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A Buddhist Military Chaplain on Religious Harm | Anya Powers · Follow the Leighder

• Leigh/@followtheleighder: Howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and joining me from Colorado, I bring to you a Buddhist chaplain, Anya Powers. welcome to the studio today. ⁓ Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Thanks for having me. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Your earrings, by the way, are absolutely beautiful. I forgot to tell you that before. you know, this is a really exciting episode. I've known Anya for several years. I knew her as Lieutenant Powers in the United States Air Force Reserve Chaplain Candidate Program. But what made her so awesome to me was that she actually had previous experience in the Marines. And then she left to join an Air Force chaplaincy. That's a story. But this idea of her having this prior leadership really helped me when I was just a little baby. than to ⁓ myself on. ⁓ she went through Yale Divinity School too. So I had a lot of admiration, not only for our military ⁓ but ⁓ mind, her intellect. ⁓ was at the time, ⁓ doing Christian chaplaincy. She has now moved to Buddhist chaplaincy and I can't wait ⁓ Anya to share her story with y'all today. ⁓ wow. ⁓ You are so decorated, like just a powerhouse of knowledge and wisdom, especially to help make sense about what is going on right now. So kind of talk to us, do you come from a military background? What brought you into military service? Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yeah, there's definitely a family tradition of it. Both of my grandfathers served one in the army, one in the Navy, and then both of my parents were Air Force pilots. My mom was one of the first female pilots in the Air Force. you know, of course, growing up, I swore I would never become like my parents. And then one day you wake up and you sound like your mother. So ⁓ it happened. So yeah, there's a family tradition. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It happened, did. Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: I'm not sure I would have made connected the dots at the time, but it certainly had an influence on me. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, well, and three pilots too right there in Colorado. Do they have a connection to the Air Force Academy? Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: No, they were both ROTC kids. My dad went to USC and my mom went to Cornell. ⁓ And for both of them, was how they could go to college. ⁓ If the military paid for it, then they could go. And so they both went that route. then, ⁓ yeah, my mom was originally a missile engineer and then ⁓ ended up going the pilot route. So, yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: So what directed you and pushed you towards ministry? Can I talk about that? Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yeah, it's a great question. And I'll try to be concise. I think. You know, on the one hand, it's nice to like, pretend I have some great noble reason. But I think like many folks who end up in ministry or even like therapeutic and therapeutic adjacent roles, like I think it's not uncommon for us to end up pursuing that because of our own families of origin, our own history. And I think that was certainly the initial drive. There were a lot of challenges in the house growing up and asking those questions of why and trying to make meaning of what I was experiencing started really early. And religion kind of swooped in as like, well, this is kind of what we do is we give people stories to help make sense of their circumstances. So I didn't, my family was not religious at all, but I encountered a lot of folks who were just in my community growing up. and really enjoyed other religious traditions. I took comparative religions in high school and TA'd for it and had friends of all different faith backgrounds and found that I just felt a sense of least belonging. in some way within the religious circle, like at large, like not necessarily in particular place or one particular spirit, but that I was among kindred spirits who were also asking the question of why and how do we make sense of this and how do we live with it and how do we strive for something better. So I think that's what drew me to ministry. ⁓ and you know originally I wanted to go to Wheaton College and I was supposed to go there on a scholarship and for various reasons ended up at Colorado College which is kind of the polar opposite end of the religious spectrum. I studied political science and that's when I was in the Marine Corps. When I was, I had finished junior's PLC, so I just finished my first summer at Quantico. I started having some moral quandaries, I would say. I was in a political science major at the time and also struggling with what does it mean to not just give an oath to your country and to the commander in chief, whoever that may be. But as a future officer, what does it mean to be responsible for the lives of those ⁓ that you're leading and serving? felt like I might struggle quite a bit. Like, it didn't feel like it was just like my sense of morality at stake at the time, but that I was also like deeply responsible for the people that I would be. serving with and for and think that kind of propelled me to reconsider my military service. But, my girl had not been to therapy yet. And so, I was afraid of quitting. Can't be seen me quitting things. So I was like, what could I do that would not look like quitting? Well, it also not make me do that. Voila! Chaplaincy! I was like, I can be a contingent of Jacker, I can be a chaplain, and still serve my country. It doesn't look like I'm quitting. I don't have to deal with all the messy stuff, I can just help other people deal with the messy stuff. So, far from some noble sacrifice, was an untherapized, you know, 20-something year old's issue is coming out. which is fine. So that's how I kind of got into the military chaplaincy track and then that just really unfolded into the journey at the King, which, you know, lack of therapy might be why we started. It's not why we're still here though. So. Leigh/@followtheleighder: also talk about you went to Yale Divinity you you started in Christianity part of this was just like your own stubborn like I'm not gonna quit and and then there's also wanting to be this this leader what were you studying at Yale Divinity? Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yeah, so I was getting my Master of Divinity because I was told that was the requirement to become a chaplain. I didn't really have like a firm religious persuasion at the time, but I was told that in order to be in the military chaplain can it program, I had to decide, right? Because you have to have an endorsement and you have to... you have to choose. ⁓ And so right before I had left undergrad, I found a church ⁓ in Colorado Springs ⁓ that, you the outside had like a gay pride flag on it and a Black Lives Matter flag. I was like, these could be my people. And I remember going in the first day and it looked very traditional and very liturgical. And I was like a little nervous. And then the pastor got up and So today we're gonna talk about how as people of faith, we are also pro-choice. And I was like, this man, don't talk about abortion in church. Like what is happening? And it was just a really skillful sermon. that really was thought provoking and open and kind and was not afraid of addressing the hard things. So by the end of it, I was like, okay, I don't really know what I think or believe, but it seems like there's freedom to not know in this place. It seems like this place would allow me to ask the questions and would allow me to have the hard conversations and that I can work with. And that was the United Church of Christ. So ⁓ I was like, all right, I can work with this. And that's how I ended up in that tradition going into Divinity School. So Divinity School and seminary is ⁓ intended to be a little more broad and open. And also Yale University was founded in the way that it was. So it still very Christian-oriented and Christian-leaning. and because of the institution and because of where it lands geographically also leans pretty ⁓ open and liberal, progressive on that end of the spectrum. So kind of just got the standard MDiv, ⁓ you know, education, good old Old Testament and New Testament and doctrines of creation and whatnot. But yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: So you get into the Air Force, we serve together, and then the following summer, I had gotten out just a few months before, that you went on, I believe, to Ramstein. Is that what I remember? Talk about what serving abroad was like in the Chaplain Corps as a candidate. Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yeah, it was wonderful. I would say like I loved, for the most part, I mostly loved the tours. It was the in-between part that was the hardest. ⁓ When I was there, ⁓ there was a chaplain who was a rabbi who really took me under his wing and for me really balanced the officer and the chaplain in a way that I didn't feel I always experienced. ⁓ And just let me try and explore and experience everything, anything I could. ⁓ you know, would go on early morning recs with him and other folks who would do it with visits, do unit rounds. We flew to Spain for lunch for a day once to visit some folks there. ⁓ And I had the opportunity. mean, it's a really big base. There were a lot of chaplains there and it was a more diverse group. basically might have the opportunity to have just because of its size and because of where it is and people like it out of there. And of course the hospital is also there so I a little, I some time to go to the hospital. So I really enjoyed it. It felt very integrated. It felt very embodied. It felt like I really had the opportunity to explore and do the work and see what that would be like. I had very fun memories at that time. Mine was the lack of air conditioning. I'm pretty sure that was a ghost. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, tell me, you said that you befriended a chaplain rabbi. When I was in, I know that I had a Catholic priest that Tim Bergen, I feel like I still have occasional conversations with, and it's interesting because there are chaplains that are so wonderful and supportive. then you have others that... really like see their faith as a form of almost tribalism as a way to divide. When the United States military, it's a tax paid ⁓ secular government workforce with a multi-faith workforce. it's a... It's a clash. Can you talk about any, you've talked about some of the positive experiences. Were there negative experiences that you had while serving in the Chaplain Candidate Court? Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Certainly. ⁓ I probably experienced it a bit more under when I was at the Air Force Academy than I did at Ramstein. In part, think my direct supervisor when I was at the Academy that was the summer after Ramstein was dealing with a lot of personal health stuff or something. So he was not able to be present a whole lot. And so I was working with some other folks that were of. more conservative Christian identifications. And I was there with another candidate at the time who ⁓ was a white Christian male and just had a number of experiences, particularly when it came to leading things like helping to lead worship or helping to lead ⁓ your way to baptism. there were just a number of experiences that, you know, no one says it to your face, like, I'm doing this because you're a woman, or I'm doing this because I know you're liberal. Like, no one says that. But you notice, looking around, that like, you're the only one getting treated a certain way, getting spoken to a certain way, and just kind of like these put-downs that you're like, I- I kind think this is a you thing, but you're making it a me thing. ⁓ And just in ways that felt very, like again, never to the point where you could say, okay, like clearly you have some misogynistic BS to work out. ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: where you don't really have another explanation because like it's not like they know you as a person right like it's not like you know you've had some falling out right it's kind of just like your mere existence as a liberal woman in a leadership position kind of offends them and you know i will say too like when i was at the academy i had done one unit of cd at that point ⁓ at yale new haven hospital Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: and which was an eye-opening experience for me. helped me learn a lot about relational dynamics and conflict and how people's unresolved therapeutic issues can sometimes show up in a space. And I just remember that whole summer being like, ⁓ my God, military chaplains really need CV. Like, if we could have some IPR, I think this would be okay. Like if we could have a conversation and a relational dialogue about. this, I think it would be okay, but it really felt like those skills were lacking. And that kind of corrective invitation would probably not have been welcome from a butter bar. So. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, yeah. Well, and that actually is unsurprising. I've heard that before that I recently interviewed—it was on the phone, unfortunately, listeners. It was not on podcast, but a retired colonel who said in all of his years of doing chaplain leadership supervision, you know, as a higher rank— Over and over it was the chaplains who had at least one course of CPE who, mean, drastically have CPE change the stats for quote, points of tension between chaplains and soldiers. Just that one, you don't even have to be a full-blown counselor. They're just like, have a little bit more knowledge than... the texts of faith alone when dealing with a comprehensive human being, being a soldier. And I'm glad that you found that. Again, that doesn't surprise me. Do you feel at the Air Force Academy, I mean, that is last week, I think, was it last week, two weeks ago, Erica Turk over Turning Point USA Air Force Academy Board and. ⁓ there's focus on the family over there. What trends or what did you see at the Air Force Academy specifically that ⁓ concerned you? Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: It's hard to say in some part because it was the summer of 2020. So we were still pre-vaccine COVID. ⁓ And that meant that the interactions and how they were just running that whole summer for cadets was pretty. Like everybody was trying to adjust. Everybody was trying to out how do we run this operation with everybody living in closed quarters with a pandemic going on. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right, it was just... Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: And, you know, quite frankly, one of the reasons I didn't sign back on at Shrever was because just hearing from other chaplains how most of their day was signing waivers so people wouldn't get vaccinated, like signing religious waivers for people who didn't want to get vaccinated for COVID. And I was heading into a CPU residency at a Level 1 trauma hospital in Denver that fall in high COVID. And had a lot of feelings, and still do, had a lot of feelings about. members of the armed services not willing to get vaccinated to protect each other. Like you will take a bullet for a stranger, but you won't get a freaking shot for your neighbor. ⁓ And I know I'm saying that out of a lot of moral distress, having watched literally hundreds of people die from it. ⁓ And some of them refuting that it existed up until their last breath. ⁓ But I think that summer was very colored by the pandemic going on, by the restrictions of being able to meet with people. I recall that there was one chaplain who was like choosing to stay in kind of like the sick area for folks who had COVID. But I think that overshadowed in some respects a lot of. what I might have otherwise picked up on because there was still kind of this like chaotic, like barely controlled chaotic energy of like how are we gonna function as a campus with all these people. Leigh/@followtheleighder: you Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: So I'm not sure I have a great answer and I apologize. Leigh/@followtheleighder: No, no, the religious vaccines comment is something I don't think a lot of folks thought about. ⁓ How many people have appealed to, ⁓ because that is one thing that people have come after the chaplain corps recently. have, Hexeth has announced he'll be trimming the faith codes down from like 217 down to something like 30. It was 34. I think it's 31 or something. But ⁓ people started to argue in the comments about, you know, what are, you know. those 170 some odd faiths, like those aren't legit. I was like, hold on, that's not for us to decide, But you want to sit here and you want to blame, quote, the Norse heathens, because the Norse heathens want to use those religious scripts to have a beard for their culture, but you want to demonize them at the minute. And so it's like a very interesting how the chaplains do get played in these political games very quickly. And it's not... something that I think the public thinks about. But that was, I had not thought about chaplains and vaccine waivers. Thank you for that. ⁓ Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yeah, it was a big thing. Like, it's not like I expected to live my whole time in service without any, like, slightly compromising or challenging things I would have to do, you know, like, whether or not you agree with them, but it just seemed so antithetical to everything I thought we believed in and took root for. And to use religion. as an excuse to avoid ethical responsibility towards your fellow persons. And again, being point blank told at times, most of them don't actually belong to that tradition. It's just like, kind of like working with inmates that are gonna be like, and I hate to say this, but the kosher food's better. So sometimes inmates are like. Jewish for now because like I want the culture you know kind of felt like that like this is not an earnest expression of like you know I belong to the sect and we have a lot of like restrictions and you know it was like I have a political stance and I don't want to do this because of whatever I think I know about vaccines and whatever I think I believe about COVID being real or not and you can't make me so I'm going to use religion and you can't say anything about it because you're the chaplain you can't tell me it's not true. And it just felt like such an abuse of an aspect of people's lives and communities that is supposed to be sacred, if not holy, and cherished. ⁓ And again, used in a way that is demonstrably harmful. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Do you think that's what eventually pushed you away from, I know that you weren't solidly, you weren't persuaded by any religion one way the other, you picked UCC because that's what was relatable, I guess is the word for you. But do you think your time in the Military Chaplain Corps pushed you out of a specific faith? Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Um, unintentionally. interestingly, when I was out there for Academy, met the person who had become my first teacher. He was a contract there. was civilian, but he was the person. I it would have been called a chaplain because he wasn't in uniform. ⁓ And I was already kind of starting, I mean, I was already struggling. Like by my second year of Divinity School, I was already struggling and I think had lived in a warm delusional binary of like faith is over here and theology is over here. And so it's okay if my theology doesn't make sense because it's separate from my faith. doesn't just live on opposite sides of the street now. And that became increasingly unsatisfactory. And as COVID came out and as the Black Lives Matter movement took off, eventually when I was working in level on trauma in the midst of COVID, it all of a sudden really mattered what I thought I believed. Like it wasn't some abstract idea that I was writing papers about in the safety of a library on Yale's campus. It mattered profoundly how I made sense of the six people that had died that day, of the families that had been shattered, of the person who had been shot. And so it wasn't, you know. It wasn't that I left Christianity for Buddhism. They just kind of happened to coincide in a way of like, I felt like a square pig trying to fit into a round hole and eventually got to where I was like, this is not, this is not working for me. And had started sitting with ⁓ Andrew's group on Zoom and found a lot of like freedom and spaciousness and that it was a practice not a belief system and it didn't ask me to believe anything that I couldn't test against my own experience and I didn't have to come to any answers or conclusions and my ability to have faith in something wasn't a measure of how good or bad or faithful or not I was it was The only ask was to just sit on my cushion and see what was real. And I found a lot of freedom in being able then to encounter magnitudes of suffering and knowing I don't have to make this make sense. I don't have to find something that justifies it, find something that excuses it or redeems it. And again, for those for whom that works. wonderful. Like this is not contrary to any tradition, just for me personally wasn't working. And I yeah, I just found a lot of freedom and that like I didn't have to, I didn't have to find something redemptive about a 22 year old man being shot and his, you know, like it could just be horrible. And that could be it is. So that was kind of like the tipping point for me. and then it just evolved from there. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I think that's a particularly interesting when someone who has also wrestled a lot with grief theology, personal grief of all different types, it really, at least for me, I have a hard time getting on with this, like you said, this redemptive theology, well, at least this or he's up with the angels now and like that kind of like. It hasn't, it didn't help me, like, in my grief process to hear that I'll see them again at the pearly gates. And it was part of also what shaped my return towards like even not necessarily one, but just like the general morally indigenous or womanist faith that. ⁓ that almost incorporated a lot more ancestral work. That was easy for me to be like, oh yeah, of course there's this guiding family ancestral thing that, and I don't even know what that looks like to even really define it, but in terms of like, wow, how death dramatically shapes theology. Because on the other side, I... Here's a good point. In middle school, we had, unfortunately, ⁓ a very popular kid ⁓ commit suicide. And very tragic altogether. But what wound up happening was in the hallways, the two different church Christian major theologies started to fight in the hallway about it, where you had some of the middle school kids from their youth groups being like, ⁓ no, this is a great mystery, we'll never understand, this is terrible. But in quoting a lot of scripture, Jeremiah 1,5, God already knew this. And that did, that was comforting. And then there was also the others that were like, no, we had a 13 year old boy, 14 year old boy who had access to a firearm, unlocked firearm, parents were home, he had some mental health issues. We need to look at these things. And, but both of those came from... We were talking about that at church, that's where the language was coming from, and we should pray, and it was a totally different world. But again, going back to that grief theology, that there are just some stories that don't make sense when you cross a threshold and you can't, it almost feels... Sometimes it can almost feel reckless or irresponsible or to be like, no, wait, I don't know. It's not enough to just say it's the mystery. have to, like, there are some other. And so it's just a very, there's this kind of conversation, which is not what this podcast is, episode is about today. But I just, it's just such a great point. Thank you for bringing up grief theology. Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yeah, think... I think... I don't know one more point because you said it's not about this, but I... One of the ways I think about like... as a chaplain is just to not turn away. To see the depths of someone's suffering, of someone's grief, of someone's loss, and to just not turn away. And there are moments where, to your point, like introducing theology or trying to find an explanation or a reason why, or even just to say, we'll never know, like, is a slight turning away. from just being present to what it is. And it doesn't mean it doesn't have a place, right? It doesn't mean that at some point along the process, making meaning of it or finding how it fits into the greater whole or narrative of one's life isn't a very healthy response. But in the moment, it feels like it too quickly tries to dismiss or turn away from the pain that's present. And I think it's a very natural response, right? Like it's, it is painful, right? Like it's, not fun to just sit there with it. And I think for me, felt like doing that pain and that person a disservice at times. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, I think just being able to look at the different ways you said that you studied comparative religions. that being exposed to other approaches also like shapes, like for me, at least I know that I also like to study lots of different faiths, ritualities, theologies. And I consider myself, I left Christianity for a while and came back almost through like Jesus as mystic, and like, and just a different form than what I think I was raised with with the book and the stories. It came to a different way to me. But it is weird because like you were saying with Buddhism, you don't have to qualify yourself. Like sometimes I feel like I have, just saying I'm Christian light because I see Jesus as mystic because I know that there's gonna be a whole gaggle of people calling me a heretic or you know, whatever their thing and I don't really care about that but... ⁓ It's just funny how qualifiers, they're just labels. And they're just so much more for community building or avoiding, whatever you want to go with it. ⁓ When your time, aside not just from the Air Force Academy, but in Colorado or... sort of in these spaces. Did you hear conversations or see any of the rhetoric that we're experiencing now in the headlines coming out of the Pentagon? Some of this Christian rhetoric or this American dominance rhetoric? I know that's kind of a weird question because America's always kind of been like world war back-to-back world war champs and like this whole thing but was there anything that was particularly alarming to you at all during your time of service? Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: I always. I think... I'm an internal processor, so I'm going to chew my way towards this question, but just read your, I got too far. ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: You're all right. Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: One of the, I would say, privileges of being a chaplain and of being a chaplain educator is in some ways similar to the military. I am always in relationship with people from both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between. And I don't have the luxury of self-siloing into an echo chamber of my own opinions. ⁓ which is both challenging and I think for me necessary because I think while I'm very, while I feel very firmly grounded in my political stance and where I lie. current issues, I also recognize that dehumanization, ostracization, binaries, all of these things can happen from either side and do. And Being a chaplain means that I walk into a room and even if Fox News is playing on the TV, I still am with that person wholly and completely because them losing their child doesn't hurt me less just because they voted for Trump. And, you know, I have students from the Southern Baptist tradition who voted one way and are very firmly in that camp and I have students. that are all the way on the other side and you know, are in Earth-based spiritualities and queer and, you know, and we sit in a room together twice a week every week and have to not just like work together but form meaningful relationships, which I think is something that feels like it got really lost in what is happening today. And I don't mean this in a trite like, we just need to learn how to talk to each other. ⁓ But I do think there's been kind of a fundamental breakdown of like, how do you relate to someone meaningfully and truly who seems to represent everything you stand against, you know, ⁓ that paints a picture. that feels maybe dehumanizing to yourself at times. And working with these people, like, I think forces the rehumanization of each other onto each other. It can neither dehumanize me and I cannot dehumanize them. we just, when somebody tells you about their worst fears and their biggest insecurities and cries in your office, like you can't, you can't see them as a voter anymore. You have to see the whole person. So. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yes, I hear many concerning things sometimes out of my students' mouths, sometimes out of my patients' mouths, ⁓ sometimes out of people I've served with and people I haven't. And I think maybe what concerns me more in that is how it seems like in some respects we've lost the ability to have the conversation together. And I worry about, like, we can't move forward without half the country, unless we want another civil war, you know? ⁓ So I worry more about either the lack of or the loss of or... Maybe we've just never been challenged to this degree before to have really skillful and compassionate conversation and to build relationship ⁓ in a way that can be productive rather than further decisiveness. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and what's really interesting, now that you bring up both sides of the debate, is how both sides are frustrated with the institutions, I know very far. And it has been interesting too, because these institutions, whatever they are, it just seems like everything is being shaken up. Whether it's how we see academic institutions, church institutions, just like a lot. Because on one hand, particularly, I think about this quite often, on the conservative right, they're organizing weekly, if not more than weekly, at their local churches. You can call that an organization, the church attendance or... ⁓ has fallen dramatically on the progressive Christian side. And a lot of people turn towards other modalities, other forms of worship, things that speak more to them. But I am looking at ways of like, okay, now we have a significant number of people who are no longer going to institutions regularly, they're no longer building that community. ⁓ and how they're kind of floundering. A lot of the terms I'm hearing are deconstruction, deconstructing. ⁓ Have you come across that phrase? Have you had to counsel? Or what has that looked like from a Chaplain trainer perspective? And as someone who kind of did it. Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I have heard, I mean, I've heard like the whisperings of like, the churches are struggling, right? And, you know, fairly frequently I get folks who have turned to chaplaincy because the prospect of having a full-time position in a church for their career is just no longer possible. And I'm like, I don't know how to... break it to you, but you're not going to make a lot of this chat one either. Because that's, mean, chaplaincy is also having its own struggles within institutions, faith based healthcare organizations. I think are potentially more likely. I mean, not always though. Seem like they should be more safe in terms of keeping on chaplain staff, but funding in the space of healthcare right now is. Chaplains are often first on the chopping block, which makes sense and for many reasons which I think demonstrate a lack of familiarity with what chaplains are and what they do and the training they receive. ⁓ So I hear some of it. I definitely have many students who come to CPE. in a deconstruction place and because are often there because like maybe they did serve in a church and because of the current political climate felt like their church started to go one way and that didn't maybe align with where they were and they still wanted to serve in a capacity that felt ministerial. ⁓ But didn't know how to do that in a way that was congruent to their own sense of integrity or values and so come to chaplaincy and over the course of, you know, three or four units often end up. either Christian light, like you said, and kind of a no-hands land, unknown space, ⁓ or in another tradition altogether, or kind of just weaving together a tapestry of different practices and smaller communities that ⁓ make sense to them. Like as a trend, don't, I mean, just to be honest, like, I don't know if I've been in education long enough to have noticed, like I've only been an educator or like been. few years so I don't want to speak to anything I don't have the experience to back it up but and I'm also aware that I might have a baddest perspective simply because as a Buddhist educator I think know, representation matters. So I probably tend to see more students that are in that unknown realm just by virtue of not belonging to the dominant Christian tradition. think students who also do not belong to the dominant Christian tradition have expressed that they feel more comfortable with an educator who's not. Leigh/@followtheleighder: think about the role, one thing I think about is a lot of the policies that are being crafted by the military, particularly ones that roll back sexual assault or discrimination or racial discrimination, any of these policies, these quote woke policies. And then on top of it, ⁓ just the way they talk about sexual violence, sexual assault, I'm very concerned that we are looking, not we, but this military is looking to shape us in very male prison conditions, I guess is the best, most delicate way to put this, that we will see a great amount of harm in the next few years. And I think this is a big thing with religious harm, is that over and over there's a sort of sexual component to it, whether it's ⁓ to do with children, it could have something to do with homosexuality, but it would just outright rape. ⁓ But this point is that religious harm is both spiritual and also very physical and I don't want to get too deep into the sexual harm part of it, but I'm really concerned that we are going to see a wave of people leaving a lot of this very intense ⁓ Christian nationalist wave, it will go to rise to power, it's gonna do what it's gonna do, but once it's over, there's gonna be a lot of harm. People are getting sucked up into this ⁓ theological harm, right? They've got prosperity gospel tied into their Bible, tied into Palantir and military. It's scary. ⁓ As we head off, I know that's a big question, but can you talk about when someone comes to the end of themselves with their faith, when they're feeling deeply harmed in a lot of ways, particularly spiritually, theologically, what are some ways that they can begin to feel grounded, that they can begin to kind of... ⁓ I don't want to say poke the bear, but kind of acknowledge that voice that is still in them, just wounded. Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: was a big question. I think the first thing I would say is that... we as a field as a people will probably have to contend with and could use greater understanding, literature, and definition around what spiritual trauma is and what religious trauma is. It's a word I hear every once in a while, and I certainly have students that I would say seem to be suffering the effects of religious trauma. And there's not nearly as much literature that I have found, and I could be wolfing her in, but there's not as much literature that I have found out there specifically addressing this as a particular kind of trauma. ⁓ And I think defining that and helping, starting with an assessment of like, where are people? Like, is it trauma? Is it maybe not trauma, but is it big T-trauma? Is it little T-trauma? Is it complex trauma? Is it PTSD? Like, I think getting clear about some of these things and how they show up in religious spaces could help differentiate what belongs in the therapeutic realm that we would call upon. skilled clinicians with therapeutic licenses to address and what can also benefit from spiritual directors, from CBE, from folks that have training in these spaces. a lot of it, there's a Venn diagram, right? And there's an overlap. a therapist can be really, really skilled at dealing with trauma and may not know as much about like the spiritual and religious component of it. And so being able to bring those two together in a way that honors the need of both sides, both the spiritual side and the therapeutic trauma side. I think. I think it's hard to heal from any wound we don't realize is there. And so to answer your question about a first step, think the first thing for anything for anybody, whether it's a spiritual harm or physical harm or whatever it is, is to realize that you have in fact been harmed. Harm has been done and that there is something that is asking to be healed. that and even looking at that can be really painful and really challenging and can bring up all sorts of conflicting guilt, shame, you know, it can get really messy really fast. So I think I would also just say that like, I personally think that healing happens in community. don't think it happens in isolation. I think there's a lot of important work individuals do and I think it happens in communities. So finding people and or furry beings, other sentient beings to be on that journey that will not further induce shame, will not cause further harm. ⁓ have the emotional resilience to stay in relationship, even when it does get really challenging, I think is really, really important for any healing journey. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and I'm thankful that you said to name the harm because another harm, like you said, to even touch the harm is a feat in of itself because a byproduct of the harm is that, like you said, the shame. So like you may not. And I've had at least one or... I know I've had two conversations with people who like told me a story and then I responded to a part of it where I was like, ⁓ that's messed up. They shouldn't have done that to you or something. And then they're like, I've never even, I thought it was me. Like I thought I deserved it because XYZ. And I was like, no, that's, they shouldn't have done that to you. That's not okay. ⁓ And then it didn't, they didn't even realize. they had taken the guilt on that to know that it was a harm. And then after, know, get a call back, you know what, you were right. That guy was messed up. was like, or, know, whatever. But I realized that the power of naming harms and the power of also... ⁓ for the self to name harms on spiritual trauma, big T or little T, but also just being able, someone like you coming into an educator leadership position, coming onto podcasts, naming this and so that other people feel like, ⁓ like there's already someone who studied this, who's leading, who cares about it and is like gainfully employed in doing this thing. I didn't even know. And I think that's really beautiful. I know that you went to, and you went to a ⁓ Depeya, Depeya. Buddhist, yeah, thank you, in Santa Fe. ⁓ And before we head off, you not only, first of all, can you give us some resources, some books just off the top of your head for some of us to start either contemplating a Buddhist journey or just some other theological texts that you think you're like, yeah, this was a cool one. I know. Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yeah. I have too many, I a dangerous question. Okay, so I would say if for folks that are interested in exploring Buddhism, I think the first one I would start with is The Heart of the Buddhist Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh. He's written one trillion books, but I think it would start there. That's a nice grand overview. ⁓ I think, I don't know if, since we talked about trauma a little bit, for those who haven't read The Myth of Normal by Gabriel Mate, highly recommend that. I know. The Body Keeps the Score has been very, very popular for a long time and I think that one's wonderful as well. think The Myth of Normal helps contextualize a broader range of what trauma can look like and how it can show up and impact folks. So I highly recommend that book. ⁓ and I know I have others on my shelf, but those are the two that are coming tonight. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That's fantastic. Well, what about you? If people wanted to learn more about you or follow or support your cause, how can they learn more? Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yeah. y'all, I have too much anxiety for social media, so apologies. I don't have social media because, let me rephrase, as a good millennial, I have Pinterest. Other than that, I haven't had social media because it was making me so anxious. Um, but I'm on LinkedIn and, um, you know, if they get in touch with you, I'm happy to share my email with anyone. Leigh/@followtheleighder: There you Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: I work in the Denver area, so it should be fairly easy to find among CPE educators. But yeah, I would love to connect with people one-on-one. And apologies, I'm not on the social interwebs. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Hey, it's all good. guest I had recently was actually the Quaker House out of North Carolina. And they were talking about how they have gotten a wave of people applying for conscience and subjecture, objector request to get out of this military. And apparently after the podcast, they got another wave of cult. It's just so. Watch your LinkedIn, because people might call you. This is not just a non-podcast hub. People will respond. And I hope that we can have you back. Your expertise is, like I said, awesome. I love the way you word things and see things and approach life and theology. And I know we could have a lot deeper conversations. And I do hope you return. Is there anything else before we wrap up? Anya Powers, Buddhist Chaplain and USAFR Veteran: Yeah. I'm just grateful for the time. I'm grateful you're doing this. Thanks for being part of what you're proud of. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well folks, that wraps up that episode of Follow the Leader. I'm your host, Leigh Larson. What'd think? Let me know in the comments. Don't forget to like, subscribe, follow, you know the drill. But until next time, I'll see ya. Bye bye.