By Wayne E. Rivet

Staff Writer

For 32 years,Greg Grigsby’s mission in life was to help children.

As a school psychologist, he built trust and connections with youngsters and assisted them with a wide range of problems from lacking self-worth to overcoming troubles from living with parents struggling with alcoholism or drugs.

When he decided to retire in 2017, Greg knew he needed to find a new purpose.

“I didn’t want to feel I was in retirement. It’s not who I am. I wanted something that I felt I was still contributing,” he said. “I sensed that I needed to find a waning energy. At 70, I was still feeling vibrant and wanting to find a purposeful direction for my life.”

ChIME — the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine — was the answer.

“I knew about ChIME because Cathy (Greg’s wife) is a part-time teacher at ChIME. As I thought about it for about a year (my last year in school), it would serve two purposes: It would give me an avenue — a direction — for service, and it would put me in a position that I was expected to study. It would be easier for me to get up and study, versus wondering what I was going to do today,” he said. “I have been involved with a spiritual path my whole life, thinking someday I am going to die and it’s time for me to learn about this realm.”

For the past two years, Greg has been enrolled in the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine, located in Portland. He attended a three-hour class each week, as well as attended a retreat once a month where students took part in classes throughout the day (seven hours) Saturday and Sunday.

“The program entails a lot of learning about how to be a chaplain, which there is an overlap with having been a counselor. The primary skills of a chaplain are to relate to an individual and be a good listener,” the Bridgton resident said. “This is an interfaith school, so we are open to people of any faith or spiritual path.”

Greg grew up in a Protestant home. He went to church with his mom, semi-regularly until his teenage years.

“My parents were pretty steeped in thinking about things in scientific terms. So, naturally, that’s the way I tended to think about things. From a scientific perspective, I grew up thinking there is no way to scientifically prove the existence of God so why think about it? I was a life-long Agnostic,” he recalled. “Being with Cathy helped me open up possibilities — I didn’t have to prove the existence of God to have a spiritual path. She grew up as a Protestant, and is an Interfaith minister.”

ChIME opened a spiritual door for Greg, who was ordained in a ceremony held on June 2.

“We studied what other religions are all about. A working knowledge,” he said. “The role of an interfaith chaplain is to be available to a person of any faith, to sit with, listen to and explore with, a person’s questions about life. We have the authority to perform weddings and funerals.”

 ChIME ordains about 10 chaplains per year. Greg found most of his ChIME classmates were considerably younger. They came from all walks of life. Some people work for hospice or hospitals or a college/university, where there are those from all beliefs.

Why become a chaplain?

“I think similar to me, a lot of the people enter ChIME as part of a new spiritual path that doesn’t necessarily have a defined destiny to it. I am searching. I’m seeking. Some might have grown up in a Catholic or Baptist church, and there were parts of it they couldn’t tolerate, and turned me off to religion for decades, but now I am realizing that I am missing something in life, and how can I discover what it is. I am not going back to my previous religious tradition. It was too rigid,” Greg said. “As our culture has become more diverse and we’ve become more exposed to diverse ideas, it seems to me that people are more open to other possibilities. In interfaith, we consider all spiritual paths and religions as being of equal value. Whatever the faith, the path to God might be different, but they are all seeking the same thing.”

Through his studies at ChIME, Greg was particularly interested in the mystical traditions that the major religions have.

“I’ve studied Buddhism because it fits my intellectual way of being, its emphasis on peace of mind,” he said.

His work as a counselor made the transition to serving as a chaplain a smooth one.

How did he become interested in counseling?

”I came to realize my mission in life was to serve children the best that I could. Little steps along the way led me to the right place. When I finished my bachelor’s in psychology at Indiana University, there was a career event where people could learn about different potential career paths. One of the places I went was school psychology. It just felt really right. I applied for the master’s program, and was accepted. I worked as a school psychologist for three years. It was a K-12 profession. I determined what I really liked working with elementary-age kids. Making real connections really appealed to me. I thought I wanted to be an elementary school teacher. When I moved to Maine, I was an elementary teacher for two years in Baldwin. The work requirements are off the charts. Some people are willing to do that. Two years was enough for me,” Greg recalled. “I so admire teachers. I needed to find something else. Maine was one of the few states that was pioneering in school psychology. I had the skills and courses. I saw an ad in the newspaper for an opening at Oxford Hills. I was blown away. It all came together.”

What did Greg really enjoy about being a counselor?

“The reason I was drawn to elementary-school age is what I needed as a kid, but it wasn’t available. Kids are open emotionally. I could do a lot of prevention work before they got into issues, help build their resilience and understanding. It became clear to me that it wasn’t a job, but a mission to serve kids in these kinds of ways. The range of things I did was very broad. I did individual counseling, mostly around loss and academic problems. I did a ton of small group work involving self-esteem, self-worth; being children of divorce and alcoholics; and classroom work surrounding coping skills and conflict resolution,” he said.

Over three decades of counseling work, Greg saw some major shifts and trends? Children of addicts became more prevalent.

“The secrecy around it (drug addiction) made it more difficult to reach kids,” he said. “From 1985 to 2000, I saw a gradual increase in children of divorce. I’d been through divorce myself, so I studied how to help my kids. I had a lot of personal experience, which enabled me to go deeper and really understand how kids I was working with truly felt.”

Counseling can carry an emotional toll. How does one handle one’s own emotions when hearing about difficulties a child may be undergoing?

“I had a lot of personal therapy. A child’s pain brings up my pain. I had a lot of therapy to heal places I needed to be healed. I could listen and empathize without being triggered,” he said.

What was the most rewarding aspect of being a counselor?

“I knew thousands of kids, and because I worked with groups and classrooms and kids got to know me well, I was able to make deep connections. Kids at risk need those connections to thrive and build some resilience,” Greg added.

Now, he hopes to create new connections, this time maybe more on a spiritual level.

“We take vows. We determine our own vows. It came down to two words for me, to love and to surrender (giving up protecting my ego, and allowing things to come to me, not search it out). The availability to serve. Accepting vs finding. My spiritual journey has allowed me to change,” Greg said.

The mission is slightly different now, but the goal remains the same for Greg Grigsby — he wants to help.

If someone is looking for a chaplain, Greg can be reached via e-mail at gregbgrigsby@gmail.com