The Hardest Part

I think the hardest part of being a chaplain, so far, is that it has become very difficult for me to deny the fact that I am going to die someday. So will my family, and friends. So will everyone. Very obvious, I know, we all know that everyone dies. It's part of life: you are born, you live, you die. That's just how it goes, and there are all kinds of cute sayings to remind us of the inevitability of death.

But at the same time I go through life not thinking about when I might die, and I don't think I'm alone in this. Spending every living moment thinking about how I could die, and what to do about it, does not seem to be a very pleasant way to live. So I go through life trying to pretend I'm invincible, along with most everyone else. We drive aggresively, making that lane change even when the sun is in our eyes and we might have missed the car there; or maybe we roll through that stop sign, not really paying attention to what or who we might risk hitting. We don't exercise and eat the food pyramid, because there will always be time later to recover from that extra hamburger. We avoid the doctor unless we really need to, because visiting the doctor admits we might not be invincible after all. We put off fixing relationships, or saying the things we think we need to say, because there will always be time later.

But then when we're perfectly healthy, we catch the flu or some other unexpected disease and end up in ICU, barely hanging on, and our family wonders what happened. Or we drop suddenly from a heart attack, or an aneurysm, or an embolism, or a clot, or a stroke, and it isn't when we're 95 and ready to go and even somewhat expecting it, but when we're out jogging at 35, having sex at 26, swimming at 18, sitting watching TV at 47. Or we get in a car accident, or an act of violence we never saw coming, or a building collapses, or some other accidental event that we were no part of and never thought would happen to us, but it does and that's the end for us. Or cancer shows up when we least expect it, turns our own cells into assassins, and destroys us before we could finish doing whatever it was we thought we wanted to do. Or we come to the hospital for a surgery, procedure, or medication to make us better, but for whatever reason we don't make it through and what should have been a simple trip to get better ends in a surprise funeral.

And just like that, life ends. There's no predicting it, and in the end there's no stopping it. The easiest thing to do, at least for me, is to not dwell on it too much. To try and live without regrets, to correct the things I have to, and to try and remember that I'm not actually invincible. But watching people die on a regular basis is the hardest thing for me as a chaplain, not because it's sad (though it is often that), but because it reminds me that though I may never see death coming, death might still be lurking right around the corner. And I often think that it would be easier if I didn't have to remember that.

How do you do it?

So far, in my few months as a hospital chaplain, a number of people have told me some variation of "I could never do what you do." Which is fine with me, because if everyone could do what I do then there wouldn't be much of a job market for me. But more importantly, there's plenty of things they do that I couldn't, or won't, do, so I think it's good we can't all do everything. I can't imagine cleaning up after people for a living (which is a lot of what nurses seem to do); or risking my life regularly (like firefighters); or any job where there is a serious chance of getting shot; or being on the road weeks at a time as a trucker (I told a husband of a patient that when he was telling me about his life away from home as a trucker, and he laughed since he had just said he couldn't do what I do).

Common corollary questions are "How do you do it?" or "Why do you do it?" I don't usually have a very good answer to either of those questions, partly because it doesn't often occur to me to ask those questions myself. Sometimes it does, so I do have some answers. As to "why," I do it because I think that's what I'm supposed to do. Simply put, I think God has asked me to do this. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Perhaps sometimes it is people who are to do the comforting, not only the mourning, so I am here. Jesus said that visiting people who are sick is important. These days, visiting sick people has to include visiting people in the hospital, so I do that. Visit enough people in the hospital and you will be supporting people through the process of dying, so I do that too.

As to "how," that is a bit harder to answer. I do it with a lot of support from other chaplains, first. But something that a chaplain much wiser than me has said points out a key reason how I can do this: "Remember, it is their crisis, not yours." Very true. I can stand with a family and watch as their mother and grandmother slowly stops breathing over the course of a couple hours, and they have to struggle themselves to remember to breath, because she is not my mother, or my grandmother. I can sit through multiple attempts to revive someone when the children and lovers can't bear to watch and have to leave the room because I am not his child, and I am not her lover. I can handle watching people grieve over the inexplicable death of a child without it rending my own heart into minuscule pieces because he is not my son, and she is not my daughter. They are not my siblings, or family, or friends. In fact most of the people here I hardly know at all, and that is how I do it. I can empathize and support, and I can feel the sorrow and pain, but I can also reasonably step aside from it, because it is not my crisis. The people I support cannot do this, because it IS their crisis: to step aside would be to deny what is happening, and in the long run they will most likely be healthier if they face the pain and sorrow now than if they avoid it. It is precisely when I do have a stronger connection to the patients or their family and friends that it becomes much harder to do the task of chaplain. But those moments also help remind me of what it feels like, so in the end they are beneficial.

So I leave the hospital, and step away from it all at the end of the day. I think and pray about the people I serve, but I do not continue to grieve the same way they do. And I turn up the music and let it cue my emotions, and feel the release wash over me. And I remember that it's not my crisis after-all. That's how I do it.

Grief

One of the books I am reading for CPE is My Grandfather's Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. (Riverhead Books, New York, 2000). I encountered this on p. 38, and found it to be a wonderful and freeing word on grief, and I have nothing to add to it.

Every great loss demands that we choose life again. We need to grieve in order to do this. The pain we have not grieved over will always stand between us and life. When we don't grieve, a part of us becomes caught in the past like Lot's wife who, because she looked back, was turned into a pillar of salt.

Grieving is not about forgetting. Grieving allows us to heal, to remember with love rather than pain. It is a sorting process. One by one you let go of the things that are gone and you mourn for them. One by one you take hold of the things that have become a part of who you are and build again.

.....

      Grief.
      I pull up anchor,
      and catch the wind.

Safety First!

If the next time you see me I look like I was looking for a cat in a bramble bush, face first, it is because I recently switched to a safety razor for shaving purposes. I hate having to switch cartridges in my razors all the time. And even though we have Preserve razors which are pretty good and relatively inexpensive (and recyclable! Always a plus), I still found it very annoying when on the second or third day of using a new cartridge, I was missing spots on my face. Multiple directions, multiple strokes, nothing I could think of could get me a clean shave! So, I decided to try out safety razors. Mine just came in the mail, and I saw it as a good excuse to practice constructive procrastination, and just tried it out! I should have read this first, but I still managed to not kill myself.

And even though my face burns (really, don't apply pressure! Lesson learned), I finally have a close shave! It's wonderful, though a bit bloody.

Racism, Coexist, and who needs Peace?

Apparently the UN is having talks on racism, and had to kick some people out. That didn't surprise me at first, since the people were kicked out while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was speaking, and the people exhibited unacceptable disruptive behavior. One article mentioned them wearing clown wigs and throwing red noses at him... Yeah, sounds disruptive. And mature to boot!

But that was only what caught my attention at first. What really hooked me when it was mentioned that COEXIST had members there who got kicked out. Ok, so, it's possible that someone wants to deal with racism, but isn't interested in peace. But the concept of COEXIST, I had assumed, would include peacefulness. Living and coexisting together is more than just not hating each other, we need to know how to get along, work together, like one another to a degree, or so I had thought. But apparently there is a limit to their tolerance.

I'm not entirely sure if the COEXIST that was there is connected to the two things I've seen, but if not then that means there are at least three COEXIST's out there, and frankly that's a little ridiculous. The first I saw came from Bono: Looks nice. Focused on Jerusalem, make sense. A bit idealistic I thought, but not too bad. The second I saw looked like the first on steroids: You can also find it at www.PeaceMonger.org, a site that actually strikes me as a bit obnoxious. As one site called the sticker, it represents "systems of thought," a nice way of saying we can all think differently and get along, so what's the big deal? Be eclectic! I did find a third, called the "Coexist Foundation," but they don't have a nifty bumper sticker to show off. And then there's a microagency...

Ok, so I have no idea who the COEXISTers were who got kicked out!

But in any case, the name to me just doesn't seem to match the kind of obnoxious, inflammatory behavior that was exhibited. Yes, there were reasons to be upset with the person who was speaking. Yes, things need to be done. But it seems a bit hypocritical to be all about coexisting, saying we can all get along, but not being willing to deal with bigots and racists. Hey, there are a lot of bigots and racists out there! There's no avoiding them! And I'm not convinced that it's possible to erase that from people entirely, so if you really want total coexistence, either you need to figure out how to erase bigotry/racism from those people, or learn to live with them anyways. Or, as I'm more assuming, realize that you can't really have total coexistence so long as people are broken and imprefect, and change what your goals are.

Rainbow

I'm sitting in class, not paying a whole lot of attention, just enough to know that the prof is still going through the chapters we read two weeks ago. It has been raining most of the day, though the sun has finally come out strong. I glanced out the window, and saw a huge, gorgeous rainbow. And realized, that it has been a while since I saw such a gorgeous thing, not some small thing in the rain on the road, or in a sprinkler, but painted powerfully from red to purple all across the sky. The thing is huge! Solid! Wish I had a camera!

Now it's fading... But I'm very glad I glanced out the window.

Almost Prophetic, I was

If I had written out my story thoughts, I would have almost been prophetic. I have sci-fi plots in my head that included weather altering satellites, though in my case they will end up going horribly wrong. There's just not as much plot in things that go right. And now, the solar feed satellite thing, which will solve all our energy concerns (or at least I'm betting someone thinks so), can apparently kill hurricanes.

Nifty, if it works. Sucks, if it ends up making worse weather problems...