Back in the 1970s, I studied psychology as part of my preparation for ministry. I did an extended internship in a Wholistic Health Center, serving as a pastoral counselor. I thought that I would pursue counseling as a major focus of my ministry and was interested in pursuing health care ministry. However, one of my mentors suggested that experience as the pastor of a local congregation would be a good thing to pick up early in my career. He suggested that I go from my seminary education to serving a local church for “three or four” years before entering a specialized ministry. The advice seemed to make sense for me and Susan and I created and circulated ministerial profiles seeking a position that we could share as co-pastors. I very much wanted to move back to Montana, so we sent our profiles there as well as circulating them in states that neighbored Montana. The result of that search was the call to serve two small congregations in southwest North Dakota.

The advice of my friend proved to be just the right advice for me, except for the “three or four” years part. When I tell the story now, I simply say, “It took me more than 40 years to get that “three or four” years of experience. What occurred was that I fell in love with serving congregations. We served those congregations in North Dakota for seven years and when it was time for us to move on from that call, we served a congregation in Idaho for a decade. After that, we were pastors of a congregation in South Dakota for 25 years. I never returned to specialized ministry and I have not regretted that decision.

One of the gifts that I brought to my work in congregations was my background in counseling and health care ministry. Studying psychology and counseling gave me a depth of understanding the lives of those I served that was frequently helpful. It also gave me a perspective on my own life.

It was back in the late 1970’s when I was serving in my internship as a pastoral counselor that I encountered the work of psychologist Pauline Boss. She worked with the families of soldiers who had gone missing in action. She wrote about her search for a way to address the specific issues of grieving someone when you didn’t know whether or not they were dead. I paid special attention to Boss’ work because I was encountering clients in my counseling who were struggling with unresolved issues from their time serving in war. World War II veterans were achieving success in business and other ventures, but often came to counseling to be able to discuss issues related to their wartime experiences that they had never addressed. I learned that the words, “I’ve never told anyone before,” often preceded a traumatic and ambiguous story. At the same time the 1978 film, “The Deer Hunter” prompted veterans of the War in Vietnam, my age or slightly older, to take another look at their wartime service and I noticed that they had unique struggles dealing with traumatic experiences in their lives.

Boss came up with the concept of “ambiguous loss” to describe the complex emotions that surround a loss that doesn’t allow for complete closure. She described getting people to accept that they were dealing with a “both/and” situation. Someone could be both here and not here. Grief could involve both regret and relief. Most importantly, Boss taught that people could learn to live with duality and still lead a satisfying life.

I think that my background in counseling veterans was helpful in my work as a pastor as I began to deal with those who lost relatives to dementia. I know that it helped me as I began to do more and more work with those who lost loved ones to suicide. Before I knew much at all about Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), I had gained significant experience in working with people who had experienced trauma and post-traumatic stress.

In my personal life, this background has been very helpful in my role as a parent. Our daughter was adopted as an infant. As such, she did not experience the attachment challenges faced by many adoptees who experienced trauma related to separation from birth parents. She has no conscious memories of her life before she came to live in our family. Most of the experience of being her parents were very similar to the experiences of being parents of a child born into our family. However, as our daughter became an adult, we learned to be honest about the simple fact that we had incomplete information about her birth family. Much of her health history was missing. Details about her origins were lost. She has been very mature in dealing with these ambiguities. I think this is in part due to the fact that we were able to discuss them openly with here. Understanding the concepts of ambiguous loss helped me to be fully present to her questions about her origins. She, and we as her parents, have learned to live with the lack of information about her birth family. Her questions were no threat to us as parents. When she became a mother, the deep bond she and her husband have formed with their son is a delight for all of us. Her husband was also adopted as an infant and together they are wonderfully natural parents who are deeply attached to their son.

Traumatic life events can become sources of strength and resilience when they are acknowledged and treated. Understanding that our emotions are complex and that our struggles are real, can help us to accept the “both/and” realities of our lives. Being a parent is both hard work and a source of deep joy. Children can experience unconditional love and still struggle with tough emotions. A pastor can be an effective counselor and still thrive on the general work of congregational ministry without becoming a specialized pastoral counselor.

Much of our lives are experiences of “both/and.” Learning to live with ambiguous loss is a valuable life skill.