The Contemplative Practitioner: Spiritual Care at End of Life CAPPE National Conference, Banff,...

The Contemplative Practitioner:The Contemplative Practitioner:Spiritual Care at End of LifeSpiritual Care at End of Life

CAPPE National Conference,CAPPE National Conference,

Banff, Alberta.Banff, Alberta.

Zinia Pritchard D.Min (cand.)Zinia Pritchard D.Min (cand.)

Covenant-Health, Grey NunsCovenant-Health, Grey Nuns

ObjectivesObjectives

• To explore dying as a contemplative spirituality

• To illustrate the dimensions of contemplative Spiritual Care at end of life– To invite the exploration of the

contemplative dimensions of one’s own therapeutic practice

A contemplative dynamic of A contemplative dynamic of dying dying

Nancy’s Story: Phenomenological Research Project

Research QuestionResearch Question

• What is a dying patient’s lived experience of being spiritually awakened?


Nancy, a single, divorced woman of 42 years of age is dying. We enter her story in the darkness of night…

“Please God I need you, to hug me and hold me!” Suddenly, I feel an unexpected physical presence. An incredible calm takes over my whole body. I am with God. Incredible! Beautiful! Finding His voice, finding His presence in my bedroom and feeling it there and knowing that something magical has happened. I am with God – I haven’t died yet but I’m with God! Cradled like this in His arms – I calm right down. All my fear is gone. I know, now, that it is safe to die; that whatever is going to happen to me is going to be very, very good.”

Theme: ImpasseTheme: Impasse• No one can find another drug that will work

for me. Why? Why would God close every single door when it works for someone else? It’s like being trapped in a cage. That God you trust and believe in, allowing that to happen. I’m asking, ‘can you get me out of this?’ But you can’t get out of it. How do you understand something like that? Surely you’re not the only person in the entire world there’s no option for, that all the most common options don’t work for, why?


Exploring: ImpasseExploring: Impasse

How would we describe the experience of impasse?

Impasse Impasse • To ask or live the question, “Why?” • To be unable to make sense of your lived reality.• To grieve the loss of a belief about yourself, others or

Other.• To see no seeming way out of your predicament,

“trapped.”• To strive to manage and control the situation but remain

“stuck.” Unable to “get out of it.”• To feel the very real and finite walls of your limits.• To be “in the dark.” Not know the way. Be at your wits

end.• To be afraid of the unknown• To taste the bitter pill of incapacity to save yourself• To experience the vulnerability and nakedness of being

emptied out

Contemplative WisdomContemplative Wisdom

ImpasseImpasse

A genuine impasse situation is such A genuine impasse situation is such that the more action one applies to that the more action one applies to escape it, the worse it gets. The escape it, the worse it gets. The principles of ‘first order change’ – principles of ‘first order change’ – reason, logic, analysis, planning – do reason, logic, analysis, planning – do not work…genuine change occurs not work…genuine change occurs through a ‘second order responsethrough a ‘second order response

Constance Fitzgerald, 2. Constance Fitzgerald, 2. The Dark Night of the Soul and The Dark Night of the Soul and ImpasseImpasse


Kenosis: Passive DimensionKenosis: Passive Dimension

Kenosis: To be emptied outKenosis: To be emptied out

Now, dressed in the working clothes of aridity and

desolation, all her earlier lights darkened, the soul

shines more clearly in the virtue of self-knowledge...She finds absolutely no

satisfaction in self. She knows that on her own she neither

does nor can do anything.

St. John The Dark Night: Bk 1,Chap.12:2

Theme: Theme: The Movement Toward The Movement Toward

TranscendenceTranscendence

““Please God I need you, Please God I need you,

to hug me and hold me!” to hug me and hold me!”

Theme: Theme: The Movement Toward The Movement Toward

TranscendenceTranscendence• “It doesn’t make sense. I keep coming back

to that ‘Why?” ...What’s so strange, [about it is] I have to trust it…give myself to it…. [Dying] is that total surrender…you can’t push it away or run from it. You have to go through it. [In my prayer] I gave my soul over to God and said, ‘You’re will be done’ and God’s presence was with me then.”


Exploring: Exploring: The Movement toward The Movement toward


How would we describe the experience of moving toward

Transcendence?

To Chose to To Chose to Surrender:Surrender:

• It is as if our hold on what we have known of our personal reality teeters on the edge of a cliff and finally relinquishes its hold, surrendering itself to the Other.

• To die to self is “that total surrender…you can’t push it away or run from it. You have to go through it.”

• The ego self attached to the ability to do, accomplish, manage and control, gives way to the inner self that moves and lives and has its being in Transcendence, “I gave myself over.”

Movement Toward Movement Toward Transcendence Transcendence

• To feel the under tow of panic pull out an instinctual cry to the beyond: “Help!” “Please!” Please, God!”

• To “let-go” the need to relate to the unknown by trying to understand it.

• To chose, perhaps irrationally, to relate to what we can not grasp by “giving ourselves to it.”

• To choose to empty ourselves• To chose to surrender our selves.


SurrenderSurrender

Spiritual surrender is a deliberate act of the will, not a breaking of the will…it does not come without resistance – a good indication that it has everything to do with our active free will. We experience a loss of our ego-self, the self that we possess when we freely choose to place our complete trust in the Other. It’s like taking a breath in and then jumping out of a plane in the firm hope (never certainty) that the parachute will open and carry you safely down.

Krisher, J. (1998). Spiritual Surrender: Yielding Yourself to a Loving God.


Kenosis: Active DimensionKenosis: Active Dimension

Faith, Hope, LoveFaith, Hope, Love

Kenosis & Faith Kenosis & Faith • To Detach from:

The intellect’s reliance on concepts and images in order to understand:– “Why would God close every single door when

it works for someone else? … That God you trust and believe in, allowing that to happen”

• To Move Toward: Faith as a means of coming to knowledge– “I gave my soul over to God and said, ‘You’re

will be done.’” Rolheiser, R. Shattered Lantern. 96.

Faith…is now at cross purposes with our ability to make logical sense out of life, death or eternity…it is faith that moves us into the Mystery which is unimaginable, incomprehensible and uncontrollable.

Constance Fitzgerald, 446. Constance Fitzgerald, 446. (1986b). The Transformative (1986b). The Transformative

Influence of Wisdom in John of the Cross.Influence of Wisdom in John of the Cross.

Kenosis & HopeKenosis & Hope

• To Detach from: Relating partially to Reality through what we believe we already know and the security that brings: – “It doesn’t make sense. I keep coming back to

that ‘Why?”

• To Move Toward: Hope that Reality, as it really is, will be made known to us. – “...What’s so strange, [about it is] I have to trust

it…give myself to it…”

Rolheiser, R. Shattered Lantern. 96.

Hope comes into play when we are really radically at the end, unable to find any further resources to connect memories, feelings, images, and experiences of life in a meaningful pattern or promising future. Then hope, forfeiting the struggle to press meaning out of loss, becomes a free, trustful commitment to the impossible, which cannot be built out of what one possess.



Kenosis & Love Kenosis & Love

• To Detach from: Loving/caring with expected outcomes– “That God you trust and believe in, allowing

that to happen.”

• To Move Toward: love/caring without condition– “I gave my soul over to God and said, ‘You’re

will be done.’”

Rolheiser, R. Shattered Lantern. 96.

Love prevents us from forcing the loved one into the constraints of our needs and so takes the beloved as he or she is. In the face of seeming rejection and affective loss,….love will not …surrender belief in its own worth and lovability. Overcoming the will to die, this love lives honestly with the pain of its own woundedness and longing. It continues to serve others, often with great effectiveness, in spite of profound affective deprivation and loss.




Divine HabitusDivine Habitus

We may be unaware of it, but we are all We may be unaware of it, but we are all born with a natural and lifelong yearning born with a natural and lifelong yearning for the fulfillment of love….our senses seek for the fulfillment of love….our senses seek the beauty, the sweetness, the good the beauty, the sweetness, the good feelings of [Transcendence]. Our mind feelings of [Transcendence]. Our mind seeks the truth and wisdom of seeks the truth and wisdom of Transcendence. Our will seeks to live out Transcendence. Our will seeks to live out the goodness, the righteousness of the goodness, the righteousness of Transcendence. Our memory and Transcendence. Our memory and imagination seek the justice and peace of imagination seek the justice and peace of Transcendence. In other words, we yearn Transcendence. In other words, we yearn for the attributes of Transcendence with for the attributes of Transcendence with every part of ourselves. every part of ourselves. Gerald May, Gerald May, The Dark Night of the SoulThe Dark Night of the Soul, 55., 55.

Theme: Contemplation: Theme: Contemplation:

The Experience of TranscendenceThe Experience of Transcendence

““Suddenly, I feel an unexpected Suddenly, I feel an unexpected physical presence. An incredible calm physical presence. An incredible calm takes over my whole body. I am with takes over my whole body. I am with God. Incredible! Beautiful! Finding His God. Incredible! Beautiful! Finding His voice, finding His presence in my voice, finding His presence in my bedroom and feeling it there. Cradled bedroom and feeling it there. Cradled like this in His arms – I calm right like this in His arms – I calm right down. All my fear is gone.”down. All my fear is gone.” Nancy’s Story: Phenomenological Research ProjectNancy’s Story: Phenomenological Research Project

Exploring the Theme of Exploring the Theme of


How would we describe this How would we describe this experience of Transcendence?experience of Transcendence?

The Experience of The Experience of TranscendenceTranscendence

• Immediate• Surprising• Embodied• Momentary• Lifting up and out of oneself into a larger

and broader Reality• Connection with the All• Gifted happening • Being wonderfully met in our deepest need • Shifting what is unresolved in impasse


The Gift of The Gift of Contemplation/Transcendence Contemplation/Transcendence

We must realize that to the very depths of our being that this is a pure gift of [Transcendence] which no desire, no effort and no heroism of ours can do anything to deserve or obtain.

Thomas Merton. Seeds of Contemplation 149

Theme: Theme: The Gift of Insight within the The Gift of Insight within the

Experience of TranscendenceExperience of Transcendence

“I am with God – I haven’t died yet but I’m with God! …I know, now, that it is safe to die; that whatever is going to happen to me is going to be very, very good.”

“[It] defined who I was right then, that I knew I was a spiritual being and all was well... The first time I realized that I still had ownership of the spiritual me…Such an awakening for me! I haven’t been robbed of – I haven’t lost me… The Spiritual Nancy!”


Exploring the Gift of Insight Exploring the Gift of Insight within the Experience of within the Experience of


How would we describe How would we describe

the gift of insight? the gift of insight?

Gift of Insight Gift of Insight within the Experience of within the Experience of

TranscendenceTranscendence• Knowledge that is Immediate, pre-reflective• Knowledge that is in the form of practical wisdom

or insight• Given knowledge: revealed • Sudden, surprising, marvelous clarity that

compassionately tends us • Knowledge that awakens one to the transcendent

reality of one’ true self • Knowledge that is given in and through union

with Transcendence• Enlightenment where impasse gives way to

spiritual awakening


Resolution of ImpasseResolution of Impasse

The quality of paradox is at the heart of The quality of paradox is at the heart of ‘second order change.’ It implies the ‘second order change.’ It implies the unexpected, the alternative, the new unexpected, the alternative, the new vision, is not given on demand but is vision, is not given on demand but is beyond conscious, rational control. It is beyond conscious, rational control. It is the fruit of unconscious processes in which the fruit of unconscious processes in which the situation of impasse itself becomes the the situation of impasse itself becomes the focus of contemplative reflection. focus of contemplative reflection.

Constance Fitzgerald 2.Constance Fitzgerald 2.

The Dark Night of the SoulThe Dark Night of the Soul

A Creative DepictionA Creative Depiction

Questions for Engagement Questions for Engagement

– What image touches your heart?

– In what way does this image relate to your life right now?

– In what way does this image relate to your practice of spiritual care?

Contemplative Spiritual Contemplative Spiritual CareCare

VerbatimVerbatim

This material is for educational use in This material is for educational use in the promotion of professional practice.the promotion of professional practice.

Please acknowledge authorshipPlease acknowledge authorshipThank youThank you

© Zinia Pritchard 2010© Zinia Pritchard 2010

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