School nurses and crisis counselors in Alief ISD teach us lessons about profound commitment to caring for others.

February 13, 2023

In the picture above, Alejandro Chaoul, director of The Jung Center’s Mind Body Spirit Institute, shows Alief school nurses how to open themselves to give and receive love (an exercise on loan to us from Rev. Juanita Rasmus, co-pastor of St. John’s UMC and faculty member of MBSI). Thanks to a grant from H-E-B, we have been working with the crisis counseling team in Alief ISD. Any time a campus experiences a major disruption — the death of a community member, major behavioral challenges, or other losses — the crisis counseling team deploys to help the faculty, staff, and students manage their experience. And we have also been privileged to work with school nurses from across the district, who often are the first point of contact struggling children have with community resources. These jobs are emotionally expensive, as our fall benefit lecturer Kate Bowler described them; they require a deep commitment to accepting and holding the suffering of others. We remain privileged to do this work — and personally changed by each encounter we have with these committed, caring people.