Churches need courage to welcome warriors
The Rev. Laura Bender, United Methodist Navy chaplain, blesses the
elements of Holy Communion during worship at the 2009 JustPeace
conference in Nashville, Tenn. UMNS photos by Kathy L. Gilbert. |
By Kathy L. Gilbert*
April 9, 2009 | NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)
A young man knocks softly on a pastor’s door.
“Sir, do you have a moment?”
His bearing and haircut alert the pastor that the young man is probably
a soldier who has returned from war. The next few minutes are critical
if the pastor wants to see this man in church again.
“It will take courage to listen to him and patience,” said the Rev.
Laura Bender, a United Methodist Navy chaplain. “Refrain from giving
easy answers. Remember your love for him transcends your position on
war.”
Bender and a panel of chaplains talked to participants at the April 1-2
JustPeace Conference about “Trauma Healing: Preparing Churches to
Receive Returning Military Personnel.” Bender, command chaplain of the
USS New York, Norfolk, Va., has designed worship material for The
United Methodist Church to help churches welcome soldiers returning
from war.
The conference was sponsored by JustPeace, a center for mediation and
conflict transformation affiliated with the United Methodist Board of
Discipleship, and the Board of Higher Education and Ministry and the
United Methodist Endorsing Agency.
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“I haven’t felt the presence of God since Vietnam, and I am ordained,” says
the Rev. J. Paul Womack.
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Bender cautioned pastors and church members who want to help a soldier
reintegrate into civilian life to remember these men and women
returning from Iraq and other wars have a new worldview and are wise
beyond their years.
“They have seen dangers few can imagine,” she said. “Don’t take the
visit lightly. They are probably feeling betrayed, enraged-- but they
probably developed a deep trust in God that got them through their
experiences.”
The young man or woman knocking on that pastor’s door will be testing
them, she said. A pastor’s initial response, understanding of military
language and ability to listen will be assessed in the first few
minutes.
“His or her (soldier) survival was an act of God and they need a way to
claim their faith,” she said, noting that many returning vets refuse to
speak to anyone about their experiences who has not been to war.
Wounds, grief and guilt
Bender served at a field hospital in Iraq and recalls talking with a
wounded 19-year-old soldier struggling to come to terms with a
battlefield decision. He was crying as the doctors tended to a bullet
wound in his knee.
“I said, ‘That probably hurts a lot.’ He shook his head. ‘No, that’s not the painful part.’”
Two Iraqis had attacked the young soldier and three other 19-year-olds
in his troop. Each Iraqi held a little girl in front of him as a
shield. “I asked him what he did, and he said he did what his training
had taught him to do. That meant he killed all four,” she said. “But it
also meant he saved the lives of the three other 19-year-olds that were
with him.”
Returning warriors are dealing with grief and guilt that can be triggered by a sight, sound, or smell.
Bender recalled being at the bedside of a soldier when he died “an
awful death.” Word got back to the man’s wife that Bender had been with
him when he died. The woman wanted to meet the chaplain, to hear about
her husband’s last moments of life.
“I forever became that horrible chaplain who refused to speak to a
grieving wife,” she said. “I couldn’t tell her he died peacefully.”
Though she didn’t know it, the woman was also Bender’s mail carrier. “I
was traumatized every time I got mail.”
Long road home
“I haven’t felt the presence of God since Vietnam and I am
ordained,” said the Rev. J. Paul Womack who is currently serving as
pastor of the Hurlbut Memorial Community United Methodist Church at
Chautauqua Institution, New York.
Womack served in Vietnam as an interrogator with the 25th Infantry
Division from 1969-70 and reentered military service as a reserve
chaplain in 1988. He was deployed for Operation Desert Storm in 1990-91
and spent additional time on active duty between 2003 and 2005
including a deployment to Iraq. He retired from the reserves in 2007
after serving as staff chaplain for the 98th Division.
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The Rev. Dennis Goodwin listens as the Rev. David Anderson Hooker cautions
that not everyone returning from
war is traumatized.
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“I do not want the church to change our position on war,” said the Rev.
Dennis Goodwin, currently serving as a district superintendent in North
Carolina. He previously served for 28 years as a chaplain in the U.S.
Army on active duty and in the National Guard and Reserve.
“We are church who seeks peace and we seek it clearly but it is an
impediment to the warrior,” he said. “Our position keeps us from
speaking with as clear a message as our heart might want us to speak.”
The Rev. David Anderson Hooker, professor and director on the board of
JustPeace, cautioned participants that not everyone returning from war
is traumatized. He proposed asking returning military personnel to
teach us about what they have been through.
“I wonder what might happen if we offered them an invitation to teach
those of us who have never been to hell what and how you witness the
presence of God in the space between death and life,” he asked.
“What if they weren’t treated as the thing to be fixed but given the
opportunity to be seized for the rest of us? Invite them into a
conversation not to fix them but to prepare us in ways that we might
otherwise not be prepared for because we don’t have those experiences.
I believe conversations change lives.”
Goodwin said there is an easy way to support anyone who has been in a war or a family who has a loved one in a war.
“Just thank them,” he said. “There are World War II, Korean and Vietnam
veterans who have never heard someone say, ‘Thank you, from the bottom
of my heart.’”
*Gilbert is a news writer for United Methodist News Service in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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Resources
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United Methodist Board of Discipleship
United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry
United Methodist Endorsing Agency
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