A Dark and Stormy Night

 “It was a dark and stormy night” is the introductory line from a novel written by Victorian author Sir Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton.  It is now widely regarded as the epitome of the worst way to begin a novel or short story. But it really was a dark and stormy night before my first day at Parrish Medical Center.

I had finished my five and a half year tenure at Cape Canaveral Hospital on Thursday, September 2nd as the hospital evacuated in advance of Frances, the second hurricane of the season. At Parrish Medical Center, the hospital was preparing as well and the staff hunkered down to ride out the storm, locked in for the duration. Frances would prove to be a slow mover and the lockdown a long one.

September 6, 2004, my wife and I were shopping for a few things at CVS on the corner Wickham Road and Parkway in Melbourne, FL. Hurricane Frances, had just passed, leaving most of the area without power and some of the area devastated by the damage. A tornado, spawned by the storm, had swept through Wickham Park, destroying a quarter of a large apartment complex next to our neighborhood. We were spared any significant damage, but like most everyone else, we had no power. CVS had power and AC! We were taking our time looking around, cooling off, getting a few things we needed, and again my phone rang.

“Hi, Jerald. This is Roberta Chaildin from Parrish. Listen, we have been on lockdown because of the hurricane for 92 hours and the strain is showing. I know you’re not supposed to start until tomorrow, but could you come in today?”

I arrived early afternoon, dressed in khakis and a polo shirt that had the Association of Professional Chaplains logo on it. I chose it because the word “Chaplains”was easily readable on it, and since most everyone I would meet that day would have no idea who I was.

There wasn’t a whole lot I could do, other than “Presence Ministry.” There was no way to fix the stress felt by 90+ hours of lockdown or the stress of not knowing the condition of their homes or the stress of a second blow on top of the one two-weeks prior that had already left the area covered in blue tarps.

Ten years have passed and I’m still convinced that presence, “being consciously and compassionately in the present moment,” (Miller, The Art of Being a Healing Presence, p 12) is one of the most powerful things we can bring to our work with patients, their families and just as importantly, to each other.

Jerald

 

All opinions expressed herein are strictly my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Parrish Medical Center.

Love is a Verb

“All hardback books $5, all paperback books, $3.” That’s what the sign said at the bookstore at the Orange County Convention Center the week of my denominational chaplains commission meeting and general assembly. In no time flat, I had picked out six books for a total of $27.00. A bargain even I couldn’t resist.

Two of the books are about relationships, one is about the sacraments, and another focuses on the Lord’s Prayer. Currently, I’m reading a book by Tim Keel titled “Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor & Chaos.” I won’t bore you with trying to re-state all that the book talks about, but the major point, very well told in the book, is that the world has changed and continues to change is fundamental ways. We all know it. We all feel it, though we can’t often name it or understand it or the meaning of it. We see it in the blur of technological change and how quickly the latest gadget is obsolete. We see it in how differently Baby Boomers, Gen Xers and Gen Nexters relate to authority and work. How, asks Keel, is the church to live in and be relevant to a world so dramatically different than that of a generation ago?

The world of healthcare has changed just as rapidly. Healthcare workers have changed. Patients have changed. Treatment and payment models have changed. It turns out that the religious experts and the healthcare experts face similar challenges. How can healthcare keep up with a changing landscape where our success depends equally upon quality measures and patient satisfaction scores? Keel’s message to the church is just as relevant to the hospital, I think. The church can’t just proclaim a message and expect to be heard and believed. The message must be lived in order to be heard.

Hospitals too must live out their mission. It isn’t enough anymore to be the experts in fixing broken bones, unclogging arteries or curing infections. They must live quality and they must also live care and compassion. In short, the answer for both, it seems to me is the sixth book I purchased. That book is by Gary Chapman. It is a collection of stories about how one person touched the life of another. The title is simple. The message is profound. “Love is a Verb.”

Blessings to you all,

Jerald

Mortality Bites

How can two people who are in the same circumstances in the same hospital be in such very different places? She is sad, anxious, grieving the loss of independence and staring into her own mortality, frightened. He is calm, serene, at peace and says, “You just have got to expect it.” She has outlived two husbands. He has outlived one wife. Both are over eighty. Both are people of faith. So what’s the difference? He has had more time to process things.

His illness has been a gradual decline toward death lasting several years. Her illness has been more sudden. Up to now, she has enjoyed good health. Illness has been his companion for a while. She has a lot of catching up to do to be where he is. He has a head start. I don’t expect her to be at the same place. She’ll get there. I know it. And so does she.

Sometimes being a chaplain just isn’t much fun. It is hard to walk with others who are being pressed in by the narrowing of life, facing their own mortality, without facing my own. Though I am well past the middle point of my life, I still want to believe I’m never going to die. Or at least not think about it today.

Blessings to you all,

Jerald

Callouses

Two voices have spoken to my life this week. Rather, I should say one Voice has spoken to me this week through two instruments. One is an elder statesman, the other a minister in the dawn of his ministerial journey. Both delivered the same message. A message I needed to hear; that we all need to hear.

Dr. Robert Crick began his journey as a chaplain in the 1960’s. He was an airborne chaplain in the Army. A role that combined sacraments, marriage counseling, preaching, and jumping out of perfectly good airplanes in some of the hottest hot zones of the Vietnam War. He became the first Pentecostal Clinical Pastoral Supervisor in the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education in a day when many considered Pentecostals as victims of some kind of pathology. Since the end of his military career, he has been the Director of the Church of God Chaplains Commission, my endorsing agency in the field of chaplaincy.

He met with a few of us this past week at the Spiritual Care Collaborative Conference (a joint meeting of Assoc. of Professional Chaplains, Assoc. for Clinical Pastoral Education, National Assoc. of Catholic Chaplains, National Assoc. of Jewish Chaplains, Assoc. for Pastoral Care and Counseling and Canadian Assoc. for Pastoral Practice and Education). I was struck again by his passion for the work we are called to do and his compassion for those of us who do it. The years of jumping out of planes have long passed, but he is still as passionate and tenderhearted a person as you’ll ever meet.

Robert Ward is just beginning his career in ministry as a Lay Minister in the Presbyterian Church. As part of his training, he shadowed me here for several days this past summer. Months ago, he sent me a copy of his first sermon. I put it in my cd player, got called away for something I can’t even remember now, and found it today when I went to insert another presentation to review. It was a message I needed to hear today. In it I heard a fresh voice speak of what happens here in my hospital as seen through fresh eyes. It was a beautiful message, beautifully done.

What I heard as the Voice spoke through these two instruments was that I can become accustomed to what I see, hear, and encounter in this work. But I need not, must not become calloused by it. Have you heard that Voice too?

Blessings to you all,

The Power of Encouragement

Glimmers
January 15, 2009

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up…”(1Thessalonians 5:11 NIV)

It struck me this morning as I tried a new exercise on my Wii Fit that there is powerful psychology at work in that little machine. The exercise was jogging in place. The screen showed a beautiful park with mountains, waterfalls and lush foliage. My task was to “run” at a pace sufficient to keep up with the Mii in front of me (Miis are computer-generated characters in the program) but not to pass him. Every couple of minutes or so, he looked behind to see how I was doing and gave me a wave as if to say, “keep it up, you’re doing great.” Along the course, other Miis appeared. Some were running in the same direction, some coming toward me. Sometimes they jumped up and down with delight, hands raised like a football official signaling a touchdown. All of it helped me want to keep going to reach the finish line.

People need encouragement. We need it, our spouses need it, our children need it, and so do the people who come to our hospital for care. How can we offer encouragement? I think an insight from Larry Crabb is helpful here.

In his book, Connecting, he talks of God’s delighting in us even in the messes we have sometimes made of our lives. “Rather than entering the dark places of our souls with a flashlight and a scalpel, intent on repairing what is wrong, he enters with a flashlight and a smile, eager to let us see how he feels about us even when we stand exposed in his presence. He looks at us with eyes of delight that see a goodness beneath the mess, with a heart that beats wildly with excitement over who we are and who we will become” (p. 10).

How can we do that? It is not exactly what Crabb says word for word, but a strategy I have adopted, even when the person has done terrible and self-destructive things, is try to find somewhere in the conversation to say, “I like it that you_________.” And fill in the blank. It never ceases to amaze me how that little phrase draws people out and helps me connect with them. People respond to encouragement, they really do.

Blessings to you all,

Glimmer Man

Sympathy

I really should be more sympathetic. I know, "you're a chaplain, that is your job." Well, yes, but nothing reminds one of how bad feeling sick feels like being sick. I don't get sick often. And I hardly ever get so sick I just want to go to bed. But that is what happened over Christmas vacation. Not the whole vacation, thankfully. But a few days of it I felt miserable.

Compared to the people I see in the course of my job, what I suffered was really minor league stuff. However, I am so used to feeling good that I found it hard to remember what feeling sick felt like. Not now.

I know that not everything that happens to me has some deep, spiritual meaning. But I can certainly reflect on what happens to me and be open to the possibility that God can use it in some way. I know that since my little taste of illness, I am feeling the sicknesses of others a little more personally. So, today I give thanks for whatever viral bug infested my being for the past 2 plus weeks. I don't want to go through it again anytime soon. But I don't want to forget it either.