Today we’d like to introduce you to Fran Tilton Shelton.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Shortly after accepting a call to serve as an associate minister for pastoral care in Dallas, I began facilitating grief workshops. The participants taught me a great deal about the nature and dynamics of grief. Their authenticity inspired me and motivated me to learn more. In 2007, I completed my doctor of ministry degree and a project entitled, Blessed Are Those Who Mourn Comfort Through Worship and Theological Conversations.
The next year I met the Rev. Wendy Fenn who was serving as spiritual director for Faith Hospice. Our ministries heightened an awareness that persons are hindered the the healing processs due to our culture’s inability to recognize the ongoing nature of grief. (What? You aren’t over “it” after a 6-week workshop?!?) Together with Sharon Balch, we designed a monthly, interfaith model that invites persons into a compassionate community, welcomes their grief into the arms of faith, and provides opportunties to listen and/or share personal stories void of platitudes. A meal is served. Silence is respected. Tears are not feared and laughter often erupts.
Month after month, men and women attended and invited friends to participate. The model, known as Faith & Grief, began being offered across Dallas and other parts of the country. In 2011, Faith & Grief became a 501(c)3 with a mission to provide opportuntieis of comfort and hope to those who have experienced the death of a loved one. Wendy, Sharon, and I continue to volunteer our time, talents, and treasure with Faith & Grief.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Grief is not a smooth road; thereby, there are similarities in beginning and sustaining Faith & Grief as a nonprofit. Personally and professionally, the roads are sacred and winding–paved with love, fear, and gratitude. Both roads are marked by uncharted chug holes lined with questions and doubts about one’s emotional and spiritual ability to proceed.Thankfully, the roads also have numerous vista points that shine with the truth that we are never alone, that highlight the oneness discovered in community, and that reveal the generosity and compassion of others.
The achievements and struggles of Faith & Grief can be viewed as one in the same. The opportunities to serve more persons through the process of grief have primarily come through word of mouth. What affirmation to have participants share with friends about the comfort and they have experienced through participating in monthly support gatherings, attending workshops and retreats, joining online round table discussions, and listening to inspiriting podcasts. Word of mouth promotion is highly successful and easily manageble on a nonprofit budget; and yet, and by its nature it is relatively slow. There is such a large number of persons and organizations wrestling with grief. I hope they will reach out to learn about and to participate in Faith & Grief opportunities.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Reading,writing, and speaking have always been my go outlet in processing the circumstances in life. After my husband, Dr. Robert M. Shelton, lived and died with Alzheimer’s, I wrote a book about him and our love affair. The title of the book is No Winter Lasts Forever A Memoir of Loving Bob and Loathing Alzheimer’s. I continue to find it heart-expanding to speak to groups about the nature and dynamics of grief.
Broadleaf Publishing reached out to me and asked me to consider writing about grief. I wrote, The Spirituality of Grief Ten Practices for Those Who Remain. Through my service as pastoral care minister, spiritual director, and cofounder of Faith & Grief Ministries I have seen and heard the Spirit’s healing power as persons practice spiritual disciplines.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
There are so many lessons that persons have taught me along the journey of bereavement work. Dr. Ralph Underwood, my pastoral care professor in seminary, taught us that grief is individualistic and universal; that in every grief we are both a professional (no one can tell you how to feel) and a novice (each grief is new and possesses different aspects from prior griefs). My grandmother taught me that one is old enough to die the day one is born and that grief doesn’t make us–rather, it uncovers who we are. Mana Bailey taught me to quit using the phrase, “a new normal” to decribe the days, months, years after a loved one dies. As she said, “It will never be normal!”
I attended a workshop about grief where the facilitator shared an intriguing insight that I have seen play out repeatedly. He shared, “we grieve the way we live.” Not one of us in the autitorium understood what that meant and everyone of us was too embarassed to admit it. Then the facilitator gave examples: an introvert will probably withdraw to greater degrees from friends/family; an avid shopper will likely resort to levels of retail therapy to temper the pangs of grief; sweet-tooth foodies will consume more peanut M & M’s. If a person tends to over indulge in alchohol then more will be consumed. If exercise is helpful more exercise will be more so! When my husband, a hard worker, was grieving the death of his first wife, he went to work earlier, stayed later, volunteers his time on weekends. A friend who is a paralegal found herself reading every book about grief after the sudden death of her husband. We grieve the way we live since through grief and life we have discovered and practices helpful or unhelpful ways of coping. All this is to say that if and when a person is not coping in time-tested ways and is acting very differently, that is the time for concerned. In the meantime, be patient, love them in the midst of grief, let them be themselves.
Pricing:
- www.faithandgrief.org
Contact Info:
- Website: www.faithandgrief.org; www.frantiltonshelton.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=faith%20%26%20grief
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fran-shelton/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hVwkPUWyyg&t=28s; https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_bsAkfmBpwo
- Soundcloud: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/faithandgrief
- Other: https://www.presbyterianwomen.org/?s=grief+and+the+shema
