Now enter a conversation of compassion and empathy. As a counseling professional, I have been raised on a steady diet of empathy. As a category and a construct, empathy has shown up in many counseling texts: those that taught me counseling theories, counseling skills, and set the larger frame of the counseling profession. I didn鈥檛 have much reason to give this a second thought until I ran across the work of Martin Buber, whose I and Thou (1971) does not necessarily tolerate empathy as an option if one is seeking to be present and to engage in a holistic dialogue with another. As I listened to Buber鈥檚 call to 鈥渢he space between鈥� the I and the Thou wherein 鈥渙ne person happens to another鈥� and where all of meaningful life and existence is found in the moments of meeting between one and the other, I found myself asking the question: what is the difference between empathy and compassion? Might a pursuit of empathy exclude the moments of meeting Buber pointed to? Might compassion, or that which Jesus seemed to live and breathe in the Christian scriptures, offer a greater likelihood of the meetings of mutuality and reciprocity that Buber envisioned?

In asking that question, a group of students and I completed a review of the counseling literature pertaining to empathy and compassion, and we found that the field and its constituents seemed as uncertain as I was. Sometimes these terms were used interchangeably, but other times they seemed to reference rather different things.

As a counselor-educator, I began to wonder about the efficacy of teaching and learning one over the other, and as a Christian, I couldn鈥檛 run from my understanding that Jesus did not teach empathy, but rather, compassion.

The word compassion comes from the Latin compati, and it means to 鈥渟uffer with.鈥� In surveying the literature on compassion, it is the 鈥渨ithness鈥� that is made possible in and through compassion that I find to be the most compelling. Researchers (Bibeau, Dionne, & Leblanc, 2015; Fehse, Silveira, Elvers, & Blautzik, 2014; Fernardo & Consedine, 2014; Greenberg & Turksma, 2015) have tethered compassion not just to a felt experience, but also to a desire to move towards and/or to connect with another who is experiencing pain and suffering.

Empathy is, in part, about the alleviation of pain for the person providing it, whereas compassion extends to affiliation and the rewards of social connection (Klimeckii et al., 2013; Stickle, 2016). Can you hear the significant difference here? One alleviates the pain of the 鈥済iver鈥� (not the receiver!), and the other brings reward through connection (withness).

The everyday definition of empathy I鈥檝e been handed through the years is a willingness to place oneself in another鈥檚 shoes. Even though empathy can be both simple (cognitive) and complex (affective) (Bussey et al., 2015), I can say my working experience with it through the years has trended towards the simple or cognitive, with its task being largely to understand the experience(s) of another. If one surveys social scenes across the United States of America, they may see cultural awakenings happening in places where people are acknowledging the impact of Western colonization and the ways it has led to the , including (but not limited to) BIPOC folks. What is more, if one looks at the scientific methods used in the West, one will also see the privileging of understanding over experience, with the former resting on the laurels of data quantifications, and the latter dismissed as 鈥渨oo woo鈥� or nonempirical. Pair an impulse to colonize with a tendency to reify (to see a piece or part of someone as the whole of who they are) by way of empiricism and one might just get a field of helping professionals who see it as their job to empathize with those folks they serve, rather than a field full of folks who have purposed to move with the withness of desire. Empathy may end up as another (intended or unintended) casualty of colonization and of oppressive systems bent towards maintaining the status quo of power. The helping professional鈥檚 felt sense of spirituality in their work may dissipate, leaving them with little but a hollow shell of roles and obligations.

Common to the helping and healing professions is the , or what has been commonly referred to as compassion fatigue. My wondering is whether this may be a misplaced construct and if the greater likelihood is that one would experience empathy fatigue, rather than compassion fatigue. If empathy requires me to leave my own sense of locatedness and join with another where they are, then I may run the risk of leaving my own personhood behind. This was Buber鈥檚 contention (1971): to engage with another (鈥渢hou鈥�), one must locate oneself firmly in an 鈥淚.鈥� Dialogue can only emerge in the spaces between two people who are firmly rooted and rooting in their own experience(s). Empathy may require less of an 鈥淚,鈥� and more of a 鈥測ou,鈥� which could very well drain the system of the person looking to afford care. What is more, the 鈥測ou鈥� of another can quickly turn towards objectification (reification), with empathy becoming a moment of object-to-object transaction rather than a subject-to-subject experience.

I find great encouragement in Brene Brown鈥檚 findings (2015), that levels of compassion positively correlate with healthy . In other words, the withness of compassion can bring or perpetuate a sense of health and wholeness within a relationship. When two people get to be people and to experience the belonging that such withness affords, the possibility of health, healing, and restoration grows. I believe the realities of COVID-19 have opened a wormhole wherein helping professionals will be required to engage with a sense of withness that pre-COVID practice did not require. Though I don鈥檛 know all of what this will mean or may look like, I already find it happening in my conversations with others. Maybe the crisis of pandemic is the very thing that has been needed to (re)orient a field that has skewed in the direction of power (empathy), rather than desire (compassion). Maybe, when it comes to helping professionals, the urgency of this pandemic will necessitate attention and care first for oneself so as to promote care for another (Bibeau et al., 2015), thereby opening spaces for those helping professionals to move past the alleviation of pain that empathy offers to the reward of affiliation made possible through compassion. Pandemic seems to (re)turn each of us to ourselves and to the potential to (re)orient to our desires, and my hope is that it will also (re)orient and (re)turn the fields of helping professionals to their constituents with the health made possible in and through the withness of desire that sits at the heart of compassion.

References

Bibeau, M., Dionne, F., & Leblanc, J. (2015). Can compassion meditation contribute to the development of psychotherapists鈥� empathy? A review. Mindfulness, 7(1), 255-263. doi:10.1007/s12671-015-0439-y

Buber, M. (1971). I and thou. (Walter Kaufmann, Trans.). New York, NY: Touchstone.

Bussey, K., Quinn, C., & Dobson, J. (2015). The moderating role of empathic concern and perspective taking on the relationship between moral disengagement and aggression. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 61(1), 10鈥�29.

Brown, B (2015). Rising strong: The reckoning, the rumble, the revolution. New York, NY: Random House.

Fehse, K., Silveira, S., Elvers, K., & Blautzik, J. (2014). Compassion, guilt and innocence: An fMRI study of responses to victims who are responsible for their fate. Social Neuroscience, 10(3), 243-252. doi:10.1080/17470919.2014.980587

Fernando, A.T. III, & Consedine, N.S., (2014, August). Beyond compassion fatigue: The transactional model of physician compassion. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 48(2), 289-298.

Greenberg, M. T., & Turksma, C. (2015). Understanding and watering the seeds of compassion. Research in Human Development, 12(3-4), 280-287. doi:10.1080/15427609.2015.1068060

Klimecki, O. M., Leiberg, S., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2013). Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience,9(6), 873-879. doi:10.1093/scan/nst060

Stickle, M. (2016). The expression of compassion in social work practice. Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought, 35(1-2), 120-131. doi:10.1080/15426432.2015.1067587

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Fast forward 6+ months and the tenor of conversations have shifted. Disaster models now predict high levels of anxiety, depression, and as we move through this stage of our nation鈥檚 current plight. Home-based school startups have gobbled up the time and attention, if not hope, of many families throughout the United States. Parents are tired and overwhelmed, and kids are often overly energetic, listless, or both. Deep-seated tensions between partners have nowhere to go but out into the air that is already rife with fear and anxiety, grief and loss. Many single folks have sunk further into the isolation and loneliness that already resided within them, craving even the basics of touch, of a non-virtual smile (one would have to take off their mask to provide such), and wondering when and how opportunities to connect will again be available.

No matter your place, . This pandemic is taking our breath away, both literally and metaphorically. In the face of such a crisis, how do we engage a conversation about self-care?

For years now, I have been giving lectures and talks with titles such as this one, claiming the deadness of self-care as it is often conceptualized and sometimes practiced (or not). Like so many 鈥渢hings鈥� in the West, self-care has been commodified, commercialized, objectified, and turned into an accomplishment. Either that or it has become code for sleeping in or finding other means of shutting the proverbial world out: distraction, if not dissociation. What we truly need鈥攑urposeful, personal, and process-oriented engagement鈥攃an be scant.

In working with the literature on self-care for helping professionals like myself, I鈥檝e come to my own working definition of self-care. Self-care is the working out of one鈥檚 need and desire to experience belonging and connection. But are belonging and connection even possible in the midst of a pandemic? In particular, how about for those folks who face the intersectionality of multiple pandemics: COVID-19 and ?

As a counselor, I鈥檓 aware that conversations about self-care are typically tagged to terms and experiences that bear a negative connotation, such as burnout, vicarious trauma, or compassion fatigue. In other words, practitioners often start to talk about self-care once it鈥檚 鈥渢oo late鈥� and they鈥檝e run out of steam; self-care becomes something to pick up at the corner store on the way home from work. What is more, because as a society we have problematized our pain, many self-care strategies and practices are meant to medicate one鈥檚 pain. Rather than learning to listen to our pain and to where it might lead us, self-care roadmaps point to unrealistic, pain-free destinations full of trim bodies and Zen-like temperaments. For those of us that have spent any time in the church, our sense of the word 鈥渟elf鈥� may have also been skewed, becoming something to give away (鈥渂e selfless鈥�) rather than something to be filled and stewarded.

My belief is that if conversations around and practices of self-care are going to gain any traction, especially in a pandemic, we need to refresh our understanding of the following elements: self, need, and desire.

We now know enough, through the work of epigeneticists and those who study the impact of generational patterns (traumas, 鈥渟ins,鈥� and related genetic predispositions) to say that our sense of self is deeply embedded in our people: in who we were, where we were, what we鈥檝e experienced, and how we鈥檝e gotten this far. If you come from a people whose humanity was stripped or maligned in some way, then your efforts to live as a self will bear such marks. If you come from a line of 鈥済ivers鈥� who have taught you that ministry and service are godly and required, then the infilling of one鈥檚 self will seem perplexing if not problematic. In other words, the code to (self-)care to some degree resides in the light switches in our DNA. To that end, we could think of self-care as 鈥渃ellf-care.鈥� Our lives and the lives of those who have come before us have turned on/off possibilities for engagement often before our conscious minds have even had a chance to orient or chime in. In such times and in such cases, self-care is over before it begins.

As I look at the differences between needs and desires, I see a blend of what connects us and also what differentiates us as image-bearers of God. Needs are common to us all: We eat, we sleep, we defecate. Needs are designed to be met. We need a place to connect and to belong, and we will go to great lengths in search of such. It is our needs that reveal our commonality or oneness as beings that are interdependent and interconnected. Everything connects to everything, and everyone (every body) connects to everyone (every body).

In contrast, it鈥檚 the particularity of our desires that make each of us who we are. Desire is at the root of personhood and personality. It鈥檚 what gets us up in the morning, and it鈥檚 what puts us in touch with that which is larger than us. Desire embeds itself with meaning and purpose. And if the purpose of desire is desire, then the wheel of desire is always moving in the direction of regeneration, transcendence, and making contact with the Infinite/Eternal. It is at the heart of what it means to be a spiritual being.

Contrast desire with expectation. Expectation is hollowed-out desire. Expectation turns gift to guilt. In a season of so much loss (pandemic), capitalism revs its engine of dissatisfaction and signals us to ramp up our expectations of ourselves and how we鈥檙e navigating this season. Many people (at least to whom I鈥檓 talking) end up worse for the wear, and further separated not just from the or taken, but even more so separated from the lifeline of their desire.

We can do better than this. Or better said, we can be kinder than this. When we downgrade desire from its seat with the Divine to that which consumeristically compels us, we end up with a bunch of nice smelling bath salts and soaps that we are often too tired to use (and who has a bathtub clean enough for that, anyway?!). In my mind, we need to begin to track differently the trail of clues our system (mind/body/spirit) offers us as we seek to steward our needs and desires. WiFi connections have disconnected us from heart centers and minds that are designed to mirror each other, and we鈥檝e been left to respective worlds wherein much of our experience can be described by Sherry Turkle鈥檚 term (2011), 鈥渁lone together.鈥� We must (re)orient to our pain and see it not as something to be put off or fixed, but rather as a voice worth listening to.

I鈥檇 like to propose that a pandemic is not the time to try to enact 鈥渢raditional鈥� practices of self-care. Such propositions bring guilt, not rest, recovery, or any sense of belonging. As we head into the darkness of a pending fall and winter without a vaccine, I鈥檇 like to suggest the following:

• Remember who you are by way of the stories of your people: What pain has come to you by way of your lineage? How can you interact in such a way that honors your ancestors and therefore your self in the process?
• Toss out expectations: Place them in the recycling bin or compost pile where your desires can (re)emerge as that which orients you and brings you life. That said, don鈥檛 reach for tomorrow, today鈥檚 got enough troubles of its own.
• Obligatory plans for the holiday season should be replaced with a focus on today, and on what might bring you a sense of fulfillment in the now.
• Consider adopting a pet, or if you have one, reach out to them as much as you can! The touch of another living being is what we鈥檙e designed for.
• Allow the phrase 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be OK鈥� to turn from a promise that things will work out to an offering of connection and belonging with those you love.
• Listen to your pain and allow it to guide you. Trade fixes for fondness. Practice saying, 鈥淭his is me鈥︹�� as you interact with the parts of you that struggle with the dis-ease that鈥檚 in the air and in our bodies.
• Practice acknowledging your limits, for limits remind us of our need and desire for belonging and connection.

This is not a list of 鈥渢hings鈥�-to-do鈥攚ho needs another one of those? What I offer instead are processes to engage and take part in: practices in remembering and reconnecting. As we say in my house, 鈥減ractice your patience鈥� when needed and continue working it out.

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What does flourishing leadership look like in the real world? Resilient Leaders Project asked alumni of 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology about how they鈥檝e flourished while creating contextually-responsive ministry. In listening to these leaders, we found six common themes–practices and ways of being that other leaders can apply to increase their own flourishing. This blog series will share those themes, one at a time, through the stories of flourishing leaders. To see the other themes and leader profiles, read the Flourishing in Service Report. This week鈥檚 theme is community: leaders need relationships in which they can be vulnerable about their experiences and collaborative in service.

Phil Doud

MDiv 2013

Life Coach at Heroically

As a life coach, I am driven by the questions of who people are and how they change, develop, and flourish. My work is focused on caring for those in the helping professions: educators, health care and medical professionals, mental health and social service workers, ministers and clergy. The name Heroically is word play. I want people to actually live heroically, taking on world-saving problems in challenging work. And I want to both be a heroic ally, helping the helpers to flourish along the way. Helpers have high rates of stress, compassion fatigue, disillusionment and burnout. To thrive, they need supportive community, safe spaces to grow, struggle, and yes, play. That鈥檚 why I鈥檝e launched Heroic Ally Game Groups, inviting people to build community, reflect, and explore identity through a custom tabletop roleplaying game.

Roleplaying games are really storytelling games in which participants assume a contextual identity within a hypothetical setting. The games I lead are meant to be epic, with big stakes and powerful obstacles, giving people practice in taking on overwhelming challenges, handling setbacks, developing agency, and tolerating the distress of not knowing. You take a risk, roll the die, and play with what happens, good or bad.

The collaborative nature of the game helps people learn to depend on community. Groups include reflection time to process things that happened in the game and to discover how a particular character or situation connects to their real lives. Sometimes a werewolf in the game is just a werewolf in the game. But sometimes it鈥檚 a metaphor for that wild and ferocious hunger inside. It鈥檚 exciting when interpersonal and intrapersonal discoveries found in game play catalyze personal transformation. I have found that I am most alive helping people navigate into where they are most alive.

Barbara Tantrum

MACP 2010

Counselor at NorthWest Trauma Counseling

As a specialist in early childhood trauma, I work with kids who have been adopted and adults who had childhood trauma. I also supervise and encourage new therapists, and I have a book coming out in Fall 2020 about parenting kids with trauma. I am myself a parent of six: two kids I gave birth to, and four kids we adopted.

Before I was a therapist I was in full-time campus ministry. As a therapist, it can be less clear that I am doing Christian work. But good counseling embodies Christian values: forgiveness, redemption, wholeness, health. I feel that God loves adoption, and I see myself as an adopted child of God. Science is finding that when a kid has early childhood trauma and PTSD, what overcomes that trauma is having good connection with a caregiver. For me, that is so much a picture of Jesus: what overcomes our trauma is having good connection with Jesus and with other people. I think that is the gospel. That鈥檚 the work I do: helping build relationships and helping people find those connections.

A key to my flourishing is connections with other therapists that I鈥檓 in practice with, consult with, or do supervision with. I have seen other counselors try to be really independent; usually that does not go well. The people who do well are people who have connections with other people. I would not want to be doing this work by myself. It鈥檚 hard because you can鈥檛 have community like that without there being conflict, without there being stuff you need to work through. It鈥檚 tough, but it鈥檚 really worth it in the end to have a community that you can work with, dream with and have cammeraderie with.

Alex Zarecki

MATC 2016

Worship Music Director, Japanese Baptist Church of Seattle

Flourishing for me includes collaborative energy. I serve with a sense of lower case 鈥減鈥� pastoral; it enables more collaboration with the folks who have been at this church all their lives and with the newer folks who just walked in or found us from Google. This collaboration is especially important in my context of working in a historically Japanese-American church. I am not Japanese-American, I鈥檓 European-American, so it鈥檚 a little unusual for someone like me to be in such a space.

The fact that I have a team in my workspace makes a tremendous difference. It鈥檚 not just me trying to figure things out on my own; I can ask questions and be a student of the context. I鈥檝e learned about the history of the organization, individual people鈥檚 histories, what sort of dynamics have existed, why things are the way they are. It鈥檚 a practice of collaboration that creates community with my coworkers and laypeople, and I think that sense of community is imperative to doing anything worthwhile.

Music can be a great way to invite everybody into a space. As a church, we鈥檙e becoming more multiethnic and confidently intergenerational. We鈥檝e seen that there can be a holding together in the midst of theological diversity because of a greater sense of community. Music and art can help us navigate spaces that are otherwise impasses.

As someone who sees the role of the artist as close to the prophetic tradition, I have found that some social media has been helpful for hearing the voices of other Christians. These other voices reorient me as I am creatively thinking about problem solving and attending to the resistance in my work.

Learn more about and the .

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To flourish is to find meaning in the midst of struggle, to adapt and grow in response to challenge. In the midst of pandemic, increased awareness of injustice, and the realities of ministry in post-Christian contexts, we don鈥檛 lack for challenges! But we do lack a clear picture of what flourishing Christian leadership looks like and how to move towards it.

Flourishing leaders aren鈥檛 work-addicted martyrs, and they don鈥檛 all work within church walls. A flourishing Christianity requires a more flexible understanding of what ministry is and an inspirited imagination for what it could be.

To research what flourishing leadership and contextually-responsive ministry looks like, asked alumni of 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology about how they serve. What are the challenges to their wellbeing in that service? What helps them to flourish while serving in complex contexts? Though some of their job titles may be surprising, all these leaders see their careers as expressions of their Christian identity.

In listening to these leaders, we found six common themes–practices and ways of being that other leaders can apply to increase their own flourishing. This blog series will share those themes, one at a time, through the stories of flourishing leaders. To see the other themes and leader profiles, read the . This week鈥檚 theme is identity: leaders need a connection to God that grounds their identity.

Matthias Roberts

MATC 2017
MACP 2018

Therapist, Podcaster, Author.

I help LQBTQ+ people and allies to live confidently. Much of my work is inviting LGBTQ+ people into flourishing. For so many of us queer folk who grew up in religious contexts, we鈥檝e been told flourishing is not for us or that it looks very different from the way we know we are internally wired. My work is to share the vision that we can be faithful Christ followers who fully live out who we were created to be.

This vision requires a lot of translation work. How do we talk about theology in ways that are fresh and different so that they don鈥檛 bring up pain and triggers? And among faith communities, how do we hold the tension of deep division around sexuality and this vision of the eschaton, of what flourishing would look like?

At 天美视频, I was able to unpack what kept me back from my flourishing, through seeing that God is so much bigger than I imagined and through doing story work at The Allender Center. Something Dr. Stearns talked about is that we have to be full first and then work from our overflow. The Holy Spirit fills us up, and then we work out of that instead of us being completely empty. I learned that if we are working at being healthier people, we can bring others along on that journey

My book, , is for folks who grew up within purity culture. How do we work with the sexual shame we鈥檝e been given? How do we create more expansive sexual ethics, without abandoning our values? My hope is that people will find more freedom to explore this world of sex and sexuality.

David Rice

MDIV 2010

Lead Pastor

Knowing that I can only take people as far as I鈥檝e been willing to go in my own journey has been the framework I鈥檝e used over and over as I lead. I don鈥檛 know how pastors lead churches faithfully without knowing themselves, their story, how they relate to and impact others–without being fluent in the dark places of their lives. It鈥檚 a huge reason why so many younger pastors burn out. They know 鈥渉ow鈥� to be a pastor, but they were never invited to consider how to 鈥渂e鈥� a pastor.

I鈥檝e learned from Bren猫 Brown that it鈥檚 good to hear from and learn from folks who are critical of you, but it鈥檚 not helpful for you to give everyone鈥檚 words and ideas equal weight. If the critic isn鈥檛 in the arena with you, working to birth the thing you鈥檙e working to birth, their words don鈥檛 count as much. They may feel strongly, but if they鈥檙e not committed to the same future as you and your partners are committed to, then be kind, but pay little attention. Ask, 鈥淲hat is there in this for me to learn?鈥� and then continue doing your work.

Resilience is a necessary attribute of a faithful pastor, and putting my ideas about faith into practice has been key to strengthening the muscles of resilience. Ideas are neat, but practices are sustaining. For instance, consider the difference between just reading the text that says, 鈥渞ejoice in the Lord always鈥� versus reading the text and then taking the time to write out 100 things that you are thankful for. That鈥檚 the difference between knowing we should 鈥渞ejoice鈥� and practicing the rejoicing. The practice itself can revolutionize how you see the world. Gratitude as a practice is a fear and cynicism killer.

Elliot Huemann

MACP 2019

Associate Faculty Counselor at Edmonds Community College, Private Practice Therapist

Working primarily with LGBTQ+ individuals, many of whom have been profoundly harmed by religious institutions, has required me to tease apart what it practically means to serve God and neighbor in my context. At the core of the Christ message for me is the persistent belief that there is a cycle of life, death, and resurrection always trying to unfold. Whether we explicitly name it as Christian or not, I find that all of my clients are wanting to live more fully into this cycle, daily desiring a more full experience of life and identity. In offering a kind witness, I hope to help my clients find the freedom inherent in the Christ cycle.

The biggest challenge to my flourishing has been finding a way to integrate my own evolving spirituality in my work in a way that feels authentic while honoring my doubt and my client鈥檚 own spiritual and emotional journeys. There have been a number of moments when I have realized that the Christian 鈥渁nswers鈥� either fail to capture the fullness of the moment with a client or have actually been used to harm one or both of us. At times I鈥檓 tempted to throw it all out and reject Spirit in the process. However, in those moments my clients return to something beyond us in the work, and I am reminded that we are both discovering a way forward together.

More than anyone else, my partner provides me with the care I need to stay engaged in this work. He consistently engages my process and talks with me about the many questions I have regarding what it means to be a healing presence in the world.

Learn more about and the Certificate in Resilient Service.

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Thank you to all who joined us for this year鈥檚 Relational Perspectives Series lecture with Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra. In an age of cultural fragmentation, learning spaces such as these are deeply important and we are grateful for the way Dr. Tummala-Narra told her story and brought awareness to the anxiety, racism, and xenophobia that is pervasive in our culture. During her lecture, Dr. Tummala-Narra wove personal experience with her own psychoanalytic studies, discussing how fear of immigrants reflects anxiety in multiple dimensions and carries with it much discriminatory potential.

鈥淚n the US and in parts of the world, the presence and growing visibility of immigrants triggered a sense of collective anxiety where dissociated defenses maintain emotional distance and identification with groups perceived to be threatening.鈥�

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Annie: 鈥淲hile I鈥檓 concerned about what you would think of as politics鈥攚hat would be in the political section of a newspaper鈥擨鈥檓 also thinking about the politics of being human, the politics of church, the relational dynamics between people and between groups. That鈥檚 kind of what I mean by political in the broader sense.鈥�

Annie is the host of , a podcast exploring the long and often problematic story of Christianity in the United States, grounded in the hope that by better understanding where other perspectives are coming from, we can be better conversation partners across difference and contribute to sustainable, collaborative social change.鈥� Her work is primarily concerned with two questions, she says: What do we believe it means to be human? And what do we believe is true about God? On God Help Us, Annie and her guests wrestle with how both of those questions inform our relationship to each other and our response to events in the world around us.

Annie: 鈥�God Help Us is about information, it鈥檚 about what are our commonly held beliefs in this country, how are they informed by our Christian heritage? […] I鈥檓 hoping, on a more meta level, that it鈥檚 also a way of modeling those conversations, so we can feel defensive and have all the human range of emotions while we鈥檙e disagreeing with each other and still continue to talk to each other.”

Much of Annie鈥檚 work can be connected to the category of spiritual darkness, which was the focus of her Integrative Project at 天美视频, 鈥淢aking a Home in the Dark.鈥� In our 2018 Integrative Project Symposium, Annie offered this insight into what draws her to working with spiritual darkness: 鈥淚 think that in those times when everything has been stripped away, we also lose hold of the lies we have believed about ourselves, about each other, and about God. So I鈥檓 left only with my desire and the question of what to do with it, and the question of what to do with this new reality. And I find that the only option really is to come home to myself. And in those places, I find that God is waiting for me there.鈥�

Annie: 鈥淲hen we recognize that we have put our faith in something like patriarchy, it doesn鈥檛 let us go easily. These periods of darkness, of feeling completely lost and at our wits鈥� end, both communally and individually鈥攊t forces us to give up hope in what we鈥檝e put our hope in. And that is this great gift that we can then decide we鈥檙e going to do something different now.鈥�

In an era of fragmented relationships鈥攁nd, therefore, fragmented politics鈥攚e are deeply grateful for the insightful, far-reaching conversations Annie is hosting. Here鈥檚 to listening deeply, speaking boldly, and returning again and again to our connections with each other.

Resources to Go Deeper

• You can learn more about Annie鈥檚 work, including God Help Us, at . And if you have ideas for future topics or guests on the podcast, email godhelp.podcast@gmail.com.
• As this conversation turned to purity culture, it brought to mind an article by Lauren Sawyer (MA in Theology & Culture, (鈥�14). Shauna asked Lauren to record an excerpt for this episode, and here鈥檚 the full article from Feminist Studies in Religion:
• To be fair, Annie鈥檚 reference to is more tangential than thematic. But it really is a great film!
• Shauna references an episode from NPR鈥檚 Invisibilia podcast about the relationship between uncertainty and dogmatism, and what we do when we don鈥檛 know what to do.
• Annie mentions being inspired by this article from Tyrone Beason at the Seattle Times:
• Just in time for summer, we got a bunch of book recommendations from Annie. Happy reading!
  • by Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers
  • by Frank Schaeffer
  • and by Amber Cantorna
  • by Mary Daly
  • by Miguel A. de la Torre

The post Politics, Theology, and Spiritual Darkness with Annie Mesaros appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

Find out more about our Master of Divinity program.

Could you give us an overview of what you do?

My title is Director of Organizational Development for The Allender Center at 天美视频鈥攚hich, honestly, is really functioning like an Executive Pastor. I get to do leadership development for our staff at The Allender Center, creating consistent structures of communication, professional development, care, support. I鈥檓 also on faculty with The Allender Center, so I teach and work on the blog and podcast, as well as facilitating groups.

It鈥檚 interesting that all of those things鈥攆rom the relational to the technical to the administrative鈥攐ften fall under the role of pastor, too. Which raises another question: What does it mean to be a pastor?

I often joke that being a good pastor is just like being a good parent, but specifically in the realms of spiritual formation and identity development. When I think about a pastor, I think about someone who tells stories that help people locate themselves in a larger story. Both individually鈥斺�淲ho is God, and who are you?鈥� and collectively鈥斺�淲here have we come from, where are we now, where are we going?鈥� I think it鈥檚 about providing good care.

I often say that, vocationally and in my calling, I鈥檓 a pastor by orientation. I find that whether I鈥檓 working in a tea shop and serving people crepes and loose leaf tea, or working on an admissions team recruiting students to a graduate program.

I鈥檓 guessing the tea shop鈥檚 not hypothetical.

No, I worked at a loose leaf tea shop the year after I graduated from 天美视频.

Was there a period of finding it hard to identify as a pastor, since you weren鈥檛 in the traditional paid staff position at a church?

Two moments come to mind. First, I did not come to graduate school to become a pastor, even though I came to pursue an MDiv. I came from a tradition where women couldn鈥檛 be pastors, so I didn鈥檛 have much imagination for myself as a pastor. I came to 天美视频 because I thought I would be a professor. I knew I would do ministry, but I would maybe just do ministry through the academy. Then during my third year, Paul Steinke named me as a pastor. There was something about someone actually naming me pastor, inviting me to see that as part of my identity, that was really powerful.

And then, during our formational years at The Allender Center, there were some moments where we were in the midst of a lot of spiritual warfare and a lot of despair. I remember Dan was introducing me before the large group to teach, and he said, 鈥淩achael really is the pastor of The Allender Center.鈥� And as he said that, there was something that felt really true to me about that. It鈥檚 not a way I would necessarily have seen myself, but it was a way I was bringing myself in the midst of our team, calling us to remember who we are and who we鈥檙e called to be. So I felt like the unofficial pastor of The Allender Center, and then there鈥檚 the question of, what does it mean to be the pastor of a nonprofit? Is that sacrilegious?

It seems like there are layers: Something was going on inside you regarding your own identity and calling, but something else happens when others see that and name it. Why do you think that outward affirmation is so meaningful?

I think there鈥檚 something about anointing that is really important. We see that throughout the text, right? It鈥檚 something we鈥檙e meant for and made for: to have others bless aspects of our calling and identity and vocation. I think it鈥檚 why something like an ordination process holds so much meaning in the Church. There鈥檚 a way of anointing, honoring, and consecrating鈥攕etting apart a role. Though I think, at times in our culture, that setting apart means the role is elevated in a way that some people who have the esteem of pastor really abuse that power, and it creates this false dichotomy that people who are pastors or leaders in a ministry are actually doing ministry, not everyone else. That鈥檚 a really weak, thin theology, a really weak, thin missiology, a really weak, thin sense of what the Church actually is and how it functions.

This process of recognizing your pastoral gifting and embracing that and naming it true鈥攈ow has that journey clarified or refined how you understand calling?

I don鈥檛 see calling as being just connected to vocation. It鈥檚 far more expansive than that. It鈥檚 that sense of knowing that, no matter what I鈥檓 doing, it鈥檚 okay to bring these parts of myself.

And there is some mythology that calling is static, when I actually think it鈥檚 something that develops and grows and shifts. I think it does stay pretty consistent in its rootedness, but the fruit it bears can change in different seasons. So we always need to be growing and learning and have a posture of curiosity and a willingness to surrender to formational processes.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 see calling as being just connected to vocation. It鈥檚 far more expansive than that.鈥�

What would you say to somebody else who is recognizing aspects of their calling as a pastor, but also recognizing that it might come out in an unconventional context?

The more we know who we are, then we can make better decisions about where we want to give those parts of ourselves. Calling, again, is about more than vocation. Calling is about union, calling is about love鈥攊t鈥檚 always about love. So what are the really unique ways that you are equipped and gifted to love people and communities well? For some people, that will look like very traditional roles that have really clear boundaries, really clear definitions, and there鈥檚 nothing wrong with that. For others, it might mean you meander a bit, because there are certain skills you need to develop that go along with that calling. Some people might look at it and go, 鈥淥h, this is a real deviation from your calling,鈥� and I would say, 鈥淣o, I actually think it was preparing me to be more fully equipped for my calling.鈥�

So I would tell people, especially those who will find themselves in more unconventional spaces, we need healers and pastors and artists and therapists working in lots of different contexts. And it may not always look like the textbook. That doesn鈥檛 mean you鈥檙e not being faithful to live out your calling well.

Part of what we鈥檙e exploring is inspired by Barbara Brown Taylor鈥檚 language of your 鈥渁ltar in the world,鈥� and the idea that our work in the world is a form of worship. Do you want to say anything about that?

Oh, I really like that. I was just reading , and I love Paul鈥檚 language of living faithfully to what you鈥檝e been gifted鈥攁nd that鈥檚 going to look different for each person in different seasons, based on different giftings鈥攋ust be faithful to bring those gifts to the world in such a way that it is like a living sacrifice. I think we鈥檙e really scared of that word, sacrifice. And rightfully so鈥攖here鈥檚 been some theological and spiritual abuse that has used a word like sacrifice to maintain oppressive structures of power that are actually anti-Gospel. However, when we give of ourselves in a way that actually leads unto life, I think that鈥檚 that living sacrifice that Paul calls us to.

Learn more about our Master of Divinity program and how you can pursue your unique calling.

The post Unconventional Pastor: An Interview with Rachael Clinton appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

I breathed myself to life, and so can you. My own recovery from the trauma of sexual repression drew me towards the healing medicine of yoga. I am a psychotherapist and a yoga teacher. My passion, obsession, and saving grace is embodiment鈥攖he experience of inhabiting the home of your body. Social forces and generational/personal trauma split the psyche into compartmentalization and dissociation, which inhibit us from fully inhabiting our own skin. I came into this work by following the golden thread of aliveness that vibrated inside of me whenever I stepped towards an act of embodiment.

My journey towards my profession and passion began by confronting my own pain of living in a deadened body.

鈥淢y journey towards my profession and passion began by confronting my own pain of living in a deadened body.鈥�

As a girl I was steeped in an evangelical church that was emotionally and sexually repressed. I was taught to dissociate from my emotion and sexuality. Eager to perform for my community, I was one of the 鈥榞ood鈥� ones. My dissociative abilities grew stronger as they were reinforced and praised. I swallowed my emotions and wore my pledge of virginity until marriage like a badge of honor. I committed to these ideas with resolve, to the point of receiving a purity tattoo鈥攁 dove on my hip that I wouldn鈥檛 allow anyone to see until my wedding night.

As a child I was tirelessly praised for my goodness, my ability to follow all of the rules set before me. The only price I had to pay for this endless stream of praise was my unwavering compliance with the group norms of emotional and sexual repression. As long as I agreed that the impulses of my body were wrong and should be ignored at all costs, I was given power, respect, and trust from a group of people I deeply respected.

As a 3 on the Enneagram, 鈥渢he performer,鈥� my disposition lends me towards being preoccupied with how others see me. 鈥楪ood鈥� became my identity, and my value was centered around how well I could perform to the expectations of those in authority around me. My obsession with blamelessness made me feel afraid to consider my own right to connection and desire.

It is painful to realize I was brainwashed out of connecting to my own sensuality. Over and over again I kissed my college boyfriend (who is now my incredible, gracious husband) while willing myself outside of my body and interrupting our connection if we got 鈥榯oo close.鈥� For years. For five years. That is too many years of not surrendering to the wisdom of our bodies. Our super power, being deeply present with each other, was shadowed by shame and secrecy. By the time we decided we had waited long enough to have sex, I had retreated so far from the felt experience of my body that I didn鈥檛 know how to enjoy it.

Dissociation is the psychological process of blocking out what an individual considers to be harmful. What is defined as 鈥榟armful鈥� within an individual is often the parts of self that may inhibit a sense of belonging to a particular community. I was taught that my body was bad and not to be trusted, so I spent the vast majority of my life ignoring what it was saying to me out of an ethical duty to be 鈥榞ood.鈥� I鈥檓 not the only one. The bodies of countless people growing up within Evangelical communities have been affected by the shameful rhetoric of purity culture.

The trauma of neglecting and shaming my body during vital years of sexual development caused a severe split between my mind and my body. We don鈥檛 learn how to be in our bodies unless we are taught how to follow sensation. In order to keep my purity pledge, I did everything in my power to sever myself from sensation, and in the process inadvertently sent the message to my brain that connection to my body was not to be trusted. My evil body tempted me into sexual sin鈥攁n age-old fable more concerned with power than with sex.

Yoga was the first place I learned how to inhabit my body intimately, in a way that wasn鈥檛 overtly sexual. Yoga was a neutral environment I could enter to learn how to de-thaw my body, without having to hold the emotional complexity of sexual shame that would often come up during sex. It has been through my own yoga practice that I鈥檝e learned that there is ancient medicine in using breath and movement in order to bring bodies back to life. What has historically been my biggest weakness is turning into my biggest strength because my pain forced me to look so closely at my body.

鈥淭here is ancient medicine in using breath and movement in order to bring bodies back to life.鈥�

While I was still dry humping Ben in church parking lots (#wheatonlyfe) in 2006, I attended a 鈥榮tretching and breathing鈥� class (yoga, in disguise) that changed my life. My body, which I had spent so much time trying to separate from and control, was now being gently paid attention to. I learned how to use movement as prayer, and for the first time I began to see how being with my body was a worshipful experience. It made my heart burst wide open to pay attention to myself in this way. Each time I laid in savasana, the final resting pose at the end of a yoga class, I came into direct contact with the weirdness and goodness of my body, the pure delight of feeling my own aliveness. These magical experiences in my body drew me to enroll in a yoga teacher training the summer before I started class at 天美视频. Immersed in the world of body wisdom I began, piece by piece, to land into a body I wasn鈥檛 fully aware I had disowned.

After I graduated, I spent four years working at , a local eating disorder clinic that was my therapeutic boot camp. Working with clients with eating disorders is a minefield of body hatred and dissociation, and I needed to learn quickly how to help my clients tolerate being in bodies that felt deeply unsafe to inhabit. I voraciously read books on embodiment and somatic healing from trauma, and I realized as I read that I needed to heal myself. The deeper I dove into healing my relationship with my body, the more I could teach my students how to find islands of safety within their own skin.

Dissociation is a form of trauma that leaves the body frozen, numb, and unresponsive. When trauma and neglect happen, we need to vacate. It is a sweet gift that the body doesn鈥檛 allow us to come into full contact with the enormity of our pain when we aren鈥檛 safe enough to feel it. I see the body as a manifestation of the unconscious mind, and when we work explicitly with the physical body, we grow awareness to the most hidden parts of our psyche. Yoga is a way to slowly reintroduce ourselves to the disowned parts of ourselves. Using the tools of breath and focused awareness, we can gradually thaw the frozen, clenched parts of our bodies. Now in my private practice, I鈥檓 teaching my clients and yoga students how to reclaim the uncharted waters of their own bodies using meditation, yoga, and breathing practices.

It wasn鈥檛 until I began connecting to my body that I realized how deeply disconnected I had been my entire life. Even now, after spending the last decade working to integrate the experiences of my body, I鈥檓 more aware than ever about how much I still don鈥檛 know about this earth suit of mine. It is endlessly mysterious and mystical to discover the maps of intelligence that are encoded into our bodies. I鈥檒l never arrive at a perfectly embodied or integrated place, but I have breathed myself into a new body. A more fluid, open, welcoming, and grounded body. A body that knows how to lean into care because of all those times she leaned into the earth in savasana and felt held.

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鈥揗iroslav Volf

We believe that we are created in the image of God. This is a radical idea that, for many, may have been dulled by familiarity over the years. That belief may have also lost some of its spark when, particularly in western Christianity, it came to be applied almost exclusively to the individual. But what if it is not only our individual identities that reflect God鈥檚 image? What if that image is more fully reflected in the ways that our individual stories, bodies, and callings intersect with and impact each other? What if, like our personal stories of transformation, the particularity of our work with others reveals something deep and beautiful about who God is?

So much of our mission at 天美视频 leads us to that idea. In recent months on the blog, we鈥檝e been wrestling with how transformation draws us deeper into the call to serve God and neighbor, and how living out that call in a sustainable way requires that we never stop nurturing the process of formation. This month, we鈥檙e going to be exploring how integrating those two processes鈥攑ersonal formation and outward service鈥攊s an act of worship, one that reveals the image of God in profound and surprising ways.

How does your calling reflect something of who God is? How might your service draw you deeper into worship? As , what is your altar in the world?

These are big questions, and they are intimately connected to story. That means that, when we let our transformation inform our calling as an act of worship, our work in the world might look as unique as our own story. Service looks different for everyone, which means that your calling might be a bit unconventional鈥攁nd this is a good thing.

Here鈥檚 to unconventional callings, continued transformation, and service as worship. And here鈥檚 to the image of God that is continually being revealed in and between and through each of us as we serve God and neighbor.

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This month on the Intersections blog, we are exploring the art of nurturing our identity and formation in a way that allows us to continue growing in wisdom, empathy, and clarity of calling. It is a challenge to open ourselves to the care and sustenance needed to sustain deep, meaningful service in the places of deep need all around us. And in order to open ourselves to care, we must also be able to identify the places of our identities that are still impacted and influenced by our histories of harm and internalized messages of shame.

In that vital, difficult work, we were deeply inspired by the research and insights offered by Gabes Torres, MA in Counseling Psychology student, MA in Theology & Culture alumna, and Program Assistant for The Allender Center, as she presented her Integrative Project in 2018. Gabes鈥檚 project, 鈥�Ang Mga Sugatang Kamay na Naghain sa Lamesa (The Scarred Hands that Set the Table)鈥擳he Violation of Hospitality: Consequences from Centuries of Colonization in the Philippines,鈥� wrestles with the painful scars that grow out of colonialism.

For this project, Gabes interviewed a Filipino woman who works in hospitality industries in the United States. Gabes describes the woman鈥檚 impulse toward subservience鈥攁 fear of saying no, challenging authority, or naming experiences of harm鈥攖hat is common among Filipino workers. Gabes argues that that subservience is a reflection of the manipulation and corrupt power dynamics at the heart of colonialism and imperialism.

鈥淭he irony here is in the fact that these events are taking place within the context of hospitality industries, and these reports violate the very meaning of hospitality,鈥� says Gabes. 鈥淏ecause the true practice of hospitality exists in the mutuality of responsibility and roles between host and guest, where there is a shared power, there is an equal value, acceptance, protection, service, and respect towards one another.鈥�

鈥淭he true practice of hospitality exists in the mutuality of responsibility and roles between host and guest.鈥�

To unpack the ongoing effects of colonization in Filipino culture, tradition, and even sense of self, Gabes says it is important to take a look at history and follow the narrative threads that are still very much at play today. But Gabes advises caution in doing so, since most of the dominant historical narratives propagate the belief that explorers and colonizers helped advance a 鈥減rimitive鈥� culture, rather than exposing the violence and irreversible harm brought by colonization. To meaningfully reflect on where we are today, we must be willing to tell the full, honest stories of where we have been.

鈥淣ot only do the artifacts of Spanish colonization and American imperialism spread out in language, in architecture, in our very names, but also in the ideas of the Filipinos, their ideas about themselves, and others, and their relationship to others,鈥� says Gabes. 鈥淚t is also very disturbing to realize that we do not need to be in North America to see the impact and pervasiveness of American exceptionalism and white supremacy.鈥�

Gabes argues that the end result of colonialism is an erasure of the self. Colonized people are taught to welcome and accommodate others at the expense of welcoming themselves as they are, and in the process the self is compromised and rejected. In response to this reality, Gabes ends her presentation with a letter that she wrote to her ancestors鈥攁 stunning, insightful work of art, and a profound assertion and celebration of self in the face of systemic harm.

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