Dunedin, New Zealand, my city - my people

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Professional "distance"... yeah right.

In my training to be a minister they talked about boundaries. One man told us not to make friends in the congregation. That there is a certain "professional distance" to be maintained. When I did some social work training such messages were repeated. As I have worked in chaplaincy various trainers and bosses have repeated this "boundary" message. One boss I had wanted to move me from being chaplain at the fire stations after 5 years because, in his view, I was now too "friendly" with the firefighters. His ideas were quickly squashed when he talked with the fire chief and union rep.

I recognise that there are boundaries. There are somethings that I don't encourage. I have often been invited to go running or training regularly with the firefighters, but I have steered clear of that. I have not assumed that I could front up uninvited at work's social functions at the chaplaincy places. But I think it is impossible and indeed not desirable to have no real personal investment in the people that you minister to. Perhaps I feel too much.

Today I have not been able to concentrate as well as I should because of my feeling of attachment to Terry who committed suicide. I was doing OK until the night shelter coordinator rang up and began to tell me that Terry had been difficult for the supervisor to handle and the tone of her voice suggested she was critical of my decision to send him there on Friday week ago. I listened for a while as she made her allegations, but then interrupted and said quietly, in a deliberately measured tone, but with a degree of bitterness, "Well you don't need to worry. He will not annoy you guys anymore. Terry shot himself on Saturday!" It was then that I realised how much I was hurting. Terry was my friend. I am sure he was agitated, but she was talking about this man who will no longer be there on Friday nights. There will be no more big loving grin. No more excited stories about his projects. No more tales of tramping trips, of rock walls built and fights with bureaucracy. No more pool games with his sly shots. No more table tennis matches and no sense of having Terry at the drop-in as one more person watching my back. This lady was treating him as a "case" and a bad boy "case" at that. "Well bugger you!" I was saying under my breath.

I took hold of myself and when she got herself together we talked in sane sensible, non-aggressive terms about the report that was written. We discussed the meeting tomorrow night when it will be talked about and I was a good, rational, "wise" Night Shelter Trust Board member. But after I hung up I just felt sooo emotionally wrung out. I did not want to go and do chaplaincy. I just wanted to not be where I had to put myself "out there".

I grieve at the death of Church members. I, hopefully take their funeral in a professional way, but I grieve. I ache for people going through tough times as if they were my children, or brothers and sisters. I don't know about "professional distance" and "boundaries" but that's who I am and that's the way I do my job.

Then I see Jesus crying over the city of Jerusalem. "Now Jesus, if you're going to be professional about being a messiah you better watch your boundaries!" After that phone call I just wanted to go home.... but I didn't.... May be that discipline is being professional.

I grieve for Terry for two reasons. I have known him for something like 15 years, I really liked the guy, we had a lot of common interests so I will miss him as a person. But secondly I grieve because I know that for every troubled Terry who actually commits suicide, there are many others who in their lifestyle, their lack of hope and their sense of isolation slowly kill themselves or live a living death. e.g. There is Dave, who I have known for around 20 years, now nearly bedridden and definitely on the way "out" without really having lived. Once a talented young musician and singer he has smoked, boozed and drugged his way into oblivion. When I grieve for Terry, I feel the pain and loss of his still living mates. (Though Terry was a shining light amongst them)

Right or wrong I felt emotionally drained today and was a bit "inefficient".

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