This course will prepare students to respond to human need ...



Interreligious Approaches to Spiritual CareInterreligious Chaplaincy ProgramHerbert Anderson & Kamal Abu-ShamsiehFall 2020, Wednesday 12:40 pm – 3:30 pmGTU- Le Conte / Hedco Room, 2nd FloorFaculty: Herbert Anderson (Email:herbert.e.anderson@)Kamal Abu-Shamsieh (Email: kshamsieh@gtu.edu)Office Hours: By appointment onlyCourse Description:This course will prepare students to respond to human need and sorrow with compassionate empathy informed by their own religious perspectives. Because care is always contextual, students will develop competence in listening and responding to people from differing religious worldviews and a variety of human crisis situations. Through assigned readings, class lectures and discussion, and role-play exercises, the course will also promote understanding of the history of spiritual care in each religious tradition, foster growth in self-awareness and strengthen their capacity for critical self-reflection on practices of spiritual care or soulcare.THE PURPOSES OF THIS COURSE ARE: to grow in self-understanding and identify personal strengths and liabilities as helping persons; to become aware of your ways of responding to difference and increase your ability to respect religious diversity;to be aware of your own social location and the impact of social systems and public contexts for personal situations of soulcare; to learn an approach to pastoral care that will serve as a framework for working with people in a variety of religious perspectives and life situations; to foster empathic ways of listening and responding to people from diverseperspectives; to develop the capacity for self-disclosure and self-criticism about our caring work; to begin to develop an understanding of soulcare integrated with your faith tradition; andto be able to listen with anybody about anything at least once.These aims will be fostered through assigned readings, lecture and discussion, one-on-one tutorials, supplemental audio-visual presentations, and designed exercises to be determined. Although pastoral care or spiritual care are the commonly used words to identify care from a religious or spiritual perspective, this course will explore soulcare as the descriptive word for inter-religious approaches to caregiving. Across religious perspectives, the need for our time is the same: caregivers who are receptive and hospitable, patient and generous, capable of honoring difference and recognizing ambiguity, embracing vulnerability, and able to imagine the new thing that God is doing in the world. OUTCOMESAs a result of participating in this class, 1 students will have a clearer self-understanding of their willingness to serve people through ministries of care at the point of human need; 2 students will be able to articulate the relationship between their own self-understanding (personal identity) and the way they engage people in compassionate and empowering dialogue; 3 students will have an increased awareness how their social location/life experience negatively and positively affects their ability to listen empathically to others;4 students will be able to identify their ability to listen to others who are religiously diverse and respond to that difference with respect;5 students will have developed methods compassionate, empathic listening and for linking divine stories and the human story in order enhance human healing and restore meaning.6 students will have the ability to utilize their understanding of spiritual care in response to particular situations of human need such as ethical decision making or care of the dying and grieving.Grading: This is a pass/fail class, letter grades will be given to students who request itAttendance and class participation (10%)Weekly reading assignments (30%)Four Reflection essays (30%) (Due 9/30, 11/4, 11/11, and 12/2)Final paper (30%)I Foundational Assumptions: What we Bring to any Caregiving EncounterSeptember 9. The Caregiver’s Self. Learning to care begins with self-understanding: an awareness of who we are and what we bring to a particular encounter where care is needed. This course regards self-understanding is an ethical imperative for those who care. Self-awareness requires enough emotional strength to face one's past, recognize one’s gifts, acknowledge one's limitations, and establish one's ultimate loyalties. The formation of character is finally more important than role identity for the practice of soulcare. (Outcomes 1 and 2)Read: Emma J. Justus, Hearing Beyond the Words, ** Chapters 2 and 4, pp 21-44, 69-91Herbert Anderson, Readings in Soulcare, Chapter 1 “Spiritual Care and Soul Care: A Reflective Essay,” pp 1-5Herbert Anderson, Reading in Soulcare, Chapter 2, “Head and Heart: Reviewing Spirituality for Ministry Preparation”, pp 5-13 September 16. Thinking in Stories. To be a person is to live in a narrative with many stories, subplots, contradictions, and surprise endings. If this is true, then caregiving is about attending to our own story, listening to stories, interpreting stories, linking human and divine stories, and inviting people to rewrite the story of their lives. In order to do that, we need to learn to think in story. “Narrative theorists have demonstrated that a person’s sense of self develops out of the stories through which he or she interprets experience.” (Andrew Lester, Hope in Pastoral Care and Counseling). (Outcomes 1 & 2)Read: Anderson and Foley, Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals, Chapters 1 & 3 pp.3-18, 36-54Andrew D. Lester, Hope in Pastoral Care and Counseling, Chapter 2, pp 27-42September 23. Social Location and Context In order to function well, each individual has a set assumption, beliefs, convictions, etc. about how the world really is or should be. Because much of soulcare is about seeing and hearing accurately, and because we always see and hear from where we stand, we need to know where we stand as well as the social location of those for whom we care. Conversations about care – and particularly soulcare – lead inevitably to the public arena and a deeper understanding of the relationship between private and public, person and context, individual need and social transformation. (Outcome 3)Read: Emmanuel Y. Yartey, In Living Colour, Chapter 6, pp 113-139 Jerome Frank, Persuasion and Healing, Chapter 2 pp 18-35Herbert Anderson, Readings in Soulcare, Chapter 3 “Seeing the Other Whole: A Habitus for Honoring Diversity,” pp 13-21September 30. What is the Nature of Human Nature? Every act of Soulcare is informed by a religious or theological understanding of the nature of human nature. Each religious tradition will have a distinct understanding or assumptions about the human one: being creatures; interdependence more than independence; egocentric and sociocentric; specificity and uniqueness as a finite biological being as well as spiritual reality. The human condition includes vulnerability, affliction, forgetfulness, and dependence – all of which are often evident in the experience of being sick and being hospitalized. (Outcome 4)Due essay one of fourRead: Alastair Macintyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Being Need Virtues, Preface, pp 1-19,99-118Peggy Way, Created by God, chapters 1 and 5, pp 12-33, 71-81Herbert Anderson, Readings in Soulcare, Chapter Four, The Human One: A Theological Anthropology”, pp 21-27II. The Caring Encounter: Listening, Responding, Holding, Assessing, and HopingOctober 7. Hospitality and Listening to the Other. Hospitality may take the form of ‘entertaining’ new ideas or listening carefully to the stories people need to tell. “The qualities required in hospitality – its essence – I propose are also those elements that are necessary for effective listening.” (Emma J. Justus) The experience of Soulcare is being welcomed into a space where we can feel safe enough to speak freely about our deepest fears and hopes. “The spiritual practice of hospitality reminds us that at the core of every human soul lies the same basic longing – to be included and invited to share the full gift of our common humanity.” (Jean Stairs,) Listening is the focus of this class. (Outcome 5)Read: Emma Justus, Hearing Beyond the Words, ** Chapter 3, pp 45-67 Jean Stairs, Listening for the Soul, Chapter 1, pp 15-35Salman Akhtar, ed., Listening to Others, Chapters 1 and 2, pp 3-39Herbert Anderson, Readings in Soulcare, Chapter Five, “Hospitality as Making Room for the ‘Other’ pp. 28-35October 14 The Art of Empathy and Responding to the Other with Words. The emotion most akin to gravity that keeps the affairs of humanity on track as surely as the earth wheels around the sun is empathy. It is the capacity to recognize the world of another and imagine that world as it is understood by the other and then communicate that understanding to the other. In that sense, it is both process and outcome. Empathy is distinct from sympathy and identification. It combines imaginative listening with accurate responding in order to demonstrate understanding and thereby deepen a human bond or create community. This class will examine the necessity and limits of empathic responding. (Outcome 5) Read: Herbert Anderson, Readings in Soulcare, Chapter Six, “The Empathy Process” pp 34-41Mark h. Davis, Empathy: A Social Psychological Approach, Chapter 1, pp 1-22Before class on October 21, listen to an audio/visual presentation on Compassion by the Interfaith AmigosOctober 21. Compassionate Empathy: Holding What We Hear. This course is organized around compassionate empathy as the response to human pain and sorrow and suffering informed by the religious perspectives of Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism. Our willingness to be moved by their story or situation – our feeling of and for their pain – needs to be evident to them in our response. When we are willing to ‘hold’ their struggle if only for a moment and can say to another person seeking care that “your pain is on my heart,” we are compassionate. “Compassion is a wounding of the heart which love extends to all without distinction.” (John Ruusbroec) (Outcome 5) Read: Dianne Bergant, “Compassion in the Bible,” in Compassionate Ministry, Edited by Gary L. Sapp, Religious Education Press, Birmingham, Alabama, 1993.Shane Sinclair, et al., “Sympathy, empathy, and compassion: A grounded theory study of palliative care patients’ understandings, experiences, and preferences in Palliative Medicine, 2017, Vol 31 (5) pp 437-447October 28 Reading Week / No ClassNovember 4. Assessing Human Trouble Dispositions of Soul. At the same time that we are listening, responding, and holding the stories and suffering of another, we are assessing the seriousness of this particular human trouble. It is important to have an accurate assessment of both the extent of a person’s suffering and the strength of their coping skills. Ordinary ways of measuring health and well-being, however, are insufficiently ambiguous to capture the deeper truths of soul. Our language should also be ambiguous enough to capture the contradictions of human soul. To be a lover of souls, our own included, we need to have some appreciation for ambiguity, human complexity, and mystery. This class period will examine four ordinary human emotions (fear, loneliness, sadness, despair) in relation to the current global context of living through a pandemic. (Outcomes 3 and 4)Due essay two of fourRead: George Fitchett, Assessing Spiritual Needs, Chapters 1 and 3, pp 11-25, 39-51Andrew D, Lester, Hope in Pastoral Care and Counseling, Chapter 3, pp 43-58November 11, Hoping with Those Who Suffer. In the practice of soulcare, questions about why ‘bad things happen to good people’ are often at the unexpressed center of a conversation. The aim of this class is to explore how different approaches to suffering in human life influence soulcare. The embodiment of ‘hoping’ as a way of living with and through life’s difficult moments is at the center of soulcare. Our task is to walk with those who suffer and stay with them in their darkness so that do not suffer alone and so that their affliction will not prevent them from loving again. In the end, that is the most we can do: be a safety net to catch people should they fall in the midst of pain and suffering. (Outcomes 2 and 5)Due essay three of fourRead: Pamela R. McCarroll, The End of Hope – The Beginning, Chapters 1 & 2, pp 7-50Andrew D. Lester, Hope in Pastoral Care and Counseling, Chapters 4 & 5, pp 59-84 III Empathy in Practice: Ritual, Ethical Decision-making, Spiritual Direction and Care of the Dying and GrievingNovember 18. Ritual Moments and Pastoral Process: SoulCare at Critical Life Moments. There is a reciprocity between rituals moments and the human or pastoral process that is particularly evident at birth, marriage and death. Each religious tradition has an approach to these ritual moments throughout the life cycle. When the correspondence between ritual moments and pastoral processes is made explicit, rituals of faith become a pastoral resource of unusual richness. There is an urgency in our time to honor traditional rituals and fashion new rituals that will provide a safe passage for people to live through the difficult, even terrifying ambiguities of living in through a pandemic. (Outcome 4)Read: Anderson and Foley, Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals. chapters 7, 125-148Anderson, Readings in Soulcare, “How Rituals Heal”, Chapter Seven, pp 41-48, Anderson, “Violent Death, Public Tragedy, and Rituals of Lament: An Interfaith Agenda”, Ordo: Bath, Word, Prayer, Table, ed by Dirk G. Lange and Dwight W. Vogel 188-200November 25. Beyond Empathy: Ethical-Decision-Making. Although ordinary problem solving is a significant dimension of ordinary Soulcare, the role of guiding through ethical decision-making is a particularly significant modality for chaplaincy in a hospital context. Every religious tradition has a set of norms or rules about human behavior. Ethical decision-making in the context of soulcare requires attending to the needs and feelings of the person throughout the process, respecting the individual’s knowledge of themselves and what solutions will work, and enabling the individual to focus and move toward a solution that is workable and consistent with the expectations or requirements of their religious tradition. The minister should have both the skills and the judgment to help people gradually move through the long journey of closing the gap between that ethical ideal and reality. (Outcome 6)Read: Emmanuel Y. Yartey, In Living Colour, chapter 2Don S. Browning, Religious Ethics and Pastoral Care, chapters 1-3, pp 11-40December 2. Soulcare and Spiritual Direction: Refinement of Soul. The relationship between pastoral care and spiritual direction is difficult to define and important to maintain. This has become even more important as spiritual care has become the substitute for pastoral care in most hospitals. “Soulful pastoral care seeks to uncover the presence of God in everyday events, but also affirms and enables our human capacities to cooperate with the creative work of God and to orient life God-ward.” (Stairs) (Outcomes 1 and 4)Read: Jean Stairs, Listening for the Soul, Chapter 2, pp 37-72Karen Leebacqz and Joseph D. Driskill, Ethics and Spiritual Care, chapter 3, pp 69-83Kamal Abu-Shamsieh, Refinement of the Soul, ? tbdDecember 9. Care of the Dying and Grieving. Each religious tradition has its own perspective on connection between death and life and God’s intention that human creatures are finite. And how that connection is understood will in affect approaches to the care of the dying. Paul Tillich, a Christian theologian of the 20th century, prayed these words in Harvard University Chapel: “Lord, help me to bring my death into my life, lest death take my life from me.” Life and death, living and dying are inseparable and intended by God. Death is a problem to be solved and a mystery to be experienced. The move from a problem to a mystery is pivotal in end of life care – and a very delicate transition to make. “We will bear witness to your pain and your sorrow, your disappointments and your triumphs. We will listen to the stories of your life and will remember the story of your passing.” (Ira Byock,) (Outcomes 5 and 6)Read: Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die, “The Lessons Learned,” chapter 12, pp 242-262Herbert Anderson, Readings in Soulcare, “Finitude and Faithful Care of the Dying,” Chapter Eight, pp 48-59Anderson, Sewanee Theological Review, (1999) “What Consoles” pp 374-384James W. Green, “Cultural Diversity, Spirituality, and End of Life Care”, in Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry, Volume, 29, 2009, pp 74-90December 16. Two Topics: Closure and Defining Soulcare. How we begin a conversation in which care is the focus is crucial. It is equally important to end well. Closure is often awkward when you don’t know how to leave or the recipient of care wants you to stay. The same is true for a class. The primary focus for this class will be a shared conversation about a) how each student is developing a perspective on Spiritual Care or Soulcare and b) whether Soulcare is an appropriate and/or adequate alternative to Spiritual Care for hospital chaplaincy. Read: Definitions of Spiritual Care or Soulcare from class participants.Herbert Anderson, Soulcare Reader, Chapter Nine, “Soulness and the Liminal Work of Soulcare.Einal Ramon, “Listen to the Neshama: Daring to Speak about Soul in Israeli Clinical Pastoral Education” in Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry, Vol 37, pp 66-82. . Click on Archives and go to Volume 37. Free access journal.December 19: Final Paper Due! ................
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