This morning I drove an hour-and-change for an interview [with a Clinical Pastoral Education program].
… As I walked across the pedestrian bridge from the parking garage to the hospital, … I passed an elderly couple walking. … I wondered what … their stories were, and whether these spaces … would come to be familiar.
My interview was with a hospital chaplain and a member of the hospital’s bioethics department. We talked about my calling, … about how I would handle being called-upon to pray with, for instance, a fundamentalist Christian whose views on theology and salvation differ radically from my own. At the end of the interview they shook my hands and welcomed me.
…
From all accounts, CPE will give me the tools I need to be a good listener and counselor, and will train me to do this work wisely and well. …
I’m excited and terrified in roughly equal measure. … But despite my fears of my own inadequacies, it’s clear that this is important work for me to do.
–Posted Aug. 15 by Rachel Barenblat on velveteenrabbi.blogs.com
