In the United States, Latinx individuals and especially Latinx immigrants are vulnerable and at-risk populations. They exhibit rates of psychological distress at the same frequency as the general population but are more likely to exhibit severe symptoms and less likely to receive any mental health treatment.  Read more

The 2022 ACPE Annual Conference is presented jointly with the Association of Professional Chaplains. We’ve teamed up to offer “Freedom, Wonder, and Liberation: Anti-Bias Practices of Spiritual Care and Education.”  Read more

Once a month the Professional Ethics Commission (PEC) posts a couple of statements from our Code of Professional Ethics for members. Each posting is accompanied by a brief personal reflection from a member of the PEC discussing some ways this person lives these commitments*.  Read more

We invite all ACPE Certified Educators who are working with Certified Educator Candidates to join us for informal consultations and conversations via Zoom. The drop-in meeting (no RSVP required) will take place on the first and third Mondays of the month, from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm ET. Read more

In this month where we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander history in the US, this poem stood out for its “yes, but…” quality as well as its “yes, and.” Evelyn Flores is an Indigenous CHamoru poet, describes this poem as follows: “As it had been for the rest of the world, it had been a year of death and dying for us in the wake of the virus. On an island like Guåhan where families are connected in many different ways, we walked about in a state of shock that this could be happening. Then it was that my neighbor leaning across the fence talked about poisoning the flame tree. Although it made sense, something inside resisted. But it was done. Dying and living came together as I watched that courageous tree refuse to die. We would go on. The beautiful would insist. That’s when the poem came.”

My neighbor has decided to poison the flame tree.

He is right, of course.

The tree is over 20 years old, huge, spreading,

and the termites have worn jagged roads clear to its top.

It’s clearly a danger

tilting toward our house—

some fickle wind

my neighbor says could blow it over. 

Every fañomnåkan, it sends out its bursts of orange blossoms;

it blooms and blooms and blooms relentlessly,

the flares it sends shooting out into space

more stunning than fireworks 

through the window

where my mother

riveted to a bed, doomed by her body to a colorless spot, 

gazes out, her head on a pillow—

might have seemed like forever to her who used to climb green mountain sides—

and watches that tree full of sparrows

chittering

chattering

flitting here and there

and the outlandish blazing petals

steadfastly singing against the blue sky.

My neighbor, true to his word,

injected a poisonous brew bought at Home Depot into the trunk of the tree,

the toxic river

traveling up up up following the termite trails to the heart 

of the fire.

He is right, of course.

The tree came back the following year,

its clusters unflinchingly parading their bursts of rebellious orange.

But the poison had done its work—

see, where there was a canopy of flames

there are now just a handful here and there,

one spray in particular desperately

reaching out 

like a fist full of beauty 

to the window

where she 

used to watch for its return.

 

Copyright © 2022 by Evelyn Flores. 

Accessed at https://poets.org/poem/flame-tree?mc_cid=ad20cc003d&mc_eid=368b8bdf0f.

As the world continues to watch as Russian bombards Ukraine, this song which was produced by UNICEF seven years ago seems not just relevant but necessary for today: