the lost art of ministerial care
I wanted to take a moment to tell you why I'm teaching a class about grieving.
I'm not a therapist or a grief expert. I'm not even someone who's gone through exceedingly difficult periods of grief (which makes me very fortunate, I know.) But I feel very strongly about intentionally showing up for each other as we go through the joys & trials of life. Here's why:
People don’t go to church as much as they used to.
Churches (and other religious and community spaces) used to be the center of social and community life: the place for gathering, sharing food, celebrating life events, and taking care of one another.
Whether you’re thrilled that churches are losing their defining grip on our cultural narrative, or you think it’s somewhat sad, there is one thing that is true:
Churches use to provide ministerial care to their members. Without churches (and other similar religious or community organizations), there is a lack of ministerial care in our communities.
When I say “ministerial care,” I mean things like this: visiting folks in the hospital. Checking up on people after family members die. Stopping by to visit people who haven’t come around in a while. Making sure someone is helping the elderly to shovel snow or get groceries during a storm. Arranging meal trains after someone has a baby. These are simple acts of humans caring for each other.
These days, we don’t have as many community groups that are organizing care for its members. We are all suffering from the lack. I don’t need to describe to you the isolation that many people feel. It’s become old news at this point.
I think about ministerial care often.
Trust me, I wholly understand why people aren’t attending formal religious services. Many people have deep trauma from their religious upbringings. Personally, I only go into church buildings when I absolutely have to, and it’s never ok for me. So I’m not bemoaning low church attendance.
But I do bemoan the lack of ministerial care, because we need each other. We need to show up with support when folks around us are going through hard times. When community groups are organizing folks to do the caring, the caring happens more. It happens quickly, and support arrives when it’s needed.
We, as loving humans, need to be intentional about providing care for those around us.
It’s easy to think that someone else will do it, someone else will show up with encouragement or a meal or a loving note, but in our current society, that’s not the case. We need to step into the role of the loving community member who can offer support to those around us.
When I say “those around us,” I don’t mean random humans who live near you that you don’t know. I mean people who are already in your life: cousins, distant friends, close friends, people you know just well enough to know what’s going on in their lives.
I created “Herbs for Grief” to give you the tools to provide one specific type of care to those around you: support during grieving.
I realize that it can be hard to know what to do in tough situations. But we, as herbalists, have a unique set of truly helpful tools (tools that are also delicious, lovely, and fragrant).
I created this class to help you put together your own tool kit to show up for people you love when they're going through hard times.
"Herbs for Grieving" is tomorrow, from 1:00-3:00pm EST. ** It's ok if you can't come live** : the class will be recorded, and the recording and the handouts will live in the online classroom for months, if not years.
If you can't come live, you can just watch the recording at your leisure.
If you want to become the person who knows just what to do when someone you love is sad, I encourage you to join us.
with a few sips from my herbal mocha,
Amanda