Psychology and Sacrament

During CPE this Summer, I have been learning how chaplaincy in a non-sectarian institution (A.I. Nemours Children's Hospital in Wilmington, DE in this case) functions as an expression of common grace--the grace that is a sacramental extension of God's soteriological grace, but not intentionally aimed at preaching the Gospel directly. As I explained it to friend, common grace is like the perfume still filling the ballroom just after the duchess has departed--causing one to wonder, "Where did she go? I must have just missed her."

Of course, not everyone will want to follow after her, and some may despise her perfume, but she is the hostess of the feast we attend. In the same way, not everyone is receptive of the good gifts God gives to all of us, but he (and we as his Church) avails them anyway. So my intent in CPE is to help families and patients find a degree of emotional and spiritual wholeness during a time that is often difficult to have much of either. Some people embrace the gift of a caring ear to help them find solace. Some cannot or will not accept the opportunity pastoral/spiritual care providers offer. Sometimes, as chaplains, we fail to make the offer clear, accessible, or impose our own difficulties as unconscious barriers to what God wants to offer through us.

Psychological wholeness is a gift from God. And the means to that kind of grace is most usually through the chaplain listening--not giving advice, pontificating, or attempting measure up a broken soul to an external standard of emotional health and urging them to reach it by sheer force of will. Thus, the time spent simply being present, sharing in the story told by the client, and reflecting back that story to them is often the most important sacred act we can give. Sure there is a time for prayer, for searching Scripture, for responding to the client's invitation for input. But trust is the foundation earned to offer those additional gifts as the Holy Spirit directs. And trust is built when you can show you listen and make a real attempt to understand the reality of the client's situation.

So psychology is a sacrament of common grace that can help us become better pastors to the flock of God, better missionaries reaching out to broken people, even better evangelists--who know how to listen as much as we know how to talk.

Poetic Theology

Today, my rector and I were formulating a plan for me to teach a special Lenten study on Christian Spiritual Classic Writers. We talked about Augustine (Hippo not Canterbury), Thomas a Kempis, John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and (from the contemporary scene) Rowan Williams. I must admit my lack of familiarity of Rowan's theology except the bits I have gleaned since he's been ABC. But I have been able to gauge a bit of his spirituality. He is a deeply sensitive and grounded Anglo-Catholic. He is considered by some a "liberal," however that is construed, but most people I know and read agree he is incredibly thoughtful and definitely a voice in Anglicanism that must be grappled with. In my initial readings today, I sense he is very much a poetic soul, not simply by the fact he writes poetry. Hallmark Card writers write poetry, but most I contend are not so poetic. His is manner is more akin to a monk on Mt. Athos than an Anglican bishop. His prose contains a lyric sense of hedgerows and heaths and rocky coastal seascapes. His poetry is intensely personal, immersing his readers with him into an encapsulation of his moments of experiencing God in Holy Scripture. I hear clear reverberations of Lancelot Andrews and George Herbert in his meditations. And I am now beginning to see how this contemporary mystic will prove to be a seminal figure in spiritual theology, enough so to include him in a study of "Classic" Christian Spiritual Writers.