CPE - Wk. 6 - Weird Week

I spent Sunday afternoon through Monday of the 4th of July Weekend at home in Mt. Vernon, returning to St. Louis Just in time to see the fireworks display on the river as I came over the hill into the Mississippi River bottoms. Traffic had been thin and flying along up to then. But from the nine miles from the Centreville exit to the river took about 50 minutes.

Cars were at a crawl as drivers watched the fireworks rather than paying attention to the road. There were a few minor fender benders. The shoulders were full of cars parked to watch the display. And it was a helluva show! I got back to my apartment and looked out my 10th-floor window over the city. All over the city there were fireworks going off. There was a fog of gunpowder smoke hanging over the whole city. There were still a few areas of the city making a display as late as 12:30 AM when I went to bed.

Tuesday was largely spent on midterm evaluations, each of us CPE students writing and sharing with the group and our supervisor our self-evaluations. It is hard to imagine that we reached the halfway point so quickly! Wednesday I saw patients on my floor, wrote a verbatim, and had an individual session with my supervisor. He affirmed me in what I've been doing and challenged me to try some new approaches.

Thursday all the CPE interns and residents of the St. Louis CPE Cluster had a day retreat at Mercy Retreat Center. The day began beautifully with a short Interfaith service, fully inclusive and respectful of all. As far as I could tell, the only non-Christians present were me and my Reform Jewish colleague at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. The worship included on equal footing Unitarian Universalist, Jewish, and Christian invocations and kept to this inclusive, respectful path. Then came our guest speaker for the day, Dr. Richard Winter, talking on the topic of perfectionism. Dr. Winter is a psychiatrist who teaches at Covenant Theological Seminary in west St. Louis County, a conservative Presbyterian school. The morning portion of the program was expansive and open. Fully inclusive if a bit long-winded. And then came the afternoon, which quickly devolved into a conservative Christian sermon, in which he explicitly dismissed all other faith traditions. He not only dismissed them, he dismissed them as all taking the same, inadequate, failure-producing approach.

So simplistic. So exclusive. So unworthy of a CPE event. CPE is not supposed to be sectarian or even ecumenical but, rather, inclusive of all faith positions - from hard atheism, through spiritual but not religious, to the full range of all religions at all levels of observance, and all philosophies of life. Each chaplain is grounded in his or her own tradition but not preaching that tradition, instead drawing forth the sources of comfort and strength of the patient and/or family. It is spiritual care the chaplain is called on to provide, not religious care. There is no legitimacy in CPE for the kind of thing that we were subjected to.

My Jewish colleague and I cringed through the afternoon. Our Christian colleagues were sensitized to what was happening and made comments in our support on their event evaluations, which they signed. And, at the end of the event, one of the residents at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, a Christian, spoke up that not everyone present was Christian. But the event was what it was, and the day was over. Wonderful support from my BJH peers. But the speaker should have been more carefully selected or else the needs for the event made clearer to him in the planning phase...

I've been considering what I might do the next time it happens in a supposedly neutral setting like this. Do I interrupt the presentation to ask the speaker to observe the rules of inclusion? Do I walk out? Do I suffer through it and then complain afterward? The latter is what I did, and it was not satisfactory at all. Not at all. I don't know if I have the chutzpa required to interrupt the speaker and challenge him to change his presentation on the spot. But that is what I would like to be able to do.

I left the retreat with the same sort of icky feeling I get when some calls me a faggot, a queer, a pervert.

Feeling that way, I didn't really feel like doing anything at all, so I went to the movies at Chase Park Plaza. I saw a matinee of the thoroughly enjoyable Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts movie Larry Crowne, co-written by Nia Vardalos. When I came out of the movie, it was pouring buckets, raining cats and dogs, and any other idiom that indicates very heavy rain. So I went right back inside and saw a second movie: Beginners, starring Ewan McGregor, Mélanie Laurent, and Christpher Plummer. I hadn't heard of it before, but it was wonderful. I cried! Contemporary fallout of 1950s marriage. Misunderstanding of parents by their child. Difficulty forming meaningful relationships. Everyone a beginner in the game of life. Beautifully acted and very moving!

Friday I had off because of being scheduled to be second-shift triage chaplain on Saturday. I started the day by taking a walk in Forest Park.

Forest Park, St. Louis MO

Everything was clean from the heavy rains the day before. Kind of like Okazaki, Japan, felt after a typhoon. Beautiful quality to the air and light. After 9:00 AM I headed to St. Louis Art Museum, only to realize that they don't open until 10:00.

Detail, St. Louis' Horse

Near the equestrian statue of French king St. Louis I saw a young man who seemed to be waiting. He noticed me and started looking at me in ways that made me think he might be cruising me. I walked away, finding a park bench in the shade to wait for the museum to open.

After a bit the young man approached me. Turns out he is a counseling student at Covenant Seminary, a student of Dr. Winter, a Presbyterian, married, from Salt Lake City. We talked seminary, ministry, religion and such for about 45 minutes before heading into the museum. I still don't know whether he had started out cruising me, whether he was doing some kind of psych/ counseling assignment that required him to approach a stranger in a public place, or just what was going on. But it was an unusual encounter. A thoroughly pleasant and, incidentally, good-looking young man, though. But what was it that happened? I haven't a clue!

In the museum I visited my favorites and, as well, devoted extra time to these:

Ian Monroe - arc (2011) and ambassadors club (2011)

El Greco - St. Paul

Feet of Amida Buddha standing on the Lotus Throne
Kamakura Period Japan

Tumbuan Dance Costume
Papua New Guinea

Adu siraha salawa (deified ancestor figure)
Sumatra, Indonesia

Friday evening I attended Central Reform Congregation. It was their monthly Social Justice Shabbat, with Paula Gianino, Pres. and CEO of Planned Parenthood of St. Louis and Southwest Missouri, as the speaker. She contextualized the range of services they provide and the political assault they are currently undergoing, at real risk of losing the ability to provide essential healthcare and reproductive and family planning services to poor and other women - and men. And the really important role of providing sex and reproductive education in a society where schools are only allowed to teach abstinence. CRC has been a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood from the beginning

Central Reform Congregation
Kingshighway at Waterman, St. Louis MO

During oneg conversation, I brought up the experience at the CPE day retreat. The people I talked with knew just what I'd experienced. It's a far too common experience, of course. One older woman said she has a friend who responds vocally with "Ouch!" when thoughtlessly exclusivist or unintentionally/ ignorantly hurtful things are said whether to her or in her presence. I like that approach, but I think it may be too subtle, assuming that the offender already understands what is hurtful and why and only needs a reminder...

Saturday as triage (on-call) chaplain, I was called to serve a stabbing victim, a patient in extreme pain with very advanced cervical cancer, her teen-aged children in the room with her, trying to keep it together, a patient about to die with meningitis, a debilitatedly mentally ill spouse of brain-death patient, a paralysed patient, a heart attack patient, a loud and violent inebriated patient, a terminal wean, a patient with presurgery anxiety, a family trying to make end of life decisions for their loved one...

In the neurology ICU, while I was waiting, a Resident (MD) asked me what religion I was. When I told him Unitarian Universalist, his face lit up. He told me that his maternal grandfather had been a Unitarian Universalist minister in California. A staunch Humanist. His grandmother, now a widow, still attends Unitarian Universalist church. His mother converted to Judaism to marry his father. The Jewish family take the Unitarian Universalist grandmother to church every Sunday. This young Resident expressed his respect for Unitarian Universalism, his own slight involvement in Judaism, skepticism about most religion, belief that underneath all the claims of religion most religions share an ethical core. He was a religion and neuroscience double-major in college. Had been most interested in Asian religions. A very pleasant conversation in an unlikely setting, waiting for a patient to die...

This morning I visited Unity Christ Church (Unity School of Christianity) on Skinker Blvd., across from the west side of Forest Park.

Unity Christ Church on Skinker Blvd., St. Louis MO

 On the church's street-side sign, the message read: "Spiritual, not religious? Try Unity." In the order of service and on the projection screen on entering the sanctuary I saw this message: "We reserve the right to accept absolutely everybody!" Indeed, a more formal statement of who they are conscious to include is printed on a newcomer's letter I was handed at the end of the service.

We welcome all people regardless of race, gender, age, ethnicity, physical disability, national origin or sexual orientation. We are a healthy, loving diversity; not "saints", just regular "children of God".

Those present were Black and white, men and women. The other aspects of diversity present could not be gauged by a glance around the room.

The thirty or so persons present were dwarfed by the auditorium with seating for probably around 400. Everyone was pleasant, but I was not comfortable with the content of their worship. They believe that we think our reality into being. In a very real sense. They spoke of "prosperity consciousness."

I guess in comparison I'm what? some kind of post-Christian neo-Calvinist? I believe in original sin. We are born into and raised in a family, community, and world not of our own making. These structures and details of existence are already fully formed before our arrival, though they continue to evolve. They have been being formed by all humanity before us. They shape us in lots of negative ways not of our choosing. If there had been a literal Adam and Eve, it would have started with them. The myths point in the right direction. Our lineage is the bearer of unchosen sin. And I believe that choice, so basic in our culture, is largely an illusion.

Unity believes we actually choose, cause, and make our own reality. That just doesn't match the reality I know personally or the reality I see every day in the hospital.

Sculpture at Unity Christ Church

Their worship has music, meditation, affirmations, and a "lesson." Despite the name of the congregation, Jesus was mentioned only once, as "the Master Teacher," as the congregation prepared to recite together the Lord's Prayer. The word "christ" was used only once, in a general sense of the divine that is in everyone, not in the sense of an individual person who is divine. There was no reference to any sacred or authoritative writings. The service ended with a simple prayer circle, few words spoken, and singing "Let there be peace on earth" together.

It was an interesting experience, the people pleasant, but I don't expect to go back.

Now an afternoon alone with my thoughts and humid 90 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures in the city known as the Gateway to the West.

Blessings!