What a comfort to know that we stand, in our trials, in communion with the saints. Any suffering I'm enduring pales next to St. Polycarp, martyr for his faith (on the far right above). As of late, hemmed in as I am by seeming-enemies, I've been finding encouragement from the words of St. John Chrysostom (third from right above): "I will not speak of thy mystery to thine enemies." There is, after all, comfort for my silence in the face of anti-orthodox barrages. God bless you, St. John, for your words of solace.

Speaking of saints: God bless Will Willimon. He has succinctly levelled the errors that Clinical Pastoral Education is built on-- the complex of ideas that assert pastoral effectiveness comes from being true to oneself & one's own feelings. Hogwash.

I am completely sick of the theological vacuity I encounter every day in my classroom instruction. I have to spend at least an hour in reading a good dense book in order to fill what's been lost of my brain in the doctrine-vacuum of a classroom.

Lest I become subject to a psycho-therapeutic attack on the causes of my theological anxiety, I must keep my lips tightly sealed on any offense I bear. Every belief, one must accept here, is the product of some unexamined feeling, some childhood experience, or some "relational stress." Perhaps I have too much education for my own good, but I'd like to think that I reject many ideas simply because they are false or misguided.

When speaking about the family of a recently deceased patient who kept asking "why didn't God let him live?" my supervisors rejected my assumption that they actually cared about God's role in the death of their loved one. Rather, my supervisors asserted that they were simply anxious about the caring presence of another. Well, I tend to belive that it's not only condescendingly arrogant, but also antithetical to Christian ministry to claim that this family-- and many others like them-- aren't really serious in their questions about and graspings toward God. It is offensive to me to claim that what they really need is therapy. What they need is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

CPE pushes up against the boundaries of orthodoxy (or, perhaps, as some of my more strident colleagues assert, this organization left them a long time ago). A study in gnosticism would be instructive for any prospective or past student in CPE, a requirement by my own (and most mainline or Roman Catholic) ecclesial bodies. Gnosticism-- the loosely associated set of ideas that what is really needed for salvation is not Jesus the Jew from Nazareth, the public person who was crucified, raised again, and now publicly proclaimed and accessible in the Church. What is needed is secret knowledge about the self, outside of sight, deep within...wherever that is.

CPE , in its demands for self-exploration, construction of "pastoral identity"(as if that were not something received), its encouragement for students to "construct their own theology," to question the constraints of their tradition, quickly becomes not something merely intellectually tired & outmoded-- though it certainly is that-- but also downright heretical and dangerous for the lives of people who are being formed to serve the Church.

Certainly, CPE is so nebulous in its statement of the above goals that it can escape any debate unscathed by shifting its chameleon-colors to please whoever attacks it. And officials retort to any accusation of heresy with a charge that we doctrinally orthodox simply want to retreat to our ivory towers and leave the suffering behind, abandon any truly contextual education, any practical theology. This charge, while always a danger, is largely overstated. There are plenty of ways to get pastoral experience and to make reflective demands on candidates for ministry without asking them to abandon faithfulness to the Christian tradition (and yes, there is one of those, that we largely share across denominational bodies).

These are not well-constructed thoughts, I know. But those of you who have endured the mess that is CPE surely know what I speak of. Seminarians of a prior age, those who were actually trained in Biblical languages, theology & doctrine, and preaching, were much better prepared for the demands of the pastoral life than any of those who are products of this pseudo-therapeutic mess.

I've found great comfort in the daily offices as of late, saying them in the morning and evening, and singing hymns whenever I find a chance at the hospital. Some of the elderly or mentally challenged might have difficulty with conversation, but they're ready for a hymn. I'm not musically gifted, but I simply try to remember that in any praise of Christ, I'm singing with the saints of old & saints to come, the one hymn of glory we'll sing eternally. This stanza in particular has meant a lot lately:

Though with a scornful wonder,
The World sees her [i.e.--the Church] oppressed,
By schisms rent assunder, by heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up "How Long?"
And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song.