The Oates Journal (ISSN: 1098-1446) is a publication of the Wayne E. Oates Institute addressing issues related to spirituality, ethics, and healing from the perspective of pastoral care and counseling.

These days there are a variety of ethical codes that define and monitor the personal and collective responsibility for decision making and professional regulation. At the minimum, codes of ethics police individuals of a defined group who explain “these are standards the general public can expect us to follow.” To a greater degree, such codes might have the possibility of bringing a more profound sense of professional awareness, the ability to analyze situations, influence future conduct, and broaden and/or deepen a person’s understanding of one’s role and personal responsibility as a member of a profession and its representative in the community. In general, ethics can be defined as a code of conduct based on universal moral duties and obligations that indicate how one should behave. Ethics deal with the ability to distinguish good from evil, right from wrong, and propriety from impropriety. Apart from a variety of definitions and ethical codes, there are also different types of ethics.

Introduction

One of the most problematic areas of concern in the helping, or care, professions exists within the domain of boundaries between care professionals and clients. Understanding the nature of boundaries and how to regulate them present difficulties as care professionals attempt to define them, to understand their implications, and to become aware of their meaning within the caring relationship.

We propose that the reason boundary violations occur and dual relationships continue to persist is that professionals have not attended to the issue of intimacy in professional/client relationships. This paper puts forth a paradigm for a path to awareness and resolution. At the heart of the paradigm is the concept of intimacy.

Introduction

He knew that I taught Pastoral Counseling, perhaps that was what precipitated the conversation. A precocious young man of 17 years, thoughtful and generally very responsible. We were talking about his plans to go off to college. His parents and I were colleagues; they in parish ministry, I at a university. I am ordained but not in parish ministry. I have not sought licensure as a counselor in my state. As we discussed the apparently benign minutia of finances he remarked that he had made $500 “donating” sperm (directly) to a 22 year-old lesbian. She and her partner wanted children. He was not wholly comfortable with his decision and, a little shocked at his unguarded moment, he asked, “You won’t tell my parents, will you?”

AUTUMN SONATA

If I can let you go as trees let go
their leaves, so casually, one by one;
if I can come to know what they do know,
that fall is the release, the consummation,
then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
would not distemper the great lucid skies
this strangest autumn, mellow and acute.

If I can take the dark with open eyes
and call it seasonal, not harsh and strange
(for love itself may need a time of sleep),
and treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
the strange root still alive under the snow,
love will endure-if I can let you go.

-May Sarton

Autumn Sonata is my song of letting go of anger
toward mis-conducting leaders who have abused power,
stealing innocence and betraying the pastoral office.

Autumn Sonata is my song of letting go of pain
so that a congregation and a pastor might heal.

Autumn Sonata is my song of letting go of victimization.

Autumn Sonata is my song of letting go of the need to please,
allowing this vanilla season of ministry to awaken dormant love.

Autumn Sonata is my song of forgiveness.

The bible is filled with sheep. Everywhere we turn in both Hebrew and Christian scriptures, we find sheep. In all three readings this morning, sheep. And there are dozens more. Throughout the Psalms and Prophets, we find metaphors of sheep and shepherds. In the Gospels, Jesus is identified as the Good Shepherd. And in Matthew, Jesus the Shepherd, says to the disciples: “See, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”