Spiritual Gumbeaux
Rev Lynne discusses spiritual leadership
Spiritual Gumbeaux
Care of Souls part 2 with Karen Montagno and Cheryl Kujawa Holbrook
Challenge your understanding of pastoral care in the face of social oppression, Reverend Cannon Karen Montagno and Dr. Cheryl Kujawa Holbrook join us to explore this complex intersection. We promise to engage you in a profound conversation about how to provide sensitive pastoral care to communities dealing with systemic oppression. We'll challenge the notion that only certain individuals can extend this care, emphasizing the power of allyship in nurturing understanding and compassion.
Our esteemed guests shed light on the importance of comprehending a community's needs and how this knowledge shapes our pastoral care approach. We'll discuss the necessity for religious leaders to step beyond traditional roles, prepared to serve in a variety of ways and organizations to alleviate suffering.
Lastly, let's take an enlightening walk through practical recommendations for spiritual leadership. Discussing the power of multifaceted worship, community outreach, and interfaith relationships, we'll emphasize the crucial role of active participation in community issues. We'll also explore how church properties can be a part of the solution. This episode aims to equip you with the knowledge to approach pastoral care with sensitivity, understanding, and readiness to challenge the status quo.
This is part 2 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
Spiritual Gumbo continues with part two of Reverend Lynn's interview with the Reverend Cannon, karen Montanieu and Dr Cheryl Kujawa Holbrook.
Speaker 2:In the preface of your book you all write in the face of interlocking social oppressions, those engaged in prophetic ministries cannot approach pastoral care solely from the perspective of white, western, middle class models that are disconnected from the realities of the communities of color and other marginalized people. And so my question to you and you go on to say how are the realities of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, gender oppression and other structural oppressions prevalent within our own faith communities? Does this take us to a place? And for those critics who say, oh, this is all political correctness, and that are you saying that the only people who can provide pastoral care to the LBGTQ community are LGBTQ persons, or the only persons that can provide pastoral care to African American females are African American females, how much of it has to be a lived experience to really get it, and can these things truly be taught?
Speaker 3:I think if we listen Cheryl was talking about listening and also I think that's where the solidarity piece comes in and we use the word allies. That's where we can be allies and I believe that we can be taught in a way, because, as we are with other people, we hopefully experience their pain and also their resistance and their resilience and, ultimately, their flourishing. Dr Pajaw, you look?
Speaker 2:like you're getting ready to say something.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I'm concurring with Karen's reflections because the other side of it, for instance, is like there are so many situations in ministry that people in our book are, for instance, chaplains, community chaplains, hospital chaplains. We don't often have the luxury of choosing who we minister to, nor do they have the luxury of choosing us. Sometimes that happens and we are in that kind of a rich relationship where our social location meshes with that as of a pastor. But often that's not the case and I think that what it is about is first realizing who I am and the impact of my social location in a community and what that means for the pastoral relationship, what my particular challenges will be, as well as what I might be able to bring to a situation and that kind of an awareness, along with skills and listening skills and empathy skills and compassion, because we often are asked to respond to situations that we don't have the privilege of choosing who we minister with or under what kind of circumstances.
Speaker 2:I guess I'm saying so, as a pastor, I'm a pastor care group and I want to train that pastor care group to be sensitized to some of the intersections that you have mentioned. Would you say that this book, the Injustice and Cares of Souls, would you recommend it to use as a training guide, and have you all considered starting a training program, or do you have one?
Speaker 3:Well, I was thinking Eric Law Kaleidoscope. They do a lot of training visions. So many of the folks that are contributors and are leaders in training and Catherine, now don't get this wrong, catherine Meeks some people who offer opportunities.
Speaker 1:Right. We know that the book has been used in training in clinical pastoral care programs. It's been used by the authors, although by other people. It's in a way set up as a manual. You know, the chapters aren't that complicated or long. We've tried to take a lot of real specialized jargon out of it to the extent that we could, and we try to include stories excuse me, because it's the stories and listening and hearing other people talk about their experience where I think a lot of the care originates. So that's how we use it.
Speaker 2:What can you share? Some of the examples that you have found in this particular field of of pastoral care, situations where people just weren't aware. You have any examples that you'd like to share? Your own personal examples?
Speaker 3:I think, sometimes in the classroom, but I think that my own personal example Would be engaging with someone who is not in my community and being what is the word? Conscientious ties by their experience, which often I could see, but it's still surprising, like I could, once I engage with them. I could see it, but I was still surprised and I had to go home and Sit down and think about it and think about the gaps in my own experience.
Speaker 1:I think here I'm sitting in Southern California, so I was surprised when my own church, up the street here we live in, even the low and the low rent areas are high rent areas, you know. I mean the, you know the cost of living is enormous and for some people. And so you know, this is sort of a suburban community that could look like anywhere in a in a nice climate. But to learn about the number of people that were food insecure, for instance, right, to learn about the number of people that the church helped with jobs or with, you know, helping their, their kids, with school supplies and that kind of thing, because you know, in in so many contexts People fall through the cracks. So you know those, those kinds of issues also Come up in communities and people are, you know, don't necessarily share when they don't have enough food or enough money for the rent or you know those kinds of very practical kinds of things.
Speaker 1:And so that you know, was one thing that also, you know, just just the awareness of there's what I can see in terms of people's needs, but there's also many levels in most communities of unseen needs, things people are fearful of bringing forward. Another thing the incidents of mental illness in communities, for instance, too, or the amount of isolation and loneliness, family violence family violence is another thing that's not talked about or necessarily bring brought forward easily within faith communities, right. So all of those things to just be caught, you know, to teach myself early on, you know, just because I don't know, something Doesn't exist, doesn't mean it isn't here, right. And to be able to ask myself and interrogate those questions and be open to signs of folks needing assistance and support.
Speaker 2:That that that was a great lead into one of my questions I was going to ask when you all put this book together, you were both on the East Coast and a very pretty much elite community, the Harvard's Harvard Circle and now you're both in different places the Midwest and the West and so my question is has any of this changed? I think, dr Kajawa, you kind of hit on that a little bit when you talked about food insecurity, but are you seeing different approaches to this book being you're in now different locations and jurisdictions?
Speaker 3:I definitely had some insights as I was just reviewing and reading through some of the articles being here in what people might call the Appalachian Belt, which runs from West Virginia down Kentucky and, you know, to the West, during the pandemic, when people were losing their jobs many service jobs we could see that they were losing their Living areas because they couldn't pay the rent, and so that was a that was an eye opener to me, or like a.
Speaker 3:Not even an eye opener, it was like a Hello to me to see, to see what, how people were suffering. People were hungry, they were living on the street downtown in Cincinnati and of course, they say that the opioid crisis started here. Not, I don't know if it's some place In southern Ohio and I don't think it was.
Speaker 2:a port starts with a P, yeah yeah, and it's devastating to this day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think from when we started putting this book together for the second round, certainly being in California sensitized me to migrant and immigration issues and the impact of that, you know, in local communities and on the people themselves. The other thing that was very prevalent from here too is, you know the type of ministry needed to do with veterans. You know we've got several major bases here. So you know the geography does sort of inform you know what issues I think we see. I think there are different. We might have included those things in the book anyway, but certainly the difference of geography of being in California from being in Massachusetts has, you know, has sensitized me to looking at, you know, other issues, other patterns, those kinds of what is affecting people in a particular area.
Speaker 2:One of the things about pastoral care.
Speaker 2:Historically we always we used to think of pastoral care in CPE, say, clinical pastoral settings, hospitals, nursing homes, palliative care, those kinds of situations.
Speaker 2:But I think in this book you are bringing forward that pastoral care is not limited to medical related issues and the places in which some of these are really are about affinity groups, what churches historically called outreach, the food banks and food insecurity issues, issues such as AA, na and how the skills are still needed beyond and outside of the traditional understanding of where pastoral care needs to happen, and even for pastors to go beyond that one-on-one conversation or the hospital visit or the nursing home visit and really look at this from a much broader perspective. And I think that is for me and watching this book, this book is cutting edge. I think this is the first book I've ever seen about injustice and the care of souls. To me, to put those two together kind of feels odd and as I began this conversation, shouldn't we be sensitive to the care of souls just in general? But you make it very clear that we're not trained to do that. We're not trained to do that. It's easier for us to care for people just like us, right. Is that what we're saying?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so too, For me is the question where should the church be? The patterns of church attendance, the way people gather, the amount of validity people give to the church these days certainly has changed over the generation that I've been a clergy person, and one of the things we need to think about is that I think the church's walls, if we choose to go there, are getting more porous, that there is a broader society, a broader world of people that are yearning for relationship, for solidarity, where there's great human need, and then, for me, that is where the church in the 21st century needs to be. I mean, if we're going to have validity, If we're going to be seen as a prophetic voice in our societies, we need to be in the midst of where the people are. We need to be able to address their suffering, and so it is also a way I think.
Speaker 1:I hope that the book shows that care is porous and that those of us who are going to be in religious leadership need to be prepared to do a Sunday service, but we need to be prepared to move in lots of other ways and lots of other types of organizations and communities as well. I'm certainly finding that among the students I now have and where they think they're going to be. So it is. We're part of, I think of an evolutionary process.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right Now. Can you share with our listeners some other recommendations around spiritual leadership in the term of care and pastoral theology? Were there other others that you would recommend? Of course, we recommend yours and justice in the care of souls, but are there other tools that could possibly be used?
Speaker 3:I would say Cheryl was talking about how the church is poorest or more poorest, because there was a time that it was not poor and the music was not poorest, and so worship is one I think that you should look for church that is Multifaceted and I think, think about Cheryl mentioned outreach, think about putting yourself out there. I'm not you reaching and telling them to come in, but you putting yourself in a variety of communities and learning something and giving of yourself. Not just putting something in the plate, but putting yourself out there in the community, particularly now.
Speaker 1:I think the other witness we tried to raise up it's it's the very beginning, but I think Also and you mentioned it in your example of the board meeting yesterday is is the importance of inner, inner faith and inter religious relationships. You know we tried in the book to to speak about pastoral care from the perspective of the Muslim community, Jewish community, from, you know, from a Buddhist perspective. You know that's just the beginning, but the you know the the kinds of issues and human need and dressing the book is is not limited to Christians, Right, I think problem, and nor, you know, nor are the problems of the world limited to Christians. So really I think being able to build those relationships across Faith groups is going to be increasingly important.
Speaker 3:And I guess in most communities, cities, there are interfaith groups whose purpose is to be involved in social justice. There's 1 here called mark don't ask me multi metropolitan area Religious coalition, coalition of Cincinnati that's a wide breadth of all kinds of denominations that looks at housing, that looks at they do look at politics, but they don't look at it like we're going to tell you what to do, but they educate us About what are the implications. You know elections coming up, what are the implications of these things? Because a lot of times it's written in a way that you don't have to know what they're talking about. It sounds good, but when you think about who serves who and who is benefiting, it's important.
Speaker 2:You mentioned about getting active, churches getting active and churches getting active. You know, it's kind of that we and I I am the person that needs to get active so that we and one of the things that I have found is that oftentimes, when I say we, I mean Episcopal churches often we are very stuck in. This is the way we always do it, and then we hit those rocks in the road when we can't figure out well, people, why are people coming in? Why aren't people coming in?
Speaker 1:I don't. People want to be like us, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And you gotta open the doors on Sunday. Hello, and I don't know what church that does not have any door. Nobody's going to, just like open those big red wooden doors.
Speaker 2:Yes. And so there is this, stuck with in this mode of why don't they come in and be like us, but yet unable to see that that everyone there. This is a pastoral response from all of us, not just from the pastor or the people of pastoral care. How do you bridge that in, in in this notion, this model of injustice or the care of souls?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of times I I said once people started talking about people coming in and I said well, really, the bus stop is right in front of us and so if you really wanted people to come in and go, go hang out at the bus stop and invite them, invite them, give them a bus token. You think anybody took me up on that.
Speaker 1:They probably looked at you like.
Speaker 2:Right, how do we move you? Karen, you started to say something about moving people. You said challenge, challenge them.
Speaker 3:Challenge and you were talking about the bus that I served a church where it was hot one Sunday and I would out and stood on the stairs and somebody said, oh, that church working, is that you know? I thought, wow, Wow, you know these are community people because you know our folks drove in.
Speaker 2:But the right that live right on the same street.
Speaker 3:There was not interaction and yeah, so I would say, challenge in the prophetic, prophetic activities, because you're talking about a bus. Stop right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the other things I want to ask you about when we talk about injustice and the care of the souls Can you speak to? Are you comfortable speaking to an aging populations and this care of the soul, because many of our churches are aging populations and and how? What are some of the examples, if you've seen any or know of any that you can share about? How do we care for the souls of some of our aging populations, externally and internally?
Speaker 3:I think visits, because people have stopped visiting and you know, pastoral visits and that kind of thing. I think also there are congregations who do all kinds of Bible study, book reading, things like that during the day, so that the aging people can be in contact with the church, because a lot of them are not going to be driving at night and so out which to them, and I do feel like gosh, there's the young adults and their families. Like where are they? And sometimes that can be really challenging because that intergenerational thing is really, I think, healthy.
Speaker 1:One of the things we're doing here in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles is that and this response to your question about elders but also, you know, other groups of people that are in the book is that there's a large initiative to use church property to begin to build affordable housing, and so you know that is one way you know that the churches are, you know, bringing the church to the needs of the people that live in that community. You know there's this old adage in congregational development and that is you know you look out the door and if the people out there are not the people that are in here, this church is dying. Now, if you have resources, it'll take a little longer than if you don't, but that you know. Rather than spending time, you know, forming ministries on what people used to do 20 years ago in a particular place. You know we're really trying to look with churches to look at, you know, what you know to do an honest assessment and what are the needs of this community in this time and place and in many of the communities around here.
Speaker 1:It's housing, and that certainly impacts people that are living on fixed incomes, you know, and it impacts people with other, you know, chronic illnesses, to people with disabilities, those kinds of things. So that's one response here off of that kind of question. You know that the church, you know sort of needs to reconfigure itself to. You know this common life to look at. You know what are, what are the needs. You know we can still have beautiful worship, we can still do those things that we like to do on Sunday and you know to be vital in this day and age. It's a lot more than a two hour commitment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. It's. That's Dr Kajawa hope that was wonderful and the reason I'm excited about what you just said. You know it's a non-nominational church right across the street I mean literally across the street, and there has never been any relationship between us and them. Well, you know, there are Christ consciousness church and we're, you know, orthodox, and everyone would say, and so we've developed this relationship between the two of us now, and it's kind of interesting you said that because right now they are in the process of developing affordable housing on church property and senior housing, which is, for me, very exciting.
Speaker 2:And I have thought to myself this is something that our congregation needs to really be looking at, because since COVID, we don't use a lot of this building and what it should look like to turn our education building now, which has historically been used for Montessori, into some kind of senior placed community right right across street, right across the street from the housing right. And this notion of thinking outside of our normal boundaries and thinking in the sense of spirit led versus well, what are all, what are all the legalese that have to be done on this right, is a vision that could come, that's being led by the spirit that allows us to help care for souls. Right let's. How does that become the train?
Speaker 1:There are people we can partner with that do know how to build apartments, you know, I mean it's it's not that we have to suddenly you know, know how to do all of this. There are people that know how to, but we do. We do have to look at. You know, what do we have? And in lots of ways we have land, old buildings we have, you know, those kinds of things. Churches, historically here, used to just sell it off. Well, why don't we develop it for the people? Once we sell it off, the people in this community will never have access to it again.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's my view here looking at how could it be a community asset and what is the needs, which is a different question, I think, a different way of looking at our assets and our property. You know all of it being used, you know, to the good of a particular neighborhood or whatever. Whatever, however, the particular faith community sees who it serves and I think that's to begin to ask those different kinds of questions. One of the congregations doing that here just started with, you know, a feeding program for the food insecure and doing humanitarian aid. They didn't even add a worship service until months into it when people asked, well, why can't we have church to right? But they started with you know, what are the needs of a community center and what are the needs of this group of people which?
Speaker 1:is really is church, right, it is church, you know, it is community. And having all you know those lasagnas together, right, right, so to be able to, it's also, I think, are it's not, it's also, you know, integral to our own relevancy, our own salvation, to be part of the restoration of these communities and the healing that people desperately need. If we say we care about it, then I think change, we have to be willing to change ourselves, to participate.
Speaker 3:I think it has to be in body A couple of good way. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow I think it has to be in the same room with them. Yeah, wow, and teach them how to. Well, most of them know these because I used to run a program before dinner Not my dinner, the dinner at the church and we would have a service. It's very simple. They know a lot of these songs. They most of them know the Lord's Prayer. You know things like that, but to make it accessible enough, you're going to sing some kind of an aria. Then that might be an issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, ladies, I want to thank you both because this has been energizing, it has been amazingly practical, which is wonderful and inspirational for me. And I tell you what I'm going to buy several copies of the book to give to people in this particular congregation and my sister church across the street, because I think it's just, it's cutting edge, it's a great reminder of all of our humanities, and I want to thank you both for putting time into making this a second edition or revised edition, whichever is the second edition, second edition. And so my next question to you and my last question is, ladies, what's next for you?
Speaker 3:Challenging. Well, there's a lot of things. I you know I'd be interested in writing something and collaborating and putting something together, because we're not going to just stand still. Maybe we'll get you to write something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, I'm looking at one of the things that concerns me. In my life I've spent a lot of time doing formation, and one of the things that's concerning me right now is, you know, and a lot of people, is the rise of Christian nationalism. So one of the projects here is to work on different ways of formation, forming Christians. I mean, there's lots of problems with Christian nationalism, but one of them is, you know, just the way Christianity is viewed within that context is problematic, right, and so that's a formation issue. That's about the way people see scripture, it's about the way people view human relationships, it's about the way people feel God acts among other people. And so we're working on a project sort of to raise up some of those values to counter that in communities where that's a rising presence, because I think people in our pews and my Episcopal church they're wary of it but they don't necessarily have the language or mechanisms to counter that voice where they hear it.
Speaker 2:And so that's yeah, yeah, that's very, very true, very, very true. Well, ladies, I want to thank you both. I will be getting back to you because I can see a whole lot happening in your worlds and want to keep up with them on spiritual gumbo. Shalom, as-salamu alaikum, peace Alafiyah, thank you.