MY CPE EXPERIENCE
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| My CPE Team SMCA Call Group |
My initial anxiety came from the idea that I was not “in control of the situation”, meaning that I would not be able to plan who I would encounter and when I would encounter them. The other part of my anxiety was the idea that the people I would be encountering would be people in crisis, many of who would be dealing with end of life issues. This made me very uncomfortable and uneasy about going into hospital visits. As I first entered the hospital, I thought to myself, “What have I gotten myself into?” But, I prayed for God to be with me and entrusted myself to our Blessed Mother and began my summer.
THE CLASSES:
The summer CPE program consisted in half days of CPE classes, days of visiting patients and hours of on call chaplain work. The half days of classes were not very difficult, they did weigh on me a bit because I felt as though I had just completed a year of school and here I was back in an academic setting. At least that was my initial thought of the situation. However, as we got into the program we focused on discussing family systems and non-violent communication. These were very helpful for many of us because, as we found out, family systems are those that we come from and are those that we enter in in ministry and in life. Along with identifying and learning about family systems we also came to realize that in these family systems “non-violent communication” is essential for dealing with the different dynamics of a family system.
Another part of the classes was IPR and Verbatims. It’s important to point out that the make up of my group was well mixed. We had Episcopalians, Baptists, Catholic and Unitarian Universalist. At first I was a bit weary about how we would interact as a group since we came from a wide variety of faith traditions. This was especially true when we first gathered for IPR and Verbatims. However, I quickly came to realize that we were all there to learn and not to debate faith traditions. It was interesting to see how each of us brought different insights into the conversations, insights that helped challenge and stretch each of us in the areas that needed to be stretched. Having these gatherings where we gave each other honest and sincere feedback truly helped us to learn about ourselves, about what strengths in ministry we have and areas that we needed to grow in. Having people from different denominations helped to see things in different ways, didn’t mean we agreed with every thing that was shared, but it allowed us to be open to dialogue and to see how our traditions held up against critique from other traditions. It truly helped us to be more secure and convicted of our own traditions. This was all done with great respect and reverence for each other’s beliefs.
THE VISITS:
As I mentioned above, getting to the point of going on patient visits made me very anxious at first. I remember shadowing one of the Residents and seeing how he was so able to initiate a visit. But, I knew that it would be a bit more challenging for me because I am naturally an introvert. When I was set to go on my very own visit, I thought to myself, “God please don’t let me cause more pain to the patient”. But, I went in and found that I had a natural ability to relate to people. I found that the way I am outside of the hospital with my friends and family, carries over to chaplaincy. I found that I was able to be sincere with the patients and to allow them to open up and share what they felt they needed to share. I also found that I was able to be a minister of presence, not having to fix whatever they were going through. I also found that I do have real anxiety when dealing with people in crisis, but I found that at the moment of encountering a person, my anxieties and my agendas should all be put aside and I should allow for the care of the person to be the most important focus. After a couple of weeks of doing visits I found my rhythm and I found that I actually looked forward to visiting patients more than the classes. Every week or so we were each assigned to cover an over-night on call at the hospital. There were some weekdays that required us to cover 12 hours over night and then there were weekends where we had to cover 24 hours. The first time I had to be on call I was so nervous because I had all these images of chaos taking place at nights, especially weekend nights. But, I found that the hospital staff are all part of a team, a team that is very much interested in the care of the patients. Realizing this truly helped me to get over my nerves and allow me to be the chaplain that people required.
All in all, the summer CPE program was a challenging blessing. It was challenging in the sense that there were some days that I didn’t want to be at the hospital and because there were some areas that I was seeing were going to be painful to have to work on. But it was a blessing because I was able to meet some wonderful people, people in love with God and with humanity. It was a blessing because I was able to come to know myself so much more and learned of areas where I am strong and areas in which I truly need to continue to work on. CPE was a great experience, although I am glad it is over with, I wouldn’t trade my experience and the new relationships I have formed.
As Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another”
Thank you to all my CPE colleagues and supervisor. You all were a tremendous blessing to me and to all the patients we encountered.
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