Spiritual Resiliency through the Life Span: Fostering Hope, Forgiveness, and Imagination
The Rev. Janet L. Ramsey, Ph.D.
Area Chaplains’ Conference
Alexandria, Minnesota, September 18-19, 2014
Session One:Introduction to Spiritual Resilience
This session will explore how many persons of faith create amazing, hopeful self-narratives of recovery, resistance, and reconfiguration, particularly during times of stress and loss.The intersection of our own stories and the Grand Narrative located in Christian community, will be introduced, and the necessity to listen for the degree ofbalancein peoples’ stories will be a central theme, particularly the balance of hopefulness vs. acknowledgement of hard realities,close relationships with others vs. personal differentiation, andbeing rooted in traditionsvs being able to create and imagine.
Session Two:The World in Which We Give Care
The focus in this session will be on our ministry context, including a variety of personal, cultural, and systemic impediments and advantages. The poles ofhope vs despairwill be described at more length, and special emphasis will be given to the negative power ofunforgivenessin our lives. The positive power of spiritual community will be described as a central theme in the stories of spiritually resilient adults.Brief small group work will explore particular challenges and opportunities in our upper Midwestern environment.
Session Three:Introduction to Insightful Narrative
Using a combination of lecture and workshop exercises, this session will be focused on 1) the importance of our early attachments and experiences in the development of resiliency, and, 2) the power of healthy, corrective relationships throughout life,and, (3) the assurance of the Face that will never go away. Family messages and defensive styles will lead us into Session Three on narrative, where “received” narratives bring together our own stories and those we were given by others as normative.
Here we then will discuss characteristics of healthy and unhealthy self-narratives, and use examples to illustrate what spiritual resiliency might look like. We will ask how we, individually and communally, might assistant hurting persons get “unstuck” and create more mature, nuanced, and faith-filled stories for their lives. The chaplain’s role of “mid-wife” vs. “fixer”will be suggested for the group’s consideration, and narrative themes of watching for and encouraging plot breakers, exceptions, and externalizations of the problem will be described. The Cross as ultimate problem externalization will bridge this session with
Session Four:Forgiveness: Mystery, Gift and Impossible Possibility
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This session will explore why some persons forgive more readily and deeply than others, andwisdomas it manifests in our healed stories. Forgiveness as dangerous business and as a process will be recognized, along with the mixed results in our history of pastoral care.Particular difficulties when one is not the direct victim of harm, along with gender and age differences, will be explored. We will conclude by discussing the need for both insightful and narrative strategies in forgiveness work, and, moving towards imagination and Session Five, share “sightings”of the Spirit in our ownprofessional experiences.
Session Five: Practice and Imagination: The Arts as a Window on Living a Resilient, Forgiving Life
We will use the arts to explore the virtues ofempathyandlove, as they appear, disappear, and reappear, in broken, healed and healing lives.In conclusion we will raise the question: What are the signs of resiliency in my own life? In the lives of the sick and dying I accompany? What might I do, in partnership with God, to listen for and encourage spiritual resiliency in my own story and in the stories of those I serve?
Dr. Janet Ramsey is Professor Emeritus and former Pastor George Weinman Chair of Pastoral Theology and Ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN. She earned a Masters in Religion from Yale University, a Master of Divinity from Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia, and a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. In retirement she combines writing, public speaking, teaching pastoral care courses online, and teaching seminary intensives. A licensed marriage and family therapist, Dr. Ramsey is an ordained Lutheran pastor, and a wife, mother and grandmother. She is a Diplomate in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, and has served as a nursing home chaplain, a parish pastor, and a pastoral counseling supervisor. Ramsey has written numerous articles, chapters, and two books on topics related to aging, spirituality, and forgiveness. Her most recent book, Spiritual Resiliency and Aging: Hope, Relationality and the Creative Self, (Baywood, 2013) was coauthored with Rosemary Blieszner of Virginia Tech.
ALEXANDRIA CENTRAL PRAIRIE CONFERENCE 2014
Alexandria Holiday Inn
September 18-19th, 2014
Spiritual Resilience through the Life Span: Fostering Hope, Forgiveness, and Imagination
Presenter: The Rev. Janet L. Ramsey, Ph.D.
Thursday, September 18th
1:00-2:45 pm Registration
3:00 pm Welcome and Prayer
3:15 pmSession One: Introduction to Spiritual Resilience
5:00 pm Break
5:30 pm Dinner
7:00 pm Session Two: The World in Which We Give Care
8:30 pm Mixer/Social
Friday, September 19th
8:00 amBreakfast Buffet
8:45 amMorning Prayer
9:00 amSession Three: Introduction to Insightful Narrative
10:30 amBreak
10:45 amSession Four: Forgiveness: Mystery, Gift and Impossible Possibility
11:45 amEducation Committee Report
12:00 pmLunch Buffet
1:00 pmSession Five: Practice and Imagination: The Arts as a Window on Living a Resilient, Forgiving Life
2:30 pmClosing Prayer/Evaluation