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PASTORAL CARE
Find tips and resources for self-care, material to assist you in providing pastoral care, and general information to help you in your practice of ministry. Information will be updated every two weeks concurrent with the East Ohio E-news.
October 12, 2015 Edition
Myth, Art and Poetry
by Richard Rohr
Myth, poetry, and art heal. Rather than orient you toward solving a problem, they turn your focus toward naked being itself, that deeper level of meaning, purpose, and inner vitality--that deep well from which we draw all our enduring energies. They evoke those levels hidden beneath the "steel manhole cover" of the ego, and speak to our personal unconscious--as good therapy does--and even the collective unconscious--as mystical and unitive knowing does.
Earlier this year I shared that there are several levels of knowing and interpreting reality--a "hierarchy of truths" as Pope Francis calls it. Not all truths are created equal, or of equal importance. Something might be true, for example, merely on a psychological level or a historical level or a mythological level, but not on a universal level. For some sad and illogical reason, fundamentalists think the historical level is the "truest" one. "Did it really happen just that way?" The literal level is one of the least fruitful levels of meaning. Even if it did happen just that way, our capacity to understand even that truth is still filtered through our own cultural and personal biases, which are largely unconscious. Truth on that level may be fascinating, but it seldom "changes your life."
When One Partner Wants Out
Bill Doherty on an Alternative to Couples Therapy for the Mixed-Agenda Couple
Psychotherpy Networker, September 28, 2015
In at least 30 percent of couples who come to therapy, partners enter the consulting room with different agendas—one wants a divorce, the other wants to save the marriage.
That’s the conservative assessment of Bill Doherty, renowned couples therapist, who says the stakes are high in this scenario and traditional couples approaches fall short with these mixed-agenda couples.
To address the unique challenges of helping these couples, Bill developed a process he calls Discernment Counseling. It is neither couples therapy nor individual therapy. It’s a short-term process—5 sessions—designed to help partners achieve greater clarity about what’s at stake and get to a place of agreement about what to do next.
"The day I lost Momma"
by Bishop James E. Swanson Sr.
JACKSON, Miss. (UMNS) — "It was a little more than six months after my 18th birthday that the man she chose to marry killed her because she was tired of his drunken ways and abusive language," Bishop James E. Swanson Sr. writes in an essay about the tragic day he lost his mother. The essay originally appeared in UM Men magazine.
Read essay ...“We cannot see things in perspective until we cease to hug them to our own bosom. When we let go of them we begin to appreciate them as they really are.” — Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Meet: monthly 1 ½ hours
Purpose:
Where and when:
Alliance: Christ UMC, 470 E. Broadway – Second Tuesdays, 10-13-15, 1:00 PM
Ashland: Christ UMC, 1140 Claremont Ave. – Second Wednesdays, 10-14-15. 1:00 PM
Medina: Granger UMC, 1235 Granger Rd. – Third Wednesdays, 10-21-15, 1:00 PM
Painsville: Painsville UMC, 71 North Park Pl., Painesville – Third Thursdays, 10-15-15, 1:30 PM
Sandusky: Trinity UMC, 214 E. Jefferson St. – Second Thursdays, 10-8-15, 2:00 PM
If you are interested in being part of one of these groups, it would be helpful if you let us know for planning purposes. For questions and to receive information about a particular group, please call our office 330-456-0486 or email us at pastoralcareeoc@sbcglobal.net
The Program in Pastoral Care and Counseling encourages the spiritual formation of our pastors believing a strong spiritual base is the greatest resource a church leader can possess. It helps us weather the many storms of ministry and deepens the incredible joys ministry provides. Following is a list of Spiritual Directors in our area. We encourage you to take advantage of this rich resource. This listing will appear in each edition of our bi-monthly webpage updates and new names and contact information will be provided as we learn of them and have permission to include them. If you are a director or know of a director that is not included here please let us know.
Spiritual Directors:
Debbie Baker - connectingministries@gmail.com
Bruce Batchler-Glader – brucebg@yahoo.com
Harry Finkbone - Finkbone1@gmail.com
Liz Nau – mlnau2002@gmail.com
Jennifer Olin-Hitt – jolinhitt@gmail.com
Sue Palmer - sue.palmer101@gmail.com
Sharon Seyfarth Garner – spiritualdirection@att.net
Valerie Stultz - vstultz704@gmail.com
Carol Topping - cptopping@gmail.com
How the Courage to be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives with Thupten Jinpa
by Rabbi Rami Shapiro
Your host Rabbi Rami Shapiro talks to author and scholar Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D, about his spiritual roots and his new book, A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to be Compassionate Can Transform our Lives. Read the S&H review of his book in the May/June 2015 issue of Spirituality & Health .
Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D., the highly acclaimed thought leader and longtime English translator of the Dalai Lama, explores how powerful compassion can be, not just for others, but for our own wellbeing in his new book A Fearless Heart.
How to Nurture Your Most Important Relationship,
by Will Donnelly
If you were asked How do you nurture your relationships?, would you be able to give a good, concise answer? Maybe not, as talking about relationships is a lot like talking about love. We either tend to stumble looking for a conceptual framework from which to speak, or we go on and on rambling.
Overwhelmed by the topic myself, a simple truth dawned on me. To borrow and adapt a famous phrase from the respected yogi, Krishnamurti: what you are, your relationships are, and without your transformation, there can be no transformation of the relationship.
In yogic philosophy, the simple truth taught is that if you want to make the world a better place, then you make yourself a better human.
Sweet Surrender: The Elegant Act of Letting Go
Spirituality and Health, Inner Happy Hour
by
Shannon Kaiser
For today's Inner Happy Hour, we share an excerpt from author Shannon Kaiser's book, Adventures for Your Soul: 21 Ways to Transform Your Habits and Reach Your Full Potential on letting go of expectations:
"We often worry that we have somehow gotten off course. We think that perhaps our life is off track, and we have made mistakes that are unfixable. Maybe you worry that you aren’t quite where you think you should be, whether it is the job you thought you’d have by this age, the relationship status, or where you would be living at this time in your life. If you aren’t where you thought you’d be, you may feel like a failure. I call this destination disaster, the feeling that our life is off track. This never-ending cycle keeps us constantly reaching for expectations that we have placed upon ourselves. These expectations are usually derived from unmet needs, and our mind tells us this is what we must do, be, accomplish in order to be fulfilled. If, for any reason, life doesn’t go along with our plans, we take the blame and feel like a failure.”
Read more ...If you have any questions or issues you would like for us to address or would like to get email alerts when new reources have been posted please contact Howard Humphress at hkhumphress@sbcglobal.net or use our quick contact form.
The East Ohio Conference Pastoral Care Office:
Howard Humphress, D. Min.
Executive Director
E-mail
Office Administrator
Lynn Smith
E-mail
Address:
1445 Harrison Avenue NW · Suite 301
Canton, Ohio 44708
Phones/Fax:
Local: 330-456-0486
Toll Free: 866-456-3600
Fax: 330-456-6421
Office Hours: Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
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