BART is getting religion.
The transit system will swear in four new police chaplains at noon Tuesday at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission Center in Oakland.
BART officials said the chaplains will provide spiritual guidance and counseling to police officers. That guidance will be for traumatic events as well as general emotional needs.
The chaplains also will help victims of crime and serve as a link between police and the community.
BART officials said the chaplains, who come from diverse backgrounds, have agreed to serve without compensation. They'll wear BART police uniforms with a chaplain insignia.
:)
Great question! :) Charitable Christians, Jews, Budhists, Muslims, Atheists and Yoga Instructors must have been lobbying pretty aggressively for this unpaid volunteer service to our community. Shameless :(
I'm not sure if your last sentence is supposed to be ironic. Really? "Sensitivity" towards non-believers? Just like whites should show "sensitivity" towards blacks, men towards women and so forth? "Respect" is really what every group aims for.
As I mentioned earlier in this string, I learned that according to wikipedia, there are secular chaplains which means chaplains are not exclusively "religious" or spiritual. There is also at least one organization that advocates for greater sensitivity by chaplains towards those who profess that they don't believe in a god.
This is the passage I was referring to: Some military's chaplains only work with men and women of their faith group but in many cases chaplains work with military personnel of all faiths, as well as those who claim no faith or religious affiliation. While most military chaplains represent a religion or faith group, some countries, like the Netherlands, also employ humanist chaplains who offer a non-religious approach to chaplain support. Some groups such as the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers,[3] support the idea of such secular chaplains in the military, and also work to make all chaplains more sensitive to the needs and rights of those who profess no belief in a god. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Chaplain
To echo what you are saying about community building, I recently heard an African American speaker on the subject of civil rights talk about the need for our community and nation to go beyond the word "respect" and "tolerance." One word was "honor" towards those of other races, sexual orientations and faith backgrounds. We need to coexist, but we also need to move beyond the idea that that's as far as we need to be concerned about each other's ways of seeing and being in the world. It made a lot of sense to me.
I've been unfortunate enough in my life to always find myself in bizarre situations. I'm always encountering something or someone that's not on the up and up! .... Prostitute urinating on the side of a parked vehicle in San Francisco, Woman doing non PG13 acts with her Animal in the Hills of Garin park, a Male dressed in woman's clothing at Coyote Hills, getting caught up in in the middle of a Gay drama just to name a few..... The most interesting character I have met so far was at Newark's Annual Newark Day's Festival two years ago. Every time an NPD Officer walked by, the guy would drop his pants right there in Public! He said he did it, because NPD is always searching him LOL
May we have compassion in our hearts and minds and honor for other ways of seeing and being; and may we have the courage to stand up for those in need of our help and support.
It sounds as though efficacy is related to many factors relating to the background of the person in need. We are complex beings with diverse needs.
The "you're so angry" tactic is just a cheap rhetorical ploy to derail legitimate discussion. You'll find more about that game and other similar means of derailing discussion here: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/
I'll leave red herrings out of my posts from now on and must confess that you are the expert on creatures of the Clupea family. May I call you Max the Charmer?
Subtle? No. Exotic? Yes. Modest, certainly!