Pastoral Theology

The essence of Pastoral Theology to some is living out the Spirit of the Beatitudes. To carry out — in light of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 1-12) and Paul's descriptive definition of love (1 Corinthians 12, 31-13, 8) — ministerial service to the community, the candidate needs demonstrable knowledge, emotional intelligence, and skills in celebrating the Theology of LIfe. The intention of this Pastoral Theology curriculum is offer the candidate an opportunity to engender such knowledge, intelligence, and skills into his or her identity matrix.

The traveler on the Path of Compassion comes to appreciate others by the quality of interaction carried out between self and other human beings. Who are the People of God? Who are my brothers and sisters? Who comprises the Human Family? What is my position within this Family? Who is God within this Family? Is there a right, a wrong, a good, a bad? Judgement. What do you mean to yourself? What do others with whom you have a relationship mean?

Practice: Spend a great deal of time in a place inhabited by many many people who you do not know. Pay careful attention to how you are feeling, emoting, what your thoughts are and how alienated or close to each and every person you envision. Just pay mindful attention to the quality of your relationship. How present are you to these so-called strangers? Are you free to approach anyone individual and speak with that person? After a while, quietly in a quiet place by yourself, write down your observations without paying attention to grammar and syntax. Just let yourself write until you are truly finished.

PW 102: Introduction toThe People of God (1 MS)

The traveler on the Path of Compassion comes to appreciate others by the quality of interaction carried out between self and other human beings. Who are the People of God? Who are my brothers and sisters? Who comprises the Human Family? What is my position within this Family. Who is God within this Family. Is there a right, a wrong, a good, a bad. Judgement. What do you mean to yourself? What do others mean to you in relation to have they may have been mean to you?

Practice: Spend a great deal of time in a place inhabited by people you know very well, most especially a family setting. Pay careful attention to how you are feeling, emoting, what your thoughts are and how alienated or close to each and every person you envision. Just pay mindful attention to the quality of your relationships. How present are you to these so-called family members and/or friends? Are you free to approach anyone individual and speak with that person? After a while, quietly in a quiet place by yourself, write down your observations without paying attention to grammar and syntax. Just let yourself write until you are truly finished.

PW 103: Practicum I: Who am I? 1 (1 MS)

Who am I? and age-old question. Who is who? Who is I? The the Old Testament, God is written to have identified himself as: I am Who am. Who am I? is perhaps answered by reflecting upon the gestalt of our own self we each form by the belief systems we each generate regarding what, how, where, where, why, and who I think I am. You are your beliefs or your thoughts of who you think you are? In the old Baltimore Catechism we read: Question: Who made me? Answer: God made me. This may or may not be so. And who, in truth, generate the gestalt that forms my conception of myself?

Practice: Attend a large entertainment or sporting event alone. Observe each of the other actually alone human beings in your presence. In truth and in fact, we each are alone — we are born alone, and we die alone. Later on, after the event, quietly in a quiet place, in writing, answer the question: Who am I?

.PW 104: Practicum II: Who am I with You? (1 MS)

Who am I with You? Ever motive that we sometimes to often change our demeanor when we are in the presence of different people: mother/father, employer, president or king, homeless individual (not person), homeless person, friends, enemy. We can be turtles (hiding in your shells) to chameleons (changing our color/presentation scheme to be save and unnoticed, even though we might be the center of attention, in an environment)? Who am I that needs to play it safe, to keep others at bay for whatever reason? We may think that we don't change and that we are the same all the time. Remember denial: don't even know I am lying

Practice: Over a three day period, consciously be aware of how you change your deportment in changing social settings as well as when you are by yourself. Be aware of how emotionally present and absent you are in this or that situation and with this or that particular individual or group of people. Be aware of what motivators you use with others: are you seeking attention, appreciation, acknowledgement, and/or understanding? Are you conscious that you have been conducting yourself in perhaps unconscious ways. Give yourself a week. Then re-boot this practice and carry it through again. This time, later on, quietly in a quiet place, in writing, answer the question: Who am I with You?

PI   101 Pastoral Internship A:* Who are we? (1 MS)

Practice: Go to a public school in your area for the developmentally or emotionally disabled. Let the administration know you would like to volunteer for at least 10 and no more than 20 hours to assist with the children in any way possible. For the duration with these children, be absolutely consciously present to your interaction with these children as well as with your own self. How do you feel when a child touches or gropes you? or slobbers on you? or smiles ever so innocently at you? or trusts you (yes, of all people!), or gets angry at you (lessons in justice, perhaps?), or wants to hug you. Be aware of what you do and how you do it - what ever you do in either response or in reaction to the child's offering. 10 days after you finished your volunteer time, quietly in a quiet place, in writing, answer the question: Who are we?

PI   201 Pastoral Internship B:* Who are we? (1 MS)

Practice: Go to a rest home or other warehousing institution for the elderly, aged, and/or informed. Let the administration know you would like to volunteer for at least 10 and no more than 20 hours to assist with the residents in any way possible. For the duration with these residents, be absolutely consciously present to your interaction with these residents as well as with your own self. How do you feel when a resident touches or gropes you? or slobbers on you? or smiles ever so innocently at you? or trusts you (yes, of all people!), or gets angry at you (lessons in justice, perhaps?), or wants to hug you. Be aware of what you do and how you do it - what ever you do in either response or in reaction to the resident's offering. 10 days after you finished your volunteer time, quietly in a quiet place, in writing, answer the question: Who are we?

PW 301: Practicum III: Who is God? (1 MS)

To some God is nothing more and nothing less than a culturally/familially ingrained stimulus-response pattern set of experiences embedded in our identity matrix. To others, God is an experience of wonderment and awe to joyful sorrow to just a simple given in the act of experiencing the essence of existence. Perhaps the heart of God is the silence we experience as our whole personality wherein our individual personality is manifested with the whole universe, wherein all other beings are the contents of our personality and wherein, hence, we are open to feel the entire universe and hence magnanimity, tolerance, and compassion not only for our own selves but also for all of human kind and creation as well.

Practice: Attend at least 2 different Buddhist, Protestant, Bahai, Moslem, religious services and at least one Zen meditation, Christian contemplative prayer meeting, Kabala discussion group, Sufi Sema or place of zhikir. Go to the very tip top of any mountain and turn slowly in a 360 degree circle. Be on a large body of water and when alone, let yourself look just as far as you can look and then let your self see beyond the sea. Go to a thickly wooded area, perhaps a rain forest or a redwood grove, and walk softly listening to your breath, hearing your foot steps amid the sounds of the forest. Let yourself feel in any of these situations whatever you feel. Three days after you finished your series of experiences, quietly in a quiet place, in writing, answer the question: Who is God?

PW 401: Practicum IV: How do I allay suffering? (2 MS)

IIn the Sermon on the Mount, we find people suffering: those who are poor rather than rich in spirit, those who are mourning the loss of a loved one, those who are long-suffering (meek), those who are hungry and thirsty for justice, and those who are persecuted for doing what they hold to be God's Will.

Practice: Go to a place where people who have given up on themselves and on life. Spend time with a person who might be described as poor in spirit. Discover how to bring the kingdom of heaven to this person— not so much by what you say, but more so by what you do, who you are. Bring this person the joy of heaven, which is at hand.

Go to a funeral — it matters not that you know the family or the now dead human being. After the service or wake, informally introduce yourself as just another human being who can truly comfort that person in his or her mourning — again not by what you say, but by what you do: how you present yourself with sincerity, authenticity, congruency, and transparency.

Go to a place where you can find a person who is long-suffering, bearing up under a chronic physical illness or emotional disability, or an impossible living situation. Listen, rather than hear, this person out. Let that person discover that he or she is at the gate of heaven. To enter, let that person know — not by words as much as by your Presence in listening, that all that person need do is surrender to his or her perception of the giveness of the situation to be free of that situation.

Go to a place where people are clamoring for justice — an activists' meeting for some political cause, for example. Pick out a person when the time is apropos. Introduce yourself and in the course of conversation, let this person be satisfied, that this person is doing enough (L. satis: enough + facere: to do), let this person experience satisfaction — not by what you say necessarily, but more so by how you are, your Presence in the moment with that person.

Go to a place where people who feel slighted or abused for doing what they thought/felt best in the moment may be found — certain types of "recovery group" for example. Listen very carefully to not so much individuals are saying, but more so how they are saying what they are saying. When appropriate, introduce yourself to one person. and let this person experience that he or she is already in the kingdom of God. Let this happen again not so much by what you say, but more so by how you Present yourself to this person.

When you have completed these five practices to your satisfaction, quietly in a quiet place, in writing, answer the question: How do I allay suffering?

PW 402: Practicum V: How do we allay suffering? (2 MS)

In the Sermon on the Mount, we find people who are suffering: people who are merciful, people who are clean of heart, and people who are who are peacemakers.

Go to a place where you can find people with compassion so great that they are able to forbear punishing even when justice demands it, in other words, merciful people. Let yourself be drawn to one particular person. In the course of your meeting one another, let that person experience mercy him or her self being shown unto him or her. To this person mercy not by words as such, more so by action found in your Presence to this individual.

Go to a place where you can find the clean of heart, people who are sincerely present to themselves as individual human beings in their own reality and in conventional reality. They accept full, absolute, and unconditioned and unconditional responsibility for the sum totality of their own being in the space-time continuum. They realize that they essentially are accidents within the matrix of their own identity matrices. They hold no grudges and are not easily swayed emotionally one or another. By your Presence to this person, let this person see God — not by what you say necessarily, but more so by how you are, your Presence in the moment with that person.

Go to a place where you can meet peacemakers, those who reconcile parties at variance. Perhaps this place might be a business or social environment. When appropriate, meet a peacemaker, introduce yourself. In the course of your introduction, let that peacemaker sense that he or she is a child of God — not by what you say necessarily, but more so by how you Present yourself. Let them be Peace rather than peacemakers.

When you have completed these three practices to your satisfaction, quietly in a quiet place, in writing, answer the question in depth and detail: How do I allay suffering?