The prayer that Jesus instructs his followers to pray is a communal prayer, asking not for God to fill my needs, but for the needs of all in the community to be filled. Not just for God to forgive my sins, but for an economy of mercy to prevail in all our dealings with one another. In short, it is a prayer that requires something those who pray it.
I was recently asked in a job interview whether I give my patients advice. Given the context, I had a hunch that the answer they were hoping for was something like, “Yes! And I’m very good at it! People follow my advice and get fantastic […]
…a lot of us walk around with the first two bars of a symphony in our heads, imagining that someday, when we have a better idea of what comes next, we’ll start to play. Some of the most transformative moments in my life happened when a person or incident gave me the strength or abandonment to haul off and play to the end of that second bar and see what came next.
It’s not that I don’t think staying current on the news is important, [but]…in common with many women and men out there, I’ve been feeling as though current events in politics are directly related to painful and shameful parts of my personal history, events I would rather not be invited to relive
When we talk about authority in CPE—and as I talk about it here—we invoke the value and wisdom inherent in each human being’s unique experience…Trusting my voice, trusting that I have something to offer, and trusting the capacity of others to receive it, have all been important elements in my journey to claiming my unique pastoral authority.
“You have a hard job,” said the man I was sitting with at 3:30 am, whose elderly mother had just passed away. I sat with him so he wouldn’t be alone, and listened to him share feelings of disbelief…
My most popular post on this blog, far beyond the rest, has been the Level II CPE Learning Goals I set for myself for the second unit of my residency. With that in mind, I’m aware some may find it useful to see some examples of learning goals I wrote for Level I, back in September 2017 at the start of the first unit of my residency…
Below is a document is recently presented to my CPE group as a sample of my pastoral care. It is an alternative to the traditional CPE verbatim format, since after spending an entire year assigned to Adult Psych, where I have the responsibility and privilege […]
Two years ago my parents, partner and I traveled halfway down Baja California, Mexico, to a remote place called Scammon’s Lagoon, where hundreds of gray whales journey each year to mate and give birth. We joined a tour boat that went out on the lagoon, where we sat for about an hour watching as hundreds of whales leapt, mated, and played around us.
One of my assignments for my current unit of CPE was to write a paper reflecting on my own theological dynamics and how they inform my work in hospital chaplaincy. Below, I share my reflections from the final section of this paper: Ring the bells […]