since we have no class in week 2, we have a discussion board.
What challenges or broadens your perspective on pastoral/spiritual care from the lecture and the reading assignment “Introducing an Intercultural Approach” in Doehring's book, The Practice of Pastoral Care? Please connect your insights with both the reading and the lecture in your writing. (Please do not exceed 200 characters)Please choose one chapter from Part 1 (chapters 1–4) of Kujawa-Holbrook's book, Injustice and the Care of Souls. (Please do not exceed 250 characters)Summarize the chapter in one or two paragraphs.Create one critical question based on the reading.Then respond to that question yourself.
1. On page 6 Doehring talks about how individual spiritualities are problematic for spiritual care because they risk being unknowledgeable in the practice of the care seeker and may bypass important spiritual resources. I find this a bit challenging, as a pagan, because paganism as a whole is very individualistic and even within subgroups groups there is a wide spread of diversity. I do not think that the caretaker being an individualistic spiritual practitioner would be an issue, rather them being untrained/ignorant of other practices. The same could be said of a Christian chaplain when dealing with a care-seeker's faith they are unfamiliar with. There is even such diversity amongst Christian denominations in practice that an unknowledgeable chaplain could make the same mistakes as an individualistic provider. I would think after an initial talk, the caregiver would end up doing a lot of research to develop the care plane regardless of their personal practice (using the trifocal lens).
In the lecture there is a difference between spirituality and religiousness; with spirituality being a more inclusive term. Given the very sentiment I mentioned in the previous paragraph, and with the connotation that "chaplain" means Christian to a great majority of people, I definitely side on the "change the title to spiritual care" team. I would also follow up with a question, how does one define "traditional context"? Does this mean the spirituality must have a sacred text or would following a traditional practice such as meditation be enough?
I fear that the focus on "traditional" or "religiousness" is why many spiritual caretakers face the challenges they do, which leads right into the chapter I chose for part 2.
2. I chose chapter 4, which is about the difficulties faced by Buddhist chaplains. This can be summarized by discrimination, misinformation and harmful assumptions, spiritual invalidation, systemic and structural oppression, and minority isolation/disconnection all of which are perpetuated by Christian normativity and homogeny. This is unfortunately not only from care seekers, but from within the chaplaincy peer group and its leaders.
My Question to reflect on: What can be done within the community of spiritual care takers in the moment when witnessing Christian hegemony - especially when it is done in a subtle way?
I have already experienced subtle invalidation from community religious leaders for being a religious minority in seminary. Knowing that I face that in a potentially constant and more overt form is disheartening - but the only thing that can be done in the moment is to hold one's head high and push forward. The emotional tax can be examined later, reinforcing the need for a support system, but in the face of it all one can really do is smile defiantly. There are subtle ways in which one is dismissed and invalidated, likewise there are subtle ways to do the opposite in the face of it. But what can be done by others who witness this happening to someone else? How can spiritual minorities be prevented from discouragement when looking in the face of the difficulties to come?
Part 1 word count:
Part 2 word count: 231
