WBUR on spiritual care; book launch at BUSTH

WBUR’s Radio Boston welcomed Lab Director Wendy Cadge and New England Seafarers Mission Executive Director Stephen Cushing on December 7 to discuss spiritual care today. Host Tiziana Dearing talks with Cadge and Cushing about the nature of spiritual care today, how chaplaincy is different now than it was in the past, and what religion might look like in the future. They also discuss Cadge’s new book Spiritual Care: The Everyday Work of Chaplains, now available from Oxford University Press. A transcript of the interview can be found below, and you can also listen to the show in full here:

Boston University School of Theology and Lab Senior Advisor Shelly Rambo also generously hosted a launch of Spiritual Care at BUSTH’s community center in the evening. Cadge, Rambo, and participants discussed the experience of providing spiritual care in the Boston area and what these experiences can tell us about the future of chaplaincy everywhere. Spiritual Care: The Everyday Work of Chaplains can be ordered at a 30% discount using the code AAFLYG6.

Radio Boston transcript:

Tiziana Dearing:
This is Radio Boston, I’m Tiziana Dearing. It’s April 15th, 2013. They’re scattered around the city in the aftermath of a bombing at the Boston Marathon. Counseling the traumatized, helping families get updates on their missing loved ones, providing support to those charged with making big decisions, dozens of chaplains, helping those in need. Chaplains like Reverend Julia Dunbar, Director of Pastoral Care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Just a warning this sound may bring back painful memories for some. Listen with care.

Rev. Julia Dunbar:
I’ve been asking people, “How are you?” And people are asking me, “How are you?” How do you answer that? When do we cry? It hasn’t really fully hit me yet. Sometimes things like this hit you when you are doing the most unexpected thing, when you’re carrying your groceries in and suddenly the bag breaks and the oranges spill all over the floor and you sit down and cry.

Tiziana Dearing:
Reverend Dunbar spoke with WBUR’s, Sasha Pfeiffer just after the bombings in 2013, and then chaplains in the news again. It’s 2020, because of their role during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The New York Times described them as, “Those who ran toward the dying.” Their role among us is growing in an increasingly secularized society. Wendy Cadge of Brandeis University has been studying chaplains and their work for almost two decades. Part of that research is included in her new book, Spiritual Care: the Everyday Work of Chaplains. Wendy Cadge joins us now. Wendy, welcome to studio two.

Wendy Cadge:
Good to be here.

Tiziana Dearing:
Let’s start with the simple definition. What exactly is a chaplain?

Wendy Cadge:
It’s a great question. Unfortunately, without a simple answer. I describe chaplains as religious professionals that work outside of congregations, mostly in public settings like the military, healthcare, higher education, prisons, and other settings.

Tiziana Dearing:
Religious professionals, but not necessarily members of the cloth?

Wendy Cadge:
Correct.

Tiziana Dearing:
What are the most common misconceptions about chaplains other than, and we know that one is, person of the cloth?

Wendy Cadge:
Many people think chaplains are all Christian, not true. Chaplains in the United States today are as diverse as all the rest of us. Some people think chaplains proselytize, and are there to convince people of their own religious beliefs, also not true. Chaplains are there to create the space to help people be in the midst of difficult events and to help them find their way, whatever that way may be.

Tiziana Dearing:
When I was reading your book, Spiritual Care: the Everyday Work of Chaplains, I picked up Wendy, a tremendous sense of urgency from you that people understand this is a group of people that exists. They’re out there right now, they’re doing incredibly challenging work, and they’ve been doing it for more than a 100 years. Where did that urgency come from for you?

Wendy Cadge:
I think there’s a few places. First, we have results from a Gallup survey that we conducted at Brandeis University in 2022 that suggests about a quarter of Americans have had contact with a chaplain. So chaplains are out there-

Tiziana Dearing:
One in four people. Sorry, go ahead.

Wendy Cadge:
Chaplains are out there, but they’re in the shadows. They’re in the interstices. They’re doing quiet work at the edges. I worry that because at least before the pandemic, they’re not often in public view or in the spotlight. People both don’t think to reach to them if they could be of support. But they also don’t think about the incredibly important role they play in American religious leadership and in the care that I think so many of us desperately need in these days.

Tiziana Dearing:
I notice that in these days, which is a piece of the book. I mean, so you note the first chaplain you talk about is actually the Boston Fire Department, 1906. Leave it to Boston, be the center of everything, right. You talk about that fanning out, including here in Boston over the last, let’s say, 120 years into lots of corners where people need, where people grieve, where people experience trauma.

Wendy Cadge:
Yes. Part of what I think is happening is that traditional congregations, particularly since the pandemic are closing or not reopening. There’s a story that’s growing about the secularization of American religious life. Yes, and so this one third or more of people, especially under the age of 30, who are not religiously affiliated, are not necessarily secular. Part of my urgency comes from really believing that religious professionals have unique and important messages to bring and ways to support individuals. But worrying that as people tell stories about secularization, the new hidden ways that chaplains are present and supporting people from the marathon bombing to Boston Healthcare for the homeless, in facilities caring for people at the edges of society are overlooked, forgotten, or maybe have never been seen.

Tiziana Dearing:
We’re speaking with Wendy Cadge, who’s a professor at Brandeis University about the hidden chaplains who actually affect the lives according to a poll of about one in four Americans. I want to add a chaplain voice to our conversation now. I know you know Stephen Cushing, who’s director and chaplain with the New England Seafarers Mission, he’s also featured in your book. Stephen, thank you for joining us.

Stephen Cushing:
Thank you very much. Great to be here.

Tiziana Dearing:
Stephen, give me a moment, either in your day today or in your day yesterday when you knew you were acting as a chaplain.

Stephen Cushing:
Wow, that’s a really good question. Day today or a day yesterday? Can I go back a couple of days? Is that all right?

Tiziana Dearing:
Yes. Yes, you can.

Stephen Cushing:
Went on board an industrial ship. First of all, that’s what I do, is I visit industrial ships in the port of Austin and we run a cruise center for seafarers on cruise ships. Yesterday or a few days ago, I was on an industrial ship and was speaking with some crew members, and they wanted to get a sim card so that they could activate their phone and call home and speak with their families in India. I knew that there was some technical difficulties there, and I tried to give them all sorts of transparency that it might not work so forth.

The chief officer came and he said to his crew, “Listen, I’ve been dealing with chaplains for 10 or 15 years. They’ve never lied to me, and I don’t think he’s going to start lying now. So listen to what he says. He’s here to help you.” And that to me, kind of just summed it up, is that from the word of this guy who has experience, he was able to share that with his crew and bring the stamp of approval, a stamp of honesty to a guy that these people have never seen before and will probably never ever see again. But in one instant moment, they trusted me, because of the previous activity of this chief officer on the ship

Tiziana Dearing:
I can hear in your voice that that meant a lot to you.

Stephen Cushing:
It really did. That’s the moment that I love and live for in my ministry is that moment when I make that connection and the crew member is reconnected with his family, with society, with this culture, with something. He just needs to reconnect with something so he doesn’t feel like he’s still out in the middle of the ocean.

Tiziana Dearing:
Wendy, we’re talking about service here, true service.

Wendy Cadge:
And service that we can hear in Steve’s voice is available to everyone. The seafarers that Steve was interacting with, likely knew, certainly knew that he was a chaplain, but where he came from, what his own religious background was, was in some ways not relevant, because he was serving all.

Tiziana Dearing:
Is that how you see it, Steve?

Stephen Cushing:
Yes, actually it is. Two of those seafarers were of Hindu faith. As I was leaving and I said, “May God bless you and keep you safe.” They deeply, deeply appreciated that. They probably and did have very different beliefs from me, but I tried to make that touch again, that connection that you’re not alone in this world and when I leave, you’re still not alone. There is somebody watching over you.

Tiziana Dearing:
We have more time to talk coming up. Before we take a quick pause in our conversation though, I want to ask you, Stephen, why people on ships?

Stephen Cushing:
Well, the standard answer is this. The seafarers are in an industry that supplies the world with what it needs to keep going. Our famous phrase is, everything that you and I use, 90% of it at one point was on a ship. If ships stop sailing our global economy, our world would essentially shut down. They are sacrificing family, culture, and even risking their lives for this job and to bring products to the rest of the world. I’ve met 167 nationalities doing this, they are the stranger from another country knocking on our door, that’s why.

Tiziana Dearing:
We are having a conversation about chaplains in the greater Boston community, a hidden often or invisible resource of accompaniment during times of trauma or need or confusion. Still with us, Stephen Cushing, director and chaplain with New England Seafarers Mission, and Wendy Cadge, author of the new book, Spiritual Care: the Everyday Work of Chaplains. I understand, Wendy, you’ve got a book event at five today at the BU School of Theology. Is that right?

Wendy Cadge:
Correct.

Tiziana Dearing:
Excellent. Listen, I want to talk now about religion. Stephen, I’ll start with you. One of the things that really struck me in reading Wendy’s book was the intersection but not complete overlap. So you can’t see me, Stephen, but I’ve got two circles, and they’re overlapping like Venn diagram, right? Between faith traditions and people of the cloth and chaplains. It’s not a complete one to one, if that makes sense, is it?

Stephen Cushing:
No, it really isn’t. I like what Dr. Cadge said, we’re serving a group of people who though they may not have a church or mosque or temple or faith community, they are nonetheless still searching, still looking, and they need someone to know that they are not forgotten. That is what, in my mind, God is all about. Finding the lost and letting them know that they are remembered and they are loved by him, that’s the connection.

Tiziana Dearing:
Wendy Cadge, I’ll turn back to you. I want to remind people that you told us earlier in this conversation that roughly one in four people in America have their lives touched by a chaplain, whether it’s at a university or it’s at a hospital, or it’s part of a service industry, et cetera. I want to play a little sound. The head of the chaplain group at Harvard University is a guy named Greg Epstein, who’s actually a humanist, and here’s a little sound of him speaking with Michelle Martin at MPR last April.

Greg Epstein:
Non-religious people like me, atheists, diagnostics, humanists, secular people, however you want to call us, we are allies for and of progressive and moderate religious people in the United States and across the world. Those are my friends and allies, and I’ll fight with them to the death. That’s what you see in this kind of interfaith cooperation.

Tiziana Dearing:
We’ll come back in a minute to the mission part of what he’s talking about, Wendy, but for now, I want to zero in on those words, atheist, agnostic, humanist, secular. Have we evolved in who chaplains are as the country has evolved into an increasingly secular role? How do you do the pastoral across religions? Does that make sense?

Wendy Cadge:
Yep, that does make sense. There are growing numbers of humanist chaplains, particularly in higher education. There are other settings like the military that aren’t quite ready to welcome humanist chaplains in their ranks. I think really more important than the categories of the chaplains is the conversations they’re having about death, about transition, about decision-making and difficult points. Well trained professional chaplains talk about the issues they certainly don’t talk about themselves. Honestly, whether they’re humanist or a Christian or Jewish or Muslim, is much less important than the space that they’re able to create to have conversations about real issues, real existential, and sometimes joyful and more often challenging issues in people’s lives.

Tiziana Dearing:
Because pain doesn’t discriminate based on your faith, tradition or the moment you’re in. When you need support, you need support.

Wendy Cadge:
Correct. That we all struggle with these big picture questions about life and death and meaning and purpose and transition. That’s what the work of chaplaincy is most of the time. We’ve actually done quite a few interviews recently with people who have engaged with chaplains. While some have talked about particular religious rituals or things that are unique to one religious tradition, more often they’re talking about general conversations. Some call it pastoral, although that word has a Christian undertone, I would think about it as more spiritual or existential support about the things in life that are hard. As Steve has said, that people are not alone in them. That accompaniment, that present, that presence, that conversation, that being in the midst of difficulty and bearing witness to where people are, is what the work of chaplains is.

Tiziana Dearing:
Stephen Cushing of the New England Seafarers Mission, I’m struck by this word accompaniment. I think we’ve all had times in our lives where we feel lost, whether we’re losing somebody close to us to death, or we’re confused in a moment of trauma, something bad has happened and we feel a little unmoored. Can you tell me a story of your accompanying somebody and how you did that? What resources you drew on for yourself to do that?

Stephen Cushing:
Sure. I think we’ve all learned over these last two years with the pandemic a little bit more about what loneliness is, what it is to be alone, to be cut off. It’s an unnatural human place to be. Several years ago, we had a crew member working on the pier, and he was seriously hurt. He was from the Philippines and he required four or five months in Boston hospitals and about six operations to repair his damaged foot. Two or three times a week, my wife Sharon and I would go to visit him, whatever hospital he was in and walk alongside of him. His wife finally came here to be with him from the Philippines. It was a long, long, long journey.

Finally at the very end, he finally got permission to fly home and he was so excited, but he needed to get all the medical records from all four hospitals on a Friday afternoon before he flew out Saturday. I said, “That’s impossible,” and he wouldn’t have it. He said, “If you’ll drive me, I’ll get them.” We drove around all of Boston for an afternoon, found all of his medical records. I was astounded. He had everything he needed to go home. Once again, he turned to me and said, “I will never ever forget you and your wife. Thank you, father, for what you have done.”

Tiziana Dearing:
Have you ever heard from him again?

Stephen Cushing:
Oh yeah, he’s on Facebook. I do hear from him. I see his birthdays and his wife’s birthday. He’s not working at sea anymore, because the damage was too great for his injury. But I do keep track of him, and it’s a blessing to see that for the moment that he was here in Boston for those few months, we accompanied him along that part of the journey.

Tiziana Dearing:
Wendy, I wish people could see the grin on your face. It is ear to ear.

Wendy Cadge:
There are so many stories like this. Steve, as you were talking, I was thinking about my colleague Trace Haythorn, who’s the executive director of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education, ACPE, and he tells a story about when he was a young pediatric chaplain, he was caring for a patient and a family. The child unfortunately died and they asked him to do the service because they really didn’t have anyone to reach out to. He did the service. Now, 20 or 30 years later, he’s recently been contacted by that family who he has not heard from in 20 to 30 years. They told him that they listened to the service that he did every year to mark and honor their child’s memory.

Tiziana Dearing:
Isn’t that touching? I don’t mean that in a glib way. I mean that touches you at its core, because it shows you how important it was to that family. Steven, all right. So over the years as we’ve evolved, chaplain sees in, I learned this from Wendy’s book, in firefighting and policing in hospitals, increasingly in social service organizations. Wendy, you mentioned Boston Healthcare for the homeless chaplaincy there. What’s the new front, Steven? Where will we see chaplains five years from now that we might not be expecting?

Stephen Cushing:
I think, well, from my point of view, and remember what I’m a chaplain know of industrial ships. From my point of view, I think we’ll see more industrial business chaplains, if you will. If the world is becoming increasingly secularized and I take that word to mean they’re simply stopped looking for organized religion in organized places, but they haven’t stopped their journey. It will be even more important for chaplains to be at these places, to accompany them along whatever journey it is they’re trying to find. I leave it in the hands of the almighty to figure out how the revelation of who that almighty is going to be revealed. In my Christian faith, I believe that has happened. I’m praying that they come along and they find that journey, they find that path, and that ultimately, in all of these places where organized religion typically hasn’t been place of business and of commercial and waterfront, you name it, that’s where you’ll find a need for chaplains to continue that journey and walk with them along that special path.

Tiziana Dearing:
Wendy, we have 30 seconds left. Where do you see chaplains next?

Wendy Cadge:
I think we need to ask where the demand is. The demand is in veterinary hospitals and emergencies. It’s with people who are unhoused. It’s in community settings. It’s amongst a diversity of people. I just want to invite people to join us in the Chaplains Innovation Lab, because we don’t have the business models yet to support the chaplains where they are needed. We’re trying together as a community and a collaboration to figure that out. There’s a lot of demand and a lot of possibility, and we’re going to get there if we’re all able to work together.

Tiziana Dearing:
All right, Wendy Cadge is Brandeis University sociology professor and author of Spiritual Care: the Everyday Work of Chaplains. Stephen Cushing is director and chaplain with the New England Seafarers Mission also in the book. Wendy, thank you.

Wendy Cadge:
Thanks for having me.

Tiziana Dearing:
Stephen, thank you to you too.

Stephen Cushing:
It’s been my pleasure. Thank you.