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?