Let Me Be Something

Chaplaincy at Hospice House is giving me life.  Sitting and just being present with people that are dying and families that are grieving is breathing life into my soul.  Seems wrong somehow.  Sick even.  But it's true.  The end stages of life is a sacred time, and to be invited into that space is a gift.  

We don't come into the world alone. We come into the world struggling to be born. Many women use a midwife to help with the birthing process.  When we are in the end stages of our life, we often struggle and wrestle; not wanting to let go.  In many ways, a chaplain serves as an end of life midwife, or an Anamcara - soul friend.   An Anamcara helps relieve physical and spiritual pain for the dying person and the family and friends who are grieving.  This is sacred ground; a holy place. 

It's a privilege to be invited into this time and place with a family.  Little do these families know how much they teach me.  In the midst of their grief and pain, these families understand what matters.  They understand what's important.  They understand what needs to be said and shared.  They know how precious time is.  They know how important relationships are and how little stuff matters.  They know things that we should know and remember and care about long before we - or someone we love are in the end stages of our life. 

A friend of mine posted this prayer on Facebook.  It means something to me as I pray it through the eyes of my patients at Hospice House.

"'Dear God," she prayed, "let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere--be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.'"

A Tree Grow in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.  1943.

Weeping for the Children

The headlines say that we will bomb Syria in the next 48 hours.  They are using chemicals against their own citizens.  Killing their children.  Babies are dying.  Doctors are weeping as they hold dead babies that they can't identify.  Killed by evils leaders that are using horrendous chemicals to kills innocent children, women and men for no other reason than for power.  The world is horrified.

So, the United States has warned Syria - and the rest of the world that we are prepared the strike.  Destroyers are in position.  We are ready.  I say "we" because you and I are the we that will be attacking Syria.  You and I will be sending missiles to attack the evil leaders who are killing their own citizens.  You and I will be sending missiles that will likely kill more innocent babies and women and men.

Yet I struggle.  I do not believe in war.  I do not believe in guns and missiles and killing.  But I do believe in justice.  I believe in stopping the use of chemical warfare on innocent people.  I believe in stopping evil.  What is happening in Syria is the work of the evil one.  It must stop.  We must protect the innocent babies and children and men and women who are senselessly and carelessly being killed for evil.  

I am deeply troubled and saddened by the state of the world.  As a follower of Christ, I must fall to my knees in confession and prayer. 

Help us, God!  We have fallen far from what you created us to be.  Forgive us our sins.  Pour wisdom and discernment on the leaders of our nation and remove arrogance and hunger for power and replace it with humility and a thirst for your will.  You are a God of miracles and so I beg you to change the heart of the Syrian leader and end his reign of terror.  Protect the children who have done no evil and cannot protect themselves. May Your kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.

When “Thank-You” Hurts

It happens all the time.  Standing in a grocery check-out line, waiting at an airport terminal, walking down the street, enjoying a meal in a restaurant, most anywhere really.  Especially in this part of the country.  Fort Lewis.  McChord.  Bremerton.  The military is part of our culture.  Service men and women are our neighbors; our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters.  Our friends.  People we know and care about and love have been getting deployed to dangerous war zones for too many years – years since President Bush declared the war was over.  People we know and care about and love have been coming back forever changed – physically and mentally and emotionally.  Or not coming back at all.  If they come home, it’s not to stay.  They get sent back again.  And again.  And again. 

And so it happens all the time.  Someone walks up to a service man or woman, extends their hand and says, “Thank you.  Thank you for your service.”  They mean well.  They are grateful for the tremendous sacrifice the military make on their behalf.  This time, we understand the toil it is taking.  This time we want to do better by our veterans.  This time we want them to know that we care; that we are grateful.  And so some walk up to the person they see in fatigues or military dress, extend their hand and say, “thanks.”  I’ve often felt bad that I’ve never thanked a service person.

Wednesday night, an army chaplain came and talked about spiritual care for the military to my cohort group.  He has been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan 5 times.  Five times.  He has ministered to young kids blown apart by shells and missiles.  He has listened to our brave men and women weep at the loss of close comrades.  He has felt pain and compassion and anger from hearing the men and women that we have sent to do our fighting express unspeakable guilt for killing other human beings – enemy or not.  This army chaplain wept as he told us that these soldiers don’t want “thank yous”, they want forgiveness.  They need forgiveness.

We learned that our returning service men and women are wounded deep down in their souls.  We, the American people, have sent our service men and women to kill because we cannot resolve our political differences in any other way.  And as a result, these men and women harbor guilt for killing other human souls. We aren’t wired to kill.  

We are culpable.  He told us that the Church has fallen short and it made him weep.  He said that the Church too thanks and congratulates veterans but the Church doesn’t understand what has been asked of the veteran.  The Church doesn’t understand that the Veteran has lost his/her soul.  The Church doesn’t understand its’ need to reach out and minister and offer forgiveness.  The Church doesn’t understand its’ need to confess.  Scripture calls us to corporately confess the sins of our nation and to ask forgiveness.  And instead, we thank these men and women and it causes their guilt to grow deeper and injures their souls more gravely.  This army chaplain, after 5 harsh deployments, has stopped going to church.

We see the suicides, the homicides, the broken marriages, the PTSD…. we see it but we don’t understand.  To truly care for the souls of our service men and women, we need to own up to our role of sending them out to do our dirty work.  We need to ask for forgiveness.  And then we, the Church, need to offer forgiveness to these brave men and women who have given up their lives – whether physically or emotionally or mentally to do our bidding.  This will begin the healing process.  Forgiveness.  Forgiveness leads to freedom.  True freedom.

Sometimes, thank you hurts.  I didn’t know, until Wednesday, how much.  What should we say instead of thank you, we asked.  “Maybe just offer them a hug – no words,”  he suggested.

Sacred Space

Sometimes the hardest times and places in our lives are the most sacred.  Perhaps it’s because it’s when we are up against the impossible; when the storm is at its height; when the sky is the darkest that we call on God.  We search for meaning in a situation that is desperate and life changing.  We search for understanding in a time that changes our priorities and understanding of what’s important.  We search for something deeper than the superficial that has up to this point filled our lives.  We yearn for reconciliation and forgiveness; for conversation about real stuff.  We want to know that the end isn’t really the end; that there’s more after death. 

It’s when we welcome God into the hard times and places in our lives that make them sacred.  Whether we call ourselves religious or not, often it’s the dark days that open us up to the possibility of God – to the sacredness of life.  As a hospice chaplain, it’s a gift to be invited into these sacred spaces with patients and families and loved ones as they journey through the end stages of life – something we all will do someday.  A time when we finally have those conversations; ask for forgiveness; say what’s important.

It makes me wonder.  What if we lived every day as if it were our last?  What if we had those kinds of conversations all the time?  What if we asked for forgiveness when we needed it, not just when we thought we were dying?  What if we naturally forgave one another while we still had time to be in relationship?  What if we said what needed to be said today instead of tomorrow?  How rich our lives would be!  What amazing relationships we would have! 

What would it be like to live in the sacred on a regular basis?  

Home

I’m no longer homeless.  At the end of my day, I go home.  To my place.  For the first time in 7 months – nearly eight, all my belongings are in the same place.  I am sleeping in my bed.  I have a permanent address.  Slowly, boxes are being unpacked, dishes are going into kitchen cupboards, and everything is finding it’s place.  Faulkner is settling in and realizing that each morning after my shower, we go for a walk and each evening when I get home, we go for another.  We are settling in; nesting.  We are home.

I am centered.  I feel happier.  I am more at peace.  Nothing else in my life has changed except that I moved into my own apartment.  There is a lot of chaos in my life.  I'm juggling a lot of responsibilities.  I'm still struggling financially.  I'm still working through a lot of emotions.  But I no longer feel displaced or unsettled.  I belong.  I have a home.

I have a better understanding of what it must feel like to experience homelessness and although I say I was homeless, I wasn’t really.  I had friends who welcomed me into their home and treated me as if it was my home too.  I was never in danger of being on the street.  I was never at risk of going hungry, being cold or wet or in physical danger.  For me it was an emotional/spiritual homelessness.  But for the thousands of men and women and children everyday who are truly homeless, it’s emotional and spiritual and mental and physical.

God gave me a small sense of what homelessness is like so that as I’m working with congregations to develop affordable housing the agitation I already felt about homelessness would be more intense than it used to be.  The appreciation for home I thought I had, would be considerably more intense than it used to be.  God wanted me to really get it.

Lord, may I pour these passions into my work in ways that will result in congregations responding to your call to get involved so that one day, no one will be without a home. 

Everyone needs a home.  Everyone.

Keys

Keys connect us to places that we belong.  We have a key to our home; to our work; to our car.  The keys that dangle from our chain tell a story about our life – where we come from and where we go.  Sometimes people have a lot of keys and we think that they must be really important, that they are connected to a lot of places, that they have permission to get into places that others aren’t able to access.

When I arrived back in Washington right before Christmas it dawned on me that I only had one key.  A key to my car.  I no longer had a home so of course, I didn’t have a house key.   I didn’t have a job, so I no longer had a key to a church, or a building.  I no longer belonged anywhere.  I simply had a car key.  The fact that I was homeless and jobless – completely displaced hit home.  That was a somber aha moment for me.  I only had one key; my car key. 

Yesterday I signed a lease for an apartment and I was given the key to my new home.  Although I’ve been living with my friends Dave and Carol for 7 months now and I’ve had a key to their home, it hasn’t been my home.  They have been very gracious and hospitable but staying with someone else is not the same as having your own home.  Having a key to someone else’s home is not the same as having a key to your own home.

I haven’t lived in an apartment since my early 20’s.  My apartment is very small.  It is 650 square feet.  And yet to me it is a castle.  It is my space.  My home.  God has worked wonders over the last 7 months.  He has changed me.  My idea of home has changed.  My idea of what I need has changed.  I just need a space to be.  I just need a key that reminds me that I belong somewhere; that I have a place to go and a place to come from each and every day.  I just need a key that connects me to a place that I belong.  That's all I need.

Heartfelt Listening

Sitting in a hospital lab waiting to get a blood test I needed for my chaplaincy internship this afternoon, the Lord chose to bless me through the life of a stranger.  A tall, attractive black woman, probably about my age came in with a nurse.  The nurse was explaining that this was where she would get her blood work and then further down the hall was where she would get her CAT scan and x-ray.  She patted her hand and said that everything would be alright and she left. 

As the woman turned and walked toward the chair next to me I could tell she was overwhelmed.  I smiled at her and said hello.  She smiled, sat down, and sighed a very deep and layered sigh.  “It sounds like you’re having a rough day,” I said.  She looked at me and seemed thankful I had spoken to her.  “It’s been unbelievable,” she said.  “So far, I’ve had an EKG and an MRI, and now I’m getting lab work, a CAT scan, and then an X-ray.  Then on July 15^th they are taking out half of one of my lungs.  They found a spot and told me I have cancer.  I just can’t believe it.”

She needed to talk and I was there.  “I’ve never smoked,” she said.  She wept a little and she held onto me with her eyes.  I was just there.  I listened.  I let her know that I heard her heart and not just her words.

And then they called my name.  “Debra.” 

“Just a minute,” I said.  The lab tech could wait.   “I would like to pray for you if you don’t mind.  What’s your first name?”  I asked.  “Emma," she said.  "Would you do that?”  So I took a moment and prayed with her.  She squeezed my hand and thanked me.  We smiled with our eyes and I told her I would keep her in my prayers and to take care of herself.

And so my time as a chaplain began before it started.  And I was blessed.

Listening for the Heartbeat of God   by John Philip Newell

One of the most precious teachings in the Celtic Christian world is the memory of John the Beloved leaning against Jesus at the Last Supper.  It was said of him that he therefore heard the heartbeat of God.  He became a symbol of the practice of listening—listening deep within ourselves, listening deep within one another, listening deep within the body of the earth for the beat of the Holy.  Do we know, each one of us, that we are bearers of the sacred beat of life?  Do we know that we can honor that beat in one another and in all things?  And do we know that it is this combination—of knowing that we are bearers of Presence and of choosing to honor the Presence in one another—that holds the key to transformation in our lives and world?

To listen for the heartbeat of God is to listen both within the vastness of the universe and within the intimacy of our own hearts.  And it is to know these distinct ways of listening as essentially one, as two aspects of the same posture of consciousness.  The deeper we move in the mystery of our soul, the closer we come to hearing the beat of the cosmos; and the more we expand our awareness into the vastness of the universe, the closer we come to knowing the unbounded Presence at the heart of our being and every being.

Excerpts from A New Harmony: The Spirit, the Earth and the Human Soul.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011.