Rhythm's influence on pastoral care and counseling throughout history

Pastoral Care and Counseling

An Analysis of the Rhythm of Pastoral Care and Counseling throughout Time

Kevin Massey observes that "ritual has a profound capacity to provide pastoral care…Gesture and action in ritual deliver spiritual support in ways that can provide hope and healing" (4). According to Massey, ritual is nothing more than an established method of procedure, and as such it is inherently rhythmic. Rhythm, too, is an ordering mechanism that provides a recurrence of alternating accents (most typically a combination of accented/unaccented elements). Rhythm and ritual are intimately connected to human nature, as humans are essentially creatures of habit. Pastoral care and counseling throughout time have always taken into account man's habitual nature and his proclivity to rhythm, whether it be the march of a drum, the cadence of liturgy, or the observance of the rising and setting of the sun. This paper will analyze the concept, historical streams, theology and current value of pastoral care and the counseling process from the perspective of rhythm's influence.

What is Rhythm?

Arthur Just states, "In our worship, we repeat the same things Sunday in and Sunday out to learn the posture of forgiveness in daily life" (5). Rhythm is thus an essential, guiding quality of liturgy. The concept of repetition and rhythm has never been lost on the most profound thinkers. The historical streams of pastoral care and counseling have never been without it, from the practice of the ancient pagans to modern Christians. Rhythm has been a part of chant, prayer, and religious expression. From the beginning of time, rhythm has been present in nature and in worship:

Rhythm, which organizes repetition, makes things memorable, as in music, poetry, rhetoric, architecture, and the plastic arts no less than in liturgical worship. Rhythm constantly insinuates, as propagandists know. It constantly reasserts, as good teachers know. It constantly forms individuals into units, as demagogues and cheerleaders know. It both shrouds and bares meaning which escapes mere words, as poets know. It fuses people to their values and forges them to common purpose, as orators such as Cato, Churchill and Martin Luther King knew. (Just 8).

The ancient Greek paeans were rhythmic, poem-prayers of joy to the gods, just as David's psalms were musical poems constructed according to a kind of musical rhythm. David's psalms have been incorporated into Church liturgy for centuries, serving as part of the ritual of worship. One of the functions of ritual, as Just notes, is to "communicate meaning symbolically" (5).

David, a Judaic symbol of the pastor and Shepherd, serves as the guiding rhythmic light of the house of Christ -- the spiritual shepherd. As Susan Carole Roy notes, "Pastoral Care and ritual are venues to healing for individuals and faith communities who seek to live in mutual relationship with the vast variety of God's creatures" (9). David, the Shepherd-poet-king and foreshadower of Christ, is a perfect example of the kind of rhythm that governs pastoral care and counseling. David's piping before the Ark of the Covenant during the triumphal procession that led it to its place in the Temple served a double significance: it marked David as a pastor and as a counselor, whose "music" had a sublime, spiritual, and healing effect.

Rhythm and Prehistoric Man

Rhythm and ritual even affected prehistoric man in life and worship. From the seasons of the year (which determined how nomadic tribes would move) to the rhythm found in nature (like the movement of animals), the rhythm of survival dictated to prehistoric man that life depended upon a strict observance of nature. Evidence of prehistoric man's dependence upon ritual is largely suggested in the scant relics still left today like the menhirs at Locmariaquer in Brittany or at Stonehenge, which, as many speculate, held a function in important rituals.

The Mayans, for example, observed the cycles of rain and harvest -- a blending of human life and nature's rhythms that has been achieved by groups across the world. Observance of the tides of the sea and the moon helped tribes understand the rhythm of nature, even allowing some to escape the unexpected dangers of rising tides and tsunamis, which were signs of aberrant behavior in nature. The cycles and light of the moon led to moon worship, and the woman's cycle even had its effect in the ancient religion of the Indians, where the bindi has its beginning in the menstruation of a goddess.

The rhythm of dance, such as found in African and Native American ritual, has held a similar significance in religious and community observance. Ritualistic dance conveys a spiritual narrative that repeats itself in a variety of customary ways. The rhythmic dynamic stretches from pagan dance to Buddhist meditation and Indian yoga; where rhythm, breathing, and focus are key components in attaining spiritual peace. Yoga exercise comes from the Hindu snake tradition that incorporates unification of the body, spirit, and world into its purpose. The charismatic movement of today follows a similar path by using, repetition, vibration, and vocal prayer to effect a kind of heightened communicative approach to the divine within a communal setting.

The Concept of Pastoral Care

The concept of pastoral care and counseling is defined by Roy as "a safe environment in which people may share stories that have not yet found a venue for expression and thus potential healing" (9). Rhythm and ritual play an important part in the creation of such a venue: "Ritualization is about the ordering of experience and the creating of meaning" (Roy 9). The ancient Greeks did exactly this with their liturgical dramas that centered on the lives of the gods and were celebrated in conjunction with the religious rites and festivals of their liturgical calendar.

The medieval Church did the same. The mystery plays of pre-Shakespearean England are odes to the Christian mysteries performed numerous times according to custom, script, and liturgical calendar -- facilitating a pastoral effect on the audience and guiding it from the stage to the church.

Differences

The difference between pastoral care and pastoral counseling is minimal, according to Thomas O'Connor: "Utilizing an evidence-based and narrative approach, [O'Connor] examines the ideas of a variety of historical and contemporary writers to illustrate…that there is little difference between pastoral care and pastoral counseling." Pastoral care and counseling, in the early Church, took the form of various arguments against heresies, such as Augustine's works against the Manicheans. For the early Christians, pastoral care and counseling were synonymous: they were seen in the Church's works as they mirrored Christ's ministry and teachings. St. Lawrence's care for the poor and Ambrose's preaching to the multitudes were both examples of pastoral care and counseling.

Later in the Church's life, scholasticism came to contain the defining minutiae of pastoral care and counseling. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica was a work designed to reconcile faith and reason: his famous quinquae viae was an attempt to prove the existence of God through "five ways" or uses of natural reason.

The Protestant Reformation radically changed the concept of pastoral care and counseling by denying the Church its teaching authority and placing ultimate emphasis on Scripture and personal interpretation. Individualization resulted and as the world became more modern following the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and Industrialization, care and counseling came to have even more meanings.

Counseling in the twentieth century took a very psychoanalytic turn with the theories of Freud and his descendents treating of the subconscious (or unconscious). Pastoral care, however, traditionally has treated only of the conscious. Pastoral care is less concerned with the unconscious desires or Berne's child, adult and parent states than it is with man's personal relationship with God. Pastoral counseling, as O'Connor states, is no different -- it only becomes different when it is viewed from a different context, such as that of professional counseling ala Freudian psychoanalysis.

Mettnitzer states, "Whilst pastoral work is aimed at the consciousness of men, the duty of the psychotherapist is to turn the subconscious into the conscious." According to Mettnitzer, the two approaches may be dissimilar, but their objectives are the same: "Both are characterized by a pragmatic individualism that says that it is worth listening to a single person for days, weeks, months or years until it is ascertained what the soul suffers from." Thus, the modern perspective of pastoral care and counseling is based on listening and healing. It is much different from the medieval basis which emphasized dogmatic teaching and training; healing implied exorcism, and the sacrament of Penance (confession or reconciliation as it is now termed) offered the most spiritual and direct avenue to "healing."

My Philosophy Regarding Pastoral Care

Liturgy, therefore, acts as a conduit of grace. "Within the structure of the ritual there is the opportunity for great joy that results from the surprise we experience when, within the ritual, things happen that we did not expect. This surprise is only possible if there is a pattern of formal, repetitive behavior" (Just 5). Such ritualism was highly orthodox in the medieval world, where ceremony and liturgy were united. Gregorian chant emphasized the transcendent as well as the melodic and harmonic elements of nature. But it also utilized the rhythmic element -- chant is one of the most fundamental aspects of worship -- and thus it is of great value in the world of pastoral care and counseling.

The importance of ritualistic worship as an aspect of pastoral care and counseling goes beyond the benefit derived from the individual. It extends to the community as a whole, and has done so for centuries and in several different cultures. Pastors should acquaint themselves with ritualistic worship for the good of the souls they lead:

Rituals cause communities to cohere as a group, and in many cases, that cohesion is the means by which the group is able to survive. Such survival is very true of religious rituals where not only identity is being formed, but where faith is handed down through the religious rites of the community. The history of both Jews and Christians is marked by times of persecution where their liturgical rituals helped them survive as a community. Our historic liturgy, which we call the Divine Service, is a pattern of formal, repetitive behavior. (Just 6)

Thus, liturgical worship is of prime importance in the strengthening of communities. Pastoral care and counseling should be directed toward the spiritual fulfillment of the needs of men and women.

Arthur Just is not incorrect in pointing out the problem of modern pastoral counseling ala the kind administered by Liberation Theologians: it is a lack of the spirituality that pervaded the medieval world: "Unfortunately, since the Enlightenment, our church buildings and their liturgies have become temples to the rational mind, and we have eschewed the sensuousness of the ancient liturgies of the church" (6). The Enlightenment essentially enshrined Reason as the new pastoral guide and dethroned Christ.

Yet, Just proceeds to recognize the highest goal of ritual -- survival. "If the final goal of ritual is survival, then this is why, at these moments of great change where emotions are charged and people are on edge, our natural tendency is to create ritual to help us negotiate these significant boundaries" (7). Uniting oneself with nature and its rhythm is the first step allowing God's grace to build upon that nature, which in turn allows the individual to grow -- and survive.

Conclusion

In conclusion, rhythm has always been a key element in religious ritual, which has, consequently, historically been an essential element in pastoral care and counseling. Only recently has that same care and counseling drifted towards a more social, economic, and political platform, with movements like Liberation Theology inspired by Gustavo Guttierez's readings of Marx and Scripture. However, for true care to be administered, primacy of the spiritual must be seen -- and such is where the cadence of the liturgy comes into play.

Reference List

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