Being at a loss for words is not a trait prevalent in my family. We are storytellers and we love to give advice.
People in power positions don’t know how lucky — or is it unfortunate? — they are that they’re not on our speed dial for input on remedies for the state of the roads or overdevelopment of the aina or dysfunction in the parish.
But there’s a situation where we often go mute. A dire medical diagnosis, a crisis in family dynamics, separation, sadness, hurt, loss. A hug is what you do, but what can you say?
So what we’re likely to say or hear is “pat, pat, pat.” It’s a kind of loving shorthand for “oh, poor thing” or “you’ll make it through this” or “there’s still hope” or “God loves you and so do I.” I’ve always considered it a sentimental link to Mom’s comforting gestures, but I guess it’s deeper in the genes than that because I’ve found the “pat, pat, pat” philosophy is more widespread than this family.
Lots of recent events have put that philosophy in my thoughts.
A dear friend just completed the daunting course of daily radiation for cancer. He’s a strong-minded, faith-filled fellow who has turned the ordeal into a storyline aimed to deflect the worries of his family and friends as the next lab test looms.
A loving person close to my heart works in a children’s hospital, amid a team of top of the line medical professionals. None of them is immune to personal reactions when their efforts fail to save a child. She has tears in her voice when we speak at the end of some very sad days at work.
This month I’ve watched a roadside memorial grow in my neighborhood, an ad-lib marker for a decent, admired man who was killed by a robber. Flowers, balloons, notes from friends and strangers, these makeshift monuments have become a condolence medium for people who don’t know what to say but want to say something.
As removed as we are from Charleston, South Carolina, don’t we feel the struggle of people who want to comfort the families and honor the lives of the nine people slain when hatred personified invaded their Bible study?
Hearing the professionals
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” I believe that and all the beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. I believe that faith can be the source of strength to make it through suffering and sadness. But what I’ve found in this long life is that not all people find those sentiments comforting. Those can be arguing points if not fighting words sometimes, even in a clutch of Christians, but especially in our wider world of diverse spirituality and cultures.
Those thoughts led me to seek enlightening conversations with four men whose vocation is comforter and counselor. They are professional hospital chaplains.
Unlike the old movies stereotype of dear old Father Flynn delivering final inspiring words that set everything right at the deathbed, what a hospital chaplain is more likely to do is to listen.
The men and women who serve as full-time chaplains at all of Hawaii hospitals have earned accreditation beyond their role as clergy of various religions. In Hawaii, that meant completion of a 63-week residency program of classwork and in-the-trenches training in hospitals. The Pacific Health Ministry is the island organization offering training for the nationally established certification program. The six men and women who will finish the practical training in August had already earned a master of divinity degree in academic settings. After this program, they will be qualified to become chaplains anywhere in North America.
Meanwhile, three Honolulu diocese seminarians are among students in an 11-week summer session that gives an insight into “the art of chaplaincy,” said Sergei Petrov, supervisor of professional chaplaincy education for Pacific Health Ministry.
“Bishop Larry Silva decided it is an essential part of seminary training,” said Petrov, whose 14 years in chaplaincy education included six years at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis.
Catholic seminarians, desperately needed to supply parishes with pastors, are not likely to seek a hospital job. Neither are all the people who take the course.
“The training is a discernment process: what is the best way to practice my God-given skills — in a parish, in a hospital, in the military,” Petrov said.
Dear old Father Flynn will still be summoned to perform the sacrament of Anointing, and laypeople will deliver Communion, and Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Protestant and other patients may seek their specific spiritual advisors. But the hospital chaplain has a bigger flock than a single denomination.
“Chaplains deal not just with people who believe as we believe, but it may be someone with a different belief or who identifies as having no belief,” said Al Miles, Queen’s Medical Center chaplain for 23 years. “I tell chaplains, it’s not about us, it’s about them. A person’s needs are not always expressed as spirituality, but what gives a person value in their lives, what brings joy.
“The chaplain is a source of comfort, not just to patients and families, but to the professionals,” said Miles.
“There are well-intentional people who are not a fit for the job, people with big hearts who have seldom darkened the door of a health care institution. I have seen it happen, where they either talk too much, or are quick with platitudinal statements.”
‘It’s an art, a skill, of listening’
Miles said “Some chaplain candidates have been in ministry for a long time but still have to learn the art of chaplaincy. It’s an art, a skill, of listening. Parish work is not the same as clinical experience. Here we don’t proselytize.” A minister who is used to being “THE voice” in a pastoral setting won’t necessarily fit as a chaplain who is “one voice” among the clinical professionals providing care, he said.
John Moody, a Lutheran minister and one of the founders of Pacific Health Ministry, said “Some ministers are better with preaching and teaching, and some with personal counseling. It may sound good on paper to do good for the sick, but some cannot tolerate the hours. To work with people in a clinical setting, it is very critical to be understanding of varying religious backgrounds. No matter what faith tradition, we are there for people facing trauma and stress.”
All of the chaplains recalled incidents of counseling medical professionals whose best efforts don’t always have happy outcomes. “A nurse was telling me today about a person who came into emergency; they thought everything was in hand but something went terribly wrong,” Moody said. “She told me that she helped the family make decisions, didn’t allow herself to feel her emotions. But then she said ‘when it was all over, I went outside and had my cry.’”
Moody spoke of sitting on the floor of a surgical suite dressing room with a neurosurgeon who faced bringing bad news to the patient’s family. “He said, ‘I can’t do this.’ While we talked, he could just sit there and deal with his feeling of sadness. Then he went out, set his feelings aside, and talked to the family.”
After a tragic case, a chaplain may be asked to sit down with doctors, nurses, physical therapists, even housekeepers who have contact with patients. “We talk about how they feel as a professional called to this work, and what does it mean when it cannot have the best outcome.
“Sometimes such counseling is planned and sometimes we seek out the staff in the dark alleys of the hospital,” Moody said.
A chaplain I met at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin said, “What hospital staff witness is like a secondary PTSD — post traumatic stress disorder.”
The level of stress is phenomenal
“It’s like a chronic low fever,” said James Greear, chaplain at the 300-bed pediatric hospital, named one of the top 10 children’s hospitals in the country by U.S. News and World Report. The current state of health care in which “you don’t go to the hospital unless you are really, really sick,” plus increasing demands of electronic record-keeping, “is like an arrow pointed at the staff. Their level of stress is phenomenal,” said Greear, a Lutheran minister with 21 years as chaplain.
His co-chaplain Cindy Wagner is a Catholic layperson, one of more than 3,000 Catholic chaplains in the country.
“We help the staff weather the storm while they help families weather the storm,” he said.
He said the chaplains have the role of helping the clinical professionals understand the needs of different cultural and spiritual traditions, which in the Milwaukee hospital can mean patients and families from many countries. “We teach the staff not just the ‘what,’ but also the ‘why’” of things that are done to comply with beliefs.
Greear gave examples of the diversity: The hospital staff needs to realize that an Orthodox Jew observing the Sabbath would not hit an elevator button or turn on a light. The staff would be careful about oxygen tanks or other flammable material if Native American practitioners chose to use smudging with lighted herbs to cleanse or bless a hospital room. In the interfaith hospital chapel, among the amenities are a prayer rug, a copy of the Koran and an electronic app that determines which direction Muslims must face to be facing Mecca.
Petrov said he believes “Hawaii has the most complex array of beliefs and cultures. There is not one dominant culture. It is not just the nuances of religious beliefs, but the nuances of culture. Some cultures are more reserved, some emotional. You have some people who are devout in their faith but won’t talk about it, spirituality is very private for them. And some just want an opportunity to share.”
Petrov said what a chaplain candidate must master is to “learn the art of actively listening.”
I’m not up for the full course, but I understand the concept. It’s time to practice being at a loss for words, when it’s listening that someone needs.
