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!