Reflective Practice - Formation and Supervision in Ministry (E-Journal)

Reflections on being with people who are dying

Williams, Lois

89     THE SOUL OF A CHAPLAIN 
 
The Angel of Death 
 
Eyes glaze over, breath becomes shallow, feet slowly become cold to touch; 
This is when the work truly begins, for both of you. 
You, the midwife between life and death, witness to the sacredness of what you 
can not fully understand, something unexplainable but necessary in the circle of 
life. 
You hold the cold hand, reassure the one transitioning that they are doing a good 
job. 
Just as a mother in labor can have a hard time, or one of ease, so it is when 
birthing into the next life. There is no wrong way to die; it is just inevitable. 
Oils, blessings, prayer, meditation, ritual—the tools of human angels as they help 
the soul release to new life. 
Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Gaia, angels, archangels, ancestors all gather and create 
a sacred space within which you will do your work, sometimes with the nurse 
for medications, often consoling family members in their grief, but ultimately 
with the person in transition from this world to the next. 
In your mind, or sometimes out loud, you call on the assistance of the other 
world to bring you the knowledge, the words, the songs and sounds, the touch, 
the absolution needed to assist in a peaceful passing. 
Sometimes it is the mother, father, daughter, son, or sibling that needs to arrive 
for completion, other times it is just you they were waiting for. 
Your heart is laid open, your soul’s knowledge extends past the dogma that has 
been taught, your mind finds new meanings to Scripture, your faith is tested— 
and in a moment, your body is filled with the warmth of Spirit and you know 
you are where you need to be at this very moment. 
At the disturbing sight of a body fighting between life and death, you find your 
center. You can do this because you know, yes, you know, it is all going to fine, 
better than fine, at least for this person, not so much for those left behind, as you 
too know the sting of grief. 
Suddenly the air fills with expectation, you can feel the energy, you have felt this 
so many times before, and you lean into the ear that awaits your voice. 
You say, “Just know there is nothing that you have ever done or could ever do 
that would keep you from the love of God. You are forgiven.” Then you call on 
the God of their tradition for forgiveness and grace. 
the breath stops, the face relaxes, suddenly the peace that surpasses 
understanding becomes obvious in the face that previously showed stress. There 
is peace. There is a calmness. 
The Angel of Death has passed over the room, and you smile, for you know each 
other well. 
 
 
Lois Williams 
Sutter Hospice Care at Home 
East San Francisco Bay, CA 


English

The Angel of Death

Joshi, Mantu

90    THE SOUL OF A CHAPLAIN 
Checkmate for the Soul 
My soul was trapped in emotional gridlock, like I was a pawn surrounded 
by a world of bishops and knights. I held my head in my hands to catch my  
breath. Just then, my chaplain pager jumped off my hip, buzzing and twerping 
in a frenetic fashion, a jolting syncopated beat, much like my clenched heart  
that evening. It read, “Level One Pediatric Trauma.” I walked in a dreamy blur  
to the emergency department and waited for the ambulance to arrive. The tech 
was hanging by his arms off some equipment on the ceiling, stretching and  
readying for action. He made small talk. “At least we are on this side, waiting. 
Sure beats being on the other side.” 
Such gentle ED banter, but it was the worst thing he could have said that 
night. How could he have known that 24 hours earlier I had dropped off my 
son at the emergency department in the children’s hospital just two hundred 
yards away? My son, prone to violence, who has severe mental illness, was 
living through an episode, a living chess war in his own mind, and so for his 
own safety my spouse and I had taken him to the ED. There had been no beds 
for him in the children’s psychiatric hospital, so he had to stay and wait for a 
transfer for several days. Because of scheduling, it had been necessary for me 
to stay on a night shift at the hospital that weekend. My spouse stayed with 
my son. So I was in the soul-clenching vise of knowing that my son was in 
crisis in the same hospital where I was serving. 
I decided to be honest with the staff, although I was scared of what they 
might think of me, my family, and my professionalism. I leaned into the medical 
social worker’s corner and spoke my truth. “I may be off my game tonight. 
I have a child in a mental health crisis in the other ED. I am living on 
both sides of this tonight. If you feel I am off at all, I want you to feel free to 
call me on it.” 
As I helped a family work through the aftermath of a motor vehicle 
crash that evening, I discovered a truth, at least for myself. In reality, we 
are always on both sides of trauma in our care. We all hold loved ones and 
stories that we bring close to us as we enter our work in being present for 
others. As I waited with that hurting mother, I felt attuned to her visionblurring 
disorientation while waiting for the next medical steps. Acknowledging 
that in myself helped me to be truly present. It released the pressure 
on my soul and allowed me to operate even in my brokenness. 
The next day a staff chaplain came to me and shared that he too had a 
child who was struggling with violence and mental health. He spoke with 
deep feeling about the puzzle of being a parent in an impossibly hard situation. 
We stared at each other for some time, knowing the “checkmate” feeling 
of being stuck in a parenting bind with no easy resolution. He then began 
91    THE SOUL OF A CHAPLAIN 
 
to speak about how that struggle had changed the way he approached 
patients and even life. He shared how his ministry had been disrupted, even 
destroyed, and then transformed. I began to feel the bars of my own soul 
cage start to bend with the power of his meaning-making. I began to realize 
that knowing what it was to be “waiting on the other side” was a perspective 
that promoted healing with patients and, even more, with my own soul 
being. When I gave up on the idea of resolution or of things working out for 
the better or even of needing things to make sense with my child, I felt a 
new freedom. I could work to help other families heal, even as my own was 
breaking. My pawn became a queen, and the stuckness was exposed as illusion. 
The boxing in is always an illusion. When the board is cleared, I see the 
choice is always there to move toward my authentic self. That gives my soul 
the space it needs to allow others to do the same. 
 
Mantu Joshi4 
Legacy Emanuel and Randall Children’s Hospital 
Portland, OR. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
_______________ 
4 Mantu Joshi is author of The Resilient Parent: Everyday Wisdom 
for Life with Your Exceptional Child. 
 


Checkmate for the Soul

Reflections on how little things are very important

Freeman, Susan

94    THE SOUL OF A CHAPLAIN 
The Little Things 
Jasmina is a seventy-nine-year-old woman who immigrated to the United 
States from Serbo-Croatia decades ago. For the past four years, she 
has lived in a board and care home. When I introduced myself to her on 
my first visit, she repeated my name, “Susan—that’s a sad name.” 
“What do you mean?” I asked. 
“In my language, susan means sad,” she explained. 
“Could that be right?” I wondered. My Google searches later were inconclusive. 
Fortunately, I happen to have an acquaintance who is also originally 
from Serbo-Croatia. Marko confirmed that in his language susan does 
mean sad. “But you must understand,” he added, “words for ‘sorrow’ in my 
language are like words for ‘snow’ in Eskimo languages. We have many 
words for sorrow.” 
Sorrow indeed characterized much of what Jasmina shared with me. 
She is recuperating from a disfiguring surgery that removed a cancerous tumor, 
has become blind in the last several years, has no family in this country, 
and is often lonely. She expressed that she has lost her will to live. After 
we explored these experiences, I asked her, “Is there anything that helps 
when you’re feeling down?” 
“Breakfast,” she replied. 
“Breakfast?” I said, inviting her to say more. 
“They make really good breakfasts here,” she explained. 
“Oh?” I responded. 
“Yes, with eggs and toast, coffee and juice,” she elaborated. 
We moved on to discussing her desire to reconnect with her church, 
but she is not in a position to make that happen. I offered to read her some 
prayers, and she readily agreed. After getting started, she slowed me down, 
repeating every line after me. “The Lord is my shepherd,” I said. “The Lord 
is my shepherd,” she’d repeat. “I shall not want,” I recited. “I shall not want,” 
she repeated, and so we continued. 
When we finished, she requested that we talk about the prayer, line by 
line, then say the whole prayer again—in the pattern of my saying a line and 
her repeating it. She sought to memorize the prayer, to integrate it within 
her, to savor the words now in order to know them well enough to savor 
them later. 
I am moved by Jasmina’s strategy for coping with her deep suffering: 
pay attention, notice, appreciate, savor the little things, contemplate. She in- 
spires me to reflect on my own life. Though I do not suffer the way Jasmina 
does, I can learn from her about slowing down enough to appreciate life’s 
nuances. 
Jasmina does notice and experience many nuances of sorrow. Can I notice 
THE SOUL OF A CHAPLAIN 
 
and appreciate the many shades of sorrow experienced by the patients 
I visit? My hope for Jasmina is that life’s small pleasures, such as breakfast 
and savoring the lines of an age-old prayer, can be a source of comfort and 
reassurance. My hope for myself is that I remember to savor breakfast as 
well as the many little joys and delights scattered throughout my day. 
A reflection from Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of mindfulness-based stress 
reduction, is quite fitting here. As he teaches, “The little things? The little 
moments? They aren’t little.” 
 
 
Susan Freeman5 
Sharp HealthCare 
San Diego, CA 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
5 Susan Freeman is author of Torah in Motion: Creating Dance Midrash; Teaching 
Jewish Virtues: Sacred Sources and Arts Activities; and Teaching Hot Topics: Jewish Values, Resources, 
and Activities 


The Little Things

Being a chaplain connects the author with the whole world

Shin, Charlie

THE SOUL OF A CHAPLAIN 
 
Belonging 
Working as a chaplain has created in me a greater sense of belonging 
in the world. I have found that as I engage in chaplaincy, I see 
a broader swath of the human family as my very own. 
There is something about worshipping or sharing my spirituality with 
someone that makes me feel that they are included in what I subconsciously 
understand as “my people.” Up until I began work as a chaplain, “my people” 
were highly conservative Korean American Christians (the worshipping 
community that reared me), the Presbyterian seminary community, 
and also the very progressive end of the Presbyterian Church (USA). It was 
not so much broad as bipolar and compartmentalized. I often felt lost and 
misdirected as I lived out my vocation. This also translated to how I walked 
in the world. My people were divided and separated theologically and culturally, 
and I did not fit anywhere. 
As a chaplain, I began to be deeply spiritual with people that I had experienced in the 
world but with whom I had not found myself ever before 
sharing an honest, striving, searching, and stretching spiritual experience. 
I shared my spirituality with people with whom I had never before 
shared my most intimate and vulnerable self. The very rich, the very poor, 
the incarcerated, the homeless, the Native American, the Muslim, the Jew, 
the Buddhist, the non-Christian, the ‘none,’ the drug addict, the abused, 
the abuser, and the neglected in my community and I met each other in our 
deepest humanity, our truest selves. Yes, these people whom I had met but 
had never known became “my people.” 
By meeting, serving, and loving these people, I have felt embraced and 
loved myself. You see, as a Korean American woman, I have more often felt 
that I am the outsider rather than the privileged citizen. Belonging is something 
I long for but have not known. I had believed that if I delved deep 
within to understand who I am or if I answered God’s call on my life as 
one with a vocation in Christian ministry, that I would find my place in the 
world. But, no, I have tried many things, and I have not found a profound 
sense of welcome in the world. Rather, I have found belonging as I share my 
spiritual life with each new patient—by serving my community and all its 
people. They have loved me. They have embraced me. They have affirmed 
me—my call and my humanity. There could be no greater embrace for my 
soul than this. 
Because I know, now, that I belong here in my own city, country, and 
THE SOUL OF A CHAPLAIN 
 
world and that the whole of the human family is indeed my own, I feel empowered 
to simply live my life in freedom and joy. It is the diversity of the 
people that I meet that has somehow fed the longings of my subconscious 
being. It is chaplaincy that has given me the ability to reflect on this in such 
a way that I can articulate and finally know that this has happened to me. 
For this, my soul rejoices. 
Charlie Shin 
Harborview Medical Center 
Seattle, WA 


Belonging

Israeli CPE supervisory education student reflects on how preparing to be a CPE supervisor began thinking about the souls especiall personal theology and beliefs

Ramon, Einat

Listen to the Neshama: Daring to Speak About the Soul in Israeli Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE)

Veen, Leslie

Enriching Ministry: Pastoral Supervision in Practice, By Michael Paterson and Jessica Rose, eds.

Editor Sullender introduces the theme of Volume 37 of Reflective Practice - "A Soulful Perspective"

Sullender, Scott

Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry
ISSN 2325-2847 (print)*  ISSN 2325-2855 (online)
* © Copyright 2017 Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry
All Rights Reserved
SECTION 1: A SOULFUL PERSPECTIVE
Editor’s Introduction
There was a time in the Christian West when the work of pastoral care was conceptualized as soul care, or cura animarum (Latin for “cure of or care for souls”) 
In the 20th century, this conceptualization of the way we 
describe the distinctiveness of what religious profession-
als do has been battered by various forces and competing 
metaphors.
The advent of the modern science of psychology and the rise of the 
mental health professions led ministers to favor the concept of self over 
soul and displace spiritual practices with psychotherapeutic methods. In 
the world of hospital chaplaincy, soul care has been similarly battered by 
institutional pressures for more evidence-based health care services, urg-
ing chaplains to use behavioral language to conceptualize the distinctive-
ness of what they do in measurable and observable variables. This pressure 
and dilemma has been less acute for military chaplains and prison chap-
lains, whose existence and role is protected by the Constitution of the Unit-
ed States and by similar laws in other westernized nations. 
In recent decades, pastoral care has been replaced by spiritual care, 
particularly in the pluralistic cultures of the Western nations. One of the 
forces that triggered this embrace of spirituality as the distinctive focus of 
what religious professionals do was the re-emergence and popularization 
of spiritual direction as a unique and important type of ministry. Spiritual 
direction, which has been practiced in the Catholic monastic tradition for 
centuries, resurfaced in both the Catholic non-monastic community and in 
the progressive Protestant community. Jean Stairs, in her 2000 book Listen-
ing for the Soul: Pastoral Care and Spiritual Direction, sought to make spiritual 
direction central to pastoral care. She argued for “a soulful perspective.” In 
many ways, her vision has carried the day. Most young ministers entering 
religious work in the 21st century understand the uniqueness of the pastoral 
role not as a counselor or even as a teacher but as a spiritual guide. So it is 
that most Christian seminaries and religious training programs have aug-
mented the academic training for religious leadership with a program or 
component of their curriculum that addresses spiritual formation. 
6
~
Another force that has encouraged this change from pastoral care to 
spiritual care as the primary self-understanding of what chaplains do has 
been the growing multicultural and interreligious context of modern west-
ernized nations. Spiritual care seems less distinctively Christian or theistic 
than traditional terms such as pastoral care or soul care. Modern chaplains 
must be able to minister to patients of all types and stripes of religious ex-
pression, including the “nones.” The term ‘spiritual care’ seems to be here 
to stay. But its growing dominance as a self-definition of the distinctiveness 
of what we do begs the question, “Does spiritual care or spiritual formation 
adequately replace soul care? Or have we discarded something valuable and 
useful about the human condition as we have transitioned from soul care to 
spiritual care?
David Brooks, a popular columnist for the New York Times, argues in 
his recent book The Road to Character (2015) that in the emerging meritocratic 
culture, Westerners have lost the language to talk about, much less to foster, 
character. “Character,” he argues “is built in the course of [one’s] inner con-
frontation” as people struggle with their weaknesses, failures, and suffer-
ings. His thesis prompted me to wonder whether character does not assume 
soul and whether the decline of a focus on character in Western institu-
tions is not related to the loss of the metaphor of soul. Spirituality and spiri-
tual care, as I hear these conceptualizations used by my colleagues, does 
not seem to imply or include a focus on moral development or character. In 
moving away from the language of soul, have we also lost the language of 
character? 
In the last few decades there have been two developments in the 
broader field of pastoral or spiritual care that suggest a resurgence of the 
metaphor of soul and soul care. First, there has been a significant and steady 
growth of hospice programs and, correspondingly, hospice chaplaincy. Al-
though hospice chaplains are not immune from the pressures placed on 
hospital chaplains to quantify what they do and be interfaith in orientation, 
it seems to me that hospice chaplains are comfortable using the language 
of soul and soul care to describe what is distinctive about the services they 
provide. Secondly, the emerging interest in moral injury as a distinctive cat-
egory of and focus of spiritual care has also prompted a more open embrace 
of the language of soul and soul work as a distinctive description of what 
chaplains provide to military personnel.
SeCTION 1: eDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
7
All of the above developments have occurred largely in the West and 
in the mainline Protestant world. In some ways, the Catholic Church never 
really lost its conceptualization of pastoral care as soul care. Most of the 
spiritual practices that Catholic priests and laypeople use in pastoral care 
are designed to nurture the soul. evangelical Protestants have also never re-
ally lost the metaphor of the soul, although soul is understood as “the soul” 
rather than soul. Pentecostal Christians have merged or replaced soul with 
spirit. For some cultural groups such as African American Christians, soul 
is still a lively and rich metaphor of their spiritual life. Do we have some-
thing to learn or relearn about soul from those religious traditions that have 
never “lost their soul”?
Certainly the metaphor of soul is deeply rooted in the Western phil-
osophical tradition, which begs several questions: Does soul or soul care 
make any sense in non-Western or non-theistic religious traditions? Does 
soul have too much Western philosophical baggage to be useful in the mod-
ern, global world? Or does the metaphor of soul enrich and augment what 
we mean by spiritual and spiritual formation? Do all religious systems have 
parallel concepts to the Western concept of soul? How do non-theistic reli-
gious people talk about soul? What do we have to learn from those religious 
traditions that have never had a concept of soul or have different conceptu-
alizations of soul?
In this issue of Reflective Practice, we ask the question, “What if we took 
seriously the traditional conceptualization of spiritual care as soul care?” 
If we who teach, mentor, and supervise religious professionals understood 
our work as preparing a person’s soul for ministry or as preparing a student 
to be a soul caregiver, how would such a conceptualization shape what we 
do? Would we do theological education any differently? Would we do con-
textual education any differently? Would we do clinical pastoral education 
any differently?
Leading off this discussion is the essay “Soulness and the Liminal 
Work of Soulcare” by Herbert Anderson, editor emeritus of Reflective Prac-
tice. Herbert draws on his rich and full years as a professor of pastoral care 
and practical theology in various religious institutions to point out the 
shortcomings and paradoxes of the conceptualization of self that has come 
to dominate and permeate modern Western cultures and, thereby, theologi-
cal anthropology. Herbert argues for a resurrection of the soul, or what he 
terms soulness, and then suggests how such a vision of the distinctiveness of 
8
what religious professionals do would affect the formation and supervision 
of religious professionals.
  Next, Luther e. Smith Jr., Professor emeritus of Church and Com-
munity at Candler School of Theology, pens an essay with the intriguing 
title “The Soul Is We.” Luther argues that souls have both a personal and a 
communal reality and that we cannot understand the soul of another with-
out understanding its ancestral history and cultural/racial context. By un-
derstanding its history and cultural context, we connect soul to body. Lu-
ther goes on to gives several helpful illustrations and examples of how this 
perspective could enrich our work with students in clinical or academic 
settings.
Rabbi Barbara Thiede, spiritual leader of Temple Or Olam in Concord, 
North Carolina, tells the story of Sarah, one of her former college students 
at the University of North Carolina whom she was privileged to walk with 
as her pastoral care provider during the last months of Sarah’s life. Barbara 
shares this heart-warming and tender story and reflects on how the journey 
changed both Sarah and her. She concludes that soul work must be both par-
ticular and universal, both human and eternal. True soul work transcends 
faith, dogma, and creed.
Jason C. Whitehead, who is the Director of Consultation and Forma-
tion in the Office of Professional Formation at the Iliff School of Theology, 
invites us on a journey, a retelling of his personal journey from soul to soul-
fulness. He begins by reviewing the limitations of the traditional conceptu-
alization of soul as “the soul.” Out of this experience of losing soul, Jason, in 
conversation with process theology and social constructionism, envisions a 
new, more radical reinterpretation of soul, from “soul as substance to soul-
fulness as a relational activity.” The experience of soulfulness is creative 
narration, the intersection of where my story meets your story in the context 
of God’s story. In short, he invites us look for the divine not so much within 
us as between us. He concludes, “Soulfulness, at every turn, connects rather 
than converts.”
Finally, einat Ramon rounds out this section on The Soulful Perspective 
with an essay that reflects on the absence of the metaphor of the soul in Is-
raeli clinical pastoral education. She offers three reasons why the concept 
of the soul “escaped us, the first group of Israeli CPe educators.” This is a 
well-researched and well-documented essay that offers both an interesting 
window onto the development of Jewish thought and Israeli society in the 
9
last 50 years and also a powerful example of the impact of culture, society, 
and history upon how people think theologically. In a sense, einat’s essay is 
a good illustration of Luther Smith’s argument that soul has both a cultural 
and a historical context. einat also describes the resurgence of the concept of 
soul in the New Age culture of modern Israel and correspondingly in cur-
rent CPe programs.
Together, these authors offer a thoughtful and provocative introduc-
tion to this year’s theme, The Soulful Perspective. Upon completing this sec-
tion, reflect on how their ideas compare, parallel, or contrast with each oth-
er and on how your work as a supervisor might be enriched by a soulful 
perspective. 
Scott Sullender, editor


SECTION 1: A SOULFUL PERSPECTIVE - EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

This article explores the interconnection of Buddhist ministry, supervision and spiritu formation in a Buddhist chaplaincy department

Jitsujo-Gauthier, Tina

Formation and Supervision in Buddhist Chaplaincy

The Theme for 2018 is described and defined for volume 38 of Reflective Practice

THEME 2018: FORMATION, SUPERVISION AND LEADERSHIP

Love emanates from ones soul to share with others

Surapati, Taqwa M.

THE SOUL OF A CHAPLAIN    101 
 
Soul’s Journey 
The room was bright; the young bald patient was in her bed, surrounded 
by her husband, sisters, brothers, and mother. As soon as 
they saw me step inside, someone said, “The chaplain is here; let’s 
pray.” They all joined hand and prayed the Lord’s Prayer. When they finished, 
I offered them my own words of prayer, asking God for strength and 
patience. The patient looked at me weakly, nodding. The family concluded 
by saying “Amen,” and someone said, “Beautiful prayer.” When I stepped 
outside the room, the mother, a tall Caucasian elderly woman, stood in front 
of me, and she held both my shoulders at arm’s length. She looked at my 
hijab, peered down into my eyes, and asked, “Now, what are you?” I smiled 
sheepishly and answered, “I’m a Muslim.” Immediately she pulled me close 
in a tight hug, saying, “Thank you.” Her daughter died two hours later. 
THE SOUL OF A CHAPLAIN 
101 
At the moment when she hugged me, I felt accepted and connected at 
the core of my being. It was a powerful moment. During that moment we 
shared our humanity. No labels, no judgment, only her acceptance and my 
gratitude. It allowed me to see eye to eye with another human being and to 
experience religion not as a factor that separates us but instead as a force 
that binds us together. Faith is not a fracturing force but instead a healing 
presence. I believe that the heart of each religion is pulsing with compassion, 
grace, and mercy from one person towards another in our common humanity. 
My soul is full and nourished after such encounters with patients, 
family members, and caregivers. 
I’ve grown deeper through my journey as a chaplain. I believe that 
there is a need for a soul’s journey inside each and every person. The places 
that I have witnessed on my journey may not be visible to the eye, but they 
are just as wonderful and memorable as those we can see. My experiences 
as a chaplain take my soul along a journey of self-awareness guided by trust 
and reliance on God. I feel that I have an understanding of my past, acceptance 
of my present, and guidance for the future. The Prophet Muhammad, 
peace be upon him said: “God said: I am as My servant thinks I am.” 
Through it all, my soul found the reality that I hail as truth, that God is the 
Most Merciful and Ever Compassionate, even as I encounter illness, suffering, 
death, and dying. 
The way I understand my soul work is that it’s a reservoir of energy. 
Love from God is there, freely offered to infuse my soul with goodness 
as long as I’m connected and wanting His support. The connections that I 
make with other humans are ways to nourish each other’s soul, using the 
same source of God’s love. On some days where it’s hard to find calm, comfort, 
and love, I turn to both my sources: God and His beautiful creations, 
other human beings. I believe that the compassionate practice that I do in 
delivering spiritual care leads to this understanding of how we can help one 
another in the soul’s journey towards healing. 
 
 
Taqwa M. Surapati 
Stanford Health Care 
Palo Alto, CA 
 


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