Book review: The Road to Joy by Kevin McClone

A chaplain's map for growing in wisdom

(Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2020)

Like many authors of psychology and self-help books, Dr. Kevin McClone writes as a working psychotherapist and educator.  But his voice brings something new to the genre – prior training and experience as a spiritual care provider.  The difference, while maybe not visible to the lay person, is refreshing and deeply nourishing.

The Road to Joy fills a gap in the popular literature of personal growth, and even meets a need for certain clinicians.  First of all, he is explicit with the term “psychospiritual,” which may be novel to some, but which is a cornerstone among the competencies of chaplaincy.   Spiritual care as a profession is too often obscured in the shadows of psychotherapy and conflated with denominational ministry in a church.  It is neither of those things, although spiritual care practitioners will often confer with professionals in both disciplines: this is the commitment to “whole-person care” in action.  As a relatively young clinical discipline, professional research literature in our field is sorely lacking, while it is virtually invisible to the self-help audience.  This book is a welcome exception.

Similarly, the author’s impressive resume as a hospice chaplain, clinical psychologist and educator, and addictions counsellor, reassures the reader of his experience and credibility in speaking of transformation that leads toward joy – even through, especially through, pain and fear.  But you won’t read this book because it’s professionally competent – you will read it for the same reasons people in pain or confusion, religious and not, open up and come to trust a good chaplain: humane and authentic listening. Connection, “deep unto deep,” as McClone acknowledges.

The Road to Joy is a hybrid self-help guide and personal reflection on navigating life, each of the two modes strengthening the other. The author illuminates the eight-step path he proposes with resources drawn from both psychology and diverse spiritual wisdom traditions; but he also draws from his own life path, through addiction recovery and up to mourning the recent death of his wife of 28 years.

There is no glib or cloying, shallow “positivity” here which can so often doom lesser writers.  Dr. McClone speaks from personal experience, yes, but perhaps more important, he speaks tenderly and bravely about the meaning of our wounds and “weaknesses.” Because he is a trained chaplain and counsellor, he understands their transformational power when we humans, being neither doormat nor drill sergeant, become willing to engage with life as a long journey toward truth and grace.  But he is also a person of faith, and so he experiences his own trials through the lens of spiritual formation, and shares what he learns.  

As a person of faith myself,  in the wake of my own partner’s death I was left with nothing but a ragged trust in the fact that I was alive: a living consciousness, a “proof” of God, as it were, waiting to learn anew why I should exist in the material world. It is not an easy journey. 

I have always been deeply offended by the facile notion that “things happen for a reason,” which is a secular echo of the cruel “God’s will” argument.  Rather, through my process understanding of God, I recognize that deep experiences may be used by us.  Trauma and tragedy are crucibles: they change life and consciousness (as do blessings and joyful discoveries). Inside that crucible, what shape might you take?  What sense of direction might you find, for how violently your life has been upturned? There are many stories of individuals who have suffered greatly, who were changed so much by their suffering that they left a mark on the world.  Some of those, in our news cycle daily, are black marks of rage and destruction; many (less “newsworthy”) became pathways of justice, charity, nourishment and healing.

Kevin McClone’s intention is to give readers the conscious tools to use our ongoing formation – through love and family, through risk and rage – to become more fully ourselves.  Not to become “perfect,” but to become ever more self-accepting, realistic, grateful, and joyful.

In the face of catastrophe, science can often tell us the “how” of our injury, our symptoms, even our recovery.  Spirit moves us to ask the “why” – precisely the point at which a patient might seek out the spiritual care provider, when the doctor and the social worker don’t know what to say.  That's when we chaplains might try to gently reframe the question: not "What did I do to deserve this?" but rather, "What shall I do with this changed universe?" Ultimately, how do I walk this human path without being corrupted by pain? 

McClone understands that this fundamental question applies to the religious as well as the atheist, and to everyone in between.

In practice, it’s important to note, a good chaplain will never share his own trials with you – your own story is the centre and the source for the work to be done.  But Kevin McClone’s book reveals the kinds of wisdom and emotional hygiene (otherwise known as the core competency of “self-awareness”) that fortify his service to our neighbours’ spiritual need.  A great addition to both my professional and personal libraries.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. #Roadtojoy

Book Review: Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints By Daneen Akers (Watchfire Media, 2019)

A joyful and necessary resource for progressives

            

This book is such a joy!  I don’t have kids of my own, but it was easy to return to the 10-year-old I was and find the pleasures in Daneen Akers’s ambitious reference book for young people.  In the world where I grew up in the 70s, there was of course no Google; there were books.  My family weren’t readers, but I was, and someone always arranged that books would come my way.  Two sets of encyclopedias lived in our house by the time I was born (purchased a month at a time by mail-order, I bet! But I never asked), and an array of educational books: one of dog breeds and one of horse breeds, complete with illustrated stickers to match to the right reference page; a shiny hardcover Readers Digest “omnibus” about everything interesting, from how to start a campfire to different kinds of clouds and how plumbing works.  I loved those books, immersed myself in their magical, glittering understandings of the world outside my little working class neighbourhood.

            Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints is that kind of book, for a new era.  The author arranges her subjects alphabetically, rather than thematically, which is most appropriate – the lives of many of these un-conservative and un-conventional spiritual travellers encompass several overlapping themes, as do all of our lives.  Illustrated by soulful, joyous portraits, most of them are women, including trans women; many are clergy who moved from conservative faith communities to progressive and inclusive ones, with all the vocational trials that entails.  The LGBTQ community is beautifully represented here; politics and civil disobedience are part of many stories.  So too is sacrifice, and the costs of being true to oneself and to one’s love of God, often in opposition to one’s family traditions.  There are many names for God recognized here, as well, and representatives of a spectrum of communities, from global Indigenous to Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, and of course a significant cohort of progressive Christian traditions.

            Some of my favourite Holy Troublemakers are here: Harriet Tubman, Mr. Rogers, Thich Nhat Hanh, Kaitlin Curtice, Rachel Held Evans, even Francis of Assisi.  But more thrilling was the discovery of so many activists, called through faith, to agitate for the concrete needs and spiritual dignity of their people – however “their people” might be construed.  For a quick sense of the tone and scope of this volume, parents might simply skim the helpful glossary at the back.  Two examples: 

            Conservative: A person who tends to like things the way they are or the way they have historically been; conservatives work to limit political, theological, and social change.

            Womanist/Womanism: …  Black Feminism that listens for the perspectives of the people in texts who often are overlooked or unheard, usually the voices of women, enslaved people, and children.

            

I’m grateful for those congregations, many for which I preach, that teach and pray to an inclusive, welcoming God, One who rejoices and weeps with us on the messy human journey.  Yet there are also curious kids whose spiritual formation isn’t taking place in a faith community – and what’s more, who are surrounded by shallow and polarized media blather about “religious” people.  As parents and spiritual leaders -- where to find alternative narratives about the faith-filled, humane work we know to be going on all over the world for justice and neighbourliness?  Holy Troublemakers and Unconventional Saints is a brilliant start.

            In our current secular culture that too often mocks or caricatures religion, Akers’s lovely book is a light in the darkness for kids’ questions about religion and faithful practice. And I will attest, it also proves a balm for us confused and weary adults.  

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. 

#HolyTroublemakers