Abstract
The fourth issue of JPC&C appears annually during the holiday season and the winter solstice, a period of time when the calendar is replete with holidays observed by many religious, spiritual, and cultural traditions. Holidays such as Christmas (Christianity), Chanukah (Judaism), Mawlid el-Nabi (Islam), Solstice (Wicca/Pagan), Zarathosht Diso (Zoroastrian), Rohatsu (Buddhist), Kwanza (African American), Boxing Day (United Kingdom), and Omisoka (Japanese) are a few examples, all of which celebrate life, nature, and existence in a variety of ways.
Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane (1959) identified the commixture of realities in such religious and cultural traditions. Mental and pastoral/spiritual care providers know that this time of year generates a broad spectrum of mixed feelings and experiences for all. High expectations of family gatherings and communal collaboration are sometimes challenged by the contradictory outcomes generating struggles temporally, at the time of gatherings and shortly afterward, as the season wanes. In some ways, those of us engaged in walking with others through such struggles understand the commixture of the sacred and the profane and try to contextualize this reality in our care.
This celebratory period ushers in a smorgasbord of expectations, feelings, and realities, and, fittingly, this issue of JPC&C offers a broad variety of professional themes ranging from the ongoing evolution in the training of pastoral/spiritual care professionals to experiences in practice in a various of settings. Wendy Cadge, George Fitchett, Trace Haythorn, Patricia Palmer, Shelly Rambo, Casey Clevenger, and Irene Stroud, in “Training Healthcare Chaplains: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” outline this evolution complementing JPC&C’s articles about the consolidation of American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC) and the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) in Volume 73:3. Micha Washington writes about “Reconciling as a Primary Act of Spiritual Care.” Kara Chan and M. Chan’s “Experience of Stress and Burnout among Pastors in China” identifies professional realities of religious leadership. Christopher Morrison and Aaron Alvarez’s “The Priority List: An Evidence-Based Approach to Selecting Patients for Chaplain Visits” provides a practical model for selective visits by institutional chaplains. Banafsheh Ebrahimi Barmi, Mohammadali Hosseini, Kianoush Abdi, Enayatollah Bakhshi, and Shima Shirozhan consider “The Relationship between Spiritual Intelligence and Resiliency of Rehabilitation Staff” in rehabilitation settings, and Lori Banfield turns to care in the community, in “Fostering Spiritual Resilience and Vitality in Formerly Incarcerated Persons of African-American Descent.”
This issue provides a smorgasbord of offerings during this potentially labile time of the year for professional ingestion. Along with Pamela Cranston’s poem “Fooling Death,” as well as personal reflections by Haydn McLean and Kiersty Hong. Truly a feast during this festive time.