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."