Sit, stay, heal?
Another provocative SPT tidbit [see the first below], this time from Andover Newton's Sharon Thornton, author of Broken But Beloved: A Pastoral Theology of the Cross.Pastoral theology has long understood guiding, healing, sustaining, and reconciling as the classic functions of pastoral care, specific activities through which caregivers engage the concrete situations encountered as a part of the living human web.
Through her research on suffering, however, Thornton began to revision these classic modes of care, viewing:
sustaining as solidarity
reconciling as the work of justice
guiding as empowerment
But what about healing, you ask?
"I began to conceive of healing as not a function of pastoral care at all," Thornton said in a workshop yesterday. "Healing is a gift that comes out of the other three functions."
That certainly fits my experience and my theology--and I imagine that for students of pastoral care, it could relieve some of the anxiety they experience in an introductory class when they begin to sense the awesome responsibility of serving as an agent of "healing."
How freeing to be in solidarity with those for whom we care, working for justice in relationships, empowering others to do the same--and leaving the gift of healing to a gracious God.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Friday, June 18, 2004
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