Injustice and the Care of Souls: A Discussion with Karen Montagno and Sheryl Kajawa Holbrook

Welcome to Spiritual Gumbeaux! Today, we invite you to enjoy the wisdom of Reverend Karen Montagno and Dr. Sheryl Kajawa Holbrook, authors of the groundbreaking book, "Injustice and the Care of Souls". Imagine a world where spiritual leaders go beyond their immediate community, addressing health care disparity and other social issues. Picture a future where these leaders transcend political polarizations and rise as the vanguard in the fight to protect our planet. This is the vision Karen and Sheryl present, and they're here to guide us through it.

We unravel the inspiration behind "Injustice and the Care of Souls". Armed with experiences from their professional lives and lessons from colleagues and students, they crafted a book that redefines pastoral counseling for marginalized communities. We then delve into what role spiritual leaders should play in community care. How can they help communities to thrive? How can they be sensitized to the unique needs of marginalized communities? Together, we'll explore this.

And the power of spiritual leadership doesn't stop there. How does resilience manifest in marginalized communities? What is evocational leadership, and how does it empower communities? We'll look into these questions and their answers. Lastly, we'll discuss the influence of privileged individuals in effecting institutional change. Karen and Sheryl provide insight into how you can open doors within your institution and steer it towards inclusivity. Be ready for a thought-provoking conversation about the transformative power of spiritual leadership, and get inspired to become an advocate for change.

This is part 1 of 2

You can find the 2nd edition of Injustice and the Care of Souls: Taking Oppression Seriously in Pastoral Care at (Amazon) https://a.co/d/7O2aAtn

Transcript

Rev Lynne: 0:20

Good afternoon ladies. I want to welcome you to Spiritual Gumbeaux, and Spiritual Gumbeaux is a podcast that speaks with leaders who choose to lead from their spiritual center versus Western ideals of leadership that were often taught in business schools, graduate programs all around the country, all around the world. It is the thought of Spiritual Gumbeaux that there are many people in the world who are leading from their core, from their spiritual sense of what is right and wrong and ultimately to produce a better world. On to this episode of Spiritual Gumbeaux, I am excited to interview the Reverend Karen Montagno and Dr Sheryl Kajawa Holbrook. Sheryl is a former or a professor of practical theology and religious education at the Claremont School of Theology and also a professor of Anglican studies.

Rev Lynne: 1:20

The Reverend Canon Karen Montagno is one of the first co-editors of the Episcopal Church of the book, Injustice and the Care of Souls. She is a retreat leader but, probably the most important thing, is recently retired. A great thing to be. This is the second edition of Dr Kajawa and Reverend Karen of Injustice and the Care of Souls. I was intrigued by the title and I thought to myself when I first saw it wow, Injustice and Care of the Soul, whereas seemingly and assumptively, one would not think that one could be anything, but just when we're talking about the care and nurture of souls. When I saw the title of it I thought Injustice, wow, who would do that? How could that be? Ladies, tell me how you came up with this Injustice and the Care of Souls.

Rev Karen: 2:34

Well, we were teaching a class together on pastoral care and I'll just be brief. We realized that we had students from many contexts and communities in the class and at the time there were not a lot of materials that talked about pastoral care because it was a pastoral care course. I think the important part for me is as a pastoral caregiver or even a pastoral care receiver. We need to take oppression in these many communities very seriously.

Dr. Sheryl: 3:17

Yes, and I remember too, Karen, I think our first title was Pastoral Cares of Oppression Really Mattered, //yes,// and I think you thought of it.

Dr. Sheryl: 3:29

Actually, we put it on the syllabus and we started the course with that title.

Dr. Sheryl: 3:36

But then, when it got time to be the book, the, of course, publisher pointed out to us that it's grammatically incorrect, which is what publishers do. But we were trying to think of a phrase that captured what we were interested in doing, because we discovered that our students, and really most of the students you know, didn't do pastoral counseling per se, the way the books portrayed it, what they most, you know, they really were pastors for whole communities, and those communities were intersectional communities and had many of the challenges of, you know, of the society. At that time we were in the Northeast and so we care of souls is the sort of traditional way of talking about the care of the whole person and whole communities, not just part of a person, not just part of who they are, but in its entirety. And then we came up with injustice for the first part. But we, you know, I think the concept, Karen, I think the concept of the course, was clear from the beginning, although we, some of the titles moved a little bit.

Rev Lynne: 4:52

Yeah, well, you know, one of the things that catches me is that we're talking about pastoral care. Shouldn't those in pastoral care already have been trained in this venue to care? I mean, shouldn't they?

Rev Karen: 5:08

I mean there, but there a lot of times they come from their own context Mm-hmm, and they don't have a lot of experience coming out of context of, I don't want to say marginalized groups, but I want to say the groups that suffer from not being recognized and that their own context is not taking seriously. That it really does matter and it matters for the pastoral caregiver, it matters for them to know what their context is and to know what its limitations are when they're working with people from a different context and how those people, those individuals, those communities, how they work within their own living space, their own communal space. And if you don't know that and a lot of books, a lot of texts did not talk about that they talked about the traditional model, theology and theoretical kinds of concepts that does not always apply, neatly very seldom, to the communities that we found ourselves being immersed in.

Rev Lynne: 6:33

I think oh pardon me, go ahead.// I was going to say I noticed in your book you have several essays that, of course, that you have edited in this book. How did you come about these particular essays? Were they lived experiences that after conversations you'd had with these people, or did you randomly pick out the authors? How did you come about compiling this?

Rev Karen: 7:01

Well the first book, first text, I think it was in two parts. But to answer your, and this one is in five parts, five sections. But we learned about them from our colleagues, from the students that were in the course and also from some of them we were colleagues with. So our colleagues recommended to help flesh it out, and then students who were curious about their particular context not being seen, and so they interacted with us about that.

Dr. Sheryl: 7:47

Yeah, there's been a real progression in between the editions. When we started the first one, it was 2008. And then 2022, when we started this one that the first one, some of the it was a time that there was just beginning to develop, for instance, a field of pastoral care with Muslims. There was one person that did that and he wrote the article. There was one person we could find, or there was one person or one committee that did work on disability awareness with the religious community. So we really had to in some or substance abuse. That was another one. You know that there were people that did that in counseling programs, there were people that did that in agencies, but we were really looking for how can we help impart skills to people that will be working in the religious community, that will be pastors, that will be in local churches, that will be, in many cases, the first persons to spot some of this. The first line of care, and so many of those essays were done by an international group of people and they were the first people that we could find that really focused on those topics.

Dr. Sheryl: 9:19

By the time the second one came around and we had our first meeting, one was that the number of groups that came to our attention in terms of pastoral care multiplied exponentially. You know the awareness of being at war continually. You know the first book didn't have anything about veterans and we're going well. What about veterans, right? I mean, you know in 20 years what has happened in terms of care for veterans.

Dr. Sheryl: 9:52

You know the first volume didn't have, you know it mentioned it but didn't have anything about intimate partner violence, and so, oh my goodness, you know we're much more aware now of the seriousness of that. That affects all communities. What about that Of housing and food, insecure people, right? So between the two, I think for myself personally, my awareness grew, but also the field grew in awareness about local churches but also the needs of care and concerns and the numbers of people out there that are marginalized and where oppression is a central factor in terms of their care from the religious community, and so that's sort of how it grew in my mind anyway, Karen, is that your sense?

Rev Karen: 10:47

of it. That's my understanding, but another group community that we didn't that was it may have been touched on is working with men.

Dr. Sheryl: 10:58

Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.

Rev Karen: 10:59

Yeah, and having them be the focus, having their care be a focus.

Rev Lynne: 11:06

Hmm, okay, okay. So let me ask you a question. So what do you say to those critics who say ah, this is just a propaganda to a liberal agenda. Pastoral care is pastoral care, regardless of how you do it. What do you say to that group, to that person so //that's a good thing to say fake facts// yeah, fake facts. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Rev Karen: 11:37

Well, I can speak personally, because I felt at times as I was coming through the institutions that the needs were not met by me but others in these communities. Personally Does that make sense.

Rev Lynne: 11:58

Yes.

Dr. Sheryl: 11:59

Yes, yes yes.

Dr. Sheryl: 12:01

And I would also say that there may be some people with that response. I think the use and the demand of the first book suggested to us that people on the ground in the local communities had a different sense of that. This book was used in seminaries far past are sort of Episcopal denomination, because for a long time it was the only thing out there that raised these larger issues within care. So I think that there is an awareness on the ground in terms of, maybe academic pastoral theology maybe not so much, although I think that there's a growing awareness within that field too that the boundaries between these disciplines are porous, that it's not pastoral care, isn't something that you can detach from our broader society and the many issues that impact the people that are within our communities. So that, I think, helped us too.

Dr. Sheryl: 13:14

And the direness of the world situation, the amount of violence, the amount of impoverishment, the increasing marginalization of people, the Me Too movement all of that factored into doing another round of this, because not only did depression get away, not go away, it's getting worse in many communities. So I think that that has helped us Also. I think personally going through pastoral care has allowed many people who maybe have political differences about how social issues should be met in communities. Pastoral care is way, and caring for people and humanitarian care is a bridge in a place where we can talk across other kind of political differences, and so in putting the book together, we have found that it's a tool for that as well, that it is a place to start some of these conversations that's a little less volatile than some other places that we can start.

Rev Lynne: 14:33

So Spiritual Gumbeaux is about leaders who lead spiritually. So can you talk a little bit about how or what you see as the role of spiritual leaders in pastoral care? How does that work together, or can they work together?

Rev Karen: 14:52

I think so. I mean, if we look at what's happening today with the war and some of the leaders in the communities that talk about health care disparity, people who live that don't have a residence, I think that spiritual leaders can do two things. One is preach, although some people don't like that, but to preach and lead within their communities, because part of what pastoral care leaders do is to educate people, because some people just don't have a clue and may not be exposed. And so I think that's, you know, I think one of the articles talked about prophecy and that's one of the things. Prophetess and that's one of the things that we, our privilege and I believe called to do is to speak on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves at this time.

Dr. Sheryl: 16:02

I think so too, that spiritual leadership, again, as I just mentioned, is an opportunity to reach people beyond political polarizations.

Dr. Sheryl: 16:13

So there are many times during the history of great movements that it was in fact, spiritual leadership that provided a way through and was able to look at issues in terms of a higher consciousness and less for personal advantage, but also for the good of humankind.

Dr. Sheryl: 16:37

Now we've shifted our consciousness to the good of the planet, we're not only talking about the human species. Now we're actually facing planetary extinction. So the idea that spiritual leaders and I consider myself one, but also, I would hope, part of the message of the book is to really work with communities to provide care for each other. That that is an important way of reaching beyond other kinds of divisions that we have now, and so that's certainly some of the great people that motivated me to go into ministry, like Dr King Gandhi, sister Joan Chittester. Those are spiritual leaders to me that had a Bishop Tutu. Archbishop Tutu had a great impact across the world really, because not just of their message but the way they live their life, and so that I think those kinds of leaders are integral now that they're increasingly important given the situation.

Rev Lynne: 17:48

You both mentioned about spiritual care and communities taking care of themselves. Can you say a little bit about how that training would happen or what that would look like in terms of spiritual communities? The oftentimes we talk about a spiritual leader, which we just mentioned several wonderful spiritual leaders but how does a spiritual leader, in a pastoral context, bring others in to prepare them, to train them, to ascensitize them to other communities I hate to say marginalized community I know there's probably a better terminology but for those communities that are different from their own perspective, how do they sensitize and still allow spiritual leadership to come forward without bringing their own stuff?

Rev Karen: 18:51

I think the first is to believe, for me, that the wisdom is in the community and looking at community organizing a lot of times that's been done and is being done by pastors and other spiritual leaders and helping the communities identify, first of all, what they are seeking and what their strengths are, and to train them, to work within their context to encourage and to uplift if you will, a little uncomfortable with that but others strengthen other leaders who may not have the usual leadership position, but I think about some of the I call them grandmothers who are very, very instrumental. During the apartheid times there was a saying if you strike the woman, you strike the rock, and it was women and children that really were leaders in that role of empowering, that sort of what I was looking for others empowering and educating, I agree.

Dr. Sheryl: 20:15

I think that the other side of these communities that we studied is also the other side of marginalization is resilience.

Dr. Sheryl: 20:25

We're still here and that. So we wouldn't want to portray any community as only being victims, but there's a deep resilience in these communities, and so I think part of leadership, spiritual leadership, is evocational. How do we evoke the gifts and the resilience and the skills that are within the local communities we serve and thereby multiply them? I think that it's really short-sighted for leaders these days to think about themselves as the chief dispensers of wisdom or as the only one that can help in situations, or paternalistic images of solitary sages, when in fact it is the power and the spirit that are within these communities that have supported them through hundreds of years of oppression, and they're still here. So I think that recognizing that and helping to evoke those skills are what part of the spiritual leadership we're talking about amounts to.

Rev Karen: 21:48

Fisher Charleston on Facebook and it was on the 9th was that yesterday? He's an elder in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He says although we have often been consigned to history, indigenous people are the most futuristic communities in the world. That is because the great wheel of time has turned and now the wisdom of indigenous people is needed more than ever. The communities around the earth created, created sustainable and equitable societies in harmony with the environment. We need that to be acknowledged again if we are going to have it tomorrow. Wow.

Rev Lynne: 22:41

Thank you for that.

Rev Lynne: 22:43

Wow, yesterday I had an experience. I sit on a board where the primary members of the board are all from one particular ethnic community, a Jewish community. I am the only person of color on that board. I think I'm the only Christian on that community as well.

Rev Lynne: 23:06

As the meeting started, there was just, of course, this lament for what's happening in Israel. As a priest and pastor, of course, one of the things I really wanted to be was to be able to give my words of condolence or sympathy. It was one of those moments when I felt out of place. I didn't feel like it was my place to extend any condolence. I didn't really know what to say. That was a part of not being in a particular culture that I am intimately involved in, or knowing only just the outlines of the theological context. Even though, having been to Israel and seeing some of the places that I'm remembering them, I still felt this sense of other, which was okay, but didn't really know how to respond In some ways, especially to this notion of injustice, what could be seen as? What is an injustice? I noticed the first word in the book is injustice. Tell me a little bit about how one works in that world, in that realm of injustice, especially in this day and time when it seems a little bit like tick for tack in some ways.

Rev Lynne: 24:50

That may not be the best language, but for every action is a reaction and what we're seeing now how does one react in that kind of an epastral sense, because I really did not know what to say or what. My place, I guess, to say anything. That may sound confusing, but I felt the need.

Rev Karen: 25:15

The word that comes to me is solidarity. That whole notion of the wisdom is in the room, and in the civil rights movements there were a lot of people who were not, for example, african-american. Some of the Black Lives Matter, if you will, all lives matter. There was that sense of solidarity. I often don't have the words to give anything but my presence.

Rev Lynne: 25:51

The Ministry of Presence is probably the best gift that one could give.

Dr. Sheryl: 25:56

Yeah, I think it's the Ministry of Presence. I think it's also bearing witness to the lament, one of the things, believing that it happened, being present. I mean, as a Christian person, I can't begin to know personally the pain and the fear and the outrage of the survivors of the atrocities that are happening now in Jerusalem. I think being, as you say, being present, bearing witness to the people that are the truth-tellers, being present, I think those are all actions of solidarity, as Karen was mentioning. I think there's also a side of it, as a person who is connected to social agencies, connected to networks, to be where it is appropriate in those kinds of cases, to be an advocate, to share resources, to provide support through humanitarian aid. All of those, of course, listening to the needs of the people that are the most effective in responding to the way they name their needs, are all things, I think, that are part of the solidarity process.

Dr. Sheryl: 27:34

So that you know, in my history, you know, having spent a lot of times, you know as, as you know, a white person, a middle class person that lives in lots of privileged contexts, you know I don't necessarily personally know or have access to the you know kind of pain I have different kinds of generational traumas in my family.

Dr. Sheryl: 28:06

I certainly have, you know, access to personal pains, but not necessarily I don't have the experience that a person of color, for instance, would experience with, with generations of racism. And you know I'm also, you know I also have a commitment to be, you know, part of part of a process of healing and restoration, and so that means, you know, putting myself in those kinds of places and learning about who I am in these places and being able to be present to the suffering and to be part of those solutions through some kind of creative coalition building. So I think it's, I think the responses are are multi-leveled, you know, and I think they start with what we were saying in terms of your example yesterday. You know being present, being there, hearing, hearing the pain, being willing to take that in and being a witness to their reality.

Rev Karen: 29:12

Yeah, okay, and the practice. The other thing might be when we're people of privilege because I consider myself a privileged person education and all that we might be able to open doors in our institutions where people can come in, open the door, do some advocacy kinds of things, because that's how institutions are changed, right, okay.

Dr. Sheryl: 29:41

//Please join Spiritual Gumbeaux next week for part two of Reverend Lynne's interview with Reverend Karen and Dr Sheryl.