I heard a true story today of a person entering into The Third Age (over 50). This person lays flat all day and needs assistance to roll over, eat, toilet….actually needs assistance for everything. This person can only communicate with grunts and noises with an occassional expression of the eyes or a small movement of the hand. As I heard the story I also heard how someone who cared, came into this person’s life, offered conversation, offered recognition and then offered prayer. The person who laid there found ways to communicate deep appreciation.

We need to define lifespan; thus the “?” marks. If it is right up until the moment of death, which I believe it is, we need to rethink our approach and our understanding. When I think of the person who lies there or the person in the last moments of life on this earth, it makes me wonder about how we do faith nurture. How does one support and nurture the faith of the one who lays there? The Holy Spirit is present, and, yet, the person cannot respond. How do we help this individual in their faith journey? How do we help this person find comfort in the God who is present? How do we help this person pray and worship? When we talk faith formation across the lifespan, how do we apply that concept in this situation?

My fear is that maybe we don’t do any of these things because we think that this person is done with life….and, yet, the person is breathing and interacting with the environment, even if only with the eyes. I hope that someone in this person’s life reads the Scriptures with them and prays with them and talks with them and sings hymns with them. I hope we don’t give up. I hope and pray that we validate this person’s life and recognize the dignity of creation. I hope and pray that we celebrate the human connection and then allow the Holy Spirit to seal the spiritual connection.

It makes me wonder how congregations serve this person. Wouldn’t it be great if individuals helped out families and someone would read books………read Scripture……..read the newspaper……….pray…….laugh……watch TV….and help this person remain in the mainstream of life? Wouldn’t that be a wonderful ministry. Wouldn’t it be great if someone gave this person a hand massage or a foot massage in the style of Jesus?

What ministries do you see in operation for this person? How do we help recruit and equip people for ministry to this type of person? This person is still a part of the family of God……..I would love to hear how you see that being a lived reality.

Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is becoming the life transforming experience that I had hoped it would become.  I had read, and been told, that CPE was about patient care and that it was about the interior journey.  It is everything that I hoped it would be and more.

Our group of five spends a great deal of time in study and reflection.  CPE is based upon an experiential learning model which builds reflection into the process.  The gift I have been given is to be with a group of people who are insightful and who are able to speak the truth in love.  I really appreciate the loving honesty as they have gently guided me in the interior realm.

My strong goal has been to deepen my listening skills in spiritual direction and to identify issues that would impact the care I might give to patients.  This CPE process is helping me see in a deeper way those things that keep me from listening as fully as I might and provides me with a safe place to try out new ways of listening and expressing.

Today was my first day to be on call as chaplain.  This was my trial run by having a nine hour daytime shift with other chaplains around before I do my first 24 hour on call (next Monday).  What an experience!

My primary unit of service is the cardiac care unit (yes, rather ironic), however, when on-call, one can be serving just about anywhere.  My CPE colleagues kept telling me this past week that their first on-call experience was rather quiet.  Shall we say that mine was NOT!  What a day….including a power surge that temporarily shut down the elevators at the hospital requiring that we use the stairs.

I cannot talk about patients, but I can say this…..there is a wide variety of human need.  There is an incredible blessing in joining in the spiritual journey with those who are in health transtions.  There is a power in the love of God as connections are made with those in crisis.

One of my primary goals is to learn how to listen more effectively as individuals express their needs and to listen more effectively to the heart of God as God responds to those needs.  What a blessing it is to be able to explore these various dimensions.

Ministry is about listening and it is about hospitality.  These principles get reinforced for me every day.

When Jesus says, “Peace be to you,” He offers wholeness and completeness.  Jesus makes us whole and complete through His acceptance and love.  The wholeness and completeness is a free gift that begins a transformative process in each aspect of our life.

The transformation of the spiritual core leads to the ability to respond with a transformative action in every aspect of life.  As my spiritual core is transformed, I have recognize that my physical core also belongs to God.  Paul writes, “do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?”  It is not my body.  It is God’s body given to me to use to God’s glory.  Care of the body is a spiritual action in response to the grace of God.

In the forty minutes I spent on the treadmill today at the gym, I watched CNN display headlines…………Iraqi government collapsing, 1.2 million Americans will forclose on their homes in the next two years, home foreclosures will bring on a worldwide recession, global warming is causing the world to self-destruct…….and on it went.  I thought to myself, no wonder people are stressed.

The situation was amplified by the fact that I was praying for someone, while on the treadmill, whose e-mail I had read just before leaving for the gym.  It was the panicked e-mail of a person overwhelmed with life’s issues while being surrounded by a group of nay-sayers.  I prayed, “God, how do we cope.”

God said, “he leads me beside the still waters.”  In the midst of it all, God provides.  Thanks be to God.

A friend said to me the other day that he was frustrated because he kept praying and he didn’t feel that God was listening.  I said, “maybe it isn’t God who isn’t listening.” 

 We have this tendency to want to tell God what God should be doing.  In my mind, that is a form of idolotry.  Who am I to tell God what God is to do?  Our call is to listen.

 St. Benedict says it well in the first lines of the prologue to his rule, “Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.  Benedict goes on to say, “The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience.  This message of mine is for you, then, if you are ready to give up your own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord.”

And so as times become tough, rather than dictate to God we are invited to sit in God’s presence and listen to God.  To listen with the heart is the first step in ministry to self or others.  To listen with the heart is to seek to understand the other before engaging in dialog.  So, we seek to understand God before we prescribe what God is to do. 

My physical was scheduled for May but my doctor suggested we begin some of the tests in April in order to avoid having the tests all bunched up at once.  I thought that sounded like a good idea so we scheduled a stress test.  Because of family history I have a stress test every five years.  Well, I had the test on Friday morning and by Friday afternoon I was on restriction with direction to quit my physical workout for awhile.

I was scheduled to meet with a cardiologist who scheduled me for an angiogram and possible stent.  So, within a week action was being taken.  The angiogram showed that I had two blockages, one 60 per cent and one 50 percent.  Normally they would not operate, except, the 60 per cent blockage was in a location that causes it to have the nickname “widowmaker.”  After seeing the location there was no doubt that we should move ahead with the surgery.  The doctors said that it could wait until after the school year and so the double by-pass was scheduled for May 22, 2007.

The day came.  The surgery went well and the recovery goes well.  The journal begins on www.caringbridge.com/visit/stevearnold.  All I can say is that God was truly present and gave me a peace that truly passes all understanding.  The recovery has been steady.  Each day gets a bit better than the day before.  God is still present every day.

I have learned that my life will be different.  I have always exercised, but, now I must be consistent.   I am a high energy person but I truly feel that I have lived an integrated life.  I have kept my diabetes under “control”.  However, I did gain weight.  Even more, I have a genetic history that leads to this point.  Now, I know there is no room for messing around.   Personal discipline takes on a whole new form.

One Woman’s Search for Understanding

Thank you for your comments.

I am noticing more who are returning to Lent as a season of examination and renewal. I like to think of Lent as a time of retreat from the world and a time to reflect upon God’s call. In the Lenten journey I see a time of prayer but also a time to see the world in the way God sees the world. I want to see the world with love and acceptance but I also want to see the injustice and be led to an appropriate response. Lent is a time of quiet that leads to a call. Lent is a time of examination and turning away, leading to the renewal of the Easter vigil and the sending of Pentecost.

Nothing to see here, just identifying my blog to Technorati.