What CPE has taught me (so far)
I believe people, especially pastors, should take a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education.
👆🏼Click above for a voiceover of me reading this little letter.
Last summer, we were finishing our home renovation when I decided to check local job boards. After a day of snapping laminate floor planks together, I sat on the floor in our living room and just wanted a few moments to think. Summers in Montana are beautiful, and I enjoyed the late afternoon sun shining in the windows. I was about to conclude the online/work-from-home job I was in, and to be honest, I craved to be in person with people again.
I have a good friend I was trying to convince to move to Montana, and I was looking at the job boards for him when I saw a part-time chaplain position available at a local hospital. Knowing he needed full-time work and was pursuing a different career path, I applied for me.
It is a bit of an HR miracle story, but it only took three days from submitting my application to being on my first interview with my new supervisor. I got on the interview and felt at ease in an interview process for the first time in a long time. I could share my convictions, uncertainties, and shortcomings in a way that wouldn’t be a hindrance. I am thankful for the system I work in, which values identifying and working on those growth edges.
Within a short while, I was out of my online role and beginning to knock on patient doors, introducing myself as part of the spiritual care team, and learning about patients’ spiritual history, personal journeys, and gaining language for talking about the different types of spiritual distress a person can encounter. Initially, I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, but committed to reading, processing, and asking questions.
It took a few months, but I began feeling confident about my chaplain work. Providing for the spiritual, religious, and emotional needs of patients, families, and caregivers is the extent of my job description, and it takes on many forms. I am on call for crisis and trauma. I’ve been called in in the middle of the night to be with family members who are grieving. I was awakened out of a sleepy slumber to learn about the loss others are experiencing, and because I believe we are all connected, the loss I am experiencing. I’ve had long days and just crawling into bed when the pager goes off. And yes, I am finally living my 90’s dream of holding a pager.
Being a chaplain is hard to describe. I am part of an interdisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, CNAs, and therapists of all sorts (respiratory, physical, and psychological). I am there to hold space for a patient’s needs, support other caregivers, and ensure I am charting correctly.
There are things that seminary didn’t prepare me for, and that is okay. I loved the formation I got to experience in seminary. But there are things that none of us are really prepared for. And nothing prepares you for the smells. So. Many. Smells.
Then, I enrolled in CPE. I felt like I was back in the beginning all over again. I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I am thankful for the words of Brian Zahnd who, when talking about the Christian faith, reminds us that we never start at square one. We are handed a tradition; we bring reason and experience into the room. One of our early CPE lessons is the 80/30 principle. In chaplaincy, 80% of what we bring to the table is from our own processing, experience, and tradition. 80% of chaplaincy is who you are as a person. 30% is what you learn, theories of care, spiritual assessments, etc. And if you are doing the math, yes, it is 80/30 because you always bring more into a room than you need.
But there are things I am learning. I am about six weeks away from finishing my first unit of Clinical Pastoral Education. There is an accrediting body that oversees these units and has given us a list of 25 competencies to work on. Each unit is a lot of hours, 400 to be precise. Three hundred are clinical, and 100 are educational (met through weekly meetings and 3 onsite trips to Spokane, WA). I am thankful for the opportunity to get to do a total of 4 units over the coming years.
Here are the things I am holding closely from this educational environment:
We can still provide good care even though we make mistakes and don’t always say the right things. Don’t get caught up in the words; lean into the moment.
Be on the lookout for deeper and spiritual needs. Depending on faith tradition, sometimes these are the same.
Our culture hasn’t taught us well about compassion and empathy. These are skills to be learned and nurtured, not tools we are handed.
Each emotion is good and valid, and anger always brings a friend. Sometimes, the feelings of others don’t make us feel safe. Try to become curious about why.
The right way to grieve is to do whatever you are doing while you grieve. There is no wrong way to grieve.
Others will try to “should on you.” Don’t let anyone “should on you”; please, don’t “should on yourself.”
There are many more things I can share, and I will in the coming weeks.
I’m curious about how you have learned valuable lessons in unexpected places. Leave a comment below.