Searching for God #6

 The interior ‘dig’ into my own compulsiveness, my own drivenness, while not directly addressed in any of the curricular or practice schedules laid out in the theology curriculum, nevertheless, took me into some reflective readings, and private moments in which I found myself a somewhat unwitting member of a labelled group of ‘liberals’ in theology class, compared directly and quite negatively with a much larger group of “fundies” in the same class. On reflection, the former group seemed more interested in personal growth, personal reflection, personal searching while the latter was engrossed in the prospect of ‘saving’ the world for Jesus. Biblical interpretation for ‘liberals’ was anything but literal, and words like myth, poetry, imagination were anathema for the ‘fundies’ many of whose theological clones would much later sit in the pews of the rural churches were I was assigned to serve.

Another significant aspect of a personal connection with an interior life came in a unit entitled ‘clinical pastoral education,’ specifically in Chaplaincy. Here, one of the spines of the program was labelled ‘verbatim’ which meant essentially that, as student interns, we were expected to speak with hospital patients, and then report accurately, specifically, word-for-word as to who spoke each word, back to the class for what amounted to ‘peer review’.

Questions such as, ‘Why did you ask that question?’ and ‘Wasn’t that part of your agenda and not the agenda of the patient?”….all of these discussions generating a face-to-face with words, thoughts, feelings and observations that, previously, would have been considered merely ‘social,’ ‘collaborative,’ ‘engaging,’ and ‘superficial.’  What is my agenda? What am I trying to fix? Why am I more interested in providing coffee for patients and their families than in sitting silently and listening intently for meanings that, previously, would have gone unnoticed, and certainly unattended? What is the patient feeling and how do you know? What is the patient thinking and how do you know? What was your agenda in that encounter? And why was that the object of your visit? Patients in varying stages of ill health, often facing their own mortality, or questions of the meaning and purpose of their lives, were legitimately considered the ‘real reason’ for the chaplain’s visit in the first place. The chaplain intern’s task and learning curve focused on the discernment of the patient’s needs, aspirations, fears, anxieties, and ‘entering’ their emotional and psychic space. And while those words are typed with considerable ease, that learning curve continues nearly four decades on.  Grieving about the broken relationships, for example, needed to be ‘top of mind’ and whatever emotions the patient was experiencing needed to be discerned, respected, and given the space the patient needed for their encounter with those emotions, memories and reflections without judgement of even an attitude of disregard or dismissal. Empathy, different from compassion, suggests a kind of identification with another’s psychic state. And the capacity to develop authentic empathy, the ability to understand and share (identify with) the feelings of another, challenges the chaplaincy intern beyond compassion, the feeling of concern for another’s suffering linked with a desire to alleviate it. Much later, while working in parish ministry, when a lay person would visit a hospital patient, I found, to my disappointment, that inevitably the visitor, while exhibiting concern for the patient, would also utter something like, ‘I know you are going to get better!’ as a sign of hope. Really, those words now sound more like the agenda of the visitor who had no idea of whether the patient was likely to get better or not. And attempting to orient lay visitors to the difference between empathy and compassion is not a task for which many of those well-intentioned ‘Christians’ were either prepared or receptive. Purposefully, and intentionally clearing one’s head, and heart of whatever it was at the moment one was about to enter that hospital room, as if each visit were to be a fresh new beginning, dependent to the degree feasible, on the mood, the thoughts, the emotions and the psychic activity of the patient. Even if there seemed to be no ‘affect’ and no ‘interest’ in being part of the visit on the patient’s part, the intern was to avoid promoting, suggesting, or manipulating a conversation. Given that we adults have lived much of our lives in a ‘solving problems’ mode, or accomplishing some goal or purpose, being present and patiently awaiting whatever might be the conscious or even unconscious impulse of the patient was, especially at the beginning of the term, a steep hill to climb.

Indeed, it is intersection of a cultural norm, “activity” in both words and actions, purposeful activity, with mere presence, that benign and wholly unfamiliar state, unrecognized and certainly unacclaimed in the ‘secular world’, and yet highly valued and respected in the world of pastoral relationships that those visits were to occur. Silent presence, beside a person deeply suffering, having already lost a loved one, or expecting to lose a loved one, or just having received a ‘pink slip’ terminating employment, is far more likely to appreciate deeply (whether s/he is conscious of this or not) a comforting presence of someone who has no interest in or need to accomplish some instant ‘amelioration’ of the pain. Sitting silently, listening to one’s breathing, discerning one’s facial expression, one’s body pose and movement, listening attentively and empathically to one’s words, or voice sounds, exclusively to enter into that psychic space, in order for the patient to experience what amounts to a human mirror, was a new, awakening and challenging experience for this scribe. Engaging in attempts to clarify, or to mimic/mirror (without ridicule or any judgement whatsoever) or to support whatever is ‘going on’ in and for the patient, is unique, and, theoretically, supportive of that patient. For the intern, the experience is among the most transformative of all of the curricular and internship challenges on the road to the practice of ministry. Very different, for example, from meeting a character in a novel or movie, this is an authentic person in a moment of considerable significance for him or her. Not only is it a privilege to enter that ‘sacred space’ (obviously confidentially) it is also challenging to ponder how ‘I’ would be experiencing this situation of the patient. The verbatim sessions never included the name of the patient, only the age, gender and emotional and psychical state, any relationships mentioned during the conversation, and the medical diagnosis and prognosis.

The work of ‘fixing’ which dominates the medical, legal, social worker, scientific literal worlds has little or no application to another person’s spiritual life. As Saint Benedict reminds us, we are not to do the spiritual (and I would add psychic) work of another. Whatever interior pain one person is experiencing, first, needs to be discerned by that person, (of course with professional help if sought) and then any transformation of that pain, being perceived differently, or actually lifting it from the subject’s psychic shoulders, is up to that person, (with God’s help, or not, depending on the beliefs of that person). The underlying premise of a lay person attempting to ‘fix’ another’s emotional or psychic pain, is the transfer of energy, power and influence to the wannabe fixer….and even with the best of intentions, (I hate to see you in pain!) the integrity or lack of the psychic experience is interpreted by the ‘other’. There are so many duets in our lives that imitate this duet: parent-child, teacher-student, boss-worker, even clergy-adherent, doctor-patient, lawyer-client, accountant-client, salesperson-customer…Without any direct or specific mention of religion, or faith or ethics or morals, the human development of a kind of resistance to ‘fixing another’s pain’ (the kind not referred to a professional) would serve many human encounters admirably.

There is, also, a theological/religious/spiritual aspect to this dynamic, perhaps not as recognizable and even tolerated as might be considered conventional. The Christian faith has celebrated, and infused into the culture, the ethical, moral, and in some jurisdictions, the legal model of the Good Samaritan. To follow in that example is lauded on the vast majority of obituaries, reinforcing that archetype as a personal  goal, while worthy of attention, also reinforces the agent-client model of any number of transactions. Doing eclipses being, to reduce the issue to a bumper-sticker!

The archetype of the care-giver, the rescuer, the Good Samaritan, central to the Christian faith, however, has both situational limits, as well as definitional (theological) limits. In a few other pages in this space, I have referred to the Jesus Seminar’s interpretation of that parable (the Good Samaritan) by identifying the Christ figure as the Jew taken for dead in the ditch, NOT the Good Samaritan. This exegesis of that biblical story, however, is not as fitting for a triumphal church seeking new converts, new cash flow and new chrystal cathedrals or mega-churches, as the image of the Jew taken for dead in the ditch. And it is projected from the Jesus Seminar’s exegesis, that in order to imitate the Christ figure, we think differently than merely to ‘rescue’ the destitute from the street. Identification with, empathy with, and the fullest expression of agape love (selfless love) is much more challenging than mere rescuing even if such rescuing has some legitimate and ethical merit.

Embedded in the ‘good Samaritan’ image is a hidden ‘right-and-wrong’ to the situation. There is an instant, implicit and unchallengable judgement whenever the situation is reviewed. It is not so much that that judgement is unsustainable; it is more that the glib, efficient, superficial and automatic approach to any complex situation is permitted to satisfy, indeed to rule out any further investigation. For example, and this is going to offend many in the church hierarchy, as well as in the general public.

The perceived power imbalance, between men and women, for instance, is based primarily on the physical size, muscularity, voice tone and volume and history of masculine dominance throughout history. Written into the history books, (written by men) and into the literature, (also written by men, exclusive for centuries of women), and more recently, based on pieces  of literature such as The Handmaiden’s Tale, that embeds the image of women as baby-producing machines, subservient to the will of the men, while relevant, and worthy of both literary merit and dystopian imagination, for the purpose of transforming the culture, has had some deleterious impacts. Never siding with, or even condoning the INCELS, (men rejected by women and turning their vengeance on the society), while the sociological numbers of domestic violence demonstrate unequivocally that men perpetrate the vast majority of incidences of domestic violence, there is another side to that story. Women, too, through perhaps less physical and more emotional and verbal abuse, have and continue to abuse men, whose complicity in the abuse needs much further critical examination. Female parents have and continue to abuse their male children, as do female teachers continue to abuse their male students. And these incidents do not often make the headlines. The critical examination of personal needs and motives, for both men and women, is abrogated and perhaps even consider far to complex for a culture to undertake. Nevertheless, we have already established the operating principal that, for example, if there is a romantic relationship among co-workers, (between a male and a female) the public perception is that the male bears the greater degree of both culpability and responsibility. Such a primary cultural principal, however, denies both the maturity and self-respect of the female, as well as relegating the male to a pre-determined reputational, if not legal, negative judgement.

It says here that for the culture, not merely the religious communities, to consider a different objective, equal and respectful of each individual, from the get-go, would be enhance and fostered if each of us were familiar with empathy, and considered our expression of empathy more relevant and applicable to each situation we encounter.

Daily verbatims from each member of the class of half-dozen provided the context for another assignment. In a specific morning announcement came word that, on this specific afternoon, we would be attending an autopsy. I simply froze when I first learned what was expected. That is an experience for which I am simply neither prepared nor emotionally ready. After a chat with my supervisor, who, succinctly, and brilliantly interjected as option: “Go, and stay as long as you can, and if you have to leave, then give yourself permission to leave.” Legitimate permission to leave….what was that, in an academic, educational and professional learning situation? After two-plus decades in elementary and secondary education, an assignment was an assignment, for which permission to default would be an indication of failure of the professional teacher, and an opportunity for the student to ‘laugh’ at that teacher, along with any friends who learned of the debacle. However, of the half dozen interns, after dawning the appropriate ‘scrubs,’ I started the process as far away from the body as I could, baring glancing in the direction of the hands of the pathologist and his assistant. Nevertheless, as the process unfolded, unconsciously I found myself moving closer and closer to the actual operation, until finally, I was so struck by the amazement and the intricacy and the balance and the complexity and the beauty of the integration of all of these systems, that I was virtually dumbfounded, and completely engrossed in the discovery process. Of course, my theological reflection echoed my overwhelming amazement at this miracle of the human body, a gift from God, as I honestly and sincerely considered it to be. No thought or even intimation of evolution, apes, biological and anthropological history even penetrated my mind. Like birth, this experience, for a male, exceeded anything I could have, or would ever imagine. Astounded, almost speechless, I wandered the hospital campus in Scarborough for hours! Another epiphany for this little mind and somewhat constricted life experience.

To be continued…….