Certificat Michele Micklewright
Meaning, Relational Meditation and the Facilitation of “Momentary Glimpses”
Chaplains, in long-term care facilities, are called upon to be present within the ebb and flow of healing and dying, wholeness and fragmentation, knowing and not knowing, hope and despair.
Always it is a fluid space and chaplains are called upon to enter into this fluidity with openness and emptiness. The chaplain’s role in is to enter into an intentional relationship with the resident, to assist them in uncovering their spiritual sources of strength and to facilitate a connection with these sources of strength. Most importantly the chaplain’s role is “to be with” persons in crises so that they do not feel abandoned.
What if what gives strength/healing is not meaning, as Viktor Frankl proposes, but, rather, the ability to see; for a moment, clearly? And what if trusting in these momentary glimpses enables a person to continue to trust the present moment in all of its uncertainty more fully? Can a chaplain assist the resident to trust the validity and truth of their own experiences of momentary glimpses? Can a shared dwelling within momentary glimpses provide a sense of strength/healing, without meaning? Through relational meditation, is it possible for a chaplain to help facilitate an openness to momentary glimpses so that the resident may ease into this awareness and die (or live) with a sense of comfort and peace?