UUMA Ministry Days
Trauma Response For Ministers

"When we look back, let's hope that we can say that this work is the hardest work we ever had to do." Thus began Rev. Danita Noland as she addressed UU ministerial colleagues, sharing with them the ministry she and other UU ministers and ministerial candidates did at Ground Zero in New York following the September 11th tragedies.

Noland, the Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt, the Rev. Sue Suchocki Brown, and ministerial candidate Shayna Appel shared with colleagues their experiences and impressions at Ground Zero, while the Rev. Joel Miller spoke of his experiences as the minister of Columbine UU Congregation in Littleton, Colorado, following the school shooting there several years ago. Prior to these events, none of these ministers had responded to mass crises, and none of them were prepared for the depth of experience and loss that they encountered in this work.

Noland spoke of the three types of ministry performed. The first was the ministry of presence, simply being available to the frontline and support workers, offering water and a listening heart. The second form was crisis counseling, one-on-one counseling with workers as they sought to gain perspective and understanding on the work they were doing. The third was that of praying over the recovered remains as they were removed from the site, helping the recovery workers release their precious loads. In each of these, those who sought out the chaplains found relief by the presence of chaplains.

But it was not always easy for the chaplains to receive the proper credentials to gain access at the site. None of the various relief agencies that had authority at Ground Zero had prior plans sufficient to handle a disaster on the scale of Ground Zero. In the understandable confusion of the time, no comprehensive system for verifying the credentials of those who wished to serve was established. As well, there was no coordination of services, and although there were many religious traditions represented on site, there was no authority assisting them in ensuring that all the necessary work was done.

Additionally, since the Unitarian Universalist Association had no trauma ministry response team in place prior to September 11th, it was difficult for clergy who wished to serve to find a way into the chaos. Noland, Bray and Appel had to rely upon their persistence and connection with chaplains in other traditions to get them on site.

Yet through their work, the UU chaplains at Ground Zero realized that there was a critical need for liberal clergy at such times. Too often assumptions were made by other clergy: that all whose bodies were recovered were Catholic and needed particular sacraments, or that everyone they spoke to was Christian, or believed in God. By living and working in the midst of our pluralistic religious communities, our UU clergy understand how to appreciate the religious leanings of the individual, and respect the wide diversity of religious traditions that exist in the nation.

In response to their experiences, Bray, Noland and Appel began the groundwork that is leading to the creation of the Unitarian Universalist Trauma Response Ministry. They recruited others who were at Ground Zero, the Rev. Sue Suchocki Brown (a fire chaplain in Massachusetts), and the Rev. Jan Carlsson-Bull (community minister at All Souls in New York City), as well as the Rev. Joel Miller (the first minister on site at Columbine), the Rev. Lisa Presley (a police chaplain), and the Rev. Kate Seitz Bortner (police chaplain in York, Pennsylvania, and a civilian employee of the York Police Department). Currently, this group is working with the UUA's Department of Ministry and the UU Ministers' Association to ensure that we are ready to respond when crises and trauma strike our communities and/or congregations in the future.

Reporter Lisa Presley; Web Designer Anna Belle Leiserson

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