One Year Later: Different Time & Place but Still Interpreting Bodies

Just got off the phone with a friend named Anna who has moved back to the mid-west to pastor a small church after 3 years of seminary in Berkeley. We took "Hermeneutics: Interpreting Bodies" together, a class taught by Dr. Marion Grau. So it's no surprise that this blog posting would find its spark in Anna's comment that "this work requires reading people." Since leaving seminary, Anna has made a pretty big cultural swap and so have I. These cultural swaps, going from one specific environment to another, require intense reflection and integration. As both of us try to learn what's necessary in order to survive and serve in these newly assigned communities, I am taken back to our lessons in Hermeneutics. (Guess I should acknowledge that the $50,000 of debt I accumulated in student loans is worth something.)

You see hermeneutics is a fancy word, but at bottom, it's basically the art of interpretation. Hermeneutics involves seeing, hearing, reading, understanding, translation, application, discerning who, what, when, where and why as they apply to authors, readers, and the spaces and times between the two. Hermeneutics also pertains to the way we interpret people because, as the pastoral care field has been quick to point out, persons are just living human documents. Anna and I spent hours and hours reading chapters of books and articles in our class reader about hermeneutics and then we spent hours and hours discussing the relevance of those readings to the spins and science of living. We wrestled with the questions: why do we see what we see? how do we know the accuracy of our interpretations and conclusions about the content and context of texts, environments, people and communities? what is the point in even asking these questions if it's all mere speculation as post-modern and post-structural theories hypothesize? After speaking with Anna this afternoon about her new job and reflecting on my own experience at the VA these last 2 months, I'm struck that we are asking the same questions just in different times and different places.

I often ask myself questions like this one: "Would this 65 year old Vietnam veteran be as excited to see me as his Chaplain if I weren't a twenty seven year old blonde female?" Let's take this question as the starting place for a hermeneutical exercise. By looking at this curiosity from several angels, we might discern the hidden assumptions I am holding. First I assume a sexualized "reading" of the Chaplain. Second I assume that sexualized read pertains to solidified gender roles that play into heterosexual normativity--I assume the vet interprets me as and sexually prefers women, I assume the vet "is in fact" and considers himself to be male, I assume the Chaplain's blondness and age have something to do with the sexualizing of the encounter. Third I assume such "reading" actually impacts (if not dominates) the vet's affirmative response to the Chaplain's offer to provide pastoral care. So you see, the question itself is loaded with interpretations of its own. Another level of hermeneutical exploration might uncover why in fact my question gets asked in the first place. Perhaps the Chaplain's previous experience, stereotypes about 65 year old Vietnam vets, and/or CPE curriculum focused on 'asking questions about difference' are giving birth to this question in this moment. If we were to go even further down this hermeneutical spiral, we might ask "what different question might be asked if a different Chaplain and a different Vietnam vet were to meet in this space and time, or a different space and time? How might the conclusions be different? Why?"

This form of investigation can get nauseatingly detailed and seemingly never-ending. But I think the questions are important ones, especially for folks involved in the helping professions. And here's why...

Judgment is a big part of our trade. (I have a CPE colleague who has asked poignant questions about the role of judgment in spiritual care so I am especially in tune to the judgment aspects of diagnosis and treatment paradigms in Chaplaincy these days.) Whether or not it's "right", persons who provide care--of any kind--are required to make decisions. That's right: benevolent types make judgments, judgments about who/what needs care, how that care should be sought, applied and evaluated, and what kinds of ethical/moral frameworks should be in place as we reflect on the care process in its entirety. For instance, as a chaplain, I am constantly called upon to "spiritually assess" my patients. I am asked to interpret a patients language, hir history, current condition, behavior, hir attitude, and hir relations. From those interpretations which I make in dialogue with interdisciplinary teams, various resources, my faith tradition, etc, I must decide what treatment plan is best. Then I'm asked to reflect on that process and decide whether or not it was "effective" (a term worth deconstructing sometimes). I am--all the time--reading, discerning, concluding and responding. But here's the kicker: I'm never quite sure about any of it.

When talking about her current attempts to interpret the cultural codes in/around her new work environment, Anna wisely said (and I'm not quoting verbatim) "I must make these conclusions about who they are in order to do my job, but when it comes down to it, I'm not always clear on who I am so how can I be sure my conclusions about them are on-target?" Exactly. And it takes a pastor of immense humility to admit such a thing. (I don't know when or how religion started selling people easy answers because in all my days of ministering, studying theology and providing spiritual health care, I have never arrived at one.) When I'm honest with myself, I'm aware that every conclusion I arrive at and each move I make based on interpretations of who, what, when, where and why contain levels of bias, speculation, subjectivity, relativity, and risk. If I am being really really honest with myself then I'm aware it's hard to admit these vulnerabilities when institutions and the people I serve in those institutions grant me authority. But if I want to live with and work from integrity, I must admit them.

As a Chaplain with tattoos I'm constantly confronted with people's "reads" of me. Sometimes my body art inspires resistance, other times curiosity. Some folks don't give a shit. I get to see the expectations people have of a) chaplains' bodies & b) tattooed peoples' professions. I am always grateful when these patients and families allow their initial interpretations to be challenged, to hold out on judging me once and for all. The least I can do is reciprocate. Yes, I make initial judgments. We all do; we have to in order to get out of bed in the morning. But as a person trying to live with integrity I must allow those judgments to be challenged or proven wrong when new information comes along. Further, I need friends and communities of accountability to call me on those judgments. As with so many exercises in faith, this one of judging and reforming judgment should be done with a decent dose of humility (which means I've got a loooong way to go) and 'shant be done alone.