RAF CHAPLAINCY
SERVING THIS GENERATION: CHAPLAINCY AND PASTORAL CARE
The Reverend Phil Craven
One day I popped into a squadron tea bar to see who was around. I’ ve always found that squadron tea bars are the best places to find out what’ s really happening. As I handed out some sweeties, I overheard two aviators as they made a brew.“ Being a padre is easy,” said one,“ I think I’ ll apply”.“ What do you mean?” said the other as she thoughtfully stirred her tea.“ Well, it’ s all about drinking tea and‘ doing welfare’,” the first said while making air quotes with his fingers. He continued,“ And all welfare is, is referring”.“ Oh well,” said the second,“ I think I might apply too”.
As interesting as it was for me to consider the tea bar perception of chaplains by two aviators, it raises the question: do we as military chaplains simply‘ do welfare’? If we just do welfare, then surely someone else can do the referring instead of us. But if we do something deeper, namely pastoral care, then we need to ask, what it is, what does it look like, and how can it help this generation? I would suggest that military chaplains are uniquely placed to offer pastoral care that runs deep into the soul itself.
From the perspective of the two aviators, welfare is transactional, and that’ s why it’ s easy to provide. If someone comes to you looking for a solution to a problem, then a quick Google search can often give you what you need. And so, from a time management perspective, if I can fix someone’ s problem in a few minutes, then just imagine how many people’ s problems I can fix in a day!? And I can sleep at night knowing I’ ve fixed so many problems that day. Providing transactional welfare can make us feel valued. Job done.
But this poses another question, how do you know what the actual problem is? Catching a quick five minutes with someone as you walk to your next important meeting doesn’ t necessarily allow them to truly talk, or you to truly listen. And, in seeking only to fix the problems of others, we give them no agency and no ownership over their own lives, and we reduce them to problems needing our expertise to fix. We devalue them by ignoring their stories.
One of the joys of being a chaplain is having the time and availability that so often eludes other professions. We invest our time in people because we recognise that the person is not just a series of problems to be solved, but we recognise that deep at their core, people are a series of stories to be heard. Their stories tell them of where they have been, where they are going, and what is truly important to them. Their stories give their lives shape and flow. But so often in military life, people’ s stability is disrupted by frequent deployments to lands afar, relationships are broken by time and distance, and futures are changed by the constant uncertainty of our world. In all these things, it is easy for people’ s stories to get lost.
Padre Norfield conducting a funeral.
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