The Chaplaincy Innovation Lab (CIL) collaborated with the Fetzer Institute to support and build networks of and for spiritual care providers of color amid the COVID-19 pandemic, racial reckoning, and the legacies of racial violence. CIL adopted the conversation circle, a simple yet innovative virtual method that brings together a network of chaplains of color to develop strategic and supportive conversations for challenging racial structures. Drawing from Womanist theology and using the metaphor of a quilt, we attend to the work of chaplaincy and all chaplains of color as parts of an intricate, varied whole. By lifting the caretakers of the community, we hope to uplift the whole community. This chapter will document the inception, need, methodology, and outcomes of the Conversation Circle Project (CCP), a 3-year program (2021–2023) demonstrating the necessity and efficacy of structured and facilitated gatherings. The CCP provided a virtual, sacred space of healing for sharing stories, offering peer support, and ritualizing and normalizing experiences of joy, grief, pain, and celebration in the life of a chaplain. Participants were challenged to stretch beyond the known and comfortable with respect to identity, vocation, self-care, and organizational competencies.

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The Conversation Circles: A Sacred Space of Healing

  • Tahara Akmal,
  • Kirstin C. Boswell,
  • Su Yon Pak,
  • Helen H. Chung

摘要

The Chaplaincy Innovation Lab (CIL) collaborated with the Fetzer Institute to support and build networks of and for spiritual care providers of color amid the COVID-19 pandemic, racial reckoning, and the legacies of racial violence. CIL adopted the conversation circle, a simple yet innovative virtual method that brings together a network of chaplains of color to develop strategic and supportive conversations for challenging racial structures. Drawing from Womanist theology and using the metaphor of a quilt, we attend to the work of chaplaincy and all chaplains of color as parts of an intricate, varied whole. By lifting the caretakers of the community, we hope to uplift the whole community. This chapter will document the inception, need, methodology, and outcomes of the Conversation Circle Project (CCP), a 3-year program (2021–2023) demonstrating the necessity and efficacy of structured and facilitated gatherings. The CCP provided a virtual, sacred space of healing for sharing stories, offering peer support, and ritualizing and normalizing experiences of joy, grief, pain, and celebration in the life of a chaplain. Participants were challenged to stretch beyond the known and comfortable with respect to identity, vocation, self-care, and organizational competencies.