1. Executive Director’s reflection
2. Would you share your story?
3. Healing Tree: A request for prayers
4. Exploring the Profession of Healthcare Ministries
5. April 20, 2008 Florida Chaplain Gathering
6. May 19, 2008 Gathering of Northeast Chaplains
7. June 20, 2008 and June 25, 2008 Gatherings of California Chaplains
8. 2008 Conference Silent Auction – still time!
9. NACC Chaplain Poets in Print
10. 2009 Conference -- Call for Workshops

Thank you! In the last NACC Now we had several requests for your responses regarding: figuring direct patient care, the types of professional development programs you have, the metric questions you use, your willingness to share your chaplain story, and your interest to speak on behalf of chaplaincy. We received over 100 responses to these requests! Thank you!

We are sorting through the responses and will channel your information to the respective Pastoral Summit Task Forces. We promise we will be making available all the information you shared, on the NACC website, at our national conference. Won’t it be good, though, when you can directly share this information with each other through our website? The website task force is looking at what might be the most beneficial to create: blogs, list serves, chat rooms, bulletin boards, etc. We will be asking for your opinion in the coming weeks. As the rationale for the Website Task Force states: For most associations, the website has become the primary communication and resource tool for members. NACC will continue to rely more and more on the website to serve members in multiple ways. Members will need to experience the website as not only user-friendly but as one of the primary destinations for member value. Member input into content and how to locate the content is critical.

The only request that received only a couple responses was the request for chaplain stories about how you became a chaplain. So I am repeating that request. You will also see below several local chaplain gatherings scheduled for the coming months. We will publish in the May Vision an article on the diversity of approaches to local gatherings, and the ones scheduled so far in 2008. Please continue to check the NACC website, as well, for current listings.

The Pastoral Care Summit’s Task Force on Recruitment is considering diverse materials to share with individuals who might consider chaplaincy. When I first arrived, I invited chaplains to share their “How I became a chaplain?” or “What chaplaincy means to me” stories. I did receive a couple that I shared. Several task force members offered to write a couple paragraphs on their story in the next three weeks. How did you become a chaplain? Will you consider writing yours? We plan to have a place on the website where someone considering chaplaincy can go to read your stories (with photo and contact information) – and discover theirs. Please send your story (along with a digital photo of yourself) to Cindy Bridges by March 21st. We want these on the website for our conference.

Please continue to keep in prayer Michael Murray as he continues his bout with cancer, for Sr. Nancy Flaig, OSB during her chemo treatment for cancer, for Sr. Mary Skopal, SSJ, who is recovering from back surgery, and Sr. Mary Anna Euring, OP as she continues her bout with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

We greatly appreciate the partnership with Loyola University Chicago’s Institute of Pastoral Studies (IPS) as it offers an Information Session “Exploring Professional Healthcare Ministries as a Vocation,” on Saturday, March 29, 2008, 9:30 a.m. - 12:00 Noon. This will take place at the Loyola University Water Tower Campus, Lewis Towers, Beane Hall, 13th Floor. They ask chaplains to bring interested colleagues. You can RSVP for the event by signing up at this site.

An e-mail invitation was sent to chaplains of Florida, alerting and inviting them to a Day of Recollection and meeting of chaplains to be held on Sunday, March 20th, 9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. near Orlando at the San Pedro Center, Winter Park, FL. David Lichter, NACC Executive Director, will be leading the day. For more details, and a copy of the brochure/registration form, click here.

Please mark your calendar! NACC chaplains are invited to attend educational gathering at Assumption College, Worcester, MA on Monday, May 19, 2008, 9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Virginia Kimball, a theologian, laywoman and mother of nine will reflect on Mary and our chaplaincy. David Lichter, NACC’s Executive Director, will also attend and provide news on NACC. Thanks goes to Fr. Tom Garlick for helping to arrange this. More details to follow!

Please mark your calendar! We have set aside Friday, June 20, 2008, for NACC chaplains to spend a day together at VITAS Innovative Hospice Care, in Irvine, CA. Thanks goes to John Gillman for helping to arrange this, and Kim Heximer, the VITAS General Manager at Irvine, for her hospitality. More details will follow.

Plans are also in the works for a Wednesday, June 25, 2008 chaplain gathering near San Francisco. If any chaplains from California are interested in helping to plan these events, please contact David Lichter.

Time is getting short. You don't want to miss this chance to showcase your talent and your state by donating an item to the first ever NACC Silent Auction! Some of the items already donated include prayer shawls, scarves, a basket of homemade jams and jellies, a pair of framed authentic beaded 100 year old Native American Moccasins, handmade jewelry, a relaxation kit, a self-care kit, framed photograph, a basket of multicultural resources, certificates to restaurants in the Indianapolis area. The list goes on.

You still have time to craft something for the silent auction! Items like these and other yet-to-be-discovered items all are welcome.

Not crafty yourself? Ask a local artist or a friend who crafts to donate something. Perhaps you can entice people to vacation in your state by asking a local bed and breakfast to donate a two night stay. Do you have a fabulous restaurant in your town? Ask them to donate a dinner for two.

Not able to attend the conference this year? You can ship your donation directly to the conference site or send it along with a colleague who is attending.

The auction will be fun and a huge success but we need YOU to make it happen! Thanks for your help. To donate an item or get more details about the auction please contact Linda Piotrowski.

Members who have read and enjoyed the poems by Deborah Gordon Cooper published occasionally in the Vision over the past decade will be pleased to learn that she has a new publication in the works. Her new chapbook Between the Ceiling & the Moon is being released this spring by Finishing Line Press as part of their New Women's Voices Series. The size of the press run will be determined by the number of advance orders received. The book sells for $14 and shipping is free on all advance orders. It is available now through the press's web-page under New Releases.

Here's a sample poem:

 
Time Change

Driving back and forth
to the city
again and again,
torrent of tasks and details
on the heels of death,
I am betrayed
by the bare bones of trees,
the fleeing geese,
the grasses, fading
in the fields.
 
Home, I reset the clocks.
I shop for candles,
set the tabletop ablaze
a little earlier each day.
I put Drew's music on.
At first it wounds;
at last it comforts...
 
as does the music
of the chickadees,
still singing their summer song
though the sky threatens snow
and the long winter looms.
Across the yard,
the solace of the evergreens,
the oak that won't let go
its burnished leaves,
the golden tamaracks. 

(Reprinted with permission)

Deb is an Emeritus member of the NACC, who lives in Duluth, Minnesota. She has used poetry extensively in her work as a Hospice/Hospital Chaplain and has conducted workshops on the interfacing of Poetry and Spirituality. Her first chapbook, "Redirection of the Heart," was published by New Song Press and was reviewed in Vision. She won the 2001 chapbook competition for the journal Ruah. A third small collection of poems was entitled the gods of wild things. She also won the 2003 Diane Glancey Poetry Award for the anthology Dust & Fire.

Congratulations also to Linda Piotrowski, who is blossoming as a poet as well as a seasoned prose writer. Her first published poem appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2007 issue of the Association of Professional Chaplains' publication, Chaplaincy Today. Linda has recently been facilitating a series of six-week workshops, "Writing for Healing," for cancer patients at her hospital, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Trained in the Amherst Writers and Artists writing process, will offer a pre-conference workshop in Indianapolis using this method to help chaplains learn to facilitate the formation of a creative writing community where they live or work.

We are happy to announce the Spiritual Care Summit 2009, a joint conference with the AAPC, ACPE, APC, CAPPE, and NAJC. The theme of this historic summit is “Health and Hope: The Hard Reality of Living Intentionally in a Village of Care” and it will take place in Orlando, Florida, February 1-4, 2009. Applications for 90-minute workshops are currently being accepted with a due date of May 2, 2008. You can view information about the conference, the workshops and the workshop application at the Spiritual Care Collaborative website. Mark your calendars now for this exciting event!