Category Archives: Pastoral Care

March 20, 2010 · 12:17

The “Eyes” have it; they’ve got Sammy Davis Eyes….an Experience from My Clinical Pastoral Education Residency

Sometimes I gotta wonder about people, especially some religious people.  Of course we can all probably relate to some incident where someone with their religious beliefs led to somewhat unusual situations, even funny or tragic situations.

Of course when you work as a Trauma and Surgery Department Chaplain at a major inner city Level One Trauma Center like Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, the unusual, the funny and the tragic can all be wrapped into one or maybe two two stories, sometimes on the same day.  Such an occasion occurred about halfway through my residency year at Parkland in March 1994.

About a quarter into my residency my Clinical Pastoral Care Residency Supervisor moved me from the Internal Medicine service to Trauma, Surgery and Neurosurgery service which included the Trauma and Surgery section of the Emergency Department. This several years before the hospital began their Emergency Medicine Residency and unified the ER.

We saw lots of trauma, back then we had six fully equipped trauma rooms as well as about 50 other beds of various types in the Surgery section of the ER.  The Medicine Section had three fully equipped Cardiac Resuscitation rooms, numerous telemetry beds and about 60 addition beds and rooms of various types and specialties.  When things got sporty as they often did additional beds were used in side halls for patients with minor injuries which sometimes included minor gunshot wounds.

It was often the case that every trauma and cardiac room would be full sometimes with multiple “codes” going on.  We saw about every kind of injury imaginable on the surgery side of the house and in the course of my residency year I dealt with well over 300 deaths in the hospital.  That may sound like a lot but back then Parkland was a 940 bed hospital that was usually running 90-100 percent of capacity and it had eight Intensive Care Units dealing with some of the worst trauma in the United States.  The most death calls I dealt with in one night was eight in an eight hour eleven p.m. to seven p.m  On a typical day if I left the hospital dealing with two deaths or less I considered it an easy day but I digress….I think I was talking some unusual, funny and tragic situations come together.

Well like I said about halfway through my residency I was hanging out in the Surgery ER about 10 a.m. on Saint Patrick’s day.  The morning had been busy with the usual bevy of motor vehicle accident victims from the rush hour and had died down.  It was then that the Dallas County EMS brought in a young man on a gurney who was taken to trauma room 6, the one in the back corner directly across from the “Presidential Suite” which was always cordoned off by the Secret Service when the President was in town.

The situation didn’t seem that interesting at first as I did not see the young man’s face but he appeared to be stable and since I was spending time with one of the nurses who had dealt with a patient in pretty bad shape from one of the MVA’s (Motor Vehicle Accident patients) I waited to check things out.

About 15 minutes later I wandered down to the trauma room and saw some of the Ophthalmology docs looking at the young man’s face peeking under the gauze 4×4 that covered his left eye and shaking their heads.  When I walked into the room a good number of staff looked at me, some with expressions of horror, and others amusement and still others just weirded out.  So I asked what was going on.

One of the Surgery residents answered and said that the young man had been doing crack cocaine and reading the Bible.  So I said “you mean the “if your eye offends you pluck it out” verse?” And the resident said that’s the one.  I looked at the young man and saw a large black Bible on his chest clasped in his hands. One of the Ophthalmology doctors looked at me and asked “Is that really in the Bible?”  I said “oh yeah, you want to read it?” He said yes and a number of his colleagues nodded in agreement.

Now the young man reminded me of what back in my younger days was referred to as a “stoner” kind of like Sean Penn’s character “Jeff Spicoli” in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. So not having a Bible in my hand just a small Episcopal Armed Forces Prayer Book I went up to him.  I said:

“Mr. Spicoli (the name has been changed to protect the stupid) I’m the Chaplain what happened?”  His answer was classic, “Dude sir, it was like I was reading the Bible and I saw this verse about “my eye offending me” and just knew that I had to take it out.” I said “Dude, you know that some parts of the Bible aren’t supposed to be taken too literally don’t you?” 

With his one good eye he looked up at me and said “Like I didn’t have to cut it out?”    I shook my head feeling somewhat compassionate yet amused (a feeling that many who work in ERs and trauma centers can attest to having) and said “No Jeff you didn’t….you weren’t using before you read the Bible were you?”  He then said, “Yeah, like dude, like why not?” 

I shook my head and said “Jeff my friend, God loves you and wants you to read his word but not while you’re doing crack, it tends to mess up your interpretation of it.” To which Jeff replied “Really, yeah dude you might be right.”

Now this was obviously a nice but really messed up kid so I decided not to push him any farther and commented on his Bible.

“That’s a pretty impressive Bible Jeff.”

Jeff replied “Yeah I got it like last week or something.”

I then asked him “Can I look at it with these doctors a second?”

I promised to give it right back.  When he gave me permission, I gently took the Bible from his hand and walked to the disbelieving (not in God but in what was going on) physicians with it.   Thumbing through the pages I came to Mark 9:47 and let the doctors read it themselves.  They were genuinely shocked and kept looking at Jeff as they read it.  The Ophthalmologist who had asked the initial question looked at me and said: “I guess that it wouldn’t be good to read that verse while doing crack.”  I smiled, shook my head and said “No, not a good idea.” 

With that I took the Bible back to Jeff and thanked him and he said “anytime dude.”  The docs were getting ready to transport him to surgery so I wished him well and told him that I would pray for him for which he thanked me.  I felt bad for the kid and knew that he would not be on the trauma service after the surgery and when medically ready would be hanging out in the Psych ward.  That was the last time that I saw him and I do hope that he was able to break his addiction and get his life together.

However, the day was still young and I had the overnight 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on call duty in the evening. The rest of the day into the early evening was progressing rather uneventfully by Parkland standards, just your typical MVA’s, overdoses, cardiac arrests and shootings.

That changed when the Dallas EMS brought an African American lady who appeared to be in her thirties. Her eyes were covered with a bandage so I asked the paramedics what had happened.

One of them said, “Chaplain, you wouldn’t believe this in a million years, the lady’s sisters took her eyes out.” 

I said:  “Took her eyes out?”

The paramedic replied: “Yeah, like scooped them out, almost surgical precision. She said her sisters drove her from New Orleans to Dallas and along the way took out her eyes because they thought that she was possessed by the Devil.”

My reply was a simple, “Damn, that sucks.”

The paramedic continued “Yeah, she kept saying that her sisters said the she had “her father’s eyes” or something like that.” 

The conversation continued for a while as the paramedic vented about how idiotic and criminal what happed was and when he went to finish his paperwork and get back to his rig I went in to the trauma room where the lady was being assessed. I got a look at the eye sockets and was quite impressed.  The young man had gouged out his eye and made a mess. The lady’s eye sockets were just a little bloody and hollowed out like nothing had been there. It was rather creepy.

Since she was pretty out of it and not very coherent I backed out of the room, consult with the team and let them know what the paramedic had told me.  The story creeped them out as badly as it did me.  Later I would find out that the sisters had been arrested.  Evidently the lady was a school teacher and she and her sisters were heavily involved in hoodoo a blend of Voodoo and Catholicism. At their trial they claimed that they were “fleeing from the devil.” The victim refused to testify against her sisters but they were convicted of the crime. The link to the New York Times article and one from the UK Independent is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/25/us/trial-in-woman-s-blinding-offers-chilling-glimpse-of-hoodoo.html?pagewanted=1

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/hoodoo-hex-on-interstate-20-the-blinding-of-myra-crawford-demonstrates-how-racism-and-fear-of-demons-linger-side-by-side-in-pockets-of-the-old-south-1412753.html

Never before and so far I have not seen a day where I have seen anything that unusual.  It was creepy like a really creepy horror movie.

All I can say about that day now was that “the eyes have it.” Unlike the Kim Carnes’ song, these folks don’t have “Betty Davis Eyes” but “Sammy Davis Eyes.”

With that to leave your stomach to churn I wish you a good night and pleasant dreams.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 18, 2010 · 20:14

Too Young…Naval Medical Center Portsmouth loses another one of Its Own

 

Lieutenant Eric W Inge, Medical Corps, United States Navy 20 August 1979-13 February 2010

Creator, Father who first breathed

In us the life that we received

By thy power of thy breath restore

The ill, and men with wounds of war

Bless those who give their healing care,

That life and laughter all may share

 From the Navy Hymn, Eternal Father Strong to Save

Today the Staff of Naval Medical Center remembered the life and work of a shipmate, colleague and friend.  LT Eric Inge passed away last week from apparently natural causes. Eric was a junior resident our Psychiatry residency program and I had the pleasure of working with him and spending time in class as well as doing some PT with him. Back in December we took a PT test together.  Though he was quiet we often talked to each other and he had a good heart, sharp wit and obviously cared for people and wanted to do his best to serve our Sailors, Marines, Soldiers, Airmen and their family members that he saw in clinic or on the floor. 

 He was quiet, unassuming and did not draw attention to himself. He was remembered today as a friend, a committed physician who could always be found working with his patients and who was a very good psychiatrist even though he was still early in his residency. 

 He was born at Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center in Denver on August 20th 1979. He graduated with distinction from Duke University earning a degree in Biomedical Engineering. He worked in that field and then attended medical school at the University of South Florida where he graduated with his MD in 2005.  He completed an internship in Internal Medicine at The Ohio State University in 2006 and entered a Neurology program that he withdrew from realizing that his passion in medicine lay in Psychiatry.  Passing up numerous civilian residency programs he entered the Navy and was accepted into the Psychiatry internship program from which he matriculated in June of 2009 and then began his residency at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth.  He served his patients, his shipmates and his country well.  He is typical of so many of our young Naval Physicians and other professionals in Navy Medicine.  Eric will be missed by his friends, colleagues and the patients that he served so well.  Please remember his mother and father, Elsa and Kenneth Inge and sister Tina in your prayers. 

 His death came as another blow to a department that has lost two other staff members in the past 7 months and to a medical center that has said goodbye to far too many shipmates in the past year.  Additionally we have hundreds of our staff deployed in harms way in Afghanistan where they are actively treating US and NATO soldiers and Afghan civilians in places like Khadahar, Camp Bastion and Bagram as well as many places too small to register in this country. Others serve in Iraq, the broader Middle East and the Horn of Africa.  Many were shipped out with only hours notice to deploy on the USNS Comfort to care for victims of the cataclysmic destruction in Haiti, which many veteran and even senior staff who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan find more horrifying than anything that they experienced in combat.  While all of these professionals deploy the staff here picks up the load.  Unlike units that rotate in and out of combat to be rested and refreshed these proud and selfless men and women of Navy Medicine go into the fight or into places of cataclysmic devastation and then return to carry on with the mission of caring for our Navy and broader military family at home. 

 Please keep all of these professionals, caregivers all in your prayers as they serve with dedication and distinction all over the world and even now mourn the death of one of their own.  I do not pretent to understand why young people like Eric die, I trust God yes, but I wonder sometimes and ask the question which has no answer “why?” I will miss Eric and trust that his soul and the souls of all the departed will rest in peace.

 Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 17, 2010 · 16:19

Ash Wednesday…Padre Steve’s Lenten Survival Tips to Make this a Happy Lent

“God, deliver me from gloomy saints.” – – Saint Teresa of Avila

 We’ll it is here, my least favorite season of the liturgical year.  As I have mentioned before I do not do well, at the same time it is something that I need to commit myself to observing for the sake of actually wanting a better spiritual life that is not simply a way to make me feel better about life but help me more fully to love and serve God my neighbor with an attitude of thanksgiving and joy.

 Those who know me know that such is not an easy task and that for me no matter how hard I have tried Lent has always been painful.  By the end of Lent I am thankful for Easter not simply because of the resurrection and the promise of redemption, but frankly because I was glad that Lent was over.  In my early days as a Priest I tried to out do others on Lent doing not just Friday but Wednesday as meatless. I have even tried doing opposite of what I was doing and hope that it would work. Last year in the midst of my spiritual crisis I tried to go extra-lean on Lent and that didn’t help either.  Perhaps that was due to my overall poor emotional, physical and spiritual condition as I was trying to climb out of the abyss of PTSD but still, Lent was not very productive for me no matter what I did.

 So this year I’m going to be a good Anglican and find the via media where I actually gain some spiritual benefit, give up something that I can actually succeed at giving up for Lent and add or increase some spiritual discipline that I can succeed at doing not just for Lent but in real life too.  I realize that I can’t overdo it or I will simply give up when something keeps me from doing it and the same time I need to do something not too difficult but not so easy as to be meaningless.  The goal is to have a meaningful Lent that actually does me some spiritual good while not becoming any more of a pain in the ass to the people around me that have to endure me. 

 Today was Ash Wednesday and I had the responsibility for conducting the Protestant service which for me comes straight out of the Book of Common Prayer.  The Gospel lesson from Matthew chapter 6 was Jesus telling folks how to fast not be idiots about it, in other words to “Steveicize” the language Jesus wants his followers to be able to and pray without drawing attention to ourselves and actually look happy about it.  I figure and I assume that Jesus figured out that there were too many gloomy religious people around and that the disciples needed to get a life before he sent them out into the world; of course just like me and maybe you too made plenty of mistakes and at times made a mess of things in their time with Jesus and even after.  The disciples who with the exception of Judas who got hung up on the details all became Apostles still all finished well and most got schwacked by the Romans or others displeased with their message. 

So with this in mind here are a few hints on how to get through Lent, not that I have been successful at doing this but figure that through my failures I might have a few insights in how to navigate the often treacherous season of Lent. 

First there are the spiritual disciplines, like starting simple, go to church, pray every day, even if it is something short and sweet.  If you are a superstar Christian you can go onward and upward using spiritual steroids to improve your performance but I’m not there yet, I just use spiritual steroids to help my soul heal faster.   As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said:

 “Wherever…thou shalt be, pray secretly within thyself. If thou shalt be far from a house of prayer, give not thyself trouble to seek for one, for thou thyself art a sanctuary designed for prayer. If thou shalt be in bed, or in any other place, pray there; thy temple is there.”

 Now to what to give up:  Most of the time for Americans this involved food, particularly meat on Friday’s and sometimes other things.  I’ve heard of people giving up chocolate or certain delicacies but most of the time it is meatless Fridays and sometimes Wednesdays and there have been some that I have met who have gone on 40 days fasts during Lent.  I can get the meatless Fridays and I am going to give up something that I love that I don’t eat much of normally, like maybe once a week after successful weigh-ins, but really enjoy…I mean really enjoy, the Gordon Biersch Cheeseburger cooked medium rare with everything on it and Garlic Fries on the side. Since there is not a lot else for me to give up being on the Fat Boy program, that once a week treat will be a sacrifice. 

 Now since I tend not too eat most things that swim in their own toilet such as fish the whole deal of fish on Friday is something that I don’t observe…now I still go meatless but find alternative ways to do it. In the past I have done bean burritos, meatless salads, meatless pasta usually with a Marinara sauce, pizza with tomatoes, garlic, olives and mushrooms, or something simple like red or black beans and rice, vegetable soup, pea soup, black bean soup and other things like that.  This makes meatless doable.  One year though I had to suffer for Jesus on the USS Hue City as Friday was “surf and turf.” Since the turf was definitely out for Lent I had to make due with Alaskan King Crab or lobster tails.  That was difficult but I did survive.

 I think one of the things that I missed during previous Lenten seasons was the grace of God, somehow in trying to jump through all the Lenten hoops I became so fixated on the actions that I forgot to experience the love of God and the joy that comes with that.  This year will be all about that process and discovering the joy in life that has been coming back to me after my “Christmas miracle.”

 Martin Luther the German reformer wrote something very appropriate about how to approach Lent,a s well as the rest of the Christian life which I think is pretty profound as Lutehr sees the process of the Christian life:

 “‘Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom. 12:2).’ In this way the Apostle describes (Christian) progress; for he addresses those who already are Christians. The Christian life does not mean to stand still, but to move from that which is good to that which is better. St. Bernard (of Clairvaux) rightly says: ‘As soon as you do not desire to become better, then you have ceased to be good.’ It does not help a tree to have green leaves and flowers if it does not bear fruit beside its flowers. For this reason – (for not bearing fruit) – many (nominal Christians) perish in their flowering. Man (the Christian) is always in the condition of nakedness, always in the state of becoming, always in the state of potentiality, always in the condition of activity. He is always a sinner, but also always repentant and so always righteous. We are in part sinners, and in part righteous, and so nothing else than penitents. No one is so good as that he could not become better; no one is so evil, as that he could not become worse.'” (Commentary on Romans, by Martin Luther, Translated by J. T. Mueller, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapid MI 49501, reprinted 1976, page 167-168.)

 On a side note one cool thing about this Lent is that it is happening about as early in the year as it can, thus it will not affect the baseball season as opening day at Harbor Park is the week following Easter.  So anyway with all of this in mind I bid you a blessed Lent and hope and pray that you will come to experience the love of God in a special way this year that impacts you and those around you. Pray for me a sinner.

Peace, Padre Steve+

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February 10, 2010 · 23:32

One Week Warning: Lent Begins Next Wednesday

Contemplating Lent

I have never ever done the season of Lent well.  From Ash Wednesday through Good Friday I pray for it to end.  First I don’t look good in the liturgical color of the season, purple.  I actually prefer the green of Ordinary time or the Red of Pentecost.  However I do have a really cool “cope” (which is liturgical jargon for cape) and stole (liturgical scarf) in purple that I picked up at little religious goods store in Poland back in 1996. I thought it was a chasuble (liturgical poncho) but it is still pretty cool.  Unfortunately I have never had the occasion to wear it in a service despite the color which would not do me well.

However aesthetics aside Lent is my least favorite season of the Church year.  Now I am not adverse to it on principle as I do think that we all need to take stock of our relationship with God and humanity as well as the things that we mess up on a daily basis.  As someone whose spiritual life stays about at the Mendoza line I know that I have a lot that I need to improve in my life.  That is a given.  I would love to be a .300 spiritual hitter than a .215 spiritual hitter.  However I do work at trying to get better.  Lent is a season that reminds me of what a screw up I am, thus like anyone who doesn’t like to be reminded of their shortcomings for 40 days I find Lent a painful reminder of my imperfections.

So with that in mind and knowing that I am not the only person who is in my boat I have to provide some survival tips but those will wait.  Since many readers have little idea what Lent is about let me do some “splainin” as Ricky Ricardo would have said.

Lent is the season of spiritual preparation that leads up to Holy Week and Easter. It is a “penitential season” meaning a season where we examine our lives in relationship to God and the folks that we hang with, sometimes referred to as humanity and seek to receive God’s grace to make amends and to find ways to do better.  One of the ways that Christians have done is to give up certain foods or activities during the season. Others seek to add spiritual disciplines to their lives.

Lent begins on the Wednesday following “Fat Tuesday” which is called Ash Wednesday. On Ash Wednesday Christians have themselves marked with a cross from ashes on their forehead as a sign of the reality of their mortality and promise to use the season to return to God, make changes in their lives that will deepen their spiritual lives and their relationship with their neighbor. It’s the whole “which are the greatest commandments?” “Love God and love your neighbor” on steroids.  Unfortunately the whole relationship thing sometimes gets lost as folks get caught in the legalism and minutia or trying to figure out what to “give up” for Lent, which often is like a New Year’s resolution which almost invariably goes bad.  Lent then continues for 7 weeks but only 40 days are actually Lenten Lent as all the Sundays are “feast days” which mean that you can eat all the stuff that you don’t get to eat on Fridays or Wednesdays if your Church or Diocese is a bit stricter than others.  There are also three major Feast Days, Saint Matthias (Apostle), Saint Joseph and the Annunciation. There is also Saint Patrick’s Day which though not a major feast day is often locally observed and of it falls on a Wednesday or Friday is sometimes is allowed by the local Bishop to supersede the fast day.  Speaking of “Fast Days” these are days where the Christian gives up most food except for a couple of very small and simple meatless meals, though some are stricter in their observance of “Fast Days” and actually fast throughout the day, not that there is anything wrong with that.  Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are “Fast Days.” There are also days known as days of abstinence where the individual gives up certain foods or activities. Traditionally meat is given up on Fridays and depending on how strict your diocese is Wednesdays as well. Most people do fish on these days.  I will write more about this later in the week.

I have struggled with Lent for most of my life even as a Priest.  When I made my first confession I asked the Priest who heard it “if they deserved it was it still as sin?” Though that was not during Lent you get my drift.  I admit that I struggle with Lent but over the past few months I have had a rather remarkable spiritual and emotional start to recovering from my case of PTSD.  So as with most things I am not in dread of Lent this year. I will pick reasonable spiritual goals as well as things to abstain from during the season.

So with the warning given enjoy the next week.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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January 11, 2010 · 22:34

Baseball Beyond Life and Death in the ICU

“I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth. And I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for…” Lou Gehrig

Today I was walking away from our hospital pharmacy where I had to pick up a prescription and I heard a voice of a man call out to me…no not a voice crying out in the wilderness, but a familiar voice.  I looked around and immediately recognized the man as the husband of the woman who back in May of last year was very near death in our ICU.  I wrote about that in a little post called Baseball in Between Life and Death in the ICU. That post came at an interesting time for my PTSD battle was still raging, my dad’s condition was getting worse and I was getting ready to go home for what I thought be my last visit and I was heavily engaged on the ICU and PICU.

The lady sat next to her husband, and it was yet another of the recent blessings in my life that I have begun to count as miracles. She looked great, especially since last year her prognosis for her life once she left the hospital was measured in weeks or a couple of months.  The woman was a big baseball fan and even coached.  Her husband kept baseball games on her ICU television whenever they were on even though she was for the most part very heavily sedated and only occasionally conscious. We had many visits by her bedside and one day I brought in a baseball that I had thrown out as the first pitch at a Kinston Indians game on a wedding anniversary a few years back.  With her husband and sister in the room I put the ball in her hand which tightened around it.  For what I understand the ball seldom left her hand as she remained in the ICU.  As we visited they both told me how much what I did in the ICU meant to them, the prayer, anointing of the sick and the baseball.  She told me that the ball, an official Carolina League ball on her mantle.  What was funny she only vaguely remembered my face because of her terrible condition and sedation, but that her husband would not stop talking about me. We chatted some more and talked about all the prayer that had been made on her behalf as well as the hard work of the ICU and Cardiology teams to keep her alive and help her recover.  I mentioned that probably the whole companies of baseball “saints” in heaven were praying for her as well and we all had a great laugh.  I had to leave and go to a call but we exchanged hugs and blessings.

Today has been a busy day.  I have already dealt with the death of a relatively young woman with cancer in palliative care; withdraw of life support from a man and several other situations where people could be spending their last hours or days on earth.  I had given last rites to the woman who passed away tonight last Thursday when I was on call.

I mentioned last week that despite everything I still felt good emotionally though I was physically worn out. Today I am pretty fresh even now and know that I will need to remain her much of the day tomorrow no matter what happens tonight.  However for the first time in a while I can say that I am ready and feel something like my old self again.  What began as Padre Steve’s Christmas Miracle has continued into the New Year and despite complications and infection associated with my implant surgery I feel good. I am hoping to be cleared Wednesday to PT again and am looking forward to good things even in the midst of life and death both inside and outside of the ICU.

There are some other things going on that I will be writing about in the coming days. Baseball spring training is getting closer and lots of deals and trades are happening. The Orioles and Giants have both picked up some hitting and have great young pitching.  On the other news front I am glad that Mark McGuire finally admitted his use of steroids.  At the same time I am not going to condemn him as so many others were doing the same thing, I just wished he had not taken them and come clean sooner.

Now I’m heading back upstairs to check on all of my really sick folks and savoring the bit of time that I had for dinner and to write this little post.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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January 1, 2010 · 23:24

New Year’s Resolutions: Is the Resolution Resolutionable?

Let’s Make New Years’s Resolutions Resolutionable the Year!

One of the traditions common with the advent of a new year is the resolution. Typically people will resolve to do something different to improve their lives, such as losing weight, starting an exercise program getting out of debt, having a child, getting a better job, having cosmetic surgery, finding a new love, ditching their old love, founding a new religion and fleecing the flock and a million other laudable goals.  The key question that one must ask when making a resolution is “Is the stupid thing resolutionable?“

You probably are asking “just what the hell is resolutionable?”  Well, I figured that and here is Padre Steve’s test of what is a “resolutionable New Year’s Resolution.” Resolutionable to put in the vernacular is simply a combination of various factors to see if a resolution has a bat’s chance in hell of succeeding.

Question One: The first question that you have to ask yourself is “Will this be good for me?”  If yes give yourself 5 points. If the answer is no subtract 10 points immediately and ask yourself if you are merely stupid or have forgotten to take your anti-psychotic meds.  Obviously if it is not good for you it is not wise.  However it is a free country so no one can stop you from being an idiot unless they get a court order which is unlikely.  Since you are free to do something bad for you and because it is a free country you can continue to take the test to see if you can recover.

Score for this Question: _______

Question two:  Is it reasonably attainable? Is it something that a reasonable person maybe even a coldly logical dispassionate and neutral observer would agree with you is attainable.  Frequently such people are either known as Vulcans or Assholes, on earth most are the latter, but they can be counted on to tell the truth.  For example, you resolve to lose weight.  You weigh 200 pounds, your ideal weight is 180 and you have no health conditions that would harm you if you attempt to lose the weight.  If so a coldly logical, dispassionate person would probably say that this is reasonable.  Now conversely if you weigh 900 pounds and have to have Dick Gregory talk you into having a construction crew knock a hole in your apartment wall to have a crew of firemen with a forklift get you out and want to lose weight, any weight it is unlikely that you will succeed and that it is an unattainable goal unless a plastic surgeon takes a shop vacuum to you.  If it is reasonably attainable give yourself 5 points. If not give yourself nothing, nothing ventured nothing lost.  I hope that wasn’t too harsh.

Score for this Question: _______

Question Three: Does success depend on someone else helping you?  If “yes” subtract 5 points as most people are unreliable, get over it.  If “no” give yourself 10 points because you are at least trying to take control of your destiny. If you are depending on God to make it happen for you subtract 10 points because regardless of what you answered before. Nothing against God, I’m work for him and am a big fan, but you want a miracle and those are rare. Try Miracle Whip instead. To be resolutionable you have to be doing the work, otherwise it’s like cheating.

Score for this Question: ________

Question Four:  Will it cost money or involve significant amounts of time? If it does there is a decent chance that you might actually follow through on it especially if it is a decent chunk of change and not tied up in some crappy piece of exercise gear.  If it does not cost money there is a decent chance that you won’t follow through on it, after all you have made no investment in it and have little motivation, unless your career, a significant relationship or life is at stake.  If the answer is yes give yourself 5 points.  If the answer is “no” and your career, significant relationship or life is not at stake you get nothing.   If your career, significant relationship or life is at stake give yourself 5 points.  If it costs a significant chunk of change or a significant threat to your career, significant relationship or life is at stake give yourself 10 points.  There is nothing like necessity to motivate you to actually stay with the program.

Score for this question: _______

Question 5: Will doing this benefit others?  If it will give yourself 5 charity points, if not take nothing, if it will hurt someone and you know it subtract 50 points because you are probably going to Hell for even entertaining such an idea.

Score for this Question: ______

Now add your points.

If you score 25 or higher your resolution is definitely resolutionable and should by all means be pursued.

If you got greater than 15 but less than 25 your resolution might be resolutionable and has a chance even if not the greatest.

If you got more than 5 but fewer than 15 points you might want to think about another resolution.

If you got less than 5 and since no question is worth less than 5 points you got 0, unless of course you got a bunch of those negative points.  Such resolutions are bound to fail so try something use.

So this year I am going to resolve to lose 20 pounds.

Will this be good for me? Yes. Score 5 points.

Is this reasonable?  Yes since I gained 25 pounds over the summer I should be able to do this. It will happen because I am no longer eating 4-6 Krispy Kreme hot and fresh glazed doughnuts every night before bed and have no underlying medical problems eating health while engaged in a regular program of exercise this is reasonable.  Score 5 more for Padre Steve.

Does it depend on anyone else? Nope, Score 10 more for Padre Steve.

Does it involve a substantial amount of money or time?  Lots of time and as we all know time is money so score 5.  I get added points because if I don’t it could mess up by career and I have two much to lose by not losing the weight.  Score 10 more for Padre Steve.

Finally will it benefit others? Yes maybe not as much as me, but it will at least indirectly help others. Since I’m not greedy I won’t take the 5 charity points.

Padre Steve’s score:  35 which means that this New Year’s Resolution is resolutionable. See how easy that was?  Using this simple test we can all determine the likelihood of a New Year’s resolution succeeding, which if we bother to actually make one is the point right?  So let’s all resolve to make resolutionable New Year’s resolutions this year.

Now I know this isn’t the most pastoral carily way of putting this, but hey, whatever works right? Have a wonderful New Year.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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December 24, 2009 · 18:26

Padre Steve’s Christmas Miracle

Merry Christmas!

I do not throw the word miracle around lightly.  In fact I generally get irritated when I hear people calling things miracles that are no such thing such as giving God credit for the screw ups or successes of people.  I heard of a case recently where someone’s loved one had a preliminary test that showed possible cancer. Of course the person was upset and asked people to pray.  A second confirmation test was done and it turned out that the first was a “false positive.”  False positive tests are a part of the whole medical package, people and machines make mistakes.  The person sent an e-mail out to announce that the test had been a false positive and then proceeded to say that it had to be God healing the relative in question, not a mistake.  I think that to makes such a claim actually cheapens the term “miracle” and does God a disservice.  God at least to my understanding does pretty well on his or her own.   It is like in baseball where an infielder commits an obvious error that is glaring and the official scorer scores the play as a hit.  Now I rejoice that this person’s loved one did not have cancer, but the fact was that they never had cancer to begin with and thus to call the event a miracle is rather silly.  The same is true when a medical team works their ass off to save someone from death, does everything right and makes the save only to have people give all the credit to God.  Once again I have no doubt that God can be involved but to simply write off the efforts of dedicated people is to do a disservice to God.  I think that God is okay with people that he or she created getting credit where credit is due.

Miracles are rare and not everything is a miracle.  So when I say that I am experiencing a miracle I am certainly not doing so just to make me look deserving or extra spiritual.  Anyone who knows me knows that such a claim would be fraudulent.   I think that miracles related to one’s spiritual and psychological condition are rare and since there is no lab test to prove that you are all better that they are difficult to quantify.  When I hear people talk about being completely “healed” in such matters I am a wait and see kind of person, as Ronald Reagan once said: “Trust but verify,” especially in regard to anything to do with me, simply because I don’t want to look like an ass or by my claims make God look stupid when they do not pan out.

The past couple of years have been the hardest of my life.  I have talked about the effects of PTSD, issues with my father’s Alzheimer’s disease, my own sense of alienation and isolation, anxiety, depression and the crisis of faith that I experienced quiet a few times so I will not rehash them in this essay.  The reality is that they are a reality that I have had to try to come to grips with.  For most of this time I have existed in a world where everything hurt and I struggled to believe.  Imagine having to pray for people when you are wondering if God even exists at times.  To put it mildly it sucks.   That has been my world, despite my expertise at what I do and the pent up knowledge that exists in the gray matter mounted in my bald brain housing group it has been a struggle to keep going.

While PTSD, anxiety and depression are major issues I think the thing that made them worse was how alone I felt and how it seemed that God had abandoned me.  I think that was actually more frightening than the nightmares, insomnia, fear and everything else associated with my experience in and return from Iraq.  I believe, at least from my experience that a crisis of faith and feeling alienated and abandoned by God is one of the most frightening and dehabilitating things that can happen to a Priest or any other minister.  In fact I am pretty sure that when you ask ministers who have left the ministry that somewhere in their experience is a crisis of faith. That might be hidden by other circumstances but I’m pretty sure that it is there.

Christmas in Iraq…The Last Time I Felt the Presence of God…until Now

The past 22 months since returning from Iraq have been a terrible ordeal in an emotional and spiritual sense, however something has begun to happen and I cannot place my finger on it but somehow I am beginning to feel touched buy the grace of God again.  It actually began quite unexpectedly.  I came home from a disastrous trip to visit my parents in November completely wiped out and depressed.  It seemed that I had crashed yet again and I expected that this Christmas would be no different than that of last year where I left Mass before it began and walked for an hour in the dark and cold wondering where God had gone.  So when things started to happen, beginning ironically with the experience of performing the last rites for a patient in our ER and experiencing a number of other situations where I again felt part of something bigger than me I was surprised.  Lo, even astonished at events that I couldn’t explain were happening as well as the fact that people care for me, all kinds of people, co-workers, friends from baseball, friends from Gordon Biersch and friends from church.  I think that is where I began to realize that God might just care and maybe that there was hope for me again that maybe what I did mattered.

Today was a busy day as I walked about the medical center.  I saw the work of my physician, nurse, corpsmen and technicians of various sorts as they fought to save the lives of people.  I spent time with our staff as they worked to stabilize a very sick child for transport to another hospital in a last ditch attempt to save the child’s life as the child’s mother looked on.  I watched our ER team assisted by one of our anesthesiologists from the ICU work to save the life of an elderly man and get him to the ICU.  I saw surgeons and neurologists evaluating and working with a fairly young man who is in dire straits.  For all of these folks Christmas Eve and Christmas day are days that they are “in the fight.” They are days where the miracle is real, but not evidenced to all.  I am amazed by the skill, dedication and care of all of these folks who are attempting to ensure that Christmas does not end badly for others, both the patients in their charge as well as their family members.

Mid afternoon I was walking down the hall and I experienced a wave of emotion flood over me, and unlike the majority of emotions that I have felt in the past couple of years this was different.  It was a feeling of grace and I guess the presence of God.  I went up and talked with Elmer the shrink about what I was feeling and the experience was awesome, I was in tears as I shared, not the tears of sadness, but of grace.  I am beginning to re-experience the grace of God, something that has been so long absent that I did not expect it, at least right now.  I didn’t do anything differently; I certainly was not working extra hard to pray more, get more spiritual or pack my brain full of Bible verses.  I was too far gone to do those things.  It was all I could do many mornings just to get out of bed and come to work.

Now I know that I still have some hurdles in regard to my PTSD and that I am still not a “full up round” spiritually, but I have hope again. I am not the same Christian or Priest that I was before Iraq.  I have changed in a lot of ways, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.  I know I have a long way to go, but for the first time in this see that I might actually get there.

I guess that is the miracle. Last year I dreaded the very thought of Christmas and this year I look forward to the Advent of Jesus, the Christ.  That in the middle of life and death, experiencing pain, alimentation and all that I have described that something has touched my life and I have hope again.  Tonight the Abbess is singing at her 5 PM Mass while I attend the 6 PM Mass over at Saint James Episcopal on my way home from work.  When we get home we will have dinner together, open presents, watch Molly open her presents and probably if I have my way watch funny Christmas movies and specials as we spend the night together.

I pray that you will experience some measure of grace this Christmas, or whatever you celebrate.  I do pray that God will protect us all and that we will be able to experience together the grace, mercy and peace of God.

Merry Christmas my friends, thank you for being there for me this year.

As Tiny Tim said at the end of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol: “May God bless us all.”

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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December 14, 2009 · 23:59

Doubt and Faith: My Crisis in Faith and Why I am Still a Christian an Advent Meditation

Note to my readers. This is an older article that I wrote back in December 2009, when after nearly two years of struggle with the effects of PTSD, depression, anxiety, loss and a crisis of faith that made me for all practical purposes an agnostic. I think it is timely now, not because of what is currently going on in my life but rather because of the stories I hear from those that struggle with faith at Christmas. Peace, Padre Steve+

Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief.

A new liturgical year is upon us and with the season of Advent Christians look forward to the “Advent” of Christ both in looking forward to the consummation of all things in him as well as inviting him back into our lives as we remember his Incarnation, as the Creed says “For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”

At the same time for a lot of people the season of Advent and Christmas are incredibly difficult and times where faith, already difficult becomes nearly impossible.  For many the season is not a time of joy but depression, sadness and despair.

For me Advent and Christmas were times of wonder and mystery and I really found it difficult to understand how anyone could be depressed during the season.  Until I came home from Iraq…

While I believe the Scriptures and the Creed this I have to admit that for the last 22 months since returning from Iraq I have doubted, been depressed and at times felt like God had abandoned me.  Things were so difficult last year that I went to the Christmas Eve Mass with the Abbess and was crashing so hard that I had to leave. I walked through the night for over an hour until I got home, a walk that is a maximum of 10 to 15 minutes from the church.  It was probably the lowest point of my life as a Priest, chaplain and Christian.

Since I returned from Iraq my life has been a series of ups and major downs. In dealing with PTSD, anxiety, depression and chronic insomnia as well as my dad’s painfully slow degeneration with Alzheimer’s disease to the point that he no longer recognized me on my last visit, I have struggled with faith.  Prayer became difficult at best and as I dealt with different things in life I knew that I didn’t have any easy answers.  Going to church was painful. Chaplain conferences even more so, except being with others who struggled like me.  About the only place that I could find solace was at a baseball park.  For some reason the lush green diamond comforts me.

I find that the issue of doubt is not uncommon for a lot of people, including ministers of all faiths. For those of us who are ordained and view our ministry or our Priesthood as a sacred vocation this is difficult to deal with.  Ministers and others who suffer a crisis in faith, depression or despair endure a hell because it is not supposed to happen to us. I do believe that for many people a religious leader who has doubts and struggles with his or her faith is disconcerting.  I can remember a myriad of situations where pastors due to a myriad of reasons experienced a crisis in faith many of which involved great personal loss such as the loss of a child, a failed marriage, being let go or fired by a church, or experiencing a major traumatic event.  These were good people and quite often instead of being enfolded by a caring community of faith they were treated as faithless, failed and worthless, often abandoned or excluded from their faith community as if they were criminals.

When I was younger I used to look askance at pastors who had given up, lost their faith, or abandoned the ministry for whatever reason.  As a young seminary student and later young chaplain I had a hard time with this, it made no sense to me and I was somewhat judgmental until I started to get to know a decent number of “broken” ministers from various faith traditions that a lot more went into their decision than simply not being tough enough to hang in there until things got better.  At the same time I never thought it would happen to me. I thought I was “bulletproof,” that it could never happen to me. And it did and I was stunned.

When I came back from Iraq I came home to find that my office had been packed up and many mementos lost, it took months to find most and there are still important documents that have never been recovered. My accomplishments went unrecognized on my return home.  As I crashed no one asked about my faith until Elmer the shrink did when he met me.  Later my Commodores, first Frank Morneau when he found out about my condition and Bob Sitsch when he took command of EOD Group 2 both asked me about my faith.  I told them that I was struggling. Commodore Sitsch asked me “Where does a Chaplain go for help?”  On the professional side I felt isolated from much of my church and many chaplains.  I was angry because I felt that I deserved better, because I had done all that was asked of me and more.  The Chaplains that I knew cared all worked in different commands and were not immediately available and I was ashamed to go ask them for help.

I appreciated simple questions like “How are you doing with the Big Guy?” or “Where does a Chaplain go to for help?” It showed me that people cared.  When I went to the medical center I dealt with many difficult situations and was haunted by my dad’s deterioration, the latter which I still deal with today.  To have a close family member mock my vocation, service and person and provoke me into rages was equally taxing.  Likewise the absolute hatred and divsion in the American political debate tore my heart out.  I felt like, and in some ways still feel like we are heading down a path to being “Weimar America.”

There were many times that I knew that I had no faith.  People would ask me to pray and it was all that I could do to do to pray and hoped that God would hear me.  Even the things that I found comforting, the Mass, the Liturgy and the Daily Office were painful.

This Christmas and Advent is better than last.  I am finding meaning again.  The little Episcopal Church that I attend helps me in this.  It is much like the churches that I grew up in.  The hymns and the liturgy are comforting.  I am beginning to rediscover faith.  A week and a half ago I was paged stat or our ER where an elderly man was dying.  He was 91 years old and had suffered a heart attack at his family home not far from the hospital.  He has served as a Navy Officer and later Navy doctor and had done his internship at our medical center in the 1940s.

I sprinted to the ER and when I got to his room was introduced to his wife.  She asked if I would pray and then asked if I was Episcopal.  I said I was a Priest in an Episcopal denomination and she asked if I could give her husband, a life-long Episcopalian the last rites.  The man was obviously in his last moments of life.  I performed the Rite and when I finished he passed away.  My hand was on his brow when he breathed his last and his body began to lose its warmth.  One of the Doctors said it was like he had waited until I got there.  The man died with his family, was at home in the house his father built and had eaten what he said was the best “stew of his life” before he passed out.  He died at the hospital he trained at and loved with his family at his side and received the last rites of the Church.  I left the ER after a wonderful chat with his wife, who reflected on his life and how blessed that he was to go out like this.  I left the ER knowing that I had been part of something miraculous.  My eyes were opened and for one of the few times in the past 22 months I felt the presence of God again.

I am still a Christian.  Why is sometimes hard to figure.  I am not a Christian because of the my Church, though I love the Church, it often has been for me a sourse of pain and rejection.  I am not a Christian because of what is called “Christian” nor can I ignore the injustice, violence and oppression wrought by those who called themsleves Christian throughout history.  Slavery, the subjectation and conquest of who peoples to take their land and resources and wars of agression blessed by “Christian” leaders are all part of history.  At the same time much progress has come through the work, faith and actions of Christians and the Church. Despite all of the warts I can like Hans Kung “I can feel fundamentally positive about a tradition that is significant for me; a tradition in which I live side by side with so many others, past and present.” (Kung, Hans Why I am Still a Christian Abingdon Press, Nashville 1987 p. 36)

Neither am I a Christian because I think that the Christian faith has “all” of the answers.  In fact coming through Iraq I understand what my Church History Professor, Dr Doyle Young said “all of people’s deepest needs are not religious.”  Nor am I a Christian because I think that Christians are somehow better or more spiritual than others.  In fact I find the crass materialism and self centered “What can God to for me?” theology and way of life to be deeply offensive.  People get sick, young children die, innocents are subjected to trauma even from their parents or siblings.  Good people endure unspeakable trials while sometimes it seems that evil people get away with murder.  I can’t chealk it all up to a naive “it’s God’s will” kind of theology.  I don’t presume to know God’s will and I can’t be satisfied with pat answers like I see given in so many allegedly Christian publications, sermons and media outlets.  Praying doesn’t always make things better. I remain a Christian in spite of these things.  I still believe that God cares in spite of everything else, in spite of my own doubts, fears and failure.  I still believe, Lord help me in my unbelief.

I look forward to Christmas this year. I look forward to the coming of Emmanuel, God with us.  We sang the hymn “O Come O Come Emmanuel” at Church Sunday.  It was what I needed to hear.

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times did’st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

For those that like me struggle with faith, feel abandoned by God, family and friends.  For those who have experienced the crisis of faith or even a loss of faith I pray that all of us will experience joy this season.  I’m sure that I will have some ups and downs, I certainly don’t think that I am over all that I am still going through.  However I know that I am not alone to face my demons and pray that by opening up that others who are going through similar experiences will find hope.  O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer, our spirits by Thine advent here. Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 18, 2009 · 00:09

MLB League Championship Series so Far, I will wear Short Pants until the World Series is Over and Learning that I am a “Wounded Healer”

So far things appear to be working out the way that I thought that they would in the MLC League Championship Series between the Phillies and Dodgers. I predicted that the teams would split at Chavez Ravine and go back to Philly knotted.  The Phillies took game one and looked like they had game two in the bag with Pedro Martinez shutting the Dodgers out through seven giving up only two hits.  Then the Phillies problematic bullpen took over in the eighth and it went down from there with the Dodgers coming back to win.

The ALCS has been played at the new Yankee Stadium amid the din of a Nor’easter.  The Yankees took game one 4-1 as the Angels quite literally “froze” in the cold and damp weather.  Game two played in even worse conditions has been influenced by the weather and was a superb pitcher’s duel.  The game went into extra innings tied at two and though the Angels went ahead in the top of the 11th as the rain started coming down harder only to have Alex Rodriguez come up big again for the Yankees in the bottom of the 11th with a home run to tie the game.  The game went to the bottom of the 13th when with one out the Yankees scored on a throwing error to win the game 4-3.  It was an amazing game that I could not pull myself away from but will write more about later.

On another note, the weather here in Hampton Roads has been miserable as we also have had some of the residue of the Nor’easter with cold rain, fog and drizzle that has not let up.  Amid this positively crappy weather I am maintaining my vow to wear short pants as long as I can with the exceptions being my uniform and going to church.  This means that I am bundling up from the belt up while keeping my legs bare.  I have never done this before which means either I’m nuts or I’m nuts, but nonetheless I am in this until the World Series is over at the minimum.  Since with the exception of church, work and one social event where shorts were unacceptable I have not worn long pants since sometime in April.  Tonight I had a Norfolk Tides jacket and sweatshirt on.  We’ll see how this goes…

I have the duty this weekend and have been in and out of the hospital a number of times.  One of the visits called to mind just how much I am like the people I serve and what it means to have to ask the same questions about God, faith and what it is to be human and a Christian. What got me tonight was a gentleman struggling with his faith, much as I have after returning from Iraq and battling PTSD and other nagging injuries.  Having him ask the same questions that I have wrestled with and having him ask me directly what I thought.  I have learned that I don’t have to “fake it” and try to give the man some textbook answer of how he needed to believe more, read his Bible more, go to church more, pray more or harder.  Instead I was able to be honest that I have wrestled with the same question but somehow the words of the 23rd Psalm speak to me.  “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.”  The Psalm is very reassuring for me as it is so honest.  Reality is that we do walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  In fact it is a difficult and pain filled world.  That I will fear no evil means that evil is in fact very real but in the middle of this there is an understanding that God is still with us.  It is an understanding that even when life is more like Good Friday than Easter, that God as far away as he may seem is still there.  Maybe that is actually the miracle that most people need, the miracle to know that no matter how bad things suck, and I do use the word “suck” because that is how it is sometimes, especially when there is no “miracle” to be had otherwise.  When I told the man that I had spent the past 18 months wrestling with those questions he opened up and we had a wonderful discussion and prayer.   I am totally okay with this somehow God uses me in my weakness more than when I had all the answers.

Tonight I discovered that  Bishop John Holloway, the medically retired former Ordinary of the Charismatic Episcopal Church Diocese of the Mid-South and one of the early leaders of the Church, his wife Elaine and two youngest children have to leave their home in Thomaston Georgia.  They moved there as a missionary bishop giving up pension and medical from the Methodist Church to follow God’s call into the CEC.  The home is being foreclosed on after the church, which has no pension or insurance plan in most dioceses for clergy and had provided a great deal of money to help pay off debts in the past has had to reduce the money they were providing by half and now according it the Holloways’ son Jared to nothing.  Their home is being foreclosed on and they have to be out by December 1st and if you want to read more go to his blog: http://jzholloway.wordpress.com/  If there is a question as to how the CEC currently handles finaces go to www.cechome.com where the budgets and expenses of every diocese are posted.  There had been great problems in the past in the finacial management of the CEC largely done by people no longer associated with the church, including some former bishops.  I think this is getting better under Archbishop Bates unfotunately the residue and distaste of that era is still out there.

I really don’t know what to think about that except that I did talk to a CEC Bishop about it and hear that there are other parts to the story.  That aside, when the CEC was formed and one of the things that drew me to it was that the CEC was to would be more personal and relational than churches where the bishops did not really know their clergy. I think that is still the ideal in the Church but what Jared is reporting and what I hear from Elaine on Facebook gives me some cause for concern because it deals with a bishop who can no longer function and is completely disabled. Additionally Elaine is a cancer survivor who has exeeded her life expectancy with the disease.  Obiviously things are not good for them and I have to trust that the situation will be resolved in a spirit of love and reconcilliation and that ultimately the Holloways will be taken care of by the church and God’s people.  I cannot say anything else because I do not know anything else, but to say how this grieves me as Bishop Holloway was and I’m sure, even in his greatly de-habilitated and totally dependent state is a gracious and giving man.  I always felt comfortable and safe around him.  He ordained my friend Father Stu King back in 2001.  Stu has left the CEC having been accepted into Seminary and in now working to become a Roman Catholic Priest.  I’m sure that Bishop John would approve and give his blessing.  Please keep the Holloways in your prayers. I have no idea if there is anything that can be done to help them, if there is Jared may know or one could contact the Mid South Diocese of the CEC.

I also found that a friend, the sister of our dear friend Dr Helen Linkey who taught at Marshall University who battled breast cancer for two years before succumbing to it in 2005 has found a lump in her breast. She is going in for a biopsy which is expected to find cancer. Maryellen occasionally comments on my website and her news was included in her comment to my post from last night at https://padresteve.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/war-remembrance-and-healing-a-chaplain-officer-and-historian-makes-his-way-home/

Please keep Maryellen in your prayers also. Anyway, it is time for me to try to get to sleep.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 24, 2009 · 18:32

The Sacrament of the Smile….Making it Real

In Andrew Greeley’s Bishop Blackie Ryan mystery “The Archbishop in Andalusia” the character Bishop Blackie makes a comment after celebrating Mass in the cathedral at Seville. He said “Every sacramental encounter is an evangelical occasion. A smile warm and happy is sufficient. If people return to the pews with a smile, it’s been a good day for them. If the priest smiles after the exchanges of grace, it may be the only good experience of the week.”  (The Archbishop in Andalusia p.77)

I’m the kind of person that if I’m angry or not doing well my face can show it even if I don’t want it to.  It’s sometimes hard to hide emotions even though I try, but I have gotten pretty good at hiding them by putting on a poker face and smiling, even if it hurts to do so.   This works most of the time, but sometimes with people who know me pretty well it catch me.  They ask me if I’m doing okay and they are pretty good at taking care of me in those moments, which unfortunately are a lot more common after Iraq than before it but occasionally happen.

However on the whole I remain a pretty upbeat person.  I think my most common greeting with people that I work with or see relatively often is “Hey, what’s up, what’s new, what’s happening in the world?” Most of the time I’m a pretty laid back kind of person. I think that this is due a blend of genetics from a recessive gene in my family as well as having grown up on the West Coast and spending a lot of my adult life somewhere in the former Confederate States of America.   The genetic factor has to be a recessive gene as a lot of folks in my family can get spun up and pretty serious pretty fast.

Since being upbeat unless I am downcast is the baseline for me, even with my PTSD I find a lot of humor in life and still manage to have fun.  I love the folks that I work with in my ICUs and being in those places with those colleagues does me an incredible amount of good.

One thing that I have noticed is that it is important for me to smile; in fact I generally like smiling except when I don’t.   I admit that there are some times and some people that I am like the scene in the movie Patton where Patton is forced to make conversation with a Soviet General after the war.  In those kinds of times the smile is definitely faked and thankfully most people don’t realize it.

However what I find is that many people respond positively to a genuine and caring smile and greeting.  Let’s face it times are not the best, all the economic problems and political conflict coupled with ongoing wars and wondering what is going to happen stress a lot of people out.  A lot of this is the news media’s fault as they heap one negative story after another on their viewers, particularly those who are addicted to 24 hour non-stop cable news and talk radio.  As a result it is amazing to see the number of people out in town who don’t smile.  Since I work in a pretty good sized teaching medical center I see people going through a lot of health and life crisis, but even here I don’t quite see the level of disgruntledness that I see out in town.  Frankly I’d like to see a lot more gruntled than disgruntled people.

In the past year that I have been here I have endeavored to be as positive and cheerful as possible and with some exceptions I have managed pretty well.  In fact I have made it my crusade to honestly try to greet everyone that I contact with a kind word or smile and often a God bless you or simply “blessings on your head.” What I love to see is someone who has been obviously beaten down; do a double take when they realize that someone; that being me, is taking the time to say something nice to them.  I love the sheepish smiles, the surprised thank you and God bless you responses that I get in return.

No place is this more important than church or chapel service when I or for that matter any Priest or minister serves God’s people.  Grumpy pastors, who are too bothered to care, perform their duties in a perfunctory manner or worse are rude and disrespectful to the people that God entrusts to their care  do damage.  It’s like Archbishop Blackie said, the encounters that we have are occasions to share the grace and love of God, to be with them, care for them and are in a very real sense both evangelical and sacramental occasions.  When I was in Jacksonville Florida as a Navy Chaplain I would occasionally serve at the altar of our cathedral church.  People would almost always comment on how joyful I looked while celebrating Eucharist and serving communion.  How can I not be when I am entrusted with such a great gift for God’s people?

Judy and my college room-mate Kendra is in town this week.  We had kind of a three’s company situation.  I had my men’s bedroom which was a total college guy mess and Judy and Kendra shared the other bedroom.  At the time Kendra was an Atheist being bombarded by many of our well meaning but hyper aggressive Christian friends.  We had a blast.  Kendra is like super duper deaf, lost all of her hearing at the age of four after she had learned to speak and read. She’s incredibly intelligent and as a 15 year old scored in the upper one percentile of the SAT where I not to be too flashy scored somewhere around the upper thirty-fifth percentile due to my abysmal math score. It was due to Kendra that I learned sign language.  All of Judy’s friends were deaf at Cal State Northridge and I needed it, but Kendra and her sense of humor helped make me do it.  When I first met her Judy had to run out and when Judy came back to her dorm room, this was before the three’s company” set up she found Kendra and I reading the “Official Sick Joke Book” and since I couldn’t sign just yet pointing to the jokes and laughing.  Anyway, Kendra eventually came to faith and joined the Episcopal Church in Pasadena just a few years back.  In her spiritual biography she mentions us not trying to convert her, even going to church with us without feeling pressure. She knew that we cared for her and our continued friendship was a part of how she came to faith.  I thought that was so cool.  My sign language is in the crapper now but I am going to do my best to have fun.  I picked up a copy of “Mommy Dearest” so we could watch it and relive great memories of chasing each other around the apartment with wire coat hangers saying “no more wire hangers.” Trust me you have to see the movie to get this one.

Of course I try to ensure that I don’t appear to be a total idiot when I do this, with some mindless smile or joke that is inappropriate to the occasion.  Let’s look at a unlikely scenario: With me in the room the Doctor says to the patient “Sir, I have good and bad news.”   The patient says “What’s the good news?” The doctor replies “the good news is pretty soon you will feel no pain.”  The patient says “Doctor that’s wonderful news, you know I’ve been in so much pain for so long.  So what’s the bad news?” The doctor replies “Son you’re going to die.” Then I as the chaplain with a mindless big grin on my face chime in, “Let’s focus on the positive now…have you seen The Bucket list? Gotta love Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman huh? They are such good actors.  Hey, I have an idea, you want to pray?”  As the nurses and doctors struggle to pull the man’s hands from around my throat I gasp out “so do you want me to come back later?”  That of course is extremely unlikely in my case; in fact I usually am the glass half-full kind of guy when it comes to dealing with sick people since I am neither a physician nor God.

I have a sense of gallows humor but am very careful how and when to use it and thankfully I am able to not smile like an idiot when bad news gets delivered.   It’s a gift.  Let’s face it there is that stuff about those Chinese kids Yin and Yang, everything has to be in balance.

All this being said there are times where the foot is in the other shoe. These are the times that the person who is afflicted with a life threatening condition or knows that they are dying is the one who smiles and comforts others, even throwing in a joke or poking fun at someone in the room.  Having experienced this even very recently I have to say that these kinds of folks do more for me than I think that I can ever do for them.   Often there is a time of interaction where the person allows me into their world, to share a story, a laugh and a blessing.  For a Priest it doesn’t get any better than that.  These are holy times where God shows up and tonight I have the honor of spending time with such a man and his family.  I am reminded at these times how precious the time is and just how in the midst of pain, suffering and even death, that the God who says “I will never leave you or forsake you” is truly with us as we walk through the “valley of the shadow of death.”

I’ll be smiling tonight in every ward that I visit and hopefully with every staff member, patient and family member that I encounter, knowing that in their lives, that smile might be the only good thing that happens to them all day, or maybe even all week.

Make sure that you smile and give a kind word to someone soon.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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