Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Roundup of Articles on Chaplaincy

"What People Talk About Before They Die" is a lovely article by Kerry Egan, a hospice chaplain with thirteen years of experience and author of Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago.  Hosted by CNN, this article explores the language through which we talk about ultimate meaning and the role of love in our lives - our family.

They talk about the love they felt, and the love they gave. Often they talk about love they did not receive, or the love they did not know how to offer, the love they withheld, or maybe never felt for the ones they should have loved unconditionally.

Over at Dharma Cowgirl, there is a roundup of recent articles about the work of the Buddhist chaplain (or at least, the thoughts of a Buddhist chaplain-in-training), including:


The Buddhist Military Sangha blog has a notes about UWest students Songkran Waiyaka and Niphon Suk, who both commissioned as U.S. Army second lieutenant's and chaplain candidates. Both are former Thai monks and both hope to become active duty Army chaplains after graduation. They also have a longer article about Chaplain Thomas Dyer, the U.S. Army's first Buddhist chaplain, - "Army's First Buddhist Chaplain Serving 11th Engineer Battalion."

Numerous Christian chaplains began contacting Dyer about performing services for Buddhists in their units. So he spent a large amount of time hopping around to different forward operating bases in the country.

"It was very wonderful to experience that aspect of it," he said. "When I was invited to a FOB to hold a service, it might be the only Buddhist service some Soldiers would get during the whole 12-month deployment."

Also new in 2011, the launch of a new website we hope will prove to be a great resource: BuddhistChaplains.org. Check it out their Resource Directory and recommend new sources to add.