Pastoral Care for Survivors of a Traumatic Death: A Challenge for Contemporary Pastors

By Jeonghyun Park

Modern life has led to an increase in traumatic deaths, such as accidents, murders, suicide, and other types of unanticipated, violent death. Family members and friends grieving a traumatic death face enormous shock, numbness, and despair, as well as the need to find hope and God's mercy and grace in the midst of chaos, difficult questions, and confusion. The Christian church and faith community often do not provide appropriate pastoral care to help the bereaved overcome their despair.

Jeonghyun Park explores the unique characteristics and dynamics of traumatic grief, or grief in response to traumatic death, and present several approaches to pastoral care. The survivors of a traumatic death are likely to ask pastors spiritually despairing and tough questions, such as, Where is God in this tragic death? If we have to accept this new reality, where can we find God's grace and mercy, power, and justice? Pastors and other spiritual leaders can provide comfort to the loved ones of victims of traumatic death by assisting them with their questions concerning a "helpless God" and a "cruel God." This book offers new insights through specific pastoral care models and guidance for families needing healing, recovery, and meaningful rituals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Nov 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532630170

Jeonghyun Park

Jeonghyun Park is an ordained elder of the California Nevada Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. He currently serves as pastor of Fair Oaks United Methodist Church in California. He has served as a hospital chaplain at UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco, and he has also completed a doctoral program in pastoral care and counseling at San Francisco Theological Seminary.

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Pastoral Care for Survivors of a Traumatic Death

A Challenge for Contemporary Pastors

Jeonghyun Park

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Pastoral Care for Survivors of a Traumatic Death

A Challenge for Contemporary Pastors

Copyright © 2017 Jeonghyun Park. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Traumatic Death in the Larger Social and Cultural Context

Definition of Traumatic Death

Suicide in the United States

How Do Experiences of Dying, Death, and Grief Differ?

A Closer Look at Suicide

Conclusion

Chapter 2: Psychological Perspectives on Traumatic Grief

Modern Studies of Grief

What Is Grief?

Traumatic Death and Associated Grief and Bereavement

Providing Support for the Process of Resolution

Grief Related to Suicide

Conclusion

Chapter 3: The Challenge of Theology: Making Meaning

Case Study: Triplets Lost during Pregnancy

The Meaning of the Cross in a Suffering World

The Wounded Heart of God

Theology and Meaning in the Struggle after Traumatic Loss

Conclusion

Chapter 4: Overview of the Project

Orientation to the Six-Week Project

Week 1: Traumatic Death vs. Natural Death

Week 2: Characteristics and Patterns of Violent Death

Case 3 (Groom Breaks Off Wedding at the Last Minute; Bride Kills Herself)

Week 3: Pastoral Answers to Concerns about Human Evil and the Desire for Revenge

Week 4: Ministering to Those Who Have Lost Loved Ones to Suicide

Week 5: Pastoral Care and Counseling for Families after a Tragic Loss

Week 6: Helpful Rituals for Families

Chapter 5: Summary and Conclusion

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of my pastoral desires and struggles while wrestling with pastoral challenges that I faced when providing pastoral care for congregants who had lost loved ones to suicide or various forms of unexpected traumatic death. The pastoral ministry at Fair Oaks United Methodist Church in California is one of the great blessings in my life, especially the opportunity it gives me to share God’s comfort and hope with those who are mourning and grieving the loss of their loved ones as their spiritual servant. I am deeply grateful to the members of Fair Oaks United Methodist Church for their whole-hearted support that enabled me to complete this writing project. Without their deep care and strong support, I would not have undertaken this study. I am indebted to numerous members of the congregation who have read my manuscript repeatedly. I especially would like to thank to Nancy Edward for her warm heart and wonderful assistance; Judy Shearer for always being willing to help me go over the draft; and Gretchen Hatfield, chair of the Staff Parish Relations Committee, along with the other members of this committee. They all understood the importance of this study and encouraged me to finish this journey.

I am also indebted to the Council of Clergy Development for the California Nevada Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. They have generously supported my doctoral studies by granting me a scholarship. The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, which supports scholarship within the United Methodist Church, has provided great additional support to my studies. I hope that this book will be a small token of my gratitude for the great blessing that I have received from the California Nevada Annual Conference and the United Methodist Church. In particular, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Rev. Tina Ballagh, Rev. Kelly Love, and several of my circuit colleagues who were willing to share stories from their ministries related to traumatic death and other case studies.

I couldn’t imagine finishing this writing project without the support of Dr. Scott Sullender, my academic advisor. His vast scholarship and his specialty in grief counseling greatly helped me find my academic interest in the issue of traumatic death, and he guided me on this long journey. Dr. Andrew Sung Park inspired me with his humility and his extensive knowledge of research on pastoral (spiritual) care. I am also thankful to Dr. Kirsten Oh and Dr. Daniel Schipani for their pastoral insights and encouragement. And, I am grateful to Kathy McKay for her professional copyediting work on this book.

Many colleagues have expressed their support and reminded me of the importance of pastoral care for survivors of a traumatic death. I want to thank all my colleagues and my ministry partners in various pastoral care ministries. I especially give thanks to my local church’s Caring Ministry team leaders—Mary McCollum, Betty Phillips, Loretta Dodge, and Rachele Dotty (Life Challenge ministry leaders)—for their compassionate, caring ministry for those who are in great need of spiritual care and support. I hope that this small book will be an additional pastoral and spiritual resource book for their great ministry.

Finally, I give thanks to my family. My mother and father are my Christian faith heroes and the spiritual pillars of my spiritual life. They are the root of my pastoral journey and my calling to pastoral ministry. I am also very thankful to my brothers and my sisters-in-law for their ongoing prayers and hands-on assistance.

My wife, Yougjae Kim, blesses me constantly with her love, care, and spiritual wisdom. I couldn’t have begun this project without her deep understanding and support of this pastoral matter. I am blessed to be her husband, friend, and life-long partner. I am also thankful to my two sons, Jacob and Joshua, for their patience and for understanding when I couldn’t spend more time playing with them at the playground while I was working on this project. Now I will be able to spend more time playing with my boys.

Whether we define death as our enemy or as something else, we have to accept its reality and redefine ourselves after we have encountered it. As we mature, we inevitably experience that we are not who we once were. In the same way, the power of death requires us to adapt ourselves to our new reality and to have a new understanding of ourselves after a loss. But, the most important thing to remember is that God never changes. As Christians, we believe that God is always with us, no matter what challenges we go through. When we grieve over the loss of a loved one, our God listens to our cries and also cries with us. This is what I believe and what I have learned from this project, and I confidently claim what Immanuel God means to us in our life and faith journey.

Jeong Park

Introduction

This book focuses on traumatic death . I argue that sudden, traumatic death requires a different type of grief and spiritual care than ordinary death and bereavement. Ordinary death, which is more often an expected loss, usually occurs in the context of the developmental stages of life. The grief associated with traumatic death, however, has unique characteristics because this type of death is an unnatural, unanticipated, and violent event. Examples of traumatic death include topics that are difficult to discuss, such as suicide. In this book, I focus on suicide as illustrative of the dynamics of sudden traumatic death.

In most cases, an unnatural and traumatic death has a huge emotional and psychological impact on the family and other people closely connected to the deceased. A violent sudden death is typically experienced as a deep wound by the survivors or even as a transgression—as someone stepping across the personal boundary of safety. A sudden violent death is more likely to provoke the spiritually despairing question in survivors, Why? Predictable death and normal grief counseling situations are not the focus of this book. Nor are the dying and death situations caused by chronic illness, aging, long-term disabilities, or medical conditions. The narrow scope of this is designed to provide better guidance for the Christian pastor faced with offering pastoral care in the situation of a traumatic death. This project is focused on parish ministers, particularly clergy in the United Methodist Church. Although not developed for an interfaith context, this model may be applicable to interfaith contexts such as general hospital chaplaincy.

Pastors are called to care for souls. The traditional term for this is cura animarum. In Christian spirituality, death is recognized as a part of life. However, death is never an easy situation in the ministry of pastoral care, not for the Christian believer who is seeking help nor for the pastor. I believe that the best and the most important pastoral care skill to have in dealing with life-and-death situations is pastoral presence. The great Jewish philosopher and theologian Martin Buber, who strongly emphasized the I and Thou relationship in spiritual care ministry, had the following experience, as described by Maurice Friedman:

Just before World War I, a young man came to see Buber after Buber had had a morning of mystic ecstasy. Buber was friendly and attentive; he answered the questions the young man put. But he failed to guess the question the young man did not put. After such a morning of mystic ecstasy, which was customary for him in those days, he was not really present in spirit. Later, he learned this was a question of life and death—not that the young man had committed suicide, as some imagine. He was killed at the front, as Buber told me himself, out of despair that did not oppose its own death.

Buber took this as a judgment not just of that moment but of the whole way of living that splits the exalted hours from the everyday hours. What after all does a person who is in despair but comes to see one hope for but a presence which says in spite of all there is meaning, he asked. Not reality, not philosophy, not wise words, but a presence. That was the judgment on a way of life in which he was not fully present.¹

Ambiguous Death

A sudden traumatic death creates a profound and complicated spiritual situation for surviving family members. The family and friends of the deceased person face a psychological, emotional, and spiritual crisis; they need to accept the painful reality and then to find meaning in the midst of the chaos and confusion. The loved ones of a person who died suddenly and traumatically need the care and support of their church. Yet, for the congregants and their pastors, sudden violent death, particularly suicide, is confusing. Sudden deaths are often treated as situations requiring crisis counseling. In many cases, sudden tragic deaths are not fully embraced and accepted by the church. Suicide can be a controversial theological issue. Thus, in some churches certain forms of traumatic death, particularly suicide, are still viewed as taboo and as an immoral and sinful act.

A Korean United Methodist Church pastor shared with me his experience of officiating at a memorial service for a man who had committed suicide. The deceased and his family had been going to a Korean Presbyterian church, but their home church minister refused to hold a service for the deceased and his family. Their minister’s reason was simple—suicide is a sinful act against God. The