Center for Soul Care: Fostering Relational Holiness
by Marilyn Elliot, (2006, DMin; 1998, MA), Vice President of Community Formation
As Asbury Seminary begins a gentle launch of the Center for Soul Care (located in McPheeters across from the Asbury Inn), we envision a kind of whole-self holiness that is intrinsically tied to relationships and community. Holiness in this sense is not simply a personal set of moral choices or standards of behavior, but rather a living, vital, dance of life and love modeled after the self-giving interplay of the Trinity. Without losing personal identity and grace, life is shared and love wins the day.
We are a community deeply embedded in orthodox faith, vital piety and shared practices including deep theological reflection. On the other hand, we have sometimes exalted the ends of holiness against the process of becoming whole. The Center for Soul Care envisions Asbury becoming a ‘holding community.’1 Think for a moment of the human need to be held, evident in all seasons of life. True, the holding, if appropriate, looks different at different stages. But the need remains, none the less. A holding community in our setting might mean a level of hospitality where any person can find a comfortable level of belonging, where people feel secure without feeling managed or manipulated, where authentic struggle, confession and forgiveness are normalized, and where welcome can endure during times when individuals find themselves at odds with each other or the institution. The Soul Care vision hopes for nothing less than ongoing transformation of lives into the beauty of Christ-likeness, resulting in a community marked by qualities such as gentleness, fidelity, courage, joy, etc.
Experiences of and in such a community are contagious. We reproduce what we are, not what we say. A transformed life supported by a community of faith and love becomes an embodiment of the gospel to the whole world.
“Asbury Theological Seminary will be a generative center for a renewed emphasis on holiness around the world. A neo-holiness movement, generated from Asbury, which envisions holiness as not merely forensic, but relational; not only private but public, global and missional; methods, content and structures will fuse academic and formational values in the “nuptial embrace” which Wesley envisioned. Asbury should embody a global Christian community marked by holiness in the classroom, in worship, in prayer, and in our service to Christ throughout the world.” (Strategic Goal #3)
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1 The idea of a holding community was introduced by Donald Winnicott, English pediatrician and psychoanalyst, in Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. London: Karnac, l995.
I like this idea of Asbury becoming a “holding community.” I try to create the experience of a “holding environment” for my clients in pastoral counseling! Keep me posted on how this develops.
I think this Center on Soul Care is needed. Will this generative center have an outreach/impact on those grieving through spiritual injury? How about the spiritual effects of PTSD, specifically, combat PTSD? Are we developing a theology of suffering? Do we have a pneumatraumatology?
Scott, one of our hopes is that this center will become a safe place, embedded in a community that is increasingly healthy, where such people as you mention find a measure of rest, if not healing. We realize that true healing is usually a long process, but there can be moments where healing takes hold. I have been reading the book ‘Spirit and Trauma’ by Shelly Rambo. The need for a theology of suffering, of pain, is very great. This will have to grow, for sure, but such an understanding as well as room for lament is surely part of a healthy community.
Thank you, Marilyn. Brueggemann writes about a communal cry of lament. Tick writes about another community, a warrior society in “War and the Soul”. Frankl writes about finding meaning in the suffering in “Man’s Search for Meaning”. All vital elements in overcoming spiritual injury, in the new field of pneumatraumatology, the study of the wounding of the Spirit (and the spirit).