from 10/17/07

I continue to struggle with issues of my own authority. A lot of it stms from my previous experiences of authority as external. Authority is attributed by (or taken from) others. This is stuff like roles, titles, that kind of thing. I have problems with this kind of authority--I don't often trust it, and I usually look for reasons not to trust someone like this. It's probably related to my sense that a number of supposedly good institutions didn't end up being what they claimed (or what others claimed them) to be. it reminds me a little bit of Mary Tolbert's discussion of biblical authority. But I realize there's another kind of authority. It's an authority from experience and resonance, an authority that comes more from within. This is the part I struggle with--recognizing the feet i stand on and the lessons I've learned from my experience. its about knowing that I have something valuable to share.
There's another aspect that I'm still figuring out. I see others dealing with this in different ways. Some people create a professional "shell" exterior and meticulously manage the gap between the shell and their persona in the rest of their lives. This is what I have done before. It makes me feel kind of stiff, and I come across as distant and unfriendly. I think that's why it bugs me when I see other people who do that. For me this shell is a false sense of professionalism. It comes from believing I am not good enough on my own to be in the job. It comes from having unrealistic expectations of myself in the job. For me, it's a set-up for failure as I develop the appearance of authority and competency as a chaplain while maintaining a gap between myself and the chaplain I pretend to be. I perform it without inhabiting the performance. I'm trying to shift my focus from the performance of "The Chaplain" to me-as-a-chaplain. Doing this means looking at my own skills, talents, and experiences and figuring out how I am already a chaplain and how I can develop to be a better one.
Jay Johnson talks about how wearing a clergy collar makes him a giant screen that people project all kinds of things onto. This is, in a sense, what I've done to myself. In being hired as a chaplain, I throw up a bundle of projections and expectations of what "The Chaplain" should be [and more often than not, the focus is on what I am not]. These projections (from others, anyway) give me a kind of authority that makes me very cautious. Not only do I need to manage my own expectations, but I have to handle the expectations of others, which also seem pretty unrealistic. I have to act as myself in a chaplain role, alongside the projections and expectations of what "The Chaplain" should be. I guess my job is both to support and to subvert what people expect from me in doing the work I want to do.

a happy birthday continued

Since I don't have any photos of this weekend, here's one of me blowing out the candles on my cake.
This weekend my partner said he wanted to take me somewhere for the weekend but he wouldn't tell me where. (Have I talked about how sweet and amazing he is?) Turns out the destination was Harbin Hot Springs. We had a great time relaxing in the warm pool, the stingingly hot pool, and the piercingly cold pool. We tent-camped for the night and made a tasty pizza for dinner and oatmeal for breakfast. He also got me my first professional massage--a deep tissue massage by a guy whose name means "the inner light of the Holy," who twisted me into contortions that were at once painful and relaxing. It was wonderful to spend time getting away and relaxing, not thinking about work and deadlines and worrying about money. It was so sweet for him to plan this weekend, and it was wonderful to get to spend that relaxing time with him. We floated around, and he held my hand while I braved that icy cold pool (and laughed with me at the hippie-fluffy aspects of the place). I hope we'll get to go back. And Monday is a holiday at work, so I have a day off to continue relaxing, get a little homework done, and watch a matinee movie.

a happy birthday

Yesterday was my birthday, and it was really great. I had an okay day in CPE, and I came back home to find that my partner had made a few plans. He took me to a fancy dinner and then he and his mom had a cake and sang to me. I got some sweet phone calls from friends (including a mysterious one that came from a PSR office that included static and snippets of a song and then lots of laughter....hmm...). My mom called the night before, and I got cards from each of my family members. My dad's card made me get misty-eyed. And I got some very cute photos of my nieces Madie and Libby. I also got a some great presents from my partner and his mom (she called me son in her card, and that also made me get misty-eyed). Today I took the rest of the cake to work, and my colleagues sang a quite melodic happy birthday song and shared cake.
It reminds me how much I'm in love with my man, and how incredibly sweet he is. It reminds me how happy I am to be alive, to be where I'm at--and how grateful I am to have the people and experiences I've been lucky enough to have.

living for today

Today we had an exercise in imagination (related to a really good book - Becoming a Pastor by Jaco Hamman) where we listened to "Imagine" by John Lennon. When it came to the stuff about imagining no heaven and hell, and no religion too, and imagining "all the people living for today," there was an interesting divergence. One of my colleagues imagined disorder--people lost and drinking and debauchery. I imagined peace, mindfulness, and cooperation. It hinges on the idea of "living for today." it made me realize that i can't imagine a world without religion. let me rephrase that...i can't imagine a world without spirituality, a world where people don't seek to make spiritual sense of the world, where people don't explore mysteries and tap into something larger than themselves. i suppose John Lennon meant "no religion" in the sense of "no divisions where we have war about whose God is right." he probably also had some reaction (maybe hives) against moralism and legalism in religion. so when he says "no religion" i imagine people still seeking meaning and seeing sacredness in life itself, in relationships, in life experience itself. My colleague imagines a world that needs to be saved. I wonder who's right, anyway.

and by the way, about religious leaders

It occurred to me today for about the 10th time that I don't trust a spiritual leader who hasn't gotten their hands dirty. I don't really trust a spiritual leader who doesn't cuss sometimes. I don't trust a spiritual leader who isn't honest about stupid mistakes. I almost don't trust a spiritual leader who isn't a recovering alcoholic, for that point.
This is after my brief conversation with a chaplain who was openly cranky the last two times I tried to meet with him, who is at once gruff with staff and tender with patients, and who cussed in that gentle, conversational kind of way. And my supervisor who openly talks about her anger at God, her difficulty with grief, and her anxiety about meeting with patients. And how she went to see the Dalai Lama -- and the first time she saw him he was scolding the monks for sitting out of order, then who turned to the audience and said "I still have a long way to Enlightenment. I still can't stop swatting mosquitos."
And then there are friends who have struggled with death, disorders, abuse, and addictions...
I don't trust a religious leader who doesn't have zits and scars.

spiritual violence / spiritual integrity

Today in CPE we had a fascinating conversation about spiritual integrity. One student brought up their objection to praying in a non-Christian tradition. They said that it would feel like a [sinful] betrayal of their faith to pray to a God that is not their own. Their theology does not see [the "one, Christian, Father/Son/Holy Spirit] God in the gods of other traditions, except for the big three monotheistic religions...and even then this student could not call that God any name other than God. Our supervisor pointed out that we are interfaith chaplains, and that it is one thing to have this perspective in the abstract, but what does a person do when someone is dying in your arms, begging you to pray them through death in their tradition's language? Another student pulled out a book of prayers from other traditions, from Christian to Islam to Wiccan prayers and Buddhist chants. This person had used them before and come under fire from their own tradition's leaders and had nothing to say. I argued that this is not an adequate solution because the integrity of the prayer depends on meaning and not just going through the words. If I were dying, I would not find comfort in the words alone but in the intention and feeling of the words. So unless a person has room in their theology for other Gods, and defends it even to their own tradition's leaders, then the integrity of the prayer is broken. To say those prayers without an intent to pray would be to violate the patient's spirituality as well as the chaplain's spirituality. I don't know what the solution is exactly. I tend to be in the trend of seeing God [seeking God] in everything, from the highest Mass to the empty plastic water bottle on the table. Metaphors and movements of God are literally everywhere to me. But then from my angle, can I pray to "the Lord Jesus Christ my Savior"? Yes, but I'm not sure I could with integrity at this point. Since I don't see the figure of Jesus as singularly divine, as an intercessor [frankly, I don't see God as one who intercedes or who can be interceded to], and thus I don't see Jesus as a Lord & Savior but rather as an example, an enlightened one, a marker of the wholeness of body and spirit. I see Jesus as a mythological figure and not as a personal friend. So I don't know. If the first student prayed for me in my dying moments, appealing to the Blood of Christ, I wouldn't head out on the happiest of notes. At the same time, if that student prayed for me in my language but I knew that student didn't believe it (or worse, felt that it was sinful), I also wouldn't head out on the happiest of notes. At the end of the conversation, our supervisor pointed out that there are no answers.
That's my kinda religion.

authority

Today I had a fine day. I talked with some people in the nursing home, and we had some okay conversations. I felt like I didn't really get deep, and the most benefit anyone really felt was probably just having a pleasant social interaction. One of the people did talk about some trauma, but she minimized it, and she didn't pick up on any of my follow-up questions. At the end of the day, I felt a little irrelevant. I guess one of the big challenges for me will be finding my own authority. I'm used to having tasks of some sort: clean the floor, cook the food, paint the doorways, hold the workshop, plan the event, etc. I think the challenge for me right now is to believe that I have something to offer. I have something to offer someone that is worth interrupting the TV or the dozing or the staring-off-into-space. Or at least that's the idea. We'll see.