My writing habit has quickly gone down the tubes. Thank goodness for the accountability monster called Facebook. I told y'all that's why I was finally making this thing public, and so far, it's quasi-working, in that I have a few friends who have asked me about my blog. I have not kept up with my "write 500 words a day" goal, but at least I am here. Considering my first few weeks of January, I am quite pleased to be writing anything at this point.
It is difficult to put to words what I want to say. I have been in a class for 2 weeks called Pastoral Care in a Hospital Setting. I took it because I am not required by my denomination to take a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), which is hefty training in chaplaincy. I knew that this 4-week intensive course would be a great learning experience for someone who wants to become a pastor and who will certainly be providing bedside pastoral care to patients and families in their time of need. A 4-week January term course seemed like a great route to get some experience, learn a lot, and move on without having to apply for and/or enroll in a 10-week or year-long CPE program.
I severely underestimated the ability of this class to be a game-changer. How is that I have only attended 9 actual days of this class and I have been so deeply affected? Let me try to explain a brief view into what God has been up to through this course.
The first week of the course, we were in class. Lots of role playing. Lots of discussion about everything from the practical aspects of entering a hospital room to empathetic listening skills to how to be gracious in the face of someone who doesn't want you there. We did lots of work on our personal "stuff" and understanding what we might be carrying into the room with us in terms of our own story. We discussed and debated the seven basic desires that all humans theoretically share and what existential needs are required to achieve fulfillment in life. We also learned how to make a spiritual assessment of how a patient might be responding to their clinical needs and treatments based on their fulfillment and support of those existential needs. Sounds like I know what I'm talking about, right? Or at least I'm using big words? That's a part of the training too - we have learned some of the clinical terminology so we can more adequately provide a patient assessment to a physician who needs to know how someone's spiritual needs might impact their ability to recover from their medical procedures, etc. (ie - do they have enough support to get through this? do they have something or someone to live for? do they find fulfillment in life? do they have the courage to persevere through this major operation? etc)
The second week, we started seeing patients and doing rounds on our assigned floor twice a day. We go to class in the morning for 1.5hrs, do rounds for 1.5 hrs, lunch, rounds for another 1.5hrs, and then class again for the last 1.5hr. It's grueling, but I have found that the 3 hours a day that I am doing patient rounds is the time that goes the fastest. I love it on most days. Some days are more "standard" visits where there isn't really much to talk about, but they still appreciate my visit. Some days, I find people who are desperate to have someone to speak with, and as soon as I enter the room and introduce myself, they find the permission and/or courage to speak and discover some of the trouble within them that is causing pain on top of their physical ailments.
Many times, coming to the hospital is stressful because it takes patients away from work, the ability to earn an income, their families, their pets, their routine and schedule. Sometimes, it is an unexpected trip - "I went to the doctor for my regular appointment and he sent me over here to check into the hospital. I've been here ever since." And many, many times, it invokes much of the loss and fear that may have occurred previously in their life. This can manifest itself in many different ways, but regardless of how, I am there to listen and to help a patient make sense of all of the chaos and emotion that may be stirring within them while they lay there in that bed.
Most of my visits are "cold calls" and are simply a knock on the door to see how they are. However, yesterday, I got to take one of the on-call chaplain's referrals, which was a powerful experience. Not that most patients don't want me there, but going to the room where someone has requested a chaplain brought me an increased sense of responsibility for whatever expectations this patient held for the visit. It was amazing. To sit in this patient's room and talk to her and hear so much about her life and her happiness and her pain and her fears....to be allowed into this patient's life at all was such a wonderful honor and privilege. As I sat there with her, I desperately tried to silence my inner monologue so that I could actively listen and focus on what she was saying, but there were times when I was overcome by the sacredness of the moment and by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Reading scripture with her was more powerful than any scripture reading technique that any liturgy or worship class could ever hope to offer me. Hearing her whisper "Amen" after each passage we read was a beautiful testimony to the comfort that scripture can bring in times of need, even if it hasn't been read in years. Holding her hand, listening to the beep of machines, and waiting in the silence when she needed to rest before speaking again - these were the holy sights and sounds of that room yesterday.
I don't know if this experience is God's way of guiding me to chaplaincy, or simply a way to open my spirit to another way of ministering to people. What I do know is that our hospitals (and cancer centers and outpatient clinics and hospice units, etc) are full of people. Not just patients, but people. People with lives, families, stories, fears, hopes, losses, and uncertainties about what tomorrow holds. About what tonight holds. About what this world holds in store for them. Our world is filled with sickness of all sorts, and unfortunately, the numbers show that our hospital beds are only going to continue filling up as the Baby Boomers age and our culture continues our unhealthy habits. That is not assigning blame, but simply proclaiming the truth of the matter, which is that most of us will interact more with this type of care than perhaps we think.
I have all sorts of thoughts about wondering why chaplaincy is starting to become a seemingly more popular option for graduating seminary students than church ministry. Is it perhaps that church ministry has lost its foundational roots of being a community to care for one another? Do young people go and see fellow church members in the hospital when they are having surgery, or do their eyes glaze over when they see that part of the church bulletin each Sunday that lists the hospital stays? Is our generational gap so severe that we assume that "they will take care of their own?" What happens to their younger family members when this support is lacking? What happens when the generation shifts and we become the ones needing help?
I certainly don't make this a generalization of churches or pastors, but I do think there is a real need for churches to evaluate how this type of pastoral care is administered. How can we share - respectfully and responsibly - the needs of the persons who need visits at home, in the hospital, or at the cancer center? How can we ensure that a pastoral visit is not simply a "drive-by" to say "Hi, Ms. Jones, we missed you at church last week. Let me pray for you"?
The stillness of the hospital room is more sacred than that. It is a place where we escape the "tyranny of the urgent" and realize that our bodies, our souls, need to be nourished. May we, Christ's Church, be responsive to that need. May we train up leaders to go into that holy space that has the power to transform and heal all who enter.
