15 Minutes Late

It was supposed to be a quick check in visit, 
But I found myself sitting to stay a while.
I was 15 minutes late to the meeting,
But was right on time for the work of the Spirit.

I was just going to stop and say hi,
But I found myself walking alongside as they went to that test.
I was 15 minutes late to the meeting,
But right on time for the Holy journey.

I said absolutely nothing,
But the conversation went on for an hour.
I was 15 minutes late to the meeting,
But right on time to give all the time that really mattered. 

We chatted about nothing related to the hospitalization,
But discussed everything that really mattered.
I was 15 minutes late to the meeting,
But right on time to hear Holy words.

I was 15 minutes late to the meeting
And that was all it took for them to see Christ in me.

Self-care of the Soul

Self-care is something that is sacred in my life. It is something that is necessary as I work in the emotionally and spiritually intense world of hospital chaplaincy. One of the things in my self-care inventory is Tai Chi. This slow fluid form of martial arts has become another form of moving meditation and prayer, just like the labyrinth has been for me.

In my exploration of Tai Chi, I have discovered a group called Taijifit. It is an online group that offers live-streamed workouts. The beautiful thing about this online group is that we gather from all over the world to play and do moving meditation together. Taijifit has become an essential part of my self-care routine, and you can find me in the online classroom about 5 days a week. We close each class with some variation of the following “guidelines for life:” “1) Keep your heart open, 2) Take time to play, and 3) Go with the flow. I have found myself reflecting on these guidelines and how they have integrated into my own daily living, and I’d like to share some of what has been ruminating in my brain and heart.

Keep your heart open: as a chaplain I encounter all kinds of people from all walks of life and beliefs. My role is to be present to them in their time of need and help them tap into and use their own spiritual/philosophical belief system as a source of strength and healing. To do this, my heart and mind has to be open to the many different ways of believing and orienting to the world that people have. The other side of an open heart is that I sometimes find my heart feeling more deeply and profoundly the pain of others. And when that happens I find my own healing in the moving mediation of Taijifit and the spoken words of gentle and healing imagery by the instructors that guide us into the movements. And in this I find myself letting the movement becoming a prayer, where I send off the deep feelings of my heart that are not mine to keep to God for safekeeping, and in doing so I find my emotional balance again.

Take time to play: my life is full between my daughter’s activities, my involvement in my church, and my work as a chaplain.  It is easy for me to lose sight of my own needs and time for fun. But as I hear these words after class each night, I am finding that I am becoming more able to put the never-ending to-do list away unfinished as 7:00 pm approaches, and by 8 pm the cell phone is put to silent (unless I am on- call). I am becoming more aware of my daughter’s invitations to play – even those that come in her sneaky tickle attacks of me. I am learning that I do not have to be doing something “productive” every minute of the day. I am learning that it is ok, and even good for me to spend the hour I spend at my daughter’s soccer practice just sitting out there, not really even watching practice but instead just enjoying being outdoors. This whole “take time to play” for me has really become an invitation into Sabbath time.

Go with the flow: ok, to be completely honest this one is really, really hard for me. I am a bit of a control person. I like a plan and to know what is going to happen and what I am going to do and how I am going to respond. I know, counter intuitive for being a chaplain in a hospital where you never seem to really know what the day will be. I’m pretty good at going with the flow at work, so perhaps that is why I tend to be a bit more controlling in other areas. Taijifit has really challenged me on this one. As I grow into applying going-with-the-flow in all aspects of my life I am finding that 1) I am a better mom 2) I am less stressed which means 3) my physical ailments related to stress are better. Essentially I am a healthier person all around. I am learning that if I am able to let go a bit more and open myself up more I am also more present and aware of the workings of God and Spirit going on around me and through me. I am more spiritually centered. This is a really good thing when you are a chaplain and chaos ensues. Ok, being spiritually centered is also really important when parenting, too.

This is all still very much a work in progress for me, but I am excited about where the journey is taking me in my spiritual life. I would like to invite you to consider with me how do you need to keep your heart open, where in your life do you need more play time, and how can you release some control and move into going with the flow of life.

Common Holy

I  walk into the hospital, go to my office and the first thing I do is make myself a cup of chamomile tea, from a simple common tea bag, in a simple, common mug. I turn on the computer; pull out the notebook I use on my rounds, pen and the paper referral sheets.  All very common everyday items the computer, notebook, pen and paper.  And it is with these common items I start my daily rounds.

After 16 years of chaplaincy the sights, sounds and smells of the hospital are common to me, familiar. I daily remind myself that for many I meet today this may not be the case. For those who struggle with chronic illness the routine of hospital life may be very familiar and common. I never know what the day will bring. Today it seems will be common.  My visits consist of “thank you for coming chaplain, please have a prayer with me.” I pray and ask “is there anything else I can help with?” The answer is no. There have been no code blues, no death calls, no trauma calls, and no crisis to attend to.

Days like this I call breathing days. These days provide space for me to wander through my day with a slower pace.  I may sit down at a nursing station and ask about the day. The nurses invite me into their conversation. We chat about the day, about kids, about the weekend plans. Compared to many of my conversations, these can be common to the point of mundane.

To an outsider it might look like I am wasting time or being a distraction.  However it is much to the contrary. When you work amidst the types of things we do, bringing light to the common and normal can be a refreshing grounding and centering experience amidst the chaos of hospital life. But it is more than that.  These are connecting moments.  They are moments when I am seen as more than just the chaplain that represents the spiritual.  I become known as that mom who is also struggling with the work/life balance, wondering how it is that my child’s schedule got almost overwhelming overnight.  They discover that I love to escape into a good fantasy book or take out my frustrations on a punching bag in my Tae Kwon Do workout, or some other surprising fact about myself. It is in that moment of connection of the common that I become human and trust is built for the next time when it may not be such a common conversation.

In my line of work it can be easy to see the Holy ground as I sit at the bedside of a dying person and their family or the visit where we get to the real deep and vulnerable stuff and the person has an aha moment.  Those are Holy ground moments that are easily seen.  What I tend to forget is that Holy ground happens every single day around me. Holy ground is in those moments of common chatting because connecting person to person is Holy ground. It happens in the moment an offhand appropriately humorous comment provides laughter in the midst of a busy and stress filled day.

I am working hard right now to recognize these common Holy ground moments in my personal life and in my work as a chaplain. I am doing this because I have come to realize that it is the common Holy that keeps me grounded in my own faith. It helps me remember that a deep spirituality in me does not have to be complicated or amazing. The common Holy helps remind me that simple can be a jumping off point for a deep and grounded spirituality also.

It is the recognition of the common Holy that I carry with me into a day that looks to be one of calm simplicity, until the moment the pager goes off and I dive into the chaos taking with me the grounded spirituality that living in the common Holy has given me.

Fallow fields, crop rotation and the work of chaplaincy

Photo credit: Karen Nelson

If you have been following me here, you by now know that a little over a month ago I hit a desperate spot spiritually. I was bone dry, beat up and barely muddling through caring for my high need areas of coverage at the hospital. I finally took the courage to step up and ask for what I really needed – to be re-assigned, at least for a while.

It was good to have the break, a time for me to step back and get back to less intense units and doing the work of responding to referrals and other work that was similar to what I did as chaplain just starting out at my place of employment. And until recently that is exactly how I saw this time – a break.

Then I listened to a pod cast by Rob Bell that talked about the practice of Sabbath and the practice of letting a field lay fallow you can listen to it here. This reminded me of something I picked up during my years growing up in a rural area. Farmers will often times rotate the crops that they grow in a field. This allows for a field to not be depleted of important nutrients by having the same crop grown in it over and over again.

As I reflected on this idea of crop rotation and letting ground lay fallow (not have anything growing in it) I began to realize that my request to take time away from one area and be reassigned was not “copping out” but instead implementing a good spiritual practice of care to the field of my soul. By moving away from one area and into another I was given the opportunity to let my soul be nourished with important nutrients of not having every day be filled with the high paced need of critical care, that I was being given space to reconnect with skills of teaching and visioning and dreaming with colleagues that I had not been able to do for so long. I was given the gift of going back to areas and hearing people say I have missed seeing you and getting to reconnect.

Something else happened during this time away, my own spiritual practices changed. I found myself doing a lot of what I call contemplative coloring. I put aside the books I was reading. What at the time felt like doing nothing was actually letting my soul lay fallow and just rest. And how I needed that rest time. That time to not be diving deep, to not be drawing on nutrients that were almost gone. To just let the field of my soul be. And as I have felt drawn back into the books I have in my quiet space at home I am finding what once felt dry and barren in my soul now feels rich and filled once more.

Both this time of spiritual fallowness and the time of assignment rotation has allowed for a safer, healthier response to the emotional work of chaplaincy. I am left reflecting on the metaphor of fallow fields and crop rotation. I am left wondering if there is greater implication for the work of chaplaincy – the idea of after a designated period rotating from one area to another. I wonder if a spiritual practice of rotation would help with the issue of compassion fatigue and burn out that comes in work that is so emotionally heavy.

I know how I would answer these wonderings for myself. Yes, my rotation away helped with my compassion fatigue and close to burn out. I would say that it has given me a fresh passion for my work as chaplain. It is now another self care practice I am adding to my tool box. I am now moving forward with a new intentionality of keeping this practice of balance between a well paced rotation in and out of low and high need areas mixed in with a hefty dose of personal Sabbath time. And with it holding continued hope for years of a healthy journey in my vocation of chaplaincy. 

Photo credit: Karen Nelson

The Reformation of a List Follower

The last several weeks, I have been working hard on giving myself space. This was necessary as I lived into and through a season of change in my chaplaincy world. It has been in this space that I have been musing on a couple of metaphors to help reshape the way I approach my chaplaincy day and why this time of doing something different was so important.

One thing that is important to know is I enjoy lists. I get a certain satisfaction of being able to check things off my list. There is nothing better in my organizational life than seeing a list fully accomplished. However, there is a down side to this, I can get very focused on the list and that is not always a good thing.

It was this list focus and the stress it was causing in my workday that sent me on a journey of rediscovering a better relationship to the lists of my workday. You see, each day I work from a list – a list of patients to see and lists of units that need to be checked in on. And each day there is always the possibility of something “interrupting” my movement down the list of patients and units to see. For my sanity I had to come up with a better way of viewing my lists of the day. And that is when the aha moment hit.

Growing up in Colorado I had quite a bit of exposure to hiking and camping. I remember my father sitting at the kitchen table looking at topographical maps and planning backcountry back packing trips, one of them being a family-backpacking trip. A brief primer on topographical maps, they give you the lay of the land you are hiking in, telling you elevations, hiking trails and landmarks. I was taught that you never go out backcountry hiking with out the topographical map and a compass. This way if you find yourself off the trail you can re-orient yourself to where you are and where you need/want to be.

Remembering this little tidbit from my youth gave me insight into what my lists of the day could be. I began to look at my lists a bit like a topographical map. Giving me the lay of the land of the “wilderness” of the hospital and the patients, families and staff I encounter each day. When something “off list” comes to my attention it is much like going off trail – a new adventure – but eventually that “adventure” is over and I need to get back on track. That is the new role of the list – not something that drives my day, but rather more like the topographical map that gives me the lay of what my day might look like.

I am still working with in this metaphor, seeing if it really works for me. But after a month of living with it, I am feeling more settled into the ebb and flow of life as a hospital chaplain than I have in a long time. The inevitable page that calls me away from my planned day is not as anxiety provoking to this reforming list follower. I am finding myself feeling freer to respond to the needs of the day – even if they are not on my original “to do list.” And if I find myself needing a bit of re-orientation to my day, the list is there to help me.

You would have thought that I would have figured this out sooner, seeing as how I have been doing this chaplain thing for close to 15 years now. I’m just glad that I discovered it now and was encouraged to work towards this internal change. 

And speaking of change that leads to the other metaphor I have been playing around with. But you will have to stay tuned for that one, because that is a whole other blog post of it’s own.

Praying, Crying, Wrestling

It is 3:30 in the morning and I am wide-awake, pulled to the computer to put the words of my heart out in the open. You see it’s been a difficult ministry week, full of death, spiritual intensity and situations that remind me of my precious Hope gone too soon from our family. I feel completely stripped bare, the cup fully empty and living in an emotional disaster area. Why is it that when I am utterly exhausted and just want to sleep that it is the wee-hours of the morning that find my soul and body awake and wrestling with the difficult task of discernment and finding balance.

It probably is not helping that the gray winter of January and February along with the reality that January would have been Hope’s birth month sets my soul to struggle to move lightly some days. I’ve been reading Henry Nouwen’s The Wounded Healer, and while a good book, it’s not exactly light reading, my Lent devotional words have been hunger, fasting and penitence – not exactly light words. I’m taking a class on Henry Lester’s book The Angry Christian, again not exactly easy. In reality I’ve been residing in a fairly deep place. I’m still in awe and wonder that all this has managed to collect in one time and space. I guess when I dive deep, I really dive deep.

Add on top of this, changes at work, and while they are good changes – change is change and after you’ve been someplace as along as I have at my place of work grief also comes with change – even good change. And through it all I am still attending to my high need areas at work, attending to publicity and speaking events for Still a Mother, trying to be a grace filled mom as my 8 year old prepares to start braces (and having been there I know with it will come some painful days) and being a supportive, fully present wife.

And so here I find myself in the early morning,

writing, praying, wrestling

in the midst of what is the emotional disaster area of my soul. For the first time in a long time I found myself in a place where the idea of having to walk into a patient room and do one more patient/family visit put terror in my soul, because I was afraid of being thrown into one more intense situation and completely falling into a quivering pile of mush right in front of them out of the sheer inability to find once again the strength to be fully present to and minister in the mist of the stuff of life. So I hightailed it back to the office to hide, fall apart in my supervisors office and reached out to colleagues to help me on to the path of putting myself back together again.

And so here I sit, in the wee-hours of the morning,

writing, praying, crying and wrestling

in this space with ideas of letting go, creating space to care for myself, and desperately seeking God’s voice. A couple of wise people have suggested a time of stepping back to a more basic, broader assignment and letting go of my high need units for a while, and after 8 almost 9 years of being a critical care chaplain – they may be right. Not letting go forever, because I love my units and it is where my heart is, but only for a time. Time enough to let myself reset and come back with fresh eyes, ears and heart.

And this is the source of my wrestling – I don’t want these areas I have come to care for deeply to feel abandoned, but then again ministering to them out my desolation may very well be a type of abandonment. I’m not making a quick decision, but instead staying here

praying, listening and crying

and letting myself embrace the gift of a couple of days off to discern my own self-care and path forward.

And if I am completely honest, what I am really doing is trying to find the courage to actually put myself first for once, claim what I need and take a step back. And so for just a little bit longer I will stay here –

praying, crying, wrestling

and seeking peace with the decision I know I need to make.

A Prescription for Holy Ground

Polished, sanitized linoleum floors
IV poles and lines hooked up to person and machine
Beeps, buzzes and interruptions;

Not what most would consider the Holy of Holies.

Add in a hurting person
A person struggling with questions and change.

Give a hefty dose of a chaplain fully present
not ready to fix, but to listen deeply to the unsaid words
and ask the unasked question, the question that gets to the heart of the struggle.

Mix in two sets of tears
And an additional visit of celebration of breakthroughs that give peace,
Top with prayer and thanksgiving.

Let the day be inoculated into the chaplain's heart
And you get a prescription for a day spent on Holy Ground.

Take a deep breath and feel the after effects of humbleness for being
allowed to be present to such sacred work.
And restoration of  soul comes in thankfulness for remembering to
be fully present.

Fountain in hospital chapel. Photo credit - Joy Freeman

A Ministry of Vulnerability

            

            As a professional chaplain I am required every five years to do what is called a peer review. This involves writing and reflecting over my last five years of ministry, my strengths and my growing edges. Part of the reflecting is done with a group of my peers. This year I was due, and I just recently completed my review. It is not always easy to condense five years of ministry into a manageable document. It is not always a comfortable process, either. However, it is a valuable one. It is helpful to be able to look back and see how my ministry has grown and been transformed. In this process I have begun to think a lot about the idea of the ministry of vulnerability, and how that has been reflected in my own ministry style.

            I should probably pause to say the last few months since about July have not been the easiest for me. I faced the five-year anniversary of my second child’s death. I have struggled with my own physical health issues and had to face the reality that, yes, I do struggle with anxiety, and found myself in therapy as a result. I have faced many aspects of my own humanness. And along side this struggle I still had to go to my vocational work and be a chaplain to those who were also struggling and hurting, and probably just as broken, or more, than I was. I began to embrace the words of one of my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) supervisors. Essentially they go like this: in the times when you feel you are at your lowest or most broken, that is when you do some of your greatest ministry.

            How true those words became for me. I remember being at work on the actual anniversary day of Hope’s death. I was basically very raw and doing well to survive my day without spewing my own “stuff” all over the place. I visited a patient and don’t even remember the content of our discussion, but I do remember praying for him at the end of the visit with my eyes firmly fixed on his. I don’t remember my prayer, but I do remember the palpable feeling of connection, a connection that could only come from my personal, very current, and intimate experience of brokenness. It was truly a holy ground moment. I have never left a room without saying a word of good-bye until that day. I simply looked in his eyes, squeezed his hand, and left the room, leaving in the space a gentle and healing presence of the Divine joined here on earth.

            That was the start of months of ministry encounters that were more of those Holy Ground moments. Times of by the end of the visit not being quite sure who exactly was doing the ministering and who was receiving (in actuality, probably a little bit of each for both parties involved). Times of sharing more of my personal story than I ever do. Thinking I screwed up the visit, only to find a deeper sharing (in-spite of myself) allowed for a ministry encounter that was the holy ground of story sharing and healing. Had any of these visits happened any other time previous to July, I don’t know that I would have caught the undercurrents that I did. I don’t know that I would have been as open to the guiding of the Spirit as I was in those moments.

            I struggled to put definition to what was happening until I talked with my pastor who gave me the framework of the ministry of vulnerability. My peer review nudged me to continue to contemplate this and what it means for me. I don’t have it all worked out yet, but some of my initial thoughts are that it is being willing to accept my humanness, every day in every encounter. To know the grace that I have been extended in my brokenness and extend it on to everyone else I meet.

            It is being willing to accept that I am not always going to have the luxury of having all my “stuff” together before ministry calls. Sometimes I must go anyway, even if I feel that I have nothing but my own weary, human self to bring to the moment. It is being willing to fully place myself in the guidance of the Spirit at these times. And to be open to engage more equally in Holy Ground story sharing when those to whom I minister ask me for more of my own story.

            I want you to hear me as I mention the following: I am not advocating for a spewing of my faults and foibles for the whole world to see. Instead I am advocating for the ability to recognize wounded-ness in oneself that can then begin to inform ministry if one is willing to embrace it as a whole part of who he or she is. It is being able to accept and believe that even though one is in a place of brokenness, or simply does not have all of his/her “stuff” together, there is still the possibility of being able to provide ministry. It just may not look like it usually does, and it most certainly will need to have greater recognition of God and Spirit at work.

            Only after this can one begin to discern the other part of a ministry of vulnerability, the balanced and appropriate use of story in the appropriate context. This in and of itself is not easy and takes practice and self-awareness.

            At the end of the day, though, what I have carried away from all of this head-and-heart musing, is a greater since of the Holy. There is the realization that sometimes the gift and ministry I have to give in the moment is to allow someone else to minister to me. Whether it be through wisdom gained that they want to share with me, a prayer given for me added on the end of my own prayer, a simple “God bless your ministry”, or more profoundly an “I’m sorry” after hearing part of my story. The ministry of vulnerability is the realization that it really is a two-way street. I just need to open my eyes and heart to the journey.