an astonishingly bone-shaking version of the Messiah...it was phenomenal. The second was the truly terrible rector: indeed, I don't think I have ever heard a worse Easter sermon in my life. I may have never heard a worse any kind of sermon in my life. He preached, in an oil-slick voice, about the glory of suffering, about how he preferred Catholic crosses with Jesus nailed right to them (like some kind of incredibly tacky 1st century wall hanging) rather than the empty Protestant cross. "The Resurrection CANNOT HAPPEN WITHOUT THE CROSSSS!" he thundered. Well, yes, sir, that's why we have Good Friday - remember yesterday, with all the veneration of the cross and the deathly silence? Remember how today is Easter and we're here to celebrate - yes, the Resurrection. Jesus eating fish, the empty tomb, Thomas's finger, new joy, better life, light and singing. So, you know, I set my jaw like stone and looked at him, and clenched my mom's hand to keep from running up there and preaching something actually easter-y. And he stopped right in the middle of the Eucharistic prayer - got all through "This is my body" and then coughed a little, gestured to the ALM, and slowly drank a cup of water before wiping his lips and continuting with the "This is my blood." What?! That is the peak moment of any liturgy! Everything we do builds up to this, and he, with his little silver bouffant, just hangs out drinking water while we wait on his every word. And, to top it off, he delivered Communion into my hands - literally dropped it off, without looking at me. Plop! Some, uh, bodyofchristbreadofheaven for you, you little insubordinate (my mom said the look on my face was rather deadly, but still!).

So an interesting Easter. I thought it was pretty funny, all told. I'm glad that Article 26 and my heart both tell me that the sacraments still work, now matter how dreadful the preaching/preacher. It makes me think both about humor (laughing both at my own grumpy reaction and at the horrible priest) as gift and sacraments sneaking in where I might not look.

As I think about this summer, my (first but maybe not last?) unit of CPE, and I think about what will sustain me. There's a lot of apprehension. I'm terrified of saying the wrong thing, but I also know that sometimes I will say the wrong thing. I'm scared to enter people's lives at their most vulnerable moments, but I also know that I must (and not just for my M. Div.). But I think about humor, about the ways people who get to know each other laugh together. I think about how the worst of puns can absolutely kill me - I double over, weeping and laughing. I think about how sometimes sacraments are hiding in the mud like the daffodils, sometimes are hiding in the drudgery of paperwork, sometimes are hiding in the 2:00 a.m. bleary typing of school papers.

Easter indeed.




-Shelly

Holy touch.

Rev. Marshall, whose blog Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside I've already recommended, published a beautiful and informative post about the process of becoming a diocesan healthcare chaplain. Please read it here.


I also had some lovely correspondence from a wonderful person from my home parish, Chaplain Kate Stygall O'Sullivan. I asked her to let me know what sorts of articles or information would be helpful for her, and along with the standbys that I hear from chaplains on the phone and via e-mail (local parish support systems and/or the lack thereof, self-care, case loads, the lay/ordained debate), she mentioned a few things that were new and wonderful to my ears:

1. The name "chaplain." Kate expressed a concern that "chaplain" indicates a special kind of service, particularly a Christian person and a person who works with people who are just about to die. She serves in an interfaith capacity and is committed to many kinds of healing. What do you think? Have you encountered misunderstandings around the definition of "chaplain"?

2. In her words: "The integration of healing modalities such as light touch therapy (healing touch, Reiki, laying on of hands, etc.), guided imagery, aromatherapy, music, etc. into the work of the chaplain. (We so often hear about ministries of presence, but sometimes I believe we need to offer some modalities that support comfort, connection with the sacred and feelings of well-being. I also believe that God can work through our hands as well as our voices and hearts.)

I wholeheartedly agree. I have yet to do my first unit of CPE (it starts June 4 of this year), but I was considering being a midwife for a few years, and did an internship with a naturopath in Bellingham, WA. What impressed me most was that she honestly took an hour or more with each of her clients, listening carefully to their illnesses and complaints, asking detailed questions about their spiritual health, their exercise life, their stress level. Often she would "prescribe" walking. She would often recommend people to masseuses or the cranial-sacral therapist in the building. She understood the value of being heard and being touched in gentle, present ways. I know people who have been healed through the use of healing touch, both in charismatic Christian contexts and in interactions with Reiki healers. Kate has tapped into something deep here. Can we forget our Messiah spitting into some dirt and smearing on the eyes of a man born blind? What do you think? What would help you? Could this office advocate for parishes to support alternative-healing training for their chaplain members - perhaps a class or two a year? Let me know.

Berkeley in Bloom

“Tell me more about Vicki Joy,” Bishop Packard asked, when we discussed my proposal to go to the Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley to see what they are about.

Vicki Joy had been my student since I arrived at ETSS to oversee their MAPM and MAC programs in 2004. She had come to see me several times to discuss her feeling of a call to chaplaincy and the possibility of being recognized by the Episcopal Church and adequately trained to serve in it. She was flummoxed by the lack of resources for training in our tradition, and particularly, the dearth of artistic and creative approaches. She was drawn to the Berkeley enterprise by their clowning offerings. Patch Adams has been a formative influence in their programmatic development.

“Vicki Joy is not very academically inclined, but she is hard-working, sincere, dedicated and bright. When she decided, after much thought and research to pursue the program in California, I felt the whole Episcopal Church was sharply rebuked by this turn of events.”

For anyone who knows Bishop George, you will recognize both his characteristic modesty and his openess to the movement of the Spirit. He responded, “I didn’t know where I was going when I asked the question, but I’m glad I did; she is our target population. Go to where she’s been.”

And so I did. Yesterday, I began a several day sojourn in Berkeley at the warm invitation of founder The Rev. Dr. Gina Rose Halpern. I'll file another report after I've digested what I've found, but as for background, here's what struck me from Gina Rose's and my initial conversation by phone last week:

All the instructors are artists, and their program is continually evolving. They are thrilled that the Episcopal Church has taken an interest in them.

Gina Rose herself converted from Judaism to the Episcopal Church at the time of the women’s ordination movement and was powerfully influenced by her membership in it. She drifted away some time ago when her own aspirations were not met with enthusiasm or encouragement; now, she is on the cutting edge and we are coming to her.

She was too modest to say so, but I imagined if I were she, I’d have a tear in my right eye.



Maggie Izutsu

Oh, For the (overwhelming, powerful and palpable) Love of God…(a report on my Springfield, MO trip)

I’m not sure what it was that Bishop Packard knew or perceived that led him to ask me, as we planned my trip to Springfield, MO and the Assemblies of God flagship seminary there, if I were afraid of being overwhelmed. I found on retrospect that I was obviously merely in a state of denial in my protesting that I was not afraid.

Am I alone in suspecting that I was resting on a subconscious sense of superiority and feeling it to be the dark legacy of the Episcopal tradition in its elitism and self-importance? My prayer, as I went, was to be more open to being led by God, to deepen my reliance only on God.

I was sustained and encouraged to take the trip by the palpable sense I had of being loved by the dean of the seminary. How could that be? It speaks, I reckon, to the quality of his faith which is large, encompassing, personal and passionate.

Somehow, Joe had conveyed a sense of the love of God to me in the brief overview he’d shared of the story of his life over a drink with colleagues at a conference in New York, his presence in our corporate conversation with our colleagues, and in a nice note to each of us afterwards.

I was drawn to knowing more, to being in that presence.

So the choice was obvious, though painful, when I discovered my reservation had not been confirmed on the Sunday of my departure. Bad weather wreaked havoc at the airport; my flight was delayed long enough for me to consider my options.

I could get a ticket on my planned flight, but it was exorbitantly expensive. Going the next day would get me into Springfield too late to take part in the dinner party Joe had arranged with his family at his home for the instructor of the class I went to see, a few other invited guests and me. Since part of my mission was to learn more about Joe and how he lives into his giving up his life for his faith, missing the dinner, which could be the only opportunity for me to engage with him on the level I was seeking, seemed the greater waste than the material cost of getting there.

In view of the sacrifices I know he had made in his life, and the risks he had taken, how could I let a little thing like the cancelled reservation get in the way of furthering our dialogue? How could I let Bishop Packard down?

In an attempt to “do as the Romans do,” I looked for a “sign” and weighed my options. I relied on seeing if I could actually get there that evening in spite of all the delays and cancelled flights. It could be that I would get stuck in Dallas and only get to Springfield on Tuesday after all; in which case, I would delightedly go back home and curl up with the New York Times and call it a day (or two!).

The connection was alive and I got on the flight. Manny Cordero, the instructor of the class I went to see, had suffered a similar fate to my own in getting bumped around from cancellation to cancellation. As I became aware of and was trying to get on an earlier connection in Dallas, I heard his voice over my left shoulder, “Get on standby, Maggie,” and so I did.

It was a God-send that Manny was there. That flight got in so late that the car rental place where I had made a reservation was closed by the time we got there. Manny gave me a lift to my hotel and picked me up the next day.

His class was an unendingly intense (read: overwhelming) and profitable experience. Manny oversaw the proceedings with uncommon grace, humor and sensitivity and a plethora of stories from his rich and varied experience as a chaplain for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The students and I appreciated the experiential dimension he brought in addition to sound didactic theory and structure, going far beyond the usual book-learning pedagogy of seminary classes. In the experiential realm, we went to the morgue and trauma center of one of the local hospitals one morning, had a simulated traffic accident played out in the parking lot that afternoon, had an engaging presentation from a funeral director and demanding exercises with role-playing, values clarification and even preaching exercises. The students were sensitive, creative and searching. I only wish there had been more time.

But it was enough for me to endorse warmly and enthusiastically the Assemblies of God and this course in particular for chaplains in the Episcopal tradition. The seminary as a whole is a warm and welcoming place—something that Joe has obviously cultivated and in which he takes deserved pride.

In addition to the dinner on Monday night (more on this below), Joe and I managed to have a couple of conversations throughout the week. He kindly introduced me to Chaplain (Colonel) Scott McChrystal, USA, retired military/VA Representative and Endorser, and we had a wonderful conversation about the kind of church, the kind of chaplain and the kind of training they seek to provide.

Later, Joe gave me a brief but articulate and engaging orientation to his faith, his philosophy of education in general, and the pedagogies involved in their course offerings. They are satisfyingly, compellingly complex and challenging. And I still want to know more. In my deepening appreciation for Joe, I came to understand that his work there is testimony to his love of God and his determination to make God real.

Generously and liberally, as dean he endorsed a very kind, impromptu invitation for me to visit and comment in a weeklong systematic theology course taught by visiting professor Veli Matti Karkkainen from Fuller Theological Seminary. With a bit more warning, I might accept next time.

This was just one over the course of the week of the many encounters I had there, in which I was constantly reminded of the complimentary nature of my engagement with the Assemblies of God folks and that nothing, not denominational affiliation, expensive airline tickets, or false pride, could keep me from the love of God.

When the class was over, I went back to the seminary to say goodbye and thanks to the support staff. I ran into one of the students from the class in tears in the bathroom. Our half-hour conversation at the sinks brought her laughter back and some palpable relief and she sweetly told me what a valuable mentoring event our conversation and my participation in the class had been for her.

In addition, questions on the nature of the church put to the visiting systematic theologian in an impromptu podcast he did with Joe seems to have drawn on Joe’s and my conversation with Chaplain McCrystal.

And according to Manny, his diction in the class, in accommodating me, was led to be more inclusive and less in-house dialect. In these events of complementarity and reciprocity, I was humbled and honored to think that God, through me, may have given something to them.

Joe and I will remain in conversation about how we might make their resources available; for the time being, enrollment of any of our chaplains as a special student for one or another of these one-week courses is a definite possibility and one that affords a unique and valuable experience.

As I suspected, the dinner at the dean’s house was a tremendous event. His and his family’s hospitality was unrivaled. But the highlight for me was in the devotional moment he invited us to share in at the end of the meal. He read a passage from scripture and exegeted it for and with us; his daughter offering a brilliant, sincere and sensitive challenge. And then we prayed.

Have you ever prayed with Pentecostals? It was overwhelming in the best sense of the word. The power of Joe’s prayerful affect, so palpably embodying an ever-present sense both of our sinfulness and the mercy of and need for reliance on the love of God, moved me profoundly.

Enough to remake a believer out of me.


Faithfully submitted!
Maggie Izutsu

Thoughts from 815.

Hello, everyone.

I am back in the office for a day before heading back to Seattle for my Spring Break. It's not terribly busy here - the rush for APC and ACPE deadlines is over, and I just have a few applications trickling in for people who are doing their work early (which, I must say, I do appreciate very much).

The Rev. David Fleenor, who held my job for the past two years, and who rightly has a great fan base among chaplains, has kindly recommended an Episcopal Chaplain's blog to me: Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside. It contains Episcopal-y things (like the Primates meeting) but also reflections on being a healthcare chaplain.

Do any of you have other websites you read for and extra helping of help or good humor? If so, please share! The internet has become such a wonderful way for people who are otherwise isolated to communicate.

On a pick-me-up note, there was a cheery article in USA Today about a tennis-star-turned-Episcopal-nun, who has a call to bring little flashes of healing to seriously ill children. Read about her here.

I hope that you all are deepening into the mystery of Lent, and allowing yourselves to rest in the emptiness of this season.

Blessings,
Shelly

Introducing Shelly Fayette.

Hello, readers. I am the other half of the “Diocesan News You Can Use” blogging team. I am a first-year Masters of Divinity candidate at Union Theological Seminary, and a Postulant to Holy Orders in the Diocese of Olympia. I was extraordinarily blessed to land at Bishop Packard’s office at the beginning of this school year as the seminarian intern/Assistant for Chaplain Endorsement.

Bp. Packard has asked me to jot down some notes about the State of the Diocesan Chaplaincy Union, as it were, as I see it from my cubicle in 815.

The best part of this job is networking with diocesan chaplains: talking them through the slow endorsement process, hearing about their work, learning about pastoral presence through their kindnesses and good humor. Being able to reflect your concerns and joys in this blog is a tremendous privilege. Please feel free to leave comments in the comments section (we love lively discussion!), as well as e-mailing me at sfayette@episcopalchurch.org if you would like to alert me to an issue about which you would like to see a posting written.

A couple things that have come up in recent weeks:

1) The lovely Rev. Whit Soards, of Louisville, KY, has raised the issue of sabbaticals for chaplains. There is money available for ordained people working in parishes to take sabbaticals, for the health of both the clergyperson and the congregation. But there is a real lack of funding for chaplains (who, as we all know, deserve all the rest, rejuvenation, help, love and support they can get). I have committed to doing some research into organizations that are interested in the health of large institutional bodies, such as hospitals, to see if there is a way to ask for funding for chaplain sabbaticals. Stay posted!

In the meantime, the Louisville Institute offers grants for chaplains who would like to take an eight or twelve week sabbatical. I hope some of you get the opportunity to do this. If you do (or if you have taken advantage of this resource before), please leave a comment or drop us a line to let us know what your experience was like.

2) The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest has begun a Masters in Chaplaincy program. I realize that for most of you, as established chaplains, this degree is not relevant, but it is an important resource. If you have people interested in chaplaincy and who are looking for a systematic way to approach it, this would be a good place to send them. Also, if you are in the Austin area, perhaps it would be a good place to take a few classes and refresh those neurons!

The website is here.


That's all for today. I can't tell you how grateful I am for your service in the most liminal spaces and times of peoples' lives. Peace be with you.

Introducing The Rev. Dr. Maggie Izutsu

The first entry on this new blog for Diocesan Chaplains "News You Can Use" is from The Rev. Dr. Maggie Izutsu who Bishop Packard has brought in as a Consultant for Chaplaincy. She will be exploring resources for chaplains as part of our office's Chaplaincy Training Project. Dr. Izutsu will be visiting chaplaincy programs around the country and will blog on her trips.


February 22, 2007

On Sunday evening, I will travel to Springfield, Missouri to take part in a weeklong course on “Ministry in Trauma, Crisis and Grief Context” offered at the Assemblies of God flagship seminary by their chaplain credentialler, Manny Cordero. This will be the first of a series of visits I will make to various institutions offering instruction in chaplaincy. I am hoping that this is a course I will be able to recommend to chaplains currently serving the Episcopal Church in the Midwest who are looking for ongoing educational opportunities.

I am excited about the prospects for this trip. I met Manny Cordero, the instructor, at the Yale Workplace Chaplaincy Conference this past November, where he told me about his work in training and credentialing chaplains. I met the Dean and President of the seminary, Joe Castleberry, at a conference on the topic of teaching world religions in the seminary context to which we had both been invited by Auburn Theological Seminary in Manhattan in June of last year. Princeton and Columbia University educated, having spent formative time in South America, what caught my attention most about the Dean was his personal story which amply illustrated his concluding evocative remark: that one must be willing to give up one’s life for one’s faith. I had been looking forward to following up on this enigmatic remark in further conversation, but the conference ended before an ample opportunity arose. I look forward to having dinner with him and his wife during my stay in Springfield and learning more at close hand what it means in his experience to live by that dictum. His story so far is one of hard-working, faithful risk-taking. It seems an antidote to extremist or militarist decisions and a rich story out of our own tradition to rival terrorist exclusivist claims to noble deaths on the one hand and the entitlement orientations to life on the other that plague our culture in our day.

As further background to this visit, I took an excursion to the Lakewood Church in Houston. My husband and I, visiting friends in Houston over New Years’, decided to make the most of our being in town to check out the megachurch which we had seen profiled on TV. As an ethnographer by training, I appreciate first-hand “immersion” experience and the chance to challenge my own faculties and powers of observation. My conversation in June with Joe Castleberry made me think that there might be something of merit to the Pentecostal and other forms of evangelical missions that I had not previously perceived and deserving of a second look.

I found the experience of the megachurch quite overwhelming. In a vast former basketball stadium, I would estimate there were some 20,000 congregants. We sat in one of the uppermost levels, on the left-hand side facing the front, high above the platform on which the singers pranced and the preacher stood. We were so far forward that the view we had of the people on the stage was from the side and often from behind.

I went to Lakewood equipped to cultivate what Krister Stendahl, Bishop of Stockholm taught me to think of as a “holy envy” for the qualities they exhibit that are lacking in my own tradition. Among them are an easy ability to praise God, a ready spirit of prayer, the highly organized, Billy Graham-style personal prayer partners, and rock-concert quality music. I smiled when I remembered an earlier ambition I’d had to engage Pat Methany in producing a jazz communion when I was working in his home town, Boston. I have something in common with these folks, after all, I mused.

What I did not envy, holy or otherwise, and found myself in fact fearing, was the (no surprise here) simplicity and misleading qualities of the central message. It was the “prosperity gospel” through and through. I became concerned that the investment that congregants make to the message of their church might prove an obstacle to processing claims upon them that call for a more complex response. In particular, the third song of the day, with the jingoistic refrain of “How Great is Our God” made me fearful of the short step between this and militant “Othering” tactics that have historically imperiled human societies. As an educator, I aim to help my students build hefty brain synapses to handle contradictory input, to take responsibility for their actions, and to suffer for what they believe. Do folks at Lakewood aim for the same? Another time, I might return to interview congregants about the satisfactoriness of their experience at Lakewood. I am sure I would learn more from such conversations. Or perhaps I would have something to offer them. A place to register their more complex feelings, for one. This would not be in the spirit of undermining the work of Lakewood, but of a peaceable complimentarity. After all, I want to learn, but am concerned I will never have the spirit of enthusiasm they can muster. This they can do for me. For the time being, I remain concerned that, as Bishop Packard helpfully reflected with me when I reported on my findings from this venture, the Christian faith is built on the blood of martyrs, and entitlement messages hardly do that justice.

So I am hoping for a better experience and the chance for complex and compelling conversation with my friend, Joe. To learn how to turn my “holy envy” into “helpful environments” for our mutual collaboration in the education of chaplains. And I am grateful to Bishop Packard and the Assemblies of God seminary for this opportunity to explore our options.


The Rev. Dr. Margaret W. Izutsu