Pastoral Prophetic Care Corner

By Rev. Michelle Walsh, September 26, 2024

Today I consciously title my column “pastoral prophetic” rather than “prophetic pastoral.” We have moved through September with worship focused on how we keep our personal wells filled at 90% (our radical acts of pastoral self and communal care) before turning toward how we are called to serve our larger hugely troubled shared world (our prophetic social justice acts). We are exposed almost daily in the media to violence in our larger world and threats to democracy at home. It can be quite overwhelming. Remember our metaphoric baseline from our water communion service is that our bodies are composed of 60% water. If we are only filled to 60%, we are basically just maintaining. We need to be filled at 90% to have more to give to others. What is each of us doing to keep our personal wells filled to 90%? This is among the many reasons why we have offerings on Thursdays at 1 PM through the Neponset River Mind-Body-Spirit Center as well as on Sundays after the service, per your newsletter items.

When our personal wells are filled to 90%, we have more clarity and compassion and perspective and patience. We can then risk being “invitational” to others about our faith tradition, values and principles – the Soul Matters theme with which we grappled in September. In that particular sermon, I also spoke about Dan Siegel’s research on what he calls the 5 S’s of secure attachment: experiencing safety, security, and soothing and being seen and sense-making. We spoke of these as early childhood needs, but ones also that often can be filled by our respective congregational/ religious families, aka “church.” When we draw from our collective well together, we help to fill each other’s respective personal wells to 90%.

These are all necessary pastoral prophetic care practices before we can engage the larger risks of dialogue and connection in a hugely polarized shared world facing many existential dangers. We need all of us to survive and thrive – and that means building solid connections here in Canton and within our larger Neponset River and New England region of congregations. I personally am deepening our relationship with the rabbis of the two local synagogues, each of whom were installed on two different weekends in September: Rabbi Andrea M. Gouze of Temple Beth David and Rabbi Lisa Batya Feld of B’Nai Tikvah. I was delighted to be invited to facilitate a panel of rabbis who are women after Rabbi Gouze’s installation. First Parish also will be hosting the Canton Interfaith Thanksgiving service on Sunday, 11/24, at 3 PM with James Chubet, our Music Director, directing the interfaith choir. There is a deep promise of living into our highest Unitarian Universalist values and principles when we risk engaging across lines of difference and find shared pathways toward a more just and beloved community for all, one in which all wells are filled rather than empty, and each child may grow up with secure attachment experiences. In October, we will deepen into a new theme of “deep listening.” May it be so. Blessed be.