Had planned to sit in at least some of the governing council sessions, be a good soldier. But my guts, under a potent combination of rich hotel food plus the ubiquitous jalapeños in many of the dishes, cast a dissenting vote. So I have an excuse from my innards to hide out and enjoy the antiseptic solitude of my room, mine for another 2 1/2 hours at least, when "my room" abruptly becomes someone else's room.
Hotels and motels create a jarring sense of ephemeral "home". They use lots of homey images and gestures of hospitality, and they are sincere so long as the terms of the transaction remain in force. If the card is declined, then relations become far less warm.
But this is thus far not the case, and so I have a few more moments to reflect in solitude before travel and the rest of life take their hold.
At risk of being somewhere between melodramatic and credulous, I feel this conference has changed me. The shape of this change has been...
a) Belonging: I have, almost to my surprise, a new tribe, one that overall I like and find admirable and with whom I have a surprising amount in common. This commonality is related to profession; to a similar desire to dig deeper within ourselves, among one another, and with the people we serve; and to a genuine sense of being on a journey.
b) Challenge: the Tavistock material, although I am far from being able to say "I get it", is rich and compelling and is deeply germane to my present life and work. Uncovering the depth of dream and of body-knowledge, "body within a body within a body", and experiencing vocation as interplay of self, role, and larger structure makes sense. The points of stress and crisis, wherein an individual or a structure reverts to fight/flight especially, I recognize as playing out in my former parish, in the hospital, and in many other aspects of my personal and professional life. It's visible in national life now, as people talk openly of fleeing the country in case of a Trump presidency. Much to masticate, and to try and put "on the road", step by step.
c) Future: most of the folks I met are in process, towards clinical certification as chaplains, or as pastoral counselors, or as "diplomates" or CPE supervisors. And some with whom I spoke accomplished much of their supervisor-in-training work on-line. Two years ago I found myself pondering seeking CPE supervisor certification, but decided I did not wish to move across the country and/or take a drastic salary cut in order to do so. Discovering that just maybe things could be "worked out" is very intriguing indeed!
One of many "ahas" that I experienced here is that, at age 57, I had begun to see myself as old and done with further vocational development. I think that is far from true and, whereas I do not intend to go $40,000.00+ into debt to get a PhD, I could go in some other directions that would be a better fit for my gifts, passions, and circumstances.
Who knew that Salt Lake City could make one younger? I don't think even Brigham Young imagined that.
bom caminho
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Plenary IV
At breakfast, a woman from New Jersey said "You know everybody!"
I laughed aloud and told her that my advantage was that I know nobody. As such I never have anything to lose, and I can sit down with any group and start with a clean slate, tabula rasa. "Hey, I'm -------, and you are?" That, and name tags are my friend.
So today I present, and am looking forward to it. Last night I opened my mouth to say "Me" in the group, but two other people were quicker on the draw. But last night I was grateful, as each presentation has allowed me to ask the question, "Is this really what I wanted to present?"
I thought I would chat about spiritual assessment and my exploring a narrative-based approach to assessment. But my slow-growing "aha" is that what I need is to share my own "assessment", ask for some insight about how to tell the story of my transitions of the past several years, how I find myself still slightly out of breath back in this clinical chaplaincy world after a 25+ year break. How to integrate, what needs re-telling, what needs healing, what needs reconciling, what needs re-owning, what needs to be left behind?
People are already starting to come and go for their own reasons. Most folks seem replete with input, many speak of struggling to understand the Tavistock material while appreciating the presenter's thoroughness and obvious mastery of both the material and the art of presenting.
Much undercurrent as well as, at lunch yesterday, speech about CPSP having come through turmoil in 2012 centering on mission and identity and resultant structures and procedures. I assume that the new certification process with a reviewing board is one of the results of this. The dynamics of the conversation are familiar to me--the stress and strain and anxiety that accompanies re-interpretation and some breaks of custom with the founding customs. It's hard, engenders anger and flight/flight, and apparently has given birth to a new spin-off group. What pleases me is my impression that everyone is trying hard to be civil and to keep speaking to one another. I met one person who is certified in and participating in both groups.
As a board-certified chaplain who completed the process just under the wire of the new regime, I feel like I straddle both worlds.
Meanwhile, it snowed a little last night, and today I heard that Trump and Cruz and Rubio and the rest of the Little Rascals are coming into Salt Lake City tomorrow. That'll make the airport just delightful! Woo hoo!
I laughed aloud and told her that my advantage was that I know nobody. As such I never have anything to lose, and I can sit down with any group and start with a clean slate, tabula rasa. "Hey, I'm -------, and you are?" That, and name tags are my friend.
So today I present, and am looking forward to it. Last night I opened my mouth to say "Me" in the group, but two other people were quicker on the draw. But last night I was grateful, as each presentation has allowed me to ask the question, "Is this really what I wanted to present?"
I thought I would chat about spiritual assessment and my exploring a narrative-based approach to assessment. But my slow-growing "aha" is that what I need is to share my own "assessment", ask for some insight about how to tell the story of my transitions of the past several years, how I find myself still slightly out of breath back in this clinical chaplaincy world after a 25+ year break. How to integrate, what needs re-telling, what needs healing, what needs reconciling, what needs re-owning, what needs to be left behind?
People are already starting to come and go for their own reasons. Most folks seem replete with input, many speak of struggling to understand the Tavistock material while appreciating the presenter's thoroughness and obvious mastery of both the material and the art of presenting.
Much undercurrent as well as, at lunch yesterday, speech about CPSP having come through turmoil in 2012 centering on mission and identity and resultant structures and procedures. I assume that the new certification process with a reviewing board is one of the results of this. The dynamics of the conversation are familiar to me--the stress and strain and anxiety that accompanies re-interpretation and some breaks of custom with the founding customs. It's hard, engenders anger and flight/flight, and apparently has given birth to a new spin-off group. What pleases me is my impression that everyone is trying hard to be civil and to keep speaking to one another. I met one person who is certified in and participating in both groups.
As a board-certified chaplain who completed the process just under the wire of the new regime, I feel like I straddle both worlds.
Meanwhile, it snowed a little last night, and today I heard that Trump and Cruz and Rubio and the rest of the Little Rascals are coming into Salt Lake City tomorrow. That'll make the airport just delightful! Woo hoo!
Monday, March 14, 2016
Plenary Deax: surprise and exhaustion
The first evening was replete with surprises.
CPSP serves good Irish whiskey.
CPSP folk are from all over, and even though there is a venerable white male contingent with whom I fit uncomfortably well there is some significant diversity of skin tone, language to a limited extent, gender, and experience.
It rains CPE supervisors. I remember those folks being less accessible. Or maybe I was, out of intimidation, oh so many years ago.
I sat down with a circle of elder statesmen on a patio and sipped Jamesons. A Ken, a Dave who is Co-President-Elect, a George who turned out to be from Ireland and proved it with a disarming unself-conscious way of storytelling. An Al, who asked me to remember him to Kevin Henne and said something about palliative care.
A young man who is a "Community Chaplain" in urban New York. Still want his stories.
The day proved rich and it started at breakfast. Ate with a couple of exuberant personalities, a sophisticated multi-lingual tall man from Quebec named Orville and a delightfully gregarious woman named Paula and I spoke first about their work. Both supervisors, they told of the joy upon seeing both new ministry dawn in their own lives as well as seeing realization and insight and integration dawn in their students' lives.
Something clicked inside of me. I thought of how I had assumed that, at age 57, I was on the downward slope of my active years, that my present job was my last gig, and that if I made it to 65 tops with my health intact I would be hanging things up, doing a little dabbling here and there.
I resonated with their description of bringing something to birth inside of seekers, as that has been my greatest joy lo these many years, whether with youth or with parishioners earnest about deepening their lives with Christ or with those seeking a more explicit and public ministry or with Academy students in the Diocese. I spoke aloud the word "midwife" and both of my companions stirred, reacting. I spoke also of the dual role of midwife and hospice worker in the context of leading a congregation, the slow death and new life visible there, and they understood. Orville remarked on how the Plenary process begins early.
And so it did.
The speaker, Richard, is quietly compelling. Near as I can ascertain this early in, the "Tavistock approach" he represents invites the unacknowledged and unintegrated experience of individuals and groups. The starting point is the body, somatic experience. Tavistock explores how the experience of the body, intersecting with the mind, engages one's role, which is an expectation or charge within an organization. One "embodies" an organizational role, and there is a dynamism between the individual impacting organization and the organization shaping (or contorting) the individual, often in suppressive ways.
If that is all wrong, I shall be interested, or should I say "curious", to be further enlightened.
Didactic sessions alternate with group work, for the essence of change, according to this understanding, happens in relation to individuals.
The day was long and exhausting, but very rich, and after dinner with a pair of Mormon CPE students, who patiently answered my questions about the Mormon epic historical narrative of the 19th century, I dove into solitude, grateful for my private room. I intended to 'blog last night but found myself exhausted and instead gazed glassy-eyed at an impenetrable sci-fi movie then tried to sleep.
In spite of my exhaustion sleep proved harder to come by than I had hoped. I had my journal at hand, intending to catch a dream, as there is a dream-workshop built into the morning. I think my unconscious decided to be mischievous and petulant, irritated at my intent to violate its privacy. But I did catch a dream in the wee hours of the morning, suitably bizarre to be grist for the mill, and so type sleepy but satisfied, sipping the cup of hotel-room coffee that the little machine obligingly chugged and huffed for me.
I did not know what to expect coming here--a gathering of good old boys/girls and walking about politely among a lot of back-slapping, insider-talk about the inner politics of an organization that I have joined without knowing much about beyond the life of our Chapter, some speaker speaking. There have been elements of all of these, but frankly there has been so much more. I did not expect the almost-audible "click" of shared call, insight and inner exploration, and new possibilities. I like this group of people, the geographic and ecumenical mix, the variety of ministerial and professional experience, the graybeards (among which I get beginner seating due to my own hoary hairs), at least some diversity of faiths and skin-tone and language.
I like the openness and frankness of many of the conversations, the commonality amidst diversity. It's already worth the journey.
CPSP serves good Irish whiskey.
CPSP folk are from all over, and even though there is a venerable white male contingent with whom I fit uncomfortably well there is some significant diversity of skin tone, language to a limited extent, gender, and experience.
It rains CPE supervisors. I remember those folks being less accessible. Or maybe I was, out of intimidation, oh so many years ago.
I sat down with a circle of elder statesmen on a patio and sipped Jamesons. A Ken, a Dave who is Co-President-Elect, a George who turned out to be from Ireland and proved it with a disarming unself-conscious way of storytelling. An Al, who asked me to remember him to Kevin Henne and said something about palliative care.
A young man who is a "Community Chaplain" in urban New York. Still want his stories.
The day proved rich and it started at breakfast. Ate with a couple of exuberant personalities, a sophisticated multi-lingual tall man from Quebec named Orville and a delightfully gregarious woman named Paula and I spoke first about their work. Both supervisors, they told of the joy upon seeing both new ministry dawn in their own lives as well as seeing realization and insight and integration dawn in their students' lives.
Something clicked inside of me. I thought of how I had assumed that, at age 57, I was on the downward slope of my active years, that my present job was my last gig, and that if I made it to 65 tops with my health intact I would be hanging things up, doing a little dabbling here and there.
I resonated with their description of bringing something to birth inside of seekers, as that has been my greatest joy lo these many years, whether with youth or with parishioners earnest about deepening their lives with Christ or with those seeking a more explicit and public ministry or with Academy students in the Diocese. I spoke aloud the word "midwife" and both of my companions stirred, reacting. I spoke also of the dual role of midwife and hospice worker in the context of leading a congregation, the slow death and new life visible there, and they understood. Orville remarked on how the Plenary process begins early.
And so it did.
The speaker, Richard, is quietly compelling. Near as I can ascertain this early in, the "Tavistock approach" he represents invites the unacknowledged and unintegrated experience of individuals and groups. The starting point is the body, somatic experience. Tavistock explores how the experience of the body, intersecting with the mind, engages one's role, which is an expectation or charge within an organization. One "embodies" an organizational role, and there is a dynamism between the individual impacting organization and the organization shaping (or contorting) the individual, often in suppressive ways.
If that is all wrong, I shall be interested, or should I say "curious", to be further enlightened.
Didactic sessions alternate with group work, for the essence of change, according to this understanding, happens in relation to individuals.
The day was long and exhausting, but very rich, and after dinner with a pair of Mormon CPE students, who patiently answered my questions about the Mormon epic historical narrative of the 19th century, I dove into solitude, grateful for my private room. I intended to 'blog last night but found myself exhausted and instead gazed glassy-eyed at an impenetrable sci-fi movie then tried to sleep.
In spite of my exhaustion sleep proved harder to come by than I had hoped. I had my journal at hand, intending to catch a dream, as there is a dream-workshop built into the morning. I think my unconscious decided to be mischievous and petulant, irritated at my intent to violate its privacy. But I did catch a dream in the wee hours of the morning, suitably bizarre to be grist for the mill, and so type sleepy but satisfied, sipping the cup of hotel-room coffee that the little machine obligingly chugged and huffed for me.
I did not know what to expect coming here--a gathering of good old boys/girls and walking about politely among a lot of back-slapping, insider-talk about the inner politics of an organization that I have joined without knowing much about beyond the life of our Chapter, some speaker speaking. There have been elements of all of these, but frankly there has been so much more. I did not expect the almost-audible "click" of shared call, insight and inner exploration, and new possibilities. I like this group of people, the geographic and ecumenical mix, the variety of ministerial and professional experience, the graybeards (among which I get beginner seating due to my own hoary hairs), at least some diversity of faiths and skin-tone and language.
I like the openness and frankness of many of the conversations, the commonality amidst diversity. It's already worth the journey.
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Plenary blues
So I told Chi and Julie on the way back from Chapter that yes, I have a 'blog, and as quick as that I had agreed to 'blog posts from the Plenary.
So here I sit in the sumptuous yet rather arid comforts of the Sheraton, having been wished most sincerely a good stay by most sincere staff, sincerely.
I am sure I am grumpy because I was oddly nervous traveling today, even though by air standards Salt Lake City is not much more than a good steep climb, enough level flight to hand out the peanuts and come back around, attendant toe almost tapping, to collect the trash (none from me--I palmed the peanuts in an odd regressive scarcity gesture worthy of my Irish aunt). Then down, and I somewhat grudgingly admit that the mountains surrounding the Salt Lake City are impressive in a more stark and fierce desert way that our lush green peaks in Portland.
I awoke this AM feeling very grateful for my life, and for my vocation, and for our lovely jumbly chaotic family life in our aging little SE Portland house that is now worth a ridiculous amount of money because it is Where It Is. I left my wife engaged in a final push to finish her teaching Masters synthesis project, so it is well that I am out of her hair.
I know I was rattled because a lazy, glutinous drop of dark blue juice splotting on my lap, as well as all my feelings, so disheveled me that I forgot my hat, my brown pub cap, somewhere in the airport. I liked that hat.
So my head feels naked amidst the Stetsons and Caterpillar Tractor and other miscellaneous male headgear strutting about the lobby and the premises. Perhaps it is symbolic--bare vulnerable head. This is a passel of people unknown to me save for a couple of e-mail exchanges here and there. But I'll fumble through just like I've fumbled through all the new starts of my life, and there have been many.
The organizers had advertised an early registration to satisfy us compulsives rolling into town early, so once having been checked in and checked out and keyed and sincerely welcomed I dragged my rollie-bag off to find it. Empty halls.
I stood relishing not having a clue, when a grizzled 21st century Western type made his way slowly up the stairs. He mumbled something about "a conference" and "CPSP" and hauled out a cellphone, spoke into it for a few moments, then with something of a cowboy swagger moved with authority down the hall. I grinned, suspecting that in this new club of mine my Lone Ranger was probably Somebody, and decided to take the same trail back to the lobby. He deigned not to interrupt his reverie to address me, so I left him to seek his own destination and found my room.
Free WiFi, not bad. But I had forgotten how desolate a hotel room alone can be. But not so desolate that I want a roommate; I already feel the need to feed the introvert.
So writing this 'blog post feels good, like a connection. In a few minutes I will see if praying Evening Prayer from my Episcopal Daily Office Book will help me feel better oriented. I'll be on the lookout for the clinical cowboy figure later, and if indeed he turns out to be Somebody or at least Somebody You All Know I shall be sure to update you.
But damn it. I really liked that hat.
So here I sit in the sumptuous yet rather arid comforts of the Sheraton, having been wished most sincerely a good stay by most sincere staff, sincerely.
I am sure I am grumpy because I was oddly nervous traveling today, even though by air standards Salt Lake City is not much more than a good steep climb, enough level flight to hand out the peanuts and come back around, attendant toe almost tapping, to collect the trash (none from me--I palmed the peanuts in an odd regressive scarcity gesture worthy of my Irish aunt). Then down, and I somewhat grudgingly admit that the mountains surrounding the Salt Lake City are impressive in a more stark and fierce desert way that our lush green peaks in Portland.
I awoke this AM feeling very grateful for my life, and for my vocation, and for our lovely jumbly chaotic family life in our aging little SE Portland house that is now worth a ridiculous amount of money because it is Where It Is. I left my wife engaged in a final push to finish her teaching Masters synthesis project, so it is well that I am out of her hair.
I know I was rattled because a lazy, glutinous drop of dark blue juice splotting on my lap, as well as all my feelings, so disheveled me that I forgot my hat, my brown pub cap, somewhere in the airport. I liked that hat.
So my head feels naked amidst the Stetsons and Caterpillar Tractor and other miscellaneous male headgear strutting about the lobby and the premises. Perhaps it is symbolic--bare vulnerable head. This is a passel of people unknown to me save for a couple of e-mail exchanges here and there. But I'll fumble through just like I've fumbled through all the new starts of my life, and there have been many.
The organizers had advertised an early registration to satisfy us compulsives rolling into town early, so once having been checked in and checked out and keyed and sincerely welcomed I dragged my rollie-bag off to find it. Empty halls.
I stood relishing not having a clue, when a grizzled 21st century Western type made his way slowly up the stairs. He mumbled something about "a conference" and "CPSP" and hauled out a cellphone, spoke into it for a few moments, then with something of a cowboy swagger moved with authority down the hall. I grinned, suspecting that in this new club of mine my Lone Ranger was probably Somebody, and decided to take the same trail back to the lobby. He deigned not to interrupt his reverie to address me, so I left him to seek his own destination and found my room.
Free WiFi, not bad. But I had forgotten how desolate a hotel room alone can be. But not so desolate that I want a roommate; I already feel the need to feed the introvert.
So writing this 'blog post feels good, like a connection. In a few minutes I will see if praying Evening Prayer from my Episcopal Daily Office Book will help me feel better oriented. I'll be on the lookout for the clinical cowboy figure later, and if indeed he turns out to be Somebody or at least Somebody You All Know I shall be sure to update you.
But damn it. I really liked that hat.
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