A Time of Rest

This year marks my eighth year with ACPE. While it goes without saying, there really hasn’t been a pause since I arrived. We have seen major changes to our organizational structure, to certification, and to accreditation. We consolidated with AAPC and launched the Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy certification. We have endured the COVID-19 pandemic, responded to the call to dismantle white supremacy and address racial injustice, and explored a potential merger with APC. We have seen new associations rise, new international relationships form, and new contexts become possibilities for programs. As the NPR show says so well, “It’s been a minute.”

This summer, the board has graciously offered me the month of June to work on a book about the practices and contexts of chaplaincy. I don’t know if it is going anywhere, but it has been delightful to work with eight folks from around the US in different settings, learning about their work, and weaving my chaplaincy experiences with theirs. I’ll let you know if a publisher picks it up. It’s the kind of book I hope my mother can read to better understand and appreciate the work of professional spiritual care.

Perhaps more than the writing, I’ve been so grateful for the sabbath time. My wife and I spent three weeks in a mountain cabin, hiking, kayaking, eating, laughing, and simply enjoying one another. We are both clergy, and this is our first sabbatical in our 29 years of marriage and ordination.

This time of rest has been vital, especially as we look to the coming months. There will be significant work as we clarify next steps in our discussions with APC. I feel so much more equipped having had four weeks of rest, of writing, and of exploring different contexts to allow my mind to prepare for what lies ahead. While many of you will not notice much change in your daily practice, your staff will be actively engaged in planning, preparing, and building for whatever the members determine is next.

I carry this poem from Wendell Berry with me. It has been an anchor for me devotionally and in terms of my leadership since I first heard it in the 1980s. I offer it to you as a blessing in these summer months as we reflect on why we are #ACPEproud and look to an autumn filled with anticipation and good work for ACPE:

Sabbath Poem X
by Wendell Berry (1979)

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

Trace Haythorn is the Executive Director of ACPE and can be reached at  Trace.Haythorn@acpe.edu