“Non-anxious presence” in Arkansas healthcare
From the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:
“The hospital has truly become my parish, and the delivery of non-anxious presence to those in crisis situations is my passion,” says Claude John “CJ” Malone. Malone recently joined Washington Regional as director of pastoral care, and he knows what he does “is greatly appreciated and helpful to staff, patients, family members and physicians.”
But Malone also knows “patients are seeking healing and do not want a chaplain’s theology or to be ‘preached at.'” And that means “if a chaplain projects their own agenda, it becomes about the chaplain and not the patient.”
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To be a chaplain, he says, takes “a compassionate spirit, a willing soul and the ability to get your personal issues processed to the extent that it doesn’t trigger in you while you are trying to be the non-anxious presence for the patient. A chaplain is willing and able to walk alongside those who are wounded and hurting. Not all pain a chaplain encounters is physical; much of it is emotional, spiritual, mental and those inner struggles with life issues that can be placed in one of five categories: God, self, others, circumstances, environment.
“A pastor and chaplain are not one and the same,” he concludes. “Chaplaincy is specialized ministry for specialized settings and unique encounters.”