Sharon Mooney, a 40-year resident of West Marin and a chaplain for West Marin Senior Services, is moving to San Carlos, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of California, in Mexico, next month. Over the years here she’s owned a used bookstore, washed dishes, run a cleaning service, been an artist and advocated against nuclear power, as well as served on many local nonprofit boards. This week, the Light sat down with Ms. Mooney in her home to talk about her ministry work.
PRL: How did you become a reverend?
Mooney: I’ve always studied and been in relationship to spiritual practices and spiritual traditions. Some of it was about my art, and I did a lot through my art. Because I was always a communicator, I often became a companion to people who were passing through a difficult territory in their life. People would seek me out or talk to me to get a different perspective or just be listened to. I also taught a kind of co-counseling program called Reevaluation Counseling through the ‘80s. I’ve always been in that metaphysical relationship with other people.
It was clearly a gift, not something I did. And I’ve had a strong spiritual thread in my life, but it never crossed into my work. But working as a chaplain married those two aspects of me.
It wasn’t until 2009, when I escorted my sister-in-law through her dying process, that I discovered that I had a gift for being with people when they were dying and helping family members take up relationships with the person’s death. From there I began to explore what that meant—working in that field—and ended up going to seminary and becoming an interfaith minister, and I trained as an interfaith chaplain. I trained at a Catholic hospital in Napa, and at West Marin Senior Services. Once I was ordained, I got hired by W.M.S.S. to be a chaplain at Stockstill House and work with elders who lived at home and needed companionship.
I went to Stockstill House regularly, and when someone was going through the drying process, I would check in every day with them and be present for the family. Sometimes, we would do a ritual around the bedside as the family said goodbye. And I would do the memorials for the Stockstill House. Some people live there for a long time. Having a memorial there was important for that person and for the residents, who knew that they were honoring their housemate and that they would be honored.
I worked for them for about four years and then I was hired as a manager for the nutrition program, so I delivered meals and did the community lunch. My identity as a chaplain was the basis on which I did those other jobs.
But I realized at some point that the label of being an interfaith minister gave people a little bit more permission to approach me [around town] and share their inner journeys, as opposed to feeling I was a friend they were imposing on. I realized it was as much a ministry as working with the elders. To be able to hold that truth for people is extraordinarily powerful.
PRL: Some people might have no one else to talk to.
Mooney: And sometimes it’s hard to talk about those things with people close to you because you might not want them to think about that. To tell someone who keeps whatever you say confidential is a kind of safety. And in a small community, it’s often hard to keep your private stuff private. People care about each other, so they want to know what’s going on. But even when it comes from love and care, it isn’t always what that person wants.
PRL: Were you raised in a specific faith?
Mooney: I was raised Catholic and then my belief system got bigger than the Catholic boundaries. I’m not an ex-Catholic. I have that basic faith, but I believe a lot of other things as well.
PRL: What does interfaith mean?
Mooney: Even if people don’t believe in God they say yes, there’s something indefinable that’s bigger, or there is life, or there is breathe. Those are spiritual beliefs. Interfaith isn’t a specific religion of its own; it is the honoring and upholding of all those traditions. So a minster like myself learns how to minister or companion people from all those kinds of backgrounds. We study those spiritual traditions and understand their basic belief systems and how to be respectful with that. And help them, as they pass through some transition, to do that within the boundaries of their practice.
This is West Marin; a lot of people wouldn’t identify themselves as a particular anything. Their religion is the outdoors or the water. I worked with one elder who said her spiritual nutrition was her family; her relationships were her practice of her spiritual self. It was interesting that until I asked her, she wouldn’t have said that about herself. But when she got blue or scared or thinking about her internal self, what gave her solace was her family. It’s where she experienced the blessings of what is bigger than herself. So out here that’s true. If you say, “Do you have a spiritual tradition?” They say, “I’m spiritual but not religious.”
When I was young, no one said they were spiritual. They were religious or not. So this is a development—to develop new language to identify these things we haven’t known about ourselves or known how to share about ourselves. We still don’t have solid language. We’re at the beginning. And interfaith practice is at the heart of the beginning of that. It is creating new language for us to recognize that there are many spiritual paths. There are people whose spiritual practice is literally walking in the woods, and it’s as much of a prayer as getting on your hands and knees and reciting prescribed or spontaneous words.
PRL: It seems like your work, in part, is helping people find that language.
Mooney: That’s not an intention of mine. It’s something that grows from the person that I am, that I bring with me.
Other times some people say, “Do you remember when we talked about this? It changed everything for me.” Well, I don’t even think I said that. There are times people remember things I said that I know I didn’t say. But something’s going on and that’s how they translated what’s going on. It’s really quite powerful.