Kwan Yin, Goddess of Compassion
Funny that my friend J. should mention that she is starting her summer of CPE tomorrow with fear and trembling, because I was just thinking about my own CPE summer the other night.
It was 1996, I think. Cripes, that’s a long time ago.
I went to work as a hospice chaplain. My decision was personal: my father had died very suddenly when I was 17 and while I felt I had a pretty good grasp on how to deal spiritually with the chaos of hospital ministry and crisis, what I wanted was to learn about the dying process. My school did not have any hospices in its list of approved CPE sites so I sought one out and did a bunch of administrative stuff to get it approved.
(I did the same thing for my internship a year later as I wanted to serve in a dual parish/university chaplaincy setting).
Clinical Pastoral Education was harrowing. I won’t lie to you, newbies. There is nothing that can describe the intensity of the CPE experience, which for me (and I know I am far from alone in this) was characterized by a constant and overwhelming feeling of discomfort, ignorance, grief and failure. Also fraudulence. That is what CPE is designed to do, from what I had always heard, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t excruciating to experience it for yourself: to have your ego torn to shreds as you confront your total ineptitude and idiocy on a daily basis through encounters with suffering people… and then re-living your ineptitude and idiocy in the nightly nightmare known as VERBATIMS.
Remember VERBATIMS, you guys?? Can I get a communal groan?
I think that CPE is designed to show the aspirant to holy orders that we are fools and poseurs. It is designed to dismantle our fantasies about pastoral ministry — the vision we have of ourselves sitting peacefully at bedside with a frail old hand in our own, praying in just the right words to a kindly face for the soul’s repose at life’s end. In this fantasy our eyes are large and moist like a baby chimp’s, or maybe Yoda, and we are transmitting the healing love of God through our fingertips because, you know, we’re just like Jesus and we can do that.
In reality, the hand we hold is unresponsive and the kind old face crusted with mucous, the mouth taped to tubes. The family stands around the bedside, some weeping, some angry and pacing, some at peace, some traumatized and making inappropriate jokes at your expense. Our eyes are not large, moist and benevolent but panicky. We fight to arrange our features in some pastorally appropriate expression. Later, at night remembering this, we feel keen humiliation.
CPE doesn’t so much send us out into the real world but throws us out there. We walk into rooms full of strangers and smell the smells of sickness and accident. It has never occurred to us that we may not have the stomach for this, and we learn to keep vomit bags in the car or locker. We are, with all our puppyish best intentions, nevertheless inflicted on the people we hope to help, trying desperately not to let our profound awkwardness and insecurity cause the people to whom we hope to minister more stress than they are already under. We are expected to be deeply present and also to be invisible. After a long, exhausting day we rush home in the brutal heat to shower away the smells of the hospital and to prepare dinner, then to sit at the computer and get our verbatims done. We launder our work clothes and fall into bed for six hours’ of sleep before rising at dawn and girding our loins for another go in the trenches of ministry.
We attend supervision group with mentors who pointedly question us and with peers who– if they’re good and caring peers — call us on our pretensions or challenge our theology. If we cry about our failures, we are quietly handed and tissue and expected to give our attention to the next person in the circle. We learn that it is not about us, but about those whom we serve, and we learn to cry not for ourselves but for them. We learn to swallow our shame and move on, and it is in this that we learn that God is the only minister and we but pale imitations and weak vessels. We learn that it is not we who minister but we who are privileged to witness to, and to speak on behalf of, the presence of the living God in our midst. We learn that we are fools but that God is real, and thus our vocation takes on a deeper dimension of mystery and awe. Oh, and plus… we pay a buttload of money in tuition to earn that dimension of awe!
If we have had a successful CPE unit, we come out of it stripped of one layer of skin, at least, and maybe more. But that’s not a bad thing, as it was that layer that contained the defenses, the puffed up ego, the romanticized ideal of pastoral ministry, and the illusion of control.
All that said, my dear pigeons who are beginning your first units of CPE this week, be not afraid. Be brave, arm yourselves with faith and prayer, get yourselves comfortable shoes, make sure you schedule some vacation time after you’re done, dump any unsupportive, dysfunctional romances that might distract you from this work, stock up on fruits and veggies, lay in a supply of Emergen-C, launder your sheets, towels and undies today, and get your Bible out and ready for action. God bless you and be with you in this rite of passage and formation. Write and let us know how it’s going.
We believe in you.
Kiss of peace, PB
This is absolutely brilliant – exactly what CPE should be. We who are in ministry need not only to experience this, but to re-visit it regularly as we move into the reality for which CPE (in theory) prepares us. Thank you for writing this and sharing it.
I love this post. I am sitting here writing an application for supervisory CPE training, so this was so timely.
If you’ve never done CPE before, what Peacebang said is pretty much how it goes. It will be hard, really really hard. But real life is hard, and you will be a better minister/pastor/priest for having done this gut-wrenching, exhausting, soul-searching work. Trust the process. It usually works, and while it is not all about you, you will find yourself capable of things you never imagined. You will come face to face with death, fear, despair, horrible things you’d rather not think about, and your own messy story and issues and troubles and “growing edges” and you know what? You’ll live to tell the story. Thousands and thousands of other students have made it through this CPE summer, and so will you. Blessings. 🙂
Ain’t THAT the truth! Thanks for the memories!
Oh, and one more piece of practical advice: wash your hands. A lot. And use those little alcohol gel dispensers placed all around the hospital between every patient. Seriously. Like one of my old CPE supervisors used to say, “if you can’t remember the last time you washed your hands, it’s been too long.”
Thanks PB for this reminder of the pain and exquisite sweetness of CPE. Reading this I am reminded again about the resiliency of the office of the chaplain, that in our ineptitude & awkwardness that I/we did not send anyone screaming for our supervisors, did not bring to a screeching halt the chaplaincy corps of a major hospital, or as far as I know destroy anyone’s faith in God through our many failures. Of course, this is all part of the it’s-not-about-me-ness of the whole experience, but I can’t think of another profession where you’re allowed to bumble your way through to achieving some clarity. I mean, I’m very glad surgery residents don’t operate in this learning model!
…And wear the most comfortable shoes you can find that are acceptable within your dress code…even if frumpy is the very best thing you can find to say about them! You will be walking miles in a day and sometimes running to respond to an emergency — this is not the time for really cute heels. (Sorry PB!)
[Listen, Victoria Weinstein totally agrees with you even if PeaceBang would still hold out hope for a DECENTly cute shoe. – PB]
So true. Mine was 6 months of 16-hour overnight shifts in addition to the wife, mother, minister roles I was also fulfilling. I never got down time on any shift I worked. It was mostly emergency room, NICU, and, in the middle of the night, people who became terrified by their own mortality. On my most challenging night 11 people died and I was the only chaplain on duty. In the midst of all this, and I must confess I hated it, there were moments that were incredibly holy, and lots of times where God’s grace shone through my incompetence and inexperience. But now, thinking back, I have appreciation for what I learned about myself, about God, and about people’s unexpected strength in the face of unbelievable challenges.
Thanks for sharing this, I haven’t thought about CPE for awhile!
The main thing I learned is that I am not bringing God to people – God is there with them and has been all along.
As a second-career chaplain, I follow PB because I believe in beauty tips and dressing for success as a minister. In September 2011, I’ll be on my way to a second-year CPE residency as my MDiv supervised ministry internship, so this post struck a chord with me…From my experience, PB writes the truth about CPE–especially for anyone in a first unit. As for the shoes. I just purchased what will dress my feet in my new CPE post. No, they are not cute or stylish–rather, functional, expensive,closed-back Ariat clogs that nurses and other chaplains have raved about and have given only five-star ratings in reviews. In CPE, your shoes do matter… especially when you are walking up to 25,000 steps a day and running to arriving traumas and codes).
I just read this after somebody posted it on facebook. It caught my eye because I start CPE next week. Thank you for the way you have written this out. Most people tell the horror stories as soon as they hear that I am doing CPE. Nobody tells the practical day to day life and ultimate benefits. I have a feeling that in a month when I am broken down and tired, I may need to look back on what you have written here. Oh, and about the comfortable shoes, I found eccos that are cute and hopefully comfortable enough. I’ll let you know 🙂
I did my CPE in the geriatric ward of Oregon State Hospital–the mental facility where they filmed One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest. It wasn’t the worst three months of my life, but it was close, me having led a very sheltered life up to that point. It was, however, a very valuable learning experience.
One of my classmates, an Army chaplain, put it this way: CPE is boot-camp for pastors.
My areas of concentration were the psych ward and ICU. My experience there led to my leader instituting a new rule requiring that verbatims presented had to involve two conscious, lucid speakers. Would that more of my day had been spent in presentation-worthy conversation.
I only survived CPE thanks to God, a supportive spouse who cooked dinner every night and took care of the kids, and “The Sound of Music.” For whatever reason (I like to think it was the Holy Spirit), I decided taking part in a community theatre production of “The Sound of Music” was a good complement to CPE.
Strangely enough, it was. I was a nun (irony was not lost on me!) and therefore had scads of time to work on verbatims and presentations between our bits on the stage. And the 1 hour drive to supervision sessions was the perfect time to listen to those lovely Latin tunes we were learning and practice, practice, practice. Above all, it was good to do something I enjoyed after the day in the hospital. Theatre as therapy!
My advice to those starting out: while you might not want to commit to a summer play, find something you find enjoyable and life-giving and DO IT regularly – even when you feel too tired and you just don’t have time. Not only will it help to recharge you, it’s great practice for self-care in your later ministry. [Great advice! – PB]
Yes, yes, and yes.
Exhausting – physically, emotionally and spiritually.
And worth it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Don’t worry about what you say or don’t say. Being there is enough.
There is so much truth in this post! I loved my CPE unit–I mean really LOVED it, to the point that I briefly considered pursuing a dual parish/hospital ministry–and I feel like this post encapsulates all that was wonderful/excruciating about my experience. It’s not for the faint of heart but it is such powerful stuff. If I had to point to a single piece of my vocational training as the thing that turned me into a minister, it would be that summer at Salem Hospital.
This is great. My only additions are to make sure everything you wear for CPE can be washed in 120 degrees, eat and drink properly(hospitals are really dry and you need tons more water, and the lemon meringue pie and biscuits and gravy will beckon to you in the cafeteria but try to stay away). And show the heck up, literally and figuratively. Use CPE as a way to test out all that PeaceBang has been teaching in this blog about mentor relationships, work ethic, professionalism, accountability, self care. It is a great opportunity, the likes of which you won’t get elsewhere in life for the most part. It is easy to be a hater. . . .particularly about CPE in seminary crowds.
I’ve done a ton of CPE; this is a great description of that first unit in particular.
Thank you so much for your encouragement and truth. I just finished my second unit of CPE (yes, I went back) after three years of ministry. It was a perfect time to look at my pastoral image, my progress with grief, and so much more. My supervisor, a wise retired military chaplain, was challenging,encouraging and straightforward. I have so enjoyed both units and would highly encourage a second try when “candidacy” is not part of the process. I was able to ask hard questions and found time to really think about things. I would suggest a little black purse or bag to hold a Bible, prayer book (if that helps you), kleenex,lip gloss, etc. I would also agree with the comment above that mentioned “showing up.” When we show up not only do we benefit but the entire group does too. CPE is a great opportunity!
I recently finished my third unit and have my fourth coming in the fall. I find a lot of value in the CPE model of education, and wish that theological education learned more about action-reflection and the clinical model of learning that CPE provides. Yes, hospitals smell funny, and patients projectile vomit in colors that should not exist in nature. Patients will die, peers will take scalpels to your theology, but at the end of the day it is an incredibly profound form of ministry and a gift to serve.
I’m not romantic about what I do, since the impotence of the position denies romantic fantasies. However, until you hold the hand of a corpse and say prayers for her and her family, are you prepared to be clergy? When you have people much older than you see you as their priest/rabbi/pastor/etc. it becomes plain that it is not about you, and that ministry is not about you. It isn’t about your theological knowledge, or your biblical knowledge. It is about living your ministry.
PB – thanks so much for this thread. Your post said so much – and the comment thread has added so much more. I’m not called to a ministry career. But I still have gotten so much from this. Thanks
I highly recommend a book written by my friend Greg Garrett “Stories from the Edge: A Theology of Grief”. Greg served at the same CPE clinical site that I did about two years after I did. I wish I had his book to read when I was in my first unit of CPE, and I was grateful for having read it as I embarked on my second unit of CPE.
http://garrett.wjkbooks.com/bio.html
CPE is tough, but if you stay open to the Holy Spirit, you will find that you will use what you learned over that summer countless times in your life as a pastor. It is truly a holy and priceless experience.
Wow. As I prepare to start my CPE next week I am simultaneously excited and terrified. Thank PB, for telling the beautiful truth, as you always do. And the comments from those that have gone through are valuable reminders that I too will survive and so will my family and are likely not to suffer as much as I might imagine.
Thanks for this post, PB, and for all the comments everyone. I have yet to do CPE because it is really expensive on the East Coast and I am waiting until I have moved so I can find a lower cost program.
Some of the comments so far have made me anxious about doing CPE. I am one of those people who is extremely sensitive to vomit. If I see/ hear/ smell it, I will vomit myself. At a past job working with children, I was ordered to leave the room in case of vomit in order to avoid having two sick people.
Are there any others who have had to manage something like this? Does anyone have any advice for me?
PB, I sent this to my CPE director. I did a year’s residency of CPE in 2008-2009. He said you should submit this for publication in the Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling. He plans to read it during orientation for the next class of residents. You really got to the heart of why CPE is such a transformational experience. I am still processing and thinking about what I learned that year, and I expect I always will be. Life-changing!
[Wanda, please thank your CPE director for me. – PB]
I have found CPE to be a generally positive, although painful, experience. A few comments.
Trust the process. This seems to be a favorite CPE expression. I spent 15 years before becoming a minister (and subsequently a Chaplain) analyzing processes in industry and business. Processes are applied by people and they don’t work in and of themselves.
I have definitely seen the CPE process applied badly and I also know that there are CPE supervisors around who aren’t all that good. I see no reason to withhold the normal adult skepticism that I might apply to any other situation where I was making myself vulnerable.
Another comment on vomit. Chaplains are not nurses. I can only think of one time so far where I’ve been in a room with a patient who vomited but I’m not particularly sensitive to it. If you’re in a situation where you know you can’t minister to a person for whatever reason, the best thing to do is to admit what it is that you can’t do (right now) and call upon your team. You have to find the balance between trying something that is frightening and new (what CPE is all about) and subjecting a patient to bad visits because you can’t cope (although the patient will probably ask you to leave if the visit is really bad).
I agree with the comment about vomit. I work in a children’s hospital and thankfully have not experienced that much puke, believe it or not.
One of the skills you learn pretty quick is how to step away gracefully and kindly if you need to for a minute and then get right back in there.
Another thing is to think through what you need to eat and drink(I know that’s a big one with me) so your blood sugar is right. Find some kind of bar to keep in your bag or pocket so you can be steady on your feet and less likely to get shaky in icky situations and not so full of junk food that you get queasy yourself. [YES! And I carry little ginger candies for nausea, as I do get queasy very easily in any hospital or nursing home setting. – PB]
Brilliantly, beautifully said. Thank you.
This is brilliant. Many of my peers are on their CPEs right now. Dang, I should send them some reiki.
I miss it, yet who would miss trauma, pain, anger, blame and shame…. Anyone who is called into Chaplaincy…. You know when you are called…..
I was flipping through your May archives to look at your posts about Fluevogs at graduation (and I have recently been lusting after those boots!), and stumbled upon this post.
I am starting seminary next month (!!!) as a young woman under thirty. I am excited to go back to school, to write papers, do research, immerse myself in theology. However, I am nervous about many things: the limitations of my life experiences, the very idea of preaching my own writing, and pastoral care to the world around me. I know I have every right to be nervous, and this post somehow still makes me feel ready for the challenge that CPE will provide. I know that I’ll be exhausted, frustrated, humiliated, terrified, challenged, and pushed to my limits. But knowing that so many have come before me (and suffered through!) somehow makes it easier. Thank you for your blessings (though for those who are a bit ahead of me!), and your inspiration, months later, to this not-quite-seminarian.
Thanks PB!
After 12 years since my ordination and 18 years of ministry, I have made the exhilarating move to seeking out CPE residency. After my experience at my last parish (painful comes to mind), my own experience of health challenges (5 weeks of head radiation anyone?), I had hoped to find some nice, quiet part time job in my small town that would allow me to be home when my kids got out of school and yet still pay my mortgage, it seems God has other plans. My site is 40 minutes away and focuses on mental illness, addiction, elderly and the dying, and will be a real full-time job with on-calls every 4 or 5 nights which will require me to stay in the hospital. All of this has come together rather rapidly as I enquired, applied, interviewed and was offered a position all in 12 days time. It may be a wild ride, but something tells me I’m up for it! [Grace, blessings on this challenging calling! Our best wishes go with you on this wild ride. Check in and let us know how you’re doing. – PB]
PB-A fine and touching description of the CPE experience. Did mine last school year; one of the best year’s of my life. (And I’m old to start this career.)During supervision we were always encouraging one another to claim the chaplain’s role. Plenty of discussion about what to wear. Consensus among the women was to keep a pair of “pastor’s pumps” (tasteful black closed toe with a modest heel) and a simple knit jacket or cardigan (no pet hair or pilling) in the back of your car along with your Bible. A comb or brush, a hair clip, a little lipstick in the glove box, a clothes brush or sticky-tape roller and you are good to go. At least you can be confident you look the part while you say a prayer and gather your energy to enter the hospital room or patient’s home. PB–keep these reflections for seminarians coming. We need all the help we can get
What a beautiful reflection on CPE–thanks!
This wasn’t close to my CPE experience. Rushing home to dinner to wash the smells of the hospital off your body. We had 24 hour on-call shifts and 17 hr overnight shifts, sometimes in the same week.
In every unit there was hostile conflict in my peer group. In one unit, it was driven by racism. One time it was a 68 year old man who wasn’t satisfied with his own hatred, he tried to spread it around. Some people view CPE as a competition.
Yes, i have had experiences that changed me. The simple fact is that the supervisors were always leading us via the carrot on a stick method. Take more patients, do more shifts. Maybe you will become a resident, but the harsh reality is that the spiritual wellness department uses you for free labor.
Seminary are supposed to be dark, harsh places. And the supervisors bring that to CPE. One of the most despicable, arrogant, manipulative, cruel, and duplicitous persons I’ve ever met was the CPE director of education.
If you’re expecting a job after CPE, good luck. My hospital prided itself on not helping anyone land a position after you completed CPE. They’ve already gotten thousands of free hours from you.
I loved being with patients, but chaplains are in denial how much work the interns/residents put in for the program. One chaplain arrogantly said they would just hire another chaplain. Chaplains do on-call once a month. The other days are covered by students.
It doesn’t have to be this way, but there is bias. Bias if you’re not ordained yet, bias if your philosophy is different than your supervisors, bias if they don’t like the way you dress.
They will pat you on the back with one hand and cut you with the other.
I agree with you T. Too often seminarys treat their candidates rough, and that carries over into CPE. There are two classes of students in CPE. There are the ordained on the right side of the tracks, and the lay ministers that are too often treated unfairly.
Any objection to the two tier system used by some supervisors is met with hostility.
The best example i can give of this is in two students. One a minister for decades. His performance in the classroom was abysmal. When he was supposed to be seeing patients, he was having snacks in the lunchroom. He did not graduate on time.
The other completed four units, his last evaluation was sparkling in the number evaluations. But the supervisor attacked the student in his written evaluation. Everyone in his class agreed it wasn’t close to being fair. More than one wondered how he could do so well in the numerical evaluation, but be attacked in the written portion.
The experienced minister eventually graduated CPE 1. He is working at a hospital.
The student with four CPE units was frustrated in his job search. An offered residency by the supervisor was quickly retracted. The hospital offered no help in employment.
They simply said go out of town. That’s impossible for some people due to their circumstances.
The worst CPE student in five years employed. The star, a victim of CPE politics.
I truly appreciate this entire thread. I recently graduated from Seminary, although I only have 36 hours, I have found my calling in Chaplaincy. I am starting the application process to send into two different hospitals. I know that this work will not be easy, but it’s something that I have truly been called to do. I have done my research and I believe in order to become board certified, I need to have a M.Div, so I will have to cross that bridge when I come to it, I plan on doing the 4 units.
I wish God has pulled my strings earlier on in my career, because my wife thought I was having mid-life crisis because I have always worked in the secular world, and making the transition into ministry was not my choice, but was a calling.
This is great!! I just finished my first unit of CPE..and yes, as someone so well stated..it is Boot Camp for Pastors!!! Someone had the nerve to ask me if I was going to take another unit…I just stared at them!!!!! Truly…it was an awesome experience…so life changing.