RAF CHAPLAINCY
Padre Lacey offering a listening ear.
For chaplains, it is through our hearing and engaging with their stories, and more importantly how they interpret their own stories, that we can begin to help them recover, reorient and rediscover their meaning, value, and worth. To do their stories justice requires time, and lots of it. And this is where pastoral care is distinct from welfare. The privilege of pastoral care is being invited deep into the stories of the person. One of the Psalms in the Bible talks about moments where,‘ Deep calls to Deep’. I think this is a fantastic description of pastoral care. The depth of one soul is met by the depth of another. It is immensely vulnerable to expose the depths of ones stories, but in pastoral care this is exactly what happens.
As a chaplain, I am honoured that every day I have multiple engagements with people who choose to share the depths of their stories with me in a way that they would never share with anyone else. In all their sharing, at times they may find the answers that they are seeking, and we will rejoice together. Whilst at other times, they will not find those answers, and we will grieve together. But through all these times, even though they know that we cannot‘ fix’ them with a magic Harry Potter wand, they know that we will always‘ hold them’, no matter what. And this is how through the time we give, we make others feel truly valued through the depths of our pastoral care.
Padre Cannon bringing some joy.
‘ Holding’ the stories of others is incredibly costly to the chaplain. To hold and share in the pain of another involves personal sacrifice, and holding the often‘ unfinishedness’ of their stories. But this is by far the most immense honour, privilege, and joy of our position as chaplains.
The late Rabbi Harold Kushner once told this story:
A little boy was late coming home from school. Once he arrived home, his mother was worried and asked why he was late? The boy replied that he stopped to help another boy, whose bicycle had broken after he fell off it.“ But you don ' t know anything about fixing bicycles,” his mother responded.“ That’ s not the help I offered,” said the boy.“ I helped him to cry.”
Deep calls to deep.
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