On Thursday morning I had an appointment with Dr Marcus McKinney, Director of Community Outreach and Pastoral Counselling and Assistant Professor in the department of Psychiatry at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Centre, Hartford, Connecticut, New England, USA.
Dr McKinney has run for many years a Pastoral Counselling Training Programme that reaches out to virtually anyone that’s doing helping work for people who are struggling with emotional issues - be they recovery or mental health issues.
About 5000 people have gone through his classes to date. Half are people of colour coming from urban settings where churches and other agencies and people that were providing help, were asking for something that would blend spiritual depth and meaning with psychological understanding.
Sometimes, people in the religious community didn’t have that opportunity or sometimes, people in the psychological world or recovery world had not been exposed to spiritual ideas.
Based on a kind of depth psychology and a sense of meaning, he has provided training that uses everyday language and is supported in his work by the state of Connecticut and by lots of people from all walks of life who, tonight, and every other night, will be out there trying to help people in their struggle towards recovery.
My meeting with Marcus went on for most of the morning and it was an absolute joy for me as I support the same kind of ideas.
Marcus might even make it to the launch of our day-care centre, The Living Room Cardiff, on 22nd June, 2011 – and to William (Bill) White’s lecture at the Welsh Assembly building in Cardiff Bay on 21st June, 2011.
I was introduced to many of Marcus' staff and will meet his colleague Mary Green, who does faith-based recovery work, next Thursday. We also exchanged books: mine for one he had contributed towards: MOORE. T., (2010), Care of the Soul in Medicine – Healing Guidance for Patients, Families, and the People who care for them. USA: Hay House, Inc. I’ll start reading it tonight.
Today, Friday 1st October, I decided to take the day off to do some sightseeing with Laurie Fresher, CCAR Recovery Community Centre Manager, who had kindly offered to show me around. Alas, the weather here was dreadful. Hartford was feeling the effects of a far-off hurricane apparently! It was even worse here than at the Ryder Cup in Wales which I watched whilst enjoying lunch at the Tisane, a Euro-Asian restaurant on Farmington Avenue.
Before that we had visited the Connecticut State Capitol and enjoyed a fascinating tour of the centre with some very well-informed German students. Particularly impressive was the restored model of the GENIUS OF CONNECTICUT, which stands majestically on her small gold dome. The original bronze statue, which once crowned the Capitol dome, was cast from this model. Sculptured by Randolph Rogers in 1877, she is the symbolic protector of Connecticut.
We also visited Connecticut’s Hall of Fame. Its inductees were Katherine Hepburn, Mark Twain, Igor Sikorsky (aviation pioneer and designer of the first helicopter), Marian Anderson (the first black opera singer to perform with the Metropolitan Opera), Harry J. Gray (philanthropist and one of the most outstanding business managers in the United States, the cancer centre at Hartford Hospital is named after Mr Gray and his wife), Jackie Robinson (civil rights advocate and the first black man to play major league baseball), Chief Ralph Sturges (lifetime leader of the Mohegan tribe who helped them gain federal recognition), and Paul Newman.
After that we toured the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the most controversial book of the 19th-century. Her book changed Americans’ views and incited international pressure on the U.S. to abolish slavery. Stowe’s life and work shaped the values of a nation and continues to resonate in contemporary society.
Next door is the home of Mark Twain. (You’ll never find an oak tree growing alone, but in the company of other oak trees!) We didn’t have time today to join the tour of the house as Laurie had to be back at work, but we did visit the museum and watched a 20 minute film about the great man’s life. Mark Twain was one who had it all; lost it all; but then regained his self-respect and restored his standing among the American people.
Tomorrow I’ve been invited out to lunch by Susan Davies Sit from the Welsh Society here in New England. In fact, I’ve got two further dates next week with Susan and members of the Welsh Society, and I’m looking forward very much to meeting them all. Susan apparently comes from Colwyn Bay in North Wales and that’s not too far away from Llansannan, where I was born.
The music I’m listening to right now as I finish this blog is: ‘From Here You Can Almost See the Sea’ sung by David Gray (Live from London – EP).
Incidentally, you can see photographs of some of the people I’ve been writing about in these blogs by visiting: www.welshcouncil.org.uk
Oh! And I bought new shoes today! Posh!
Nos dawch pawb. Good night everyone.
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