Some Words about Chaplaincy

I offered a version of this reflection at the conclusion of my chaplaincy training, during our graduation ceremony at Griffin Hospital.

Chaplaincy is strange. It's certainly an awkward endeavor. Essentially, you walk around, knock on patients' doors, and, in a completely unannounced fashion, explain that you are there to talk about the well-being of their spirit. And this is much more than “How are you? No, how are you really?” Chaplains have the audacity to press even beyond the world of feelings and fears, to keep going beyond the pleasantries of polite talk, to ask the more fundamental question, “What does it all mean?” Since chaplains believe that this question of meaning and purpose is intimately connected to the experiences of everyday life, we make time for them to share all those things at length. But at the end of everything that needs to come out, all those precious and important details, we have the nerve to say, “What's all this about?” 

You might assume it's hard to find any takers, anyone willing to have potentially awkward conversations about life, faith, and spirituality. Perhaps a thoroughly reasonable person would dismiss someone who knocks on their door, claiming to be from the hospital's spiritual care team, as a quack or a particularly aggressive Bible-thumper. I suspect that's what some patients fear our conversation might eventually become. But the amazing thing is that, despite that risk, most patients invite us in. In fact, nearly all do. Patients who are religious, and patients who have little faith or no faith at all. They all seem willing to risk a potentially strange encounter with someone they don't know. I still find that incredible, almost hard for me to believe. 

The rest of the care team here at the hospital is, for the most part, tasked with helping people’s bodies. Yet this hospital purports to be about “Supporting Mind, Body, and Spirit,’ which is a lofty goal when you stop to consider it. The health of the mind and body is something we, here in the 21st century, feel confident we can assess empirically. But, health of the spiritual sort, what do we even pretend to mean by that? Yet time and time again, people invite me in. They might question which medication their nurse is administering, balk at the tests they will be subjected to next, or complain about whatever course of treatment is recommended, which they are confident won't work. But somehow, when it comes to spiritual care, they are willing to try it. What could possibly be the harm, right? Time and time again, people open up about the hard places in their lives, the dark corners of their minds, the awfulness in their past, and the fears they have about the future. Eventually, they sense that I have nothing really to gain or lose from getting them to adhere to some prescribed form of conversation, and they feel free–it’s often precisely at this moment that it usually all comes tumbling out.

But chaplains press on, pressing toward a question that haunts many of us: Why does any of this matter? I would agree with Jennifer Breheny Wallace, in her recent book Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose, that we are in a crisis of mattering. Many feel that much of life is meaningless and have a difficult time believing that anything truly matters. Contemporary cultural luminaries seem to offer no consistent message about what’s worth giving a damn about, except self-preservation, clout, and increasing revenue; of course, somehow, these things matter. But what you find sitting next to folks in the hospital is that, despite attempts to keep faith in life having some purpose worth living for, few can readily identify why they matter in any concrete way. They struggle to sense their significance; they don't feel appreciated; they can’t see how they are depended upon; and most don't feel invested in. In fact, many feel poured out, as a libation on the altar of others' prerogatives and schemes, or stretched thin by their own striving to keep up, or otherwise caught up in a never-ending spiral to numb themselves to the pain that this all might, at the end of the day, just be a fool's errand.

It might be unsurprising to most that a medical crisis, a bad test result, the prospect of suddenly needing to manage a chronic illness for the rest of your life, or even the sheer indignity of being made to lie in a bed in a paper-thin gown could lead to a crisis of faith. But I have found that too often the opposite is true. A crisis of meaning of existential proportions is precisely what landed them in the hospital in the first place. This is especially true of those I encountered in the psychiatric unit, but it’s true everywhere. Really, those not in the psychiatric unit just seem slightly better at ignoring the meaning-sized hole in their hearts, at pretending there’s nothing the matter, or at letting it leak out slowly.

Yet, as a person of faith, I walk into each room with a secret. I know they matter because the author of life, the lover of souls, says so. That vote outweighs all the forces and people who would suggest otherwise, even if those voices mostly live rent-free in their heads. That’s what I believe, and I would venture to guess that many, deep down, believe it, too. But believing that and communicating it is a whole different ball game. It's a delicate thing to communicate, and it often can’t be approached head-on; instead, you have to sneak up on it from the side. You have to gain enough trust so they know you are sincere, and avoid unintentionally communicating the exact opposite, which is easier said than done. That’s the work of a chaplain, and it requires cultivating greater self-awareness and seeking out honest feedback. In order to see, you must first allow yourself to be seen. There, seen in the glorious splendor of daylight, vulnerable and beheld as you really are, a beloved child of the source of all light.