American Association of Pastoral Counselors

 

 

CURRENTS

 

Perhaps it is because AAPC is headed to Indiana in the spring and that state has been very much on my mind for the past several months as the Program Planning Committee, the local arrangements chairs, and others have been preparing the way . . .

 

Or, perhaps because I am in the midst of the normal frenzy of December with its holiday preparations, client hours filled with family stories and narratives of despair and hope, end-of-semester supervision reports, papers and grade anxieties . . .

 

Or, perhaps because AAPC is in the midst of a busy season of receiving reports from task forces and committees while creating more task forces for the next layer of our corporate life; the Finance Committee and the Board are engaged in strategic conversations about how to invite people to pay their dues for the past year (or more) and how to re-engage people who have disappeared from our annual meetings over the years; the leadership development committee has done an incredible job of finding good persons who are willing to bring their gifts and graces to leadership in the Association; the Leadership Team and the Board have been adding people to appointed committees while getting ready to say goodbye in the coming year to some who have served faithfully; Committee and Regional chairs are preparing for the Action Council meeting in January so that we might move toward our spring meeting in April with clarity about by-law changes and strategic plans . . .

 

Whatever the reason, I have been thinking about a place in Indiana whose tag line reads, “Find your way back to quiet.” New Harmony, a little community along the banks of the Wabash River west of Evansville, Indiana, was created out of visions of utopia. Built originally as a spiritual center, its second community was established as a haven for intellectuals. Paul Tillich’s grave is located there, along with two labyrinths and multiple stories of persons who have come to New Harmony to seek equality in community. Today the community includes various artisans and those whose families have lived there for generations. The old inn has been re-established and is an invitation to those of us who live in the hectic pace of the world to come to New Harmony and find quietness.

 

I am often aware that the clients with whom we work yearn for a place of quietness away from the chaos of their lives – a space apart from the buzz, twitters, e-mails, and instant messages of ordinary demands – to sit with someone who cares about what is extraordinary in their lives. And, I am aware that in order to be present and to provide a space apart, I must also “find my way back to quiet” so that the Presence of One who is beyond might be embodied in the moments we sit together. Those connected with The American Association of Pastoral Counselors have crafted generations of artisans who have invited people into the quietness, in order that they may find their way back into their own lives with renewed vision, hope, and meaning. May we continue to do so with grace in order that the world might be changed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

2010 Annual Conference   - SCHOLARSHIPS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AAPC will hold its annual meeting at the Hyatt Regency Downtown Hotel in Indianapolis, Indiana, April 17, 2010. The annual meeting agenda will include reports of Association activities of the past year and the presentation of the annual budget for 2009-10. 

Respectively submitted,

Dee E. Webber, AAPC Secretary