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Pastoral Care Week Oct. 19-25: Imagining Community by Chaplain George M. Rossi MUSC Pastoral Care Services Have you ever received the gift of working with a group that was tasked to dream and use group vision to achieve a shared goal?  Imagining the future and creating that future has always been a theological task.  In many religions, it is the Creator who shares the vision and then asks one’s followers to make the trek.  Maybe the Wizard of Oz is a good secular comparison.  Another good example is the beginning of baseball spring training when every team begins with the vision of being the best team in baseball.  Imagining and creating community is a very important goal for religious and spiritual communities and individuals.  People and groups work to define their hopeful future and then go for it.  Imagining community is a task central to communities of faith, but spiritual communities are certainly not the only ones to focus on that task. At MUSC, each medical unit, department, service, etc. has the goal of creating shared values, oneness, and community. We have to ask ourselves what we want our medical units, departments, and institution to value and “be.”  I cannot imagine a work place where a sense of shared purpose is not one of the highest priorities of a group.  Caring for people is the heartbeat of the medical center mission.  How we care for one another is impacted by the way we care for one another as colleagues and peers. Allow me to imagine some common ways that staff can create the “Community of Care” we all want to be: Take a minute to send a card or make a phone call to a staff member who recently experienced a loss. Use your resources (home, food, money) to celebrate special occasions like the welcoming of new staff and blessing retiring staff.  Eat together and share a meal where people can get to know one another a little better and therefore understand one another more fully.  Give people the benefit of the doubt.  As one mentor of mine once said, “Most people are doing the best they can at any given time.” Practice forgiveness.  Speak from your heart, and try to be as open as possible.  Tell and show others that you appreciate their unique contributions to the unit and team. May this year’s Pastoral Care Week of “Imagining Community” inspire you to imagine and dream ways to increase the caring community that already exists with the “Community of Caring” at MUSC.  MUSC Pastoral Care http://www.musc.edu/pastoralcare/   Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.