Recalling Our Own Stories: Spiritual Renewal for Religious Caregivers

By Edward P. Wimberly and Tapiwa N. Mucherera

How religious caregivers can find spiritual renewal in their own story

Recalling Our Own Stories, which author Edward P. Wimberly describes as "a spiritual retreat in book form," is designed to help clergy and religious caregivers face the challenges of ministry. It is also a valuable resource for practitioners who assist these clergy and caregivers in meeting the challenges of their work.

Wimberly enables caregivers to map out and come to grips with cultural expectations of their profession. He also helps readers explore and edit the mythologies that make up their self-image, attitudes toward others, expectations about their performance and role, and convictions about ministry. Finally, he provides a model for spiritual and emotional review grounded in narrative psychology and spiritual approaches.

As Wimberly explains, this book offers a way to renew our motivation for ministry by reconnecting to our original call, visualizing again how God has acted and remains intricately involved in our lives.

Wimberly demonstrates how religious caregivers, often facing burnout, can tap the sources of renewal that reside in the faith community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Release date: Feb 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781506454788

Edward P. Wimberly

EDWARD P. WIMBERLY is the Jarena Lee Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at the Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, Georgia.

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Preface

For some years now, I have been doing spiritual renewal retreats seeking to help fellow ministers and religious caregivers explore our deep convictions and beliefs about ourselves, our marriages, our families, and our lives in ministry. Over time, I noticed that the problems that people brought to the retreats seemed to cluster in certain patterns. There are themes, deeply rooted and ingrained, that appear to inform everything we do in our lives. I found that a particular concept of mythology helped me to bring meaning to the patterns emerging from our lives. Eventually, I identified and named these themes.

As the retreats continued, participants began to ask if the ideas and insights I was developing had been published. My answer was to review some of the literature that exists around the themes I was identifying. However, I did not find any works that approached retreats and spiritual renewal in the same way as I did. The participants’ quest for more information about my specific approach sparked my interest in publishing what I was trying to do in the workshops and retreats I was leading.

As I thought about writing this book, certain personal cases came to mind that I had encountered in the retreats. In recalling the specifics of those cases, I made connections to still others in the retreats, classes, and counseling that I was doing. As a result, this book is about the many people whose lives have had a great impact on me. I have protected their identities by giving them fictitious names and changing key data.

I intend the insights drawn from these cases to help us clergy and religious caregivers face the specific challenges we encounter in ministry. The ideas are also meant to assist the practitioners among us who work with clergy and caregivers to be more helpful as we seek to facilitate their meeting these challenges.

To this end, this book has three purposes. First, because we religious and professional caregivers are powerfully influenced by cultural expectations that we will show superheroic empathy in our personal and professional lives, this book is designed to enable caregivers to map out and come to grips with those influences. Second, the book helps us explore and edit, and thus reauthor, the personal, marital, family, and ministerial mythologies that make up our image of self, our attitudes toward interaction with others, our expectations regarding performance and role, and our convictions about ministry. Such exploration and reauthoring enables us to be more human, and to use our own healed inadequacies as sources of strength for ministry and caregiving. Third, the book is intended to provide a model for spiritual and emotional renewal grounded in narrative psychological and spiritual approaches.

Several assumptions undergird these purposes. First, human experience must have meaning; it can be storied or arranged in sequences that give a coherent account to that experience (White and Epston 1990). This account is called a story, self-narrative, or mythology. Second, these stories, narratives, and mythologies not only give coherent accounts of personal experience but also help give meaning to marital, family, and caregiving life. Third, such stories or myths are made up of ideal images of what it means to be a self, what it means to be married and live in a family, and what it means to be a caregiver in ministry. Fourth, these storied experiences are real in the sense that they shape our lives and relationships (White and Epston 1990). Fifth, these myths are often destructive of the growth and well-being of the self and others; and therefore, they need to be reauthored to return growth and life to us. Sixth, gender, racial, and religious cultural factors help these myths take shape in our lives; these influences need to be identified and explored when indicated.

Contribution

Currently, books exist that help the caregiving practitioner examine the role of narratives in the life of the counselee or those in need of therapeutic assistance. However, very little literature deals with the role of narratives and storied experiences in the caregiver’s life and the impact of story on the process of caregiving. This book offers a new way to bring narrative theory to the religious and professional caregiver’s understanding of the ideal images of caregiving, ministry, the self, and the self in relationship to others. These ideal images shape our experiences; therefore, the book seeks to strongly connect the ministry of caregiving, cultural expectations around caregiving, and the sense of self (both personal and in relationship to others).

Audience

This book addresses professionals whose caregiving is primarily religious: ordained ministers, rabbis, religious counselors, lay religious counselors, and students in undergraduate and graduate professional caregiving programs holding a religious point of view.

I intend this book to be for a multicultural audience. The case studies are of caregivers from different cultural backgrounds: Euro-American, African American, and Hispanic American. It can be used in any class in undergraduate and graduate courses in religious counseling. It is particularly suited to seminary courses in pastoral counseling.

Outline of Contents

The book is organized to address specific issues that religious and professional caregivers face in four types of mythology: personal, marital, family, and ministry. Vignettes and case studies in each chapter set the stage for understanding those problematic mythologies in the caregiver’s life and ministry that need to be reauthored. I present a model of reauthoring and show how it is done in particular case studies.

Chapter 1 introduces a narrative approach to spiritual renewal grounded in biblical and church tradition. Chapter 2 presents common, basic, personal myths that I have encountered repeatedly in retreats, classes, and counseling. Chapter 3 identifies frequent myths in family and marriage, and chapter 4 names typical examples of ministerial myths. Chapters 2 through 4 end with exercises meant to ease you into your journey by reflecting on what these myths mean in your own life.

Chapter 5 outlines the reauthoring process; we look at its various phases in brief vignettes. Then chapters 6 through 9 present in detail case studies that illustrate how the reauthoring process actually worked in the lives of specific people. The final chapter proposes steps you can take as you return to the exercises that were presented at the end of chapters 2 through 4 and analyze the answers. Chapter 10 also presents ideas for further exploration of the themes affecting spiritual replenishment in religious caregiving; it also gives information as to how we can enlist the aid of others in reauthoring our own myths.

Acknowledgments

For a number of years, the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC), under the leadership of its president James Costen, provided faculty development funds for research leading to publication. I am deeply indebted to the generosity of the ITC for supporting the research in this book. I am also indebted to the many students and workshop participants who so graciously consented to have their stories told in this book. Students in the courses Pastoral Care and Inner Healing and Foundations for Ministry need special recognition. My sister-in-law, Margaret Wimberly, did outstanding work editing this book.

Edward P. Wimberly, Atlanta, Georgia

February 1997

1

To Be Called Anew: Finding Spiritual Replenishment in Our Own Stories

I have been asked to do a number of spiritual renewal retreats. Those of us who are engaged in caring for others who are in ministry have seen firsthand how people need spiritual replenishment in their professions. The need is ongoing because many of us regularly feel we are running out of energy and gas. More than once, we have faced burnout. I believe we have all felt the need to refuel, to tap the sources of renewal that reside in our faith community.

Original Motivation: Our Call

In seeking spiritual renewal, we can take up the neglected tradition of reconnecting with our original motivation for ministry. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, that motivation is often referred to as the call; it was our first awareness that a form of ministry would be our life’s work. Generally, most of us in ministry can identify the point in our lives at which we can say we made a commitment to ministry. Some of us came to our call after a period of growth and development in which we came to recognize our own gifts of ministry, gifts that others might have recognized, confirmed, and affirmed for us. Some of us had a more dramatic call: something sensational happened to bring our calling abruptly to awareness. Whether our awareness came suddenly or over time, a chance to reconnect with our original call is often the beginning of spiritual renewal.

As a boy, I learned from my dad how he went about finding renewal and meaning in life. He is a retired African American minister in the Methodist tradition. Once a year or so, he would rehearse from the pulpit his call to ministry. I can’t say at what point in his life’s journey I first heard him tell his story, but I do remember several things from hearing those rehearsals.

First, he would tell how he had finished a black college and returned to his home in Florida to teach. This was in the early 1930s, a time of full segregation. Before my father left Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania, one of the administrators recognized his proclivity for ministry; Dad had not seen it. The administrator told him that he could have a scholarship to seminary if he decided to enter the ministry. My dad thanked the administrator for his kind and generous offer but said he was not ready for such an endeavor at that time in his life.

Dad taught school for several years. Then, to his surprise, what the college administrator discerned several years earlier began to manifest itself. One uneventful evening, he lay sprawled across his bed, not anticipating anything but sleep since he was very tired from a long day’s work at school. He was not asleep; he was in a semiwakened state. Suddenly a vision appeared that would alter his life. Dad’s voice would grow excited every time he retold what transpired. He vividly saw himself in front of a congregation, preaching the gospel. A small group of people were sitting before him, on the stairs on which he was standing. He slowly moved backward up the stairs while he expounded on the word of God. When he reached the top of the stairs, the vision disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

My dad attributed religious significance to the vision; it was his call to ministry. He knew, he said, that he had to begin preparing himself for a new life’s work. Instantly, the college administrator’s offer of several years earlier came to mind. The next morning, Dad contacted the administrator and discovered that the invitation and scholarship to seminary remained open. He made plans to attend seminary the following autumn.

The second thing I remember about my dad’s rehearsal of his call was that for him it was a form of spiritual renewal. It appeared to bring a new perspective to his life. Of course, this is my conclusion looking retrospectively on what I saw on those occasions. No doubt he intended his testimony to contribute to the growth and development of his audience. But he seemed to derive new meaning for his own life from his excursus back to his original call.

One reason I so boldly interpret the effect of his rehearsing the call relates to what he often said following his recitation. He would use another story to interpret his call. In Acts 25:13–26:32, Paul defended himself after being arrested by telling King Agrippa the story of his own call on the Damascus Road. My father would recount the story of Paul’s testimony, concluding with Paul’s famous words in Acts 26:19, Where-for, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision (Note: throughout this book all citations are from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, edited in 1977 by May and Metz-ger). I conclude from what my dad offered in interpretation that he drew some measure of focus and new life from recounting the two stories.

Paul found himself in hostile circumstances, as did many of the Christians in the early church. He periodically derived a sense of renewal from returning to his reasons for arriving in the predicament. Likewise, I surmise that my dad found similar renewal for his ministry by also returning to his memory of his own call.

From my dad and from this episode in the life of Paul, I conclude that a model of spiritual renewal exists in Scripture. It is many centuries old, but it informs what is needed in spiritual renewal today. Such a model helps us as religious caregivers to return routinely to our original motivation for ministry as a means of renewal. The model of spiritual renewal that I point to comes from African American spirituality, which has a strongly biblical character (Phelps 1990). It also has a dimension of confession and self-disclosure to it (Myers 1994). Telling stories about one’s call to ministry dates back to the slave narrative tradition (Wimberly and Wimberly 1986). This tradition of spirituality has shaped both my father’s and my own way of doing and conceptualizing spirituality.

I have found that this biblical tradition of spiritual renewal appeals to more than just African American religious caregivers. I have used it for many years with different ethnic and racial groups; they have all found it helpful and timely in their own spiritual renewal. It is one among many approaches to renewing the vitality of our ministry.

A third thing I learned about spiritual renewal from my father is that it requires not only reflecting on the call but also rehearsing and recounting the story in a community or public setting. My dad chose the pulpit, and Paul had to use the courtroom. Spiritual renewal is greatly enhanced when it is done with others present.

Reviewing our call in a community of caring people, especially a community of colleagues, has much significance. Time out with colleagues, as in a retreat from the daily routines of ministry, enhances the quality of spiritual renewal. When we use this particular model in the presence of many, we are grateful not to be alone in the wilderness of ministry. We feel less vulnerable to isolation and are encouraged to risk more of ourselves in the process. I hear people report that the companionship gives them courage to face the edge of their personal growth that would be hard to face alone. Some have found that this form of group spiritual renewal hastens emotional and interpersonal maturity along with spiritual renewal.

Renewing our motivation by reconnecting to our original call allows us to visualize again how God has decisively acted in our lives at crucial junctures. It reminds us that God has been intricately involved in our lives. The routine duties of ministry and life take on new meaning when looked at in light of the call.

But spiritual renewal involves more than returning to our original motivation for entering ministry. It also examines past and present experiences and issues in our lives that are related to ministry. For example, recovery from burnout—or its extreme case, a sudden and public flameout, as some call it—involves recalling our motivation for entering the ministry and examining the issues of burnout in light of our call. The call is a marker event that we must return to periodically to examine where we are in life, and to alter our way of believing and doing.

Spiritual renewal is finding a fresh, novel, and creative way of allowing the call to reorient our present lives so as to bring replenishment and hope. Spiritual renewal is a process of connecting with our original motivation for ministry, and then moving systematically into examining areas of our lives in light of that call.

Mythology

In the spiritual renewal process that I propose in this book, the concept of mythology is immensely helpful. By mythology, I mean the beliefs and convictions that people have about themselves, their relationships with others, their roles in life, and their ministry. As used here, myth refers to the way beliefs and convictions are constructed and how these constructions shape our lives and our behavior.

Beliefs and convictions are represented by certain repetitive themes that appear in the stories we tell. At times, I may use the words myth and theme synonymously, although they are different. Myths are the stories we tell, while themes reflect the beliefs and convictions in the stories.

The Project of Existence

The call constitutes the project of existence (Van Kaam 1964, 20). The project of existence is an overarching framework in an individual’s life that gives meaning and shape to everything that goes on. It is a vocational umbrella, or window, through which we look at all of what we do. It is the dominant, self-understood purpose for which we have been born. It tells us what to do daily in our ministry, and it informs how we execute our roles and functions. It serves as a kind of road map in fulfilling our call.

Narrative Story

Supporting this project of existence is a worldview, or narrative story, that gives shape and meaning to the roles we execute in ministry. It relates (in the sense of telling) to us what our role is. We find in our lives a dominant story or myth out of which we come, while the other stories or myths in our lives become submyths or secondary myths. The dominant myth, the project of existence, gives meaning and shape to our lives. For example, one person’s dominant story may be that she is always an embattled hero working valiantly against great odds, while another’s dominant story may be one of awe and gratitude in the face of surprising gifts over which he has little instrumental control.

The project of existence has at its core the call coming from God. For my father and the apostle Paul, renewal came because the source of the call was outside themselves. God provided the call, the power to fulfill the call, and the historic meaning for the call. What people who are called have done historically, then, is orient themselves and their personality, relationships, and ministry in terms of the call from God. Spiritual renewal is a reorientation process of allowing the original call and its ongoing nature to continually transform our lives in the present.

A basic assumption in spiritual renewal is that the call is ongoing. Consequently, the project of existence—the dominant story of our lives—is being renewed by God each day. Connecting with this transcendent activity brings renewal into our lives.

The Problem of Submyths

Lesser stories—our submyths—often take center stage in our lives. When this happens, we suffer loss of meaning and direction. The submyths or lesser myths of our lives emerge from our experiences as human beings. They function best when they are in line with our project of existence or our call, when they are being renewed daily by the ongoing call of our