Culture Moves

In a country that is deeply polarized economically, politically and socially, extra research, awareness and energy is required to remain cognizant of how specific cultural beliefs, practices and values impact our behavior and encounters with careseekers. As we seek to learn more about those we serve through the contextual frameworks that inform their stories, it demands that we have more than a textbook understanding of cultural traits and tropes. It requires clear acknowledgement of the dynamic nature of cultural variables and how they present themselves during an encounter. This Is difficult work given we are all carrying unexamined biases that are always negotiating ethnicity, religion and race. Chaplains who demonstrate cultural humility are likely to experience growth and revelation from cross cultural experiences that can deepen their practice. In this Forest Find, culture is deconstructed and its components are connected to very specific examples for members to ponder. Share your challenges in the Forest Finds space in the community for us to journey together.

From Cultural Competency to Cultural Humility

The Impact of Competency on Care

For many of us in the western world our introduction to ritual or symbolic acts was through the academic lens of anthropology or sociology. The view of ritual from the humanities has often shown that rituals belong to “the other,” thus separating us from the potential of ritual in our lives.

The thought pieces below give us permission to not know, and to instead imagine new pathways to engage culture to create and understand ritual and symbolic acts in our caregiving practice.

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