The Voices We Carry

The Voices We Carry
Author: J. S. Park
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0802498817

Reclaim Your Headspace and Find Your One True Voice As a hospital chaplain, J.S. Park encountered hundreds of patients at the edge of life and death, listening as they urgently shared their stories, confessions, and final words. J.S. began to identify patterns in his patients’ lives—patterns he also saw in his own life. He began to see that the events and traumas we experience throughout life become deafening voices that remain within us, even when the events are far in the past. He was surprised to find that in hearing the voices of his patients, he began to identify his own voices and all the ways they could both harm and heal. In The Voices We Carry, J.S. draws from his experiences as a hospital chaplain to present the Voices Model. This model explores the four internal voices of self-doubt, pride, people-pleasing, and judgment, and the four external voices of trauma, guilt, grief, and family dynamics. He also draws from his Asian-American upbringing to examine the challenges of identity and feeling “other.” J.S. outlines how to wrestle with our voices, and even befriend them, how to find our authentic voice in a world of mixed messages, and how to empower those who are voiceless. Filled with evidence-based research, spiritual and psychological insights, and stories of patient encounters, The Voices We Carry is an inspiring memoir of unexpected growth, humor, and what matters most. For those wading through a world of clamor and noise, this is a guide to find your clear, steady voice.

Memoirs of a Hospital Chaplain

Memoirs of a Hospital Chaplain
Author: Chaplain Geralyn Cappabianca
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2015-11-16
Genre:
ISBN: 9781517634582

Hospitals can be fearful places where people come for tranistions, from sickness to health, from dying to eternal life. We walk through many of life's transitional doors in a hospital. The hospital chaplain can help people with these challenges, providing a calming, peaceful presence, someone who will walk with them through their doors. Through the use of the metaphor of the door and many true inspirational patient stories, as well as the chaplain's own journey through her many doors, this book will invite the reader to laugh, to cry, and to consider the many doors of tranistion in their own life. Topics discussed include end-of-life planning, coping with grief and loss, compassion fatigue and burn-out, near-death experiences, and finding peace and joy admist life's transitions. The book itself models the role of the chaplain in the hospital setting, inviting all chaplains to reflect on their own role in their ministry setting. It is an inspirational spiritual journey, sometimes mystical, sometimes heart-wrenching, but always engaging and inviting further thought and reflection by the reader. These are stories that almost everyone can relate to, as they are stories about life's greatest events, such as weddings, birth, death, and coming to new life after a loss. The final chapter offers spiritual tools for coping with the many transitions, the many doors, that life invites us to walk through. The final word: life is eternal, we are eternal, we are one, all is well. Readers who will enjoy the book are doctors, nurses, chaplains and chaplain students, and other healthcare professionals. Other readers include those on a spiritual journey, those who have an interest in the mysteries of life and death, and those wanting to learn how to care for aging parents and need to have the difficult conversation about end-of-life issues such as living wills and advance directives. On a broader level, everyone who wants to live a more spiritual life will find the invitations to reflect on issues such as regrets, "bucket lists," forgiveness, and choosing love, to be inspiring.

One Night Two Souls Went Walking

One Night Two Souls Went Walking
Author: Ellen Cooney
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2020-11-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1566896037

A young interfaith chaplain is joined on her hospital rounds one night by an unusual companion: a rough-and-tumble dog who may or may not be a ghost. As she tends to the souls of her patients—young and old, living last moments or navigating fundamentally altered lives—their stories provide unexpected healing for her own heartbreak. Balancing wonder and mystery with pragmatism and humor, Ellen Cooney (A Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances) returns to Coffee House Press with a generous, intelligent novel that grants the most challenging moments of the human experience a shimmer of light and magical possibility.

The Spirit Divided

The Spirit Divided
Author: Benedict R. Maryniak
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780865549968

Civil War Chaplains wondered whose side God was on, and if their ministries might be in vain. They saw, on both sides, God's Spirit at work. Was the Spirit divided, was God punishing both North and South for their sins, or was there some other explanation for this seemingly endless war?

On Living

On Living
Author: Kerry Egan
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1594634823

"A poetic and philosophical and brave and uplifting meditation on how important it is to make peace and meaning of our lives while we still have them.” –Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of Eat Pray Love "Illuminating, unflinching and ultimately inspiring... A book to treasure.” –People Magazine A hospice chaplain passes on wisdom on giving meaning to life, from those taking leave of it. As a hospice chaplain, Kerry Egan didn’t offer sermons or prayers, unless they were requested; in fact, she found, the dying rarely want to talk about God, at least not overtly. Instead, she discovered she’d been granted a powerful chance to witness firsthand what she calls the “spiritual work of dying”—the work of finding or making meaning of one’s life, the experiences it’s contained and the people who have touched it, the betrayals, wounds, unfinished business, and unrealized dreams. Instead of talking, she mainly listened: to stories of hope and regret, shame and pride, mystery and revelation and secrets held too long. Most of all, though, she listened as her patients talked about love—love for their children and partners and friends; love they didn’t know how to offer; love they gave unconditionally; love they, sometimes belatedly, learned to grant themselves. This isn’t a book about dying—it’s a book about living. And Egan isn’t just passively bearing witness to these stories. An emergency procedure during the birth of her first child left her physically whole but emotionally and spiritually adrift. Her work as a hospice chaplain healed her, from a brokenness she came to see we all share. Each of her patients taught her something about what matters in the end—how to find courage in the face of fear or the strength to make amends; how to be profoundly compassionate and fiercely empathetic; how to see the world in grays instead of black and white. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along all their precious and necessary gifts.

Faith Under Fire

Faith Under Fire
Author: Roger Benimoff
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2010-03-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307408825

“Running away from God doesn’t work. I had tried.” —Roger Benimoff As he left for his second tour of duty as an Army chaplain in Iraq, Roger Benimoff noted in his journal: I am excited and I am scared. I am on fire for God...He is my hope, strength, and focus. But not long after returning to Iraq, the burdens of his job–the memorial services for soldiers killed in action, the therapy sessions after contact with the enemy, the perilous excursions “outside the wire” while under enemy fire–began to overwhelm him. Amid the dust, heat, and blood of Iraq, Benimoff felt the pillar of strength he’d always relied on to hold him up–his faith in God–begin to crumble. Unable to make sense of the senseless, Benimoff turned to his journal. What did it mean to believe in a God who would allow the utter horror and injustice of war? Did He want these brave young men and women to die? In his darkest moment, Benimoff wrote: Why am I so angry? I do not want anything to do with God. I am sick of religion. It is a crutch for the weak. Benimoff’s spiritual crisis heightened upon his return home to Fort Carson, Colorado. He withdrew emotionally from wife and sons, creating tensions that threatened to shatter the family. He was assigned to work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he counseled returning soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder–until he was diagnosed himself with PTSD. Finding himself in the role of patient rather than caregiver, connecting as an equal with his fellow sufferers, and revisiting scriptural readings that once again rang with meaning and truth, he began his most decisive battle: for the love of his family and for the chance to once again open his heart to the healing grace of God. Intimate and powerful, drawing on Benimoff’s and his wife’s journals, Faith Under Fire chronicles a spiritual struggle through war, loss, and the hard process of learning to believe again.

Facing Suffering

Facing Suffering
Author: Gordon Greene
Publisher:
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2020-03-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781734137316

This book recounts the work it takes to become a hospital chaplain, showing how intensely personal and physical that experience can become. The author started his chaplain training with the arrogance of a medical school faculty member and the certainty of a Zen priest and teacher. And he started with a drive to reform a system of care that hadn't served his wife and himself when their youngest son received a diagnosis of cerebral palsy years earlier. But he hadn't counted on the humbling that work with patients, some of them with sorrows beyond measure, can bring. Once his arrogance and certainty had been shaken, he found unexpected forms of caring for patients and staff, and for himself. Suffering, like loneliness or love, is a core human experience. The key question for any of us is, "How will I survive this?" But an equally tough question for those whose work is to alleviate suffering is "How will I face this? Not just this particular person with this particular pain but the relentless flow of suffering that comes in the door day after day, year after year?" Unfortunately, there is very little literature that describes how one learns to face suffering. There are books that talk about the nature of suffering from a religious point of view. There are books that talk about the psychological needs for health care professionals to be "protected" from the suffering and trauma they face during their work. There are books that talk about a Buddhist perspective on alleviating suffering. There are also numerous books that talk about the role of "mindfulness" in working with patients, but none of these books do what this book does: showing how the author was shaped to do the work they do. The underlying premise of this book is that if you yourself haven't learned to face suffering, then your ability to help others face suffering is limited. The author has trained in Zen Buddhism for over forty years, most recently serving as the head priest for the rural training facility of Chosei Zen in rural Wisconsin. Before moving to Wisconsin, he was a faculty member for fifteen years in the School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii, working to teach medical students and residents how to best form a therapeutic relationship with patients. Now he has a role as clinical professor of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Dementia

Dementia
Author: John Swinton
Publisher: SCM Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2017-01-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0334049644

Winner of the Michael Ramsay Prize 2016 Dementia is one of the most feared diseases in Western society today. Some have even gone so far as to suggest euthanasia as a solution to the perceived indignity of memory loss and the disorientation that accompanies it. Here, John Swinton develops a practical theology of dementia for caregivers, people with dementia, ministers, hospital chaplains, and medical practitioners as he explores two primary questions: • Who am I when I’ve forgotten who I am? • What does it mean to love God and be loved by God when I have forgotten who God is? Offering compassionate and carefully considered theological and pastoral responses to dementia and forgetfulness, Swinton’s Dementia redefines dementia in light of the transformative counter story that is the gospel.

Essential Chaplain Skill Sets

Essential Chaplain Skill Sets
Author: Chaplain Keith Evans
Publisher: WestBow Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2017-08-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1973600102

Chaplaincy is an active force in the realm of ministry to a world that is hurting and needing a moment of empathy and an encouraging word of hope. In Essential Chaplain Skill Sets, author Chaplain Keith Evans lays the initial foundations of chaplaincy, its need, what it is, who can be a chaplain, and further develops the cornerstone of skills employed in chaplaincy. Essential Chaplain Skill Sets is an easy-to-read book that is full of practical tools and resources that chaplains of all ministry settings and experience levels can quickly utilize and master. The four main sections of the book are: 1) The Fundamentals: The Why, What, Who, and How of Chaplaincy, 2) Understanding Spirituality and World Faith Expressions, 3) Understanding Spiritual Needs Assessments, and 4) Bringing the Pieces Together. The fourth section is very practical. It includes eight real-life ‘verbatims’ of chaplain encounters. A list of additional questions have been included at the end of each verbatim that allow readers (individual or in groups) to evaluate how they may have conducted the encounter differently or not. "What you have with "Essential Chaplain Skill Sets" is a pastoral practitioner's guide to proven skills learned through compassionate care and competent practice. Keith is a pastoral clinician sharing out of his own experience and doing his part to assist his pastoral colleagues in congregational and clinical settings and building upon their own art of pastoral care. He is a pragmatic realist and a patient teacher. Thank you, Keith, for this good companion book for those of us on the journey of becoming better clinical pastors." - Rev. Mark Hart, DMin,BCC, ACPE Supervisor, Director of Clinical Pastoral Education, Baptist Health System, San Antonio, Texas" Evans draws from his in-depth experience in law enforcement and trauma chaplaincy in creating this primer for chaplains serving in any ministry setting. Evans covers key fundamental concepts for any chaplain to become more effective in their role, as well as discussing spirituality and world faith expressions, and how to master spiritual need assessments. He addresses what chaplains are, how they are engaged, what they look like, and what the initial outcomes can be as a result of their employment. He describes the importance of having well-meaning, devoted chaplains to help people on their spiritual journeys. In Essential Chaplain Skill Sets, Evans shares well-respected resources and learned lessons geared toward assisting any chaplain of any faith background in any ministry setting.

Crisis Pastoral Care

Crisis Pastoral Care
Author: Thomas W. Shane, D.Div.
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781935387220

This book brings a balanced, spirituality-based perspective to the dead center of tragic human experiences----violent crimes, homicides, natural disasters, automobile accidents, suicides, child abuse, and more. Author and chaplain Thomas Shane tells dozens of often brutal but ultimately compassionate stories of what it is like to provide crisis pastoral care to those caught in the grim reality of such critical incidents. As a police and hospital chaplain, the author has worked with law enforcement professionals for 30 years. His life is dedicated to the victims and families involved in tragedies, and particularly to the needs of police officers. These brave men and women are generally the first responders to crisis: they are the ones who hear the sound of a mother's grief, or first see the remains of the dead, or first bear the silence of those who are shocked and confused. Shane tells real-life stories of compassion in action. His words will both encourage and instruct other helping professionals to be might be better prepared to deal with their own and other's needs during a crisis situation. The book gives readers an insider's understanding of what crisis ministry is about. Shane's approach is experiential, not theoretical. He candidly reveals his own struggles, doubts and fears, along with the courage, faith and hope that sustains his life and work. He even addresses the complex and challenging task of offering care and spiritual counsel to the perpetrators of crimes. Topics include: general principles for working with police; helping people deal with guilt and find forgiveness; offering spiritual help to everyone; the real and personal risks in crisis intervention; death notification; chaplaincy and terrorism; what is the pastor's authority, and what is not. While many good books reveal the theory of pastoral care and the dynamics of grief work, Crisis Pastoral Care borders on a memoir of life in the midst of disaster. It will inspire and educate front line law enforcement officers, EMTs and the chaplains who work with them, as well as grief counselors, psychologists and local clergy. Anyone who deals on a regular basis with the victims of crime and disaster will find this book an invaluable resource.