Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

270caring takes on a liberating aspect, not through notions of expertise, power orauthority but through a shared sense of incarnately-understood woundedness.7.1.2 HospitalityThe notion of hospitality incorporated into Nouwen’s model of WoundedHealer describes a space of welcome in which those who enter are afforded nonjudgementalregard, a place where healing and care is available to all. Nouwenfurther articulated this pastoral model in his volume Reaching Out where heprimarily describes hospitality as “the creation of a free space where the strangercan enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to changepeople, but to offer them space where change can take place." 641 Here, theimplication is that the carer does not fill the space with activity and words for todo so is oppressive. 642 Alternatively, the other is free to discern their God-givenidentity.It is a means of expressing welcome to the stranger who, because of theirperceived threat, can be so easily regarded with hostility. 643 In invoking OldTestament notions of hospitality to the stranger Dykstra addresses the clinicalsetting in a holistic manner. He speaks of the chaplain addressing the practicalneeds of those experiencing trauma in the hospital setting, of advocating forrights and searching for adequate theological responses to trauma which maysometimes see the chaplain sitting silently with the one who is traumatized. 644Yong radically develops the notion of welcome to the stranger around thePentecostal understanding of the Spirit of God being ‘poured out on all flesh’(Acts 2:17), both ‘believers and unbelievers’ (Romans 12:13-21). 645 Hospitalityextends beyond traditional denominational and faith notions of membership to beinclusive of all at an individual and structural level. As Yong asserts, "it is in thiswider eschatological framework ... that we see that the hospitality of Godinvolves not just interpersonal relationships but also the structural relations ofcommon humanity (Isa.35:15-20).” 646 Within this universal framework of641 Nouwen, Henri. Reaching Out. (Glasgow: Collins Fount Paperbacks, 1980), 68-69.642 ibid., 70.643 ibid., 66-68.644 Dykstra, Robert. "The Intimate Stranger." In Images of Pastoral Care: Classic Readings,edited by Robert Dykstra, 123-36. (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2005), 131-33.645 Yong, Amos. Hospitality and the Other: Pentecost, Christian Practices and theNeighbour. Edited by William Burrows, Faith Meets Faith: An Orbis Series in InterreligiousDialogue. (New York: Orbis Books, 2008), 62-63, 143.646 ibid., 143.