We were reflecting the other day on a week in the life of a local church pastor. Not every week is like this, but it had been ‘a tough time’.
In the local community there were all the usual things happening, but overlaying all of this was the deep grief from the death of a leader who was much loved by them all, another bereavement and a difficult conflict situation between several people; and then, in the pastor’s own family, a relative died overseas. Amidst all of this, the members of the pastoral team were themselves in grief. My colleague talked of how they were supporting one another and also how they were exercising pastoral care within the local community.
We were able to identify several crucial elements—in one sense not difficult to name, but nonetheless vital, and at times difficult.
The first of these is presence. There is simply no substitute for being there. But being there does not have to mean a special demeanour, being in control, always with the right words. On the contrary, my colleague said, sometimes you have no words, nothing special to say. There are times when a hug or a handshake says far more. Presence is a statement of value, honour, relationship. We are there for each other because we value and respect each other. Perhaps especially when we meet with this sense of ‘nothing special to say’, there is a humble mutuality. This act of being present is an assertion that in this life we need each other, we belong together, we are each parts of the human community. Without such presence, people often feel deeply alone with their struggles. With it, there is a sense that ‘We’ll get through this, somehow.’ And this act of being-with is in itself a statement of faith: that in this life we are not abandoned. Through our presence with and for one another, we mediate the reality of God’s presence, even and perhaps especially in our silence.
A second vital element in pastoral care is practical. Very often people want to help and often they can. Preparing a meal or moving the lawns might be something that is really helpful for people in a crisis situation. Sometimes. This can be tricky. I have known situations where helpful people were just that bit too keen to help and in effect took over other people’s home situation. This is not always as helpful as the people intended it to be. It surely has to be a matter of offering help, respectfully asking how best we can support or assist. Sometimes we can accompany people in doing what they need to do, rather than do it for them. At other times, we can help people by identifying the options before them and then allow them to make their own choices and follow them through. It may be, too, that we can suggest others who can help in specific ways and we might facilitate that. We do not have to do it all! So along with presence, practical assistance and support are important aspects of pastoral care and many people have warm memories of such support long after the crisis time has passed.
Prayer is another dimension of pastoral care and this, too, needs to be exercised with wisdom and insight. Sometimes it is important to pray with and for people in the immediate situation. Sometimes that is not appropriate. We can assure people of our prayer support or the prayers of the church community, but frankly that needs to be a genuine statement or it will not really help. What does help is the invitation to people to recognise that God is with them. That is what prayer means in such a context. So we might simply acknowledge together the things we have been sharing, the emotions or struggles, and not necessarily name a ‘solution’. Sometime people expect us to name such an outcome, perhaps ‘healing’ or some other kind of resolution. Wise judgement is needed in such situations and we may need to choose our language carefully. On the other hand, in many situations our words will not be remembered at all. It is the fact of our presence and prayer which will be remembered. In my own experience, I deeply valued the prayer of a priest who visited us in hospital in Samoa. His prayer on that occasion was addressed to God, naming us not as ‘this family’ but as ‘your family’. We were assured of belonging to God. Nothing else is remembered. That assurance alone was worth all the other words.
A fourth and vital aspect of pastoral care is permission. All too easily, professional and competent carers take control of situations and people may expect that and gladly give control to the pastor or priest. It is vital to exercise judgment about just how much we need to do that, in a crisis, but then always to support and enable people to retain their own dignity and responsibility as persons. Within those dynamics, we give permission for people to be themselves, to feel what they feel and to take their own time and respond in their own way. Pastors and leaders can give permission to people, for instance to be angry even though somehow they think it is wrong or unchristian to be angry. Similarly with grief. So often people will try to stop crying, saying that they should not cry or ‘should stop this’. If I weep with them, or if the minister is visibly upset in public, such as at a funeral or church service, that gives permission to people in their grief too. It is a deep form of the presence mentioned above. I recall a situation where someone told me they could not pray because they were too angry, including too angry with God. I urged them to tell God that. Later I pointed to the many Psalms which express exactly this situation.
There are no simple formulae for pastoral care. The elements mentioned above arise simply from a reflection of a couple of ‘old hands’ sharing some of our experience. Doubtless there are other elements too, but for now it seemed helpful to name these.
Clear and simple, thank you!