The picture above is one I found on-line. It illustrates a patient who is being cared for with a ventilator to support their breathing. Working in CVU and ICU seeing patients on these machines happens daily. There are many purposes for having a patient on a ventilator. In some cases, the person’s breathing ability was in decline, and even with the help of the machine we learn that the patient is not helping with their own breathing at all.

Now enters the chaplain. The family informs me that for this patient the next 24 hours are going to be precarious as they wait to see if the patient tries to do any breathing on their own. What does the chaplain do? You might think the chaplain immediately offers prayer. The first thing I do is LISTEN to the family as they recount what happened and how they feel about it. With the additional background they tell me it helps me respond to them with compassion and yes eventually offer a prayer that is custom designed for their situation.

Too often in life the person we are talking to already has their response to us already formed before we even finish what we are saying. It seems like our society as forgotten the art of LISTENING.

Try this experiment, mentally count the number of times your mind starts to form a response before the person you are listening to has finished speaking. I think you will be shocked that do it more often than you realize. But once you realize it, then you train yourself to finish listening before preparing to speak. I am a “motor-mouth” so this was no easy lesson for me. But learning to do it makes me more of a comfort to the patients and family members I encounter.