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