CPE: Taking affirmations seriously

One of the best pieces of advice I received from a mentor when I began my discernment process was to take affirmations of the calling seriously.  It sometimes becomes a balancing act between remaining humble when people are complementary, and being too self-deprecating to the point where you almost deny the call.  The bottom line that is important--and difficult-- to keep in mind is that while God participates with limited humans in the work of the Kingdom, the call is real, and it does not make one superhuman or elite.

I don't think it is too much of an exaggeration to say that I would not have been able to finish CPE without two things:  prayer and affirmation.  In CPE, the batteries run low, the problems do not get fixed, tragedy weighs heavy.  Affirmations serve as a form of recharging.  The path of one's life--and God's role in the life--becomes clearer when fellow pilgrims, even people you may have never met before, stop to tell you that you are on the right path.

One of those moments came at the best possible times.

It had been a long, long night and morning.  My own morale was running low.  Three patients passed. One at 10pm, another around 3am, the last at 5:30am.  I was frustrated because I wasn’t paged to come to the first two deaths.  I think it very important to be there, and was sad that with all the time I put into the family and the unit staff, the staff didn’t call.  I found out about the deaths about 20-30 minutes after the fact and because I went to check on the family who had left soon after the passing.  

Because of this, I stepped in those rooms to read the commendatory prayers long after the family was gone.  Once while the nursing staff was preparing the body to transport. I guess I needed the closure.  

At 5:30am, a nurse called to tell me that the patient's death was imminent.  Indeed it was, the patient passed in the five minutes it took me to walk to the unit.  The nurse met me and told me that it was unlikely that the family would come in.  No one should die alone.  I walked into the room and offered the commendatory prayers and prayers for the absent family.

Come to help, you saints of God;

Hurry, you angels of the Lord;

Take up this soul {your servant} 

and offer her before the face of the Most High.

No one should die alone.  I believe it’s the Christian community’s responsibility [actually, a human responsibility--not limited to the religious--to be present when a fellow human is at their most alone] to accompany our sisters and brothers as far as we can in this life, and prepare both them and us for their departure to whatever afterlife there may be.  The image of us letting go, and the past saints and angels taking hold for the rest of the pilgrimage bears heavily upon me.  I still feel a person’s death deeply, even if I’ve just walked into the room, yet I feel privileged to be part of their journey into Light Perpetual or the arms of God.  

I was emotionally, spiritually, and physically drained when I was called to the oncology ward.  A patient, a woman in her 50s, was on 'comfort care.'  Stage-four lung cancer had ravaged her lungs, and blood was filling them.  She was in and out of consciousness, but still lucid when she was awake.  With her lungs filling, she could not speak above a whisper.

"They're getting ready to say goodbye," the nurse told me before I walked in.

As I walked in, I drew the attention of a man standing at the foot of the bed.  It was the patient's brother; the patient was asleep at the moment. He and I spoke briefly after I introduced myself.  The family, led by the patient Grace*, had jointly made the decision to stop fighting.  To end the pain.  To die well.  

Three women walked in shortly afterward, Grace's sisters and one of the sisters' daughters.  We spoke briefly, little more than introductions and where they had traveled from to be bedside.  It was immediately clear that this family was close, and that there was no conflict in what was going on here.  The noise of five other people in the room and the conversation woke Grace.  I walked to the side of the bed and introduced myself to her, taking her outstretched hand.

"The nurse said that y'all would like a prayer."  She moved her mouth, but nodded 'yes.'  I asked that they bow their heads.

"Eternal One, in your Word, we are taught that those who know love, know you.  The love in this room is so apparent between this family, and we know you are present.  Keep us mindful of your presence in this difficult time.  Grant us peace with the decisions we have made.  Give us grace and forbearance with each other in the days ahead.  Meet us in our grieving.  Lord, bring Grace into your presence when the time comes, and until then, keep her in the sure knowledge of your love. Amen"

Was I done, my purpose served?  Everyone looked up, but Grace did not release my hand.  I knelt next to the bed.

"Grace, would you like some time alone with your family, or would you like me to stay?"

"Stay," she whispered.  She removed her oxygen mask, "Would you tell my family a few things?"

I spent the next fifteen minutes passing some last words from Grace to her family, with me bending down to put my ear near her lips to hear the whispers, and then relay the words to her family.

Be strong.

Remember their love for each other.

Keep the prayer shawl (which she received from another chaplain), and give it to other family members when they are ill or in trouble. 

For about 15 minutes I helped her talk to her family in words of wisdom, comfort, and memories, until she was too tired to continue and closed her eyes to rest.  It was a privilege for me to witness and participate in these acts of love.  When I was about to go, her sisters and brother thanked me profusely.  But what has stuck with me are the words of one of Grace's sisters.  

"Robert, I am a hospice nurse.  I wish I had you as a chaplain."

Moments like this, when in weakness I re-found the path which God put in front of me through others, when something was clearer to another person than to me, were what kept me going.

They still do.

Take affirmations seriously.  They are a way God talks to us.

_______

*Not her real name.  Grace passed away later that evening, while I was off duty.

CPE: "Are you an Angel?"

I found her sitting in the windowsill outside the chapel door, quietly weeping as I was walking to the chapel office to type up my notes for the day.  People often seemed to halt at the chapel door, as if they were pondering whether they were allowed in.  Were they afraid that God would not welcome them in, or if the people around them would be annoyed by their crying?  people looking indecisive about whether they should be in a holy space tend to push me to make an introduction.

I introduced myself.  She was an older Roman Catholic woman, in her 70's perhaps. She spoke with a fairly thick Italian accent.  Not "Jersey" Italian; Italian Italian--she had emigrated in her teens.  I introduced myself, took her by her hand and arm, and with her permission led her into the chapel and to a pew.  The tears and wails of the faithful should be just as welcome in the presence of God as shouts of joy, laughing, singing, chanting, and praying.

We spoke for 50 minutes.  Actually, she spoke, I did a lot of listening and passing her tissue.  Her husband was in the hospital, and she was facing the decision about whether he went into assisted-living (with money they didn't have) or whether to hire someone to come take care of him (with money they didn't have).  

Should she sell the house?

Was God punishing her and her husband?

At the end of our time together, she said, "You know, I have seen angels twice.  Both times they warned me about something bad, and helped tell me what to do.  I remember what she looked like, it was the same one both times."

"You've been looking for her recently, yeah?"

"Yes, but I haven't seen her yet."

She looked up from her lap to me, "Are you an angel?"  

"No ma'am, I'm human.  But maybe I am one sent."

I didn't tell her, but her question did strike something within me.  

My birthday is October 2nd, 

also known in the Roman Catholic Church 

as the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels,

which is not a bad set of patrons to have.

CPE: "If you were God, what would you say?"

Over my time at the hospital, I met a few people in spiritual crisis right outside the chapel.  People seemed to halt at the door, as if they were pondering whether they were allowed in.  Were they afraid that God would not welcome them in, or if the people around them would be annoyed by their crying?

  

I walked up to Martin* as he was standing near the door of the chapel.  This was the second day in a row (that week) that I ran into someone near the chapel door.  Martin’s body language suggested indecision as to whether he should enter the chapel or not, which alerts to me spiritual indecision/crisis. People in prayer I tend to leave to prayer; people looking indecisive about whether they should be in a holy space tend to push me to make an introduction.

It was clear that I needed to introduce myself.

"Hi, my name is Robert, I'm a chaplain."  

"Hello, chaplain Robert, My name is Martin and I just need you to listen.  Is there a place we can talk?

We found a place.  Martin was suffering from clinical depression. 

Martin was “depressed, suicidal, and not afraid to die.”  The reason he came to the hospital was because he had another medical condition that was very painful.  As he said, he was “not afraid to die, but afraid of how he would die.”  

He told me of his anger at God because of the death of his sister. 

He told me that he had a significant amount of theological training, none of which mitigated his anger at God.

He later had surgery and was admitted to the psychiatric ward. 

He knew the CPE curriculum; 

He knew my training, and so he knew some of the boundaries of what I may or may not comment on.  There was little pressure for me to perform theologically since his training surpassed mine, and on one occasion he did say that he “didn’t want pat theological answers.”  

I laughed and immediately replied, “Good, because I’m not going to give you any.”  

Martin knew that I was trained to listen, and so I was able to set myself to that task completely. 

But that changed about three weeks later.  I went to visit him on his last day in the ward; he was going to be discharged in an hour after three weeks in the psychiatric ward.

"You know, I’m still angry with God," Martin said.

"Yeah, I figured that wasn’t going to go away anytime soon," I replied, "but it still seems like you are on speaking terms with him."

"Yeah." He fell silent for a few seconds. "I wonder if I would get struck by lightning if I were to walk into the chapel…"

A minute passes.

"Robert, I want you to do something for me..." another pause. "If you were God, and you saw me walk in the chapel, what would you say?"

I chuckled, "Martin, you took CPE! You know that’s a trap of a question!"

"Yes, but please humor me."

The air suddenly weighed twice as much.  There were so many ways an answer could go wrong.  Everything in me told me not to answer that question. 

But for a little twinge.  I realized that it was not that the air changed weight, but a thin space opened; an inbreaking of the Holy had settled. We had God's full attention.

Come, Holy Spirit, I prayed, and gave myself a few seconds.

In the steadiest voice I could muster, the most locked gaze I could conjure, I said, "If I were God, and if I saw you walk into the chapel, I would say, “That’s Martin. He has a chemical imbalance in his brain that is hard to control, and he is angry at me. I love him anyway."

Martin looked down for about a minute.  I was on eggshells, and trying not to show it.  When he looked up, tears were in his eyes and his voice trembled.

"Thank you, Robert. You could have given me some sentimental crap or unloaded thirteen theologians on me. But you kept in mind that I have a clinical condition. It’s something that few ministers may remember."

_______

When do we have permission to speak for God? 

When do we have permission to speak from God?

We are all so (rightfully) careful about speaking in God's name.  We've seen that people can abuse this responsibility (I'm thinking of Pat Robertson, among others).

But if there are three things, and only three things about God of which we can be certain, it is these:

God loves us.

God loves you....yes, you.

God is love.**

This is not something to hide.

To be whispered sheepishly.

To be forgotten conveniently.

To be hidden ashamedly.

This is something to be lavished on the world.

To be shouted jubilantly.

To be repeated resolutely.

To be shared widely.

People forget.

remind them.

People disbelieve in guilt.

Set them free.

People are scorned.

Help in healing.

People may laugh.

Persist in love.

People may deride.

Persist in love.

People may mock.

Persist in love.

If we Christians would be known for our love,

we should not be afraid to say that God is a God of love,

and we should not forget that God can be known by our attempts to show this same love to others.

Amen.

_______

*Martin is not his real name.

**1Jn4:8, Jn3:16ff, etc.

Of Jonah and Playing Fair

If you have never done so, go read the book of Jonah.  It's four chapters long (about two pages).  And it's fun.  I'm giving a darker reading.  For a different reading (and a funnier tone that highlights more of the complexity of Jonah's text, see Megan Castellan's wonderful sermon).

_______________________________

We had begun our Sunday school lesson on Jonah

But we ended up on Susan.*

Susan never played fair.

And as we ended 

I asked usual my question about

for whom and for what we should pray.

The seven year old boy said to me. “I want to pray that Brooke would die,”

 “I don’t think we should pray that,” I replied,

“Maybe we can pray that she learn to play fairly.”

“No,” he said, “If she were to be nicer to me, I would not be able to forgive myself.”

What the boy meant was, if Susan started to be nice to him,

He would feel guilty about wanting her to die.

He knew he should not dislike her,

But as long as she was not nice to him,

He could feel better about not liking her back.

The seven year old boy does not fully realize it,

but he gets the story of Jonah.

At least, he is in Jonah's shoes.

Jonah was called by God to warn Nineveh of their impending doom.

Jonah ran away from this call

Not because of anything so mundane as laziness

Or mere disobedience,

But because he knew there was a chance

The Ninevens could change.

And Jonah knew God was too merciful for his own liking.**

Perhaps that is why God specifically chose Jonah.

God uses Jonah to prove a point to us.

Our standard of forgiveness is finite

And forgiveness can hurt;

To the point where we would ask for death instead.***

And we should forgive anyway.

*Not her real name, and she wasn't in the room.

** Jonah 4:1-3

***Jonah 4:3, 8, 9.

Last wishes (in pseudo-poetic form)

Burn me.   

Let my smoke rise and my ashes sink.   

Let my dust blow where it will.   

Let me return from whence I came.  

A composite of carbon, water, oxygen, 

and the spark of the Divine

Amongst all other composites of primordial elements 

and slivers of the being of God 

immanent in all we see around us.   

Remember me in Church and in liturgy

gathered around every altar at every Eucharist with you

joining you as we sing, 

“Holy, Holy, Holy…”

**CPE gives one the opportunity to consider what happens after death, both to the body and to the soul.  The above was from a reflection I wrote about an autopsy I watched.**

A Ten-Year Lament

In remembering 9/11, I find it difficult to separate the attack-- acts of evil and enormous loss-- from that which followed in our national soul, psyche, and history.  The response that came most naturally for me when I reflect on 9/11 is lament and confession.  


My hope is that this is not interpreted as an affront to the memories of those who perished in the attacks.  Rather, I would ask if the last ten years, condensed in the following, is the legacy they would want to claim.
______________________________________

A Ten-Year Lament

Dear Lord,

Ten years ago our nation was attacked.

We watched it on TV.

We saw the death and the destruction.

We witnessed an act of true evil,

      The kind of radical evil that sees no difference between a soldier, a civilian, or a child.

      A hate that sees no difference between a human and a rodent to be exterminated.

We haven’t learned much have we?

We don’t seem to do well when the drums of war drown out your still, small voice.

We repaid evil for evil even as we tried to do good.

We took the fight to our enemy as we sang about how putting “a boot in their ass was the American way.”

We joked about how a nuke could solve the problem

    And prided ourselves on being the civilized ones.

We determined acceptable levels of collateral damage, the certain number of probable dead civilians that required presidential approval before an airstrike.

We started wars on shady intelligence.

We dusted off communist torture manuals and started to use them.

We committed war crimes.

We were told to shop.

We were told to remember our soldiers a certain way; and that any other way to think of them would be unpatriotic.

We compromised on the equipment our soldiers needed.

When an army specialist asked why he did not have necessary materials to protect his life, we were told that “you go to the war with the army you have,” but we didn’t get an answer as to how that applied to a pre-emptive war we started.

We low-balled the estimates and actual numbers of injuries and deaths of our own children as they fought.

We tried to make sure we didn’t see our children’s coffins in newspapers.

We had an easier time low-balling the number of non-Americans we killed.

I’ve never seen a funeral for them;

merely short videos and pictures of fathers carrying their dead, blood-stained daughters; 

and a string of white house and DoD press releases decrying the tragedy and the necessity.

This year, just shy of the ten year anniversary of the attack, we killed the man we believed to be responsible, and we received the predictable reminder that the war is indeed never-ending. 

Father, if you forgive us according to our ability to forgive, then at this point we have to trust in your grace, for our deserving of it is non-existent. May you be merciful upon us all. 

But, God If you can do something, then…

O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love

our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth;

deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in

your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)

The shape of the blog for the next few weeks.

Just a few housekeeping notes.

Before I even ended CPE, I knew I'd be in a rough spot for a few months.  The program is grueling, and less than a week of down time would not be enough to recover mentally, physically, and spiritually.  Add to that hurricane preparations, and I am coming into this semester with a lot of baggage that I need to work through.

Last night I started to process what CPE meant to me personally and theologically.  The two posts represent the styles I am most likely going to use:  reflection/sermon and pseudo-poetry.  These types of posts may probably dominate the blog for a month or two; and I will make an effort to balance the tragic aspects of the work with the comedic and joyous sides of life.  On this side of CPE, tragedy is less bothersome.  My blog will reflect a new-found comfort (desensitizing?) with tragedy with the risk that posts can sometimes turn into “downers.”  My hope is that, as a practice, I will also look for hope in the situations I write about, and some practical application for my own life should flow from my writing and thinking.

There is a new way to subscribe to this blog!  Just enter your email in the bar at the top of the page to get e-mail updates as I post.  I will continue to post to Facebook, but as settings change and one's circles of friends is managed by algorithms determined by how often you interact with me through news feeds and whatnot, subscription will give you a direct and easy way to keep up-to-date with the blog.

Thank you for reading!

Broken furniture and the morgue

The morgue was in the basement.

I guess this made sense.  The pathology lab was there.

But so much other stuff was in the basement.

Things seemingly abandoned,

broken beds awaiting repair, surplus furniture, 

things that there was not room for anywhere else.

Including their daughter.

I wonder if they made a connection between the stuff in the hallway

 and their daughter

 as I escorted them to view her body.

But I did.

And I hated the hospital for it.

"Being a fellow pilgrim" and/or "Walking her to CAT Scan"

One day this summer, while serving as a chaplain at a local hospital, I was paged to respond to a possible “stroke code.”  I arrived on the unit and asked one of the nurses about the patient. 

            “Oh, she’ll be on her way down to CT scan soon.  Poor thing, she had back surgery a few days ago,” I was told by a nurse.  A CT scan would help determine if she indeed had a stroke.  At that moment the patient, a woman in her sixties, was being wheeled out of her room by a technician.  I walked up to the bed and introduced myself.

            “Ms. Jones*, my name is Robert; I’m the chaplain on this unit.  I hear you are going to CT scan now, would you like me to come back later or to join you?” She nodded at the latter suggestion and seemed to mouth something but she could speak in only a whisper, and barely that.

I walked beside her bed as we made our way through the labyrinthine halls of the hospital, down two floors to the imaging labs.  It is difficult for me to imagine the view from Ms. Jones’s perspective; I’ve not been in a hospital bed in a long time.  The halls which seem confusing when walking upright must be more difficult to understand when all you can see are the ceiling panels and lights, the occasional wall, the elevator, and passing people’s heads.  In a hospital it is easy to feel lost, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  

The waiting/staging area for imaging is a large blank room, but the lights were half-off throughout, which made it seem smaller and a bit more oppressive to the senses.  It was a gloomy place.  The technician parked Ms. Jones’s bed and went to prepare the scanner.  Aside from myself and Ms. Jones, there was one other person in the room, a staff person.  I pulled a chair bedside and took Ms. Jones’s hand when she offered it to me. 

We spent the next ten minutes in near silence.  As I said, she could not speak above a whisper, and she seemed distant and anxious.  There were a few questions and answers exchanged.  What was more important was to sit there with her; to keep her from being alone. I offered a prayer for her. 

When the technician returned to let us know the lab was ready, Ms. Jones looked at me and squeezed my hand.

“Is it possible for me to join you?” I asked the technician.

“Oh sure, that’s fine,” the technician replied.

I held Ms. Jones’s hand as we continued our trip through another set of hallways and then into the CT scanning room.  The machine looks imposing, but not as large as an MRI. 

I held her hand until it was time to lift her from her bed to the machine.  I stayed for the scan and spoke to her during it, although from the same small room that the technicians were in.  After the scan I held her hand as she was taken back through the hallways to the waiting/staging area to await transport back to the unit.  I stayed with her until I was paged to an incident in the ER and made a mental note to visit her again.  When I told her that I needed to go, but that she would see me again, she mouthed “thank you.”** 

“Walking with someone on their journey” and “pilgrimage” are popular ways of thinking and talking about spirituality.  Many congregations and pastors talk about the need to “meet people where they are” and “join them in their journeys.”***  Experiences such as the one with Ms. Jones helped me realize that good spiritual practice—and good pastoral practice—is both metaphorical and literal; spiritual and physical.  It means walking with people through the hospital, or the funeral home, or the protest march.  It means being present to them in a real and tangible way in the scariest and hardest moments of their life; like when they may be asking themselves if they just had a stroke as they recover from a painful back surgery...and then being transferred from one bed to a machine and then back to a bed to get a CT scan after this back surgery, with the resulting back pain.    

            Perhaps, the greatest witness to Christ is not how loud or how reasoned a Christian’s arguments are about the faith, but about the Christian’s willingness to let go of the illusion of pristine, drama-free lives we supposedly “earn” through our relationship with God, and join people as they/we walk through uncertainty, pain, doubt, fear, and death.  It is a bit harder to follow a person into these spaces when we’d naturally rather just hear and see and experience their joy and happiness alongside them.  Yet in all of these moments, one can finds glimpses of the Divine.

Being there matters. 

Staying there matters. 

           

 _________

*Ms. Jones is not her real name.

** I did go back to visit during that shift but she was asleep whenever I would come by.  As a general rule of thumb, and knowing how hard it is to sleep in a hospital, I didn’t wake her.

***The sentiments seem to come close to cliché, and maybe I think it seems clichéd just because I hear it nearly daily at seminary.  But I know I benefitted from such an attitude when I was willing to give Christianity another try.