A Pastoral Review
The familiarity of the course - Spirituality, Sexuality and the Body, ignited some precious and difficult memories that have touched my life. As I engaged myself with the materials and shared experiences of my teachers and classmates, I found myself haggling with‘homelessness’, maybe because of my life as a missioner and because of the fact that I worked with homeless people. Reflecting on the course materials, the term homelessness puts on a new quest and is thirsting for understanding in the light of intimacy or the lack of it in a human person…
“All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” a quote Ferder and Heagle borrowed from The Beatles began their Chapter 8: Longing for Intimacy. “Is there enough love?” the authors quoted young woman who cannot reconcile her experience of intimacy and love in her family and what she witness around her. And how can we not have this kind of awareness and further ask questions, like: “Is there enough love in my life to keep me going from day to day? Is there enough connection so that I don’t feel isolated and alone? Is there enough understanding, enough compassion to find meaning? How can I heal from the betrayals of love and the collapse of trust? [Ferder and Heagle p. 45]. And how can we not feel “not being at home” with what is going on around our lives. In working with women and men who have found refuge in the streets, the primary issue of homelessness, is not only much that of a lack of physical home but the aloneness and isolation from their “home’, whether this home is the self, family and friends and the society. The term ‘disaffiliation’ of a person maybe applicable to understand this particular dehumanizing experience of homelessness. This is the psychological homelessness. Over prolonged period of being in this situation this feeling of being alive and belongingness dies. The dignity and hunger for living slowly vanishes into the dirt and invisibility that one feels. This spark in the human capacity for living and authentic intimacy needs to be nurtured once more and “be brought home again”.
The helping task required of us staff and volunteers at Good Samaritan Women Center entail the intimate compassion as that of the Good Samaritan in the story.
Being present and facilitate trust and safe environment is our immediate response just as food, shower and clothing restore the physical well-being of some of our friends. And as for me, is an exercise of trust to myself that I can love the stranger and to test my patience when it is being stretched. Our service requires ‘side by side intimacy’ and ‘back to back intimacy’ [p. 151-153]. It is important to become a friend and the assurance of being with them until one find themselves ready to be in relationship. It is the assurance of being with them in the unfolding task of reclaiming one’s ability to be in relationship. It is a journey of celebrating togetherness in being both blessed and broken.
Coming and going by bus to the class, I am both thankful and sad. Thankful to be experiencing a beautiful city of Chicago with manicured public lawns and well-kept renaissance façade of buildings and many beautiful people around me. And sad, when my bus at certain stops gave me chance ‘to see’ our sisters and brothers in the street, still curling in the morning cold in places where they found homage of the night.
In Chapter 31, the authors talked about shaping a theology of compassion. They suggest that the process of encouraging, healing and ministering to the community in the practice of Gospel vision is called pastoral theology. “Pastoral Ministry begins by accepting people where they are and listening respectfully to their stories, just as Jesus and the woman at the well…It is a presence to be offered. The first task is to offer a safe setting.” [Ferder & Heagle, p. 213]
I suggest for myself and for my reflection that the Spirituality of Intimacy and Sexuality reclaimed from the Gospel/Jesus example, is the basis for Pastoral Theology. The awareness of such, evokes us ‘to see’ and ‘to act’ and humbly return to ourselves, experiencing God’s love.
June 8, 2007
Tender Fires: The Spiritual Promise of Sexuality by Fran Ferder and John Heagle. Crossroad Publishing Co., New York, 2002
for Professors Jim and Evelyn Whitehead
