From Theology to Presence: A Twelve-Week CPE Journey of Emptying Out

The transition from the world of academia - where my worth was measured by the complexity of my theological arguments and the depth of my intellectualizing - to the clinical world of Sankofa CPE has been a process of profound "emptying out." In the classroom, I was taught to fill the space with knowledge. In the hospital room and at the community breakfast table, I am learning that the most transformative thing I can offer is a space that is intentionally, vulnerably empty of my own noise, so that it might be filled with the care-seeker’s truth.

Not an actual pastoral care encounter. Patient is an AI generated image to protect confidentiality and privacy.

The Sabotage of the Expert Mind

When I began this unit, my internal "need to fix" was a loud, persistent companion. This instinct is deeply rooted in my history; coming from the corporate world, my professional life was built on fixing problems, optimizing efficiency, and generating measurable results and profits. This "Performer" mindset - a hallmark of my Enneagram Type 3 personality - initially followed me into the clinical setting. I viewed spiritual assessment tools not as an invitation to a shared journey, but as a checklist of data points to be extracted. My early learning goals reflected this tension: I wanted to learn methodologies but feared they would become rigid walls that enforced a "doing" rather than a "being" mode of ministry.

I first felt the weight of this shift during a community breakfast for our unhoused neighbors. I approached a woman who had just been in a conflict, initially motivated by a result-oriented desire to ensure "safety" and "order." However, as we spoke, I realized she was actually a person of immense academic and lived expertise. To truly hear her, I had to move away from my training in psychology and my urge to analyze and fix her situation. I had to lean into my Enneagram Type 2 wing, the Caretaker, to understand that I needed to honor her wisdom over my own. It was a lesson in cultural humility; standing in the "cracks" of the system with her required me to stop trying to “understand” her situation and start witnessing the spiritual path she believed she was being led on through her circumstances. Not question or challenge it, but simply receive it and reflect it back to her. 

"Less is More" and the Quietness of Being

The evolution of my ministry of presence became clearer during an encounter with a man living in a state of constant, systemic fear of detection and deportation. Sitting in the stillness of a garden, the Type 3 "fixer" in me felt a desperate pull to offer legal resources or logical solutions to his anxiety. This is what I call the "intellectual bypass" - the urge to solve a problem so I don't have to sit in the pain of it.

Instead, I practiced the "Less is More" approach. By quieting the performer who wanted to generate a solution, I was able to simply reflect back the heavy images he used to describe his life - feeling like a ghost or living in a cage without walls. I discovered that a chaplain's silence can be more pastoral than any theological lecture. This grounding has been essential for me as an empath. By utilizing centering and shielding rituals - imagining my heart as a place of calm in the storm - I have been able to sit with the grief of others without becoming enmeshed in their trauma or trying to "produce" a better outcome for them.

The Vulnerability of Self

A critical turning point in these twelve weeks was learning the "appropriate use of self." My visits with people struggling with their history or their shame challenged me to bring my own identity out of the shadows. There is a temptation for the "Performer" to maintain a professional, detached distance to stay in control or to overshare and take the spotlight away from the care receiver. This also carried with it the risk of hubris, falsely claiming "Oh, I know exactly how you feel.”  However, I found that by cautiously sharing my own struggles in the right context and at the right moment, I could help people feel seen and less alone without pulling the focus from their experience.

In more than one case, a simple admission of my own humanity was the key to help people start to let go of a heavy burden of shame and start to find hope in their own lives. I am finding that my presence as a queer minister is not just a personal detail about my life. In my ministry context (largely LGBTQIA+), my liberation of myself has become a pastoral intervention that offers them liberation as well. When I live my life with authenticity, integrity, and joy, sometimes others begin to believe that they can the same too.

Finding the Softer Spirit

The culmination of this growth occurred in the quietness of a hospital room just this past weekend, visiting a man recovering from a major surgery. The room was initially filled with the high-energy celebration with friends of his long-term sobriety. The corporate version of me might have simply celebrated that "result" and moved on to the next task. However, the "softened spirit" and observational skills I have been cultivating in CPE allowed me to see the exhaustion behind his mask.

Helping him physically move from his bed to a chair was a manifestation of my new ministry: I was no longer an observer trying to generate a positive report, but a support for a body and a spirit that were trying to knit itself back together. In that quiet hour, we moved past the "spiritual bypass" of pretending everything was OK and entered a space of honest lament. Facilitating a moment where he could finally admit his fatigue to his husband, and then sealing that honesty with a shared ritual of grape and grain, felt like the most authentic expression of my calling. I wasn't an expert on his illness; I was a witness to the sacred peaks and valleys of his life, which he started experiencing with honesty for the first time.

Conclusion: Ready for the Response

As I look toward the next phase of my CPE process, I find myself braver. I no longer wait for a crisis to justify sitting with someone. I am simply approaching people, sitting in the quiet corners, and asking them how they are. I am centered and ready for any response - even the response of silence. I have placed my theology and my corporate "fixer" instincts on the back burner; they are there if I need them, but the spotlight now belongs to the person in front of me. I am learning to be "Just Christopher" - one beloved child of God sitting across from another - and in that simplicity, I am finding the power of the Holy and of spiritual liberation for both of us.