Call the Chaplain

She had been housesitting for her newlywed friends over the holidays and was just about to pick them up from the airport. But then the news came. There would be no happy car ride home recounting the details of their recent trip. Arash and Pouneh’s flight never left Iran.

It was Friday, January 10, and this was just one of the many stories of disbelief, shock and sorrow shared with with Rick Mast, the Christian Reformed campus minister stationed in the Computing Science Department at the University of Alberta. Most of the faculty, students and alumni gathered there had never met him before. In the routine work of running labs, processing data, writing code, attending conferences and submitting papers, there wasn’t usually a reason to check in with a campus minister.

But this week was like none other in academic life. It had been two days since 10 members of the U of A campus community lost their lives on Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752. It was on this Friday that Mast remembers seeing fresh waves of disbelief and anger, as those gathered learned the horrific news that an accidental missile strike had cause the crash.

Geography of spiritual care
Immediately following news of the crash, every student support staff member on campus was mobilized, including the chaplains. Mast says he spent that first Wednesday meeting with nearly a dozen faculty members in the Engineering department.

Campus ministry at U of A usually functions out of a basement office. The detailed directions in Mast’s email footer attest to the physical marginalization of his regular ministry space: “Take stairway beside A&W HUB Mall down and outside. Turn right. Enter paved pathway beneath HUB Mall to the Multi-Faith Prayer & Meditation Space on left. Follow inside hallway to double steel doors. The rooms of 182 are on your left.”

But in those early days, the university administration requested his presence in the heart of the impacted academic departments. Mast took his spatial relocation as a sign of a deep and dramatic shift in the university’s usual mode of operation.

“At times like this horrific loss, conventional ways to truth have little to offer,” explains Mast. “At public universities, truth is ‘known’ using the scientific method, ‘proven’ through historical-critical methods, or ‘accepted’ through empirical (forensic) evidence. But in these existential moments, people begin to search for meaning and purpose and chaplains are comfortable with these questions.”

Many of those Mast comforted didn’t necessarily share his faith. “I shared one modified fourth century prayer of Augustine of Hippo through email to a group of graduate students, some of whom were Iranian and some of whom were also PhD candidates with the deceased professors. Most of them are agnostic.”

The burden of offering comfort and compassion in the face of this tragedy reaffirmed for Mast that “Christian chaplaincy in particular offers a realist ground and grammar for life and living, one which comes from a source the other disciplines do not readily draw from – God Almighty, through Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

For such a time as this
More than 20 Canadian universities lost community members in the crash. Two of these students attended the University of Guelph, where campus multi-faith staff also played a significant role in the spiritual and emotional care of the grieving.

At the University of Guelph, Christian Reformed campus minister Sara DeMoor says campus ministry serve an integral function in the university community when it comes to public tragedies.

“It’s one of the rare times where there is a desire to connect with a person in a position like a chaplain, whether you’re religious or not,” says DeMoor.

At most universities, campus ministers work in tandem with other support services, like counselors, international student advisors and academic accessibility centers that specialize in one-on-one support for students. But when it comes to coordinating memorial services, DeMoor says “the university reaches out to us and says ‘can you lead this?’ There’s a sense that they aren’t equipped, they don’t have the skills to lead a vigil or speak words of comfort.”

Multi-faith coordinator Sonya Wu-Winters led two such public gatherings at the University of Guelph. In the immediate aftermath, she noticed that “the university turns to the circle of chaplains on campus to offer a certain kind of presence, an ability to be reverent, in the face of tragedy and loss.” The Iranian Students Association took the lead in coordinating the Friday vigil and asked the multi-faith services to play a role. Wu-Winters describes it as “an honour to walk beside them and support them.”

Looking ahead
Yet during the routine flow of academic life, universities tend to underutilize their chaplains. According to DeMoor, many campus ministries across Canada are “still struggling to become more known. In part because the only time the university really holds us up is in crisis. In between those times it’s not as common for students to seek out campus ministers. They usually find us through referral, like a friend.”

While the waves of shock and grief recede in the weeks and months to come and academic life resumes its usual pace, all three of the chaplains I spoke to hope that those closest to this tragedy will continue to seek out the spiritual care they need.

Mast says that at the U of A in particular, the loss of “two gifted and connected professors means that a significant number of students will be struggling to find a sense of academic direction and sense of purpose and meaning in their lives.”

“There’s the incident itself and then all the ripple effects of it,” explains Wu-Winters, speaking to the complex impacts of the tragedy on the U of G campus community. “There was initially grief, but once there was more information about how the plane came down, there was anger as well. Then for the Iranian students, many of whom have family still in Iran, there was a lot of fear too because of the political turbulence there.”

As always, grief is a complex thing. Even while research and classes have resumed their regular rhythms, for many people the layers of fear, sorrow and anger are still unfolding. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, campus ministers across Canada are equipped for the challenges of this long-term work.

“As chaplains, we acknowledge that the very best work of Christian campus ministry is really God working in and through the chaplains,” says Mast, who gives thanks for the “cloud of witnesses, which no person could number who support those chaplains.”