The Rev. Joseph J. Driscoll on heeding the signs of the times

(Editors Note: Out of respect for Father Driscoll’s position as past president and CEO of NACC, we have chosen to print this article in its entirety, knowing that it exceeds our editorial policy word-count limit.)

A View from Above

Riding a tour bus in New York City recently, a mother and daughter from Alaska were seated behind me and chatting excitedly about their first trip to the “Big Apple.” Unable to contain their enthusiasm, they soon drew a group of us into the conversation about the sights and the sounds of the city.

“The best thing we did was take a helicopter ride above the city yesterday,” said the mother.

“Was it scary?” inquired a nervous passenger who at the prospect seemed ready to bite her nails.

“I thought it would be – maybe it was a little bit at the beginning – but once you see the world from up there, everything is so different,” the daughter responded excitedly.

“Oh, I would recommend it to anyone,” the mother agreed. “You don’t just see Manhattan, but you see the East River, the Hudson, the green hills, the bridges, the connecting boroughs. (pause) The view from up there seems to go on forever.”

I smile with this story of the view from a helicopter since that was the metaphor that Mary Hassett, a healthcare strategist and former NACC board member, used to describe the process of strategic planning. You need to go way up and look way out, and from there do your planning for your preferred future.

I have been off the constantly moving sidewalk, and out of the sometimes stalled traffic within the city of pastoral care, counseling and education for nearly 10 months now. That was where I lived in national leadership for as many years. And for full disclosure for this article, I have had no conversation with any of the participants in the work of the Council of Collaboration, and no knowledge of what has happened in the process since I left the Council.

So recently I got in the helicopter to view the profession that I so love with the leisure of a tourist. And the world does look quite different, and with the distance of time and space for reflection, the view does seem to go on forever.

And for what it’s worth, here is what I see.

I see the six major pastoral care, counseling and education organizations in North America agreeing to one code of ethics for the profession. I see these same organizations formulating one set of universal standards for each particular specialty in the profession – pastoral care, counseling and education. That’s already been agreed upon, at least in theory, last I knew.

But a little further out, I see the development of one spiritual assessment instrument. One and only one instrument, that any pastoral care professional can hold up at any meeting with any allied healthcare professional and say, “This is the measure that we begin our assessment with.” Such an instrument could also include questions/measures specific to a particular setting such as long term care, hospice etc. But only one instrument, period.

The product of such a vision: one clear set of documents (code of ethics, standards, policies and procedures, a spiritual assessment tool, charting guidelines, certification and accreditation processes).

And oh, look even further out! Believe it or not, I can see one organization, with one office, in one city, with one voice.

How many times in how many trips to Washington, DC over the years have I walked by the glass and steel landmarks (known to people like me only from a stroll on the sidewalk) of the National Pilots Association or the National Homebuilders Association?

Why couldn’t we have people walking by our 12-story building? The American Occupational Therapy Association has such a building in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC. I know because I took their elevator up to the 12th floor. I remember thinking, “Can there be that many occupational therapists?”

Are there as many chaplains as occupational therapists? If not, why not? And how come they have this prominent building?

We could have our building if the six major pastoral care, counseling and education organizations coalesced into a profession. And occupational therapists, and pilots and homebuilders could walk by the American Association for Pastoral Care, Counseling and Education and know us without ever walking over the threshold of our glass and steel landmark.

And with the strength of a new organization perhaps we could reach out to invite in the untold others who use the title “chaplain,” and who are hired for positions throughout the U.S. and Canada, but who have little or no training and no recognized professional credentials. Or to reach out to state legislatures and licensing boards and define clearly who we are and what we stand for with a voice from the structure.

Such a forward-looking view might strategically address in a constructive way a longstanding problem of credentialing that keeps us from fully becoming a profession.

I have spoken to literally hundreds of healthcare organizations during the last dozen years representing our “profession.” And I have continued to do so since leaving my position. The truth is that we are not universally known.

For example, I recently co-presented a workshop at a national meeting with a physician on spiritual care to a packed room of mostly palliative care physicians, who to my chagrin had minimal experience of chaplains or pastoral care, and who thought that spiritual care was the ancillary work of visiting outside clergy.

If we are going to thrive, even survive, we better go way up and way out into a wider world view.

The product of such a vision: one locus and one focus for the profession (one organization, one office, one staff, one voice).

And dare we look further out?

Ever since we joined in collaboration with our Northern sisters and brothers in Canada (CAPPE/ACPEP), I have been thinking (with not a little guilt) about our sisters and brothers south in Mexico who, lest we forget, are also part of North America! Do the chaplains there even have an organization? And how about looking a little further south in our own hemisphere?

If NAFTA can open borders to people for opportunities economically, then can a newly constituted pastoral care organization from the same Washington, DC area open borders to people for opportunities spiritually?

And let’s go higher up and look further out (Why not, we’ve come this far!). In a global society with a global economy, and a now shared threat to global security, pastoral care needs to be viewed from a global perspective.

Some of our organizations have been crossing the waters geographically for years – to Ireland, the Philippines, Tanzania, Japan, to name but a few – and others culturally to new peoples in the pastoral care world both here and abroad – most recently our Muslim and Hindu brothers and sisters.

These are the ones who first come as students, and who then want to bring back the professional training and credentialing processes we have developed into their cultural and religious environs.

But our efforts at globalization of pastoral care resources are comparatively tiny. In 1999, for example, the Vatican invited all known Catholic chaplain organizations in the world to a summit meeting in Rome. Of the 193 nations worldwide, only 28 known organizations were in attendance, and then with a great disparity in terms of organizational and professional development.

If we can bring ourselves together with lesser diversity in our little borough in the Northern hemisphere, then perhaps we can impact the many of greater diversity across continents and cultures. Can you imagine the participation of our members working on task forces out of one office, slowly but assuredly creating a global world for pastoral care, counseling and education for all God’s people?

The product of such a vision: spiritual care for all people in need across continents and cultures, giving and receiving the riches of wisdom and faith coming from the South and the North, the East and the West.

I have learned one important lesson that I believe applies to us as both individuals and communities. If it is the right thing to do – if the vision, values and mission are truly of God in this time and age – then we can overcome the challenges in making it happen. We can turn the mourning of all that we will lose down in our neighborhood, into the dancing of a larger, more inclusive, richer world high up above.

But there goes the neighborhood. There goes AAPC, ACPE, APC, CAPPE/ACPEP, NACC and NAJC. There goes the street that I grew up on, the buses I have learned to travel, and the place I call home.

All of us in leadership – myself very much included – have at a given time resisted change especially when it involved something we hold dear, while at another given time, we have risen high up and looked far out, and embraced change with courage in the face of what we hold dear.

Is it the right thing to do? Are we heeding the “signs of the times?” Can we ask the one God of many names for that gift of courage this time?

It’s a different view above the city. Even tourists who move between buses and helicopters know that.

Do you have thoughts about advocacy you’d like to share with your colleagues? Send an e-mail to info@PlainViews.org.