Social Work, Thomas Sowell and Christ-Centered Phenomenology...But First...

I provided a segue from my last post to this one, saying I was going to share how I became connected with my new hero, Dr. Thomas Sowell - but first - a moment to acknowledge the "March For Our Lives" that is being held today in Washington DC.

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Okay.  Some thoughts.

It is unfathomably sad, grievous and an abomination that schoolchildren are gunned down at school.  I know how it feels to have guns pulled on me in a public place.  In 1988, I worked as a bank teller in Tulsa, Oklahoma and was present at 2 armed bank robberies during the 1 year I worked there.  On both occasions, 2 men suddenly burst through the bank doorway and told us all to lie down on the ground while they took the money in our teller drawers.  Guns were wielded and waved around but no shots were fired.  The day after the first robbery,  I phoned my mother crying on the way to work and could only make it through a half-day once I got there.  One of the other bank tellers never made it back to that branch because of the traumatic after-effects she suffered.

The survivors of school shootings or any event like that are never the same.  Other similar happenings from the past include the post-office shooting that coined the term "going postal"; the McDonald's and Luby's buffet shootings; and the grocery store shootings that occurred in the 80's (Note:  Please forgive that I am not giving stats and links to these events and feel free to clarify in comments section if you wish - I just don't have the time in my life at this point to include all of the data and get any blogging accomplished! Please utilize internet searches ;) ).  Anyway...

What I am saying is that the pain is REAL and we were not meant as human beings to suffer trauma.  My heart goes out to the response of human beings who want to DO something substantial about this problem that, because of our constant access to media, is brought to our knowledge.  Every person who hears of the bad news of a terror attack, a shooting of unsuspecting innocent people, and other horrors the news brings to our awareness is traumatized by the hearing of that news and the knowledge it brings.

The pain experienced by us humans of carrying knowledge the ever-present media provides to us (whether we want it or not)  provokes in us a TRUE human response.  It  says loud and clear, from a deep primal place of knowing, "NO!  THIS SHOULD NOT BE!  WE MUST STOP THIS!"  I too have this response of "NO!!!"

What adds to the pain between us humans is the resulting FIGHT BETWEEN HUMAN BEINGS emanating from the emotional response.  This is WRONG.  This ADDS to the pain.  It does not solve it, alleviate it, soothe it;  in fact it MAKES IT WORSE because people become DIVIDED.  People become divided who AGREE about the KEY PROBLEM which, in this case is, KIDS (AND ANYONE ELSE) SHOULD NOT BE GETTING KILLED BY GUNS IN SCHOOLS.

So now there is a March For Our Lives today, but it is ALIENATING a whole group of PEOPLE who AGREE about the SAME KEY PROBLEM.  For instance, the NRA is being demonized.  Instead of dialoguing with the NRA - (some are, but we are not hearing about these dialogues in the mainstream media - only in conservative outlets) - the entire NRA as a group is demonized.  President Trump is demonized and blamed.  Conservatives are demonized and blamed.  Conservatives who also do not want people getting killed in shootings are blamed.  But these things cannot be talked about because PEOPLE are not able to REGULATE THEIR EMOTIONS and talk with one another, BELIEVING THE BEST FOR EACH OTHER.

Without the ability to regulate emotions, NO ONE CAN TALK about the problems in our society and NO ONE CAN BEGIN to solve them.  All that can be done is FIGHT.

THERE HAS GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY.

Well - I apologize, but I do not have time to talk about the first parts of the title of this entry today - I must get to work on my STATISTICS and other PhD ASSIGNMENTS.

I will save Social Work, Thomas Sowell and Christ Phenomenology for the next post - which I will not promise to do tomorrow - but will try.

John 16:33 - Jesus said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you have tribulation: but take courage; I have overcome the world."
(New American Standard Bible)

Christian Ministry and Social Work

As a Christian, I rely on the leading of the Lord to guide my focus, thoughts and forward movement in life. This reliance has never steered me wrong in 35 years after consciously making the decision to follow Jesus, and now it is true more than ever as I embark on the journey of becoming a Christian scholar.

At age 52 as of this day (3/21/2018), Social Work scholarship is a second career, the first being a professional classical vocalist and church musician. Perhaps I should say Social Work is a “third career”, as carrying and birthing my four children, two sets of boy-girl twins, and focusing upon their nurture and development during their preschool years was a career for certain that I thoroughly enjoyed and will never regret focusing my life upon! As a wise social work supervisor said to me just before I left my job in 2003 to fully focus on my first pregnancy at home: “Work will always be there for you to return to later.” I was 37 years old. A late bloomer in many ways!

At age 50, I returned to work. I joined my husband of 30 years (a gifted Anglican priest, teacher and pastor ordained in 1994), in beginning to hold church services in our home in May of 2015 following an unexpected change in his employment. This change, while difficult to navigate at the time, ultimately freed us up to think outside of the box for our financial and vocational futures. The church, All Souls Anglican, (under the Nigerian Diocese of CANA East and Bishop Julian Dobbs) is soon entering its 4th year of weekly Sunday worship with a small core of committed members who actively live out their Christian faith in authenticity and community with us. All Souls’ primary focus is to reach out to the hurting and needy in our community – that often includes each other, but also anyone who would like to come and “hang out”, share a meal, and in some cases, require temporary lodging and spiritual care to assess their next step. Pastoral Care and Social Work, it turns out, are two very compatible professions.

I was surfing Wikipedia earlier today as I was looking for information about a new Episcopal priest being installed in our community, a female. It got me thinking about the subject of women's ordination in the Episcopal church and I thought I would look up information about the famous Philadelphia Eleven, the 11 female deacons that were ordained by rogue bishops in 1974. Wikipedia detailed each of the 11 and gave a biography of each - several had, in addition to seeking Holy Orders, also obtained their Master of Social Work degree (MSW). I thought this was interesting and not surprising! I would like to study further the connection between religion/spirituality and the "call" to the profession of Social Work.

When I began my own journey towards my MSW degree,  I did so fairly blindly.  I mean, did I even know what a social worker was?  An influential woman in my life who was my counselor was a clinical social worker.  I shared with her my desire to be a counselor to others and she encouraged me to get my MSW.  Almost immediately as I began the coursework, I saw that, although one's spiritual life was not a centerpiece of social work education per se, the connection for me was obvious.  I saw that social work was actually "ministry" as I understood it.  While being a political conservative put me in a minority camp as far as the social work profession is concerned, the common ground I share with my profession is care and concern for all people, all of the human race.

I am reading “Race and Culture” by Dr. Thomas Sowell. Although he has been well-known in the conservative community for decades, I have only recently, in the last week actually, discovered him. He is my new hero, as I have been searching for the way to articulate my reactions and concern over what I hear from the Social Work community regarding racism.   The providential manner in which I came in contact with his writings will be the subject for my next blog post.