Category: Executive Director

James E. Hayes, D. Min., M. Div., Executive Director, Des Moines Pastoral Counseling Center

I hope get a chance to peruse our most recent annual report.

The Community Relations team did a great job organizing the narrative around our foundational values. As I thought about those values as expressed in the report and on our web site I had a moment: these values are the reason I chose to join in the Center’s work as an executive director. So much of who I am as a person in this world and my own values align directly with what this place is about.

First a bit of clarification about values since the word is often misrepresented in our hyper charged political environment. We can express our values as an organization, but if they aren’t enfleshed, lived out in daily behavior, they become empty rhetoric. Somewhere along the way I read this on a management website (forgive me for not tracking down the source yet):

Values shift the focus from the greater organization to the individual.  Values define who individuals need to be to achieve the organization’s vision and/or live out its mission.  Values articulate a set of desirable traits or characteristics that people can exemplify in their faithful service to the organization and its cause.            

For me this means that organizations and individuals walk the talk and the behaviors are easy to spot when you observe the day-to-day. So let’s take a look at our publicly expressed values and see if we can find evidence of how they’re lived

Access

We strive to help as many people as we can regardless of ability to pay. One of my personal values is social justice, that all might have what they need to flourish in this life. I’m glad to know that we provide services to help as many as we can. That is not to say that we don’t also provide services to those with good insurance who can afford to go anywhere. We strive to help as many as we can. It’s good to know that people choose our exemplary services no matter where they land on the socio-economic spectrum and that we do our best to serve as many as we can.

Integration/holistic approach

We like to talk about the healing process for the whole person: body, mind and spirit. Practically, this has meant a number of things over the years. Lots of modalities use work on healing the mind, but a number of our clinicians utilize techniques that help clients and patients to get in touch with their bodies so that they can augment the healing process. Hope and healing for the spirit means different things to different people. One of my favorite quotes heard around here is that we meet people where they are, not looking to “fix” them, but to walk with them as a whole person to explore what a flourishing life might look like for them.

Trust

The annual report mentions that a large percentage of people come to us because they have been referred by someone in their circle that currently or previously used our services. What could be a better indicator of trust. We don’t take this lightly.

Respect and compassion

This hearkens back to the quote about meeting people where they are. We encounter diversity in many forms among our clients, staff and board. Lots of varied perspectives and commitments, yet we somehow find a way to hold together the notion of community so that we can carry on this important work together. At the root of compassion is the ability to empathize, something we see on display every day at all levels of the organization.

High standards/experience

It is incredibly humbling to watch colleagues carry on their craft. Our staff have great credentials and are products of high level training programs—including our own. That’s inspiring enough. It’s the witnessing of it in daily behaviors that’s even more inspiring. I wish more people could sit in on our consultations just to hear the wisdom of colleagues as they work together on sorting out what the best course of action might be for a client. Their compassion is evident, but their expertise always leaves me feeling grateful that our staff is there to help in moments that people are most in need. The people we serve are in good hands.

Let me conclude with a final value: community. Though much of our work happens in one-on-one settings, none of this mission is lived out in isolation. Other patients, staff, board members, volunteers and donors have gone before us. We stand on those shoulders as we do our work. Each member of this community—past, present and future—is necessary in order for us to be who we are and do what we do. The values we share aren’t just words, they are actions we see walking the hallways, in meetings and phone calls and broadcast on zoom screens each day.

I am grateful to be a part of it. I am also grateful for all of you who are the community that makes it all possible.

To read more of Jim’s blogs, click HERE

Tell me your most vivid birthday memory? I hope there’s a positive image that popped for you as you pondered the answer to that question.  I remember walking home with some friends after school and my mom inviting everyone in to have a slice of cake, which was in the form of an 8. I vividly remember how cool that cake looked and how good it felt to be surrounded by a loving community.

April 6, 2020 is the Center’s 48^th birthday. Cue the music!

I have a feeling this is a birthday that will stand out in our memories. These are vivid times. In the last month we have made radical changes to our operations so that we can continue to live out our mission to walk with people on the path to hope and healing. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the coronavirus has caused us to change as much in a few days as we did over some decades—all perforce so that we might continue to be present to those most in need.

Examples abound…

Who knew one month ago that our Women Helping Women committee would find a way to transition an event that’s been around for over two decades from a luncheon gathering of over 600 (not recommended these days!) to an online gathering that will provide the same kind of inspiration, community, and generous support for the Center? I am so inspired by the efforts of our development team, the planning committee, our speaker, honoree and generous donors. We still have a month to go before the May 15^th event, but their capacity to change radically is truly inspiring. Thank you!

Who could have imagined one month ago that we would transition our administrative services to a remote office in order to keep our workforce and those we serve safe? It has been amazing to watch the commitment and innovation required from our staff as they have not only imagined new ways to operate and support our clinicians, but literally to radically alter the way we do things in a matter of hours rather than weeks or years. It’s been hard work, but the reward of the efforts is the stuff of which a live of purpose is made.

Who, among our clients, had a sense that when they made an appointment with their counselor, spiritual director, or teacher a few weeks ago, would have considered the possibility that the encounter would be happening on a screen, rather than “live?” My admiration for clients and therapists goes well beyond words. Our services are needed more than ever in this anxious time of mitigation and neologisms. None of us had really heard of “Covid-19” until very recently. Now the mere utterance can raise blood pressure.  Thank you for all the courage it took to make those appointments possible! May the connections bear good fruit.

I must admit that as we were working on grants and asking donors to support us as we had lots of needs related to technology and getting the infrastructure in place to do telehealth and manage electronic health records, that none of us had any idea how urgent those “asks” were. Mental health stakeholders in general and our staff, board and donors in particular, positioned us to face this crisis head on. It’s been a bumpy transition at times, but we are here and we are doing our best to help as many as we can regardless of the resources one might bring to the healing process. The generosity of all who support our work has saved lives.

This is a birthday we will likely never forget. I am grateful for all those who made the first 48 years of our mission possible. I am also grateful for those of us that are a part of this current moment in the Center’s history and for the varied contributions that have made our services possible when the needs are urgent. It still feels wonderful to be surrounded by loving community.

Feel free to bring a present to the party by offering an online gift:

With a prayer for you and yours,

Jim

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James E. Hayes, D. Min., M. Div., Executive Director, Des Moines Pastoral Counseling Center

The scriptures of my faith tradition ooze with admonitions to “Fear Not.” “Be not afraid” is among the most consistent quotes, certainly in excess of 100 times.

I find myself repeating the phrase as our world faces the COVID19 pandemic. In spite of the recitation, the emotion resists releasing its grip on my body, mind and spirit. I worry about the health of my family and colleagues. I wonder about how to best lead the Center in such challenging times. What to do with all this fear and anxiety?

A few quotes to start. There are lots of places in the Tanakh or Christian scriptures if you’re looking for help:

If that’s not your cup of tea, how about some wisdom figures:

 “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”  – Albert Einstein:

“The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.”  -William James:

My quote from last month’s blog, Anne Lamott: “HELP!”

Sage words provide a bit of comfort. Poetry often consoles me even more. Here’s a favorite:

“The Peace of Wild Things”
Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Next on the menu is a mindfulness exercise from one of the most famous practitioners in the business, Tara Brach. She has written extensively about how to manage fear and anxiety through an exercise summed up with the acronym RAIN. As she puts it in a recent blog post:

“Learning to directly face anxiety and fear with the RAIN meditation—Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture—gives you a pathway to inner transformation and a fearless heart.”

Basically, she asks us to keep things real by recognizing our emotions, which means we need to pay attention. We need to be ok with allowing the emotions to be a part of our day to day, not judging them as good or bad. If you’re feeling afraid, so be it. The investigation asks us to pay attention to what happens when we’re experiencing the emotion, especially in our bodies. Tension? Where? How?  Finally, Brach asks us to treat that part of ourselves with compassion and to continually nurture self-compassion, especially in times of challenge.

Does any of this help? Maybe you could share in comments what’s been working for you.

The most comforting sentiment for me is not the command to “Fear not”, but the clause that follows. Jesus said, “Be not afraid, Fear not, ‘I am with you.'” That’s the part that brings me the most comfort and helps me to make meaning of all this. Relationships. I am with you. How can we be present to one another in an age of crisis and social isolation? Prayer is a form of relational conversation that keeps us close to the comforting presence of the source of creation. Reaching out to shut ins who lack necessary social ties brings comfort to both parties. Paying attention to one another as waves of fear and anxiety wash over us at different times will help us through. We’re going to do our best to be present to one another at the Center and the people we serve whether it’s in person or across a screen provided by technology. It’s our mission:

To walk with people through counseling and education to find hope and healing, and live a fulfilling life.

Let us walk together.

James E. Hayes, D. Min., M. Div., Executive Director, Des Moines Pastoral Counseling Center

But wait, there’s more!

Writer Anne Lamott has been a great spiritual companion of mine—along with a few million others who enjoy her books. Her treatise on prayer, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers (2012), provides a simple vocabulary to capture the varieties of prayer forms. I offer this short reflection using her construct to help us all understand a little better what life is like here at the Center and to recognize how dependent we are in order to live this mission faithfully.

HELP!

This sentiment often provides the genesis of relationships with the Center. Those we serve have reached a point in their lives that requires some kind of companionship to help them through a time of crisis. We walk with them as they explore stories of grief, trauma, fractured relationships and any number of narratives—many of which would have been left untold if possible. It’s good to have someone to listen in such times. Our counselors are often an answer to prayers.

Help is certainly the easiest concept of prayer to grasp. We reach out to our god or higher power in hopes that someone is out there listening to the longing of our hearts to find a way through a difficult time. It comes naturally to most—especially to those with foxhole experience.

Help is also a verb we use regularly around here when it comes to seeking the resources we need to carry out our mission. We fundraisers on our team don’t hesitate to seek help from others as we would not be able to serve others were it not for the support of a loving community. You may have received a letter from us recently asking for help. My prayer is that it will inspire a gracious response!

THANKS!

Gratitude is the foundation of many of my reflections in this newsletter. It happens pretty easily each day as I look at the inspiring work of our staff who respond to requests for help in a variety of ways: from the hospitality of those who receive anyone coming through the door, to the energy provided in the daily counseling sessions. Bookkeepers, billers, administrators and all the rest care deeply about this effort.

We also experience thanksgiving from those we serve. We regularly hear the phrase “you saved my life” around here. People entrust us with their lives and as they traverse the arduous journey to hope and healing. They often arrive on the other side with hearts full of gratitude. Newfound hope gives life to gratitude.

We produce lots of thank you notes here at the Center. That’s because we have so many people who support our efforts. Prayers of gratitude for such a loving community come naturally.

WOW!

There is nothing better than a moment of awe. For me, these moments of prayer/reflection/awareness aren’t as frequent as cries for help and experiences of gratitude, but they sure are profound. Just a few such moments can nourish an entire life.  Examples often happen in nature. Just ask anyone who’s scaled a mountain, been tossed by a wave or seen the brilliance of the sun rising and setting.

We also work hard here at the Center to increase awareness for each of us at the wonder of each moment. Wow helps us to work with anxious minds through simple acts of paying attention to the wonder of each breath, each sense, each second. Some spiritual writers talk about paying attention to the “everlasting now.” Each tick of each day is all that we have. Enjoy them.

I am wowed that the Center has been around for almost 50 years, doing really important work. Step back and think about all the lives transformed by this place and there is no word to capture the story better than WOW!

YES!

I stray from Lamott on this one. For some reason an important sentiment or prayer for me has been to surrender or abandon myself to the present moment. Each day brings with it joys and challenges and it seems that part of the secret to a full life is to simply say “yes” to what the day has to offer. A quote that has always inspired me comes from Dag Hammarskjold’s book, Markings. If you’ve not heard of it, the book is a collection of his journaled thoughts that was discovered and published posthumously after Dag, the secretary general of the United Nations, died is a plane crash. The quote, as I recall it: “For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.”

So much of what we do here is helping ourselves and others come to terms with the reality of our lives. Some of it joyful and other parts sorrowful, but all of it real. We’re big believers in resiliency.

Your help in this effort inspires gratitude, awe and affirmation for being part of such important work. Yes, you’re awesome!

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I had the privilege to attend the recent funeral of Bernie Gottner. A privilege because the celebration of his life was so uplifting as a result of the rituals that gave clear evidence of a rich life well lived.

Why start this edition of my series on generosity and gratitude with a condensed obituary?

Bernie was the spouse of Eileen Burtle, one of our retired therapists whom I consider to be one of the founders of the Center. She began her work with us in 1981, not long after the arrival of Ellery Duke and Jeff Means—and just ahead of Jeanne Schossow. These “founders”, along with others who were the first counselors and staff in the early years of the Center, did so much to set a direction, establish common values, forge a mission and care for those we serve with genuine pastoral concern.

As I have deepened my understanding of the Center in my first years as executive director, I have regularly been inspired by the depth of commitment of our staff. I am fortunate to be surrounded by such good and committed people who work so hard to carry out our heritage, passed down from our founders since 1972. Sacrifices abound.

I have heard many stories of the struggles the Center encountered in the early years. That too is a heritage shared by many nonprofits. I’m sure there were many sleepless nights when those folks—and the board finance committee—wondered if there would be enough money to pay the utility bill and make payroll. Word on the street is that even contemporary administrators at the Center have similar concerns. 🙂  And yet those forebears forged ahead. One step and day at a time, always doing their best to help those in need of hope and healing.

Which gets me to Bernie. Would all the staff who have gone before us been able to make the sacrifices and carry on the work if they didn’t have the support of loving spouses, family and community. You can imagine the heavy burden one brings home after a day of helping others to carry their load by listening to stories and offering counsel. Going “home” to friends and family (in the broadest sense of that word) provides a shelter and context for self-care after a day of caring for others, many of whom carry horrific burdens.

As I reflect on generosity and gratitude, I think of all those who are in this work with us. Some directly as volunteers, as donors, but others indirectly by providing love and community for those who serve our mission. None of us make this world better on our own. We do it in the context of community and shared values and commitments—and by loving and supporting one another.

Bernie did plenty of good, inspiring work in his own ministry and career, but he and Eileen together did something magical in their shared mission. And the two shall be one. We are the better for it.

And we are better because of you. Not just two become one, but many who share one goal of serving those in need of hope and healing. Thank you for the many ways you support our efforts at the Center. A special thanks to our families and communities of support. Your love means the world to us and those we serve.

Jim

www.dmpcc.org/Jim

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July 2019

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news,” Mister Rogers said to his television neighbors, “my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

Can you tell I recently caught the documentary about Fred Rogers? It was telling that they offered the quote above toward the end of the film—wanting to make sure that was the message left on the viewer’s mind.

I have been doing a series on generosity and gratitude in my reflections this year and the message to “look for the helpers” certainly fits. When Rogers offered this sentiment, he directed his message to children. From a child’s eye, they ought to look for “grown ups” who might help them when challenged with difficult situations.

The Center is fortunate to have “helpers” on many levels. Certainly the clinicians and staff who work with COOL (Children Overcoming Obstacles of Life) who directly serve kids in need of help. As with all of our counselors, the work is challenging but incredibly rewarding as we support clients on the path to healing and renewed hope.

This month I’d like to highlight a different kind of helping: those who work on our development team. We are celebrating a new hire in that department, Laurie Sloterdyk. Laurie comes to us with a wealth of fundraising experience and is well known in the philanthropic community of Des Moines. As the Director of Development, she’ll be working with Terri Speirs, who has been promoted to Director of Community Relations.  Many others on our team, but especially Allison Peet and Paige Kennedy support these efforts. So much of this work is relational and, dare I say, helpful.

As one who has spent years working in development, I firmly believe that this relational work is all about helping. Certainly, our generous donors are helping our clients by sharing with us the precious resources of time, talent and treasure. Without our donors, we could not live out this important mission. What isn’t noticed or discussed as often is how contributing to the Center also helps those who give. Much of our time in relating to donors is listening to their life stories and considering how they want to make a difference with their gifts. Philanthropy is really about discerning purpose and directing that energy into mutually beneficial efforts. Generosity and gratitude are all about building community and experiencing the fullness of life. Keep this in mind should you receive a call from Terri, Laurie or me.

I am grateful to be surrounded by such a talented staff and supporters who help—and are helped—by sharing in our mission of hope and healing.

Jim

Tis the season of March, which invites me and others of Irish heritage to celebrate the memory of St. Patrick. Not the usual distortions of all things green, but literally a heritage. I’ve been known to sing a traditional ballad now and again. I often set aside time in March to read a bit of Irish history or literature. Options abound. This year I’m reading John O’Donohue, whose lively imagination has helped me and many others to pay attention to the little things each day in order to experience the joy of wonder. Here’s a quote that inspired pause:

One of the most exciting and energetic forms of thought is the question. I always think that the question is like a lantern. It illuminates new landscapes and new areas as it moves. Therefore the question always assumes that there are many different dimensions to a thought that you are either blind to or that are not available to you. So a question is really one of the forms in which wonder expresses itself. (p. 6)

John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World. 2015.

The power of a question to guide us to wonder.

I experience it on a regular basis when I’m working with the generous people who support our work at the Center. I often begin conversations by asking people how they became connected with the Center in the first place. I’ve reflected on answers to that question in previous posts, but suffice it to say that a relationship was established in which the Center played a role in helping someone to find their way to hope and healing.

A follow up question regularly inspires wonder: Where did you learn to be so generous with your time, or talent, or treasure/resources? The answer often involves modeling. Donors grew up in families that valued generosity. They encountered someone whose generosity benefited them and made a difference in helping that person to find a path to success and fulfillment. They engaged in the work of an organization like the Center and saw the direct connection of supporting a mission in order to help others thrive. Lanterns illumined new landscapes and possibilities.

I encourage the community of stakeholders engaged in our work to keep these questions in mind as you’re out and about in the community. “How did you become involved in mental health issues?” (It’s a great way to fight stigma). All of us are touched in some way by these issues. There are too many tragic tales, but also inspiring narratives of healing. Don’t be afraid of the follow up question of how folks learned to be generous as they engaged an issue like mental health. My guess is you’re going to hear more inspiring answers of how one learns to be generous and engaged so as to live a fulfilled life. It’s the path to leading a life that matters and there is much work to be done.

I stand in wonder each day when I see how our work is made possible through the generosity of so many  who participate in and support our mission.

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