John T McFadden - The spiritual care of the deeply forgetful: Redefining chaplaincy for the new culture of memory care

1. The spiritual care of the
deeply forgetful: Redefining
chaplaincy for the new
culture of memory care
John T. McFadden

3. The Memory Project will make
quality of life measurably better in
our community by easing the fear
and isolation associated with
dementia, and by increasing access to
the resources people need to live
well with dementia.

4. The Fox Valley Memory Project:
Creating a dementia-friendly
community in northeast WI
Memory Cafés
Care Partners Welcome Center
Memory Assessment Center
Research and Sustainability
Purpose and Livelihood
Community Education
Long Term Care Outreach

5. Building Bridges to the community

11. Elizabeth MacKinlay’s Model of Spirituality
Spirituality:
ultimate
meaning
mediated
through…
Relationships
The arts
Environment
Religion

12. What is the good life?
What is fulfillment?
What is required of you?

13. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel:
“It is through the experience of
being obligated that we truly
exist.”

14. Meister Eckhart
(13th century Christian mystic)
When God laughs at the soul and the soul
laughs back at God, the persons of the Trinity
are begotten. To speak in hyperbole, when
the Father laughs to the Son and the Son
laughs back to the Father, that laughter gives
pleasure, that pleasure gives joy, that joy
gives love, and love gives the persons [of the
Trinity] of which the Holy Spirit is one.
(Blakney, 1941, p. 245)

15. One person’s “joy zones”

16. Selfhood and the Divine Image are
defined relationally
While dementia may bring many
losses and changes, it does not
exclude us from sharing in
relationships of laughter, pleasure,
joy and love, with God and with one
another!

17. Continuing friendship when our
friend no longer remembers the
story of our friendship: Receiving
the gifts our friend can offer
A new experience of time
Playfulness and laughter
Deeper perspectives on self and the
things of ultimate worth and value

18. Chaplaincy in the New Culture of
Memory Care:
• Affirming and
enhancing the capacity
to share in relationships
of laughter, pleasure,
joy and love
• Affirming the inherent
dignity of obligations,
including moral
obligations (kindness to
others)
• Helping to weave the
web of community in
which the categories
that differentiate and
divide (residents, staff,
family, friends, etc) are
“softened.”