Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

In so many ways, I feel fortunate to listen to twenty-somethings wonder what ever happened to summer. They reflect on the days just a few short years in their past when school stopped for a while, where they filled their days with play, camps, sleep, and long hours with friends. Some of them worked summer jobs, and some worked more than one. But as I heard one of them recently ask, what happened to the pause, the slow down, the break? 

We have similar feelings at ACPE as well. Here’s a quick list of updates:

• On Memorial Day (the traditional beginning of summer in the US), I arrived in Seoul to celebrate 20 years of CPE with our Korean colleagues (who send greetings to so many of you who have served with them over the years!). We are exploring ways our two associations can work even more closely and collaboratively.
• The second week of June, I joined our colleagues from the Society of Pastoral Theology in Montgomery, AL to present a paper we developed with the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab on the “supply side” of chaplaincy. We expect a second paper later this year on the “demand side.” I heard one person describe entering the world of professional spiritual care as a bit like swimming in Jell-O. You know the work is substantive, but it takes so much to get through it. For more about SPT, click here: https://societyforpastoraltheology.org/. For more about the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, click here: https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/.
• Next week, I’ll represent ACPE and the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab at the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) meeting in Pittsburgh, PA. I’m eager to hear how leaders of these schools think about the changing shape of theological education as we enter COVID endemic stage and continue to work for racial and anti-bias justice, with an eye to how their work will impact our own. For more about ATS, click here: https://www.ats.edu/.
• That same week, I will meet with one of our educators and their students to explore leadership in nonprofit organizations and associations. I have to say this is one of the most fun activities I get to do in my role!
• At the end of that week, I will join Chaplain Ylisse Bess in Connecticut to co-lead a retreat for chaplains from underrepresented groups as a part of a grant project through the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab. Twenty of us will gather for time of healing, reflection, and renewal, something I wish we had funds to offer to all our members.
• On June 28, the ACPE staff will gather with the strategic planning consultants from La Piana to share our hopes and dreams for the organization. Staff will join the committees, commissions, and boards they support, but this will be the first time since March 2020 that the entire team will be together in the same space. I’ve got those “feels” that waffle between giddy joy and tears of grief.
• On July 7-8, I will join a team from the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health to offer the online version of the Interprofessional Spiritual Care Education Curriculum (ISPEC). Over those two days, we will work with teams from around the world comprised of a clinician and a professional spiritual care provider, helping clinicians learn to identify spiritual distress as spiritual care generalists and guiding them in their engagement of chaplains as spiritual care specialists. For more about ISPEC and GWISH, click here: https://smhs.gwu.edu/spirituality-health/program/transforming-practice-health-settings/interprofessional-spiritual-care-education-curriculum.
• On July 14, I will lead a webinar for the Oates Institute as they begin to wind down their work, presenting more on the supply/demand research we’ve been doing with the Lab. For more about the Oates Institute, click here: https://oates.org/.
• The week of July 18, ACPE Certified Educator and Accreditation Chair Randy Hall, Marc Medwed, and I will meet with the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. This body provides recommendations to the US Department of Education (DOE) for our ongoing recognition as a Programmatic Accrediting Agency. We have experienced unprecedented scrutiny this year, and we expect we will need to make changes to our policies to meet the changing requirements of the DOE. Stay tuned. For more about NACIQI, click here: https://sites.ed.gov/naciqi/.
• I have been asked to preach and lead worship the last Sunday in July for a friend and colleague who is away on maternity leave.
• Shawn Mai and I will represent ACPE at NACC annual meeting in Buffalo August 19-21. We expect this to be particularly powerful in light of the recent mass shooting, echoing back to our experience with APC in Orlando after the Pulse shooting.
• In August, I will head to Portland, OR for three days led by a team from City of Hope in Los Angeles to share an Interprofessional Communication Curriculum (ICC) with teams of nurses, social workers, and chaplains from around the world. For more information, click here: https://sswlhc.org/new-interprofessional-communication-curriculum-icc/.

In August, my family and I will travel to Texas for my in-law’s 60^th wedding anniversary. And in early September, my wife and I will celebrate our 30^th anniversary in Scotland. So, I have some fun rewards waiting on the other side of this hectic summer!

Amidst all of this, we are mindful of the continuing wildfires in New Mexico, brutal heat across much of the country, flooding in Montana, continuing grief from mass shootings, the deep divisions over the January 6 hearings, the violent acts against Black, AAPI, Jewish, LGBTQIA+, and so many other communities, and the ongoing grief of the COVID-19 endemic. Amidst it all, we hold all of you in the Light. Please know our whole office team is keeping busy as we support the development of new strategic priorities, support members in their work, and advance the mission of ACPE, even as we long for those lazy days of our childhood summers!