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Contents Soundings:14

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Derek Brown
SACH President

SACH  Soundings
 No 14: June 2003

Page 2

Regular as Sunrise and Once in a Lifetime
 

During the past week I was one of thousands of people who willingly denied themselves of sleep to rise before dawn in the hope of catching a glimpse of one heavenly body passing in front of another. Although the conditions were not perfect I nevertheless joined about a hundred folk on the beach at Dornoch and we were not disappointed. For a few minutes we stared in awe at the sight of the blood orange crescent sun before the clouds obscured our view once again.

Annular Eclipse,
but perhaps not Dornoch!

This annular eclipse took many people by surprise. “If it happens every year why do we need to wait 90 years for the next one?” was a common misconception to be heard on the lips of many. It just serves to illustrate the difficulties that language can present us with. What we think we are talking about is not necessarily what others hear.
Take the words ‘religious’ and ‘spiritual’. As draft policies on spiritual care drop onto the desks of Health Board officials over the next few months many assumptions about what these words mean will be challenged. Much ink will flow in pursuit of the definitive definition and each nuance will be squeezed dry of meaning. All this is well and good as long as we do not forget that what matters most of all is what the patient thinks, feels and hopes for.
The other thing that was said about the eclipse was that it was a ‘once in a lifetime event’. That’s perfectly true since I don’t expect that any of us are going to be around to witness the next one! In an interesting parallel, many of the people that we encounter in our work we meet because of a once in a lifetime event such as an accident or a serious illness. The onus is on us to get it right first time since there will be no opportunity for a second chance. I don’t doubt the commitment or the dedication of anyone in chaplaincy, but we do increasingly need resources to help us meet the demands placed upon us. I’m not just talking about financial resources which may provide additional hands, though they will be more than welcome. I’m thinking of those more intangible resources which allow us time for theological reflection on what we do; time for professional supervision; training and development in our knowledge and skills.
These issues are very much in the national melting pot at the moment and I hope that over the next few months it will become clearer down which path chaplaincy as a whole will go. Registration as a Health Care Profession will undoubtedly change the way we do things and perhaps how we are perceived in the wider health care community. (I would urge you to read Mike Ward’s article in the current issue of the Journal (Vol 6 No 1 May 2003) about the dilemmas of having a peripheral or central stance for chaplaincy.)
The Executive is planning to have more regular meetings with the Scottish branch of the College of Health Care Chaplains, and I am pleased to say that our joint efforts called a halt to the introduction by the Board of National Mission of a handbook for chaplaincy which was somewhat premature. We also asked for a review of the disparity that will soon occur in the pension rights of those chaplains employed by the Board vis a vis parish ministers.
SACH has been asked to be represented on the new Spiritual Care Development Committee. This body follows on from the steering group which produced the Guidelines and its aim will be to facilitate a common understanding and support for spiritual care/chaplaincy, among faith groups, chaplaincy bodies, health care staff and users. The first meeting will be on June 12th.
Some of the issues that we encounter may be as regular as the sunrise, but others will possibly be more in the once in a lifetime category. Whatever they are I hope that you will feel confident enough to raise them with the Executive, or perhaps in the pages of Soundings or the Journal.
Wishing you every blessing in your work.
 

Derek Brown
President of SACH

 

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