Faith Pickle, slice two (let's make a sandwich)

Today I talked with my Chaplain peers about this faith pickle. One of them wondered if I am being arrogant in my faith—if I am considering my spirituality superior than my patients’. He wondered if I was looking for God’s work in my life, or trying to impose my desire for clarity on the process. He’s right, on some level, about arrogance. I do find my spirituality superior for me. But in the past couple months, I’ve realized that it’s not superior in a generalized sense (I paid lip service to that concept for a long time, but this work—with people who often have a more rigid, dogmatic faith—has helped make it real). And in the second case, he’s probably right there, too. I don’t necessarily extend myself the same grace as I do to others. I believe that spiritual truth reveals itself in many ways, and each person comes at it from their own experience. But I don’t necessarily apply that to myself—I forget that I’m on a journey whose goal is to move. I get impatient for the destination and forget how I’m getting there. And to complicate it further, I have this lurking spiritual inferiority complex because of the fundamentalism I grew up with. It’s like I know they’re wrong for me, but the risk of condemnation keeps me cowed (anyone up for an analysis of structural oppression?).
I also realized, talking with my peers, that I am looking for verbal affirmation of my spirituality when I talk with patients—I think psychology folks call that countertransference (right? when I start trying to use my patients to meet my own needs?). Whatever it’s called, it’s a little senseless. While I am not so different from veterans, I also have never experienced military life from the inside. I have not experienced combat or significant physical or mental health crises, like most of my patients. And while it’s true that I’ve met a couple of veterans who seem to share a similar sense of spirituality (one of whom saw multiple combat tours in Vietnam, and who is a quadriplegic), it’s also true that I talk with many whose spiritual truths are very different from mine. And somehow, in the mystery of it all, they’re seeing God, too.