Today is the third day of a seven day visit with my son Erik who lives in St. Louis.  I have taken these days off from the hospital so we can have the maximum time together while he is here.  Today we had what he used to call a “lazy day” when he was age 7 or 8.  I am blessed that we can enjoy each other’s company without having to be doing something pre-planned like attending a movie or a play.  Today as we were relaxing he asked me what church we were attending on Sunday.  I notice the way he posed the question he implied were attending church as a certainty.  I asked him if he was asking because he wanted to worship or if he just assumed I had made that decision for us.  He replied that he did really want to attend worship.  Just hearing him say that made me feel good.  I felt good because a priority of mine has been adopted by him by choice rather than duress or bargaining  So tomorrow we plan to attend Centre Street UMC.

What blessing awaits us there is yet to be seen.  But I know just having him with me will be a blessing.   The fact that I have no responsibility during the service and can sit with him in the pew will be an extra blessing.  For the years I served local churches I was always on the altar and he was always somewhere in the congregation.  Worshiping together in the same pew, sharing a hymnal, and reading the prayers together will be a time of bonding for us as well as a time of giving glory to God!  Even though today is Saturday, I am GLAD that Sunday is coming!

I am facing a significant change in my spiritual life starting in June.  Rev. Ann Atkins has been pastor at Centre Street United Methodist Church in Cumberland where I have attended since moving to Cumberland in October 2010.  She and I have enjoyed a friendship as professional colleagues and as personal friends.  She and her husband Hal and son Daniel have welcomed me into their home and we have enjoyed many meals in local restaurants.  In June Ann’s tenure at Centre Street UMC will be concluding.  I am thankful she will still be in the area, but attending events at Centre Street including worship will not be the same without her.  I have to confess I have considered finding a different church once she leaves.  I have rejected that option for many reasons.  The most important reason to me is that I have other significant relationships at Centre Street and have made commitments through leadership positions I have accepted, and I don’t want lose those relationships or break the promises I have made.

Each Christian has to take responsibility for nurturing their faith.  For me part of the nurturing involves active participation in a local congregation.  I also nurture my faith through writing a journal and through study of Scripture.  This week has been a pivotal time for me because I have decided it is time for me to cease “fighting change” and start “accepting change”.  Even though losing Pastor Ann was not my choice, it is still a reality for the congregation.  I am fortunate that I will be able to remain in contact and connection with her and her family.  Even though that will be different than having her as my pastor, she can still be a confidant and someone whose opinions I respect and whom I can turn to for advice or simply to share in a confidential manner the events of the week.

As I think about this change I am processing I know that family members and patients I meet everyday are also processing change.  Part of my ministry to help them process changes in their lives as they open up to me and share their situation.  I have felt a bit like a failure the past few weeks as I have been attempting to help others process change while I was stuck being able to accept the changes in my spiritual life created by Pastor’s Ann’s leaving our church.

When I return to the hospital and to hospice following this week of vacation I feel I will be able to be more effective because of my move from fighting change to accepting change.  This recent battle with change also will help me understand why change can be a true burden to others until they are able to work through it.  I think I will be more sensitive to the emotions they feel and more likely to be able to pause with them as they sort out what they should do in response to the change they face.

How do you handle change?  Are there any changes in your life that you would like to write about for the readers of the blog to learn from?  Please post if you feel so led so we can all learn from each other.  God bless you!!

Today my son from St. Louis arrived for a week-long visit.  This is the first trip he has made here since I adopted my basset hound Cooper.  Sadly Cooper had been abused before I adopted him through a local rescue shelter.  Because of his abuse Cooper can be accepting of new people or very antagonistic.  So far in the 18 months Cooper has lived with me he has not displayed much consistency in who he accepts and who he rejects.

My challenge, so I thought, was to find a method to introduce Cooper to my son in a manner where Cooper would accept him.  I had my son stand on the side walk in front of the house.  Cooper and I left via the back door and came down the alley and encountered my son.  To my surprise Cooper went right up to him and laid his head against my son’s leg literally begging to be petted.  They got along famously on our walk.

Then we entered the house and my son had the audacity of laying down on the sofa that Cooper considers “his”.  I was in the kitchen and suddenly heard the loud barking/growling and could not imagine what was the matter.  My son had a look of confusion on his face which literally conveyed the question, “What did I do to set Cooper off?”  I explained Cooper considers that sofa his personal property.  My son offered to move and I said no, Cooper needs to learn to share.  In a few minutes I got Cooper quieted down which was a breath of fresh air for both humans in the house.  Cooper did not like giving up exclusive rights to the sofa.

So are you wondering how did things worked out?  It is now 6 hours later and my son and Cooper are both sleeping on “Cooper’s sofa” and all is right in the world.  The answer was letting Cooper learn that I was very pleased with my son being here.  Once Cooper saw that I was not in danger, he accepted my son.  It is nice to have a protector.  This prompted me to think about the Heavenly Protector that loves us, God.  Fortunately God does not bark, but God does give us wisdom to know when a situation is safe or dangerous.  I feel blessed to not only have God looking out for my safety but to also have Cooper  being on duty to protect me from any “strangers” that dare to enter the house.  May all of you whom have had pets thank God for the blessing your pets are to you!  Amen!  Feel free to post how you feel protected by your pet.  We can all be inspired as we read each others experiences.

The graphic above was posted on Twitter by our denominational headquarters in Nashville, TN.  It made me laugh because now that I am in extension ministry I am not wondering if the District Superintendent will suddenly call me to tell I have a new church I will be moving to in July.  Also the Annual Conference session does not impact my ministry in healthcare as dramatically as it did when I served local churches.  The things we talk about at Annual Conference just are not as relevant to patients as they are to church members.  Also at the hospital United Methodist members are a small percentage of the total number of patients.  In any local United Methodist Church 90% or more of those present are generally members of the United Methodist Church.

Extension ministry does take the vital ministry of the church from inside the walls of the church and move it into a setting where I can on a daily basis interact with people who have no church affiliation or regular church attendance pattern.  The conversations I am able to have with patients about why they believe in God but are not motivated to be a part of the local church (any denomination) are interesting.  Some have gotten angry and stopped attending.  Some have just gotten out of the habit of attending.  Some have found the services don’t have meaning to them.  Even with all these reasons for not attending church, patients are very happy when I offer to pray for them.  Chaplaincy gives me the opportunity to pray with people and present the church in a way where they can see me follow the example of Christ in taking the message into the world.

Chaplains are no different than other people, we all have days where things do not go well.  Last week I had the constant frustration of my cell phone battery losing 50% of its power in the first 4 hours of the day.  I went to the store and it was under warrant which saved me the cost of buying a new phone.  The service center shipped me a replacement.  It arrived today via Federal Express.  After work I went to the store to have them transfer all my data from the old phone to the new phone.  “Transferring all data” sounds easy, doesn’t it?

What I learned is that “all” did not mean everything.  All my pictures moved from phone to phone, all 93 of them.  But I had them sorted into directories.  On the new phone all my sorting had been undone.  I also use 50+ Android apps on the phone.  Instead of them moving automatically and at one time, each app downloaded separately.  Half the apps did not download on their own and I had to select each one separately and then download them.  Part of what did not move was my ringtone selections, wallpaper design, settings I use for the phone for appearance and functions.  In the end it took me several hours to get the phone 80% restored to the way I had the old phone configured.

As I thought about this frustration with change I realized that helping patient’s deal with change is one of the most important things chaplains try to accomplish.  In a way my cell phone was the illness, and I was the patient waiting for healing and recovery to take place. I needed a chaplain to pray with me to remain calm instead get frustrated.  It would have been nice to have a chaplain to talk to while I was waiting for the seemingly endless amount of time it took for each item to download.

Please write a reply describing a “starting over” experience you have encountered and what skills or resources you used to cope with it.  We can all learn from each other!  Have a great week!

It sometimes happens that a patient is discharged from Hospice and the patient moves to a different care setting, for example a nursing home.  One of our families has a member at a nursing home.  I encountered this family during an inpatient admission shortly after moving to Maryland.  I remember their having a wedding anniversary party in the hospital room.  The family has continued to call me invite me to come visit.  Since the patient is not in our program, I visit on my own time.  It has been nearly two months since I last saw the patient.  Saturday night I dreamed the patient died and I had not gotten to see him.  So this afternoon after mowing the grass, I showered and went to the nursing home to visit.  The patient and spouse were both there.  We hugged and I could tell that my simply walking in the room lifted their spirits.  What an awesome privilege to brighten the day for someone simply by being there!  We had a 90 minute visit and all three of us were feeling better as I was leaving.  The spirit of koinonia that we shared reminded me the spirit of “one accord” that is described in chapter two of the Book of Acts.  A feeling of bond and love that existed in the early church still exists today when we grow in relationship to one another!  Now I am curious, who are you sharing koinonia with these days?  Please reply and those who are reading along be blessed by your responses!

Most of us at some point in time approach a situation with fear that something about it will go wrong.  Sometimes we have a sense about what the problem will be and other times we just have a feeling of apprehension that we can’t really describe.  When this happens to me I pray as soon as I am aware of the apprehension I feel.  I pray for God to intervene and make the situation better.

I am a person who firmly believes that God answers prayer.  I have also learned that the answer to the prayer is not always the outcome I have sought, but in the end the outcome does show God’s faithfulness and care for our situation.  Recently I cared for a patient who had suffered a stroke.  The patient initially did not want to accept the fact he had a stroke.  In his mind the diagnosis had to be a mistake.  Before we prayed he asked me to pray that God open the eyes of the doctors and have them see what was really wrong with him and stop talking about this stroke nonsense.  I paused before I prayed because in my own heart and mind the patient displayed the classic after effects of a stroke and I did not have same doubt in the diagnosis that the patient possessed.  My silent question to God was, “How to I pray in a way the patient will accept and also be true to what I believed about the situation?”

I was inspired to leave the term “stroke” out of my prayer.  Even though the patient was bothered by the word, he was really more bothered by the symptoms he was experiencing.  He would accept healing no matter what the name of the illness was.  It took me a few more moments to frame the first sentence of the prayer in my mind.

Then I began to pray, “Lord we are here today because __________ is here in our hospital knowing he needs healing.  The diagnosis he has been given is causing him anxiety.  Lord we know the preferred way for his anxiety to be eliminated is for all of his symptoms depart.  Lord help us through medicine and other treatment to improve his health.  Lord we also pray for understanding on the part of all who are involved in the care of this patient.  Let us be present for him emotionally as well as we are physically.  We seek your presence to bring answers to questions, and to bring confidence to take the place of fear.  This we ask in your precious name, Amen”

The next time I saw the patient he said, “You’ll never guess what?”  As he continued he told me he now believed he did suffer a stroke because his body was responding positively to the treatment.  He was going to get to go home after a few days in rehabilitation.  When he left the hospital he only needed the use of cane to help him with his balance.

God’s invisible hand was present as I see the case because the diagnosis remained stroke as it has been originally.  Once the patient saw he was getting better he realized he really was not nearly as opposed to the term “stroke” as he was to how he felt.  As he began to feel better his trust in the medical team increased and he poured himself into the therapy necessary to regain function.  I love seeing God’s invisible hand at work in our world!  Please feel free to post a reply with your encounter with the invisible work of God as you have lived it!

For people of the Christian faith, Jesus is our example for the wisdom of taking rest when you need it.  Jesus would withdraw for a short time and rest before launching a new chapter in his ministry.  I like to think I am the “energizer bunny” and have an endless supply of physical and emotional energy.  The truth is I am human, and as I age I tire more easily.  This week I had some difficult cases to deal with at the hospital.  My director noticed less than energetic look on my face. (When I am tired it shows in my face very clearly if you know me.)  My director asked me if there way anything of an urgent nature I had to finish today.  I told him had work to do but nothing was essential that it be completed today.  He then told me to take the rest of the day off and start getting my weekend rest.

He is wise because I know there is truth in the learning that we can’t offer people something we don’t have.  I was running on “reserve energy” which we all know does not last long-term.  So with his blessing and encouragement I followed the example of Jesus and got some much needed rest.  This rest will put me in the position to be able to return to work on Monday with my usual energy level.

How about your schedule and life?  Do you need some special time of rest to restore you body and soul?  If the answer is yea, then I encourage you to work diligently to get some time for rest the sooner the better!

When I blogged about church on Sunday and the special service based on Holy Humor people have responded asking me what the service looked like.

First, here is the Order of Worship as it was printed in the bulletin (please notice the uncommon names for very common activities in worship):

Pretty Organ Music

What’s Going On?

Warmin’ Up Song

Let’s Get Started

Happy Song

Time to Get Real

Takin’ a Look Inside

God Loves us Anway!

Kids Time

Honoring Our Mothers

Really Special Music

Sharing the Ups and Downs

Talkin’ To God

The Prayer Jesus Taught Us

Getting our Ears Ready

Jesus’ Story Time

Pastor’s Turn

Lettin’ the Word Sink In

Time to Pass the Bucks

Doxology (ala Hank Williams) [This was a hoot to sing with a new tune]

Song for the Road

Wishing you Well

Get Going Music

More Pretty Organ Music

I really wish I had a MP3 video of the service to post.  It would give you a much better idea of all the comments that we laughed at during the service.

In closing remember to smile often, God likes us that way!

In my Hospice work, many times I talk to caregivers on the phone if they don’t desire a home visit.  Today I attended a funeral visitation for a patient whose caregiver I had talked to several times but did not ever speak to or meet the patient.  I was expecting the caregiver I had talked with would have things she would want to say to me.  Before I proceeded to her in “the line at the casket” I met the patient’s children.  I introduced myself by name, title, and indicated I has spoken with the spouse but had never met the patient.  One of the children replied, “So you’re the one!”  He continued to tell me how his mother appreciated conversations with “this very nice man”.  For some reason it did not cross my mind that our conversations would have been important enough to her that she would tell her children about them.

That is one of the dynamics of chaplaincy that continues to amaze me.  Things done with a little effort supported by a foundation of genuine concern; continue to touch people far beyond my expectations.  At the time that death approaches all of the Hospice Team have a wonderful ministry of assisting the family in being the primary caregivers for the one they love.  Instead of the patient being in a hospital or nursing home, the patient is in his/her own home and is more relaxed and able to remain in a place of dignity surrounded by the things and people that are important to them.  I may have entered the funeral home feeling like a stranger, but I left feeling like a friend to several family members.

Where have you expected to be a stranger, and then realized you were viewed by those you encounter as a friend?  Please post your response so everyone checking this blog can see the wideness of the ways that acts of love ripple farther than ever anticipate!