The Virtue of Bearing Witness
By George Hull
Editor, Pastoral Report - The Newsletter of the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy
The role of the clinical chaplain as a pastoral care provider is, at its core, disarmingly simple, but not simple because it is easy; in fact, it is anything but easy. The chaplain’s central task is to serve as a witness to another person’s experience or unfolding dilemma. In healthcare environments that rightly emphasize interventions and measurable outcomes, the chaplain’s presence becomes, in a sense, an act of resistance. It is an intentional posture: showing up in a way that differs from other helping professions, grounding oneself in presence rather than in the pursuit of a particular outcome. It is the ability to stand with another person, neither intruding nor retreating, that allows a genuine pastoral encounter to emerge. The emphasis is on being rather than doing.
To bear witness, in the sense articulated by the late James E. Dittes, longtime Yale professor of pastoral theology, is to stand fully in the presence of another human being without the impulse to shape or steer their experience. It is to become what he calls a “lucid listener.” This stance requires the courage to resist our own desire to be useful and instead to honor the other person’s reality as it is. True pastoral presence is an act of attentive openness, a willingness to tolerate the tension of uncertainty and to allow the unfolding of another’s life without interference. In this stance, simply being present becomes a powerful expression of care.
In the pastoral encounter, the chaplain offers a focused attentiveness that neither directs nor seeks to control. It is akin to taking a seat in the balcony of a command performance, close enough to see with clarity, yet distant enough to allow the action to unfold on its own. The chaplain’s role is not to effect meaning but to discern it: to attend carefully to what is already unfolding, often beneath the surface, and to hold it lightly.
Dittes described the art of holding what was unfolding with an open attentiveness as a “relaxed grasp.” As Margaret Farley, Gilbert L. Stark Emerita Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School, recounted from a 2002 classroom session with Dittes, he brought a multi-colored leaf from the campus grounds, cradled it lightly in his hand, and then closed his hand too tightly, crushing it. “To have a ‘relaxed grasp,’ he said,” Farley remembered, “is to be able to continue to hold what one loves, to hold without destroying, without crushing.” In the pastoral encounter, the chaplain holds the patient’s story attentively, lightly, and without trying to shape the unfolding narrative.
By stepping out of the role of seeking a particular outcome, the chaplain enables the patient to inhabit their own story. Illness, fear, and grief often thrust people into the expectations and plans of others: family members cheerlead, clinicians coordinate treatment, and hospital systems impose procedures and timelines. Amid this, a person can lose both their sense of agency and the experience of being truly seen. The chaplain, by showing up without offering solutions, interrupts this dynamic. In that space, the patient is no longer an object of managed care but a human being whose life, choices, and dignity are fully acknowledged and respected.
The experience of being closely and unconditionally regarded is profoundly humanizing. It shifts a person from the mode of “law”, the internalized pressure to obey or comply, into a state of “grace.” This grace is not sentimental or abstract; it is the tangible sense of being met without demand, the recognition that one’s story, no matter how fragmented or painful, is worthy of attention. In this approach, the pastoral encounter allows a person to pause their striving and simply be.
Clinically trained chaplains understand that transformation, when it occurs, arises not from their interventions but from the patient’s own wisdom, grief, and courage. The chaplain’s role is to hold the space where that inner work can unfold. Their presence serves as a reminder that, even in suffering, the person before them is not alone, not invisible, and not defined solely by a diagnosis or place in society.
To bear witness is to say, with one’s whole being: I see you. You matter. Your story is worth hearing, especially now. And in that simple yet profound act of presence, grace becomes possible, not as something bestowed by the chaplain, but as something awakened within the person themselves.
As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: “Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.” A fitting reminder that the deepest care often begins not in what we say, but in how truly we listen.
